House of Ninjas follows the Tawara family of ninjas who have to come out of their retirement to contend with the looking threat their enemy clan poses after re-emerging.
The focus of the story in House of Ninjas is the Tawara family, and their struggles with their painful past and a stagnant present that sees their supposedly dead enemy resurface.
Here are all the members of the dysfunctional family of shinobi who have been, for centuries, working from the shadows to protect the nation:
Soichi
Soichi Tawara is the head of the Tawara family and the father of Gaku, Haru, Nagi, and Riku. He runs a struggling sake brewery.
Six years ago, his first-born son, Gaku was killed in a mission. Ever since then, he has been unable to overcome the grief despite his efforts.
He left to bring a shinobi after that, like others in his dysfunctional family, at least that’s how it seemed at the start.
However, others in his family are bored out of their minds and pick up shinobi missions once again to seek the thrill once again.
When his family faces an immediate threat, he gears up once again and saves his wife and daughter from vicious enemies.
He is one of the most skilled and lethal shinobi in not only the Tawara family but also in general.
Meanwhile, he refuses to take subsidies for his struggling brewery because it goes against his shinobi ways.
When he learns that his eldest son is alive and meets him like the rest of the family, Soichi is overcome with unease and doubts about the headspace and allegiance of Gaku.
His hunch is right but despite seeing Gaku defect to the enemy clan, he prepares his family to go save Gaku and bring him back.
Yoko
Yoko Tawara is Soichi’s wife and the mother of the four kids. She is also a skilled shinobi who excels as an intelligence operative.
She uses her charms during a honeypot mission to extract information on the enemy clan’s grand plan that threatens many lives.
She is the more expressive of the couple and whereas Soichi takes his time returning to the life of shinobi, she takes up on a new mission way sooner.
The retirement had made her weary and bored like the others in her family and she would shoplift to satisfy the hunger for thrills.
Her grief of losing Gaku is very strong. She regularly offers prayers in front of his photo each day until he returns, which elates her.
Gaku
Gaku is the eldest child of Soichi and Yoko and their first-born son. Before his supposed death, he was the natural successor of his father, both in the shinobi world and the regular one.
He was supposed to take over the sake brewery after him. He was also a radiant person who his grandmother described as being almost sun-like.
He was a great son and also a great sibling. His care and guidance are what inspired Nagi to be a great shinobi and keep her shinobi ways and values alive even after he was gone.
During a mission, Haru spared an enemy clan member’s life, who minutes later stabbed Gaku from behind and threw him into the ocean.
However, another Fuma clan member rescued him, and Shikkoku aka Fuma Kotaro the 19th — the very man who stabbed him — refused to kill him.
He took Gaku to the Fuma clan’s settlement and changed his mind and perspective on how the shinobi work and who they serve.
Gaku later fully embraced his new family and became a Fuma, even receiving a new name — Crow. Six years later, he shocked the Tawara family with his return.
However, the family soon caught up to his changed self and allegiance. He took back from the house, a scroll important to the Fuma’s grand plan for the future.
He faced Haru in a climactic battle which he lost. He then dealt the finishing blow to Fuma Kotaro 19th, to spare Haru a compromised conscience.
He goes on to become the new leader of the Fuma clan — Fuma Kotaro the 20th. He still cares for the Tawara family but also prioritizes the Fuma clan’s mission.
Haru Tawara
Haru Tawara is the second-born son of Soichi and Yoko. He is the most skilled fighter of them all but is also reluctant to kill.
It is this reluctance that makes him spare the life of the person who goes on to become the 19th leader of the villainous Fuma clan.
Fuma Kotaro the 19th is also the same man who seemingly killed his elder brother Gaku in front of his eyes.
Ever since then, he’s been crushed by the weight of his guilt and remorse, to the point that he often has nightmares about it.
In all these six years, he has never shared the truth with anyone in the family, until one day he has to. However, his family stands with him and feels bad for him.
Haru is even comforted by Nagi, who tells him it wasn’t his fault and he can’t blame himself for it.
Later, he has to face off against his brother, who is alive and has become their enemy. He defeats his brother but doesn’t kill him.
He has to finally come to terms with killing in order to dispose of Fuma Kotaro the 19th, but his brother Gaku saves him from going through with that choice, by killing his predecessor himself.
During his retirement, he is also bored but he works as a vending machine operative rather than working at the brewery, despite Soichi insisting.
He thinks he can’t take over what his brother was supposed to. Meanwhile, he starts liking a girl who becomes a regular customer at the Gyudon shop he frequents.
Eventually, the two grow closer. She is an investigative journalist with years of research on shadowy figures, including his family.
Learning about the shinobi is the last mistake a civilian could make.
And yet, Haru protects her, both from the Fuma clan and the BNM, which can’t afford civilian learning of the existence of shinobi.
When the Bureau of Ninja Management learns about her and kidnaps her, Haru makes a promise never to see her again so that they spare her life.
He makes good on his promise at the cost of his aching heart, in addition to being indebted to the BNM, which answers to the Fuma clan by the end of House of Ninjas season 1.
Nagi
Nagi Tawara is the daughter of the Tawaras. She is a college student who regularly moonlights as a mischievous ninja thief.
To seek thrills, she steals art pieces from the museum but returns them all after three days, at the same spot she stole them from.
However, one day, she receives a text message from someone named Ninja X, who knows about her hobby. She starts to think it’s actually her brother Gaku, by the way the sender talks.
She eventually meets Ninja X, who asks her to steal the scroll from her grandmother’s room in exchange for his return. However, Ninja X is a Fuma clan member Ayame.
She was only pretending to be Nagi’s brother in order to get the scroll, but Nagi’s mother came and saved her before her father also arrived and saved them all.
Her brother Gaku does return, this time for real and in the flesh, with one limb short. She is elated beyond the moon but she soon catches on to his strange and changed behavior.
She later catches him brutally killing a man, but Gaku does nothing to her or her grandmother and younger brother Riku.
He even saves them from Ayame and others when they return to take the scroll. She keeps hoping to get her loving and caring older brother back till the end.
Taki
Taki Tawara is Haru’s grandmother who is far too old to be going on missions anymore. However, it doesn’t mean her shinobi days are over.
She is far too agile for her age and casually measures great distances in a matter of seconds all while not making one sound.
She is a cheerful person who is also rather strict about the guidelines that the Tawaras must abide by in their house.
She is also rather clever and fools the Fuma by making them take a fake version of the scroll they so desperately want back.
Her skills and tact prove she was an elite shinobi during her prime. When the Fuma raid the Tawara household, she protects Nagi and Riku for as long as she can.
She can also converse through mere expressions with an old friend of hers, a shinobi art that Riku is amazed by each time he witnesses it.
When the other family members are out dealing with the Fuma physically, she takes Riku to a place where she can support her family without actively participating in the battle.
She is the one who sends the Guardians of the Demon Gate, another secretive shinobi clan that other family members are totally clueless about, to the battle zone where they lend great help.
Meanwhile, she takes up the role of a master once again in order to teach Riku, who wants to be a shinobi as well.
Riku
Riku Tawara is the youngest member of the ninja family and also the one who has been unaware and ignorant of the true identity of his family.
However, he’s a natural shinobi, in that he has a knack for sniffing out details that don’t add up. He has a naturally inquisitive and investigative mind.
He unlocks the door to the basement on his own, as he simultaneously watches a lock-picking tutorial on the internet.
He makes his way to the basement where his grandmother catches him before it is clear to him about his family’s history and and true name — Hattori.
She teaches him about their ancestor Hattori Hanzo, the man who defeated the fifth Fuma Kotaro and drove the clan away, along with defeating the Hojo clan.
He insists and throws a tantrum at his parents, so they let him become a shinobi like them as well. They are reluctant to do it but Riku wants to be a part of the family.
He asks them to be a real family, and it speaks to Soichi and Yoko, who are affected by his words since for so long they’ve been existing as barely a family.
He in some ways helps the family come together once again and become, once again, a strong unit with strong familial bonds.
House of Ninjas season 1 ends with Riku Tawara hard at training to become the next shinobi.
Also Read: House of Ninjas summary and ending explained