Wanted: six full-time ninjas to promote Japan’s Aichi prefecture

Wanted: six full-time ninjas who have a way with words and can do backward handsprings. Pay: about US$1,600 a month.

Central Japan’s Aichi prefecture is hiring full-time ninjas – the martial-arts masters and stealthy assassins of feudal times – to promote tourism in the area.

Newly hired ninjas will receive a one-year contract with monthly pay of 180,000 yen (US$1,580) plus bonus, says Satoshi Adachi of the prefectural government’s tourism promotion unit.

They will also perform acrobatics, demonstrate the use of (ninja throwing star) shuriken weapons and pose for photographs with tourists.

A poster the prefecture created says the ideal candidates are ones who “enjoy being under the spotlight even though he or she is a secretive ninja”.

The ability to speak Japanese is preferable, but non-Japanese individuals passionate about history and tourism are welcome as the troupe will sometimes perform in English, says Adachi.