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!