Was the katana really a shit weapon or is it just contrarian opinion?

Overreaction to years of myth-making and exaggeration. Katana were good swords. Much like any subject generally exposed to the filth that is popular opinion, there is more bullshit than truth floating around. No they were not magical super weapons. But they were quite good swords, especially for their era.

In my opinion, the early myth making especially concerning the manufacturing techniques involved in making them were formed in the late 1800's, when the more traditional sword making and steel making techniques were replaced by more industrial processes in Europe and America. So they saw the folding as some sort of super amazing technique because they didn't know that their ancestors did the same thing for the same reasons. They didn't remember that their ancestors also made iron via a bloomery.

Fast forward to the modern age, after being flogged to death by neckbeards and weaboos. There is a counter-revolution trashing them. This is especially ridiculous given that we are now dissecting minute differences in swords when swords were often not even the first line weapon of a warrior in either culture, and more importantly, a slight edge of an individual warrior's (side) arms is insignificant compared to the universe of other factors that decides a battle.

Is this real?

It's concept art. Yes, it's so stupid that it didn't make it.

its not a shit weapon its just made for a specific purpose and style that happened to be dramatized overtime

It's a jack of all trades, master of none design. It will serve for most roles but will be beaten-out by by more specialized designs.

I liked it more when Luke used his jedi jewish tricks to dismantle star destroyers with his mind as he strafed them
the Thrawn trilogy had some cool shit

It lost to some guy from Montenegro

Curved blades are shit.

*teleports behind you*

Straight blades are for fags.

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the katana is revered because it is very sturdy and has a fucking nice grip. the legend it can cut anything comes from the fact the blade is thicker than most swords, making it hefty and sturdy. the Katana doesn't so much slice as it does cleave
.
the closet European equivalent is the falchion.the typical arming sword has more heaft and legth than a katana making them closer to odatchi.

>is simple and easy to use
>no better than any other sword.

Yeah, they were literally shit weapons.
Dipped into latrines to infect the enemies.

Katana are great for what they are meant for. The main issue I have with you, OP, is your idiotic assertion that the Islamic caliphates didn't use shields - they absolutely did, not for every single soldier perhaps but more often than not. The scimitar is better paired with a shield than used alone, not to mention their axes and other non-spear weaponry.

Never really got the limelight in war like the sword did in Europe since for reasons only known to japan they phased out personal shields in favor of more archers and spears so it never got the 'industrial' treatment swords did in Europe.
It started to get an aura around them even back in the day since they didn't dissect it to shit like the euros did

poor quality steel because they were obsessed with folding instead of improving their smelters like everyone else.
folding steel also wasn't some secret technique that only existed in Japan. It just wasn't necessary if you have more refined steel.

>everybody quickly disgorging words about katana
>nobody says anything about OP claiming islamic empire conquered europe
>without shield
>with curved swords

This is one of the case that makes me wonders how wise Jow Forums denizens are; or just a case where more than one of twisting levels of knowledge or perfectly skips one levels inbetween, making a perfect fit

They probably stopped reading at "katana."

Ottomans loved shields.

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They did conquer a lot of southern europe,, hence why the crusades started. As for without shields, that part is BS. Use of curved swords while doing it? My understanding was that those didn't become widespread until much later.

Western Asian swordsmanship relies on shield so much for defense, Victorian fencers thinks Near Eastern swordsmen can't parry.

They were fine. There are tons of evidence from Europeans visiting Japan that katanas were very good blades held in high regard. Europeans especially British actually went through a weeb phase in XIX century and japanese culture was pretty popular.

That said they are not better the other high quality curved blades from other parts of the planet.

Techniques are a bit different and interesting but it's not a magical super weapon. They were side arms in Sengoku period only becoming super important later when street dues between unarmored samurai were pretty common.

I wonder how much the adoption of curved sabre by the Iranians, Arabs, and Europeans from its Steppe origins were due to actual performance and need, or memetics and fashion?

Dumb weeb poster obviously defends katana

Probably both.

People attribute some kind of Darwinism to weapons thinking only combat efficacy is what determines what stays and what goes, but there's a lot of other reasons other than that which causes things to go in and out of fashion.

It's a great weapon. In fact, when combined with proper technique, it was probably one of the finest melee weapons of its time. But anyone who thinks that a katana has any real military, home defense, or other combat applications these days is on the same level of retard as someone who thinks that Bin Laden's compound could have been assaulted with a couple dozen Hotchkiss guns. I mean yeah, it might have probably worked, but every other option would have been objectively better.

And double retard points go to anyone who thinks that the forging methods used in traditional Japanese swordsmithing are better than what is available today. Modern crucible steel would have made Masamune nut in his kimono harder than a 14 year old with a high speed internet connection.

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Itr was japan making the best out of a bad situation, if they had european metallurgy then they probably could have made some god tier swords.

A curved slashing one-handed sabre is pretty much the best sort of sword you can give to light cavalry and light cavalry is always a very useful sort of unit to have so there's certainly some good part of usefulness into this particular choice.

>katana
>context

the katana was not even used by the samurai during the sengoku period.
The original samurai were archers (mounted), and spearmen. Swords like the tachi were used by cavalry, to cut down fleeing peasants.

Katana, and the idea of wearing it edge up, came about later, when the fights were just small skirmishes, and used mostly against unarmored opponents, and as a symbol of status.

It certainly was used by foot soldiers, including the poorer jizamurai, starting in the Muromachi period when infantry blocks was an ever growing more important piece on a battlefield than fancy samurai still going kyuba no michi.

Samurai always have been of various wealth and even back in the 11th century, some of them if not a large chunk of them fought on foot with naginata and spears. It's even depicted early in the hogen monogatari when a poor samurai is mocked but then admired because he managed to beat two adversaries simultaneously by himself, while on foot.

Katana and uchigatana were extensively used in the sengoku-jidai, even mass-produced in their kobuse style of forging and certainly was used against armored opponents, by all sorts of foot soldiers, samurai or not. In fact, even wealthy samurai started to wear their swords in the katana fashion as soon as the muromachi period.

Source being among others "The Connoisseur's Book of Japanese Swords"

Katanaboo faggot here. Long story short, the weapon and their fighting style was ceremonial (or shit); their war spears (yari) were the workhorse for any infantry combat.

When you have a guy named Miyamoto Musashi that says "Hmm... what if I use two swords to duel?" and wins virtually all duels along with Asiatic pirates fucking your shit up, your fighting style and your weapon sucks.

The last effective heavy cavalry troops used curved sabers too.

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>southern europe
You mean southern Spain.

And Greece, the Balkans, Sicily, and Southern Italy.

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Adding to this, the uchigatana goes back as far as the kamakura period, as a weapon for the common grunt.

You seem to have taken a few facts from various points in Japanese history, smashed them together into something you then consider to be all of Japanese history, and finally drawn some conclusions from it that aren't really supported even by that history.

First the use of the katana goes back to before the yari really became a thing, the polearm back then was the naginata. Second, the ceremonial nature on the other hand is rather something we see in the Edo period, centuries later with little in the way of battles to fight and plenty of regulation aimed at making the samurai not-too-competent bureaucrats instead of warriors in order to keep it that way.
Then that there's a different weapon that may be preferred for the battlefield hardly makes the katana a bad sword. With your enemy starting well over there in a battle you start with using your longer ranged weapon, and switch to your sword as the range closes or your main one breaks. Given that people still bothered to carry katana (or other swords as sidearms elsewhere in the world), from the basic footslogger of little means and status up to the highest of ranks should suggest that the sword here is actually an important and useful weapon.

As for Musashi, he primarily fought with the single sword, and his school also focuses on that. His success is more likely to have been a combination of factors, including him being large, strong and a natural prodigy at violence (somewhat helped along by an abusive father showing up every now and then to beat him). And of course also that we are now once again in the Edo era.
The pirates? Largely Japanese, and they appear to have left a greater mark on China than Japan.

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If you disagree with anything in that post you're actually a dumbass

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Katana was just like a pistol. A side arm.

The real main weapon was a spear.

SPEAR = ASSAULT RIFLE
KATANA = side arm

It's perfectly fine, all of the memes about the steel being better or worse are garbled nonsense. It's a hand-and-a-half curved sword with a minimalist guard that some people like and I would personally prefer some knuckle protection for. It's a decent blade design all around, though, and sexy.

That's it. I'm sick of all this "muh it’s just a curved sword" bullshit that's going on in Jow Forums right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.
I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.
Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.
Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.
So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, deserve more respect from autists like you.

The difference is, it's cool. Stupid, but cool.