This weekend I had the opportunity to hold three different authentic Samurai swords that were recently inherited by a lifelong friend of mine. One of them was over 400 years old, the other two were just over 300 years old.
Once you hold a real one in your hand you get a whole different sense of what a formidable weapon these things are.
My friend had me hold a piece of rice paper that was about 4 inches wide between my fingers. This made me more than a little nervous. He took one of the swords and easily cut the paper in two. The sharpness of the blade combined with its weight and heft make it easy to see how you could take off a head or a hand with a single stroke.
The ways real swords were made back then are fascinating too. Many were smelted from iron-rich sands into high-carbon steel, then the blades were built up slowly from multiple slabs of different steels, with the hard edge steel surrounded by soft, tough side and back steels. Then came the differential heat treating that leaves the visible hamon and an even harder edge, followed by long, patient shaping on water stones. Meanwhile, other craftsmen fashioned the handles, fittings, sheaths etc. By the time a sword was finished or a set of swords, they cost their buyer a whole lot of money at the time. Those old swords cost so much today that I'll never be able to own one. I am thinking about a modern-made example though that is made almost the same way.
"And after he got the sword out, he said to me "hey, hold this piece of rice paper 'bout this far apart". -Lester 'one-arm' Finchley