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Paper short abstract:

Rural cities like Iga, the so-called mecca of ninja enthusiasts, build on increased attention on the covert agents of Japan's Warring State period and seek to draw visitors to ninja museums and festivals, using innovative experiences and battling the constraints due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Paper long abstract:

With the declaration of an official "Ninja Day" in 2015, Japan underwent a renewed interest in the ninja, the covert agents of its Warring State period (15th-17th centuries). Rural cities like Iga, the so-called mecca of ninja enthusiasts, build on this attention and seek to draw visitors to ninja museums and festivals. Guiding tourists into their city through the fictionalized image of the ninja in a black outfit tossing throwing-stars, ninja associations and exhibition curators still aim to teach about the ways of the historical shinobi, as these agents were actually called in the past. Only a year before the pandemic hit, the Iga Tourism Association began to involve people more directly through first-hand experiences. In the format of larps — live-action role-play — and collaborating with Mie University in a rural revitalization project, the Association tried to rekindle the flame of the 2015 ninja boom. "Larp" refers to games in which players take on fictional characters, interact in an improv-like manner, overcome challenges, and tell shared stories. Iga considered larps because the visitor numbers to its yearly ninja-festival were already beginning to decline in 2018. This presentation builds on fieldwork during several runs of this ninja larp. It explores the experiences with the relationship between fictional ninja and historical shinobi as well as how the organizers dealt with the pandemic. With larp itself being a novelty, participants focus primarily on this modality of a curated experience in their assessment rather than on its historical elements. Still, the events in Iga point to the possibilities of learning about the past through "history larp" on the one hand. They also exemplify moments of innovation in Japan's periphery on the other.