Friday, November 23, 2007

試し斬り (ためしぎり)::Testing the NIHONTOU

I recently developed an interest in Japanese swords(日本刀::NIHONTOU - the last kanji is the kanji for KATANA=sword), specially after watching some samurai clips and Anime. And today we had an interesting small talk about the nihontou in the nihongo class.

NIHONTOU are one of the sharpest swords in the world. Ukyou sensei has an interesting post about NIHONTOU. Please click here to read it.


Himura kenshin with his ( 逆刃刀) SAKABATOU(Reverse bladed katana)
There is nothing called a SAKABATOU in real life

New-made NIHONTOU are tested for their cutting abilities using bamboo or straw rolls. This is called the TAMESHIGIRI(TAMESHI=testing - GIRI, from kiri=killing someone using a sword..in the past TAMESHIGIRI was performed on executed criminals).

This video shows a modern TAMESHIGIRI.
I don't know how skillful is this man in the video, but it shows how sharp the NIHONTOU is.
In other words, when you see in Anime a NIHONTOU cutting something..the blade passes through it..then it takes sometime for this thing to fall apart..you have to know that this is not a joke, it happens for real! see the video below!



Hope you enjoyed this.
jaa mata ne!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nihontou wa omoshiroi desu

Sensei, what is the meaning of (to want) ? because I wanted to say ( I want to have a katana ) .

(^^);

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

nihontou ga hoshii desu
= i want a nihontou.
It is listed in today's sheet but we didn't reach it yet ^^;

Saemon 左衛門 said...

Poor ukyou-sensei, when he puts all his heart into a writing a post and writes something long and with substance.. nobody comments.. but when he does small fast posts, he gets 20 comments..

Like the test post..

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

^^; yea and like the cafeteria post :p

Anonymous said...

im a big fan of kenshin :( i miss him so much!
yea they r known for that
i remember me and my friend samer went 2 search online for katana swords!! we found some amazing designs with not so cheap price*glup*

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

Yea..they are expensive for any one to even just see them in his/her dreams! :D

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
momiji said...

watashi mo ippon ga hoshii naaa!
gundam suit mo attara kamaimasen! :B

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

momiji san,
lol gundam suit ni tsuite, T sensei ni soudan shite ne! :D

hiro said...

試し斬り、ちょっと怖いですね。;p
I have seen a tv program, like "nihon-tou vs bullet." And the nihon-tou won. It perfectly cut the bullet shot by the pistol in a half. It was really amazing. But as you know in Japan you can't get a katana without a license.

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

hiro san,
Maybe it is the same show in my newest post :)