This game is glorifying a japan that never existed

[overtyped]

So the mod's are just overlooking this?

Guess this doesn't count as a direct insult, and most users here, mods included, are tolerant to moderately harsh language, so i guess it was completely fine. Anyway, i smell a note of trolling in this topic, and suggest to bury it for good... comrade

This is not a troll. I also put quite a bit of effort to making sure everything i said was correct.

[Sol Lignum]

This is not a troll. I also put quite a bit of effort to making sure everything i said was correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abumi_(stirrup) Unlikely.

And since this was a pivoting point of your opinion, i'm also having some strong doubts in what you've said about folded steel, and everything else. I've nothing more to say.

[overtyped]

This is not a troll. I also put quite a bit of effort to making sure everything i said was correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abumi_(stirrup) Unlikely.

And since this was a pivoting point of your opinion, i'm also having some strong doubts in what you've said about folded steel, and everything else. I've nothing more to say.

AH you are right, I should correct that. From memory I thought japan got the stirrup around the 15th century, not the 5th. Derp
And no, it's not pivitol by any means, I just remembered it and decided to put it in, but i was off.
China invented the stirrup first, after they invaded europe and japan, they too used that technology.

This thread is about katanas.

[lucidmadness]

Do you even own a real Katana that was made by a master? No?? Then stop with the rhetoric already! Nobody cares! It's 110% fictional in any case, so we're glorifying nothing, really.

[Grimmrok]

Is this still going on?

It's a game.
The dev likes the Japanese thematic, and thus built it into this fictional game.
End of story.

[overtyped]

Do you even own a real Katana that was made by a master? No?? Then stop with the rhetoric already! Nobody cares! It's 110% fictional in any case, so we're glorifying nothing, really.

I know it's fiction, but it's fiction based on fiction, i just find that very odd.

[Neteman]

Here to remark just a couple of things:
- First: this is just fiction, so we have robots, a Falling Sun, functional swords of 35kgs, robotic limbs... and katanas.
- Second: this is just the fruit of the devs imagination. You buy it or leave it, but coming to the forum to complaint about it being unrealistic...

On the other hand and talking about "realistic" things:
- Katanas were a fruit of it's own culture, as it was the same with the european blades that evolved from broadswords in medieval times to foils in the following centuries. This evolution wasn't compulsory in japan due to the economical developement of the culture that prevented steel from being a general available item or cheap item. Lack of steel and richness in bamboo made it easier to develop bamboo based armors, mixed with linen, silk, leather and some metal in little amounts: very expensive and hard to manufacture but enough to keep you alive. Having to pierce such an armor made the weapons evolve in the same direction: cutting were easier than piercing that can provoke the loss of the weapon. And to cut, katana design is a masterpiece. Enough weight to be strong, enough curvature to be extremely eficient in cutting and a forging procedure that mixed 2 types of steel in each katana: harder on the edge and softer on the back to prevent breaking the blade.
- European blades, on the other hand, evolved from the shorter blades of the ancients (greeks, egiptians and romans) like the roman gladius, perfect to damage foes with armors based in a strong plate to cover chest/stomach and usually light to none to cover arms/legs. With the developement of forging techniques, it became possible to develop "larger" blades like the medieval broadswords or longswords, while armors became lighter and more plate-based. To damage a foe in a full plate european armor were something almost impossible with a regular sword so they designed something heavy enough to try to knockout a full plated knight (used as a blunt weapon) and also sharp enough to cut a regular soldier with poor leather armor. This is also why we (europeans) developed blunt weapons like the morning star while japanese blunts were just marginally used and never as war weapons.
- Stirrups also were developed with a use in mind: japanese stirrups evolved to became a platform to balance a light armored knight armed with a bow (I dare anyone to fire a bow from a horse without stirrups or even saddles as the films pictured american natives). On the other hand, european cavalry evolved from the roman cavalry (auxiliary troops, remember) that wasn't armed with long spears because it is impossible to keep the knight on the saddle after a hit with the spear, so they charge with little spears and long swords. That was the main intention of the developement of the stirrup: to keep the knight on the saddle after a hit with a long spear. This is why our saddles have longer straps and it is just a ring so the position of the feet (pointing up) contributes to the forces that appears in a charge.

This is heavy enough, but a lighter exposition of some historical reasons for the weaponry developement in both japan and western europe. I think that saying: "european blades were better than katanas" is... well, unaccurate. In a historical scenario in which european weapons have to coexist with japanese medieval weapons both of them will probably evolve in diferent ways as they do, like indian or persian cultures developed diferently because their special circumstances in terms of forging, warfare and needs. Beacuse you were right about something: katana were, for quite a long time, a symbol rather than a war tool and that was fatal to the natural evolution of the weapons. Warfare in Japan became something very ritualized and the risk of death for knights and highborn class were very little, while in europe nobility found out that their full plates were useless against something new: powder and guns, that changed the rules of war.

Let me stop here. I'm being too heavy. Please excuse my english.

[overtyped]

Katanas were the best of a bad situation. Having access to poor quality iron sand, and almost nothing else, a small light blade is all they could manage. The spear, shield and bow were the only weapons of war.

You want to compare a decorative object like a katana and europeon swords that was actually used for war and say they are equal in their respective ways? ignorant is all i can say.

If katanas were so great of a weapon, it would have been more than a mere sidearm, a plaything for the nobles to show off.

[Sol Lignum]

You just like to mock'n'poke everyone who thinks Katana was any decent, don't you? You just hate anime and weeaboos, and i 99% agree with you here, but you decided to extrapolate your hatred in a most bizzare way, through Katana which isn't even real, and the world it exists in doesn't even represents ANY kind of Japan. Don't you? It's cool to hate, right?

I just want to tell people to stop feed the troll straight away, but i know they won't, and i'm tired of seeing this topic updated by you every now and then, so i'm practically forced to speak up.

[Neteman]

I just want to tell people to stop feed the troll straight away, but i know they won't, and i'm tired of seeing this topic updated by you every now and then, so i'm practically forced to speak up.

Why?? I love to see them burying themselves in s**t and trying to finish a "conversation" by the old and glorious method of trying to overwhelm his counterpart but not adding anything new or relevant.

I can stop feeding him if the board wants or keeping with the conversation that is useful for me to remember some old research on medieval weaponry and fencing styles.

Additionally please let me point that evolution and uses of medieval weaponry are field for discussion and there is little consensus on certain points. In fact, one of the most mediatic and respectable fencers nowadays (John Clements) has an approach to fencing that is a bit too "athletic" in my opinion... but he would surely kick my ass anytime in a fight so he MIGHT have SOME point. It's the same with our beloved troll (specially in his opinion about spears, that I find accurate).

Edite to modify Clements name, mispelled the first time.

[Sol Lignum]

Why?? (...)

Well, you've certainly got a point, i just don't believe we could have a meaningfull dialogue here, and some might simply got ignited by those provocative and slightly agressive opinions. They might hold some water, but manner of presentation is unappealing at the very least.

[Neteman]

I agree, sometimes problem with the trolls is not the opinion but the way they state it.

Not feeding it anymore.

[overtyped]

I agree, sometimes problem with the trolls is not the opinion but the way they state it.

Not feeding it anymore.

It's funny, you dismiss a logical argument by calling it a troll. This is the death knell of someone without any counter argument. It's not my job to protect you from my words, i present facts here, i'm sorry if the katana isn't what you hoped it would be, truly i am.

I watched anime too, and loved katanas, until i studied how they actually were.
Once you get over the disappointment, come back here and talk with the adults.

[Hatsune_Neko]

locking topic.
its devolved into something that's not acceptable behavior for this forum.