Sephiroth is known for his iconic Japanese sword Masamune, which appears throughout the Final Fantasy franchise as well as in the latest entry Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. While the length of Sephiroth’s katana has varied throughout the series, one thing that’s been consistent is that it’s ridiculously long, often as tall or taller than Sephiroth himself. While everyone can agree that it looks badass, can a katana that long actually be used in real life? A Japanese YouTube channel recently had a legitimate master of Japanese classical martial arts demonstrate what it looks like to actually wield and face an opponent using Masamune.
As part of a series of videos dedicated to checking whether and to what degree fictional weapons from anime and video games are practical in real life, YouTube channel Hikabushiki Gaisha Itsuka Yaru invited Nobuhide Seki, a kendo and iaido expert and 22th head of the Asayama Ichiden-ryū classical martial arts school.
In lieu of an authentic Sephiroth-certified Masamune, Seki wields a real 5-shaku Japanese sword (as well as a practice sword of the same length). Its total length is 180 cm, making a regular katana look comically short by comparison. Seki first demonstrates iaijutsu – the technique of quickly drawing and sheathing the sword. He explains that practicing sheathing and unsheathing using particularly long swords (although not quite Masamune-sized) is actually common, with some martial art schools specializing in the field. You can see him draw, with deceptive ease, the 180cm katana at the 02:41 mark in the video, explaining tricks needed to pull off the technique, such as letting the blade free fall along your hand until the guard (tsuba) hits your thumb. It goes without saying, but don’t try this at home.
From the 5:59 mark, Seki and his opponent demonstrate what Sephiroth’s sword looks like in action, in a series of one-on-ones (using practice swords, thankfully). He introduces some interesting techniques that leverage the katana’s size, such as stances that obscure the blade’s length from the opponent (at 5:32 and 5:40), thus allowing the wielder to instantly close the distance and cut down the opponent. Seki also advises that when using such a long blade, the trick is not to swing it with your hands, as this causes it to waver, but to push into the opponent with your body (comparison from 6:09). When faced with multiple opponents, the overly long katana proves even more advantageous, as you can swing it around to disperse people and then cut them down one by one as they get singled out.
While the video shows that an opponent using a regular katana can be rendered completely helpless against someone using a Masamune-equivalent, eternally unable to get within reach to strike (7:09), Seki also introduces clever techniques to gain the upper hand with a regular katana (7:30), such as forcing the opponent to block your blade before they’re within striking range. In the context of both swords having their advantages and disadvantages, Seki explains that there is an old Japanese saying “chotan ichimi” which loosely translates to “long and short swords are one and the same.”
Unfortunately for Sephiroth, the Japanese swordsman also mentions the old Edo-period saying “brandishing a long sword to sell boogers,” which apparently references how merchants selling snake oil would do iaijutsu in public with long swords to gather the attention of people and boost sales of their scam products. But that’s probably not enough to spoil Sephiroth’s cool image, especially if you imagine him pulling off a sick move like this with his Masamune.
