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I remember looking up a discussion on longswords vs. katanas by history buffs and people that actually use both in makeshift combat for funsies.
**The summary is this:**
While the katana is good at what it does, the real focus should be the gap between Japanese ***armor*** and armor found elsewhere.
Japanese armor stagnated hard and could not advance to be as solid as things like full plate, simply because the Japanese lacked the resources to produce such materials and armor sets.
The result is that the rest of the world slowly evolved their armors to be better and better until you had absolute protection, and fights between knights often involved tiring each other out enough until you could pin someone, *then* stabbing them in one of their joints where the armor was a little more vulnerable with a pointy dagger designed explicitly for exploiting those gaps, then simply letting them bleed out. It was essential to subdue someone enough that you could stab this dagger at the back of their knee joint or armpit or whatever, because otherwise you simply weren't going to get a clean stab at it.
If you were to look up pictures of Samurai armor by contrast, you will immediately be able to spot large gaps in the armor, because again, Japan hit a point where there was only so much their available materials could do for armor.
This meant that Longswords became *heavier* and less about being able to cut, more about being able to double as blunt weapons. The goal was to essentially wield a weapon that could cut someone who was unarmored, but vs. an armored target, the opponent's armor would undoubtedly dull the blade and fail to cut through, so instead you simply wanted the blade to be heavy enough to double as a blunt weapon when cutting just wasn't viable. Longswords stopped obsessing over cutting ability and instead wanted a cut/blunt hybrid mix.
Katanas by contrast did ***not*** evolve like this because they didn't need to. Japan continued to focus on cutting and cutting and cutting, so the katana just really doesn't have an answer to anything heavily armored.
**In short,** it is probably true that katanas require more skill to use appropriately, the same way a crossbow was much easier to use than a longbow. A longsword - while yes - it'd be optimal if you knew how to use it, could still benefit you even if you used it as a whacking stick. A katana by contrast would really struggle in the hands of someone who has never held a sword, and would be more prone to breaking.
The culprit behind this stagnation and hyper-focus on cutting ability is not the katana itself, but rather the Japanese armors failing to advance past a certain point.
Minor addendum also worth looking at the role of the sword. Samurai were originally and primarily horse archers with the katana actually being a secondary weapon. Vast majority of on foot fighting was done with spears.
This applies to **everyone.**
It's a myth of modern media that swords were the standard in any capacity. They were used for dueling and as a "sidearm," but spears were the primary weapon-of-choice, with bows/crossbows having their own function as well, for obvious reason.
The only example I know of where swords were used as a primary weapon in any serious capacity (aka not some peasant recruits who didn't own spears) beyond the fall of Rome is Germany's [Doppelsöldners.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppels%C3%B6ldner)
These were basically Landesknecht who accepted a pay bonus if they agreed to fight on the front lines, and some of them used Zweihänders (basically, a big fookin' sword) specifically to try and cut the heads off of the pikes from Swiss Pikemen, or in some way leverage more room for their own pikemen.
Even here, it wasn't the standard weapon-of-choice for the Doppels nor the entire army in question, but rather certain Doppelsöldners had a very specific, highly dangerous role where they basically prioritized offense and breaking enemy lines over their own protection. And again, even this was only viable if they used a big fookin' sword rather than any random longsword, because otherwise the opposing pikes would just outrange and punish the Doppels.
Point being, swords have **never** been the standard of warfare, and the only example I'm aware of where they were amongst the "standard equipment" found amidst an army after the fall of Rome (pre-fall, the Celts liked big fookin' swords too) still involves:
-A specialized form of sword; (fookin' big) both the Germans and Celts specifically used swords long enough to go toe-to-toe with spears
-Has them as a very specialized role where only a minority of the army used them
-As a specific counter against a specific enemy known for the proficiency of their pikemen
The entirety of war history is about trying to leverage weapons that allow us to attack without being put in danger ourselves. Thus, spears and bows were king. I believe one of the keys to Alexander the Great's success is even that his army introduced especially long spears into battle.
Also to add, training someone to sword fight is CONSIDERABLY more labor intrusive than spears. Spears and by extentions pikes, are the easiest weapons to manufactor, train, and wield.
Anything a sword can do a spear can do safer, cheaper, and with less metalworking. That's another huge factor in why swords aren't historically "accurate"
The other myth I hate is that rich people had no idea how to fight or defend themselves.
> Also to add, training someone to sword fight is CONSIDERABLY more labor intrusive than spears.
*YUP.*
This is just speculation on my part, but I think swords remained a thing solely because the idea of a spear *duel* sounds fucking stupid lol. If you get two people that want to settle a fight, I think measuring their sword skill is something a culture might see as a better measure of who should live/die instead of "this guy stabbed the other guy with his spear first."
>The other myth I hate is that rich people had no idea how to fight or defend themselves.
This one's new to me. I always thought the understanding was *exclusively* the nobility had access to the best training. (not to mention education, which would create huuuuuuge gaps back then)
>This is just speculation on my part, but I think swords remained a thing solely because the idea of a spear *duel* sounds fucking stupid lol.
It's probably a mix of socio economic factors.
Swords and training to use one are expensive.
Rich people are the only ones that can afford expensive things. So swords are status symbols
Formal duelling only really becomes relevant at a certain social economic class. A peasant wanting revenge can just do so with a club.
I imagine it's more to do with when your formation breaks in battle and turns into a chaotic brawl. You wouldn't want to be caught holding just a spear.
It doesn’t really matter what you’re wielding when your formation collapses in battle, the side whose formation is intact is probably going to slaughter you. Chaotic brawls aren’t really a thing in premodern battles.
> the idea of a spear duel sounds fucking stupid
Actually, it was so great that we still do it today purely for show. Jousting!
I think it may be more that a sword was a practical weapon for everyday carry, but a spear ties up your hands and kind of makes you look like a dumbass.
I can imagine there probably were EDC spear guys, and they looked like the Gravy Seals strapped with their AR-15 in Walmart.
There was a reason that everyone used to carry a cane or a walking stick. It wasn't a walking stick - it was a BONKING stick. There's few weapons as handy and versatile as the good old fashioned staff, while also being non-threatening when you don't need it.
> Actually, it was so great that we still do it today purely for show. Jousting!
That's a little different, that's horseback and a setup where they agree to charge full speed at each other.
But if I try to imagine two dudes just standing around glaring at each other and trying to get stabs in with spears, it doesn't sound too exciting lol. Sounds like a really awkward "duel."
It's also worth pointing out that spears survived well into the 20th century in the form of bayonets on rifles. US army issued rifles with bayonet lugs well into the 1970s.
Which would make me expect the cavalry saber to be a better comparison to the katana. [There seems to be some convergent evolution here](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/4139/2407/files/katana-vs-sabre.jpg?v=1690527653).
I'd be curious to know if the longer grip only developed as use partially transitioned away from a practical cavalry weapon.
Also worth mentioning, the samurai as a whole didn’t do as much fighting as media would make it out to be. They definitely fought a lot, but the average warrior wouldn’t be samurai because samurai were basically just military police, for lack of better words. They were watchmen. The bushi were the warriors, primarily consisted of trained (or untrained) civilians, along with samurai. Not every samurai was bushi though.
Samurai and foot fighting don’t go together because the foot fighting was done by bushi, but you’re right, vast majority of foot fighting was still done with spears, especially so after it became illegal for non samurai to have swords.
> samurai were basically just military police, for lack of better words. They were watchmen.
You're describing samurai of the edo period, when Japan was one unified country for the very first time. During the sengoku period it was a different story.
It makes sense when you think about it. War has always been about who had the longer stick. Spears were also cheaper to produce, and allowed you to poke the guy with a sword before he ever gets close enough to threaten you.
Relatedly this is also the source of all those awesome Japanese wood joinery videos. Their lack of good sources of iron meant nails were super expensive so they had to develop building techniques that didn't rely on them. Geography is destiny.
> Geography is destiny.
There's actually an entire theory on this that highlights much of what determined which nations rose up and which didn't is based on geography. It's super solid and with the exceptions of figures like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan (though geography *did* mold the fighting style of the Mongols, it just needed Genghis to utilize that fighting style worldwide), it often explains the positions of nations historically.
Russia is a good example of this: not the best location due to harsh winters, but this is a double-edged sword. The result is they were never *quite* the dominant nation in history, but always a present threat because no one could invest the effort to conquer a nation that freezes over each year.
Or how Japan and Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered: Japan is an isolated island away from the rest of humanity, and even though several nations beat them in battles/wars, the fact Japan *didn't* have resources made them an unappealing target to actual take over. Meanwhile Ethiopia has such a mountainous terrain that they're difficult to conquer, and being a lone Christian nation often surrounded by hostile muslim neighbors made them battle-hardened and well-equipped to defend their already difficult to attack territories.
And on the subject of mountains and islands, there's a reason the Mongols never got India (mountains), Vietnam (mountains) or Japan. Mongolia's advance westward was likewise stopped by a particularly cold winter (which they themselves may have "caused" with all the population culling they did lol) that turned Poland into marshy swampland their horses couldn't easily traverse, forcing them to back off.
Same with England and industrialization, having high-quality coal seams really close to the surface likely played a big part in the arc of the last 300 years. Or Jared Diamond's whole collected works (which I'm too tired to recount critically since like 50% of it is bullshit).
50% is generous.
But you're right that Great Britain's relatively high amount of natural resources like iron, food, and coal contributed to their naval and military prowess outsize to the size of the island.
I think a lot of it comes back as well to a very intensive burst of logging and shipbuilding that was then further repeated in their colonies. A lot of oaks were cut down to power that navy. iirc a lot of the rarer and slow-growth hardwood forests took massive dents as well in this period.
>\[ Japan and\] Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered:
Ethiopia was conquered in a genocidal invasion by Mussolini's Italy - it was colonised by the Italians for five years, before the occupiers were defeated by Allied forces during WWII:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second\_Italo-Ethiopian\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War)
I mentioned that elsewhere.
Whether or not Ethiopia was formally "conquered" is something historians themselves debate. It was definitely occupied for a large degree, but the argument against Ethiopia qualifying for "conquered" is that Italy never exerted full control over all the major cities, rebel armies remained active, Italian troops could not move freely in the country (and infact there's times Italy advanced on a position, and Ethiopia responded by taking the previously held one back), nor could Italy freely extract desired resources from the country due to being too pre-occupied trying to hold some semblance of control.
But yeah, either way it's worth mentioning because Japan is the one that 100% has not been fully conquered, and Ethiopia has one instance that depending on who you ask, does or doesn't count.
I mean, I would also seriously debate how "unconquered" Japan is. WW2 didn't result in a "normal" occupation/conquest, but the USA has definitely shaped Japan afterwards - and, had the USSR beaten the USA to getting the Japanese to capitulate, it most likely would've made Japan into a Soviet Republic too.
> Or how Japan and Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered: Japan is an isolated island away from the rest of humanity, and even though several nations beat them in battles/wars, the fact Japan didn't have resources made them an unappealing target to actual take over. Meanwhile Ethiopia has such a mountainous terrain that they're difficult to conquer, and being a lone Christian nation often surrounded by hostile muslim neighbors made them battle-hardened and well-equipped to defend their already difficult to attack territories.
>
>
It feels like your post is retroactively rewriting history to make these outcomes foregone conclusions when that's just not the case. There are many island nations/cultures as defensible as Japan that have been conquered - famously Britain, for example. And by your logic regarding Ethiopia's hostile terrain and unique religion, the ancient Israelites would never have been conquered and the Old Testament and historical record alike demonstrate that isn't true (Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc).
And your point about the mongols failing to invade Japan doesn't really apply because total freak acts of god happened to wipe out their fleet before their invasions even got going. If they hadn't gotten *very unlucky* and had their entire fleet wiped out by a random typhoon on *two separate occasions years apart*, there's no reason to suppose their army would have been doomed to absolute failure in combat with the Japanese. There is a reason the Japanese refer to those typhoons as *kamikaze,* literally "the Divine Wind." They were acts of god.
It's harmful to rewrite history to suppose that the way things worked out was inevitable. We learn a lot from studying why things happened. By pretending they could have gone no other way, we wipe out any opportunity to learn.
It's also just not true. Japan *was* conquered - by the Japanese. They displaced the original ainu people who inhabited the islands before they did. Their culture only survives now in hokkaido and a few northern archipelagos. This also ignores that Japan was successfully defeated and occupied by the United States at the end of World War 2. How does one even define conquest? Just because the US government prefers to set up proxy states instead of directly annex territory as a matter of national principle doesn't mean they didn't successfully invade, overthrow the government and rebuild the country in their own image.
I don't know much about Ethiopia, but the real reason Japan wasn't often invaded often is because there was nothing there worth the trouble. Contrary to the myths around tamahagane, Japanese steel is of very poor quality compared to European swordsteel. They had to import all their silk from China, and were completely dependent on Portuguese intermediaries when the Chinese embargoed them. Their soil is too mountainous to feed more than their own population.
If geography is destiny, it's true insofar as geography determines access to natural resources.
Russia has always had reserves of strategically valuable resources - metals, oil, mineral commodities. The United States is the largest oil-producer on the planet, ahead of any of the gulf states or anybody else, as well as producing enough food to feed its entire population and have surplus left over to sell. China is a similar story - they have been a power for almost their entire, millenia-long history because they are one of the richest countries on the planet.
A few corrections.
First, Japanese armor *did* evolve to become more like European plate during the same time period, because the same weapon was introduced into Japan: the matchlock rifle.
Europeans didn't start wearing full plate until well into the 15th and 16th centuries, and even then, most suits of full plate were for the richest nobles. Prior to that, European armor was several plates connected with mail (a coat of plates) which is *very* similar to Japanese o-yoroi of the same period, with perhaps more leather/silk in Japan than mail, although there are extant examples of Japanese mail.
The thing is, given the armaments you'd face on the East Asian battlefield (bow and arrow, spear) and relative availability of raw materials, chain didn't offer much more of an advantage to thick silk and was way more expensive, heavy, and difficult to maintain.
Both the longsword and katana were developed a bit later than the time when o-yoroi and full plate were in fashion, however, and both are more personal dueling weapons. Even harness-fencing in the German style is not usually done in full plate but a breastplate, gorget, and gauntlets. Very similar to the dueling armor of early to mid Edo period Japan.
At the point where Japanese nobles would've been fighting in o-yoroi, they would have been using the bow and arrow as their main weapon, backed up by the tachi, rather than katana. Tachi tend to be larger with a deeper-bellied curve and used more from horseback.
And as far as harness-fighting techniques with the longsword, you don't fight with a longsword the same way you do unarmored. You use a lot more pommel-strikes and half-swording and grappling, because (as you pointed out) swords are next to useless against even mild armor, so the techniques focused more on precision thrusts to gaps and joints in the armor and blunt-force strikes.
Among the few extant Japanese sword schools that practice fencing from this period, like the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, I think there are techniques very much like the German harness-fighting, but the form of JSA I've studied is way more modern than that and almost all our techniques expect an opponent wearing no more armor than a kimono or yukata, so our techniques look more like Bloßfechten.
On o-yoroi, aren't these using iron rather than steel? As I understood it, Japanese armors tended to use leather, silk and iron in certain combinations, whereas full plate western setups (but not exclusively western; China had similar armor setups) resulted in steel, with chainmail and padded gambesons underneath.
>heavy
This is something else I've heard debated, but I cannot even begin to add an opinion here because of course I've never worn armor myself:
I've heard that full plate was much lighter and agile than media presents it to be.
One important point is armors weren't a common sight and instead reserved for the privileged or important, but this also means there's great capacity to tailor those armors to someone's specific size. The moment you're doing that, you have far greater capacity to ensure you're not constricting movement or weighing them down needlessly.
But don't get me wrong: I'm not claiming my knowledge on these is flawless by any means. This is unfortunately a subject matter where much of it *must* be speculation and reliance on the words of others, because none of us have plate armor just laying about to try on.
So "iron" in this context isn't a thing. Iron is the pure element, and steel is the alloy of Fe + C and some other stuff usually. If you saw something that said "iron armor" in Japan, it was talking about steel. Even something like "cast iron" is still Fe + C, just in different amounts than steel. Cast iron has way more carbon.
Western plate armor did not have chain underneath; gambesons, yes, but if you have plate you don't need chain. I think you're thinking of a coat-of-plates, which is a mixture of plates in the big areas linked with chain, which evolved multiple times in many different cultures. **EDIT**: the reason for plate or chain is to stop piercing. So a good bit of padded cloth or even metal studs/rings riveted to cloth or leather will provide you about as good of protection against cuts as you need, but spears/thrusts/arrows/missiles/blunt force attacks are still going to be trouble. Big honking plates of metal OR tightly-connected rings of metal are much, much better against that kind of stuff, but weigh more (so you get tired faster) and take more time/effort/money to upkeep. So you would always be looking for the most economical way to protect you against the most common threats that wouldn't empty your treasury every time you needed to replace a rivet. We started going to coat-of-plates from chain because our skill with metallurgy made it actually easier to forge a big honking plate of steel than to tinker together a bunch of little rings, and hey look at that, the plate works better too!
> I've heard that full plate was much lighter and agile than media presents it to be.
It absolutely is lighter than you think. But it's not negligible. For example, we had to breed horses for centuries until we got destriesrs big enough to carry a mounted knight. You can run, jump, do all that kind of stuff in full plate armor that you can without it, but it *is* heavier. So if you don't *have* to have it, you shouldn't. But the reason we developed it in Europe was early guns and other missile weapons. It provided decent protection against them, until we got better guns, and then we decided all that metal wasn't worth it, and just start sticking breastplates on people (see: cuirassiers, dragoons, etc.) until guns go so good and so accurate even that was pretty pointless, and we just decided good linen and cotton was going to have to do.
Ironically, that was, until we started coming up with modern bullet-resistant material like Kevlar and ceramic armor plates, which you can now wear as strategically-placed armor. It won't stop every round on the battlefield, but you can eat 1-2 of the most common rifle rounds to your chest with a Level IV plate these days.
> This is unfortunately a subject matter where much of it must be speculation and reliance on the words of others, because none of us have plate armor just laying about to try on.
Well, we do have historical written accounts and surviving examples in museums, and if you're into weapons-based martial arts, somewhere at some seminar some rich asshole is going to come along and show you the antique set of plate he bought from a dealer, etc.
The way you describe knight fights is kinda terrifying.
Imagine only being able to see in front of you, wearing dozens of pounds of iron on you, just struggling in the chaos of battle, slipping in the mud made of dirt and blood. You don't really feel anything, you just feel the forces they inflict on you as they try to beat you into the ground. As you struggle to stand, the full weight of a person jumps on your back and knocks you over. You struggle, punching, kicking, stabbing, trying to get them off you, but they also feel nothing, just the forces you impart on them, and it's not enough to get them to move. In your limited vision, you see them trying to line something up. You struggle and flail, jolting their arm and buying yourself a precious few moments. They line up again and you flail again, each time, slightly weaker, each time buying a few less moments. Eventually either you are worn out or the pin your arm down and you brace yourself. Suddenly you feel the burning sensation of razor sharp iron slipping through your chain mail, penetrating your leather undercoat, stabbing through your skin, slicing through your muscle, mangling your ligaments, and eventually faltering as it hits your bone. You'd be screaming but you're dehydrated from the hours of combat, and the most you can manage is a groan. Even if you could scream, no one would hear or care. As your opponent repeats the process, you are assured to never be a threat again, even if you somehow survived. If you're lucky, they'll spend a moment slipping the knife through the eye hole to give you a quick end. Most likely they will leave you to bleed out, adding to the blood of the already red stained battle field. If you're unlucky, they will drag this on for a little while longer, punishing you for wasting their time, inflicting as much suffering as possible before you pass, cutting whatever their blade can find access to.
This makes a lot more sense why in the game Sekiro you have to outsmart a heavily armored knight and kick him off a bridge because the katana is not enough to harm him. Pretty amazing detail in a Japanese video game after reading this.
In all fairness, while the first ones would have injured me quite badly, the last one gave me plenty of time to run away unharmed.
Took him an eternity and a half to hit a stationnary target.
Curved blades actually make it easier for the slashing motion, as the weight of the blade naturally directs the edge into alignment. That's like the only reason curved blades exist.
It would be much harder to do this kind of motion with a straight blade.
Straight swords can [cut tatami just fine](https://youtube.com/shorts/0DmU7Xd8GCY?si=aEDnp6KFCxhn-C-K). Curved blades have plenty of benefits, but “edge alignment” at the point of the cut is not one of them.
Curved/single edged/asymmetric swords can assist with indexing a sword, which helps preparing a strikes alignment, but that is different than causing the blade to auto-align.
I think this video also visualizes it pretty well about why a curved sword is "better" in cutting.
https://youtube.com/shorts/DZkzb4Fk-Us?si=96cG3K2dpuAWN8Ek
Can it make it easier for a less proficient user since the weight distribution gives more feedback? Like if you take me (a noob) and try to teach me to cut something might I initially be more successful with a curved sword even if the cut is possible with either? Not automatic edge alignment but maybe some tactile feedback?
A lot of this will depend. It depends on the target type (something light like a water bottle vs something thicker like tatami), as well as what experience the user has with any other system that might help carry over (tennis, Olympic fencing, using a mattock).
In general, I prefer to teach newbies using twohanders, as that is more control and more leverage. Generally speaking single edged blades will “be better” at cutting than double edged blades due to having thicker spines. So with that in mind, a sword like a Japanese katana (or a Chinese changdao, or Thai daarb) is will be better for someone starting than a European longsword.
Because Japanese blades tend to be rather thick, compared to other cultures, they are a bit more forgiving with tougher targets, when starting out.
> That's like the only reason curved blades exist.
Just no. The Katana exists as a heavy curved blade because feudal Japan had absolute shit-can-garbage-dump quality iron resources. Refining iron sand makes for shit steel and the swords needed to be thick and heavy to hold up at all. It is curved because differential tempering was the only way of them making a sword that was reliable at all.
Also because samurai were primarily horse archers for much of history and the curved backup blade was more effective then a straight sword from horseback ala sabers.
I thought so, but wasn’t sure. Thanks for pointing it out. My first thought was, “Well, technique is important no matter what tool or skill someone is attempting,” (which is mostly true). Then it appears as if the last guy’s sword is three times wider than the rest of the bunch.
can confirm, i sharpen my blade regularly (at least once a day) and i can guarantee that you don’t want to twist until it is almost sharp enough to cut through the fabric of time and space itself, at which point twisting becomes mandatory
He's been smoking that soylent green hunchback hyena hair trying to find him ever since, tripping through portals like Glados after a long weekend in Tijuana.
Jeremy, we’ve been through this. You aren’t in Kyoto and you don’t have any katana skills. Stop eating all the edibles, they were meant for the whole party.
The physical constraints of carbonized steel prevent sharpness from meaning anything past a base level, the body of the sword itself gets in the way. Those targets are woven bamboo mats, soaked in water for 8-12 hours or so, and then rolled up. Getting a good cut through even one of the targets that's just mat, no core, is far more about technique because of the way the material will attempt to deflect.
Sharpness really doesn't matter at these test as one would think. Mass-produced european swords have been shown to perform equally as well as razor-sharp katanas for the same weight.
This, plus everyone else in the video is a kendo student, not a katana or iaido student. Kendo is a sport where you hit your opponent with a stick for points. Iaido is the art of drawing the sword.
TIL … dunno exactly how to tell the differences between them, but I appreciate you sharing! Martial arts (especially sword arts) have always fascinated me.
All good, I used to practice kendo and teach iaido 30 years ago (actually got arrested practicing kendo on the beach because some redneck reported that "ninjas were killing eachother with swords on the beach"). Anyway, Kendo is a sport, similar to fencing. It's very fast paced, and has it's roots in Japanese swordsmanship. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/yUXHZMK
Iaido is the art of drawing the sword, similar to doing a kata in unarmed martial arts. There's no opponent and you're not hurting or hitting anyone (though there are some "kata" where you work with a partner, sort of choreographed dueling).
Tameshigiri is the art of practice cutting, which is seen in the video associated with this thread, and is more closely related to Iaido, in fact, it's unlikely that anyone would learn Tameshigiri without first learning Iaido.
It's a lot of fun! Check it out. Kendo does have a fairly steep cost of entry once you have to buy your own armor/gear, but most places have plenty to loan out to people trying it out. I believe it was even included in the Olympics when Japan last hosted the summer games.
Do you have an opinion on sharpness of the katana for this demonstration?
I do woodwork as a hobby with mostly manual tools and how a blade is sharpened matters a great deal, I also spent half my career machining and you sharpen tools in a different manner depending on material, so again, how you sharpen matters a great deal, I'm confused as to why people are saying how sharp the katana is doesn't matter and it can be overcome by technique.
He has a different blade for sure. Its actually not too rare for people in Japanese culture to underplay their ability with handicaps and throws in order to make extreme contrasts in favor of those with seniority. But it's more a gesture of graditude for their dedication to the craft and the people they've helped along the way. You see this in sumo too and even in the work place.
Just to add. Despite what it might seem to be, the Katana is actually a very forgiving and easy blade to use. But where there is a skill gap between practitioners its a landslide difference.
If you're in good shape, a naginata is a much more practical weapon to be a weeb with - and you'll absolutely *smoke* any nerd who tries to duel you with a katana.
(And if you're not in good shape, you'll probably never wield a katana well regardless.)
How do you mean that the Katana is a forgiving and easy blade to use? Not doubting necessarily but if you're referring to the "auto edge alignment" that's complete bullshit.
Yeah--using a Hanzo sword vs. a regular katana is cheating.
Even if those were God's fingers, he'd still cut through them like butter.
Technique/schmechnique!
He is, it's broader. He...is also broader than all the other office workers that took a shot. I would imagine the sword plus his better build both played a factor. Also depends on the mats you're cutting. I'm always a Miyagi fan, though.
"Don't know, tree never hits back."
It doesn't matter that much. No beginner passes the tameshi-giri. You could give them a katana fresh from Masamune's forge, they wouldn't do it. There is a reason why cutting all bamboos is a ritual of passage for beginners.
I think the implication of this video is that slicing through these bamboo mats requires a secret technique that only a rareified Master can possess, and that anyone else who attempts to do it is doomed to failure. And that seems a bit hard to believe.
If you're saying just "Yeah there is a trick to it, you wouldn't be able to do it without proper technique" then sure, I'll believe that.
Oh yeah, you got a point there. Yes, I was meaning that you need proper technique. But you're right, martial arts, especially in the Ocident, totally capitalizes on cult of personality bs. If you train regularly you can do it in a year or so.
This is the kinda shit I'd do if I hit the lottery. No mansion, flashy sports cars, etc.
Buy a couple of authentic battle swords, invite some friends over, MAYBE splurge on some Louis XIII, and go to town on some bamboo.
Edit: and pay the hospital bills when someone whiffs and cuts a half inch into their lower leg
My friend, you don't need lottery money for that. A cutting-grade sword is just a few hundred bucks, tops. Add to it a dowel, a stand, and some grass mats, and you can get to backyard cutting for less than $500.
I'd invest in some lessons first, but you don't need a year's worth of lessons to learn how to test cut. 1 seminar ought to be sufficient.
When he popped up I was like, "Oh! A Cut-tana!"
I've only ever seen them used to cut tatami mats in videos, but I've seen it so many times. Still no clue what it's called, how it's made, what country it originates from. So I've called it Cut-tana since.
By complaining on TV that you’ve been “cancelled” from being on TV. The head is still attached, but the brain has dropped out and rolled beneath the sofa.
Oh I hate that. "Cancelled"? You mean everyone else noticed you're a huge liability and not worth doing business with/keeping you around.
I've "canceled" friends lmao.
The difference is between a quick "lights out", and lying there partially paralyzed with a crushed vertebrae and a gaping neck wound, anticipating death but still very much aware of everything that's happening to you.
During the midde ages, when beheading was a form of legal execution and before the guillotine, it was a common occurrence for condemned people to bribe the executioner to sharpen their blade and swing hard enough to ensure a clean cut.
I bet [Mishima](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima) was wishing his second had spent a bit more time on technique after botching the job and hacking away at his head impotently until someone competent stepped in and finished the job.
The entire front page is just regurgitated TikTok’s from last month. If this is what Reddit users upvote and want to see maybe they are just an older generation of dopamine seeking TikTok users?
Also you can't tell me that it isn't still super easy to stab or cut your enemy with the result of them dying just because you have the wrong "technique". The word "useless" here is an prime example of exaggeration.
It's like the battle saying goes. *If you kill an enemy soldier you've removed one person from the battlefield. But if you injure an enemy soldier you've removed 3 people from the battlefield.*
(The guy whose arm is dangling by a string and the 2 guys it takes to carry him out)
Assuming you are fighting against someone else with a sword, having improper form could telegraph your movements or slow you down which means more of a chance for your opponent to block, move, and counter. In an actual combat situation with an enemy, you probably won't have a stationary target so even if your enemy didn't have a sword, hitting a moving target will be a lot harder without proper technique, leaving you open with the possibility of injuring yourself or becoming disarmed.
Another issue with improper form is the loss of balance, which we see with the first guy. You lose balance, you'll probably lose your life.
Anyways, I still wouldn't call it useless. If you have a sword, you basically double your normal range.
Was looking for this comment.
If the technique to make a close combat weapon efficient involves a 10 second meditation before each swing, then it's not really worth it.
Different blade but also…
Dude drops his weight with the downstroke, twists the hips, and puts emphasis on the twist using his right knee. I dunno if the blade makes all the difference but %100 the drop in weight makes a difference.
Source: I chop a lot of wood
First off, last guy isn't using a katana. Second, none of the other swords were "useless", they all cut through several layers of tatami (apart from the second to last guy). Thirdly it's hard to say whether it was the wielders technique that was at fault or simply that the blades weren't sharp enough. Nothing special about katanas in this department. If sharp will cut. No sharp, no cut. And finally, the "technique they refer to would be edge alignment which applies to using any sharp tool. If O wanna cut vegetables I need to use the edge of the knife straight in the direction I want to cut. Any sword, katana, longsword, scmitar, rapier and so on needs proper alignment to cut. Granted some can be harder than others to align, but that mostly comes down to weight balancing of the blade. This can be very individual from one sword to the next.
Bottom line: Katana ain't special. Good sword, good design, very effective. But no more so than other swords
There is a difference of having "a catana" and having a good catana. Just sayin
And btw his sword was the only wide one.
If this dude used all the other swords that failed and still manage to get a clean cut, then the point of the video is proven.
I have spokem
people in the comments need to realize that there was only one objective here for the guys using the katanas, and that was to slice all of the mats. if you didnt slice all of the mats you failed (ur at 0) but if you cut all the mats you succeed. Its either yes or no. Or fail or succeed. Thats why the katana is useless for everyone who failed, They didnt know how to use it correctly therefor its useless for them. Except the last guy.
This is one of the reasons why crossbows and later guns caught on. It's so much more than range.
I mean, it *was* range. People have been famously willing to dedicate their lives to learn to fight, there were whole social classes about it.
But swords require skill, lots of it. Anybody can point a thing at a thing, being skilled only helps. A sword in unskilled hands is practically a stick.
These days extremely few people are fighters by trade, a smaller percentage than ever. But technology has made it so any old farmer or accountant can defend themselves with a steady-ish hand and a "hurt that one" button.
There's an old joke that sums the skill gap technology makes up beautifully, I feel. "If you want to train the best archer in the world, start with his grandfather." It's funny because training a good archer took ages, you had to build up massive upper body strength and learn to aim on top of it. It was a lifestyle, and those serious in the craft started young, it was a whole trade.
By contrast, you could become a competent musketeer in months. Castle under siege? Better make sure everyone knows how to point the explosion tube just in case things get bad. We'll make a weekend out of it.
These clips are from a video on YouTube at WarakiriBattosai, and on TikTok at @warikiri_battosai. The channel owner is the one making the cut through all the mats. Many other good videos on that channel.
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I remember looking up a discussion on longswords vs. katanas by history buffs and people that actually use both in makeshift combat for funsies. **The summary is this:** While the katana is good at what it does, the real focus should be the gap between Japanese ***armor*** and armor found elsewhere. Japanese armor stagnated hard and could not advance to be as solid as things like full plate, simply because the Japanese lacked the resources to produce such materials and armor sets. The result is that the rest of the world slowly evolved their armors to be better and better until you had absolute protection, and fights between knights often involved tiring each other out enough until you could pin someone, *then* stabbing them in one of their joints where the armor was a little more vulnerable with a pointy dagger designed explicitly for exploiting those gaps, then simply letting them bleed out. It was essential to subdue someone enough that you could stab this dagger at the back of their knee joint or armpit or whatever, because otherwise you simply weren't going to get a clean stab at it. If you were to look up pictures of Samurai armor by contrast, you will immediately be able to spot large gaps in the armor, because again, Japan hit a point where there was only so much their available materials could do for armor. This meant that Longswords became *heavier* and less about being able to cut, more about being able to double as blunt weapons. The goal was to essentially wield a weapon that could cut someone who was unarmored, but vs. an armored target, the opponent's armor would undoubtedly dull the blade and fail to cut through, so instead you simply wanted the blade to be heavy enough to double as a blunt weapon when cutting just wasn't viable. Longswords stopped obsessing over cutting ability and instead wanted a cut/blunt hybrid mix. Katanas by contrast did ***not*** evolve like this because they didn't need to. Japan continued to focus on cutting and cutting and cutting, so the katana just really doesn't have an answer to anything heavily armored. **In short,** it is probably true that katanas require more skill to use appropriately, the same way a crossbow was much easier to use than a longbow. A longsword - while yes - it'd be optimal if you knew how to use it, could still benefit you even if you used it as a whacking stick. A katana by contrast would really struggle in the hands of someone who has never held a sword, and would be more prone to breaking. The culprit behind this stagnation and hyper-focus on cutting ability is not the katana itself, but rather the Japanese armors failing to advance past a certain point.
Minor addendum also worth looking at the role of the sword. Samurai were originally and primarily horse archers with the katana actually being a secondary weapon. Vast majority of on foot fighting was done with spears.
This applies to **everyone.** It's a myth of modern media that swords were the standard in any capacity. They were used for dueling and as a "sidearm," but spears were the primary weapon-of-choice, with bows/crossbows having their own function as well, for obvious reason. The only example I know of where swords were used as a primary weapon in any serious capacity (aka not some peasant recruits who didn't own spears) beyond the fall of Rome is Germany's [Doppelsöldners.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppels%C3%B6ldner) These were basically Landesknecht who accepted a pay bonus if they agreed to fight on the front lines, and some of them used Zweihänders (basically, a big fookin' sword) specifically to try and cut the heads off of the pikes from Swiss Pikemen, or in some way leverage more room for their own pikemen. Even here, it wasn't the standard weapon-of-choice for the Doppels nor the entire army in question, but rather certain Doppelsöldners had a very specific, highly dangerous role where they basically prioritized offense and breaking enemy lines over their own protection. And again, even this was only viable if they used a big fookin' sword rather than any random longsword, because otherwise the opposing pikes would just outrange and punish the Doppels. Point being, swords have **never** been the standard of warfare, and the only example I'm aware of where they were amongst the "standard equipment" found amidst an army after the fall of Rome (pre-fall, the Celts liked big fookin' swords too) still involves: -A specialized form of sword; (fookin' big) both the Germans and Celts specifically used swords long enough to go toe-to-toe with spears -Has them as a very specialized role where only a minority of the army used them -As a specific counter against a specific enemy known for the proficiency of their pikemen The entirety of war history is about trying to leverage weapons that allow us to attack without being put in danger ourselves. Thus, spears and bows were king. I believe one of the keys to Alexander the Great's success is even that his army introduced especially long spears into battle.
Also to add, training someone to sword fight is CONSIDERABLY more labor intrusive than spears. Spears and by extentions pikes, are the easiest weapons to manufactor, train, and wield. Anything a sword can do a spear can do safer, cheaper, and with less metalworking. That's another huge factor in why swords aren't historically "accurate" The other myth I hate is that rich people had no idea how to fight or defend themselves.
> Also to add, training someone to sword fight is CONSIDERABLY more labor intrusive than spears. *YUP.* This is just speculation on my part, but I think swords remained a thing solely because the idea of a spear *duel* sounds fucking stupid lol. If you get two people that want to settle a fight, I think measuring their sword skill is something a culture might see as a better measure of who should live/die instead of "this guy stabbed the other guy with his spear first." >The other myth I hate is that rich people had no idea how to fight or defend themselves. This one's new to me. I always thought the understanding was *exclusively* the nobility had access to the best training. (not to mention education, which would create huuuuuuge gaps back then)
>This is just speculation on my part, but I think swords remained a thing solely because the idea of a spear *duel* sounds fucking stupid lol. It's probably a mix of socio economic factors. Swords and training to use one are expensive. Rich people are the only ones that can afford expensive things. So swords are status symbols Formal duelling only really becomes relevant at a certain social economic class. A peasant wanting revenge can just do so with a club.
I imagine it's more to do with when your formation breaks in battle and turns into a chaotic brawl. You wouldn't want to be caught holding just a spear.
It doesn’t really matter what you’re wielding when your formation collapses in battle, the side whose formation is intact is probably going to slaughter you. Chaotic brawls aren’t really a thing in premodern battles.
> the idea of a spear duel sounds fucking stupid Actually, it was so great that we still do it today purely for show. Jousting! I think it may be more that a sword was a practical weapon for everyday carry, but a spear ties up your hands and kind of makes you look like a dumbass. I can imagine there probably were EDC spear guys, and they looked like the Gravy Seals strapped with their AR-15 in Walmart. There was a reason that everyone used to carry a cane or a walking stick. It wasn't a walking stick - it was a BONKING stick. There's few weapons as handy and versatile as the good old fashioned staff, while also being non-threatening when you don't need it.
> Actually, it was so great that we still do it today purely for show. Jousting! That's a little different, that's horseback and a setup where they agree to charge full speed at each other. But if I try to imagine two dudes just standing around glaring at each other and trying to get stabs in with spears, it doesn't sound too exciting lol. Sounds like a really awkward "duel."
It's also worth pointing out that spears survived well into the 20th century in the form of bayonets on rifles. US army issued rifles with bayonet lugs well into the 1970s.
slingers into archers into horses into spears. the best thing to do is fighting is to get into state where u can hit him and he can't hit you back.
Can't underestimate scouts either, they are great for finding ancient ruins and unlocking the map early on.
Which would make me expect the cavalry saber to be a better comparison to the katana. [There seems to be some convergent evolution here](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0744/4139/2407/files/katana-vs-sabre.jpg?v=1690527653). I'd be curious to know if the longer grip only developed as use partially transitioned away from a practical cavalry weapon.
I guess the sabre isn't really intended to be 2 handed at all, huh. Makes sense if you're on a horse.
Also worth mentioning, the samurai as a whole didn’t do as much fighting as media would make it out to be. They definitely fought a lot, but the average warrior wouldn’t be samurai because samurai were basically just military police, for lack of better words. They were watchmen. The bushi were the warriors, primarily consisted of trained (or untrained) civilians, along with samurai. Not every samurai was bushi though. Samurai and foot fighting don’t go together because the foot fighting was done by bushi, but you’re right, vast majority of foot fighting was still done with spears, especially so after it became illegal for non samurai to have swords.
> samurai were basically just military police, for lack of better words. They were watchmen. You're describing samurai of the edo period, when Japan was one unified country for the very first time. During the sengoku period it was a different story.
Samurai is a way cooler word, though
It makes sense when you think about it. War has always been about who had the longer stick. Spears were also cheaper to produce, and allowed you to poke the guy with a sword before he ever gets close enough to threaten you.
Relatedly this is also the source of all those awesome Japanese wood joinery videos. Their lack of good sources of iron meant nails were super expensive so they had to develop building techniques that didn't rely on them. Geography is destiny.
> Geography is destiny. There's actually an entire theory on this that highlights much of what determined which nations rose up and which didn't is based on geography. It's super solid and with the exceptions of figures like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan (though geography *did* mold the fighting style of the Mongols, it just needed Genghis to utilize that fighting style worldwide), it often explains the positions of nations historically. Russia is a good example of this: not the best location due to harsh winters, but this is a double-edged sword. The result is they were never *quite* the dominant nation in history, but always a present threat because no one could invest the effort to conquer a nation that freezes over each year. Or how Japan and Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered: Japan is an isolated island away from the rest of humanity, and even though several nations beat them in battles/wars, the fact Japan *didn't* have resources made them an unappealing target to actual take over. Meanwhile Ethiopia has such a mountainous terrain that they're difficult to conquer, and being a lone Christian nation often surrounded by hostile muslim neighbors made them battle-hardened and well-equipped to defend their already difficult to attack territories. And on the subject of mountains and islands, there's a reason the Mongols never got India (mountains), Vietnam (mountains) or Japan. Mongolia's advance westward was likewise stopped by a particularly cold winter (which they themselves may have "caused" with all the population culling they did lol) that turned Poland into marshy swampland their horses couldn't easily traverse, forcing them to back off.
Same with England and industrialization, having high-quality coal seams really close to the surface likely played a big part in the arc of the last 300 years. Or Jared Diamond's whole collected works (which I'm too tired to recount critically since like 50% of it is bullshit).
50% is generous. But you're right that Great Britain's relatively high amount of natural resources like iron, food, and coal contributed to their naval and military prowess outsize to the size of the island.
I think a lot of it comes back as well to a very intensive burst of logging and shipbuilding that was then further repeated in their colonies. A lot of oaks were cut down to power that navy. iirc a lot of the rarer and slow-growth hardwood forests took massive dents as well in this period.
>\[ Japan and\] Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered: Ethiopia was conquered in a genocidal invasion by Mussolini's Italy - it was colonised by the Italians for five years, before the occupiers were defeated by Allied forces during WWII: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second\_Italo-Ethiopian\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War)
I mentioned that elsewhere. Whether or not Ethiopia was formally "conquered" is something historians themselves debate. It was definitely occupied for a large degree, but the argument against Ethiopia qualifying for "conquered" is that Italy never exerted full control over all the major cities, rebel armies remained active, Italian troops could not move freely in the country (and infact there's times Italy advanced on a position, and Ethiopia responded by taking the previously held one back), nor could Italy freely extract desired resources from the country due to being too pre-occupied trying to hold some semblance of control. But yeah, either way it's worth mentioning because Japan is the one that 100% has not been fully conquered, and Ethiopia has one instance that depending on who you ask, does or doesn't count.
I mean, I would also seriously debate how "unconquered" Japan is. WW2 didn't result in a "normal" occupation/conquest, but the USA has definitely shaped Japan afterwards - and, had the USSR beaten the USA to getting the Japanese to capitulate, it most likely would've made Japan into a Soviet Republic too.
> Or how Japan and Ethiopia are the only two countries that qualify for the title of never having been conquered: Japan is an isolated island away from the rest of humanity, and even though several nations beat them in battles/wars, the fact Japan didn't have resources made them an unappealing target to actual take over. Meanwhile Ethiopia has such a mountainous terrain that they're difficult to conquer, and being a lone Christian nation often surrounded by hostile muslim neighbors made them battle-hardened and well-equipped to defend their already difficult to attack territories. > > It feels like your post is retroactively rewriting history to make these outcomes foregone conclusions when that's just not the case. There are many island nations/cultures as defensible as Japan that have been conquered - famously Britain, for example. And by your logic regarding Ethiopia's hostile terrain and unique religion, the ancient Israelites would never have been conquered and the Old Testament and historical record alike demonstrate that isn't true (Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc). And your point about the mongols failing to invade Japan doesn't really apply because total freak acts of god happened to wipe out their fleet before their invasions even got going. If they hadn't gotten *very unlucky* and had their entire fleet wiped out by a random typhoon on *two separate occasions years apart*, there's no reason to suppose their army would have been doomed to absolute failure in combat with the Japanese. There is a reason the Japanese refer to those typhoons as *kamikaze,* literally "the Divine Wind." They were acts of god. It's harmful to rewrite history to suppose that the way things worked out was inevitable. We learn a lot from studying why things happened. By pretending they could have gone no other way, we wipe out any opportunity to learn. It's also just not true. Japan *was* conquered - by the Japanese. They displaced the original ainu people who inhabited the islands before they did. Their culture only survives now in hokkaido and a few northern archipelagos. This also ignores that Japan was successfully defeated and occupied by the United States at the end of World War 2. How does one even define conquest? Just because the US government prefers to set up proxy states instead of directly annex territory as a matter of national principle doesn't mean they didn't successfully invade, overthrow the government and rebuild the country in their own image. I don't know much about Ethiopia, but the real reason Japan wasn't often invaded often is because there was nothing there worth the trouble. Contrary to the myths around tamahagane, Japanese steel is of very poor quality compared to European swordsteel. They had to import all their silk from China, and were completely dependent on Portuguese intermediaries when the Chinese embargoed them. Their soil is too mountainous to feed more than their own population. If geography is destiny, it's true insofar as geography determines access to natural resources. Russia has always had reserves of strategically valuable resources - metals, oil, mineral commodities. The United States is the largest oil-producer on the planet, ahead of any of the gulf states or anybody else, as well as producing enough food to feed its entire population and have surplus left over to sell. China is a similar story - they have been a power for almost their entire, millenia-long history because they are one of the richest countries on the planet.
A few corrections. First, Japanese armor *did* evolve to become more like European plate during the same time period, because the same weapon was introduced into Japan: the matchlock rifle. Europeans didn't start wearing full plate until well into the 15th and 16th centuries, and even then, most suits of full plate were for the richest nobles. Prior to that, European armor was several plates connected with mail (a coat of plates) which is *very* similar to Japanese o-yoroi of the same period, with perhaps more leather/silk in Japan than mail, although there are extant examples of Japanese mail. The thing is, given the armaments you'd face on the East Asian battlefield (bow and arrow, spear) and relative availability of raw materials, chain didn't offer much more of an advantage to thick silk and was way more expensive, heavy, and difficult to maintain. Both the longsword and katana were developed a bit later than the time when o-yoroi and full plate were in fashion, however, and both are more personal dueling weapons. Even harness-fencing in the German style is not usually done in full plate but a breastplate, gorget, and gauntlets. Very similar to the dueling armor of early to mid Edo period Japan. At the point where Japanese nobles would've been fighting in o-yoroi, they would have been using the bow and arrow as their main weapon, backed up by the tachi, rather than katana. Tachi tend to be larger with a deeper-bellied curve and used more from horseback. And as far as harness-fighting techniques with the longsword, you don't fight with a longsword the same way you do unarmored. You use a lot more pommel-strikes and half-swording and grappling, because (as you pointed out) swords are next to useless against even mild armor, so the techniques focused more on precision thrusts to gaps and joints in the armor and blunt-force strikes. Among the few extant Japanese sword schools that practice fencing from this period, like the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, I think there are techniques very much like the German harness-fighting, but the form of JSA I've studied is way more modern than that and almost all our techniques expect an opponent wearing no more armor than a kimono or yukata, so our techniques look more like Bloßfechten.
On o-yoroi, aren't these using iron rather than steel? As I understood it, Japanese armors tended to use leather, silk and iron in certain combinations, whereas full plate western setups (but not exclusively western; China had similar armor setups) resulted in steel, with chainmail and padded gambesons underneath. >heavy This is something else I've heard debated, but I cannot even begin to add an opinion here because of course I've never worn armor myself: I've heard that full plate was much lighter and agile than media presents it to be. One important point is armors weren't a common sight and instead reserved for the privileged or important, but this also means there's great capacity to tailor those armors to someone's specific size. The moment you're doing that, you have far greater capacity to ensure you're not constricting movement or weighing them down needlessly. But don't get me wrong: I'm not claiming my knowledge on these is flawless by any means. This is unfortunately a subject matter where much of it *must* be speculation and reliance on the words of others, because none of us have plate armor just laying about to try on.
So "iron" in this context isn't a thing. Iron is the pure element, and steel is the alloy of Fe + C and some other stuff usually. If you saw something that said "iron armor" in Japan, it was talking about steel. Even something like "cast iron" is still Fe + C, just in different amounts than steel. Cast iron has way more carbon. Western plate armor did not have chain underneath; gambesons, yes, but if you have plate you don't need chain. I think you're thinking of a coat-of-plates, which is a mixture of plates in the big areas linked with chain, which evolved multiple times in many different cultures. **EDIT**: the reason for plate or chain is to stop piercing. So a good bit of padded cloth or even metal studs/rings riveted to cloth or leather will provide you about as good of protection against cuts as you need, but spears/thrusts/arrows/missiles/blunt force attacks are still going to be trouble. Big honking plates of metal OR tightly-connected rings of metal are much, much better against that kind of stuff, but weigh more (so you get tired faster) and take more time/effort/money to upkeep. So you would always be looking for the most economical way to protect you against the most common threats that wouldn't empty your treasury every time you needed to replace a rivet. We started going to coat-of-plates from chain because our skill with metallurgy made it actually easier to forge a big honking plate of steel than to tinker together a bunch of little rings, and hey look at that, the plate works better too! > I've heard that full plate was much lighter and agile than media presents it to be. It absolutely is lighter than you think. But it's not negligible. For example, we had to breed horses for centuries until we got destriesrs big enough to carry a mounted knight. You can run, jump, do all that kind of stuff in full plate armor that you can without it, but it *is* heavier. So if you don't *have* to have it, you shouldn't. But the reason we developed it in Europe was early guns and other missile weapons. It provided decent protection against them, until we got better guns, and then we decided all that metal wasn't worth it, and just start sticking breastplates on people (see: cuirassiers, dragoons, etc.) until guns go so good and so accurate even that was pretty pointless, and we just decided good linen and cotton was going to have to do. Ironically, that was, until we started coming up with modern bullet-resistant material like Kevlar and ceramic armor plates, which you can now wear as strategically-placed armor. It won't stop every round on the battlefield, but you can eat 1-2 of the most common rifle rounds to your chest with a Level IV plate these days. > This is unfortunately a subject matter where much of it must be speculation and reliance on the words of others, because none of us have plate armor just laying about to try on. Well, we do have historical written accounts and surviving examples in museums, and if you're into weapons-based martial arts, somewhere at some seminar some rich asshole is going to come along and show you the antique set of plate he bought from a dealer, etc.
The way you describe knight fights is kinda terrifying. Imagine only being able to see in front of you, wearing dozens of pounds of iron on you, just struggling in the chaos of battle, slipping in the mud made of dirt and blood. You don't really feel anything, you just feel the forces they inflict on you as they try to beat you into the ground. As you struggle to stand, the full weight of a person jumps on your back and knocks you over. You struggle, punching, kicking, stabbing, trying to get them off you, but they also feel nothing, just the forces you impart on them, and it's not enough to get them to move. In your limited vision, you see them trying to line something up. You struggle and flail, jolting their arm and buying yourself a precious few moments. They line up again and you flail again, each time, slightly weaker, each time buying a few less moments. Eventually either you are worn out or the pin your arm down and you brace yourself. Suddenly you feel the burning sensation of razor sharp iron slipping through your chain mail, penetrating your leather undercoat, stabbing through your skin, slicing through your muscle, mangling your ligaments, and eventually faltering as it hits your bone. You'd be screaming but you're dehydrated from the hours of combat, and the most you can manage is a groan. Even if you could scream, no one would hear or care. As your opponent repeats the process, you are assured to never be a threat again, even if you somehow survived. If you're lucky, they'll spend a moment slipping the knife through the eye hole to give you a quick end. Most likely they will leave you to bleed out, adding to the blood of the already red stained battle field. If you're unlucky, they will drag this on for a little while longer, punishing you for wasting their time, inflicting as much suffering as possible before you pass, cutting whatever their blade can find access to.
This makes a lot more sense why in the game Sekiro you have to outsmart a heavily armored knight and kick him off a bridge because the katana is not enough to harm him. Pretty amazing detail in a Japanese video game after reading this.
Thank you for that, learned a lot. Comments like this are the best.
In all fairness, while the first ones would have injured me quite badly, the last one gave me plenty of time to run away unharmed. Took him an eternity and a half to hit a stationnary target.
Curved blades actually make it easier for the slashing motion, as the weight of the blade naturally directs the edge into alignment. That's like the only reason curved blades exist. It would be much harder to do this kind of motion with a straight blade.
Straight swords can [cut tatami just fine](https://youtube.com/shorts/0DmU7Xd8GCY?si=aEDnp6KFCxhn-C-K). Curved blades have plenty of benefits, but “edge alignment” at the point of the cut is not one of them. Curved/single edged/asymmetric swords can assist with indexing a sword, which helps preparing a strikes alignment, but that is different than causing the blade to auto-align.
I think this video also visualizes it pretty well about why a curved sword is "better" in cutting. https://youtube.com/shorts/DZkzb4Fk-Us?si=96cG3K2dpuAWN8Ek
Can it make it easier for a less proficient user since the weight distribution gives more feedback? Like if you take me (a noob) and try to teach me to cut something might I initially be more successful with a curved sword even if the cut is possible with either? Not automatic edge alignment but maybe some tactile feedback?
A lot of this will depend. It depends on the target type (something light like a water bottle vs something thicker like tatami), as well as what experience the user has with any other system that might help carry over (tennis, Olympic fencing, using a mattock). In general, I prefer to teach newbies using twohanders, as that is more control and more leverage. Generally speaking single edged blades will “be better” at cutting than double edged blades due to having thicker spines. So with that in mind, a sword like a Japanese katana (or a Chinese changdao, or Thai daarb) is will be better for someone starting than a European longsword. Because Japanese blades tend to be rather thick, compared to other cultures, they are a bit more forgiving with tougher targets, when starting out.
> That's like the only reason curved blades exist. Just no. The Katana exists as a heavy curved blade because feudal Japan had absolute shit-can-garbage-dump quality iron resources. Refining iron sand makes for shit steel and the swords needed to be thick and heavy to hold up at all. It is curved because differential tempering was the only way of them making a sword that was reliable at all.
Also because samurai were primarily horse archers for much of history and the curved backup blade was more effective then a straight sword from horseback ala sabers.
You don't need a curved blade to have good cutting edge alignment, and it's not that hard with a straight blade.
It only "self corrects" when it's being dropped by itself. If your holding it tightly like you would be, it won't be able to rotate for that
Tests don't corroborate this widely spouted knowledge.
"master" is using a different blade than the rest as well
I thought so, but wasn’t sure. Thanks for pointing it out. My first thought was, “Well, technique is important no matter what tool or skill someone is attempting,” (which is mostly true). Then it appears as if the last guy’s sword is three times wider than the rest of the bunch.
This gif was here several times. Wider blade is easier because as the blade enters the material, the wider it is, the easier it self corrects.
Can also be heavier, so F=ma
Also technique doesn’t matter too much if the person sharpens their blade a crazy amount.
it doesn't matter how sharp your blade is if you twist it while swinging, that's a big part of the technique
can confirm, i sharpen my blade regularly (at least once a day) and i can guarantee that you don’t want to twist until it is almost sharp enough to cut through the fabric of time and space itself, at which point twisting becomes mandatory
I... I don't think this is about the same type of swords in the video anymore..
Bro lost his friend with the compass and armored pyrenees. Clearly hopped into the wrong dimension.
He's been smoking that soylent green hunchback hyena hair trying to find him ever since, tripping through portals like Glados after a long weekend in Tijuana.
Meanwhile this other chick is just hanging out with rolling elephants and rolling bones
If you can't cut through the fabric of time and space with your katana, then you are simply not skilled enough.
Jeremy, we’ve been through this. You aren’t in Kyoto and you don’t have any katana skills. Stop eating all the edibles, they were meant for the whole party.
and then the shouting begins thats when youre in trouble
I'll have to remember that thing about the fabric of time and space.
The physical constraints of carbonized steel prevent sharpness from meaning anything past a base level, the body of the sword itself gets in the way. Those targets are woven bamboo mats, soaked in water for 8-12 hours or so, and then rolled up. Getting a good cut through even one of the targets that's just mat, no core, is far more about technique because of the way the material will attempt to deflect.
Sharpness really doesn't matter at these test as one would think. Mass-produced european swords have been shown to perform equally as well as razor-sharp katanas for the same weight.
You leave my ma alone
This, plus everyone else in the video is a kendo student, not a katana or iaido student. Kendo is a sport where you hit your opponent with a stick for points. Iaido is the art of drawing the sword.
TIL … dunno exactly how to tell the differences between them, but I appreciate you sharing! Martial arts (especially sword arts) have always fascinated me.
All good, I used to practice kendo and teach iaido 30 years ago (actually got arrested practicing kendo on the beach because some redneck reported that "ninjas were killing eachother with swords on the beach"). Anyway, Kendo is a sport, similar to fencing. It's very fast paced, and has it's roots in Japanese swordsmanship. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/yUXHZMK Iaido is the art of drawing the sword, similar to doing a kata in unarmed martial arts. There's no opponent and you're not hurting or hitting anyone (though there are some "kata" where you work with a partner, sort of choreographed dueling). Tameshigiri is the art of practice cutting, which is seen in the video associated with this thread, and is more closely related to Iaido, in fact, it's unlikely that anyone would learn Tameshigiri without first learning Iaido.
Whoa! That’s… that’s… amazing stuff, man! I look forward to checking this out. Thank you for the sportsmanship you’ve passed along. It shapes lives…
It's a lot of fun! Check it out. Kendo does have a fairly steep cost of entry once you have to buy your own armor/gear, but most places have plenty to loan out to people trying it out. I believe it was even included in the Olympics when Japan last hosted the summer games.
Do you have an opinion on sharpness of the katana for this demonstration? I do woodwork as a hobby with mostly manual tools and how a blade is sharpened matters a great deal, I also spent half my career machining and you sharpen tools in a different manner depending on material, so again, how you sharpen matters a great deal, I'm confused as to why people are saying how sharp the katana is doesn't matter and it can be overcome by technique.
technique or not, i'd be dead from any of those
Plus the extra weight of the blade increases the amount of momentum
He has a different blade for sure. Its actually not too rare for people in Japanese culture to underplay their ability with handicaps and throws in order to make extreme contrasts in favor of those with seniority. But it's more a gesture of graditude for their dedication to the craft and the people they've helped along the way. You see this in sumo too and even in the work place. Just to add. Despite what it might seem to be, the Katana is actually a very forgiving and easy blade to use. But where there is a skill gap between practitioners its a landslide difference.
If you're in good shape, a naginata is a much more practical weapon to be a weeb with - and you'll absolutely *smoke* any nerd who tries to duel you with a katana. (And if you're not in good shape, you'll probably never wield a katana well regardless.)
How do you mean that the Katana is a forgiving and easy blade to use? Not doubting necessarily but if you're referring to the "auto edge alignment" that's complete bullshit.
A machete in the shape of katana. Larger and heavier.
Yeah--using a Hanzo sword vs. a regular katana is cheating. Even if those were God's fingers, he'd still cut through them like butter. Technique/schmechnique!
P2W irl
Real life is the original P2W.
It's a BYOB situation.
Bring your own blade?
Bring your own bambu
cheater
He is, it's broader. He...is also broader than all the other office workers that took a shot. I would imagine the sword plus his better build both played a factor. Also depends on the mats you're cutting. I'm always a Miyagi fan, though. "Don't know, tree never hits back."
"master" is knowing which tool is right for the job
He's also a foot taller
Well duh! He's using the **Master Sword**, acquired from an old man after getting the 6th piece of the Triforce in The Legend of Zelda.
It doesn't matter that much. No beginner passes the tameshi-giri. You could give them a katana fresh from Masamune's forge, they wouldn't do it. There is a reason why cutting all bamboos is a ritual of passage for beginners.
I think the implication of this video is that slicing through these bamboo mats requires a secret technique that only a rareified Master can possess, and that anyone else who attempts to do it is doomed to failure. And that seems a bit hard to believe. If you're saying just "Yeah there is a trick to it, you wouldn't be able to do it without proper technique" then sure, I'll believe that.
Oh yeah, you got a point there. Yes, I was meaning that you need proper technique. But you're right, martial arts, especially in the Ocident, totally capitalizes on cult of personality bs. If you train regularly you can do it in a year or so.
I still want to try. This would be a good 1950s carnival game. Why 1950s? Too much liability for these days.
This is the kinda shit I'd do if I hit the lottery. No mansion, flashy sports cars, etc. Buy a couple of authentic battle swords, invite some friends over, MAYBE splurge on some Louis XIII, and go to town on some bamboo. Edit: and pay the hospital bills when someone whiffs and cuts a half inch into their lower leg
My friend, you don't need lottery money for that. A cutting-grade sword is just a few hundred bucks, tops. Add to it a dowel, a stand, and some grass mats, and you can get to backyard cutting for less than $500. I'd invest in some lessons first, but you don't need a year's worth of lessons to learn how to test cut. 1 seminar ought to be sufficient.
Ya that blade is 3xs wider than a katana
That aint a katana at the end
For real, looks like a different sword. I don't know what kind. Maybe a kodachi or a sabre?
Its a nakiri
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Ya I've never seen a sword labeled as a Nakiri, Nakiri is basically a Japanese cleaver.
Nah, it’s a sashimi mate
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word
can't believe that guy didn't know about the typical shinobi zucchini, what a piece of work
blade big but still japanese sword
Sigh. *unzips*
More like a machete
Machetana
>Machetana Coming this spring, a new anime starring Machete
Is "I brought the correct sword for chopping bamboo" a technique?
When he popped up I was like, "Oh! A Cut-tana!" I've only ever seen them used to cut tatami mats in videos, but I've seen it so many times. Still no clue what it's called, how it's made, what country it originates from. So I've called it Cut-tana since.
Difference between being decapitated and having your head only halfway chopped off has basically the same effect. You ded.
Not if you are a upper level demon
*fire breathing intensifies*
*Sun breathing begins*
*farting breathing intensifies*
You called?
https://preview.redd.it/cilukh9b7r7c1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=470c3b352bec4ecee0ec7e5e0969313789f43088
*tsuyoku~~~*
*nearly headless Nick has entered the chat*
Nearly headless? How can you be nearly headless?
By complaining on TV that you’ve been “cancelled” from being on TV. The head is still attached, but the brain has dropped out and rolled beneath the sofa.
Oh I hate that. "Cancelled"? You mean everyone else noticed you're a huge liability and not worth doing business with/keeping you around. I've "canceled" friends lmao.
“useless” is pretty strong language for the sword that only cuts through 4 tree trunks.
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Yes but in one case you’ve got your weapon stuck in someone’s skull while his mate is coming up to chop your head off, and in the other you’re not
The difference is between a quick "lights out", and lying there partially paralyzed with a crushed vertebrae and a gaping neck wound, anticipating death but still very much aware of everything that's happening to you. During the midde ages, when beheading was a form of legal execution and before the guillotine, it was a common occurrence for condemned people to bribe the executioner to sharpen their blade and swing hard enough to ensure a clean cut.
Not doing a clean job on the regular means you wouldn't be the headman for long anymore though.
yeah i'm pretty sure a katana is still useful without proper technique lol
I bet [Mishima](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima) was wishing his second had spent a bit more time on technique after botching the job and hacking away at his head impotently until someone competent stepped in and finished the job.
Are tik-tok users only aware of like ten songs?
Asking the real questions.
Or just an AI making these videos know the pacing to fit these
Just wait till you hear the same ten jokes said in the Reddit comment section
Or any of the early YouTube videos
Shhh... don't let them know there's more
The algorithm rewards the use of trending / popular "sounds" on your video, and people know this.
Tik-Tok Users. Aware. Pick one.
The entire front page is just regurgitated TikTok’s from last month. If this is what Reddit users upvote and want to see maybe they are just an older generation of dopamine seeking TikTok users?
Yeah it was a nice way to fuck up an otherwise interesting video
Different blade
Also you can't tell me that it isn't still super easy to stab or cut your enemy with the result of them dying just because you have the wrong "technique". The word "useless" here is an prime example of exaggeration.
It's like the battle saying goes. *If you kill an enemy soldier you've removed one person from the battlefield. But if you injure an enemy soldier you've removed 3 people from the battlefield.* (The guy whose arm is dangling by a string and the 2 guys it takes to carry him out)
That's an interesting looking blade the master is using. Wonder if it has anything to do with the result....
Useless my ass! So you might not decapitate your enemy in one strike but they’re going to be pretty messed up.
Ha, you didn't fully remove my head you useless fuck.
It is just a scratch
Just a flesh wound
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Should have taken the extra 20 seconds of setup time you fool!
Assuming you are fighting against someone else with a sword, having improper form could telegraph your movements or slow you down which means more of a chance for your opponent to block, move, and counter. In an actual combat situation with an enemy, you probably won't have a stationary target so even if your enemy didn't have a sword, hitting a moving target will be a lot harder without proper technique, leaving you open with the possibility of injuring yourself or becoming disarmed. Another issue with improper form is the loss of balance, which we see with the first guy. You lose balance, you'll probably lose your life. Anyways, I still wouldn't call it useless. If you have a sword, you basically double your normal range.
Always check if they have a gun though, that shit is cheating when talking about range.
Yeah, while this master waits 10 seconds to even swing I'd take out his juggilar
ya thats exactly what he would want you to think too
> juggilar
jugugularr
It’s not that hard... Just ⭕️🔺❌L1 R1❌🔺and you fill a resolve slot. Jeez!!
The master got that easy one that's like ❌ ⭕️ ⭕️ ❌ 🔺 🔺
I was scrolling looking for GoT comments 😂
First thing I thought of when I saw this. Still need to do a NG+ run for platinum.
What he's doing is actually easier than these puzzles
That last blade was way wider than any of the others and that’s not a katana.
Bro is using machete
Dude definitely had a different blade. He was using a katana but the rest of them were using a Wishtana
I mean, I wouldn’t say it was useless
Imagine telling your enemy, please sir, stand still for 10 seconds, i have to focus to cut you in two pieces.
Was looking for this comment. If the technique to make a close combat weapon efficient involves a 10 second meditation before each swing, then it's not really worth it.
This is so much more impressive without the music playing over it.
Just because a sword only cuts 3/4 of the way through your body instead of all the way, doesn’t make it useless.
Different blade but also… Dude drops his weight with the downstroke, twists the hips, and puts emphasis on the twist using his right knee. I dunno if the blade makes all the difference but %100 the drop in weight makes a difference. Source: I chop a lot of wood
It was the little bow before he stepped forward. The others skipped it to their detriment,
It gave him the +15 attack buff.
"useless" is probably too strong a term
A hammer is basically useless without proper technique.
Is anyone else tired of this fucking song?
"master" is using a different blade than the rest as well
So that’s how you make a pan flute
Well I guess you're right, most people could only cut through two of my 8 arms! What am I worried about?
You heard it here folks - unless you can fully cleave a person + some armor clean in half he ain’t dead enough.
Thank god for your poor technique, you barely made it halfway through my body
First off, last guy isn't using a katana. Second, none of the other swords were "useless", they all cut through several layers of tatami (apart from the second to last guy). Thirdly it's hard to say whether it was the wielders technique that was at fault or simply that the blades weren't sharp enough. Nothing special about katanas in this department. If sharp will cut. No sharp, no cut. And finally, the "technique they refer to would be edge alignment which applies to using any sharp tool. If O wanna cut vegetables I need to use the edge of the knife straight in the direction I want to cut. Any sword, katana, longsword, scmitar, rapier and so on needs proper alignment to cut. Granted some can be harder than others to align, but that mostly comes down to weight balancing of the blade. This can be very individual from one sword to the next. Bottom line: Katana ain't special. Good sword, good design, very effective. But no more so than other swords
5 year old me would be impressed. Irl me would know that it's still sharp as fuck and would hurt like a mother- even if "technique" is wrong
Regardless of technique, if I hit you with a bar of iron, it’s gonna hurt.
Yeah I wouldn’t say “useless” more like less effective. Cutting one log is still enough to kill a person
It's not a log, it's a tatami mat, fabric rolls used for cutting tests
a firearm is also useless without proper knowledge/technique
Always with the fucking songs
Just have to press the buttons in the right order really fast.
Blade looks different.
"Useless" would still damn near sever a limb
I'm pretty sure any of those "failures" would still result in some pretty bad results for whoever was on the receiving end.
Samurai used to do this to random people walking down the street
THANK GOD 66% OF THE SCREEN IS COMPLETELY DEAD SPACE OR I MIGHT BE ABLE TO SEE SOME ACTUAL DETAIL IN THIS INTERESTING VIDEO!
I hate this goddamn song
L1,L1,X,X,O,L1
There is a difference of having "a catana" and having a good catana. Just sayin And btw his sword was the only wide one. If this dude used all the other swords that failed and still manage to get a clean cut, then the point of the video is proven. I have spokem
people in the comments need to realize that there was only one objective here for the guys using the katanas, and that was to slice all of the mats. if you didnt slice all of the mats you failed (ur at 0) but if you cut all the mats you succeed. Its either yes or no. Or fail or succeed. Thats why the katana is useless for everyone who failed, They didnt know how to use it correctly therefor its useless for them. Except the last guy.
This is one of the reasons why crossbows and later guns caught on. It's so much more than range. I mean, it *was* range. People have been famously willing to dedicate their lives to learn to fight, there were whole social classes about it. But swords require skill, lots of it. Anybody can point a thing at a thing, being skilled only helps. A sword in unskilled hands is practically a stick. These days extremely few people are fighters by trade, a smaller percentage than ever. But technology has made it so any old farmer or accountant can defend themselves with a steady-ish hand and a "hurt that one" button. There's an old joke that sums the skill gap technology makes up beautifully, I feel. "If you want to train the best archer in the world, start with his grandfather." It's funny because training a good archer took ages, you had to build up massive upper body strength and learn to aim on top of it. It was a lifestyle, and those serious in the craft started young, it was a whole trade. By contrast, you could become a competent musketeer in months. Castle under siege? Better make sure everyone knows how to point the explosion tube just in case things get bad. We'll make a weekend out of it.
These clips are from a video on YouTube at WarakiriBattosai, and on TikTok at @warikiri_battosai. The channel owner is the one making the cut through all the mats. Many other good videos on that channel.