The Samurai sword of battle was NOT THE KATANA!

The samurai sword of battle was NOT THE KATANA

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[nicholascauton]

I love the juxtaposition of wearing Medieval Europe clothing while lecturing about the Japanese Samurai and their traditional weaponry.

[lordyathnon]

As much as I've been enjoying Knights Watch lately. Its nice to see a video like this again. No politics, no anger, just playing with swords and a history lesson

[TheCustodians]

Shad is the only channel that actually gets me to watch the main video when I'm in the YouTube shorts black whole. Thank you for helping me break free.

[spacegoat]

I only knew the difference bc my dad has a Tachi and when I was little I would always call it a Katana and he would always correct me and say it’s a Tachi. He got it in the mid to late 80s and still has it. It’s just wild to me he’s had it for almost 30 years and is the Main reason I love traditional Japanese culture. It always fascinated me

[crapsound]

I was not aware of this Tachi until I watched Shogo's vid about it. I'm glad Shad also discussed it.
I love the katana in video games with their supernatural fantasy stuff together with their appearance. But then after watching some vids about it, I think it's really the Tachi that I'm thinking about when I hear "katana". 🤔

[tn]

Tachi (太刀)is written as thick(太) and katana(刀). Tachi is characterized by being thick and long.Tachi was developed in 9th C.
Tachi's center of gravity is in the hilt and can be wielded with one hand, so it can be used by cavalrymen as well. Pointing the tachi blade downward prevents the scabbard from hitting the horse's belly.
Uchigatana was developed in 12C. uchigatana(打刀) is written as strike(打) and gatana(刀). Uchigatana is a katana developed for infantry.
Center of gravity of the uchigatana blade is placed at the tip to enhance the effectiveness of the slash, and it is handled with both hands.
Uchigatana can change the center of gravity position by exchanging hand guards with different weights, so the user can choose power and operation performance.
Odachi（大太刀） is written as large (大), thick (太), and katana (刀).
Katana（刀） is a major category and tachi(太刀) and uchigatana(打刀), odachi（大太刀）, nodachi（野太刀）and gunto（軍刀） are minor categories.
character (刀) means a single-edged sword. Katana(刀) or nihonto(日本刀) is a general term for Japanese-style single-edged swords. Prototype of katana is the 7th C Japanese sword warabiteto（蕨手刀）. Since these have different purposes, tachi was used even after uchigatana was made.

[TheShogunate]

Glad you made this video! The Tachi always needs more love!

[Kernwadi]

Own a sword for manor defence, since that's what the Magna Carta intended. Four heathens break into my cottage. "What in the Lord's name?" As I grab my aventail bascinet and windlass arbalest. Punch a bolt through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Throw a pot of naft at the second man and miss entirely since it's a hand thrown grenade in the dark and burns down the neighbour's harvest causing them to starve in the winter. I have to resort to the pot of boiling oil at the top of the hay loft "Deus Lo Vult!" The boiling oil completely drenches two men and cause them to scream in agony and writhe on the ground, racked with incomprehensible pain. The screams of pain frightens horses in nearby stables. Draw sword and charge the last terrified infidel. He bleeds out with no one to assist him since this is Feudal Europe and nobody gives a shit. Just as the Magna Carta intended.

[TeamTimeless]

I still love the No-Dachi simply because 'big sword cool'.

And the idea of using a very long sword as a 'cutting polearm' is a fascinating design choice.

[murphnturph]

It's worthwhile to mention that the tachi was widespread during the Kamakura, Ashikaga and Sengoku periods, where clans and states were constantly at war. With the beginning of the peaceful Edo period, the objective of carried arms shifted from offensive frontline combat to defensive personal protection by lords and retainers. Katana and wakizashi were much more convenient and comfortable to wear in public.

[rayleo]

One thing Shad forgot to mention is that the blade of the tachi tapers much more than the katana or o-katana. This makes it lighter at the tip, making it easier to cut with.

[ragnarososo]

The main battle weapons for samurai were spears and bows with arrows ( later gunpowder guns). But we all loves katanas because of the movies and popculture. :D

[Vaelkari]

One thing I rarely see mentioned in these discussions is the style of warfare- Samurai were (at least early on) primarily horse archers and mounted combatents. Japanse swords were initially cavalry swords and should be more closely compared to Sabres.

[Armyjay]

Your passion for the subject and love of the sword (& martial arts in general) absolutely jumps out of the screen at the viewers. There is nothing which can match that kind of hook to keep on watching. Coupled with an inherently fascinating and entertaining subject a presenter like yourself, exuding those qualities, will always make it a rewarding viewing experience. Cheers mate.

[LTYTACCT]

The Katana was not the primary weapon of the Samurai in most battles. The primary weapons were spears, polearms, bow and arrow and even primitive black powder firearms. In fact, a Samurai who has to resort to using a Katana is one who known he/she screwed up big time somewhere during the fight.

[BadBomb]

Edo-Katana gets all the fame in pop-culture and stuff while it saw very little use even as a side arm in actually wars historically.

The reason why katana got more popular than tachi in the first place is because during the peaceful Edo period there was a law that forced samurai's to carry around daisho (katana wakizashi combo) where ever they went as their status insignia. It was just more convenient to carry around a shorter sword in daily basis.

[Demnus]

Hi Shad! I'm used to be an Aikido/Budo trainee. We had classes with various weapons and katana as well. We had head of the school from japan as a guest in our dodjo. And he explained difference between katana and other types of Japanese swords a bit different. He said that katana is an umbrella term for all swords in japan. There are many forms. Earlier versions of a katana wasn't curved at all. There were double edged katanas, crossguards, and anything else that have a blade and are bigger than a regular knife. Even knifes often were called a katana. And the thing the whole world now call a katana appeared quiet late in history, in XVIII closer even to XIX century. And yes, he told that tachi actually also is a katana and the word "tachi" refers more to the way of wearing it rather than the characteristics or shape of the blade. Also tachi is a more earlier version of the katana. As "traditional katana" is more like everyday civilian weapon for self defense, when tachi is a weapon of the time of big wars. Also tachi was used to wear with armor and it was attached to it and had special fittings for that, while the same sword could be used with different saya(scabbard) and simply put behind the belt while not wearing any armor, so it called simply a katana.
Also about wearing it blade up or down. It's not like matter of preference. it's the matter of comfort. It's just uncomfortable to wear a katana blade down, aka tachi, on a soft belt while wearing civilian clothes. And they found simply more suitable to wear it blade down attached to armor.

[jonathanwarchild]

As a gamer I absolutely love using a variety of weapons to destroy my enemies. I used to think swords were most common and hated blunt weapons but after seeing how badass polearms are I absolutely love spears/halberds now. I’m still meh on maces but I can no longer ignore how disastrous they are vs plate. Thanks to Skallagrim and Shadiversity for exposing me to the various weapons of Europe and Japan. Knowing the history of the weapon, it’s uses and how it was fielded and why are what I love most and makes using them far more immersive in games. I also love dropping random trivia on armor and weapons to friends while gaming :)

In the future with a home to contain such wondrous weapons and armor I hope to have an armory to gaze at my collection. But for now I’ll absolutely adore them in video and game form :D

[MrLolxu]

Eh... It depends.

Look, if you're talking about the Medieval period of the 1200s during which the Mongols invaded Japan then yes, that period of the Samurai which is what was called the Kamakura period back then uses the Tachi.
In fact, the Katana was made back then. As the Japanese was facing a hard time dealing with the Mongols, they soon decided that the best way for them to deal with the Mongols was to board their ships in the middle of the night and raid them be it to temper with their supplies or straight up turn into ninjas and assassinate officers. However as they got onto the ships, they soon realized that if they're faced with combat, their Tachis was way too cumbersome and unwieldy in a confined space like a ship's deck or quarters whereas the shorter Turko-Mongol Sabre was dealing tons of damage back to the Samurais thus whatever Samurais that survives their raids would go back to shore and just snap off at least 1/4 of their blades and used these "newer" blades into combat and... It worked and that's how the Katana was known to have started from.

By the 1500s, Japan wasn't out of the Medieval period yet or in fact, the entire of Eastern Asia is still stuck in Medieval times till the 1800s in actuality.
Even by the time of Sengoku-jidai, Japan was still in limbo of Medieval ways of practice in Japanese form with a slight hint of western Renaissance touch with the influx of medication, arquebues from the Netherlands and even Christianity was brought into Japan at that time.
However, despite all that, katanas did see tons of usage by low ranking Samurais and even to a lesser extent, bowmen as Tachi impedes their movement too much. During the early half of the conflict, both katanas and Tachis was still used but by the time after the death of Oda Nobunaga and the rise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tachi was slowly being phased out and by the time of Tokugawa Iaeyasu's domination after the failures of Hideyoshi, everyone was already using katanas rather than Tachis.

So in a sense, Katana was still the Samurai's combat blade of choice and it just deviated from the Tachi to the Katana in just a span of like one decade before the Tachi was abandoned completely for the Katana.

[TheRealTlaiLaxu]

I'd love to see what you think of the Mantis Blades in Cyberpunk 2077. I think they look cool and intimidating, but not very practical with a limited range of swings since they have only one cutting edge. It looks like it could be good for punching/thrust as the blades extends when swung