The woman is Rumiko Urata. She was raised in a fishing village on the coast of Kyushu, Japan. Like most kids her age, she grew up with cartoons and comic books. Although she had plenty of heroes to look up to, she only had eyes for an iconic Japanese crusader.
“When I was little, ninja were very popular on television, in movies and in comic books,” Urata said. “To me, the ninja was a superhero, and I wanted to be one, too. I used to play with swords and pretend that I was a ninja even though I knew they weren’t real anymore.”
Thousands of miles away, the ninja bug also bit — this time, it got Stephen K. Hayes, a student from Dayton, Ohio. “I” he said. “That changed my life forever. I vowed to someday move to Japan, find a ninja master and train under him to become a real ninja.”
