Japanese student submits 'blank paper' for essay on ninja history — ends up getting an 'A'

Exams can be a total nightmare, right? But imagine walking into a test, handing in a completely blank sheet, yet still scoring a perfect A. Sounds insane? Well, it happened to a Japanese student of ninja history. Eimi Haga, 19, surprised her professor, Yuji Yamada, by submitting a blank answer sheet, which later revealed an essay written in invisible ink, as reported by the BBC.

Interestingly, when asked to write about "a visit to the Ninja Museum of Igaryu," Haga meticulously followed the ninja technique of "aburidashi" and spent hours soaking and crushing soybeans to make the most immaculate ink. Haga, a first-year student from Mie University in Japan, devised this unique approach when her professor announced in class that he would give extra marks for creativity. "When the professor said in class that he would give a high mark for creativity, I decided that I would make my essay stand out from others," she said.

"I gave a thought for a while and hit upon the idea of aburidashi," she further revealed. Notably, after crushing the overnight soaked soybeans, Haga mixed the extract with water and worked religiously for 2 hours to get the ideal consistency required for the ink. She used a fine brush to write her essay on a thin Japanese paper called, "washi." Later, when the paper dried, the text became invisible. However, to ensure that her professor did not throw the blank sheet in the bin, Haga left a note in normal ink that read, "Heat the paper." Stunned by Haga's efforts, Yamada confessed that he had seen such "reports written in code, but never seen on done in aburidashi."

Further, talking to the news outlet, he said, "To tell the truth, I had a little doubt that the words would come out clearly. But when I actually heated the paper over the gas stove in my house, the words appeared very clearly, and I thought, 'Well done!' I didn't hesitate to give the report full marks - even though I didn't read it to the very end because I thought I should leave some part of the paper unheated, in case the media would somehow find this and take a picture."

Meanwhile, when asked Haga if she was assured that her professor would be impressed with her creative approach, she said, "I was confident that the professor would at least recognize my efforts to make a creative essay. So I wasn't really worried about getting a bad score for my essay - though the content itself was nothing special." Moreover, Haga revealed that since she had always been interested in ninjas, she read about aburidashi in a book when she was younger. 

"It is something I learned through a book when I was little. I just hoped that no one would come up with the same idea," she added. Aburidashi is a ninja technique used in Japan's feudal era for delivering secret messages, as reported by ZME Science. Although the ninjas did not serve directly in the wars, they did work like present-day special forces. They worked as special agents to gather intelligence, took out important targets, and, of course, helped to plan out strategies. So, to carry out all the secret missions, the ninjas used this then-popular aburidashi technique to share secret information.