Basic Trope: Ninjas are added for Rule of Cool.
- Straight: An episode of "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" has a scene with ninjas that is randomly added.
- Exaggerated: Everyone is a ninja, for some reason.
- Downplayed: It's randomly brought up that ninjas are cool (which has some plot relevance), but it's still a little gratuitous.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob really like ninjas.
- Happenstance: Alice and Bob arrived at the crossing from the north just as the ninjas of another story crossed it from the east.
- Inverted:
- The show is usually about ninjas, but a scene without any is added for whatever reason.
- The show is set in Japan somewhere between the 1600's and 1800's but there are no ninjas in sight.
- Subverted: It seems like the ninjas are added just for Rule of Cool, but they do have plot relevance by helping save Alice and Bob from danger.
- Double Subverted: Still, the deed could've easily just been done by a spy or someone else.
- Parodied:
- Characters have to face ninja even for the most bog-standard activities, like cooking or going to the bathroom.
- It really is "gratuitous ninja". Whenever the writers of the Show Within a Show hit a wall with their already laughably incongruous writing, they just toss a bunch of ninja into the plot and hope the viewers will be too awed by the fight scene to keep questioning things. After the seventh or eight time they do this, even the ninja are beginning to get tired of this mess.
- The Movie-Making Mess got a hold of some ninja gear from somewhere (such as a Cannon Films or Godfrey Ho Ninja Movies prop sale) and are definitely trying to make the best of getting a bad hand.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- There are no ninjas.
- Ninjas have complete plot relevance.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "Ninjas? What the hell do you mean ninjas!? There are no ninjas around here, and you know that!"
- Discussed: "This story was written during The '80s, right? Must have been, because that is when the whole 'random ninja attack' thing had its golden age."
- Conversed: "What was that scene with all the ninjas about?"
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