I favor mid-length to short swords. While I have a Katana and have trained with a Great Sword, anything longer than 24" is lost on me. I even cut down and re-tempered a 29" Zatoichi style sword-cane to a 24" blade.
I like my Gladius.
But recently a "modern" Wakizashi at a stupidly low price point (<$100) caught my eye. So I bought it to try out.
This is a serious blade... one that anyone should be glad to have handy.
Here is the Wakizashi compared with my Zatoichi:
Here is what the Wakizashi did to its shipping container... empty and unweighted except for the box it came in inside the box shipped in and a yellow mailer used for some CDs I also picked up today.
(New Link..) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIekw14DcVg
(Ignore the lack of style and turn off the sound. It's random bits from a news channel in the background and I'm not used to filming stuff for YouTube)
Note the result:
Not only was both boxes cleanly severed, but a corner of the CD mailer was cleanly cut off as well.
Now note the result of my Zatoichi...
Same style and strength cut - and the blade is actually sharper than the stock Wakizashi. The unsevered/folded box traveled about 3 feet - as if it were hit with a bat (that is my sword "style" after all...
)I am... not impressed. (The Zatoichi is now relegated to the "stack o'blades".)
This Wakizashi is a really fine weapon, and covers a multitude of stylistic FAIL!s... Different than my Gladius, but certainly serviceable.
