>>825388>The only reason it's thought of as fondly as it is is because of white teenagers obsessing over them.I'd rather put the "blame" on it also being a ceremonial icon that signified your social standing back then. None of them worshiped their bow or lance as much as their sword, even thought those were more useful in regular warfare.
>>825386Nah, the katana is pretty much inferior to Western weaponry.
The mindset in Europe was to look at what job needs to be done and then design the right weapon for it, while the Japanese rather took a look at what weapons they had available and then tried to find a way to get the job done with it.
The "best" swords were the late stuff like rapiers. If you ever fought against someone with a rapier and you had another melee weapon you know how much of a fucking pain in the ass it is.
