In the search for something cool and different, I came across this website:

http://ninjasword.gungfu.com/

which contains a lot of text about an alleged sword of ninjas, which was straight and of poor quality and design (!)

Is there any truth in these ninja-sword claims then? I thought the whole ninja thing was an 80s obsession that has been discredited and the claims about these swords have been proven untrue?

I'm confused. Whether it's true or not it still sounds cool though. Marketing gimmick??

All I can tell you is that in The Bujinkan, the sword techniques are practiced with 'regular' katana, not straight bladed swords. Working on the premise that in feudal Japan, the role of the ninja as a sort of 'special op' , involving covert activity, having a weapon that identified him by being synonimous with his skills would seem counter productive.
Couldnt tell you the specifics, but the curve (sori i think is the Japanese term) is created as a result of the forging process. I think it unlikely that anyone in Japan would have gone to great lengths to find a sword smith willing to make a poor quality sword, when good ones were relatively easily available.

The "ninja-to" is a Hollywood creation that fraudulent "ninja masters" adopted due to lack of any real knowledge of ninjutsu. The idea that the ninja-to was used as more of a utility tool for climbing and other similar acts also doesn't make any sense. Why use a low grade sword for climbing when there were other tools of the time already in place? Then there is the fact that there isn't a single ninja-to in any Japanese museum. It's all fantasy.

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Another point to note is that no assassin in his right mind would go off on a mission, knowing full well that there might be a risk of encountering samurai with their high-quality blades, taking with them a poor quality sword. Japanese steel has been known to cut through a blade due to a slight imperfection such as a nick along the edge. What would be the point?
Though, I have read articles that claimed some ninja carried shorter bladed Katana in a fully sized scabbard to hide its true form. The shorter blade came in handy for indoor fighting, especially when considering the low ceilings of Japanese homes at the time, but longer than a Wakizashi.
How true the statement is is unknown.
Nico

I've heard similar. Basically it was a wakizashi blade with katana tsuka and tsuba. I don't know how true this is either but i would tend to believe this MUCH sooner than the ninja-to garbage.

First off, ninja would expect to compplete their mission without fighting samurai. Second, ninja would not fight head-on. Third, ninja were mostly peasents who were poor so they could not hire a sword smith. Fourth, ninja would use their sword as a tool to climb after they used their others and they also used them to open doors by cutting the lock. Lastly, the ninja didn't see their sword as their soul as samurai did so they treated them as tools that could be made fast and easily in about a day instead of a few months.

Wow, not a true statement in your entire post.

Gaara,

Where have you gotten your information? Your entire post appears to be based on movies.