Ok, this feud has been going on long enough, and i think this is the time to settle this once and for all (or make total chaos and have some chick kill me).
To make this clear these are STANDARD ninjas and pirates, not crazy like anime or cartoons characterize them.
Background:
Though this fight has always been a debate between people in dire need of something to debate about(such as everybody on the internetz), the larger debate began in 1989 when Atari released a game with the name " Skull & Crossbones". this game in the simplest way was a Pirate versus Ninja fighter.
Little did they know that the game they released would stir up the debate to the point where 20 years later it's still going strong.
As the feud stared to gain momentum, it seemed like game developers and games in general tried to keep it's distance form it.
But every 10 years it seemed that some game payed homage to this noble feud. in 1998 it was " Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" who dedicated a hole level to rescuing hostages from a European pirate crew. And just last year the game " Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball" was released for XBLA, which was kinda bad, but why not? All you wanted to see is pirates and ninjas fight it out, right?
compensation:
Ok, let's start with the basics. Here is the definitions of both pirates and ninjas:
Pirates:
"Piracy is a war-like act committed by private parties ( not affiliated with any government), especially robbery or criminal violence on the sea. The term can include acts committed in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the actor (e.g. one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel)."
and
"Maritime piracy, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982, consists of any criminal acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or aircraft that is directed on the high seas against another ship, aircraft, or against persons or property on board a ship or aircraft."
All this loosely translates to an independent criminal on a boat, or a zeppelin, going on a rampage, and we all know that's fun.
Ninjas:
"A
ninja or
shinobi ( 忍者) was a warrior specially trained in a variety of unorthodox arts of war, summarized by the term
ninjutsu ("art of stealth"). These inclu de assassination, illusion, and espionage.The exact origin of the ninja is a matter of debate. Ninja supposedly appeared in 14th century Japan and remained active from the Kamakura to the Edo period.The role of the ninja may have included sabotage, espionage, and scouting.Such actions may have taken place at the service of a feudal lord, or other entity waging guerilla warfare. Ninjas figure prominently in folklore and legend, and as a result it is often difficult to separate historical fact from myth."
Well.... I'm not going to comment on this, it's kinda self explanatory.
Time gap:
Because there is a substantial gap between what most people would define as the stereotypical pirate.
without taking loons into account, the most commonly known pirates are the Caribbean pirates who rampaged the seas for about 250 years between 1550 and 1800 AD, and the ninjas were at least active the three times same amount of time from 600 to 1550. Of course there are many other pirate "classes" but this is still the most common.( You would not make the argument that vikings are pirates even though they technically are, because they are vastly superior to both ninjas and pirates.)
The time gap makes for some changes on the type of gear the two parties can ware to slightly different.
As ninjas were relatively advanced in use of gunpowder and therefor were they a formidable opponents at both close and long range.
As for pirates gunpowder was well known by the time they got into the game. Guns and canons was needed to defend yourself out on the sea.
Weapons and behavior:
Ninja:
-Smoke bombs
-Blinder (bombs which contained sand or metal pieces)
-Kunai (a BO shuriken)
-Climbing claws
-Ōzutsu
(they constructed could be used to launch fiery sparks and projectiles at a target)
-Shuriken
-Ninjatō (short straight sword)
-Martial arts
Ninjas worked alone and was trained to take out one victim at the time and come back to take out the rest one by one.
Ninjas had feudal lord who issued commands and orders, they where on a leach.
Pirate:
-Trusted Gun
-Trusted Sword
-Ale (dude, people get dangerous while drunk)
Pirates where chaotic while fighting but had a well developed democratic system where the captain needed to have the support of the crew to continue to be captain, since the crew owned the ship.
What I think :
Now this is what i think, you may not like it (and you will probably disagree) but everybody has the right to have an opinion (except for for crazy people).
If the pirates had attacked a Japanese city, I think that the battle would have been dominated by the ninjas kicking some pirate ass.
It would be easy for a ninja to traverse the city and kill pirates with a combination of attacks.
Now if you put them in another setting, say, If a pack ninjas were asked to attack the pirate ship and assassinate the captain, they would have both been outnumbered and sober. The fact that these scenarios are fairly unlikely and that Caribbean pirates and ninjas would ever fight, equals something like zero, does not seem to bother the discussion much.
In style I still think Ninjas are cooler, but who cares about style? It was style who gave us: