Samurai Swords

[Ronin-K]

Does anybody else OWN a daisho? I do. I wonder if Stan does.

[estee]

Nope.

[Ronin-K]

Well, I'm not expecting many people to, because they seem kind of useless. I keep mine on the stand in my room for decoration.

[Stan Sakai]

I have a katana, that I keep in the garage somewhere. It's an old blade that's been handled quite a bit so there are fingerprints on it, the lacing is undone, the sharkskin on the handle is ripped, and the handle is loose. I got it as a gift from an older friend before he passed away about 15 years ago.

I don't have a daisho, though.

[Leonardo-san]

I have two iato, one a heavier blade, one a lighter blade for my iajutsu training. I usually take the lighter one to class, but will also train at home with the heavier one. They're both katana, and they don't match, so they're not daisho.
They have the same type of fittings a 'live blade' would have, in other words, not the nylon and fake sharkskin stuff seen on most replica and display blades sold in the USA. As mentioned, the blades are not 'live' edges, and are meant for repeated drawing practice. They're much better built than a display blade, but certainly would never hold up like a well-made live blade if you had to use them for real.

[Todd Shogun]

I've got a daisho that I've had since I started reading UY and other japanese samurai-ninja-inspired comics. I started collecting all sorts of weaponry...shinobikatanas, tantos, tachi, jutte, nuchaku, sai, bo staffs, bokken, shuriken, and a nodachi, among other cool stuff.

[Ronin-K]

My daisho was bought by my father in Japan in 1996, and I'm pretty sure it has real sharkskin on it. What is a shinobikatana? I'm assuming it's a kind of katana ninja used.

[Todd Shogun]

Yes, a shinobikatana is a katana that ninjas used. It's blade is straight,not curved like a samurai's blade. Although the length of a shinobikatana varied, it was also typically shorter, enabling usage in tight locations. In the last issue, Usagi used one to kill Shizukiri.

[MikeM]

Isn't a shinobikatana more commonly referred to as a ninja-to?

MikeM

[Todd Shogun]

Yep, ninjatō or ninjaken. Wikipedia has an interesting mini-article on them. I was surprised by this paragraph:

Modern ninjato are often straight with a square tsuba (hand guard), but this is not historically accurate. According to the same book by Masaaki Hatsumi, the ninja ken was straight, but only in contrast to the average sword of the period which were much more curved. The ninja ken still had a slight curve to the sword. Hatsumi says that they were often straight bars of low-quality steel with an edge ground on to them. According to other sources, some of the sword being forged during the Tokugawa era also had blades with less curvature than others. This was also the period during which the mythology of the ninja grew as they were employed by the Shogun as secret police.

[Ronin-K]

Did all ninjato have a a wooden sheath that hid it, like the kind Chizu uses sometimes?

[Todd Shogun]

My guess would be no...only if the ninja were working undercover (in a disguise) to conceal the weapon. Otherwise, they would have a tsuba. I think it largely depends on what type of job the ninja would be doing.

[Ronin-K]

It says that replicas that have a square tsuba are not accurate. Does that mean they were most commonly circle shaped?

[Rabbit Ronin]

I own a daisho. The katana was around 600$ and the wakizashi around 300$. theere goes my college fund. just joking. i had to work for a for a few months to pay them off.

[buslady]

I wouldnt mind daisho to display. i almsot took Iaido years and year ago but I never did. I wish I could learn Saijutsu though! haha I do got two pair of cheapo zai!