Samurai Weapons

Samurai Weapons can be roughly grouped into three categories: swords, polearms, and exotic weapons. Samurai used different arms depending on their class and circumstances, but all Samurai had and used swords. The subject of samurai swords fascinated people around the world for several decades now. Started in 1954 by Akira Kurosawa in his most famous "Seven Samurai" film, the number of movies featuring Samurai and Samurai weapons is almost countless at present time and keeps growing.

Samurai swords can be categorized in several ways, including size, the way of manufacturing, and whether it's a single-edged or double-edged sword. Double-edged swords are not common samurai weapons a nymore and singe-edged swords dominated for several centuries now. When categorized by size, there're mainly three groups of Samurai swords: long swords with a blade longer than 60 cm (i.e. Katana), short swords with a blade longer than 30 cm but shorter than 60 cm (i.e. Wakizashi), and long knives with a blade 30 cm and less (i.e. Tanto). There is also category for swords with a blade longer than 90 cm, e.g. Nodachi, but this one is less common.

Beside of swords, other popular samurai weapons were polearms. Two most common types of samurai polearms are Naginata and Yari. A Naginata is a curved blade on a shaft and a Yari is pretty similar to a common spear. Both Naginata and Yari used the same high-quality steal used for samurai swords. There were variations on the shape and size of the blades and the length and the shape of the shafts as well. An interesting fact about Naginata is that it's considered to be both men's and women's weapon and was a part of the samurai's dowry.

Beside of using conventional swords and spears, samurai were trained to protect themselves with all kind of unusual things, and there are a few examples of exotic samurai weapons. A Tessen, or an "Iron Fan" was either a folding fan with metal ribs or a non-folding solid bar shaped like a folded fan. A Kansashi was a pin about 12 cm long that women used for holding their hairs, but women of samurai families used when needed Kansashi as weapon as well. One of the most unusual samurai weapons was Shakuhachi, which was in fact just a flute, but modified to be longer and heavier, it could be used as a weapon as well.

Sometimes Sai and Kama are considered to be samurai weapons, where in fact they're not. Both types of weapons were originated in Okinawa and used by Ninja, but not by Samurai.

You can see current listings for Samurai Weapons here: