Talk:Tsujigiri

Word and relationship to drive-by killings

I love this word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.190.9.48 (talk) 03:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The Edo version of drive-by killings. Humanity has not progressed an inch since. :-I — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.230.148.3 (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah well, at least drive-by's are being considered amoral. A little but important progress. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.201.79.140 (talk) 21:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It is also important to note that drive-by's are done for the purpose of killing one's enemies (or those perceived to be enemies), not merely for amusement or to test out new weapons. So in this very important aspect, society has progressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.157.143 (talk) 09:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources and Edo period

According to this page, tsujigiri "was especially rampant during the early Edo period", which started in 1603. However, tsujigiri was prohibited by the government in 1602. Aside from this specific problem there is a more general problem with this page: it is very difficult to verify. There seem to be very few, if any, reliable sources on tsujigiri. Most available sources on the internet just seem to copy each other, and in history books the phenomenon is rarely mentioned. (I do remember reading somewhere (in Japanese) that even before the formal prohibition, the practice was not (morally or otherwise) accepted, and that those who practiced tsujigiri in the Edo period were not samurai, but bands of criminals from which later the yakuza evolved. Unfortunately I cannot find this source again.) In any case, it would be useful if someone with more expertise in relevant aspects of Japanese history could look into the subject and improve this page, but until then, I would suggest marking the page in some way to show that its reliability is questionable. Lajosb (talk) 04:51, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction?

The section "Mary Midgley's "Trying Out One's New Sword"" says:

> Contrary to her description, however, the historical record provides no indication that it was ever condoned. Nor is it clear that samurai actually slashed people in the street for the purpose of testing their swords. The idea that tsujigiri was done as a means of testing a sword may derive from confusion with the term tameshigiri, meaning "test-cutting".

However, the article's introduction says:

> Tsujigiri (辻斬り or 辻斬, literally "crossroads killing") is a Japanese term for a practice when a samurai, after receiving a new katana or developing a new fighting style or weapon, tests its effectiveness by attacking a human opponent, usually a random defenseless passer-by, in many cases during nighttime.

This seems to me to be a contradiction. BalinKingOfMoria (talk) 19:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be made clearer, but the term 辻斬り is definitely a real word that refers to the practice defined in the introduction -- it's just that the practice exists largely in fiction and modern imagination. 2600:6C58:4C3F:7473:D76:AA66:DFC3:B5A6 (talk) 18:18, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Misleading introduction

This presents is as common and accepted. It should be much clearer than it was neither. Slywriter (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Missing Source?

The first source is offline and there doesn't seem to be a useful waybackmachine snapshot. 2A02:8108:9440:3B34:B816:8546:9E3E:60CA (talk) 08:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)