Not my cup of tea- but should get a good laugh if nothing else. . . .

For our Japanese sword fans PBS is doing special tonight on the. . . . . DRUM ROLL PLEASE. . . .
Samurai sword.

Facinating (cynicism abounds)

Actually their website makes it look ok. Several weird statements (a Gassan Sadatoshi blade will sell for tens, not hundreds, of thousands of dollars - why exaggerate? And "defects make metal stronger?" That's an awkward way to talk about work hardening), but mixed in with some better-than-average-TV-special info and footage. I might check it out just to see how well (or poorly) it's done.

Hi Torsten, thanks for the explanation.

I just finished watching this on HD. It was mediocre. Full of fluff: computer graphics, movie footage, slight editorializing here and there. I also wasn't as interested in the martial arts segments or even the brief historical anecdotes, even though they would be fine for general audiences (the arrow cutting was a neat trick though). Most of the decent footage - the Gassan Sadatoshi blade forging and the polishing - I had seen elsewhere, possibly on Paul Martin's NihontoTV YouTube clips.

The one thing I did enjoy was the tatara footage, which I don't believe I had seen before.

The content centered on the various craftsmen in the production chain keeping their traditions alive was neat.

Some of the enthusiasm by western experts could have done with a bit of tempering.

Atleast they refrained from having an "expert" expound on the inherent superiority of the katana as compared to European swords. Well they did have that one guy :confused:

"That one guy" is Stephen Turnbull, a well-known military historian who may be an expert on Japanese military history, but who is emphatically not an expert on nihonto. He has a history of overblown and inaccurate statements regarding Japanese arms and armour, as well as blatantly incorrect statements regarding European or any other non-Japanese arms and armour - confounding given that he has written a couple books on European battles. His brief appearance was enough to turn me off of this special, but that's more a personal pet peeve of mine than anything.

As flawed as online discussion can be in this study, I believe that it has had at least one major contribution, which is that it has yielded a much more cosmopolitan general understanding of arms and armour.

I agree Gabriel, I really hate Turnbull. However inspite of his presence it still did not degenerate into a "how much europeans are stupid/ how great the Japanese are" knid of show. I was kinda suprised. :eek:

I am no expert, and really no bachelor on the subject of the japanese sword,

I, in general, love Nova- they usually have great programs and this one really could have been much worse. For me personally I would have wished that they explained WHY these smiths go to such extremes with the process or making steel. You guys know that they do this because they have to due to the RELATIVE poor source of iron in Japan- the iron rich sand- sorry I don't know what it is called.
Bottom line- the smiths engage in such lengthy processes partially out of historical and mildly religious idealogy but really because they have to to make something that works.

It is cool that the japanese smiths have found a way to utilize what they have to make a really beautiful and functional work of art.

Still not my cup of tea. I can't tell the difference between a tsuka-maki and a futo-maki. :D

Jeremy

The NOVA program wasn't bad at all, considering some of the stuff which has been on television about arms and armour. I am no fan of Turnbull's, either, but at least they kept his contribution to a minimum. There were a few superlative adjectives which I could have dispensed with, but the writer did avoid obnoxious comparisons of Japanese swords with European ones.

Hopefully, it will pique some interest in sword making in general, which is always a good thing.

Everytime I hear, read or watch some guy go off on how superior the Japanese Sword "Katana" is superior to the European Sword I want to strangle the pompous, uninformed, biased, ignoramous! :evil: :lol: Or on how the Samurai was the most efficient warrior.
Better? No! Different? Yes!

I sure hope this post does not start another one of those Japanese Samurai VS European Knight scenarios again!

Please, please don't do that! :eek:

Bob

Over on the Nihonto Message Board there is a thread by a new enthusiast who says that this special, and more specifically the work of Gassan Sadatoshi, has sparked his newfound enthusiasm for the subject. So despite the small criticisms mentioned, I'd say that it's at least been successful from that crucial standpoint. :)

Gabriel: As a Katana fan, what is your take on the bias the media shows towards the Katana?

Hi Robin,

Robin Smith wrote:

About that trick. Is there any evidence for that sort of thing working on the battlefield? To me, it looked like a clever parlor trick, with absolutely no martial merit.

I really have no idea about it, that TV special was the first I've seen it done and I don't know how it was set up. Old prints and scrolls are fond of showing charging samurai cutting their way through a storm of arrows but as Bill mentioned I highly doubt that there's anything practical about it at all. I would be interested in comments from the JSA side of the fence.

Robin Smith wrote:

Gabriel: As a Katana fan, what is your take on the bias the media shows towards the Katana?

This is not entirely off-topic, but I sat on my reply for a while because I didn't want this thread to be sidetracked into an East-vs-West thread, nor did I want to start an East-vs-West thread - those have been done to death and are not very productive. I've decided to PM you with my full reply, and for the sake of this thread my basic summary is this: I believe that the different philosophies, intents, standards of beauty, cultural attitudes, historic progression of technology, and eventual cultural exchange have all contributed to today's wide and unfair disparity of respect for Japanese vs European/other arms and armour.

As loath as I am to write as much as I have in that PM and then not submit it for public discussion, I really think that it would neither fit here nor remain on-topic for long as a separate thread on the modern popular perception of different arms and armour (as opposed to a topic on the actual differences between A&A of different cultures). However, If anyone else is genuinely burning with curiosity to hear me wax poetic on poorly-substantiated personal opinions, they can PM me for it. ;)

Cheers,
-GLL

The best sword is always the best one you can get, not the one you can't have. Swordmaking is an industrial activity that produces tools for a market. In the days when swords were real weapons, they were mostly distributed within limited markets that never allowed the different types to be used in competition against one another. Talk about comparisons of Crusader versus Muslim weapons during the Crusades makes sense because they were used on the same battlefields, but comparison of Japanese versus European weapons during the era when there was no contact between Japan and Europe is pretty pointless. Whatever we care to imagine about their comparative usefulness remains hypothetical.