yeah

and i just thought of a great example too

Where's that from?

the philippenes

I was going to guess SEA

i fukkin love filipino weapons ngl

that or africa

Yeah they have some really unique ones

this is now pre-firearms chat

Theres quite the variety in melee weapons in SEA for some reason

Some areas just seemed to experiment more. Like india for example

well there''s a pretty big variety just about everywhere really

except the japs, who could only ever figure out 2 melee weapon designs

I mean its them making the most out of their meagre iron deposits

Hey, they had katanas, big katanas, small katanas, katanas on sticks... the list could go on!

Like, bladed, and spears?

That was it.

i really dislike japanese melee weapons, to the surprise of everyone i've ever met

They definitely have a certain elegance to them, but aside from gimmick weapons like kusarigama they really don't have much variety

I think they are overrated. But in their context, it was the best they could do

And I think they did a good job at that

They Ainu people had some interesting sword designs

yeah i'll give them that the design of the katana was effective for the materials they had

I think its reflective of their entire culture. Low metal deposits and quality meant having to make the most out of little.

Isolated nation, meant that they could count on almost everyone using the same designs.

Yeah, they didn't have much as far as resources go, but I think it's mainly their isolationism and traditionalism that led to their stagnant designs

So it became a skill competition, not a tech one

and a 'why fix what isn't broke' situation

It's very weird that shields weren't ever really used by the lesser armored troops though

Unless you go back to pre-nippon 'japan'

shields were weirdly unpopular in asia

Thats what their armor was for. The only thing they needed shields were against archers.

compared to europe at least

Also the tsuba fucking sucks for hand protection. A simple crossguard adds so much more hand protection than you'd expect

But since, when it came to melee, you want the greater advantage when it comes to weapon handling.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/419628789660647446/467794503189790741/unknown.png

goddamn I fucking love ebay

Shields kinda interfered with taht

katanas being 2 handed weapons kinda makes using a shield difficult tho

Yeah, but most would be using Yari