20 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

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The Swords of Japan:

A Window of Modernization
Michael Herman

Michael Herman graduated from the University of San Diego in San Diego,
CA in the class of 2015 with a major in History and a minor in Naval
Science. His studies involve military history and the evolution of warfare. After
graduating, Michael commissioned as an Officer in the United States Navy and
chose to be stationed in Yokosuka, Japan so he could learn Japanese and continue
his studies in Japanese history and culture.

The year 1868 marked nationwide turmoil and unrest in Japan as civil
war gripped the country by its core and forced it to change its ancient ways.
With the young Emperor Meiji in place, a radical change of Japanese culture
ensued as the country moved wholesale into Western learning in the cultural,
social and economic arenas. With the feudal system and samurai class virtually
dismantled, Japan moved away from many of its old traditions and brought in
everything that was new and modern. During this time, the military was not
unaffected. The Imperial Army and Navy adopted Western military advisors
and technology completely redefining the image of the Japanese warrior. While
the Japanese warrior used to be defined by a high level of swordsmanship,
spirituality, and discipline, ever since the introduction of the firearm in the
15th century warriors slowly became defined by how well they could march
and shoot a rifle.1
The samurai class, which had not given up their power and status quietly,
was largely dismissed by the government so that newer systems of politics
and economics could have the chance to gain some momentum. But those
who have studied World War II Japan or even seen movies depicting that
time period may have noticed that WWII-era Japanese soldiers believed they
were acting like samurai in certain rituals and even carried government-issue

1 Thomas Cleary, Soul of the Samurai: Modern Translations of Three Classic Works of
Zen & Bushido (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2014), 5.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 21

samurai swords. It is curious how this came to be since only decades earlier
the Meiji government had made it illegal to carry samurai swords under the
Haitorei edit (1876) in an attempt to modernize. This modernization which
persisted well into the 20th century, was very intrusive to Japanese society
ultimately led to a rise of the Japanese nationalist fervor in the mid-1890’s.2 This
rise in nationalism saw a return to and gross distortion of Japanese traditional
values through concepts like “bushido,” commonly known as “the way of
the warrior.”3 Many scholars argue that the radical break away from Japanese
culture, and subsequent interest in feudal Japan and the Samurai, was a response
to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of their society. I will test this
by examining the change in the primary weapon of the traditional Japanese
warrior, the sword, from the Edo period to World War II and what this change
can tell us about the development of the Japanese warrior and the nation he
fought for during the late Meiji period through the Imperial era. This will
show that swords give us a window with incredible insight to the changes
Japan was undergoing in this period.

Feudal Era Samurai

From the 12th to the mid 19th century, Japan was fundamentally a feudal
society. Just as in medieval Europe, there were the merchants, the artisans and
a large class of serfs and peasants, all of whom were essentially servants to the
small upper class of warriors known as the samurai. This upper class aristocracy,
just like the knights of early feudal Europe, largely consisted of mounted,
armored warriors. The word “samurai” itself came from the Chinese verb 侍
literally meaning “those who serve” because Samurai were warrior-servants
of a feudal lord or daimyo. 4 From the 14th century to the 17th century, warfare
became endemic throughout Japan as loyalty to the emperor dwindled and
power changed from one military family to another. Consequently, much as
in the case of feudal Europe, such extensive periods of warfare brought great
admiration for military virtues of honor, bravery, discipline and acceptance
of death. As Harvard professor of East-Asian studies Edwin Reichauer states,
“Lacking any religious injunctions against suicide, in defeat they commonly

2 Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity (Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995), 81, 85.
3 Karl F. Friday, “Bushidō or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective on the Imperial
Army and the Japanese Warrior Tradition,” The History Teacher 27, no. 3 (May 1,
1994): 340.
4 Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 52-53.
22 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

took their own lives rather than accept humiliation… by means of cutting
one’s own abdomen… to demonstrate will-power and maintain honor.” This
gruesome and extremely painful act was called harakiri, literally “belly-slitting”
but better known as seppuku and has survived to modern times as an honorable
way to escape an intolerable situation. 5
In addition to warfare, Japanese warriors prided themselves on their skill in
the arts of poetry and calligraphy.6 It even became provincial law that samurai
devote time to literature as it became more relevant in dealing with political
matters in the early 17th century as peace began under the administration of
a Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600, “The study of literature and the practice of
the military arts, including archery and horsemanship, must be cultivated
diligently.”7 This peace, which lasted nearly 250 years, created problems for the
ruling warrior class who sought to be relevant in a time without war. One 17th
century samurai who heavily pondered this issue was Yamaga Soko (1622-1685).
Yamaga attempted to define the warrior from an ethical standpoint saying that
the warrior was not only an example of Confucian purity to the lesser classes
of society, but also an enforcer of it. In this setting, the samurai would become
some sort of Warrior-Sage, and realizing their dilemma, samurai soon began
to act in such a role more and more. But in a society without war the Japanese
warrior’s role became more idealized than realized.8
Attitudes of the Samurai class such as the idea as a Warrior-Sage or example
to the rest of society accelerated the rise of some extremism among many
samurai masters. While many samurai of this time period accepted their fate
of domestication, others reveled in protest in attempt to retain their unique
status as samurai.9 Today, the most famous of any of these attitudes is that of
Tsunetomo Yamamoto, who in the late 17th century served as a samurai lord
in the court of the third daimyo of the Saga Prefecture, Nabeshima Mitsushige.
After his master’s death Tsunetomo went to live a life of seclusion as a Buddhist
priest and proceeded to dictate the meaning of his service to scribe Tashiro
Tsuramoto. After seven years’ worth of conversations, Tsuramoto arranged

5 Ibid., 56-58.
6 Shiba Yohsimasa, “The Chikubasho” in Ideals of the Samurai, trans. Wilson (Burbank,
CA: Ohara Publications, 1982), 27.
7 “Rule for the Military Houses” (Buke Sho-Hatto) in Ideals of the Samurai, trans.
Wilson (Burbank, CA: Ohara Publications, 1982), 29.
8 Wilson, introduction to Ideals of the Samurai, 29.
9 Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of
Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 279.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 23

these utterances into a book named Hagakure, literally meaning “hidden by the
leaves.”10 In more recent times the title is usually followed by “The Book of
the Samurai” and is often considered to be a very valuable source for peering
into the thought process of the Samurai class. As the book’s translator William
Scott Wilson tells us,

[Tsunetomo] was the absolute samurai… His extremism and singularity

were not held in check by any anticipation of judgment from the
outside… His mentors and perhaps geographical position gave
encouragement to his own radicalness, and the single idea that focused
his thought was not prone to compromise or dissuasion.11

But while much Western scholarship classifies this book as an extremist

version of the samurai ethic that does not accurately represent the majority of
historical samurai, other scholars believe Hagakure to be “a work that reflects
the ‘ethnomentality’ of the Tokugawa samurai in all its diversity.”12
The radical attitudes of Tsunetomo were shared by many and had been
among the warrior class for centuries. All of these factors Wilson highlights
contribute to Tsunetomo’s focus on the importance of one’s master and the
willingness of the samurai to die, front-lining this philosophy with his opening
line “The Way of the Samurai is found in death.”13 The recklessness which
Tsunetomo conveys throughout these conversations is somewhat rejected
among various scholars who state that while it is not hard to find examples
of samurai who in some situations, chose to turn and die in a frontal charge
rather than be killed while running away, the historical military record of
medieval Japan shows more often the efforts of samurai to use deception and
subterfuge to catch his enemies off guard or helpless, than the sort of zealous
self-sacrifice that Tsunemoto spoke of.14 Whether this be the case or not, there
is no doubt that there is an honorific acceptance of death within the samurai
unlike that of any other warrior giving rise to the Japanese cult of honor. If

10 William Scott Wilson, introduction to Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, by

Tsunetomo Yamamoto, trans. William Scott Wilson (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha
International Ltd., 1979), 9.
11 Wilson, introduction to Hagakure, 16.
12 Ikegama, The Taming of the Samurai, 279.
13 Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, trans. William Scott
Wilson (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International Ltd., 1979), 17.
14 Friday, “Bushidō or Bull,” 341.
24 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

one reviews other literature of the period, “it is evident that the number of
references to honor, usually expressed with the word na or ‘name,’ suddenly
increases with the emergence of the samurai.”15 Another book translated by
Wilson, The Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, presents writings
of samurai masters dating back to the 13th century and many of these men,
like Tsunemoto, praise death on the battlefield. These values and other ideals
practiced and praised by the samurai soon became coined as bushido, literally
meaning “Way of the Warrior.”16

Soul of the Samurai

Throughout their illustrious history, the warriors of Japan have carried
many different weapons in battle but the iron tools and weapons brought over
from mainland Asia during the Yayoi period (300 BC- 300 AD) soon began to
produce skillful iron working by native Japanese craftsmen. These ironsmiths
worked for centuries in order to perfect the art of their craft—determining
which techniques, materials and forging methods would produce swords that
would cut well and would not bend or break. Changes in battle methods
would inevitably effect the nature of the weapon as the sword went from the
long and straight chokut in the 8th to 10th centuries, to the long and curved
tachi in the 10th and 11th centuries, until eventually the Japanese sword as we
know it today, the katana, with a shorter curved blade, was perfected sometime
around the 12th century.17
The making of a traditional Japanese sword is an extremely involved
procedure that can take several months from start to finish. The process begins
with the smelting of a type of iron ore known as satetsu found in the form of
very fine sand. The satetsu is placed in large charcoal-fueled clay furnace called
a tartara until it melts and hardens into a large steel block at the base of the
furnace. This block is then removed, broken into fist-sized pieces and examined
for carbon content. The steel that has a carbon content ranging from about 0.6
to 1.5 percent is called tamahagane and is deemed suitable for sword making.
The rest must undergo additional smelting to adjust the carbon content.18
Swordsmiths then hand select the pieces of tamahagane they wish to use

15 Sakurai Shotaro, Meiyo to chijoku (Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1971), 4, quoted in
Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai, 49.
16 Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (New York, NY: Kodansha USA, 1899), 10.
17 Kokan Nagayama, The Connoisseurs Book of Japanese Swords (Tokyo, Japan:
Kodansha International, 1998), 2.
18 Leon Kapp, Hiroko Kapp, Yoshindo Yoshihara, and Tom Kishida, Modern Japanese
Swords and Swordsmiths: From 1868 to the Present (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha
International Ltd., 2002), 9.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 25

and stack them in a compact square on a steel plate welded onto the end of
a long steel handle. This is then inserted into the forge until it is heated to a
specific temperature at which point it is withdrawn, folded, hammered, and
reheated some twelve or thirteen times depending on the swordsmith. This
process is what gives a Japanese sword its strength and durability with its softer
center and hard outer edge with some several thousand layers of steel made
visible by the wave-like pattern on the blade known as the jihada.19 If a sword
is not made in this fashion or using the Japanese steel tamahagane, it cannot be
considered a “traditional” Japanese blade.20
The sword, moreover, has symbolic significance to early modern Japanese
as many called it the “soul of the samurai” and believed that it contained certain
spiritual qualities due to its appearance in myths and religious texts. Some of
Japan’s oldest histories contain hints that the sword was regarded as an object
of worship in addition to an effective weapon. This most likely originated
from the Japanese myth of the three sacred Imperial regalia in which the gods
directly handed three objects, one of which was a sword, to the brother of the
sun goddess from whom the imperial family claimed direct descendance.21
This myth is significant because the sword was lost during the Battle of
Dannoura in 1185 between Imperial and Shogun forces when eight-year-old
Emperor Antoku jumps into the ocean with it. Thus, the loss of the sword,
which represented imperial power, symbolically tethers the lost sword to the
new martial entity of the shoguns.22 Dutch scholar Vyjayanthi R. Selinger
argues that this tethering is specifically symbolic to the first shogun Minamoto
no Yoritomo because in the battle in which the sword is lost and his forces
conquer the Emperor’s, he brings stability to the region and becomes the new
symbol of power, and is thus the new sword. “Yoritomo, who restores peace
to the realm, is represented as the metaphoric double of the imperial sword…
[and] Yoritomo assures the continuity of imperial power by becoming its
proxy.”23 This means that the leaders of Japan whether emperor or shogun,
were symbolized by a sword making the weapon something of a sacred object

19 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida, Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths,
9-10, 49.
20 Ibid., 43.
21 Nagayama, The Connoisseurs Book of Japanese Swords, 2. Gregory Irvine, Japanese
Sword: Soul Of The Samurai (Trumbell, CT: Weatherhill Press, 2000), 8.
22 Vyjayanthi R. Selinger, Authorizing the Shogunate: Ritual and Material Symbolism in
the Literary Construction of Warrior Order (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic
Publishers, 2013), 107.
23 Ibid., 107-108.
26 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

throughout the country.

Although at first all classes of people carried weapons of different sorts,
the times of great social upheaval before the unification of Japan in 1600, most
notably the Warring States period from the mid-15th to 17th century, caused
a rise of the warrior class. The sword gradually became exclusive to a small
percentage of the population and eventually, the samurai as a class were formed
when general to the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, confiscated all arms of the
peasantry in 1590 drawing sharp lines between social classes.24
Japanese scholar Francis Brinkley who lived in Japan for some 40 years
during the Meiji Era expertly highlights the importance of the sword to the
Japanese people during the time in his account Japan: Its History literature and Arts:

The sword has exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese
nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights conferred, the deeds
wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its use, the
superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set upon a fine
blade, the honors bestowed on an expert swordsmith… all these things
conspired to give to the katana an importance beyond the limits of
ordinary conception.25

All of these notions and more make the sword a vitally important artifact when
studying feudal, Tokugawa, and early modern era Japan.

The Meiji Era and its Swords

In summer of 1853, large black ships sailed through the isolationist waters
of Japan and into Yokohama harbor. Commodore Matthew Perry of the
United States had come with his black fleet to force Japan to open its doors to
international trade. The sudden and massive influx of foreign trade effectively
destroyed domestic markets and the monetary system. The one person that
could do something, the shogun, was powerless against the superior forces and
firepower displayed by the United States despite his best efforts at gaining
national support. Eventually, his lack of action and breeches in protocol while
consulting the daimyo for support led to a flood of criticism. Popular sentiment
for the opening of the country was vastly negative and many felt that in order

24 Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 65.

25 Francis Brinkley, Japan: Its History Arts and Literature, Vol. II (Tokyo, Japan: J.B.
Millet Co., 1901), 142.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 27

to meet the foreign powers, the nation would have to come together around a
greater symbol of national unity, the emperor. Unable to resist the weapons and
manpower of the ominous foreign presence and the increasing disintegration
of the authority and loyalty to the shogunate, eventually led factions of Japanese
leadership to seize control of the imperial court and declare the resumption
of direct imperial rule under Emperor Meiji on January 3, 1868.26 The
change brought about by the Meiji era effectively restored the power in the
country from the shogun and the Samurai class to the emperor and the central
government, from which the shogun had taken much of its power during the
12th century.27 After only a little more than a decade of exposure to western
culture and ways of industry and capitalism, the Japanese way of life had been
knocked to its foundations.
Although replacing the old feudal domains with new prefectures was
relatively easy because of the symbolic role of the daimyo now governors—
wiping out the old class divisions of the deep-seated feudal system would prove
to be much more difficult. While many of the peasants were happy to see a
change in this system, the Samurai were very reluctant to give up their special
privileges and hereditary titles. The following years did not bode well for the
samurai either as their role in society was steadily dismantled. In 1873, nation-
wide military conscription was put into place rendering the old class basis for
military service completely obsolete. 28 The final abolishment of the Samurai
class began in 1876 by means of the Haitorei edict which forbid the samurai
from carrying their swords, the weapons which symbolized their authority.29
Opposition to this new law and additional strife between different factions of
the government caused by a lingering antipathy for the new Meiji government
instigated numerous samurai uprisings eventually culminating in the Satsuma
Rebellion in 1877. This rebellion, which was largely composed of samurai bitter
about their new place in society, was led by commander of the Imperial Guard
and samurai lord Saigo Takamori. Some 42,000 men flocked to Saigo’s cause,
but the effort was in vain as the imperial army possessed greater numbers and
more advanced weaponry eventually subduing samurai rebellions for good.30
The influx of Western style and ideals that was forcibly embedded into

26 Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 79-80.

27 Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai, 48.
28 Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 81.
29 Irvine, Japanese Sword, 108.
30 Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army, 40.
28 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

Japanese society soon became immediately noticeable in the Japanese Imperial

Army through modern uniforms, tactics, firearms, and battlefield conduct.
Much less noticed are the swords which commissioned and non-commissioned
officers carried on the battlefield and what they symbolize. Although today,
swords are worn to show tradition and only for ceremonial purposes, officers
and non-commissioned officers have always worn swords as a status symbol. In
pre-Meiji Japan, as I have discussed, only samurai had the right and privilege
to wear swords. After the restoration, the wearing of swords was restricted
to police and military only, many of whom were ex-samurai. But gradually,
the beginnings of Japan’s modern military institution began to show as new
government officials began to answer the question of who was qualified to
serve in the army. Eventually, a nation-wide conscript policy was formed and
required a certain amount of troops from each domain based on rice production.
Although some units were made up of only samurai, all were equipped with
modern infantry weapons as well as artillery.31
At this point, men who had not been born of the samurai class soon began
to earn the right within this modern military to carry a sword. Just as the
European style made a lasting affect on the design of dress uniforms, it had
an effect on the military officer’s sword. The army’s military advisors who, at
the time, were French and German would have heavily influenced the first
swords that were issued in the imperial army.32
As one can see from Figure 2, this sword and scabbard which were produced
from c. 1871 to 1877 with a few varying designs, are completely western in
appearance and bear no resemblance to the sword in Figure 1 which is the
widely recognized katana carried by the samurai for centuries.
Take particular notice to the different elements of the hilt, the scabbard,
and the curvature of the blade in Figure 2. While Japanese swords had always
had a tsuba for minor protection of the hands, it had never come close to the
hand and knuckle guards of European swords which gradually became more
elaborate as shields were phased out in European warfare.33 Since these swords
bear such close resemblance to western swords of the time, the only way that
they may be identified is by Japanese arsenal markings. Although none of

31 Edward J. Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945 (Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, 2009), 23.
32 Richard Fuller and Ron Gregory, Military Swords of Japan 1868-1945 (New York,
NY: Arms & Armour Press, 1993), 8.
33 For details on European warfare see: Ewart Oakeshott, European Weapons and
Armour: From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution (Boydell Press, 2012).
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 29

these swords have actually been found due to the level of destruction in Japan
during World War II, there are photos in which officers appear to be yielding
the army officers pattern of c. 1871.34 Although the actual production dates of
this sword are unknown, it is speculated that production stopped sometime
around 1877—the year of the Satsuma rebellion.
The significance of this rebellion cannot be overlooked as it shows both
a major end to traditional Japanese culture and a beginning in the timeline
of Japanese nationalism. The defeat of Saigo’s forces marked an effective end
to the samurai class in that there was no longer any dispute in the central
government of how to “deal with the samurai.” Traditional samurai privileges
and regional challenges to the central government were swept away and as a class,
they ceased to exist. However, their ideals did not die with them. As military
historian Edward J. Drea explains, “Conscripts’ battlefield performance deeply
troubled the Meiji leaders, who saw that, man for man, the conscripts were

Figure 1

Figure 2

34 Fuller and Gregory, Military Swords of Japan, 15.

30 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

Figure 3

no match for Saigo’s samurai.” This led army leaders to conclude that while
government troops may have better weapons and training, samurai fighters
had superior morale and will to fight. The ferocity with which Saigo’s samurai
fought convinced senior army officers that these warriors possessed special
intangible qualities that had to be inculcated into the ranks of the Imperial
army. Authorities soon launched an intensive indoctrination program to instill
the men of the Imperial army with the spiritual attributes samurai warriors
held with such high regard.35 This instilment of intangible qualities lead to a
reliance on the spiritual aspect of battle and over time, this came to mean a
willingness to fight to the death regardless of the tactical situation. Once this
concept gained acceptance, death in combat became the standard by which
one measured their fighting spirit. It is in this instance we see the ideals of the
samurai transferred to the common fighting man.
At around the same time as this spiritual indoctrination, we see the
emergence of the sword in Figure 3.
This sword, known as the ‘Kyu-gunto’ or proto-military sword, contains
elements from the western style sword in Figure 2 as well as the return of some
traditional Japanese sword components. As seen side by side in Figure 4A and
B, the Kyu-gunto has obvious resemblance to the completely western Imperial
Japanese sword with the retaining of the handguard and wire-bound grip. In
addition both have the slightly angled pommel which was popular in French
and German swords of the time.
Also notice the scabbard tips in the swords of Figures 2 and 3 and enlarged
here in Figure 5. This is a distinctly Western sword scabbard trait known

35 Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army, 45-46.

 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 31

as a ‘drag’ and is intended to protect the scabbard tip from additional wear.
Although not pictured on the sword in Figure 4A, many Western swords

Figure 4A Figure 4B

of the time used clips welded to the handguard plate to hold the blade in its
scabbard. Notice the small protruding piece sticking horizontally out from
the handguard plate on Figure 4B. This is in fact one of the aforementioned
clips to hold the Japanese-style blade into its Western-style scabbard. This
portion of the sword I found most curious because it contains both the clip
and a habaki—a metal collar slid around the base of the blade which was the
traditional Japanese way to hold a sword in its scabbard as pictured in Figure 6.
Other traditional Japanese influences on the Kyu-gunto in the hilt are
exhibited by the existence of a mekugi-ana (peg hole) and accompanying mekugi
(bamboo peg) which were used to hold a Japanese blade within its mounts.
While Western swords were generally made with the hilt as part of the
sword, Japanese swords were always made and stored without mounts. This
allowed any sword to be placed in virtually any mounts simply by removing
the mekugi and sliding the blade out. These are represented by the small circle
on the hilt in Figure 4B and on the
nakago (unmounted handle) in Figure 6.

The remaining Japanese influence

in the Kyu-gunto is exhibited solely in
the blade. Although many of the early
examples of this sword are speculated to
have mass-produced blades, most of the
surviving specimens have hand-forged
or ancestral blades of the traditional
Figure 5
32 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

Figure 6

samurai. While a trained eye will be able to see the difference in the sori or
curvature between a Japanese blade and a Western one, the most obvious
component that gives away a blade as Japanese is the kissaki or point. See in
Figure 7 the difference between A, an example of a Western blade, and B and
C, both Japanese blades from above.
Although the blade in Figure 7B
(traditional katana from Figure 1) and
7C (Kyu-gunto from Figure 3) are
of different style—one with a visible
hamon (temper pattern), and the other Figure 7A
with a bo-hi (straight groove), the tips
have a specific trapezoidal shape to
them as well as the distinctive yokote
which is the line perpendicular to
the cutting edge of the blade and
defines the point area by making a
clear delineation between the point
Figure 7C
and the body of the sword.36
Although the actual date of the
emergence of this sword is unknown,
it is suspected that it came about
sometime in the late 19th century and

36 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida,

Modern Japanese Swords and Figure 7B
Swordsmiths, 19.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 33

almost definitely after the Satsuma rebellion of 1877.37 Having discussed the
importance of swords in historical Japanese culture, the emergence of this
sword is highly significant because it is physical evidence of the indoctrination
of samurai virtue into the general populace. And it is this spread of samurai
ideals to the public that eventually caused everyone who was Japanese to
come together as a nation believing all were part samurai in the years leading
up to World War II. In other words, this sword represents the conception of
nationalism in Japan.

“Bushido” and its Contribution to Nationalism

Although the samurai had always had a distinct way of battle conduct,
there wasn’t even a concept that classified this conduct as such until the 17th
century. Just as a fish doesn’t know that it is in water, samurai conduct on the
battlefield was known only to samurai due to the constant state of internal war
during Japan’s long-standing isolation from other countries. Only when the
250 years of peace during the Edo period began under Tokugawa Ieyasu, and
the role of samurai became more as a bureaucrat than a warrior did the concept
of a code come about. Those who wrote on the “way of the warrior” were
motivated by a search for the role of a warrior class in a world without war,
which gave rise to the aforementioned warrior-sage.38 Yamamoto Tsunemoto,
Daidoji Yfizan, Yamaga Soko, and the other early modern samurai writers,
wrote about the idea of a code of conduct exclusively for the samurai. What
all of these men had in common was their strong desire to define and defend
the essence of what set the samurai apart from all other classes. They were
prescribing rather than describing a code of conduct for the elite and were
arguing that it was this code and the values of it which separated this elite
class of warriors from the throng of commoners and peasants beneath them.39
This intention however, did not last long as the dramatic change in the
social structure along with the instilment of spiritual attributes in Imperial
army regulars and the growing nationalist fervor, eventually led to the belief
that the samurai martial ethic was shared by all Japanese. This idea was then
widely popularized by author Inazo Nitobe in his 1904 publication Bushido:
The Souls of Japan. This book which is still popular today among those who are
interested in samurai culture, may be the most controversial piece of literature

37 Fuller and Gregory, Military Swords of Japan, 17.

38 Friday, “Bushido or Bull,” 340.
39 Ibid., 343.
34 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

surrounding the ideals of Japanese honor. Nitobe, who claims that the spirit of
Bushido replaced religion in Japanese schools in the education of morals, wasn’t
even educated in traditional Japanese ways having been a Christian most of his
life.40 Despite controversy over the book’s accuracy of what really constituted
the ideals of bushido, the book widely popularized the term both in Japan and
internationally. There were many other watershed disseminations of the term
bushido in Japan through various articles and journals which related to history,
politics, and even baseball—the most prominent being the journal Bushidō zasshi
in 1898.41 Publications such as these were largely due to the recent success in the
Sino-Japanese war and show the degree to which traditional Japanese customs
were being revived to serve nationalism during this time period.

The Imperial Era and the Rise of Nationalism

Although the degree to which the Japanese people were nationalistic
during the start of the Meiji period is often inflated, the foundation for the
radical nationalism to come was already there. Ethnically homogeneous,
linguistically united, socially standardized and undivided by religious
resentments, the Japanese of the late Tokugawa and early Meiji period had
few obstacles to the development of a strong national awareness.42 In addition
to this, the importance of loyalty to one’s master and domain, which were
central beliefs to the samurai, ended up playing a crucial role in the early years
of Meiji as samurai loyalty switched from individual daimyo to emperor. As
a society formerly run by a military class, it seems obvious to say that foreign
wars would help to enhance the sense of patriotism and national unity in a
newly proclaimed nation. In a span of less than 50 years the Japanese fought
four major wars: the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895, the Russo-Japanese
war of 1904-1905, the Sino-Japanese war starting in 1937, and World War II
from 1941-1945. The Sino and Russo-Japanese wars were especially vital to
the development of a national pride as the first foreign wars that Japan fought
as a country with a national army.43
This national army which was made up of conscripts from all over the

40 Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, 6. For facts about Nitobe’s life see the National
Diet Library’s official website at http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/311.html.
41 Oleg Benesch, “Bushido : The Creation of a Martial Ethic in Late Meiji Japan.”
(Vancouver, British Columbia: University of British Columbia, 2011), 137.
42 Albert M. Craig, “Fukuzawa Yukichi: The Philosophical Foundations of Meiji
Nationalism,” in Political Development in Modern Japan, ed. Robert Ward, 100.
43 Nobutaka Ike, “War and Modernization,” in Political Development in Modern Japan,
ed. Robert Ward, 189.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 35

country and from the poorest of families, soon became an institution not
only for waging war but also for education. Japanese scholar Nobutaka Ike
points out that “the problem of nation-building must necessarily involve the
transformation of many individuals from ‘traditional’ man into ‘modern’
man.” The new conscript army did exactly this in the 19th century as many of
the recruits came from remote mountain communities and had not attended
any sort of schooling. The army provided not only the opportunity for these
men to learn how to read and write, but also afforded them the opportunity
to talk with recruits from other sections of the country thus broadening their
political horizons. Doing this made recruits aware of the world outside of
their native villages and soon gave them no desire to return. In addition to
the army’s modernization and urbanization of these young men, the army
instilled training in patriotism and nationalism. One such initiative was the
1882 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors which gave basic guidelines for
the moral training of all men in the army and navy stating “as the protection
of the State and the maintenance of its power depend upon the strength of its
arms, the growth or decline of this strength must effect the nation’s destiny
for good or evil.”44
Such encouragement of nationalism only continued in the years leading
up to war in a spiral of increasing state-controlled institutions. In 1890 the
emperor issued the Imperial Rescript on Education calling for all Japanese
to have a sense of public duty towards the nation and a spirit of collective
patriotism. Not long after this did the state issue control over textbooks in
response to pressure from opposing politicians.45 Around the same time, with
Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, the already in-place state
religion of Shintoism began to expand rapidly. Production of shrines all over
Japan soon attracted those mourning those lost in the Sino and Russo Japanese
wars thus heightening the mood of patriotism.46
The succession of these events would steadily increase over the years until
they finally found their peak during the second Sino-Japanese war when Japan
invaded Manchuria in 1931. The Japanese attitude of dominance over other

44 Nobutaka Ike, “War and Modernization,” in Political Development in Modern Japan,

ed. Robert Ward, 195-197.
45 “The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890),” in Sources of Japanese Tradition:
Volume 2, 1600 to 2000, compiled by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck and Arthur
Tiedemann (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2005), 779-783.
46 Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck and Arthur Tiedemann jap sources of tradition,
Sources of Japanese Tradition, 792.
36 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

Asian nations found its root in samurai culture, stemmed in China, and soon
stretched across the entire south Pacific to the point that we see just before the
start of World War II in 1941.
By the 1930’s, nationalism was in full force in Japan as the Imperial army had
largely taken over the education and schooling systems of the country through
propaganda. The publication of cheap and widely distributed commercial
handbooks was fully subsidized by the army. They explained different ways
to venerate troops and that conscripts should be grateful the emperor wanted
them for his army. With instances such as these, military virtues steadily seeped
into popular culture.47 Physical evidence of this came about in 1933-1934 with
the emergence of the ‘shin-gunto’ or neo-military sword.
As seen in Figure 8, the shin-gunto was full a return to the Japanese
style. One can see that at first glance, it is virtually indistinguishable from a
traditional katana.
These swords lacked the title of being “traditional” for just about every
reason though. Firstly, they were not forged using the lengthy traditional
methods to meet the numbers of those that rated swords in the Imperial army.
Although some smiths continued traditional sword making up through 1945,
out of the approximately 7 million men in the imperial army and navy an
estimated 2,150,000 men were eligible to carry swords.48 As one can imagine
this created a problem for the military of how to produce such a large number of
swords forcing them to mass-produce them at an industrial level. Secondly, due
to the volume of swords needed, they were not made using tamahagane. Instead

Figure 8

47 Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army, 73.

48 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida, Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths,
42 and 61.
 Spring 2016, Volume XLI • 37

they were made either using a combination of tamahagane and foreign steel in the
case of the Murata-to or using imported steel rails or old railroad tracks and given
the name Showa-to which were made towards the beginning of World War II.49
Although there are many reasons why these swords are not real samurai swords
based on how they were made or what they were made of, they are significant
because of the way they look and how they came about.
After the Second World War, the new Japanese government passed a law
making the production of swords illegal. In addition American occupation
forces went from door to door collecting all swords new and old from the
people in order to hinder any possibility of insurrection.50 The occupation forces
knew they were confiscating more than just a weapon though, they knew it
represented the fighting spirit of Japan and as long as the people had them stable
reconstruction could not be started. In 1952, the government finally decided to
allow the production of swords through the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry. Master swordsmith Kurihara Hikosaburo then took it upon himself
to travel all over Japan meeting with swordsmiths and asking them to continue
their sword-making. Although Kurihara died only a short time later, he played a
key role in the revival and continuation of traditional Japanese sword-making.51
Since the production of samurai swords is still very closely monitored and
the imagery of them is scarce throughout the Japanese National Defense Force, it
will be interesting to see what role swords play as Japan considers remilitarization
with the impending Chinese threat.

Works Cited

Primary Sources
Brinkley, Francis. Japan: Its History Arts and Literature.Vol. II.Tokyo, Japan: J.B. Millet Co., 1901.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore, Carol Gluck, and Arthur Tiedemann. Sources of Japanese
Tradition:Volume 2, 1600 to 2000. 2nd edition. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2005.

49 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida, Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths,
42 and 62.
50 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida, Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths,
73 and 76.
51 Kapp, Kapp, Yoshihara, and Kishida, Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths,
76-77.
38 • Wittenberg University East Asian Studies Journal

Nitobe, Inazo. Bushido:The Soul of Japan. New York, NY: Kodansha USA, 1899.
Tsunetomo,Yamamoto. Hagakure:The Book of the Samurai. Translated by William
Scott Wilson. Kodansha International Ltd., 1979.
Wilson, William Scott, trans. Ideals of the Samurai:Writings of Japanese Warriors.
Burbank, Calif: Ohara Publications, 1982.

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handle/2429/31136.
Cleary, Thomas. Soul of the Samurai: Modern Translations of Three Classic Works of Zen
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Drea, Edward J. Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945. 1st edition.
Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
Friday, Karl F. “Bushidō or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective on the Imperial
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1994): 339–49.
Fuller, Richard, and Ron Gregory. Military Swords of Japan 1868-1945. New York,
N.Y.: Arms & Armour Press, 1993.
Ikegami, Eiko. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of
Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Irokawa, Daikichi. The Culture of the Meiji Period. Edited by Marius B. Jansen.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Irvine, Gregory. Japanese Sword: Soul Of The Samurai. Trumbell, CT: Weatherhill,
2000.
Kapp, Leon, Hiroko Kapp,Yoshindo Yoshihara, and Tom Kishida. Modern Japanese
Swords and Swordsmiths: From 1868 to the Present. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha
International Ltd., 2002.
Lewis, Michael. Becoming Apart: National Power and Local Politics in Toyama, 1868-
1945. Harvard Univ Asia Center, 2000.
McCormack, Gavan, and Yoshio Sugimoto. The Japanese Trajectory: Modernization and
Beyond. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Nagayama, Kokan. The Connoisseurs Book of Japanese Swords. First Edition. Tokyo;
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Oakeshott, Ewart. European Weapons and Armour: From the Renaissance to the Industrial
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Reischauer, Edwin O. The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity. Enlarged edition.
Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995.
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Selinger,Vyjayanthi R. Authorizing the Shogunate: Ritual and Material Symbolism in the

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