Well, this was, I guess.

Ozsváth Árpád-István wrote:

If you don't believe me take a look at K1 or MMA (this is much closer to the "real thing") tournaments, and see that modern "samurais" and "ninjas" are not so bright, european fighters have superior constitution and "firepower".

Japan often complains that they don't have enough heavyweigth fighters. That's a fact. In contact sports size matters.

Japan has excellent natural defenses, they were isolated and "frozen in time". There was no need for major changes and improvements in armament or tactics for centuries.

On the other hand in Europe was a different situation, there were many nations and cultures, therefore weapons and combat tactics had to adapt quickly, they were more versatile and suffered sudden and dramatic changes.

Now for the ninja. I don't consider the ninja a true warrior. He couldn't stand a chance against a samurai in the battlefield. They were silent assassins, masters of stealth, trained to eliminate a specific target, to sneak, create confusion or wait for the right moment for the kill using unorthodox methods, like poisoning their victims.


Well, besides the comparison, the original question was " Knights and what their swords ment to them." Chivalry was closely related to Christianity and therefore the cruciform sword was a strong religious symbol used to butcher "the heathens", "the unbelievers", "the heretics" or anyone else who stood in the way of the Church or the Kingdom, against all basic doctrines on which Christianity relies. "You shall not kill, only if you have orders" :)

Thanks for this fascinating and informative thread!!

http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.html

Japanese armour got quite heavy. Personally i prefer European but its hard to not see the usefulness of Japanese armour against European weapons (spear is a spear everywhere, ditto with arrows.)

Also, lets not forget that the tanged shafts of japanese spears and arrowheads made them prone to breakage in the stab when compared to european socket design.

Well...

The symbolic value of a knight´s sword was great, but it never achieved the spiritual totem status that the katana meant to the samurai... However, it was a symbol of his honor, his name, his word, so better not to underestimate this...

As for the confrontation between japanese and europeans...

When the portuguese arrived in japan, there was an incident when a single warship stood up against an entire clan... They were using cannons, of course...

Later on, the the king of Portugal ordered an spiritual conquest of japan (because he couldn´t spare his "armada" that was being used to conquer and control the much more valuable India). In this way, the "companhia dos jesuítas" began to send missionaries to christianize Japan. The priests were guarded by portuguese soldiers, and sometimes there were confrontation between these soldier and samurais. There were duels, and there are registers of these duels both in "torre do tombo", in portugal, and in the Japanese Imperial Museum...

There´s no register of one of these duels being won by a samurai... It seems that the "espadeiros" won mostly by thrusting their swords in the samurais axiles.

couldn´t find any document on the web as a reference regarding portuguese and samurai duel, but you could search in the book of the clan shimazu and the work of Dr. Stephen Turnbull, PHD in japanese religion and the samurai.

Unfortunately, Torre do Tombo files can not be accessed on-line...