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In many movies, especially from the 80's when Ninjas were involved they would use their ninja stars as a deadly weapon. An example clip is here.

Is this realistic? Can a ninja star penetrate and be accurate enough to kill a person?

Jamiec
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Sonny Ordell
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    Not a formal answer, but when I studied Ninjitsu we were taught that they were just to be used as a distraction rather than a killing weapon. – dave Feb 05 '12 at 18:45
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    I don't know anything about this, but I recall hearing once (on Nat Geo I believe) that the edge of a shuriken can be imbued with poisons, making it a delivery mechanism for lethal toxins. If so, this would make accuracy and penetration less important. – Brian M. Hunt Feb 05 '12 at 19:14
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    If you think about it, the design of the "star" shaped shuriken automatically limits penetration... You're only going to get the length of one point, which is pretty short. Death would be highly unlikely unless by some chance a major artery, like the carotid, were severed. As noted, the teaching of current ninjitsu schools is that they were intended as a distracting weapon. The idea of carrying around a bunch of sharp, pointy, poisoned weapons seems...Hazardous. – M. Werner Feb 06 '12 at 16:01
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    Especially sharp, poisoned weapons which you throw by gripping the blade. – DJClayworth Feb 06 '12 at 16:40
  • Couldn't find any news reports of anyone being killed with one, found one case of someone being charged with attempted murder for throwing one at a police officer - http://blog.al.com/live/2011/10/ninja_star-throwing_bank_robbe.html – Tom77 Feb 07 '12 at 13:41
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    Can a knife kill? It's just a blade like any other, some are shorter than others.... it must be possible to improve this question somehow. – Dave Hillier Feb 08 '12 at 23:14
  • Unreliable sources agree that they were used for distraction, not killing, but I couldn't find any reliable source to conform that. Meanwhile, *modern* shuriken have been [shown to be capable of inflicting lethal injuries](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20642255). – Oddthinking Feb 22 '12 at 17:30
  • @Oddthinking Actually if you read the article in detail, it also covers traditional shurikens. – Sklivvz Feb 22 '12 at 21:24
  • Wikipedia cites the following references in regards to Shuriken, these would be a good start for whoever ends up answering: http://books.google.com/books/about/Secrets_of_the_samurai.html?id=ZFf9e0DmHZUC http://books.google.com/books?id=ZzIXkFec0e8C&sitesec=buy – John Lyon Feb 22 '12 at 22:41
  • @Sklivvz I changed the title again as I'm not skeptical that they were typically used to kill, bur rather that they can kill all. If you can improve the title question while sticking true to the claim, I would appreciate any edits. – Sonny Ordell Feb 23 '12 at 23:32

1 Answers1

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The question has been recently clarified to be whether shuriken could kill, rather than whether they were historically used to kill.

This issue was looked at in a German study that was looking for evidence on whether to support a ban on modern variants.

While the focus was on plastic and "cyclone" shuriken, they also looked at three "traditional metal shuriken with blunt edges and peaks produced for decorative purposes." I think it is safe to assume that traditional combat shuriken would be at least as effective than traditional decorative ones, so the results can be extrapolated.

The abstract explains that the experiment was done on "human skin" (presumably a cadaver), and compared it against modern shuriken that were tested against pig carcasses. The traditional shuriken were thrown from a distance of 2m by an experienced thrower.

Traditional shuriken were less effective at penetrating human skin than modern variants were at penetrating pig skin. However, the damage inflicted wasn't trivial.

[traditional] shuriken yielded maximal penetration depths between 0.9 and 2.3 cm.

I hope it is clear that a 2cm deep stab wound could be insignificant or fatal, depending on what part of the body is hit. The study authors seem to agree:

This study indicates that all three types of shuriken may inflict lethal wounds upon opponents in close combat.

While it is irrelevant to this discussion, this study struck me as poorly controlled. Why are they comparing damage done by a cyclone shuriken to pig skin from 4 metres, to damage done by a traditional shuriken to a human skin from 2 metres? Why not do both experiments against pig carcasses from the same distance?

Oddthinking
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  • +1 Interesting find! I haven't reviewed the study yet but would share your concerns about the study being poorly controlled if what you say is accurate. Still, this seems to indicate that a shuriken thrown could be fatal, which I didn't think likely. – Sonny Ordell Feb 24 '12 at 02:37
  • Also of note, the question wasn't recently clarified to ask if shuriken *could* kill, that was always my question. I reverted an edit that changed the question asking if they were typically used to kill. – Sonny Ordell Feb 24 '12 at 02:38
  • Sorry, @SonnyOrdell, I didn't mean to imply you had changed your intention. Until you reverted the edit, I (like Sklivvz) had interpreted this as an historical question. Your recent comment explaining the revert clarified this in my mind, and made this paper that I had already found relevant. – Oddthinking Feb 24 '12 at 02:52
  • Ahh, OK. I hadn't even realized the previous phrasing was ambiguous. Glad it was cleared up and led to a good answer. – Sonny Ordell Feb 24 '12 at 03:21
  • Heck, in the right spot 0.9 cm could easily be fatal, if it nicks an artery... – Shadur Jun 18 '20 at 16:38