Talk:Ōdachi

References

Hello anonymous editor, could you give some references from where you get this information? Thanks, jni 10:17, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The majority of information presented here was obtained from the Atsuta Jingu (Nagoya) Ôdachi exhibition catalogue (no ISBN), translated by H. Kakuta. Sincerely, "anonymous editor" 5:25, 7 Oct 2004 (EST)

Permission?

I did not see any sources or permission to use this text, so I mention here that this article is almost identical to the one in here. Shinnin 20:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

and is in fact identical to text here. Outerstyx (talk) 17:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:MilHist Assessment

While considerably longer than most stubs, the vast majority of the content of this article is in bulletpoints, with practically no further explanation. There is some interesting supplementary information, such as the etymology of the word, the swordsmithing techniques, but none of this is elaborated on. There is literally just one single sentence on this sword being used as a weapon. LordAmeth 16:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Too long for practical use?

"Some ōdachi are too long for practical use." I doubt this statement. Used from a horse a long sword can be very useful against targets on horse or afoot. The longest Odachi is more 377cm long. It could have been used in battle. Also the long handle of this odachi seems to be made on purpose to facilitate the use. [[1]]

You link to that site, and still dispute the fact that some Odachi were too long for practical use? And how would you propose to use any Odachi, let alone a 377cm long one, from horseback? Look at how they used greatswords and Zweihänders in Europe. -KA

My Ōdachi is massive and is rather hard to hold let alone wield. I think the statement in question is fairly solid unless there's some fairly convincing commentary to the contrary. Speaking of such, would a photo of my Ōdachi be appropriate for this page or is the page decent enough without it?

PinothyJ (talk) 10:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)…

Mostly held by two people.

This is an absolutely preposterous claim. Site your source or this is going away quickly. In fact, if anyone can site ANY example of a hand weapon being wielded by two people, I will leave this up.

Merge with nodachi?

Despite some would-be expert's attempt to differentiate between Ōdachi and nodachi, the terms are considered essentially synonymous in Japanese. 野太刀 redirects to 大太刀 on the Japanese wikipedia, and, tellingly, there is no link on the page for nodachi to the Japanese wikipedia.

--127.0.0.1 (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Although the articles say that the swords are different, none of them provide evidence to support that statement. 75.157.78.82 (talk) 17:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Kibitsu jinja

This unverified "factoid" was removed from Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines:

Kibitsu jinja holds the longest Japanese Odachi, which has a length of 377 cm (11 feet).

With inline cite support, it could be used in this article. --Ansei (talk) 14:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Drawing from the back

I do not doubt at all the impracticality of drawing a blade of any significant length from the back, but did this really matter for this weapon? I would think the weapon would merely be stored there until needed, and would be drawn—presumably clumsily, by another person or after removing the scabbard from the back—well before coming into contact with the enemy (presumably on an open battlefield). It was hardly a weapon that would need to be (or be expected to have to be) drawn quickly. TaintedMustard (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Cultural references

I suggest the article is missing at least two cultural references which would be useful; Sasaki Kojiro’s use of an odachi during his duel with Musashi, and the depiction of its use in the Seven Samurai by Toshiro Mifune’s character, Kikuchiyo. Interestingly, in the film Kikuchiyo used his long sword to defeat a charging horseman (a reversal of the description of the odachi’s use in the article) and it also depicts the blade breaking after some use (which tally’s with the manufacturing difficulties the article describes). Any thoughts? Swanny18 (talk) 18:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Another one: M'chonne on the Walking Dead carries one, NOT a katana which is the common mis-assumption — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.214.103 (talk) 20:58, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Infantry, not cavalry weapon

I removed an uncited reference to the Odachi supposedly being used from horseback, and changed "cavalry sword" (also uncited) to "infantry sword". The notion that it was meant for use from horseback is nothing short of preposterous, as it is very much a two-handed weapon - not a one handed weapon. Simply holding it out and swiping enemy infantry with it as you ride along is not a viable fighting method, and there is indeed no record whatsoever of it being used that way. I was able to find exactly one depiction of Odachi wielded from horseback, and it was held in both hands and poised to strike down vertically - against another cavalryman who was blocking with a yari. The trouble is that this seems to be a hero depiction, in which case exaggerations are common. For the most part it is shown in the hands of infantry. And indeed, we know it was used as an infantry sword, since we know it was common to wrap wire around the first portion of the blade as to make a ricasso, a means to extend the handle (Karl Friday, "Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan"). No one else in the world thought it was a good idea to wield greatswords from horseback, and there is nothing to suggest the Japanese did, either. Tsuka (talk) 06:54, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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A Source Added in May 2022

The source is clearly wrong as it misunderstands the type of tachi. Known as tachi and written as 太刀 in kanji, curved swords appeared in the Heian period. On the other hand, the two swords excavated from the two ancient tombs of the fifth century described in the source refer to tachi (大刀), which has the same pronunciation but different kanji. It is a kind of chokutō, a straight sword. The source confuses tachi (太刀) with tachi (大刀) and misinterprets long 大刀 as odachi.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 03:47, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@SLIMHANNYA: I have reworked the lede and moved etymological content into its own section. I didn't go into the 太刀 vs. 大刀 spelling distinction, since that doesn't actually seem germane to the article.

As you note, the source added by Afirkhan69 (talk · contribs) in this set of edits was incorrect -- not only was that web page only a blog post written by who-knows-whom, the blog content contained glaring mistakes (such as claiming that the -chi portion in ōdachi was spelled as 刀, indicating an ignorance of written Japanese; or the conflation of the 5th-century tsurugi, continental-style straight and double-edged swords, with the later Japan-specific curved swords), and that content had been copy-pasted into the Ōdachi#History section as a clear copyvio.

I have simply removed the offending content.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Blade lengths

... the nodachi had a blade length of 3 shaku (traditional Japanese feet) and 9 sun (traditional Japanese inches; totaling approx. 148 centimetres (58 in)) and ōdachi had a blade length of 3 shaku 3 sun (approx. 125 centimetres (49 in)) ...

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_units_of_measurement#Length , this is significantly wrong.

3 shaku + 9 sun=118.17 cm=46.527 in

3 shaku + 3 sun= 99.99 cm=39.369 in

Did the traditional units change that much over time? Is there something else going on here? I want to check before correcting the math. 2600:1700:1936:4810:2EE:BB5A:C97B:24B9 (talk) 22:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

My copy of the Kōjien dictionary has the following entry for 尺 (shaku, the traditional Japanese "foot"):

①尺貫法における長さの単位。古来用いられ、大尺（高麗尺）・小尺があり、近世には曲尺・鯨尺・呉服尺・享保尺などがあったが、明治以後は曲尺が採用され、1メートルの33分の10と定義された。寸の10倍、丈の10分の1。

(1) Unit of length in the shaku-kan system ["foot-stone system", where one "stone" in Japan was at one time about 8 1/4 lbs instead of the 14 lbs of the English "stone"]. Used since antiquity, there was the "big foot" ("Goguryeo foot") and the "small foot", and in the Edo period there was also the "carpenter's square foot", the "whale foot", the "textile foot", and the "Kyōhō foot", among others; from the Meiji period, the "carpenter's square foot" was adopted, and defined as 10/33rds of a meter. Also equal to 10 sun (traditional inch), and 1/10th of a jō (traditional rod).

So yes, the specific length of a shaku depended very much on the point in time, and possibly also the specific social context. This is not unlike other traditional systems of measurement; the English ton has had different weights over time as well. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:20, 16 July 2022 (UTC)