Gunbai: Ancient Japanese Warfare

Wantō (湾刀): Early Curved Japanese Swords A classic example of a curved warabitet ō, the most common style. If you have ever tried to approach the study of Japanese swords , you might have encountered the incredible amount of different theories and the huge (and occasionally hostile ) nomenclature that pervade such field. In order to make things clear and at the same time pay omage to this long tradition, today I'm going to talk about the  Wantō (湾刀), the first c urved Japanese swords . This specific name is an umbrella term used to refer to every Japanese curved swords, although in this s artilce I'm going to present the very first types of said family, namely the warabitet ō  ( 蕨手刀 )   which differs from the usual curved Japanese sword of the later periods and all the variations that sprung from this so iconic and yet forgotten Japanese swords. As a premise I would love to point out that this is definitely not my area of expertise, and it tooks several m...

Manchira ( 満智羅 ) - Japanese Auxiliary Armor A section taken by the  島原の乱図屏風 showing a warrior wearing a manchira. Today I want to talk with a brief article of one of the most important, and yet overlooked, Japanese armor piece found on late Japanese armor usually referred as tōsei gusoku ( 当世具足 ). The manchira (which can also be written  満智羅, 満散,満乳羅 or 摩牟知羅 ) , also known as  manjūwa ( 饅頭輪 ), mantōwa ( 満頭輪 ) or kataōi ( 肩被 ) is essentially an armored vest that was used either as a standalone armor or as a form of chest protector to be worn under or over the main breastplate, the d ō ( 胴 ). A sketch made by me showing cuirass plus manchira configuration. For those who are familiar with European armor, this item functioned both as a form of arming doublets with integrated voiders or as a form of "mail" shirt. As I've written in my detailed analysis of  tōsei gusoku  ( 当世具足 ) armor, this piece of equipment was actually used to cover the g...

Japanese Sword "Mythbusting" - Part 2 Nagao Totomi no kami Katsukage 長尾遠江守勝景   wielding a sword in full armor; from Koetsu yusho den Takeda-ke nijushi-sho 甲越勇將傳武田家廾四將 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Disclaimer: I accidentally published this article before finishing it, so it is not complete yet. However, since it might required some time and it is mostly done, I think it would be nice to give to everyone a preview of what it would look like. Thank you! So here we are with the second part of this series where I will discuss other 5 myths regarding the Japanese swords. I strongly suggest you to read my first part , because it has an introduction to give you some "context" to which kind of myths I'm addressing here. Without further ado, let's continue with the myths. If you haven't, just to make sure, this is not the average mythbusting in which we will address how swords can't cut through steel, but rather how and why the Japanese swords were hist...