Japanese swords in fiction

In the real world, Japanese swords are marked by legends that mainly revolve around their origins and the method by which they are crafted. Many of these legends include swords such as the katana that are made through processes of repeatedly folding steel and were primarily made in earlier periods in Japanese history. In fiction, however, these swords carry legends of their strength and superiority over other weapons which have caused them to be central weapons in fiction both in and outside Japan. Americans, Europeans, and Asians have all incorporated the Japanese swords like the katana into all styles of fiction ranging from games and comics to even television.

Traditional lore

Many legends surround Japanese swords, the most frequent being that the blades are folded an immense number of times, gaining magical properties in the meantime. While blades folded hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times are encountered in fiction, there is no record of real blades being folded more than around 20 times. With each fold made by the maker, every internal layer is also folded, and so the total number of layers in a sword blade is doubled at each fold; since the thickness of a katana blade is less than 2³⁰ iron atoms, going beyond 20 folds no longer adds meaningfully to the number of layers in the blade. Folding a blade only ten times will therefore create 1024 layers; 20 times will create 1,048,576 layers.

List of works of fiction set in 2002

This is a list of works of fiction set largely or wholly in 2002.

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List of works of fiction set in 2009

This is a list of works of fiction set largely or wholly in 2009.

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List of works of fiction set in 2011

This is a list of works of fiction set largely or wholly in 2011.

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Computer and video games