European swords are unfathomably superior, just because Japan being a skinny island isn&rsquo;t exactly a goldmine for resources. Katanas were basically a secondary/last resort weapon, kind of like a CCW, otherwise there were bows, naginatas, etc. Spiffed up grug clubs alongside bows were the name of the game for actual combat. But either way there was a reason Emperor Meiji sought to end samurai as we know it and introduce a fuckhuge amount of reforms and sending people all over the planet, because Japan might as well have been in the Dark Ages compared to everyone else. <|endoftext|> 