The Others - Blog Posts

YUBASHIRI

Zoro's katanas visual reference sheet in English (translated by me)

Covers 和道一文字 (Wado Ichimonji), 雪走 (Yubashiri), 三代鬼徹 (Sandai Kitetsu), and 秋水 (Shusui)

Notes under the cut:

You have to open the image in a tab/download it and zoom in to read it, sorry!! I couldn't figure out how to vectorise the text :(

The original tumblr upload in Japanese is here, the sheet itself links to a deleted pixiv site so I have no idea where it was originally from, but it definitely seems to be written by Oda

Please let me know if there are any errors!!

I'm not Japanese nor do I speak/read it, I just used google translate + a lot of googling and wikipedia to look up japanese sword terminology. I can also read kanji so that helped a bit

Some other random notes if you'd like to reference the original post:

柄巻 (tsuka-maki or tsuka ito, lit. hilt wrap): rope wrapped around the outside of the katana

鐔 (つば)* - tsuba, sword guard; generally a round metal plate with a central wedge shaped hole for the blade and if needed up to two smaller holes for the kozuka or kōgai *note: Oda uses the hiragana when referring to the tsuba

柄 tsuka: The tsuka is the hilt or handle; made of wood and wrapped in samegawa (shark/ray skin).

目貫 menuki, The menuki are the decorative metal ornaments the are woven under the tsuka-ito (handle wrapping). These ornaments were originally made to hide the mekugi pins that secure the tsuka to the tang of the blade

鞘 saya: traditional wooden scabbard

腰差し koshi-zashi: something to be worn on the waist, can specifically refer to swords

丁子乱れ, "clove disorder" choji midare – an irregular hamon pattern resembling cloves, with a round upper part and a narrow constricted lower part.

鮫皮 samegawa: the ray or shark skin wrapping of the tsuka (handle/hilt), is wrapped by the tsuka-ito

頭 kashira: The kashira is the pommel on the end of the tsuka.

鐺 kojiri: The kojiri is the end of the scabbard (saya) or the protective fitting at the end of the scabbard

下げ緒 sageo : The sageo is the cord used to tie saya to the belt/obi when worn.

直刃 suguha: straight temper line (hamon)

乱刃 midareba: irregular temper line (hamon)

刃文 hamon: border between the tempered part of the ha (cutting edge) and the untempered part of the rest of the sword; the temper-line.

Temper line (刃文 hamon) designs

Left to right: suguha (straight line), gunome (wavy line), choji (clove), notare (gentle wave)

References:

Japanese Sword Mountings Wikipedia Page

Glossary of Japanese Swords Wikipedia Page

Tsuka-Ito (hilt wrap)

Menuki (hilt ornaments)

(In Japanese) koshi-zashi definition

(In Japanese) choji hamon definition