Why Is the Japanese Sword Beautiful?

“Japanese sword” is the collective name for blades made by Japan's own smithing methods. In the narrower sense it means the curved blade that appeared at the end of the Heian period and became the mainstream thereafter. By length, swords are divided into tachi and uchigatana, wakizashi, and tantō.

Choosing the steel

The material is tamahagane, steel made in the Japanese tradition. Of the steel smelted directly in the tatara furnace, pieces of the right hardness have long been regarded as indispensable for the finest blades.

The line drawn by the quench

The hamon is the pattern visible along the blade, and one of the chief things a connoisseur looks for. It is the outline of the hardened zone created in quenching: a hard edge and a comparatively softer spine, their boundary surfacing as a single line.

Before it is a weapon, it is a landscape in steel.

Five Swords Under Heaven

Dōjigiri Yasutsuna and Mikazuki Munechika are both counted among the Five Swords Under Heaven; Mikazuki is said to be especially beautiful, while Dōjigiri is paired with Ō-Kanehira as the two yokozuna of the Japanese sword. All three are National Treasures in the Tokyo National Museum.

No single reason explains the beauty. But chosen steel and the single line left by the quench — layered together, they have made a blade worth looking at for a thousand years.