Th picture shows a well armed ninja, ready to take on a rival clan with his carefully organized arsenal strapped to his back. The backward glance is to make you aware that he KNOWS you are watching, and is allowing you this one glance. If he didn't want you to see him, you'd already be dead. How the manufacturers got him to pose for this without having their heads lopped off whilst ambling down some dark street is beyond me. There'd be no sound...and then a puff of air. So light, and then a fountain of gore as the neck was cleanly severed and the heart continued to pump blood through the arteries at about 9001 psi. You've all seen the documentaries; you know exactly what I mean. Kill Bill was my inspiration to fight injustice and other people who wear black (which is like half of Boston, actually...) Anyway, I was in the final phase of my ninja training in my backyard when I bought these. It was really sweet. I had plywood mock-ups of bad guys that I painted myself, little zippy bags of ketchup to simulate the explosive inevitable gore (which any good ninja must learn to deal with. my dry cleaning bills for my ninja robes were astronomical), and my very own fast-rope grappling thing. It hurt to learn to use that one, buddy. Ninja training is no joke! Took a lot of duct tape to get those meat hooks to stay together, and it was really heavy. I couldn't really climb it either, but it'd be great for cool escapes. It just took a while to learn not to jab myself with those stupid hooks. Why aren't they rounded? Well, I got sidetracked, but basically, when I got these they were super lightweight and the backpack seemed a bit...cheap. But hey, maybe that is how ninjas are so fast...in the hands of a REAL warrior, the weapon becomes one with the body and does not tax the user. My chi was awesome, let me tell you. Flowing like the freaking Niagara Falls. So I took a swing at my first target, which was that idiot guy who always comes around in the golf cart and yells at me for having my bushes too high and my grass around my mailbox uncut...like who wants to mow AND weed-whack in the same day? It's such a pain to get all those nooks and crannies. So yeah, Mr. Got Nothing Better To Do comes around, and I'm completely invisible behind my car with my new weapons ready to rock-n-roll, and he starts up to my door with one of those notice things that mean you have to pay his sanctimonious fee for living a little loose. I jump out and take a good hard swipe, and it SHOULD have been bye-bye Mr. Needs-a-real-job. Let me tell you, it did not go as planned. I'm writing this from my hospital bed. Turns out these swords are NOT able to handle the power of a real Ninja...stupid thing broke! On the first hit! So I react lighting fast and go for the little sword thingys that Raphael the Artist/Ninja/reptile guy had, but I barely had the one out when Mr. StickUpHisButt just goes to town on me. Turns out this loser was a retired Marine or something, and I guess they train those guys to take advantage of other warriors when their weapons are shoddy and failure-prone. It was total crap, and I blame these stupid swords. Both legs in casts, one arm in a splint, and my face looks like Chuck Norris used it for kicking practice. So yeah....buyer beware. They looks sweet though.