Kid Niki: Radical Ninja
1986 arcade video game
Kid Niki: Radical Ninja, known in Japan as Kaiketsu Yanchamaru, is a 1986 platform video game developed and published by Irem for arcades. Initially released only in Japan, it was later released internationally by Data East in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The arcade game runs on Irem-62 Hardware, the same as Kung Fu Master.
The differences between Kid Niki: Radical Ninja and Kaiketsu Yancha Maru are minimal. Aside from text translation, the most glaring difference is the main character's hair style. Kid Niki's hair is more "punk rock" with wild spikes and a ponytail in the back. Yancha Maru's hair has more subdued spikes and a topknot (or chonmage). In the arcade version of the game, the main character's keikogi is yellow while it is red in the home ports.
Plot
One day in Feudal Japan, Kid Niki, the most radical of ninjas, is training at his Ninja School. Suddenly, a passing bird is struck down by an arrow and lands at Niki's feet.
The public source identifies “Kid Niki: Radical Ninja” as 1986 arcade video game. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Niki, Radical and Ninja.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6404521. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kid Niki: Radical Ninja” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.