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A man wearing Samurai armor and jinbaori (sleeveless jacket) turns around, 2019. Scholars agree that Japanese armour first appeared in the 4th century, with the discovery of the cuirass and basic helmets in graves. [1] During the Heian period (794–1185), the unique Japanese samurai armour ō-yoroi and dō-maru appeared. [2]
Historically, there is no evidence for the existence of this "katana-like short sword legendarily used by ninja" before the 20th century. [12] Instead, the designs demonstrated by alleged replicas may be based on the design of wakizashi or chokutō swords or the swords associated with ashigaru—common infantrymen with no "ninja" aspects. [1]
[1] [2] Naginata were originally used by the samurai class of feudal Japan, as well as by ashigaru (foot soldiers) and sōhei (warrior monks). [3] The naginata is the iconic weapon of the onna-musha, a type of female warrior belonging to the Japanese nobility. A common misconception is that the Naginata is a type of sword, rather than a polearm.
In the book Japanese Arms & Armor Introduction by H. Russell Robinson, there is a picture of Japanese riveted kusari on page 58. [12] This quote from the translated reference of Sakakibara Kozan's 1800 book, The Manufacture of Armour and Helmets in Sixteenth Century Japan , shows that the Japanese not only knew of and used riveted kusari , but ...
Other types of Japanese swords include: tsurugi or ken, which is a straight double-edged sword; [19] ōdachi, tachi, which are older styles of a very long curved single-edged sword; uchigatana, a slightly shorter curved single-edged long sword; wakizashi, a medium-sized sword; and tantō, which is an even smaller knife-sized sword.
The sankaku yari was therefore best suited for penetrating armor, even armor made of metal, which a standard yari was not as suited to. [4] There are two types of sankaku yari: sei sankaku yari, yari blades with a triangular, equilateral cross section, and hira sankaku yari, yari with a triangular, isosceles-shaped cross section.
shin guntō (新軍刀, neo-army sword) – sword of the Imperial Japanese Army with a metal scabbard (saya) produced from the 1930s to the end of World War II in 1945. [49] shinken (真剣, lit. real sword) – a real sword as opposed to unsharpened or wooden practice weapons (bokutou). [50]
Hattori Hanzō (服部 半蔵, c. 1542 [1] – January 2, 1597) or Second Hanzō, nicknamed Oni no Hanzō (鬼の半蔵, Demon Hanzō), [2] was a famous samurai of the Sengoku era, who served the Tokugawa clan as a general, credited with saving the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu and then helping him to become the ruler of united Japan.