Kunai

A fictional kunai.

A Kunai is an ancient kind of throwing knife that originated during the Tensho Era in Japan. The kunai was normally wrought of iron, not steel, cheaply forged and unpolished. The size of most kunai ranged from 20 cm to 60 cm, with the average at 40 cm. The kunai was used by ninja as multi-purpose tool. Normally only the tip would have been sharpened.

Kunai normally had a leaf-shaped blade and a handle with a ring on the pommel for attaching a rope. This would allow the kunai to be strapped to a ninja who would throw the weapon at some obstacle then tie the end of the rope with another obstacle and glide across the rope to the next obstacle.

In Hatsumi Sensei's Grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu school of Ninjutsu collection there are examples of short kunai, long kunai, narrow bladed types, saw-toothed types, and wide bladed types. In some cases, the kunai and the shikoro are hard if not impossible to distinguish. A shikoro is a wide bladed saw with a dagger-type handle.

Fiction

In fictional stories and legends, kunai were gardening tools used by farmers who, at night, went out and assasinated others with their so called "garden tool kunai." This kept their identity safe.

Modern Pop Culture

In Final Fantasy 11, One of the series of Ninja Weapons is the Kunai.

Kunai are the main weapons of most ninja in the popular japanese anime series Naruto

Kunai also have other names such as balsam pear. There is not much connectivity between the two.

In the video game called suikoden 5 a character named sagiri uses a kunai as her weapon.

In Soul Calibur 3, the character Greed uses two kunai as his weapons, as do any created ninja class characters.

In Darkest Age, wielding the kunai gave you exceptional flipping ability and style points.

In The Fourth Coming a Djinn uses three kunai until reaching the ninth level of power where he upgrades to the tuning shovel.

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