Category:Muramasa

Muramasa Senji (千子 村正 Senji Muramasa) was a famous swordsmith who founded the Muramasa school and lived during the Muromachi period (14th to 16th centuries) in Japan. Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook said that Muramasa "was a most skillful smith but a violent and ill-balanced mind verging on madness, that was supposed to have passed into his blades. They were popularly believed to hunger for blood and to impel their warrior to commit murder or suicide."

Muramasa's swords fell out of favor with the Japanese government when Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun, establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate, in 1603. It is said that Ieyasu had lost many friends and relatives to Muramasa blades and had cut himself badly with one, so he forbade his samurai to wield blades made by Muramasa. This contributed even more to the Muramasa legend and led to many plays and dramas in Japanese literature featuring the blades. Due to the stigma attached to them, many Muramasa blades had their signature changed or removed. Since opponents of the Tokugawa Shoguns would often wish to acquire Muramasa blades, forgeries of Muramasa blades were also often made.

Much like his unique reputation, Muramasa is known for some fairly unique features in his work. The first particular characteristic of his is the frequent use of a mirror imagehamon. The hamon of Muramasa is usually midareba with very shallow valleys (almost touching the ha) between a cluster of gunome shapes. The other easily identifiable feature one will see on Muramasa blades is the fish-belly (tanagobara) shape of the nakago.

It has also been told that once drawn, a Muramasa blade has to draw blood before it can be returned to its scabbard, even to the point of forcing its wielder to wound himself or commit suicide. Thus, they are thought of as demonic cursed blades that create bloodlust in those who wield them.