Talk:Nikana Prime/@comment-122.52.163.67-20160223002354/@comment-85.23.198.132-20160223083607

^ Because warriors totally like burdening themselves with useless and expensive junk in battle right? Please. The Japanese carried them for the same reason as just about everyone else - you're going to be hard pressed to find a more easily carried and versatile sidearm.

Also the whole status-symbol thing was pretty much entirely Edo period bullshit to make the in practice effectively unemployed and idle warrior class feel important. In earlier times nobody really cared much and even peasant infantry routinely carried katanas for backup if they could afford (or loot) them. As a side note commoner soldiers and the lower end of the bushi class generally couldn't afford *spare* swords, so they instead used comparatively cheap ones of relatively soft but tough steel which tended to bend instead of breaking and could be quickly straightened against the ground with your foot if need be - nearly one and half millenia earlier Romans made similar obervations of Celtic warriors, doubtless for much the same reasons.

Higher up the totem pole harder but potentially more fragile blades that kept a better edge were the norm, since the elite could of course afford small personal armouries to replace broken ones from - and for that matter servants and attendants to keep them close to hand.