The Realm of the Dark Blade

Ohayou gozaimasu! Welcome to the next installment of my series on traditional Ninja weapon designs, featuring the work of Matthew Wright of Ninedirections.com.

I thought I’d finish off the week with a little bit about one of my favorite traditional ninja weapons, the Tekko-Kagi (aka the Tekagi or “hand claw”). Tekko-Kagi were multi purpose tools traditionally used by by Japanese ninjas for defense and offense against sword wielding opponents. The tekko-kagi design was very well suited for the purpose. The large heavy claws made it easier to deflect, block or trap swords, and in a pinch could quickly be used for offensive attacks as well.

Tekko-Kagi

Tekko-Kagi are one of my favorite ninja weapon designs because, as I mentioned in a previous post, it is one of the few hand claws I have come across that was designed to use both the hand and wrist muscles, in addition to the wearers fingers, (unlike many weapons from previous posts) to control the weapon. And as we can see from Matthews reproduction, you would certainly need all that strength to use it effectively.

I mentioned in my previous Ninja weapon series how traditional Japanese ninjas may not necessarily have had the resources to forge the high quality steels that the Samurai used, and would have been forced to use cheaper metals, like iron or cheap steels. In order to compensate for this, they would have made much bigger, thicker tools. Matthew has take great pains to remain as true to tradition as possible and his reproductions do capture this design philosophy very accurately.

Tekkokagi - Top

However, as you can see from the pic, the hand grip is really very long, and I personally think the design could  have done with some major trimming in the grip area. My personal experience has been that weapons like these are much easier to use when you can wrap your entire hand around the grip. However Matthew can be commissioned to custom design the weapon to any specification you might require, so for the most part, it is a non issue

In stock form however, the thick steel had grips, thick claws, a very solid wrist hoop all combine to make each claw a whopping 5lbs each. Heavy, as hand claws go, yes. But also very, very strong, and this would have been a requirement for blocking an incoming sword strike with one of these, back in the old days. I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly be willing to sacrifice a little lightness in order to be able to use my Tekagi as a shield against multiple sword strikes.

Tekkokagi - Front

Overall, a great design, one of my favorites. It isn’t pretty, or flashy or covered in mirror polished gleaming stainless steel, but it is exactly the kind of weapon design I love. Dark, strong, with a wicked set of fully functional claws that quite simply mean business. A definite must-have if you are into accurate reproductions of traditional Ninja gear…

Tekko-Kagi – Matthew Wright – [Nine Directions]

Today, I thought I’d move on to part two of my series on traditional Ninja weapon design, featuring the work of Matthew Wright of Nine Directions. And the topic of today’s post will be the infamous Ninja Shuko or “Tiger Claws”:

Ninja Shuko

Ninja Shuko, which I posted a little bit about before, are interesting weapons. Or more accurately, interesting tools. Although they can be used as weapons, much like the Kunai I posted about last week, and are most commonly used as climbing tools, some believe that shuko were also descended from farm implements. As Matthew suggests on his site, there are those who believe that shuko were originally created by farmers to ease carrying hay bales and such.

However there is little evidence to either support that hypothesis. And given the difficulty and cost of constructing shuko, I highly doubt the hay bale carrier theory, since the Japanese were much more the practical field expediency type back then, and I think it would have been easier to just use more rope to carry those bales around, than to fashion something as relatively complex as shuko… But I digress.

Again, Matthew has employed a very traditional shuko design; a large oval steel hoop, with spikes embedded in it, connected to a large steel arm ring using a leather strap. At the hoop end, the strap is riveted above the spikes, covering the base of the spikes, protecting the hand, and providing a relatively soft internal surface for the hand.

Ninja Shuko - Hand Claws

The leather strap is also riveted to the very traditional a large steel arm ring, instead of the modern day nylon webbing and velcro wrist strap versions that are floating about all over the place. Now to be honest, while the traditional design works, I tend to favor the modern designs when it comes to practicality. Not necessarily how the spikes and claws are set up, but rather in the overall ergonomics of the arm/wrist hoop design.

Shuko - Steel Hoop

For one thing, as a climbing device, having an adjustable wrist/arm retention system seems like it would be better than a fixed size steel hoop. So if I were designing something like this, that leather strap riveted to the spike band would be connected to another leather strap that went around the wrist, and was fastened using a buckle, or other similarly secure fastener that could be adjusted and tightened.

To some degree, I think this design would allow you to rest some your weight on the wrist strap during climbing, which could allow temporary stress relief on the muscles of the hand during extensive climbing exercises. But it would really depend on your climbing technique. The mechanical characteristics of shuko suggest that it would require a lot of hand and wrist strength to use, so the benefits of that design modification would vary from person to person.

Shuko - Grip

And another thing is that, it is generally easier to grip something that is not the full width of your hand. If you can wrap your fingers around it, it is much easier to get a firm grip. As you can see from the pic above, this design unfortunately does not let you do that. This is not a problem with modern day designs, which are much narrower and fit the hand much closer.

It is, however very much in keeping with traditional design, which as I mentioned in the previous ninja weapon post, does seem to rely on overly large hoops and very thick components, primarily, I believe, to counteract the low quality of the materials traditionally used. So from a traditional standpoint, these are a quite accurate, functional and beautiful design. Definitely a collectors item.

And since he hand-makes these, I’m sure, if you asked nicely, you could convince Matthew to make a pair to whatever specifications you’d like…

Traditional Ninja Shuko – [Nine Directions]

I’ve always been a fan of the traditional weapons of the Japanese Ninja. Back in the old days, ninja were the Japanese equivalent to the modern day special forces. Special training, special tactics, and, of course, special weapons! Which, if you haven’t figured it out by now,  is definitely one of my favorite things about them.

Folklore, history, and Hollywood has certainly added to their glamor and mystique, and in many cases elevated them to the status of magicians and super soldiers, who could, some legends have it, make fondue, sans fondue pot, from mouldy gouda. And tame dragons using nothing more but a finger nail clipped from their left pinky toe, and other such fantasies.

But in reality they were only human. What made them special, was that they were very resourceful, had extensive training, were extremely motivated,  and possessed a unique set of tools. Of the physical, and mental, in addition to the bladed and non-bladed variety. They understood and employed social engineering tactics long before it became such a popular term, and could in fact turn the most innocuous everyday items into weapons. Not magic really, but given the era they lived in, it might as well have been.

But the purpose of this post is not to add fuel to the already epic mythos of the great Shinobi Warrior. No, today, I thought I’d talk a little bit of the practical side of Ninjutsu, specifically, their weapons. Not too long ago, one of my readers, Matthew Wright, aka Mangetsu, posted a link to one of his own hand made Kunai, and I have to admit that I really liked what I saw. It is clear that he went through a great deal of trouble to remain as true as possible to tradition, and it shows.

There are no spring loaded, rocket powered or demon spirit controlled movie or anime style ninja weapons on his site. Not that that wouldn’t be cool. I would love to have some medieval Japanese Da-Vinci style Ninja weapons in my arsenal. But that is a topic for another site. Matthews site, NineDirections.com, has only great, realistic, functional designs that are as close as possible to traditional Japanese Ninja weapons design as you can get with modern materials and tools. Interestingly enough, in keeping so close to the traditional designs, he has also illustrated quite graphically, many of the limitations that the old school Ninja had to face with respect to both materials and technology.

This week, I thought I’d run a three part series on my favorite weapons from Matthews catalog of excellent work, and also share some of my thoughts on the designs he replicated. So grab a cuppa Joe, Mountain Dew Game Fuel, Jolt, Red Bull, whatever your poison is, and grab a seat! 

All comfy? Good. Today we will start with one of the most poorly represented weapons of the Ninja’s arsenal: The Kunai.

Now in a several previous posts, I’ve talked a little about how the kunai has either been non-existent (often usurped by the ubiquitous shuriken) or misrepresented in modern media, especially in anime, and how it was originally not really a weapon, as much as a lowly gardening implement. The upshot here is that there are now a gazillion so called “kunai” being sold by collectible knife makers, and sadly, they have little in common with the original.

Traditional Kunai - Mild Steel

Matthews Kunai, on the other hand, are imho, quite simply just about as realistic as you can get. It has the long, wide leaf shape that would have been required for use as a garden trowel, the point that would have been used for digging in hard earth, and a simple grip. If you look at any modern garden trowel, you will immediately see the resemblance. It’s a bit crude in comparison, but it’s there. This traditional design however, looks like it would actually be much better suited for smacking people upside the head. Hey,  I’m just saying.

You’ll also note the lack of a ring on the pommel of Matthews kunai. While I believe a ring was present in some traditional kunai, it was by no means a mandatory feature. And its size, unlike the consistently huge ring we see in many ninja anime series today, ranged, from a small whole just large enough to pass a lanyard through, up to a finger ring size, large enough for ones thumb to be placed through in order to make it easier to dig with. However these have a simple flat pommel, which would also serve as a great thumb rest for digging duty, as well as a strong striking surface, which is something that would have been a little more difficult to do with a ring pommel.

Traditional Kunai - Profile & Pommel

Matthew was also commissioned to make a special set of Kunai, with serrations on one edge. A very interesting custom design, that might not have been practical using the original construction materials of the day, but still quite visually impressive. He now makes them full time:

Toothed Kunai

Besides the custom designs, Matthews kunai are in most respects, quite authentic, except for the one major difference. Much better materials. These kunai are made of steel. Traditional kunai were made of iron. This is an important point, as the materials in use at the time played a significant role in the physical design of many traditional Ninja tools.

Toothed Kunai - Profile

If you look at these kunai, you will see that they are very, very thick. Their thickness, is in fact overkill for what they will be used for, however I believe this is how they were traditionally designed. I think the primary reason for this is that iron  was much softer than steel, and the traditional blacksmiths might have made much thicker tools in iron than they would in steel, in order to compensate for the softness of the iron.

Traditional Kunai - Tree Stump

Today it is easy to make a kunai that are many times thinner than the traditional designs, and still maintain superior strength and durability than the old iron kunai. It is also interesting to realize that incredibly useful features, like serrations, would not have been as effective on the older kunai, due to the softness of the material, and I think that it is great that we can experiment with them today.

I think these kunai are perhaps the most authentic designs I have seen, at least in form, and should be incredibly strong as well. Quite worth it, if you are looking for an authentic kunai that will take abuse that would make most others on the market today go crying to their mommies…

Traditional Steel Kunai – [Nine Directions]
Toothed Kunai – [Nine Directions]

There are some weapon designs that are actually very cool (and arguably equally wicked) in concept, but really fall short of their potential in design and implementation. I came across one such evil seed a while back, and thought I’d post about it…

Skull Mayhem

[Click image to view full size]

Now this right here, is what I call a hand blade. And it’s pretty self explanatory. It wants to kill you. No. really. It does. And for this reason, it features a not so obvious but rather dangerous design detail, which we’ll get to in a minute. But on to the wickedness.

In essence, this is pretty much a metallic demon/vampire skull, (personally I’d go with “Angry Master Demon Vamp” But that’s just me) with a set of three pairs of blades attached to it, coming out at either side of the skull, and beneath a very wicked looking set of teeth. The largest, topmost set consists of a large curving blade with quadruple edges, one on the top half of each inward curving blade and the other edge on the bottom half.

The single round grip is attached to a bracket that is bolted to each primary blades on either side. Beneath the main blades are a set of smaller, but longer and more sinister looking blades extending downwards and inwards from approximately where the skulls mandibles should be. IMHO the coolest blades of the set.

The last pair of blades sit in between the second set, and extend downwards from the teeth, specifically from the large fangs, forming a long and rather formidable looking set of black steel fang extensions. Given the reach of the middle pair of blades, I doubt the smaller pair are really neccesary, but I certainly can’t argue the evilitude of the whole combination…

Altogether this would make for a rather effective hand held battledrome blade, except for that one, rather nasty little caveat, that I alluded to earlier. The grip. Yes. This weapon seems very well put together, with a grip set in a steel bracket that is bolted quite securely to the largest set of blades. BUT this single grip is where the problem lies.

With a single grip, this whole contraption is capable of freely rotating around (forwards and backwards, to be exact) the grip. Which means on one day you may have the top of the skull trying to attach itself permanently to the back of your hand. And on another day, you could have the bottom blades trying to slit your wrists.

Either way, unless you’re an emo looking for a really cool way to go out, this is probably a bad choice of weapon for the underground deathmatch gladiator type. However, I do like the aesthetics of this piece. Large black blades, fangs, bladed skull wings… Awesome. And had someone had the forethought to place a rear wrist brace/bracket on the thing, it might have been an absolutely unholy terror in the death match circuit…

Perhaps that was the whole point. Maybe the designers were scared. Maybe they gimped it because they were terrified of what their creation might become. Frightened pantless that their creation might come back to eviscerate them…

Pffft… BWAHA HA HA HA HA AH HA HHA HA HA…

Wusses…

Skull Mayhem – [Collectors Edge]

Actually more like dragon knuckle talons, but whose keeping track? In the tradition of finger weapons like the Iron Reaver,  I present the Dragon Ring:

Dragon Ring

[view full size]

Now I really like the aesthetics of this weapon. The little dragons head is well done, and the blade itself actually looks fairly sinister. And whose to say there weren’t vicious blade headed unicorn dragons back in the day?

My only gripe with this weapon is that, sadly, the ring is too small for anyone to have any real control over the blade. You could prbably cut someone if you back handed them, with it, (and you might cut yourself in the process) but forget stabbing and such, unless you have really, really, strong fingers. You’d probably hurt yourself worse than whatever it is you were trying to stab or claw at.

But it looks pretty cool. ‘Nuff said.

Dragon Ring – [Collectors Edge]

I recently came across another wrist mounted fantasy blade, much in the tradition of the Flying Dragon Claw, Critical Mass and Critical Mass II I blogged about many moons ago. This one was begging to be blogged because I ran into the same weapon on two (count ‘em, 2) separate weapons sites, under two different names:

The Fire Guardian / Viscerator

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What we have here folks, is a weapon that seems to have been living two lives. One life, a good and honorable Fire Guardian. The other life, a cruel and heartless Viscerator. One of these lives has a future… and one of them does not…

*ahem*

OK, if you actually picked up on the fact that the last paragraph includes lines from “The Matrix” then you aren’t in any position to mock me because you are just as much a nerd as I.

But getting back to the topic at hand, (or on hand, as it were) this Viscerator is a multi bladed weapon. It has a large blade above, attached to a handle bracketed on either side by two smaller blades, and above on either side, a set of long black s-curved blades.

Extending rearward, we have what looks to be a set of rather menacing spikes, a short one above, and a long one below, with a wrist trap attached on either side of the the junction between the bottom rear spike and the main bracket of the whole contraption. Though a little large and probably heavy, I could see this weapon being quite handy for underground, to-the-death cage fighting, much like the others.

However looking at that long rear spike, I am tempted to say that “Viscerator” is a good name for this weapon. Simply because it could very well eviscerate it’s wielder while in use. Talk about having no future. Epic Phail…

• The Fire Guardian – [True Swords]
• Viscerator – [Collectors Edge]

Of the various kinds of blades I have come across, I think that finger-mounted blades are the rarest. And for good reason. The human finger, as a general rule, is one of the weakest appendage that we have. We just can’t generate a lot of power from our fingers. And because of their relative frailty, they tend to break if stressed in the wrong way, and at stresses far beneath what a fist, wrist or arm could handle.

But that being said, they are not entirely useless as a bladed weapons platform. They can be used to hold light blades or points for low impact/low stress applications. And with this next weapon, I could see someone making use of their finger power to full effect. Plus it gets extra points for just looking mean:

Iron Reaver Claw

[View Full Size]

This claw, is essentially a finger mounted blade, much like Neko-Te only bigger. And meaner. And more than likely, much more lethal. This weapon is actually two finger claws in one. At the tip of the fingers, you have a sharp point, and on the back of the base of the finger band, another, larger blade is attached.

This method of support, using the whole finger, and having two points and one blade, gives this an advantage over Neko-Te in the lethality department, and having that large blade on top at the base of the finger means that you could leverage the lateral support of the other fingers by forming a sort of “Tiger Claw”, holding the fingers together.

Though you would have to be careful not to puncture your palm with the sharp point at the fingertip, This would allow for some significantly more powerful thrusts and slashing attacks with the larger blade of this weapon, on a level that could not be achieved by a set of Neko-Te.

And the aesthetics aren’t bad either. The overall design is quite interesting, looking for all the world like the claw of a dragon. And the fact that this comes in a black blade as well as a polished one doesn’t hurt. It would be interesting to see how intimidating this would look if someone were to get a set of six of these, and wear 3 on each hand… Wicked…

Iron Reaver Claw – [True Swords]

Today we are going old school. I ran across this sword not too long ago, and thought it was another great example of classic medieval sword design. Much like the Black Italian Bastard Sword I posted about a while back. Except that this sword is fairly simple. No gimmicks, no fancy ironwork, just a great sword

Sir William Marshall Sword - Damascus

I think I like this sword for same reasons as the Italian Bastard Sword. It is a simple, straightforward and strong design. Aesthetically, I do not find it as pleasing as the Italian bastard sword is. Perhaps because in straight swords, I tend prefer blades whose width does not change drastically from hilt to tip. In this sword, there is quite a large difference. However what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in simplicity, functionality and contrast.

The blade is of a standard tapered design. Not one of my favorites, but in this case, not too bad. A prominent fuller runs almost the entire length of the dark Damascus steel blade (this comes in both polished steel as well as Damascus), both to increase stiffness and reduce weight. The cross guard is a simple polished bar. Barring my personal issues with the change in width of the blade, it is, overall a great blade.

Sir William Marshall Sword - Polished

The grip is wrapped in black leather, interwoven with black leather strips, I’m betting more to improve traction, and non-slip qualities than for any aesthetic purposes, although it does look quite good. And it is all capped of by a simple polished round pommel.

Simplicity and functionality at it’s best. And even though from a visual standpoint, the Damascus steel blade is a big plus in my book (though the Damascus blade does come at a premium over the regular steel blade version), the fact that it is simply a strong and versatile sword steel makes it more of a functional improvement, than an design one.

This would be for the knight who wanted a sword that just worked. That could be depended upon. And you really couldn’t go wrong with this.

Sir William Marshall Sword – [Hanwei Shop]

I have always been a fan of axes. And though I do like large ones, I’d have to say that I’m particularly partial to the smaller, lighter, melee style axes. Especially throwable ones like the Hurlbat or the Beil-Ax. Or those that have a decidedly wicked bent to their design. Like this one:

The War Shark Axe

As you can see, this axe has not been named in vain. Though the design is relatively simple, the sharks fin motif has been implemented in a fairly comprehensive, tasteful and practical way.

The fins are not necessarily just for show. The way they have been implemented is such that this axe could be used as a great parrying weapon, with the small “fins” on the spine used to trap an opponents weapon. And I’m sure the large shark fin on the rear of the axe head could be used to lethal effect against other weapons, probably even armor.

The shark fin extending down from the pommel might actually make this weapon a little difficult to throw, because of the propensity for it to get hooked upon the throwing hand, which is the only detractor I can see, however, it could definitely come in handy during close-in combat.

All in all, an aesthetically pleasing and practical melee weapon design. Certainly a weapon worthy of the notorious, strange and mythical, medieval land shark… Yeah. Ok. I made that last part up. But the axe is wicked cool nonetheless…

War Shark Axe – [Medieval Weapon Art]

In a previous post we looked at an out-of-left-field hand blade by Tom Anderson, another killer blade designer, called Critical Mass. Well, I found yet another revision of this freaky blade type, looking for all the world like it belonged on the set of Mad Max…

Critical Mass II - Tom Anderson

Now this weapon is a bitter sweet comeback to me, because although it appears to me to be an improvement on the original Critical Mass design in many areas, it also takes a step backwards in a few others others.

For instance, on the original Critical Mass, the handle was placed fairly far forward, and had a “hood” that extended far enough back that it rested on the users forearm. Though this design left your actual hand exposed, it allowed for a great deal of control of the weapon. On this weapon, although the hand is pretty much covered, it pretty much stops there. You have much less leverage, and therefore less control.

And then there is the mounting point for that front blade on Critical Mass II. I’ve never understood why you would make a fairly wide blade, and then weaken it at the attachment point by narrowing it just before the hilt. Again the first version did not suffer any such weaknesses.

An Ornamental Katar

Of course I would be remiss not to mention that the basic weapon design does appear to have at least superficial similarities to a perhaps much more practical weapon, called the Katar. The Katar is a punch-blade style weapon of Indian decent. Some of them have mechanically actuated split blades, also called “Scissor Katars”, and yet another variety called the “Hooded Katar” have a shield over the back of the hand. Given also that it would probably be a lighter and faster weapon, I would probably prefer to use a split-blade hooded Katar if given a choice, over either Critical Mass weapon.

Video Game Scissors Katar

Nonetheless Critical Mass II does have a lot of strong points. Literally. It is simpler and the blades are much more effectively placed than in the first. It is probably also lighter and faster than the first. It provides much better hand protection, though it could have benefit from an extended hood for both forearm protection and extra support and control.

But given the sweet lines of those, oh-so-beautiful black blades, the menacing spikes on the guard, and the overall no nonsense look of the piece, I’d say it’s a winner. I dare you to disagree. I dare ya. I double dog dare ya. I triple dog dare ya… Yeah… Whatever.

Critical Mass by Tom Anderson – [The Collectors Edge]