抄録
In recent years, Japan’s ninja has crossed national borders and become internationally famous NINJA, gaining popularity around the world. In this study, I try to clarify how NINJA is perceived by people overseas. The data used are questionnaire surveys conducted in four countries : Vietnam and Indonesia in Asia, and Bulgaria and Hungary in Europe, conducted in 2017 〜 19. This time, I report the results of the aggregation of responses by university students including some graduate students.
Using quantitative text analysis software, I analyzed the open-ended responses regarding the fascination and image of NINJA. The results can be summarized as follows. As for the fascination of NINJA for them, it is basically judged that （1） NINJA’s unique techniques, tools, and special abilities, and （2） the influence of Japan’s cool culture, manga and anime are great. Next, the image of NINJA seems to be made up of four elements. They are（ 1） people wearing black clothes and masks,（ 2） people with skills, abilities, and martial arts using unique tools,（ 3）fighting assassins and spies, and （4） people from manga and anime. And both the fascination and the image of NINJA are similar, with no clear differences between countries. This is thought to be due to the development of the modern internet, which conveys NINJA information globally.
