Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-26818662-20160620083347/@comment-27611520-20160621011811

Pandacath wrote: People are usually able to guess because of the design of the sword's crest, as well as other themes visible (for example, every Toushirou's been guessed because of their crest + uniform, Nihongou was guessed because of the crest and the spear, etc.) But this time people are more conflicted. The crest is almost unmistakably a reference to the Date clan's family crest, which makes people suspect that it's the long-awaited Taikogane Sadamune (Sada-chan). However, there's really not that much else to go on, and since there's no clear "taiko" or "bell" motif going on, a fair number of people think it might be another Date sword altogether, or even a sword owned by Uesugi Kenshin named Himezuru Ichimonji, who bears a similar family crest and would better fit the feathers/jewel decoration on the teaser since Himezuru is "Crane Princess." Ahh, Pandacath has a point! The Uesugi crest closely resembles the Date's....

That being said, I feel the popular theory is in this case still the most viable, three key reasons being:

1) Unless I'm mistaken, both taiko drums and Japanese gongs visually tend to be rather busy, just like the newcomer's attire. (Fans of Sengoku Basara, take a moment to study his getup... Notice the eerie resemblance between this guy's outer robes and Date Masamune's lightning decals?)

2) There exist some very obvious elements in the teaser to discredit the "other sword" theory. The new toudan design's scale is typical of tantou (read: Taikogane). Masamune's other favorites such as くろんぼ切景秀 Kuronbo-giri Kagehide were around tachi length, so unless the developers were planning to rehash Hotarumaru's "chibi" character point in the Date-gumi, I can't picture a new addition to that camp of that size brandishing another sword of equal length to CCP's.

3) Ditto 姫鶴一文字 Himezuru Ichimonji, which is itself a tachi. Again, I don't see why the creative staff would ask for a toudan of pre-adolescent proportions to embody such a marvelous long sword.

In the event he does turn out to be Himezuru, the prospect of an Ichimonji blade finally joining the ranks of the touken danshi is pretty freakin' sweet, too.