Samurai

jpswords asked: handmade japanese samurai swords www.jp-swords.com Content for WordPress Read Full Story

A US student on Tuesday killed a recidivist burglar with a samurai sword, slicing off his left hand and severely cutting his neck after he spotted the intruder in his garage, police said. The undergraduate medical student at Baltimore's prestigious Johns Hopkins University was being questioned by police but he may not be charged if found to be acting in self-defense. Samurai swords are legal in the United States. Police received a call for help at 1:20 am (0520 GMT) after the burglar pried open a side-door into the garage of the house, which four students rented off the campus, Baltimore police spokesman Anthony ... Read Full Story

Seppuku (切腹, Seppuku "belly-cutting") is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku is performed by males; the female equivalent is called Jigai. Part of the samurai honor code, seppuku has been used both voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, and as a form of capital punishment for samurai who have committed serious offenses. Seppuku is performed by plunging a sword into the abdomen and making a left to right cut. Seppuku also means to die with honour rather than give up and be cowardly. The practice of committing seppuku at the death ... Read Full Story

A katana (刀, katana ? ) is a type of Japanese sword (nihontō), and is often called a "samurai sword." The term katana may be applied to any curved Japanese sword with a blade length of greater than 60 cm (23.6 inches). The term is sometimes incorrectly used as a generic name for any kind of Japanese sword . The katana is characterized by its distinctive appearance: a curved, slender, single edged blade, circular or squared guard, and long grip to accommodate two hands. It has historically been associated with the samurai of feudal Japan , and has become renowned for its extraordinary sharpness ... Read Full Story

Toshirō Mifune (三船 敏郎 Mifune Toshirō 1 April 1920 – 24 December 1997) was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. His imposing bearing, acting range, facility with foreign languages and lengthy partnership with acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa made him the most famous Japanese actor of his time, and easily the best known to Western audiences. He often portrayed a samurai or ronin, who was usually coarse and gruff (Kurosawa once explained that the only weakness he could find with Mifune and his acting ability was his "rough" voice), inverting the popular stereotype of the genteel, clean-cut samurai. In such films ... Read Full Story