Joe Musashi is a player character and main protagonist in Sega's Shinobi series of video games, first introduced in 1987. This original Shinobi hero has achieved great popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was used as one of Sega's mascot characters. During this time he was cast as the protagonist of the original arcade game as well the Mega Drive/Genesis sequels The Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, also starring in two Game Gear titles. The Mega Drive/Genesis game Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi also starred Joe Musashi in its overseas release, although the character was originally written to be his estranged son in the Japanese version. In more recent Shinobi titles, he appears as an unlockable character in the 2002's Shinobi and its follow-up Nightshade and in Shinobi 3D, which stars his father Jiro.
