Why Do Earth Weapons Look Ninja?

Bath toys, then a sickle

In Bubble Hero: The Five Elements, most of your arsenal comes from the bathroom. A rubber duck. A sponge. A bar of soap. It is a cozy bullet heaven, and the weapons look the part.

Then you reach the Earth realm, and the toys start to look like something else. Blades. Sickles. Things a ninja might carry. That is on purpose, and the reason is much older than the game.

The short version, told by the Earth Golem.

The kunai was probably a trowel

The kunai is the famous ninja knife. But it was probably a trowel first. Farmers dug their gardens with it. Masons worked stone with it.

It was not mainly made for throwing.

An old pointed trowel with a wooden handle — A trowel. The kunai probably began as a tool like this one. Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

The kama cut rice first

The kama is a sickle. Before it was a weapon, it was a rice sickle, made for the harvest.

Later it became a weapon too. Put a chain on it and you get the kusarigama: a sickle with a chain.

A pair of kamas with wooden handles and curved blades — Kamas. The same curve once cut rice. Alexander310 at English Wikipedia · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Two kusarigama: sickles with chains attached to the handle — A kusarigama: a sickle on a chain. Kusarigama.jpg: Mkill; derivative work: AMorozov · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Many ninja were farmers

In Iga and Koka, many ninja were farmer-warriors. They worked the fields, and they fought when they had to.

Even their dark clothes came from farm work clothes. The tools, the clothes and the people came from the same place: the field.

Ink sketch of a ninja in dark clothes climbing a rope — A ninja in Hokusai Manga, vol. 6, by Katsushika Hokusai. Katsushika Hokusai; derivative work: AMorozov · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Why Earth fights with the garden

So when we drew the Earth realm, we did not reach for swords. We went to the garden. Seeds. Garden gloves. Mud masks. Here, the arsenal grows in the garden.

You can hear it in the names of the Earth evolutions: Golden Harvest, Verdant Reaper, Pumice Comet and Mud Lance. Harvest, field, stone and mud.

And the one who tells you all of this in the video is the Earth Golem, the stone enemy with blue eyes.

Kill the horde, or adopt it

That is the heart of Bubble Hero. You can kill the horde. Or you can adopt it. Trap an enemy in a bubble and it fights at your side. Between runs, you build a home.

If that sounds like your kind of game, add it to your Steam wishlist. For a small studio, every wishlist counts.

Wishlist Bubble Hero on Steam

Sources: Wikipedia, checked on October 12, 2026. Kunai · Kama · Kusarigama · Ninja

Why do Earth weapons look ninja?