>samurai looked so cool!
Yeah, no they looked like parrots and the armor has tons of weak spots. Why was their armor so poorly made?
>>481314
>Why was their armor so poorly made?
Because Japan was poor as shit.
nips have poor taste, just take a look at their goofy cartoons
>>481314
>implying European armour wasn't equally as ridiculous.
>>481334
>>481334
it's way more protective including the pic you posted with very small eyes gap so it's harder to gouge them out than in samurai kabuto
besides I didn't even mention europe so fuck off weeb
>>481341
They are laughing at him.
You can't see it, but he regrets his choice of attire.
>>481341
medieval sonic fans
>>481323
Anime is the greatest artform of the 20th and early 21st century.
>>481345
>people who wore armour can't be compared to other people who wore broadly similar armour
>>481463
This. Parrots are awesome. Fuck OP
>totally not a parrot
>>481334
>>48131
Lack of iron.
This is a bit of environmental determinism but here goes:
Japan is a small, mountainous island that built itself up from having very minimal resources besides plants like bamboo and some flat land for farming. They lack mineral resources unlike China and Europe with only some bronze and very small amounts of gold and iron. Schola gladorltoria mentions this in his video about katanas. Thats why they folded the steel over and over and it was a single edged blade. DESU, the only thing that kept them up,was trade with China. Another thing that exacerbated this for a while was their period of isolationism until the Americans arrived.
>>481638
I don't think you know how trade worked in dynastic China. Japan never traded with China except during the times they were a tributary.
>>481314
Japan's Iron ore is completely shit in terms of quality. Making good suits of full armour out of it is pretty much impossible.
>>481860
I didn't mean they traded throughout Japan's existance. I clearly said China was the only outside source of goods for them. I mentioned how they went into isolationism l.
>>481886
Except Japan traded heavily with Joseon Korea (giving tribute to Joseon kings and receiving gifts in return) until 1592, and later used their vassal Okinawa to receive goods from Qing China. Not to mention continuous trade with Europeans.
>>481638
Actually, the Chinese have a high opinion of Japanese swords.
Let that sink in: the Chinese, who were more advanced than the Japanese in Metallurgy at the time (i.e. they had blast furnaces for one thing while the rest of the world made do with bellows.)
>"From the land of the Rising Sun comes precious swords
Across the eastern sea the merchants of Yüeh fetch them
With scabbards of fragrant wood, sharkskin-covered, and bearing
Designs in silver and gold, trappings of brass and bronze;
For a hundred pieces of gold (if you like such things) you can buy one
And buckling that on your belt, defy all road side hags and devils"
Poet/Historian/Politician Ouyang Xiu, ca 1060AD, Song Dynasty.
>"They disdain life and are bloodthirsty… The blades of the Japanese sabers are sharp.
Chinese swords are inferior."
-Riben Kao (Study of Japan), by General Li Yangong. On the subject of Japanese pirates in the 16th Century
In fact, the Katana led to a revival of two handed sword use in China. Having fought nomads for so fucking long, the Chinese have pretty much disdained their two handed swords in favor of one handers (more useful for mounted combat or carrying a spear/bow around). Their battles with Japanese rogues during the 1300's-1400's on the other hand impressed Chinese infantry commanders, who then revived the Zhangdao (long dao) and the Shuang Shou Jian (Two Handed Jian) swords.
Also Japanese swords were in high demand in the civilian weapons trade since the Song Dynasty up until Japan closed off in the 1600's. Even then Chinese smugglers imported Japanese blades, particularly ones made by known masters, which were treated as works of art by discerning Chinese customers.
>>481314
their armour was fine for the weapons they faced and they prioritized speed and movement instead of extreme protection.
and I like the colours, I wish their where more surviving euro examples. and no I don't mean the expansive silver and gold inlay the higher classes could afford I mean drawings and oil paints on the armour. it was the poor mans way of decorating their armour and also troop recognition. sadly the surviving examples are few as a lot of those that managed to make it to the Victorian era where scrubbed clean, since the collectors of that era wanted shiny clean pieces on their mantle. shiny clean pieces of stuff that was never shiny and chrome when it was new and was basically mass produced shit that a peasant could afford. Fucking aneurysm inducing.
>>481867
when you take their poor iron sources into account I find it all the more impressive that they managed to arm so much of their expandable peasant fodder with iron armour.
Their armor was decent.
Outside of 4chan samurai are hugely overrated. On 4chan they are hugely underrated.
They did pretty bad in the 1st Mongol Invasion, pretty well in the 2nd Mongol Invasion and in the land battles they did well in their Invasion of Korea against China.
That's not an unbeatable army, but that is not bad at all. Historically, not many did as well against the Mongols as they did in the 2nd Mongol Invasion and China was very powerful when they fought against them in the Korea invasion.
>>481314
Considering the best Japanese armors had chain mail protecting those vulnerable points, and the armor itself held up better than chain mail, your argument is full of crap.
>>481958
I didn't say the Katanas weren't impressive. Rather, I explained how they were able to do that with limited iron supply.
>single edged sabres
> folded steel
>>482228
You know what is truly awful? Significant quantities of medieval armour from the Tower of London were sold as scrap metal in the early 19th century, with only the nicest examples being kept. What was likely armour of the common man, tossed into a furnace to make railings or saucepans.
This was only a few years before interest in ghee medieval exploded and people were buying anything authentic they could get their hands on.
>>482256
The Japanese pushed for peace negotiations despite Konishi's success in repelling a Liaodong expeditionary force of 2,000+,most of the land battles between Ming/Japanese forces tend to be sieges not field battles.
>>481916
Trade with the Europeans ceased around the 17th century though. They entered isolation at that time until 1850s somewhere about.
Alright fine, I totally forgot to mention Korea too my bad.
>>482600
Nagasaki was still open to the Dutch even after isolation, and they used that relationship to not only trade with the Dutch themselves, but to also use them as intermediaries to trade with other nations in the region, including China
>>481345
>This is shit
>"but it isn't that shit when compared to-"
>DID I BRING ___ UP? NO, SO DON'T COMPARE IT
also protective my ass
helmet that cover your face do little other than fuck with your vision and makes things unnecessarily hot.
the metal isn't even that thick on a lot of them, so one good whack can dent the metal, and it makes it just a little better than nothing.
>>481415
yeah and then when you make the comparison its completely obvious that one outshines the other by a order of magnitude in terms of protection.
>>482708
Helmts that cover your face PROTECT YOUR DAMN FACE. having a blade cut your face is debilitating. Or fatal.
>>482228
no shit they prioritized speed they were horsemen and so were the knights yet they had proper armor
Chinks could only take revenge of Jap by making cheap ass propaganda movies like Ip Man series.
>>481341
>>481314
Because they were mostly horse archers. The idea of samurai being stoic badasses that ran headfirst into melee battle isn't accurate.
>>484441
>Because they were mostly horse archers
Samurai originated from professional soldiers really of any kind during the Yamato's expansion wars that settled down with their commanders when their commanders became feudal lords.
They're not like European Knights that had a specific primary role in the battlefield (i.e. Cavalry). The only reason why that Horse Archer meme is there in the first place was because every soldier between the Kofun and Heian Periods was trained in archery, and had spears, bows, and swords.
>>481314
Probably because they never interacted with other cultures in a way that would exploit the weaknesses in their designs.
That said it's actually pretty decent armor considering bulk of the forces of any army relied on unarmored soldiers.
>>484464
It's interesting to see how much Japs used to be influenced by Chinese military tradition
>>485067
Korean actually. The archery focus and the Armor is a dead evidence of this.
They initially tried Chinese military systems like the Fubing System but they didn't have the infrastructure for it
>>485313
They really didnt have much of a need for it. When it was adopted the threat of foreign invasion was remote, and most of the courts local enemies were soon subdued. In the battles that did happen Calvary proved decisive. So miltary power was increasingly in the hands of private individuals who could afford horses, good armor and weapons and had the time to train these things to proficiency
