He had the arsenal of Japan’s shadow warriors, but not their stealth.

Shortly before noon on October 7, a municipal police officer on patrol in the coastal town of Joestsu, in Niigata Prefecture, spotted a car parked in a vacant lot. As he approached to investigate, he noticed the vehicle was occupied, by a 58-year-old man who was sleeping inside it.

The officer woke the man to ask him who he was and why he was sleeping in the lot. He identified himself as an employee of a company located in the city, but during the course of the conversation, the officer noticed a collection of bladed instruments inside the vehicle. Dozens of them, actually, and not just knives, but shuriken (throwing stars) as well.

In addition to strict gun control laws, Japan also has regulations regarding the possession and transport of blades, and so the man was arrested and taken into custody on suspicion of violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law. During questioning, he told the authorities that he’d purchased the knives from military paraphernalia shops or through mail order services. As for the shuriken, he hand-crafted them himself by repurposing lawn mower blades, so that he could throw them for his own amusement.

When asked by the authorities just what he was doing with such a large arsenal of bladed weaponry, the man simply said:

“I like ninja.”

Look, we get it. Ninja are undeniably cool, and if liking them was a crime, at least half of the people who work for RocketNews24 would be in jail right now. But while the cops have no problems with you dressing up as a shinobi for Halloween or attending the Ninja Academy, they do take issue with arming yourself like you’re getting ready to go to war with the Koga Clan. The statement from the police indicates that they seized approximately 170 knives and shuriken, because really, once your in-car stash of ninja weapons passes 100 pieces, the exact number doesn’t really matter so much anymore; the police have all the evidence they need.

Truly, the moral of this story is to leave the ninja lifestyle to the professionals.

Source: Asahi Shimbun via Jin

Top image: Gatag (edited by RocketNews24)

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s wondering if the man who was arrested is also training his pets to be his ninja animal helpers.