Talk:Mugen/@comment-76.115.252.161-20160607033124

Mugen's Sword

I would really love some input from someone who knows Japanese swords better than I do. This is what I've found in my research.

I keep seeing articles that state his sword is somewhere between an Okinawan sai and a Japanese katana, but it's really nothing like a katana. Some of the confusion might step from the tendency to refer to all Japanese swords as katana, just like a lot of people refer to all Japanese warriors as samurai.

Mugen's sword is a completely different type of blade. Everything about it screams "foreign". The katana is a single-edged blade and Mugen's sword is a double-edged blade. The curve of the blade is not quite the same as a katana. The hilt of Mugen’s sword comprises different parts than a katana; it’s not as intricate. The hilt of Mugen’s sword is wrapped in white same like a katana, but the same is not covered with tsuka-ito, the traditional braid that makes the white diamond patterns that you see on katana and wakizashi. The scabbard is not at all like a katana scabbard. The blade is a bit short for a katana, but not so short that it qualifies as a short sword (it’s longer than a wakizashi or a kodachi). It is several inches shorter than Jin's blade, although Jin’s katana is at the top of the range for the length of a katana blade. There are many more differences.

During the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate began to standardize the katana, from the length and size to the method of forging. If a sword didn't meet the specifications, it wasn't a katana. Again, if you look at the early concept art, there are detailed drawings of both Mugen's and Jin's swords, and the differences are clear. If you look at real katana, it's even more evident.

I think at most we can say that Mugen's sword is a funky amalgam of other types of swords, but it does not fit the description of a katana.

(Did you know that Mugen's sword has a name in those early drawings? So does Fuu's weapon. It is never mentioned in the show, but the name of Mugen's sword does appear in the PS2 game.)

Why no mention of the European sword that Mugen carries at the end of the series? I believe it is a hand-and-a-half sword, or what we now refer to as a bastard sword. (It wasn’t called a bastard sword during the time period when it was in use - that came about later.) It is notably larger than Mugen’s original sword, and it has a European style hilt with a straight blade that appears to be double-edged. We never get to see it unsheathed, so it’s hard to tell.