Akado Okatana First Impressions
I have recently received the Akado Armory Tetsuba Okatana and thought I should share my thoughts on it. There is not much easily available in the way of Asian historic fencing sparring swords which are safe, easily accessible and do not require heavy modifications so I was quite excited to get my hands on one. There have been plenty of other first impression videos and reviews about it, but they mostly seem to be from the perspective of people who mainly use a katana in Japanese sword art styles or HEMAists. I have approached the okatana use from a slightly different perspective as I practice and run a club using Jedok Geom, a Korean sword style which uses swords of the size similar to a Japanese nodachi. I hope my blog will be of merit for others planning to buy the okatana with the same approach.
In all, it is a great product with a lot of potential but I do not think I would buy another one without some changes first.
Disclaimer: I have been following the development of the Akado products since early 2022. However, I was not one of their beta testers and I bought the Tetsuba Okatana with my own money, under no obligation to make a review. Hopefully this results in an unbiased review.
About the Okatana
The Akado Okatana aims to be a scaled up version of their sparring safe katana. It comes with a ~100cm blade and a ~37cm handle. The fittings are done in traditional Japanese style down to the detail, bar a habaki. There are two versions, the “Tetsuba” basic model and the “Raiju” upgraded model. The blade is the same on both, however, the tsuba, fuchi, kashira and saya are all a more decorated version on the Raiju model and it also comes standard with a blue ito wrap as opposed to the Tetsuba red standard ito. They weigh close to 1.2kg unsheathed and have a flexible blade so that you do not impale your sparring buddies as well as a blunt safety edge. There is a ruggedised version where the wooden mekugi pins are replaced with brass, the ito wrap is sealed with polyurethane and the handle, seppa and tsuba are epoxied to make it more durable for sparring, this addition costs an extra $50USD and I had my version ruggedised.
Price
Tetsuba okatana $265USD
Ruggedisation +$50USD
Tip protectors (comes in packs of 5) $15USD
Shipping to Australia via cheapest shipping option $135USD
Out of the box
Despite now having bought multiple Jedok Geom/Nodachi length swords and training tools, my first impression whenever I receive one is “wow that’s a big box” and the okatana was no exception. Opening it up there was a letter inside detailing care for the sword, the okatana in a sword bag and a pack of tip protectors that I had bought alongside the okatana. The sword bag was a nice touch as sometimes I like to transport my swords in a less conspicuous way and for longer swords this is often difficult. Out of the bag the visuals are stunning, the ito wrap and koshirae are rare on a sparring sword and here they were done very beautifully. The sleek black saya with a red and black sageo was stunning and it alone was the length of a standard katana. The blade has a nice deep fuller along it and maintains a full width blade for the whole length of the sword to keep the aesthetic of a real sword, compared to the federised versions from other makers. Swinging it through the air, it handled and felt like a proper Asian sword with a point of balance 16cm from the guard. However, it felt extremely light for a sword of its size.
Safety features
At my club safety is a top priority, so ensuring our equipment meets our safety standards is essential. The Akado okatana meets them with flying colours. Initially I had my concerns as the early prototype charts stated it had a 19cm point of balance. I have a black fencer synthetic sparring Jedok Geom with a 19cm point of balance and it thumps hard. It is an understatement to say the black fencer simulator requires restraint. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the okatana has a 16cm point of balance and is notably lighter, this meant that hits were actually quite comfortable to take.
It has a blunted safety edge which is sufficiently thick, though it is not a rounded profile so there have been some burrs requiring filing down quite early on.
The flex is quite good at 11kg when tested with 2 fingers on the guard and pushing straight down on a scale with no attempt to flex the blade until the reading plateaus and subtracting the weight of the sword. It feels quite comfortable to take a deep thrust with in gear. Other Asian sword simulators like a certain popular sparring jian advertise “safe flex” but do not appear to have a weight plateau and really are not safe in taking a deep thrust, so I would recommend verifying the flex of your swords with this method and imagining a child of that weight stepping on your throat as a good idea for a safety standard.
One area that it could improve in terms of safety is the tip. It has not got a spatulated or rolled tip so the tip width is as thin as the edge. They do sell tip protectors separately. I would not spar without a tip protector if you do deep thrusts as the unprocted tip is a very small area for a lot of force in a deep thrust to be concentrated on.
Sparring with the okatana
I have sparred with the okatana for about 8 hours now and in short, I would not use it unless everyone at the club had one. I have sparred against other Jedok Geom users and German longsworders and I feel I cannot effectively pull off many of the techniques I would like to. The sword is ultra light, a good 300g lighter than my modified Baichuan sparring Jedok Geom and as a result it cuts lightning fast. It also means I fatigue less quickly.
Another point to note was the the blade seems to be tempered quite well. I flexed it deeply on many thrusts and it has sprung back to true without issue. Also I have traded many hard hits and there are no deep nicks in the edge, just normal sparring sword edge wear.
However, that is about where the positives end for hard sparring. The blade suffers from deadly wobble. Wobble is a term I have coined for swords that have too much distal mass for their flexibility. The Akado Okatana maintains a full width blade all the way to its tip, in contrast, the Baichuan sword that I usually use is federised with a very narrow tip and a full width blade at the guard. Due to this, the Akado blade has far more mass at the tip and combined with its safe flex, it wobbles when changing directions as the tip flexes and lags behind and then springs to. This creates an uncomfortable sensation in the hands and feels like the sword is fighting against your movements when changing directions or cutting around to another quadrant. Also, due to the wobble, the sword noodles out of the way in binds unless completely opposing the other sword edge on, which is great in theory, but rarely happens 100% of the time in sparring, especially in counter thrusts and when fighting for the midline in Asian styles.
The light weight also means that guards can be blown through by force much more easily than if the blade had more mass to it and hard blocking requires more structure. In this way it forces you to have good form, which is good at lower levels, but at higher level sparring often it means you lose more often.
There is the caveat to my review here that the Akado Okatana was designed to be like a Japanese katana but scaled up to a length for it to compete against longswords. From this perspective it does that very well as it can pull off fast strikes, there is no hard blocking or significant binding and it is not expected to have the heft of a Jedok Geom/nodachi. But as a Jedok Geom/nodachi simulator it falls short. If everyone had the same sword with the same wobble issues and no weight advantage it would probably work quite well, but when matched up to beefier swords like the Baichuan sword or longsword feders the disadvantages become more apparent than the advantages.
Pros and Cons
I have used the sword for roughly 8 hours of sparring with solo training in between at the time of writing this review, so I cannot speak to durability, but I have complied a list of pros and cons of the okatana so far.
+ Aesthetics: this really cannot be stated more. There isn’t really a sparring sword of this size with traditional aesthetics and construction like the Akado Okatana on the market at present
+ Safety: as stated above
+ Ruggedisation: the option for ruggedisation is great. While it isn’t that hard to do it yourself, it’s nice to have the option for it to be done for you out of the box
+ Handling: it is rare to get an Asian two handed sparring safe sword that feels how it should and not like a longsword or some hybrid of western and eastern swords. Apart from the weight, in the air the sword feels as it should
+ Sword bag: this is probably a byproduct of the sword being made in a Chinese factory but a sword bag is always nice to have
+ No need for modification: I have not had a two handed nodachi length sparring sword that I have not had to modify in some way for it to handle well except this one
- Wobble: deadly wobble
- Flex point: the blade flexes along the whole length rather than further up the blade like most longswords. This creates a stress point at the guard where it becomes clamped by the handle. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this with fencers who use a lot of deep thrusts with this blade
- Too light: as a scaled up katana it is fine. As a nodachi/big Asian sword simulator it lacks the mass to pull off hard blocks and displacements
- Tip: I would like to see a sparring version with a rolled tip for safety in deep thrusts. The safety tips are good, but mean you cannot put the sword back in the sheath unless your untape and remove the tip every time
- Does not feel like a big two handed Asian sword in sparring: this is the big deal breaker for me. Depending on your system the above points can directly impede your ability to pull off techniques from your style
Conclusion
I feel the Akado Okatana could be something great. It is on the verge of being a top tier product with its revolutionary design and looks. However, as it stands it would work well only if you practice as style that focuses on quick first intention cuts and doesn’t do much hard blocking or binding. So if you’re a Japanese katana user looking for a sword to match up to spar your longsword friends this is quite perfect for you. If you are looking for a sword that handles like a big Asian sword similar to a nodachi this is probably not for you. I would take a federised blade like the Baichuan one to prevent wobble and something with a bit more mass. Nothing good really exists on the market out of the box but with modifications you could have a good working sparring sword. I have fed back my issues with the okatana to Geoff Beeson at Akado and hopefully we may see another version with these issues addressed while still maintaining the stunning aesthetics of the Akado line.