Yang

> "*I dedicated my life to the study of the martial arts. I mastered them all, and even created my own. Airjitzu was my first achievement, but it was nothing compared to what I would discover next. My research revealed the location of the Yin Blade, a weapon whose magic was so powerful, it was said to hold the key to eternal life. Control that magic and I'd be forever remembered as Ninjago's greatest master. Immortality was so near.*"
> ― Yang describing his goals to Cole.
>
>

**Master Kodokuna Yang** is a ghostly sensei, the creator of Airjitzu, and the Master of the Temple of Airjitzu. Yang taught Airjitzu to his students, but he secretly wanted to live forever so his work wouldn't be forgotten. Using the Yin Blade, he tried to become immortal, but its powers backfired, and he turned into a ghost, along with his temple and students. Years later, the ninja later traveled to the Temple of Airjitzu to claim the Scroll of Airjitzu, but they were tormented by Yang. During their escape, Cole was turned into a ghost.

Sometime later, as Nadakhan rebuilt his home realm, the Temple of Airjitzu was lifted into the sky and cleansed with water—forcing him and his students to flee. After Jay made his final wish, recent events were undone, but due to an anomaly, the temple remained floating in the sky.

## History

### Early life

#### Creating Airjitzu

At an unknown point in time, Yang went on a quest to master all martial arts, learning techniques such as Spinjitzu and possibly Fang-Kwon-Do. From his accumulated knowledge, Yang invented the art of Airjitzu. However, growing old at the time he created Airjitzu, he decided to preserve his work by passing it down to his students, which he had gathered shortly after he created the martial art. He was an excellent master who even had a statue of himself built before the Temple of Airjitzu in his honor. However, his pupils were afraid of him because of his strict teachings, causing him to become worried he would not be remembered as a good master, or remembered at all.

#### Reaching for Immortality

He later discovered the forbidden Yin Blade and planned to use its dark magic to attain immortality and live forever as the greatest master of all time. After testing the Blade's magic on several trees, Yang decided to perform the ritual atop his temple only to accidentally curse the entire Temple of Airjitzu, transforming himself and his students into ghosts to haunt the temple for the rest of time. As the master of the house, he eventually grew mad and enslaved his students with the power of the Yin Blade, binding their wills to his power.

After Yang became trapped in his temple, he decided to sepnt most of his time studying curses and the afterlife, especially the Departed Realm.

At some point, Yang would lose the Yin Blade, where it would be placed in a Clearstone case at the Ninjago Museum of History along with a description and portrait of him.

At some point, one of Yang's Scrolls of Airjitzu ended up in the Ancient Library of Domu.

### Testing the Ninja

During the ninja's stay at the Temple of Airjitzu to locate the Scroll of Airjitzu, he threw many obstacles (the fears of the ninja) at them to get them stuck in the temple so they would turn into ghosts when the morning comes. Later, it's revealed that he merely tested the ninja to see if they were worthy of obtaining the Airjitzu scroll. However, as the morning came and the curse on the Temple of Airjitzu started to take effect on the ninja, the ghosts of Yang's students showed themselves, revealing that Yang had chained them up, as they were imprisoned by Yang. The ninja then quickly fled to the entrance, not wanting to suffer the same fate as Yang's students. They managed to reach the entrance, but Cole dropped the scroll mid-way and thus had to go back in to retrieve it, which caused him to turn into a ghost. Yang's laugh echoed from the inside the temple as the ninja stood outside, staring at Cole sadly after his transformation into a ghost.

***The following events were undone due to Jay's final wish, and thus, did not happen in the current timeline.***

### Removed by Nadakhan

After his temple was torn out of Ninjago by the Sky Pirates to help construct Djinjago in the sky, he left his temple to angrily confront Nadakhan, claiming it was his domain. However, the latter, unimpressed, promptly ordered Dogshank to shoot water at him and his students, forcing them to abandon the temple.

***The following events occurred after Jay made his final wish, and thus, happened.***

Due to an anomaly, the Temple of Airjitzu was left still floating in the sky despite Jay's final wish undoing Nadakhan's actions.

### Yin-Yang Eclipse

#### Manipulating Cole

Having become aware of the Hall of Villainy exhibit by observing the Ninjago Museum of History through a painting of himself, Yang confronted Cole through the painting on the Day of the Departed, telling him to "close the circle." This prompted Cole to steal the Yin Blade and fly up to the Temple of Airjitzu to settle the score, where he confronted Yang. Yang begged Cole to not attack him but the latter ignored this and attacked only for this to backfire as Yang's students captured Cole and locked him up.

#### Opening the Rift of Return

Yang revealed his plan was to trick Cole into using the Yin Blade and the light of the lunar eclipse to unleash the souls of the Ninja's former enemies, where they would distract the remaining separate ninja while the ghostly master can open the Rift of Return and become mortal again. Cole escaped and fought Yang for a while until the corrupt master overpowered him and proceeded to demoralize him calling him a ghost who will be forgotten and who will take his place as Master of the house. However, Yang heard the voices of the ninja who have defeated their villains and arrived to help Cole. This reenergized Cole who rose to face off against Yang again. This time in their fight, Cole unleashed his Earth Punch to shatter the Yin Blade and freeing Yang's students of his control.

#### Settling his Debt

As the Rift began to close, the formerly imprisoned pupils were prompted by Cole to go through the Rift, allowing them to become mortal while Yang admitted defeat. Bitter, Yang revealed he wanted to be immortal so he would not be forgotten and Cole reminded him as the creator of Airjitzu that he would not be forgotten by anyone. Cole then flew the two of them towards the Rift but Yang told him one of them must remain behind as the temple's master because of the curse, and threw Cole into the disappearing Rift claiming he wanted to settle his "debts."

Afterward, Cole became human again and he and the ninja moved into the temple, while Yang wandered the halls, no longer a sadistic monster but a kind master who has accepted his fate, with only Cole being aware of his presence.

### Living in the Temple

Yang and Cole agreed to keep his presence in his temple a secret, but Yang started to suspect that Wu might have been aware of his presence, as he stared once at one of his paintings intensely for several minutes, shortly before chuckling and winking at it.

### Training Cole

As the ninja frequently came back to the Temple of Airjitzu to rest and train, while searching for Wu, Cole and Yang would frequently talk to each other. Yang had been watching Cole for a while, with a very sad expression, when Cole asked him one day about why his scar was glowing, Yang told him that his scar was a rift, that would open soon.

Since Yang was still confused about his temple's floating conditions, he once asked Cole, but he was as clueless as him. So he eavesdropped Jay and Nya multiple times and picking up information, he discovered that events featuring Nadakhan were erased from the timeline. One day, Cole told Yang about his recurring dreams and asked for advice, Yang then used his abilities to reach out to one of his previous possessions that weren't in the temple anymore, it used all of his concentration, causing him to sweat. After reaching out to a far away village, an exhausted Yang told Cole to go to the village of Nom, as he would find someone that could help him.

***This section is a stub. You can help expand this section by adding some information.***

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Martial Arts:** Yang mastered all martial arts, learning techniques such as Spinjitzu and possibly Fang-Kwon-Do. From his accumulated knowledge, Yang invented the art of Airjitzu.
	+ **Airjitzu:** Sensei Yang is the creator of Airjitzu.
* **Ghost Powers:** Being a ghost, Yang has the standard powers of a regular ghost (flight, intangibility, telekinesis, invisibility, etc.). In addition he can also control his haunted house and everything in it. Although Yang is permanently trapped in the Temple of Airjitzu as the master of the house, he is able to reach out to his previous possessions that aren't in his temple, such as his painting in the Ninjago Museum of History.

## Weapons and Equipment

* **Scroll of Airjitzu:** Created by Yang, they contain the instructions to master Airjitzu. Yang gave one of the map to the Library of Domu, the ancient library, until it was stolen by Ronin. It may have been donated to the library by Yang himself before he died, while he kept one of his own at his temple, which he later gave to the Ninja after they passed his test.
* **Yin Blade:** While searching for the key to immortality, Master Yang's studies led him to discover the Yin Blade. Attempting to use it on himself caused his temple to be haunted forever. When Cole destroyed the blade, his students were released from his control.

## Relationships

### Allies

* Yang's Students - Former Students
	+ Chris
	+ Martin
	+ Chuck
* Revived Villains
	+ Samukai †
	+ Pythor
	+ Kozu †
	+ Cryptor †
	+ Chen †
	+ Morro †
* Cole - Former Enemy and Attempted Victim

### Enemies

* Ninja - Attempted Victims
	+ Kai
	+ Jay
	+ Zane
* Sky Pirates
	+ Nadakhan
	+ Dogshank - Attempted Killer

## Appearances

### Sets

* 70751 Temple of Airjitzu (statue)
* 70590 Airjitzu Battle Grounds
* 70595 Ultra Stealth Raider
* 71741 Ninjago City Gardens (pictured)

### *Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu*

#### Season 5: Possession

* 46. "Ghost Story" (pictured)
* 48. "The Temple on Haunted Hill"

#### Season 6: Skybound

* 55. "Infamous" (mentioned)
* 61. "Wishmasters"
* 63. "Operation Land Ho!" (statue)
* 64. "The Way Back" (statue)

#### Season 7: The Hands of Time

* 65. "The Hands of Time" (painting)
* 66. "The Hatching" (painting)
* 67. "A Time of Traitors" (painting)
* 70. "The Attack" (painting)

#### Ninjago: Decoded

* 3. "Legendary Places" (video)
* 4. "Ninjago's Most Wanted" (video)

### Video games

* *The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame* (non-canon)

## Behind the scenes

* "Kodokuna" (孤独な) means "lonely" or "solitary," while "Yang" means "sun."
	+ Also, as stated by himself in "Day of the Departed," "Yang" also means "good," as a reference to the concept of the "Yin-Yang."
* Strangely, the more common phrase used both by Master Wu and the ninja is "As iron sharpens iron, (sibling, brother, etc.) sharpens (sibling, brother, etc.)," while Master Yang's saying makes the subjects different (sensei and student).
* On a similar note, he seems to be the ghost equivalent of Master Wu, as they're both teachers and masters of their respective, similar martial arts, use similar phrases, and have similar appearances as well.
* Unlike his main appearance, which uses the style of beard first seen on Gandalf from *LEGO The Lord of the Rings*, Yang's statue is depicted with the same style of beard as Wu. However, the statue has the Gandalf beard in set form, likely because the Wu beard did not physically exist in gray, while the Gandalf beard did.
* Yang's minifigure depicts him with a ghostly tail instead of legs, although he never has a ghostly tail at all during the show.
* Yang is an unlockable character in *The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame*. His blind bag can be found in the level "The Dark Ravine."
* Yang is one of the six main antagonists to have appeared before the installment where they are the main antagonist, the others being Sir Fangar, Clouse, Morro, Krux, and Ronin.
* He is one of the five known villains that had no intentions to take over Ninjago. The other four being Iron Baron, Vex, Unagami, and Vangelis.
* As a human, he wore the same black kimono suit design as young Wu and Garmadon.
* Before his minifigure was released in the "Day of the Departed" wave, Yang wore a similar outfit to Wu's 2012 minifigure variant in his appearances in Possession and Skybound, a design which was never seen on Wu in the show.

## Trivia

* As it's revealed at the end of his debut episode, Yang's spirit imprisons those who enter his temple by turning them into a ghost, forcing them to be his students forever.
* Yang seems to be an extremely powerful ghost, seeing as how not only can he curse others who enters his temple, but also transport it into another dimension as seen when the ninja tried to escape his temple. It's unclear if all ghosts possess such powers, or if its just Master Yang. It's possible, however, that these powers might be explained by the fact that he was changed into a ghost thanks to the Yin Blade, instead of being sent to the Cursed Realm.
* The info given of Yang portrays him as a far more malevolent master, in comparison to Wu. Even as a spirit, he is shown to be a malevolent spirit, imprisoning his victims and forcing them to be his students forever.
* Yang is depicted with a very different appearance in his flashback in "Day of the Departed", appearing much younger and having a goatee instead of a full beard, despite the fact that ghosts supposedly can't grow older, as seen with Morro.
	+ Interestingly enough, his paintings seen in "The Temple on Haunted Hill" and "Day of the Departed" depict him with the same appearance as his ghost form, but with yellow skin instead of green and no ghostly features, and they were most likely made when he was still human.
	+ It's possible that the flashback was Yang's own mental interpretation of his former self, imagining himself as younger and healthier and further emphasising his desire to live forever.
* Like Morro, Yang has also redeemed himself by settling his debt by staying behind as "Master of the House."
* Yang appears in the "could-be-canonical" novel, *Way of the Departed*.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Day of the Departed
2. ↑ Way of the Departed
3. ↑ Ghost Story
4. ↑ The Temple on Haunted Hill
5. ↑ Wishmasters
6. ↑ The Way Back
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Way of the Departed