Here is my favorite picture of a sword:
What sword? There's a sword in that picture?
Yah know... somehow I've finally gotten into the space where I can enjoy Tarantino's Kill Bill movie(s). But still it bugs me on a certain level... that somehow it perpetuates the myth that it's only the Japanese that mastered metallurgy... that the "Samurai" swords were somehow totally superior to European swordsmithing technology. I think this is just basically untrue. I think European metallurgy and swordsmithing was every bit as advanced (or more) and perhaps was so even hundreds of years earlier. There was some pretty advanced stuff going on in Europe with swordsmithing throughout the so-called "dark ages". It wasn't nearly so "dark" as the popular history might suggest. The same with the "art" of swordfighting. Masters like Johannes Lichtenauer, Fiore de Liberi, or George Silver... didn't just appear out of a vacuum. They were the product of generations of refinement of technique.
i like your style