46 Fun Facts About Katana

The word 'katana' first appears in which Japanese chronicle of 720?

The Nihon Shoki has the earliest known use, and Japanese dictionaries explain the word as kata, 'one side', plus na, an old word for blade: a single-edged sword, unlike the double-edged tsurugi.

Blades over two shaku, about 60 cm, are classed as katana; what is a blade of one to two shaku?

A wakizashi, the companion sword whose name means 'side-inserted': a shaku is a traditional Japanese foot of about 30 cm, and anything under one shaku is a tantō.

Unlike the older tachi, the katana was worn through the sash with the edge facing which way?

Edge up: thrust through the sash that way, the sword could be drawn and brought down in a single motion, which counted once battles were fought on foot at close range.

A swordsmith traditionally cuts his signature, the mei, into which part of a katana?

The tang, hidden inside the hilt: the mei goes on the face that points away from the wearer, and because a tachi was carried the other way round, the signed side tells them apart.

The katana's circular or squared hand guard is called what?

The tsuba sits between hilt and blade, protecting the hand and helping to balance the sword; the saya is the scabbard, the tsuka the hilt and the habaki the blade collar.

The specific Japanese term for what the West calls a katana is 'uchigatana', literally meaning what?

Striking sword: uchi comes from utsu, 'to strike', for a blade made to be swung at an opponent, whereas in Japan the bare word 'katana' can mean a single-edged sword from anywhere.

The katana developed from the sasuga, a warrior's backup weapon that was a kind of what?

A short knife: warriors whose main weapon was the long naginata kept the sasuga as a spare, and that humble backup blade grew into the katana.

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the team's blue-masked leader, fights with a pair of katana?

Leonardo, named after Leonardo da Vinci, leads the four turtles, and a pair of katana has been his signature weapon across the comics, cartoons and films.

Many old tachi were later turned into katana mainly by doing what?

Cutting them shorter from the hilt end, a practice called suriage, let an old tachi serve as a katana once fighting on foot favoured a shorter, faster-drawn blade.

In the Sengoku period, the main battlefield weapons were the bow, the spear and what?

The matchlock gun: Europeans brought it to Tanegashima in 1543, and Japan's swordsmiths turned their forging skills to gun barrels, so within a few years it was being made around the country.

In the 15th century, which country bought Japanese swords by the tens of thousands through the shogun's official 'tally' trade?

Ming China: the shogun's licensed tally ships carried swords there in bulk alongside sulphur and copper, and came home with silk and the Chinese copper coins that became Japan's everyday money.

Which warlord banned farmers from owning weapons and carried out a nationwide 'sword hunt' in 1588?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi told farmers and temples the metal would become nails and clamps for a Great Buddha hall; the real aim was to end uprisings and fix the line between those who farmed and those who fought.

The paired long and short swords that the Edo-period shogunate required samurai to wear are called what?

Daishō means 'large and small': a long sword and a shorter companion blade thrust through the sash together, the pairing that became the badge of the samurai class in the Edo period.

A katana's hilt is covered in samegawa, literally 'shark skin', beneath its cord wrap; which animal usually supplies it?

A ray, despite the name: the pebbled skin dries very hard, which stiffens the wooden hilt, and its bumps stop the cord wrap from slipping in the hand.

What wiped out Bizen's Osafune swordsmiths, Japan's most prolific, in 1590?

A flood: it devastated the Osafune smiths' home villages, and sword orders from across Japan went instead to the rival Mino school, which became the country's largest.

Most Japanese swords designated National Treasures date from which period, the age of the Mongol invasions?

The Kamakura period: about eight in ten of them date from it, and smiths ever since have tried to recreate the blades of that golden age.

The 1876 Haitōrei Edict did what?

It forbade carrying swords in public, soldiers and police excepted, and former samurai stripped of their badge of rank rose in a string of revolts that ended with the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

Wartime swords, often oil-quenched and forged with power hammers, are called shōwatō after what?

Emperor Hirohito's regnal era was Shōwa: the blades were machine-made without the traditional folding, so in Japan most do not count as true Japanese swords and cannot legally be kept.

About how many long swords a month may a licensed Japanese swordsmith make?

Just 2 a month, or 24 a year, for each licensed smith, while many of the 'katana' sold around the world are copies made in China.

The traditional steel used for katana is called what?

Tamahagane is smelted from iron sand and charcoal, and the smith folds and welds it again and again to work out impurities and spread the carbon evenly through the steel.

The traditional sword steel is smelted from iron sand in a furnace called what?

A tatara is fed iron sand and charcoal for days, then broken apart to get at the steel inside; the old ironworks died out early in the 20th century, and one rebuilt in Shimane in 1977 now supplies Japan's swordsmiths.

Before hardening, the smith coats the blade in a slurry mainly of what, applied thinner along the edge?

Clay: the thin coat lets the edge cool fast and harden while the thickly coated spine cools slowly and stays tough, and that mismatch is also what pulls the blade into its curve.

Quenching the heated edge suddenly turns the steel's austenite into which very hard structure?

Martensite is very hard but brittle, which is why only the thinly coated edge is cooled fast enough to become it while the insulated spine stays softer and tough.

The wavy line along the blade created by differential hardening is called what?

The hamon marks where the hardened edge meets the softer body of the blade, and a finishing step called hadori whitens it so that the pattern stands out against the darker steel.

Most katana have the shinogi-zukuri cross-section, whose defining ridge line runs where?

The shinogi is a raised ridge running along the blade's thickest part, between spine and edge: from there the steel can thin to a keen edge while the blade stays light and hard to break.

A newly forged katana goes to a togishi, whose craft is what?

Polishing the blade: the togishi works it over a series of ever finer stones, which sets the blade's final lines and brings out the grain of the folded steel.

A katana's grip is made for which way of holding the sword?

With both hands: the long grip lets both arms drive the cut, and when Japan's army modernised in the 1800s it swapped the katana for a Western sabre held in one.

The small peg that locks a katana's blade into its hilt is called what?

The mekugi is pushed through matching holes in the hilt and the blade inside it; knock the peg out and the blade slides free, which is how a sword is taken apart for cleaning.

Chōji oil, the traditional rust-proofing wiped on a katana blade, takes its name and scent from what?

Clove oil: chōji is the Japanese word for clove, and its oil was long wiped on swords to keep rust off, though mineral oils are now used as well.

Which swordsmith, working in Sagami Province around 1300, is widely acclaimed as Japan's greatest?

Masamune signed almost none of his blades, yet the shogun's catalogue of famous swords listed more of his than any other smith's, and Japan's most coveted swordsmithing prize bears his name.

The swords of Muramasa gained a reputation as cursed and unlucky for which ruling family?

The Tokugawa: Ieyasu's grandfather was killed and his father wounded with Muramasa blades, and the shogunate came to treat them as sinister, which made them prized by the rebels who toppled it in the 1860s.

Seki in central Japan has forged swords for some 700 years; what is the city best known for making today?

Kitchen knives: the smiths' craft carried over into cutlery, and the city is now ranked with Solingen in Germany and Sheffield in England among the world's great blade-making centres.

What was the shogunate day job of Yamada Asaemon V, author of the 1797 swordsmith ranking book?

Executioner and sword tester: the Yamada family tried blades on the bodies of executed criminals, and his book graded smiths by how well their swords cut, with a top rank that eventually held 15 names.

Which Marvel antihero, the 'Merc with a Mouth', carries twin katanas as his signature blades?

Deadpool: co-creator Rob Liefeld pitched him to Marvel as Spider-Man 'with guns and swords', and the twin katanas followed him into Ryan Reynolds's films.

The martial art centred on drawing the sword and striking in one smooth motion is called what?

Iaido trains one flowing sequence: draw, cut, shake the blood from the blade and resheathe; the thinking is that a fight is all but decided by the moment the sword leaves the scabbard.

Kendo practitioners fence with a shinai, a sword made of what?

Bamboo: four split slats bound with leather flex on impact, and they came in because the hard wooden swords used before them kept seriously injuring students in practice.

Test-cutting practice with a sharp katana on rolled straw mats is called what?

Tameshigiri, 'test cutting', once meant proving a new blade on the bodies of executed criminals; today a rolled mat stands in, and what is tested is the swordsman rather than the sword.

Iaido master Isao Machii holds a Guinness record for slicing what object travelling at 708 km/h?

He also holds records for the fastest 1,000 cuts and most cuts to a single mat.

In Kill Bill: Volume 1, the Bride goes to Okinawa for a sword from which retired swordsmith?

Hattori Hanzō is played by Sonny Chiba, and the name is Tarantino's tribute to the ninja leaders of that name Chiba played in the 1980s Japanese television series Shadow Warriors.

Swordsmith Suishinshi Masahide urged a return to old methods, complaining that late-1700s blades did what?

Broke too easily: he held that the showy swords of his day had lost the toughness of the old ones, and the revival he led marks the start of the shinshintō, or 'newer swords', period.

In which 2003 film does Tom Cruise play an American officer captured by rebel warriors in Japan, who teach him their swordsmanship?

The Last Samurai: Cruise's Nathan Algren, a haunted veteran hired to train the emperor's modern army, is held prisoner through a winter and ends up fighting beside the men he was sent to destroy.

The famed duellist Miyamoto Musashi founded a school of swordsmanship built on fighting in what way?

With a sword in each hand: yet in his most famous duel, against Sasaki Kojirō on a small island, Musashi is said to have won with a single wooden sword he carved from an oar on the way over.

Roronoa Zoro fights with three swords at once, the third clenched between his teeth, in which long-running manga and anime?

One Piece: Zoro's ambition to be the world's greatest swordsman is a promise he made to his childhood friend Kuina, and since her death he has chased the title in her honour.

In The Walking Dead, which survivor, played by Danai Gurira, fights the undead with a katana?

Michonne first appears at the end of season two as a hooded stranger who saves Andrea from a walker with her sword, and AMC named Danai Gurira for the part that same night.

What is unusual about a katana of kissaki-moroha-zukuri shape?

One edge is shaped like a normal katana while the symmetrical point is sharp on both sides.

Which conflict of the late 15th century mobilised farmer-soldiers in huge numbers and drove demand for swords?

The Ōnin War, which began in 1467, shifted battle from horseback to foot, and the smiths of Bizen and Mino met the demand with kazuuchimono, low-grade swords turned out in bulk.