Anri making a knife.

Today is July 4th, and as always we are planning to do the usual Independence Day thing in the evening — flag, food, sparklers, etc.  But this afternoon, Anri and I went to see how samurai swords are made.  And she made a knife of her own!

In the neighboring town of Sakaki, which is home to several manufacturing plants, we went to the Sakaki Katana Museum.  This place is just a showcase of samurai sword (katana) blades, mostly without handles or sheathes attached.  Just the blades.  But today they had a number of katana makers on hand to show people how metal is banged into shape and then sharpened into a deadly blade. 

Yet, they didn’t show an actual sword being made.  To do that would take weeks or months.  Instead they had a box of round wire nails, each about 6 inches long, some anvils and a whole bunch of hammers.  People took turns banging the nails into long flat pieces of metal, the objective being to fashion the nail into a small knife resembling a samurai sword.  The katana makers monitored and made some corrections as the nails slowly took on very odd shapes.

Anri with the katana maker, who is holding the knife he just sharpened for her

Anri hammered for a while, got tired and went to draw some pictures on a whiteboard, but came back again to hammer some more.  I took over in the interim, giving a friend and his son the chance to give it a try.  Then the katana maker added some finishing touches and we took the nail/knife to another expert, who used a grinder to sharpen it.

And it was so sharp I was afraid to let Anri even hold it!  After grinding the blade, the next step was to twist some cord around the unsharpened part to make a handle, which I did.  Then Anri made the sheath out of newspaper.  It was like doing origami, which she loves.

Before we left, Anri asked, “Can I take it home?” 

“Yeah, you can take it home!” I replied, knowing full well what was coming next.

“Can I keep it in my room?”

“NO WAY!”

And how did it look in the end?

Anri with her finished knife.

Maybe I should frame it or something.  Hang it high up on a wall where she can look but not touch.  That thing is SHARP!