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November 12, 2006
The Inverse Ninja Law
The Inverse Ninja Law is a similar phenomenon that occurs frequently in martial arts movies, and role playing games. It is also sometimes called the Anime Ninja Effect, the Rule of One, or less frequently the Inverse Ninja Effectiveness Principle.
The Inverse Ninja Law states that the effectiveness of a group of ninja is inversely proportional to the number of ninja in the group. While a single enemy ninja is often portrayed as a significant threat to the protagonists, a large group of ninja are significantly less of a threat, and as such are easily defeated. This is sometimes applicable to other close combat–oriented minions as well.
Some shows tend to explicitly illustrate the Inverse Ninja Law. Often the heroes' first battle is against a small group or even a single member of the villains' basic foot soldiers, who will often give the entire group problems, often to the point that they have to use their signature finishing move to defeat them. In most of their subsequent appearances, however, the heroes will usually easily defeat a large group of the enemy, who are typically all wearing the same outfit. Sometimes this is inexplicable; other times, however, the heroes receive a power-up, or simply find the opponent's Achilles' heel. A noteworthy example is Power Rangers, which played out that scenario for nearly every revamp of the series.
The film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" shows both effects of this law: multiple times in the film, the turtles defeat dozens of FooT Ninja, but are at the end of the film, defeated by the lone Shredder even when they assault him together. As well, one Foot Ninja is able to track the turtles to their lair and spy on them undetected, despite the ninjitsu skills of the turtles and their master, proving this lone ninja was more effective on his own than in a group.
Posted by Geoff at November 12, 2006 10:47 PM
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Comments
Pirates don't fall prey to the Inverse Ninja Law... Five Pirates will simply kill a group of people five times faster... :)
Posted by: Geoff 
at November 12, 2006 10:51 PM
Yes Geoff, sometimes ninja get confused when there are more than one in a group. We get caught up in the heat of the fight, wanted to kill everyone in a single blinding flash but find that the rest of the ninja want to do the same thing. Thus our powers get crossed, resulting in the above mentioned law. At least ninja have a law named after us, you don't see a "Proportional Pirate Law."
Posted by: Ninja McFear at November 12, 2006 11:09 PM
... and the Russian sits in the corner and drinks himself to death while the Ninja and the Pirate fight all day.
Posted by: Vilhelm at November 13, 2006 8:49 AM
Posted by: Geoff at November 13, 2006 10:48 AM
Holy shit man... way to ake it to that next level Geoff. I am stunned and awed by that one. Sorry Kev, points to the pirates.
Posted by: Vilhelm at November 13, 2006 1:46 PM
Maybe the pirates have their own law, but Geoff had to go out of his way to actually make and post the entry in Wikipedia. The pirate law actually originated from the ninjas, and ninjas did not have to create their own law to explain their behavior. In no way did ninja ever state that having their own law makes them cooler, and the fact that pirates stole the idea from ninjas is a poor attempt to try and be superior.
Posted by: Ninja McFear at November 13, 2006 6:25 PM
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