Pero realmente, si por algún motivo se ha romantizado a los samurais, no ha sido tanto por sus habilidades guerreras (que también) en las que ampliamente eran superados por los europeos por su mejor armamento y tecnología, si no en el arte del duelo, que cultivaron, si cabe, más que los europeos. Los conceptos de honor y deber, que ya en los caballeros europeos alcanzaban cuotas altísimas y absurdas, llegaban al pico de estupidez en la sociedad oriental, dónde para mantener el honor de su familia, los famosos samurais llegaban a commeter seppuku, un ritual de suicidio más conocido en occidente cómo hara-kiri, cuando fallaban a la voluntad de su señor o al deber encomendado, dada la mancha al honor familiar que suponía. Dicho rito para quitarse la vida consistía en clavarse una daga de unos 20 a 30 cm de filo conocida como tanto, que en ocasiones se llegó a sustituir por el wakizashi, una suerte de espada corta de entre 30 a 60 cm de filo, superando normalmente los 45. El practicante de seppuku se introducía el tanto o el wakizashi en el vientre por el lado izquierdo, abría hasta el lado derecho del abdomen y luego volvía al centro para subir hasta el esternón. Normalmente, no se llegaba a completar el ritual debido al dolor que suponía y el desagrado que causaba al público ver las tripas salir del vientre del deshonrado. Con el fin de evitar tal macabro expectáculo, quien ejecutaba el seppuku solía tener un ayudante denominado kaishaku cuyo fin era decapitar al suicida cuando se diese una seña preestablecida, o en el poco común caso de que finalizase el ritual, dado que el samurai podía agonizar durante horas antes de morir, y estos japoneses eran bárbaros, pero no tanto. A aquellos que llegaban a completar el ritual completo se les consideraba personas de gran valía y fervor, y a menudo su familia veía restituido completamente el honor por tal hazaña. Claro que estos eran muy pocos y comunmente, y especialmente hacia el final del shogunato Tokugawa dónde la disciplina marcial se había relajado bastante y el seppuku era menos común, el mero gesto de ir a clavarse el tanto constituía la señal para ser decapitado.
Siendo pues conocido el fanatismo extremo de estos guerreros japoneses mediante tal ritual, que no fue abolido de forma oficial hasta 1873, es interesante resolver la duda de qué ocurriría una vez eliminamos el contexto de la guerra en sí mismo y nos ceñimos al duelo, que la cultura samurai cultivó con casi tanto celo como el propio ritual suicida, aún a pesar de que el shogunato Tokugawa prohibiera los duelos entre samurais en el 1650. Por último, mencionar que el ideal de samurai como se conoce hoy en día lo forjó el segundo de los tres grandes unificadores de japón, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (que curiosamente era de origen campesino, y por lo tanto, no era samurai), aunque el código del bushido se seguía hace tiempo. Teniendo pues una pequeña descripción del guerrero japonés, conozcamos ahora su arma más icónica, la katana. La katana era un sable (no una espada) de hoja curva de aproximadamente 70 a 73 centímetros, orientada hacia el corte, y que se desenvainaba y golpeaba con ella en un solo ataque. Si bien en la guerra fue menos usadas que otras armas como la naginata, el tetsubo o el yumi (arco) su uso se volvió esencial al acabar el período de guerras Azuchi-Momoyama y llegar el período Edo, dónde se forja la idea romantizada del samurai como un guerrero culto que suele vestir de kimono y mortalmente hábil con su katana. Curiosamente, este ideal de guerrero, aunque pervivió hasta el 1889, cuando Saigo Takamori, considerado como último samurai, murió, vivió sus mejores años en los inicios del período Edo, cuando los duelos estaban permitidos, y hasta el 1690, cuando el shogunato Tokugawa prohibio la enseñanza de artes marciales de forma extensiva. A partir de ahí, la figura del samurai y sus habilidades con las artes marciales y de la espada, comenzaron un declive que se extendería hasta la desaparición de la figura de este guerrero mítico, en el año anteriormente mencionado.
Por otro lado, tenemos al guerrero teutónico del siglo XV. Mastodonte de placas y maestro de la alabarda, la espada de mano y media, el espadón y prácticamente todo arma de guerra medieval imaginable, fue el brazo armado del papado en tierras bávaras y al norte de la misma, llegando a librar las distintas guerras en territorio bohemio cuando este se partió en varios trozos tras la muerte del rey Carlos IV que daría en herencia el Sacro Imperio Romano a Wenceslao de Luxemburgo, rey indolente y poco disciplinado, por una parte, y a Segismundo de Hungría por otro, el cual llegaría a raptar a su medio hermano e invadir en nombre del papado bohemia en repetidas ocasiones.
Así pues, dentro de la gran amalgama de samurais y caballeros que existen, hemos elegido al prototipo de samurai más icónico, el que vivió en el período de posguerra civil de japón, esto es, alrededor de 1623, y hemos hecho lo propio con el caballero, eligiendo al prototipo de caballero de la orden teutónica, tanque de placas, que posterior a las guerras desarrolló el Bloßfechten,que venía siendo una escuela de lucha sin placas para tiempos de paz, que se centraba pues, en el duelo civil, al igual que lo harían las escuelas posteriores a la pacificación de japón. Sin más rodeos, pasaré a dejaros con el análisis, escrito en inglés dado que es sacado de dos extensos comentarios de youtube en el canal de Skallagrim, dado que la mayor parte de sus seguidores son de habla inglesa. Así pues, aquí va mi análisis pseudo científico.
KNIGHT VS SAMURAI: UNARMORED DUEL. WHO WOULD WIN? AN AMATEUR ANALISYS.
Supposing that it would be a duel, and having the same skill level and bla bla bla, and giving them the iconic weapons for each one, that means, katana and 2 h longsword, I would say that it depends if they are using armor or not.
If they are using both armor, I would say that katana has no single opportunity against a knight, and knight would have a hard time anyway to damage the samurai, aswell, since 2h longsword was meant to duel, not to crush armor. But since samurai wore less armoir and of less quality, probably knight would end up winning.
Things come different if we talk about unarmored, "civil" (I use quotes because you know, no samurai was a civilian, but with civil, I mean outside of a war state) duel. As stated before, both katana and 2h longsword (not half and a hand broadswor, which was more intended for war, maybe) were duel swords, that were carried to war as a sidearm (as you would do now with a pistol, basically). In times "of peace" is were they flourished much more. However, japan had always a much more restricted commerce since they were an island, and by the end of the XVI century, and beggining of the XVII, they were still in a war that involved the whole island, and so, their mentality was, and for a long time, much more fanatic and war and sword driven. There's something that happened there and that I don't recall of having happening here, except maybe in Spain, in XVIII century, that is self-perfection through the sword, almost as if it was a religion. While duels here was something about honor, as much as there aswell, they have some kind of mentality of "perfection through the sword", of zen thinking, that europe, more hmmmm... pragmatic, didn't use. We have to remember that there, martial-arts were practiced by monks, and here, it wasn't. It was something... holy? Somewhat. It was a way to... reach a mental stability. I would say that gives the Japanese some advantage in terms of duel. But an advantage against who? Some soldier or man at arms of his same era? Not at all, because Japan was not at the same technologic and social point that Europe was when they met.
We could stablish a paralelism in time gaps between Europe and Japan this way. They reached their own renaissance like 100 years later after reaching it in Europe. They had Japan unificated and stoped warring states as a whole at 1613, after the Osaka campaign by Tokugawa Ieayasu to tear down the remnants of his opposers to the shogunate, the Toyotomi faction. The shogunate of the Tokugawa had started 10 years back, with the battle of Sekigahara, where one of the most famous later ronin, that fough over 30 duels without a loss, Miyamoto Musashi, fought with 17 years old. So, taking the figure of Miyamoto Musashi as example, we will suppose that the era were more common duels happened was from 1603, to 1700, for saying something, specially from 1603 from 1650, where a lot of samurais that had fought in wars were still active. Now let's try to translate that to Europe. First problem we have is that there was not a single big war that shaked all the continent, mainly because it was way to beg to be shaken by a single war. But most probably the most close examples we have in Europe to japan is the Italy reunification by Victor Manuel, and in terms of big war for the European culture lasting almost 100 years, we have the hundred years war. However, one of the most famous duel schools was the german school, that dates over half XV century. Last German big war was in bohemia, and ended up over 1434, so we could equal 1434 Germany, somewhat, to 1603 Japan. Let's move some years later to give time to duel schools to develop from their warfare pars. So let's choose between a Teutonic knight from 1463 and a Samurai from 1623 (both 10 years after the last big battle against the opposing remnants of the winners, and aprox between 20-30 years after the end of the war itself) . As stated in the video, all depends on his personal skill, but assuming an average skill for both for what was common in the era, I would say that it would be very equal, maybe leaning a little bit more towards samurai in terms of fanatism and capability of his techniques, and leaning more towards the knight in terms of sheer strength and versatility of his techniques. I explain myself.
The katana has a balance closer to the grip so is easier to handle and recover defensive position, and has, because of it's cuve blade, it's a little bit easier to severe (not meaning that 2h sword is unable, not even that it is much easier with katana, just a little bit easier, you have to do less brute force to severe and can focus more on explosive fast movements to severe since when cutting, katana will go deeper with the momentum of the hit. That means... more cutting potential without having to do extra force after the impact. However, it lacks guards and has more problems at the time of thrusting. On the other hand, the knight had more bashing power because of the balance of the sword a little bit closer to the tip, and more versatility because of more thrusting capabilities, 2 cutting edges, and more length of the blade compared to a typical katana. And of course, the hilt, that allows the knight to do a lot of blade grip techniques with more safeness for his hand. Have in mind that this difference are probably really small but crucial. If you look at a kenjutsu manual of early to mid XVII century and a German Bloßfechten manual, you will notice a lot of paralelism in terms of guards and techniques. The difference is that probably, German Bloßfechten tends more to put the blades in contact, almost feeling the rival and anticipating for the forces you fill through the blade itself, while kenjutsu would probably tend much less to have the swords of the katana in contact for 2 reasons. The tsuba and lack of hilt, thus having the hands much more unprotected, and the blade being more fragile and easier to get damaged in the edge due to a less quality steel. In this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02xyP98vWL4
we can see how the katana tends to enter in contact just to parry the attack, meanwhile longsword will tend to grip to the enemy sword looking for creating an oppening (in an anticipation of the later rapier fight) where angles, interaction with enemy blade and balance in the footwork is much more important than agility and wide strikes, more common of the kenjutsu. I tell you again, this differences are minimal, you still have blade contact in kenjutsu and strikes in HEMA, but each one favors more one combat over the other. This being said... the final question. Who would win in a well. Well... it depends. Mainly on 3 things. Physical and mental conditioning, skill, and where they fight. I will start with the skill of this 3. Skill is not just the agility output. Also, the readability. In sheer skill, wraping all together, both individuals might be same skillfull, but the one with more readability for the other's style would have an advantage, even if less agile, simply because he would understand much better the interaction of the blade of the opposite style and the differences with his own style, allowing to predict techniques. Probably the samurai would need much more the readability, since HEMA bladework is way more complex than what Kenjutsu is. While kenjutsu tries to create openings by riposting the enemies sword with the flat part of his own blade, HEMA tends to try to create openings by simply turning the degree of the blade, and so creating enough space to send a thrust right into you. So yeah, samurai here would need to have a fucking lot of readability and still though, maybe he wouldn't have time to react to the knight attack since it is less telegraphied than kenjutsu (although also a little bit slower). Next is physical and mental conditioning. Who has more physical strength, who has more phisical resistance? who has more mental resilience? who has more reflexes and agility? All of this is obviously important in a battle. Having in count each style bladework and how they fight, I will asume that knight has more physical strength and physical resistence, while the japanese fighter would be more agile and have slithgtly more mental conditioning, but less physical resistance, for two reasons. Knights used to wore full plate armor, while japanese did use small plates that weight less, but protected less. Therefore, they had to have more reflexes to avoid getting hit, since they were in more danger, and also, mentally they had to be more prepared for being hurt and overcome difficulties (something that Samurais are famous for being trained in). So here we go, we have already given shape to the fighters. One has a blade with more length and versatility, that allows to bladelock more and that is what his style will do, and the other is an agile fighter that can send deadly fast blows, but with less effective range. However, the one having more range and capability to bladelock, has less pain resistance that the one having less range but being more agile. Now, try to imagine this in a boxin match, with the exception that the one landing the first punch will probably win the match or will be much more likely to do so. Who would you think that would win the match? Well, it depends. If the knight strikes first, he will have a lot of advantage if he didn't already won with the first strike, something that might not happen thanks to the great reflexes of the opponent. Even though, the opponent would be in disadvantage. In best of cases, he could deliver a blow back to the opponent thanks to his mental conditioning and the rival getting too confident. If that managed to happen, then maybe the samurai, best mentally fit to overcome pain, might have a possibility to end the duel... if he does soon enough. Since his style is more about strikes and less about bladework and so is less endurance-friendly, he would have to take advantage on the first moments of doubt of the knight to press the attack. However this is a great risk for the samurai to take, since he has to overcome a greater range, which you would do by riposting and counterattacking and evading attacks. So... at the end, I would say the odds are in favor of the knight.
But knight would need to hit first though to win, and we still have to talk about one more factor that would be probably the most decisive with the profile we have already given to our fighters. And that one is scenario. In which scenario are they fighting. In a small room or in a vast field? Is there any rooftop? Are there obstacles in the middle? This is, undoubtly, the most important factor, for a single thing. If there is a lot of space to go back and rotate, and even obstacles in the middle, samurai, more agile in his footwork and being less leaning to bladelock and more to send strikes, could use the obstacles in the scenario to hinder the knight attack and turn the odds in his favor. Whereas if they fight in a close space where knight can push him towards a wall, I would say samurai has not a chance. Even though, the same obstacle that can help samurai to hid behind him and then send a fast attack, could be used for the knight to push the samurai against him and forcing him to fight blade to blade instead with a more evasive style, dragging him to his terrain. So in general, I would say that the knight has more chances to win, unless samurai gets a first hit after a succesful riposte and manages to get in and score a strike. Most probably, in most of cases, first hit would be the winner, either for one-hit kill or simply because of the huge advantage that it gives to deliver the first kill, and although it would be more decisive if samurai lands the first strike, more probably, it would be the german the one that lands the first strike thanks to the superior range.
So after all this supposition, I give a 60 to 65% of the chances to the knight against a 35 to 40% for the samurai, being pretty much benevolent with the japanese warrior, and having in fact that duels might be slightly more common in the japanese society due to the "sacred" nature of the martial arts, and the more fragmented nobility of the era.
If you made it through here across all the comments... TY! it took me a good time to redact it and giving shape to each fighter. I hope you enjoyed all this madness and remember that this is all pure supposition based on folklore and small pieces of knowledge I have about kenjutsu and HEMA. Ty all and if you liked it, tell me in the comments if you like me to analyze some other vs!
P.S.: Btw, do not ask me for samurai vs a shield wielder. He would loss misserably.
