Exictednuke said:
a weapon that can cut multiple people in half.
[small]You are drowning in hype, mate...[/small]
OT: Screw Japanese impractical butterknives. An European medieval longsword, 1450s, German steel, blade crafted in Munich, hilt and pommel from Milan. German steel of the period was much harder and better quality than any other, and when the European sword crafting was at its peak, a longsword was not only more practical than any other sword, but also more durable (and easier to repair) and most of all the deadliest. This in combination of traditional European martial arts, which
are just like eastern ones, except they're designed purely to kill, without any ceremonies or rules, and the best personal protection humankind has ever produced -15th century plate armours- makes up for the most prominent close combat killing machine of all time.
Japanese swords are something that get hyped about as much as the AK 47 and German WW2 weapons combined. It's a shame, really, since they are not any better than their western counterparts. The idea "a katana will cut a western sword in two" is bogus, based on a presentation held to Dutch merchants in the 16 hundreds in Japan, where a local samurai smashed a Dutch sailor's knife. When put head to head, a katana is the first one to snap against a bastard sword. All the hype about how Japanese master smiths spending months with swords are true, but not for the reason you want to think: Japanese steel was very poor, so they had to spend a long time refining the material. And the anti-hype towards European swords in much due to the rubbish quality replicas you see around today, and of course people who think European swords have just been pieces of blunt iron used to pummel others. Well no. Italian master craftsmen, too, used months forging a single blade, creating some of the most sophisticated swords of all time.
As for the martial arts, the "barbaric and stupid Europeans who only used brute force" developed martial arts equal to those of the far east, with uncanny similarities to kendo and others. Italian "maestro" has the exact same linguistic meaning as "sensei". The same techniques were developed in two places, separate from each other. Some might know Miyamoto Musashi, arguably Japan's most famous Rōnin. Well, Europe had a guy just like him: Johannes Liechtenauer. If these two had clashed in a duel, I wouldn't know who'd win.
Some extra reading:
http://www.chivalrybookshelf.com/titles/ringeck/ringeck.htm
http://www.thearma.org/essays/TopMyths.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Liechtenauer
http://www.mbdojo.com/stances/kenjutsustances.html <
chudan-no-kamae, hasso-no-kamae, gedan-no-kamae and
kasumi-no-kamae known in Europe as
Pflug, vom Tag, Alber and
Ochs
