Recent loot thread

[Rokudaime]

I guess the gist of it is three feet of metal is three feet of metal and there aren't any arcane oriental forging arts that make katana magically lighter and quicker than comparable western swords no matter how many thousands of time you fold the steel.

Should have just argued aesthetics from the start
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fair enough. But western swords' blades are often wider than the ones on katanas even if they are the same length, right? Which should mean more weight, right? Or are we talking about western swords and katanas as not being comparable unless they are exactly the same length and width? Because I don't agree with that at least, and that's was not what I was talking about when I said western swords are heavier in my experience. I was just referring to katanas and western swords that had roughly the same length.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Fair enough. But western swords' blades are often wider than the ones on katanas even if they are the same length, right? Which should mean more weight, right? Or are we talking about western swords and katanas as not being comparable unless they are exactly the same length and width? Because I don't agree with that at least, and that's was not what I was talking about when I said western swords are heavier in my experience. I was just referring to katanas and western swords that had roughly the same length.

Pictured: A Western sword

(hint: "Western sword" means jack shit specifically)

[Seika]

Speaking from experience, while almost all swords are lighter than people expect - if you ask someone to give a number value, you're almost certain to get a drastic overestimation because 'big hunk of metal' - rapiers save surprisingly little weight compared to other types.

This has been Seika's useless trivia corner.

[Rokudaime]

Pictured: A Western sword

(hint: "Western sword" means jack shit specifically)

Fair enough, and cool rapier. I was mostly thinking of swords like the ones you guys posted pictures of earlier. The kinds knights used, if that makes sense? Those have wider blades than this one and katanas, so I just assumed they would be heavier.

Speaking from experience, while almost all swords are lighter than people expect - if you ask someone to give a number value, you're almost certain to get a drastic overestimation because 'big hunk of metal' - rapiers save surprisingly little weight compared to other types.

This has been Seika's useless trivia corner.

In my case it was the opposite, I had only held replica katanas before, so when I first got to hold a real one from a dead Japanese WW2 officer (because the curator of the Kohima Museum in York, also happened to be the proprietor of Adams House guest house in York, where I stayed at the time, and I befriended him, so he gave me a short private tour of the museum on the day I was heading home, and let me hold a couple of the swords there, including that katana, and a rapier from an American officer from the same war), I was expecting it to be heavier than a replica, sure, but not by as much as it actually was. My experience with swords is that they are actually usually heavier than you might expect, but I guess that varies with the person, and by their prior experience with holding real swords. But I agree, rapiers, who imo look like they will be light, are heavier than you might expect.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Fair enough, and cool rapier. I was mostly thinking of swords like the ones you guys posted pictures of earlier. The kinds knights used, if that makes sense? Those have wider blades than this one and katanas, so I just assumed they would be heavier.

Again, depending on classification, that's not true at all. There are plenty of swords "knights used" that were small, narrow, and light.

It's like different times and different cultures and different schools of thought produced different weapons. Just like Japan and their myriad of swords-that-are-not-katana.

[TrienDarkform]

There's width, and length, but don't forget thickness. And most pictures tend to have difficulty showing the thickness of the blade, most especially how much they thin along its length, and that makes a big difference.

Japanese swords typically got a tad bit thinner as you went down its length, but not by a whole lot (maybe ~70-80% or so thickness at the far end before the bevel); and many examples hardly at all. Western/middle eastern blades tended to thin out much much more as you went down its length (to ~40/50% thickness at the far end). (And for comparison, Chinese blades typically had little to no thickness change at all).

Quite frankly, there really isn't that much difference between most sword weights, even considering changes over time and comparing between western and eastern. Most sit around the 2.5lb - 3.5lb range. If you're making a weapon that a human has to use with their hand or hands, regardless of what armour or lack thereof they were meant to go against, you'll come up with pretty similar results all around the world. Heck, even warhammers and such were in the 2-3lb range, it's just that they had all their mass concentrated at the one end.

tl;dr - just get the sword you think is prettiest, because the weights aren't that different all across the board

[Ashton Drake]

Pictured: A Western sword

(hint: "Western sword" means jack shit specifically)

Italian Rapier, Knuckle Guard is weird on this one, looks more ceremonial than actual combat weapon. Perhaps for use by Generals.
And as Seika said, Contrary to popular belief most blades are lightweight for obvious reason, except for greatswords like the british claymore during medieval times which were intentionally heavy to add more kinetic energy to blows & break through the hinges of plated armor.

[Rokudaime]

Again, depending on classification, that's not true at all. There are plenty of swords "knights used" that were small, narrow, and light.

OK, but like I said I was not talking about the ones that are small and narrow, I said I was talking about the ones you showed pictures of that have wider blades than katanas. I don't know what to call them, so "knights sword" was just my poor attempt at giving some indication of what I was talking about. That's the image I get in my head when I think of knights and what swords they use. Swords like the Excalibur FSN Saber uses. Like I said, I just assume they would be heavier than katanas because of their width, and to me those are what I think of when I think of a typical western sword. But I understand now that those may not be sufficiently comparable, and that you were not talking about those kinds of swords. But in the same way, you didn't really seem to understand what kinds of swords I was specifically refering to either. Not that I blame you, given my lackluster explanations resulting from not knowing enough about swords and terminology.

There's width, and length, but don't forget thickness. And most pictures tend to have difficulty showing the thickness of the blade, most especially how much they thin along its length, and that makes a big difference.

Japanese swords typically got a tad bit thinner as you went down its length, but not by a whole lot (maybe ~70-80% or so thickness at the far end before the bevel); and many examples hardly at all. Western/middle eastern blades tended to thin out much much more as you went down its length (to ~40/50% thickness at the far end). (And for comparison, Chinese blades typically had little to no thickness change at all).

Quite frankly, there really isn't that much difference between most sword weights, even considering changes over time and comparing between western and eastern. Most sit around the 2.5lb - 3.5lb range. If you're making a weapon that a human has to use with their hand or hands, regardless of what armour or lack thereof they were meant to go against, you'll come up with pretty similar results all around the world. Heck, even warhammers and such were in the 2-3lb range, it's just that they had all their mass concentrated at the one end.

tl;dr - just get the sword you think is prettiest, because the weights aren't that different all across the board

OK, now this is actually quite informative. Thanks.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

No, I understand what swords you were talking about, but what I'm saying is your entire paradigm of thinking is off. Yes, duh, wide-base, thicker, two-handed warswords are going to be heavier than a katana built for tighter quarters and dueling. But you also kept saying "the straight and heavier western swords" like they're all straight and heavier, or like that even means anything in comparison to a katana used for completely different things. Great, you like katana better than a claymore or a type xiv! I mean, I too prefer the F-22 Raptor jet to a Renault FT tank.

If you like quick, dueling swords, how about looking at rapiers, smallswords, and the like since they're actually going to be faster and lighter than katana and were actually constructed in a similar period with a similar purpose.

[Rokudaime]

No, I understand what swords you were talking about, but what I'm saying is your entire paradigm of thinking is off. Yes, duh, wide-base, thicker, two-handed warswords are going to be heavier than a katana built for tighter quarters and dueling. But you also kept saying "the straight and heavier western swords" like they're all straight and heavier, or like that even means anything in comparison to a katana used for completely different things. Great, you like katana better than a claymore or a type xiv! I mean, I too prefer the F-22 Raptor jet to a Renault FT tank.

If you like quick, dueling swords, how about looking at rapiers, smallswords, and the like since they're actually going to be faster and lighter than katana and were actually constructed in a similar period with a similar purpose.

Fair enough. Like I said, I understand now that the ones I was thinking about weren't sufficiently comparable. I think your example of comparing two different types of swords to comparing a tank to a fighter jet though, is stretching it, no matter how different two swords are to each other in use, design, and purpose. That's a kind of extreme. They're still both swords. A tank and a fighter jet are two completely different things. I understand what you're getting at though, of course.

[darktruth]

2nd half of my Kara no Kyoukai x Fate/Grand Order merch loot came in a few days ago.



More photos

[Kirby]

Not all Type-Moon but



Also Mac got me that nendo

[Rokudaime]

Ah, yes, that UBW book in the bottom left corner of the picture...I bought it while in Japan, thinking it would be a cool UBW artbook or something...I was sorely disappointed...

[Akyuu]

The cover says it's an 'anime visual guide'. Is it not an artbook?

[Mcjon01]

Ah, yes, that UBW book in the bottom left corner of the picture...I bought it while in Japan, thinking it would be a cool UBW artbook or something...I was sorely disappointed...

give it to me then

[Arashi_Leonhart]

The cover says it's an 'anime visual guide'. Is it not an artbook?

It's more of an "artbook where the art is some screenshots and a bunch of text about the production of the anime" if its anything like Zero's.

And we want the juicy Nasu details the production talks about.

[Rokudaime]

give it to me then

Well, it's mostly pretty boring, but I'll keep it for the sake of collection.

The cover says it's an 'anime visual guide'. Is it not an artbook?

It's more of an "artbook where the art is some screenshots and a bunch of text about the production of the anime" if its anything like Zero's.

And we want the juicy Nasu details the production talks about.

Basically this.

[Akyuu]

Earlier today I was dragged to this local comiket-ripoff sorta event and amongst a lot of other shit I found this tiny little stall selling what I infer to be handmade FGO cards(mostly because I've never seen these before and they don't really look all that professional).

Spoiler:

For whatever reason, along with the big players like Saber and Jeanne and Mashu and whatnot it has Lizzy and that's the only reason I bought this. For what's equivalent to $4 it's not even a full deck. I don't really regret it but still, a full deck would've been nice.

They were also selling this huge wallpaper of swimsuit Scathach but unfortunately I'm still immature enough to be embarrassed about being seen carrying that home.

[Strife ❤️]

They're just playing cards. Grand Order cards look like this:

[Akyuu]

I mean, they're kinda Grand Order-related because of the cast it features but yeah, playing cards, not actual GO cards, my bad. Hell I'd rather have bought a single card for the same price if it was a printed version of a GO card instead.