Katana's suck it.

Also some after shock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1x8gsXg8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X010NRiFbI

I know of a certain collection of roleplayers on a certain forum who could benefit quite a bit from the first video. Granted, that assumes this particular group would listed to said video which is a long shot to say the least. Good find, Tony.

Thank you kindly.

I only have this to say.
1

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Katanas aren't good as others make it out to be" bullshit that's going on in the sword community right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.
Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

That's all, kids!

Who the hell tests their Katana's blade on solid slabs of steel?! That's an excellent way to ruin the blade of any weapon, regardless of where it originated or how it was forged.


The guy who did that is a freaking moron.

And welcome katana cultist 101. Besides that the re reason why europe never tried to conquet japan was mainly the ridiculous task of moving an army into comoletely unknown lands ( and yes they were very unknown the asian countries liked the isolationist policies.) The katana in no way svared off these so called clumsy knights swinging around dull metal bars. In fact the katana was an extremely rare luxuary reserved ono for tge nobility. It wasnt going to be usedn mass like ever. the peasentry, main fighting force would onoy dream of touching them. The katanas main usecame from one on one dueling and cutting downed rebellious peasants. Even the metal of the katana isnt actually forged better. just different. its made to maintain a sharp edge for longer and flaw less easily. However when it did flaw, it frikimg flawed. And it was NOT easy to fix. The euopean longsword was forged with blister steel. they called it that becauze the steel was wrapped in clay at one point durin the carbonation process, and when it came out it looked like it blistered. the blades made from this were softer metal and while they wouldnt maintain an completely sharp edge(and i dont mean to say they were dull just not shaving sharp. the only dull part of any sword would have been the strong of the sword and even there you could still do some cutting if you wanted. Though odds are you were using that for defense. ) however, even though this sword would perhaps flaw or break faster when it broke it wasnt jearly as serious. and you could fix it pretty easily. Over all It was less likelu to shatter than the katana but more likel to flaw.

In fact if you want to get technical we could start talking about 13th century longswords. which we know little about, as the survivng long swords are kept mainly in musuems and are unable to be tested or their make. Sonwe dont k ownof they were forged lioe the katana with hard edges and a softer body. But from what we speculate, they could be. Esoecially if you take in to consderation the sword maker of the richest of the rich. Oft berk. Whos swords easily rivaled anything else in the world even earlier on. Now while there are some supposed "duds" in this collection of survivng swords. This has been proven false, and we see that thrse swords were actually so good that counterfitters were makng them in many plCes and putting an innacurate synbol on them. Now in terms of fighting style the martial arts of both natuons was honestly relatively similar. the main changes come from fighting dfferent kinds of armor. like i japan they dint have chain orate or scale neccesarily. But in europe they learned how to fight against these things. Now im not an ar.or expert and tbose are just examples but i do know that they are very different. And to be honest tge fighting would probably come down to personal fitness and skill. Which if you ask me, would go to theknight. As the samurai were actually most feared for thei use of the yumi bow rather than the sword. The knights occasionally used a cross but mainly it came down to halberds maces like the morning star, flails, broadswords, somtimes a hammer to. waaaaay more melee. Thats simply what the knight valued more. The archery was mainly left to the common folk, english longbowmen. As opposed to the samurai who considered it A nobbles pursuit. So really all in all. Lets not just be fan boys about this. And do our realy historical research.

Now if you want to talk about armor. Lets talk about armo. katanas and longswords alike. dont cut through olate. this isnt like the moves where solid steel chain and leather are strong as butter. there is a certain density that becomes to much. In fact the katana is one of the worst swords to use fighting against plate mail. simply becuase its curved. a curved blade slashes better becuase theres less surface areA conecting to the target. Conversly it has little to no thrusting power. whoch is essentiL for figting plate. This is one of te main reasons why half swording was so popular in duals between knights. they needed the accuracy i order to find the chinks in their enemies armor. becuaze like i said. no sword gets through that. Niw the longsword once again is at an advatange when fighting against plate. Because you van use the cross bar which is quite hefty as a makeshift mace or hammer. A man with strong gloves or even a trained bar handed man could grab the wordby the blade and pretty rigorously fight his enemy while gripping the balde of his sword. However in all honesty if i had to choose a weapon to fight a man in plate it would never be a sword. it would be a mace or a hammer. maybe flail or morning star. thats your best route. Melee wise of course.

I want to thank Roy for saving me the trouble of typing all that up.

Anything for you meahbs Also As you can tell this was on my phone so my apologies for the spellig.