#38: Bō Staff
Points: 58 | Lists: 2
“Wanna play stickball? I’ll be the stick, you be the ball!”
(look, yes, I know these are a real thing, but I'm not going to pretend that I'd have ever fucking heard of one if it weren't for TMNT. It was by far the coolest weapon, with the longest reach. A real thinking turtle's weapon. I used to twirl our yardstick and hurt myself all the time as a kid, and even now, if you hand me a long stick, chances are good that I'll try, since I got pretty good at it eventually.) -- JBear
A bō is a heavy wooden staff about two meters long and wielded with both hands for the purpose of high-velocity negotiations. A hittin’ stick, in other words. The bō is an ancient weapon that may have had its modern origins when the
Shimazu clan conquered Okinawa and banned its people from owning weapons thus forcing them to adapt farming equipment for self-defense. The bō isn’t associated with
ninjutsu but rather has its own specific martial art,
bojutsu, so seek out your local bojutsu master if you want to learn how to bonk your enemies on the head.
Despite not being a specifically ninja weapon the bō is the signature tool of ninja turtle teen Donatello. Before the TMNT was adapted into a popular cartoon and toyline the turtles were drawn in black-and-white, and even when drawn in color, had no particularly distinguishing features. So the only way you knew Donnie was Donnie was because he was using a big stick to clobber the Foot clan.
The blunt nature of Donnie’s weapon also meant it was a lot more media friendly than the rest of the turtle accessories - it didn’t have the
controversial nature of Mikey’s nunchaku nor the blood-drawing blades of Raph’s and Leo’s weapons. After all smacking someone with a blunt object is a
time-honored tradition in American animation.
Also the Donnie is usually the best in video games because his weapon is way longer than all the others so he can hit Rocksteady from atop a pile of crates and never take damage.
Through the years Donnie’s bō staff has had some feature creep. For example in the Nick cartoon it sometimes has a pop-out blade. LBD Nyterayn voted for the cybernetic bō wielded by a Donatello from the future (
this one, I think). But the signature weapons of the turtles have generally remained constant with each iteration of the franchise.
Now I'm gonna do a list spoiler and reveal that this is the only
mutant turtle signature weapon to appear on the top fifty so go ahead and tell us - if the bō isn’t your favorite ninja weapon, which one is?
