Talk:Tantō

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Contents 1 Swords and Knives 2 Tanto / Wakizashi 3 WP:MilHist Assessment 4 Single Edged 5 Dont understand

[edit] Swords and Knives

I am not making all sword categories into knife categories. Not all swords are knives, but some are ;) Drhaggis 03:11, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tanto / Wakizashi

I have found no evidence, nor does it make much sense, that wakizashi were sometimes replaced by tanto, or that they were prefered because of their shorter length. For one, Samurai, at least of certian time periods, were never without their wakizashi, much like an officer and his handgun. As for the length issue, matching a tanto against a katana, yari, or other weapon would be suicide, and if length were the issue, it would be the katana that would be swapped out, not the shorter wakizashi. As such, I've removed that section of the article.

It's a controversial point, but it does seem that Wakizashi were not in general use in the period where the Tachi was more common than the Katana (i.e. before circa 1400). As I understand it, The Wakizashi came to replace (or sometimes supplement) the Tanto, at around the same time that the Katana began to replace the Tachi (i.e. from circa 1400). However, high ranking Samurai still employed the Tachi as a symbol of status and as far as I know also employed the Tanto. See the Katana Wikipedia entry for more discussion. The Tanto, much like the Wakizashi, would have been a weapon of last resort, for very close fighting, much like the Roman Pugio.--M.J.Stanham 15:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There are different sticks with different names such as the quarterstaff and the bo. the Japanese wanna call it whatever the heck they want so let them be. I'm erasing the 'disputed saying' sentence until resolved --70.68.43.50 04:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MilHist Assessment

Not a very long article, but it includes just about all I might expect one could say about the subject. In fact, I was surprised at the inclusion of mentions of the history of the development of the style. The article has pictures, a nice see also section, and a link to WikiCommons. It does need a bit of clean-up, though, just grammatically and stylistically (a few unpaired quote marks, things like that). If there were any major improvements to be made, I'd suggest splitting the history section from the technical descriptions, and just expanding in general (assuming there is anything further worth saying). LordAmeth 11:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single Edged

The article claims that tantos are two-bladed; however at least those used in Aikido are single-bladed.

No it doesn't. It says they are almost always singled edged and occasionally double edged.--M.J.Stanham 01:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dont understand

Could someone explain the certain parts of the blade that are mentioned. For instance what is the sori? I am writting for another language and would like to know. 89.142.10.127 15:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes. Terminology might get a bit confusing... but to answer your question, sori is a measure of how much the blade curves at its deepest point, as measured using a perpendicular line drawn from the two ends of the visible blade. See here. CABAL 21:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you that image really helped.89.142.27.249 12:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)