NAME: The Foot Clan, or otherwise known as "The Foot" or "Foot soldiers".
Age: The Foot Clan was founded in 1583, as reported in the 80s cartoon. However, in the 2003 cartoon it is regaded as even older, founded over 700 years ago.
Weapon: Take your pick from laser guns used in the original cartoon, and also, shruikens or daggers, ninchukus, tonfa's and swords in the video games.
Good or Bad Guys?: Bad Guys.....and good guys at one point!
No. of appearances?: They have appeared in all mediums of the comics, the cartoons and 2 of the 3 movies.
Words that Describe the Foot Clan: collective, minions, martial arts-skilled, unsensible, unintelligent, threatening, intimidating, dominating, daunting, viscious, mysterious and mystical.
Favourite Quote?: They generally don't speak much, they are speechless in most of the original cartoon, apart from in the episode "The Foot Soldiers are Revolting" in 1990, season 4. However, one favourite quote is from one member in the first TMNT movie, when they approach April 'O Neill in the subway station: "Miss 'O Neill...we have a message for you....SHUT IT!(slaps April in the face)"
Status: Main gang characters. Shredder is the leader, and in some versions of TMNT, Splinter used to be the leader of them as Hamato Yoshi.
TMNT Review HQ Analysis: In all mediums, the Foot Clan is a gang of ninjas who were once a peacekeeping force in their homeland of Japan, until Oroku Saki(aka Shredder) took over the Clan. The members wear cloth masks/hoods over their heads which conceals their face completely. They are usually a easy opponent for the turtles. The story of the Foot Clan does vary in the different mediums. This will be explained in the following paragraphs.
In the TMNT comics, the Foot Clan are said to have been formed in feudal Japan by two men named Sato and Oshi. The turtles took a trip back in time to that era, and it inspired both men to form the Foot Clan as a group of Ninjitsu warriors.
The Foot Clan then became the most intimidating and ferocious ninjas in all of Japan. Splinter's owner Hamato Yoshi, and Shredder's older brother Nagi Saki were both members of this elite. Hamato and Nagi had a serious, fatal fued with each other over a woman, and Nagi was killed, while Yoshi was exiled to New York by the Foot Clan for dishonour. Soon Oroku Saki took over the American branch of the Foot Clan, who quickly rised to the top.
Saki vowed revenge, and did so killing Yoshi under the title of Shredder. 10 years later, Splinter having been mutated along with 4 pet turtles, Shredder meets the teenage mutant, Ninjisu-trained turtles on a rooftop to avenge Yoshi's death. Shredder called his army the Foot Ninjas, and they defeat the turtles. Shredder then takes the turtles fate into his own hands and fights them. However, even though Shredder was the better ninja, he fell from the rooftop which contained a bomb.
After this shock, the American branch of the Foot Clan collapsed, and there was a civil war between Shredder's faction and the rest. Then Karai, a Foot Clan leader from Japan, stopped the war with the aid of the turtles. They succeeded, and this made a truce between the turtles and the Foot Clan, and has been maintained surprisingly, up to the recent Volume 4.
By Volume 4, the Foot Clan were rcruited by the Utroms to protect their base, as they were skilled in hand combat, and the Utroms had a strong dislike of using weapons. Also these strange Aztec warriors attack the whole Foot Clan, and they became extinct in all areas of the world apart from New York.
The Foot Clan's logo, or symbol is a drawing of a left foot, similar to the one in the 80s cartoon.
The story of the Foot Clan in the first TMNT cartoon (1987-1996) is, they are an ancient Ninjitsu Clan founded in Japan, in 1583. Splinter's ancestor Hamato Koji battled against Shredder's ancester Oroku Sancho, to unify both clans to become the Foot Clan in 1583, as described in the episode "The Legend of Koji" from the 7th (1993) season.
We join the Foot Clan again in the 1960s, when Oroku Saki(Shredder) and Hamato Yoshi(Splinter) were part of it. Saki had evil intentions to frame Yoshi for murdering the sensei of the Clan, and he was exiled to New York, giving Saki the chance to lead the Foot Clan in Japan. The Foot Clan were good guys no longer, but became criminals. He started calling himself the Shredder, and moved to New York, makes allies with an alien warlord from Dimension X called Krang, and develops robotic Foot Soldiers and not human soldiers.
The Foot Clan Logo can be seen on the Technodrome and its vehicles inside. All the Foot Clan soldiers wear masks with all-purple uniforms.
The turtles usually defeat the Foot soldiers very easily, who have limited intelligence. Shredder tries to improve upon this by building a prototype named Alpha 1, who can make decisions itself, in the episode "The Foot Soldiers are Revolting" in season 4(1990). However, Shredder binned this project after Alpha 1 rebelled against his leadership, and seen him as a enemy.
In the Archie Comic series, which is mostly similar to the cartoon, had Foot soldiers, but they were more advanced. Shredder also built a giant Foot Soldier to fight against the Warrior Dragon, but it failed and crashed into the Statue of Liberty.
In the TMNT movies, the Foot Clan are this time a group of ninja thieves founded by Shredder in New York. The members are kids and youths who are recruited from the streets, which he trains in the ancient art of Ninjitsu. There is no Krang to get in his way here, he is the ultimate master here. He has a new assistant, a Japanese Ninjitsu specialist called Tatsu.
The Foot Clan were once again for the turtles. In a shock to the Foot Clan, Shredder "dies" in the first TMNT movie, and after the heavy defeat by the turtles, their numbers are much reduced. Tatsu announces himself as the new leader, however, Shredder comes back from the dead, and is the leader again. In the 2nd movie, the Foot Clan kidnap professor Jordan Perry and the last canister of ooze. They help Shredder create the 2 mutants Tokka and Rahzar, to destroy the turtles. However, the turtles eventually stop them again and the Shredder dies yet again. This time, it seems for definite after becoming Super Shredder and the NY pier collapsing on him. We do not know what the future lied for the Foot Clan after this, and did not feature in the third TMNT movie.
In the live action series TMNT: The Next Mutation in 1997, the Foot Clan were similar to the street thugs who joined the Clan in the movies. Shredder was defeated in this short series, and the Foot became no more. The turtles also told some kids that the Foot Clan was a lie!
In the 2003 cartoon, the Foot Clan were not just a bunch of similarly skilled but inferior group of Ninja's compared to the turtles. Some were better than others, and could give the turtles a challenge. The Shredder created the Foot Clan 700 years ago in Japan. Yes, Shredder is that old, but he is not human, he is actually a Utrom, who can live for amazingly hundreds of years. The Foot logo s different from the 80s cartoon, as it is now red trident shaped emblem. Shredder has much advanced technology than the humans, and the Clan have access to this, to use against the turtles.
The Foot Clan have different skills of ninjas. The easiest and most basic skilled are the Foot Ninjas. Next up a level, is the Foot Tech Ninjas who have technology that can actually make them invisible. Then we have the Foot Mystics, who are hardly seen. There are only five of them, and each one represents a natural element: wind, earth, fire, water and metal. Shredder respects them more than Karai, his adopted daughter. The most skilled of the Foot Clan are the Elite Foot Ninjas. There are only four of them. They serve as Shredder's elite guard, meaning they are like his personal bodyguards. Each one specialises in a specific weapon: trident, spear, axe and twin bladed sword.
At first, Hun was Shredder's second-in-command. However, Karai turns up and took over that position. Karai is now the leader of the Foot Clan, after Shredder was exiled to the ice asteroid belt of Mor Tal.
In the video game, the Foot Clan appear in all TMNT in some form or another. There are usually hundreds of them for the turtles to beat throughout all the levels of the scrolling beat 'em up games. In the video games relating to the 80s cartoon, not all the Foot soldiers are purple like in the cartoon, but have different colours. Each colour of Foot Soldier carries a different weapon like tongfa, ninchukus, boomerang, bomb, shuriken, daggers or bow and arrow. The purple Foot soldiers are usually unarmed. The different colours does make the game more interesting to play. In the beat 'em up "TMNT: Tournament Fighters", you can only see Foot soldiers in the background and are not playable or any of the opponents.
In the recent TMNT games, which try to follow the same type of gameplay, the Foot Ninja and Foot Tech Ninja, you will regularly have to defeat throughout the game. The Mystic Foot Ninjas, and the Elite Foot are all bosses in the games.
