Kajiya de Hajimeru Isekai Slow Life - Vol. 5 Ch. 24

[TheWritingWriter]

We shall call this katana „sunlight yellow overdrive“

 

[finalm]

Closed mold swords are perfectly serviceable blades when made right. There's really nothing wrong with them at all. They're more of a thing with bronze than with iron, but it's still possible with iron. It's just going to be heavier than a fully forged blade. They're good for mass-producing blades since it's quicker to make than forging it from scratch.

The thing you're thinking of is open-face mold swords, which is only a thing in fantasy (see LoTR and Avatar: TLA, etc.). If you tried that in real life, all you'd end up with is a useless mess.

Source: I'm a blacksmith in training and have been studying this sort of thing for years.

Bronze is far softer and blades made from it much shorter. Since it will bend, rather than break, it can (and usually was) cast. Iron is a whole other story, the way it shapes and cools in the mold will create weak points, that exacerbate it's brittleness. You might get a better result with modern steel, but historically casting iron was useless for swords. There are actual tests of such "weapons" against bronze swords - they snap easliy when clashed against them.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

Setsu Scans: WAAAHHHH! All our crowdfunding accounts got banned because we were trying to make money from distributing manga titles without a licensing agreement!!!

I keep warning people about this. If you don't have the license to distribute a title in your territory, and you're trying to profit off of it, then this is what happens.

 

[finalm]

Setsu Scans: WAAAHHHH! All our crowdfunding accounts got banned because we were trying to make money from distributing manga titles without a licensing agreement!!!

I keep warning people about this. If you don't have the license to distribute a title in your territory, and you're trying to profit off of it, then this is what happens.

It's still getting off lightly. The license holders could sue, if they were vindictive enough. The whole "donation" model of scanlating today is just ridiculous and based on false premises. A group does not actually have expenses - raws are easily available online for all but the most obscure stuff, hosting is a non-issue thanks to MD. The only thing it costs is their time and effort and this is supposed to be a hobby and will only be tolerated by companies as long as it is.

 

[Goldenzeal]

You don't actually need to do 1000 folds if you start with good quality metal.
Folding doesn't remove impurities, it just spreads them out evenly so there are no large-sized defects.
European steel never needed folding because of its higher quality.

Not entirely true.
You are 100% correct that you do not need to fold good quality steel.
( Unless you want to get the patterns from it because it looks cool )

But as you fold the metal over and over, different parts of the metal are exposed to oxygen in the air.
This can burn away the burnable impurities like coal throughout the entire blade.
And also oxidizing some other impurities which can be removed later as rusted impurities are more easily removed by hammering.

And if its really low quality there can also be undissolved liquids from the original slag bound in the metals.
(kinda like a bug in Amber) that can bleed out by folding it over and over as you rearrange what part is "inside" the metals.

Also silly catto is best catto.

 

[eisenkaiser]

Any more silly catto faces, Samia's gonna turn into Neko Arc.

 

[Pyras]

Remind to everyone that a Katana is more for slashing, than cleaving. As you swing the blade, you want to 'pull' backward slightly to 'slash'. Kinda like sawing.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

It's still getting off lightly. The license holders could sue, if they were vindictive enough. The whole "donation" model of scanlating today is just ridiculous and based on false premises. A group does not actually have expenses - raws are easily available online for all but the most obscure stuff, hosting is a non-issue thanks to MD. The only thing it costs is their time and effort and this is supposed to be a hobby and will only be tolerated by companies as long as it is.

Oh, I was all prepared to go into detail about what could have happened in a worst case scenario, but I figured that'd be too preachy of me.

Yeah, they're definitely getting off easy. But if they keep this up, they're might start getting Cease and Desist orders. And the next step after C&Ds will be lawsuits.

And you're right about the expenses. Yeah, sometimes raws can be a bit difficult to procure. Every great once in a while, you actually have to physically scan hard copies. But its very rare to run into the situation where getting ahold of a single chapter is costing you an arm and a leg. And with MD around, there's very little reason to have a website at all. The most good a website would do is serve as a blogging platform for the group. And for that, there are plenty of platforms that will do it for free.

About the only other thing that could be considered an "expense" would be software and hardware. And if someone was really hard-up? They could just publish a wish list on Amazon and ask for gift subscriptions for Adobe (because god forbid someone uses GIMP</s>). I dunno if people would actually go for it, but it's better than just asking for "donations" in an attempt to make a living off of what's supposed to be a hobby.

 

[pepoluan]

It’s interesting to see people reframe real engineering in the context of settings which lack that technology, from Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court on up to modern isekai.

(1) Obviously the author did their research, the production of the katana is as best I know factually accurate, but… why? The blacksmith‘s weapons are already impossibly sharp and durable, able to cut through steel and a human body without a scratch or blemish. The purpose of using a core steel and differential hardening is to make a blade more durable, how much more durable does a sword benefit from being?

(2) There’s always the narrative arms race common in manga, where every weapon and spell has to be better than the last one until everyone’s nuking countries. I guess we need a sword to cut through the adamantium golem. From a crafting perspective there is also something to be said for doing things traditionally, but all this just strikes me as strange. A big part of craftsmanship, whether that’s blacksmithing or woodworking or pottery or baking or whatever, is understanding how a product is going to be used or consumed and working around that idea. Craftsmen have limited time, a key element of technology is getting better results with less time or effort. This sword will be, for all purposes we have seen, no more effective or durable than other swords MC’s already made and took more work.

(3) I only thought about this because the second half of this chapter is fermenting bread, which makes total sense. Bakers ferment bread to give better texture and softness. Secondarily, how it’s fermented can impact flavor. It’s super reasonable to use fermented apples, or whatever source of yeast you can find, to make bread better. If you were already able to make fluffy apple bread, on par with a Japanese or French boulangerie, would you then make a version fermented with wild apple yeast? Probably not.

I recognize this is a ridiculous critique for a manga that’s mostly cute girls and general overviews of food and blacksmithing technologies.

I don't know how to easily break your post into quote blocks on mobile, so I'll just mark points I'd like to reply to with numbers.

(1) I think there were three reasons: Reason number one being that MC is fully aware that his "superlative class" blades are cheaty, so he wanted something that he had to work on more. Reason number two is that because he wanted to teach Riku. Reason number the is because he ... just wanted to 😄

(2) I don't think there's an arms race here. MC created bespoke swords, and based on the very first scene we saw back in Chapter 1, all his creations (of the "superlative class") are pinnacles of blacksmithing. So much so that, unlike the previous war where both Demon King andd Hero died leading to truce, this time the two of them signed a truce simply because: One, their weapons are both the best in the world and won't be able to destroy each other; Two, they are the same strength and will be pointless to keep fighting; and lastly Three, neither of them wanted to make MC angry.

(3) I think so far MC never made the usual bread. In a previous chapter he clearly stated he made unleavened bread. He probably thought that's enough for the time being, and used apple-ferments more like an experiment so the family won't be bored with the exact same (unleavened) bread.

 

[ForTheJerusalem]

Are there even people who still believe that swords that had this groove had it for blood draining?

 

[AnonymousWeeaboo]

Remind to everyone that a Katana is more for slashing, than cleaving. As you swing the blade, you want to 'pull' backward slightly to 'slash'. Kinda like sawing.

Total hogwash, invented by people who had nothing better to do and little if any practical experience. These "swordsmen" were rightly ridiculed in their era, too. A katana is a sword just like every other sword, pulling has no real effect that it would not have on any other sword. You can test the technique against cutting targets against a normal cut with the same sword against a cutting target, against a European longsword doing both techniques, and you will determine there is basically no difference whatsoever in actual performance.

"Swordsman," by the way, was a pejorative, used to signify that a person had no actual combat experience, because in real battles you don't use a sword, you use a spear or a bow, or in later centuries, a gun. Swords were a little used backup in an actual battle, if indeed they were carried at all, and those who trained incessantly with them usually never actually used them, hence their ideas and techniques were never tested. There were actual swordsmen who actually did see combat, and they're largely notable for saying the masters are all dumb, use whatever techniques work, doing anything else will only get you killed.

 

[finalm]

Oh, I was all prepared to go into detail about what could have happened in a worst case scenario, but I figured that'd be too preachy of me.

Yeah, they're definitely getting off easy. But if they keep this up, they're might start getting Cease and Desist orders. And the next step after C&Ds will be lawsuits.

And you're right about the expenses. Yeah, sometimes raws can be a bit difficult to procure. Every great once in a while, you actually have to physically scan hard copies. But its very rare to run into the situation where getting ahold of a single chapter is costing you an arm and a leg. And with MD around, there's very little reason to have a website at all. The most good a website would do is serve as a blogging platform for the group. And for that, there are plenty of platforms that will do it for free.

About the only other thing that could be considered an "expense" would be software and hardware. And if someone was really hard-up? They could just publish a wish list on Amazon and ask for gift subscriptions for Adobe (because god forbid someone uses GIMP</s>). I dunno if people would actually go for it, but it's better than just asking for "donations" in an attempt to make a living off of what's supposed to be a hobby.

I find it hard to believe hardware would be the problem. Not to sound callous, but this isn't gamedev, any old junker would do and if someone's so tight on money that they don't even own some rudimentary machine - how the hell are they even part of this community? As for software, GIMP isn't even the only alternative. There are other freely available (though not neccessarily open source) options. But hell, if I was convinced that someone was committed to doing a lot of quality work and they absolutely needed commercial software, I'd probably gift them a license myself.

Scanlating on basically a zero budget was the norm almost 2 decades ago, there's no reason it shouldn't be now. To be honest, I think the releases back then were of much better quality (especially language-wise), far more regular and the groups more commited to finishing what they started. These days one title can be picked up and dropped by dozens of outfits, one after another and each of them "working" on so many positions, as if they were collecting them or something. Not to mention all the drama between competing groups, "tactical" releases and a slew of other bullshit that was bound to rear it's head as soon as money entered the picture...

 

[finalm]

Total hogwash, invented by people who had nothing better to do and little if any practical experience. These "swordsmen" were rightly ridiculed in their era, too. A katana is a sword just like every other sword, pulling has no real effect that it would not have on any other sword. You can test the technique against cutting targets against a normal cut with the same sword against a cutting target, against a European longsword doing both techniques, and you will determine there is basically no difference whatsoever in actual performance.

"Swordsman," by the way, was a pejorative, used to signify that a person had no actual combat experience, because in real battles you don't use a sword, you use a spear or a bow, or in later centuries, a gun. Swords were a little used backup in an actual battle, if indeed they were carried at all, and those who trained incessantly with them usually never actually used them, hence their ideas and techniques were never tested. There were actual swordsmen who actually did see combat, and they're largely notable for saying the masters are all dumb, use whatever techniques work, doing anything else will only get you killed.

It is pretty much established fact among sword enthusiasts, that a curved sword generally has the advantage when it comes to ease of cutting and these people test them both on tatami mats and specialized human body analogues by the dozens weekly. Generally, as in there are other factors, like the width of the blade, shape of it's cross-section, mass etc. The curvature does help though, since it makes less of the blade contact the target at once, minimizing resistance due to any twisting up of clothing or armor. I'm not saying they are superior weapons all around, just that they are good at this specific task.

You're going to have to cite a source for "swordsman" being a pejorative.. First time I heard that and I've done some reading on related topics in my time. You are correct that a sword was a backup weapon to (most often) a polearm in war, but the thing is this "backup" was used far more often than you might think. It's the whole reason people found it worthwhile to take it with them into battle, while already encumbered. You seem to think that only pretensious fops learned to use a sword, but think a little of who owned them in the first place - the nobility, most of which were expected to see battle many times in their lives. True, the richest and most influential could probably get away without actually being able to fight, but they were the minority. Before regular armies became a thing, the nobles were always fighting on the frontlines. As for "the masters being all dumb" - sure, there was contention as to how a sword should be used. That's why there were so many different "schools" and traditions. Even so, it's not like everyone did their own seperate thing. Many techniques and general practises are found all over, across pretty much all manuscripts and other sources. Isn't that strange, since every Joe supposedly knew better than his stupid master? It's almost as if some things actually work...

 

[UncannyGodot]

(1) I think there were three reasons: Reason number one being that MC is fully aware that his "superlative class" blades are cheaty, so he wanted something that he had to work on more. Reason number two is that because he wanted to teach Riku. Reason number the is because he ... just wanted to 😄

It’s mostly a fourth reason: the author and artist wanted to spend half a chapter drawing and explaining how a katana is made.

I’m not really interested in or buying rationalizations on why anything happens in this manga. Let’s not pretend the MC, or any other character or plot development, is thicker than the paper used for their character art. All of it is in service to showing off character art, generic Japanese fantasy tropes, Dem Abs, and seeing a catgirl fluctuate from 10% to 50% cat from panel to panel.

My initial post, while I did digress a bit, was mostly me thinking about how real engineering does or doesn’t hold up in fantasy. Because I think the author has done better than expected making technology fit in some cases, including the bread in this chapter, I do think it’s interesting to see where that breaks down.

 

[AnonymousWeeaboo]

It is pretty much established fact among sword enthusiasts, that a curved sword generally has the advantage when it comes to ease of cutting and these people test them both on tatami mats and specialized human body analogues by the dozens weekly. Generally, as in there are other factors, like the width of the blade, shape of it's cross-section, mass etc. The curvature does help though, since it makes less of the blade contact the target at once, minimizing resistance due to any twisting up of clothing or armor. I'm not saying they are superior weapons all around, just that they are good at this specific task.

You're going to have to cite a source for "swordsman" being a pejorative.. First time I heard that and I've done some reading on related topics in my time. You are correct that a sword was a backup weapon to (most often) a polearm in war, but the thing is this "backup" was used far more often than you might think. It's the whole reason people found it worthwhile to take it with them into battle, while already encumbered. You seem to think that only pretensious fops learned to use a sword, but think a little of who owned them in the first place - the nobility, most of which were expected to see battle many times in their lives. True, the richest and most influential could probably get away without actually being able to fight, but they were the minority. Before regular armies became a thing, the nobles were always fighting on the frontlines. As for "the masters being all dumb" - sure, there was contention as to how a sword should be used. That's why there were so many different "schools" and traditions. Even so, it's not like everyone did their own seperate thing. Many techniques and general practises are found all over, across pretty much all manuscripts and other sources. Isn't that strange, since every Joe supposedly knew better than his stupid master? It's almost as if some things actually work...

The katana is pretty much not a curved sword. Yes, it has a curve, but it's so slight that if it has any effect at all on the ability to actually cut anything, it's so marginal that nobody would notice. If you want the curve to have any effect at all, you need to be looking at something like a shamshir. That is a sword that is actually curved specifically to increase its cutting capabilities.

Most of the manuacripts you are referencing were written by "masters" after the Sengoku Jidai ended, especially during Edo. They were basically people who didn't really have anybody to use their swords against and whose techniques are questionable at best. The katana was not made with the intention to draw cut, nor is its performance particularly enhanced by drawing. Its curved shape was not an intentional decision as much as an effect of the forging method. Differential hardening is responsible for its shape, and drawing has no more effect for the katana than it would have for any other straight edged or slightly curved blade.

Or, in short, the argument I was responding to is "total hogwash, invented by people with nothing better to do and little if any practical experience."

 

[finalm]

The katana is pretty much not a curved sword. Yes, it has a curve, but it's so slight that if it has any effect at all on the ability to actually cut anything, it's so marginal that nobody would notice. If you want the curve to have any effect at all, you need to be looking at something like a shamshir. That is a sword that is actually curved specifically to increase its cutting capabilities.

Most of the manuacripts you are referencing were written by "masters" after the Sengoku Jidai ended, especially during Edo. They were basically people who didn't really have anybody to use their swords against and whose techniques are questionable at best. The katana was not made with the intention to draw cut, nor is its performance particularly enhanced by drawing. Its curved shape was not an intentional decision as much as an effect of the forging method. Differential hardening is responsible for its shape, and drawing has no more effect for the katana than it would have for any other straight edged or slightly curved blade.

Or, in short, the argument I was responding to is "total hogwash, invented by people with nothing better to do and little if any practical experience."

I'm not saying a katana is the best sword for cutting, I'm saying it has some advantage over a classic longsword. That's all. There are no absolutes here, I'm sure you could find a longsword that is thin, yet heavy enough that it would cut just as well or even slightly better than a typical katana, but I'm trying to compare apples to apples, as difficult as it is with different types of weapons. A shamshir is an extreme example, it pretty much does not get more curved than that without turning into chakram. A cavalry saber is more reasonable, it's curvature is comparable to a katana and it's a weapon historically known for cutting performance, even when used off horseback.

Draw cuts are not really effective in general and weren't meant to be any kind of "go to" technique. It's pretty much a move to execute, when you can do literally nothing else, preferably on the opponent's sensitive areas or sinew. I'm not sure why you are pointing to this when the topic was general cutting performance. I'm aware that according to traditional kenjutsu, swining a katana is supposed to be done somewhat differently than a straight sword, but whether that has any real advantages is anyone's guess.

I was actually thinking about European swordsmanship when I said that - unlike the Japanese counterpart, very few sources about it remain. The Japanese at least have schools that have an unbroken chain of disciples all the way from the guys who actually fought for their lives. HEMA has none, it's based solely on studying remaining written sources. This makes a massive difference, even if you don't trust that the students of these martial arts schools properly preserved their masters' art over the centuries - what they do should still have at least the basis of effective technique. If HEMA can claim at least rudimentary effecitveness, then the Japanese should too. Unless your standard for testing this is actual combat to the death? In that case, yeah, never been tested on both account in modern times.

 

[AnonymousWeeaboo]

I'm not saying a katana is the best sword for cutting, I'm saying it has some advantage over a classic longsword. That's all. There are no absolutes here, I'm sure you could find a longsword that is thin, yet heavy enough that it would cut just as well or even slightly better than a typical katana, but I'm trying to compare apples to apples, as difficult as it is with different types of weapons. A shamshir is an extreme example, it pretty much does not get more curved than that without turning into chakram. A cavalry saber is more reasonable, it's curvature is comparable to a katana and it's a weapon historically known for cutting performance, even when used off horseback.

Draw cuts are not really effective in general and weren't meant to be any kind of "go to" technique. It's pretty much a move to execute, when you can do literally nothing else, preferably on the opponent's sensitive areas or sinew. I'm not sure why you are pointing to this when the topic was general cutting performance. I'm aware that according to traditional kenjutsu, swining a katana is supposed to be done somewhat differently than a straight sword, but whether that has any real advantages is anyone's guess.

I was actually thinking about European swordsmanship when I said that - unlike the Japanese counterpart, very few sources about it remain. The Japanese at least have schools that have an unbroken chain of disciples all the way from the guys who actually fought for their lives. HEMA has none, it's based solely on studying remaining written sources. This makes a massive difference, even if you don't trust that the students of these martial arts schools properly preserved their masters' art over the centuries - what they do should still have at least the basis of effective technique. If HEMA can claim at least rudimentary effecitveness, then the Japanese should too. Unless your standard for testing this is actual combat to the death? In that case, yeah, never been tested on both account in modern times.

I was talking about draw cuts because the original post I was responding to was repeating the classic myth of katanas being "for draw cuts." They're not, this was invented by charlatans well after the katana had seen its final battle. You don't need to battle to the death to test the cutting capacity of the katana against an English longsword or any other straight edged blade, you can buy some yourself and test them against tatami or foam. You'll find the difference basically comes down to how sharp the edge is, which you can fix yourself, rather than how curved the katana is.

 

[finalm]

I was talking about draw cuts because the original post I was responding to was repeating the classic myth of katanas being "for draw cuts." They're not, this was invented by charlatans well after the katana had seen its final battle. You don't need to battle to the death to test the cutting capacity of the katana against an English longsword or any other straight edged blade, you can buy some yourself and test them against tatami or foam. You'll find the difference basically comes down to how sharp the edge is, which you can fix yourself, rather than how curved the katana is.

Was he? I'm sorry, but I'm not getting the impression he was talking about draw cuts. To quote, he said: "As you swing the blade, you want to 'pull' backward slightly to 'slash'" I don't know what definition you're working with, but I would never consider something a draw cut if there's a swing to it. To me he is basically saying what I mentioned about how a katana is swung differently from a longsword.

It's not that simple. The number one factor in how well someone test cuts is edge alignment and it will naturally suffer when using a blade you're not trained in handling. How do you get meaningful results with such a procedure? Do you seek out two people, both equally skilled, but with different swords? How do you check if they are "equally skilled", in fact, what does that even mean? The sad fact is, that the only objective result for this is obtained by limiting the human factor as much as possible. Ironically, something like a draw cut fits that - after all, there's far fewer chances of diviation if all you're doing is sliding the blade against some target material. In this case, there will be an advantage for the katana.

 

[AnonymousWeeaboo]

Was he? I'm sorry, but I'm not getting the impression he was talking about draw cuts. To quote, he said: "As you swing the blade, you want to 'pull' backward slightly to 'slash'" I don't know what definition you're working with, but I would never consider something a draw cut if there's a swing to it. To me he is basically saying what I mentioned about how a katana is swung differently from a longsword.

It's not that simple. The number one factor in how well someone test cuts is edge alignment and it will naturally suffer when using a blade you're not trained in handling. How do you get meaningful results with such a procedure? Do you seek out two people, both equally skilled, but with different swords? How do you check if they are "equally skilled", in fact, what does that even mean? The sad fact is, that the only objective result for this is obtained by limiting the human factor as much as possible. Ironically, something like a draw cut fits that - after all, there's far fewer chances of diviation if all you're doing is sliding the blade against some target material. In this case, there will be an advantage for the katana.

He is clearly talking about drawing the sword back as you cut, or, in other words, a "draw cut."

It's swung no differently than a longsword except you can't do reverse edge cuts. Literally, pick up a katana and do all of the longsword cuts you would normally do, but don't do any reverse edge cuts because it obviously doesn't have a reverse edge. The katana will perform pretty much exactly the same as the longsword and pretty much exactly the same as if you were doing your special Edo period swordsman cuts. Obviously edge alignment is important, I never suggested it wasn't, and at this point you are deliberately not engaging with the argument whatsoever and just inventing things I never said, and I'm done arguing with you.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

I find it hard to believe hardware would be the problem. Not to sound callous, but this isn't gamedev, any old junker would do and if someone's so tight on money that they don't even own some rudimentary machine - how the hell are they even part of this community? As for software, GIMP isn't even the only alternative. There are other freely available (though not neccessarily open source) options. But hell, if I was convinced that someone was committed to doing a lot of quality work and they absolutely needed commercial software, I'd probably gift them a license myself.

Scanlating on basically a zero budget was the norm almost 2 decades ago, there's no reason it shouldn't be now. To be honest, I think the releases back then were of much better quality (especially language-wise), far more regular and the groups more commited to finishing what they started. These days one title can be picked up and dropped by dozens of outfits, one after another and each of them "working" on so many positions, as if they were collecting them or something. Not to mention all the drama between competing groups, "tactical" releases and a slew of other bullshit that was bound to rear it's head as soon as money entered the picture...

Oh, I understand where you're coming from with this, and I agree wholeheartedly. I was just playing devil's advocate and saying, "If someone really feels they need these things to be a good scanslator, then..."