I was just wondering what art the 'Zatoichi' sword is used in...or who uses it?

OOPS [IMG]http://bbs.fightingarts.com/ubb/eek.gif[/IMG] I got the answer...thanx tho [IMG]http://bbs.fightingarts.com/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

Zatoichi (spelling?) was an old tv show (I think it was from the 1950's) where the main character was named Zatoichi; he was an old blind man who walked with a cane that secretly concealed his sword. Every episode he would draw his sword and kill a a whole bunch of people with it. He was the blind swordsman I don't know if the stories were written just for the tv show, or if Zatoichi was from some sort of character from japanese folklore. The sword he used seems to be based on a Ninjato type sword, but I don't think that style of sword was every actually used by anyone in any of Japans periods.

Swords like this date back to the Meiji period in Japanese history. The government was determined to bring the country's military up to the same standards as the West, and they saw the traditional martial weapons as an obstacle to this, so they issued a ban on swords. Obviously, there were a lot of people who resented this very strongly, and some took to carrying straight-edged katanas concealed in canes and staffs.

Thank you for the extra info Vulk, upon further research into this subject I discovered the proper name for this type of sword is a "chokuto" sword (at least from what I read)