Hello I'm IPostSwords and normally I talk to you about antique swords like the one behind me which
is a wakizashi from the shinshinto era today. I'm not going to be talking to you about Antiques and
instead I'm going to be talking to you about a company which sells replica swords that company is
Mini.Katana which you might know from their social media they know that word of mouth is extremely
important as you can see in this tweet from their owner. so here are some words from my mouth
Mini.Katana is not actually a sword company and they're willing to admit it
but that has a few consequences when it comes to the quality of their product
because Mini.Katana is not a sword company and is instead a DTC or direct to Consumer company
they're not involved with the manufacture of their products although Google would tell you
that DTC means direct from manufacturer that's not the case with Mini.Katana. what Mini.Katana does
is buy swords from the manufacturers or contract the manufacturers to make them in Longquan China.
Longquan China has been producing swords for a long time of various quality levels from the
lowest of anime replicas to very high-end Japanese *style swords and other swords indeed not only Japanese
but what Mini.Katana does when they subcontract a forge is get them to send container loads of those
swords often 7000 at a time and several containers arriving at once and that is a lot of objects to
do real quality control and quality assurance on and mini Katana has been clearly slipping
in this regard as you can see in this recent Reddit post which is what spawned this video
this rather post shows a sword which has a badly Bent Blade which could not have
occurred during shipping otherwise the saya or ccabbard would have cracked from
the amount of force exerted on the sword this is clearly something which was not caught in
manufacturing not caught in quality control at mini Katana and shipped to the customer
this isn't however the only consequence of being a direct to consumer importer of chinese-made swords
the other consequence is that mini Katana while on their website being responsible
and saying that their anime swords are for display only is not internally consistent if
you go to their official Mini.Katana Discord server and have a look at some of the posts
by staff you'll see ones like this advising that they're dull or blunt katanas such as their anime
swords can be used for light cutting this is an extremely dangerous opinion or position to push
as these swords are made of stainless steel with so-called rat tail tanks which entails A simple
piece of Rod welded onto the blade these often spontaneously disassemble themselves even if you
swing them in air let alone try and cut even a light Target with them which leaves a long
piece of semi-sharp metal flying at relatively high speeds and can lead to Serious injury
mini Katana doesn't produce their swords they have no oversight in the production of their
swords and they clearly don't have a particularly good understanding of the swords they're selling
they know that they are not a sword company and are instead a short form video marketing company
however for the privilege of their short home video marketing they are willing to
charge you a 45 percent markup in fact this is their net profits 45 percent net margin means
after the cost of logistics after the cost of import and after the cost of warehousing
and staff this is pure profit you're paying 45 percent more on top of all of those costs for
precisely the same sword that can be purchased often from places like AliExpress the Longquan
forges which many Katana contracts often sell directly or through Chinese middleman companies
you pay a much lower price for exactly the same products for many of the things that many Katana
sells while they might have exclusivity on certain designs that they're having made
for them I would bet you that eventually some of those swords are going to end up
on AliExpress for a much lower price and I would like to point out that those designs
that mini Katana is subcontracting out are often the result of taking the designs from
copyrighted media like anime and having them produced for them these aren't mini katana's
designs they are the anime companies designed from the anime taken and made in Longquan China
now there's nothing inherently wrong with importing swords from Another Country, Warehousing
them in the US and selling them on with a high markup. that's a completely valid business model
and it clearly works however it does mean that mini Katana really struggles with things like
quality control quality assurance and knowledge of their own products and their capabilities this was
reflected in the damaged swords they ship and in the very ill-advised opinions cited by their staff
on their own official channels I would advise you that if you do buy from mini Katana after this
warning or in fact have already bought from mini katana to look at the capabilities of your swords
with a more critical eye rather than accepting the word of their staff or even the words of
their founder they are not a sword company they are a short form video marketing company
keep that in mind the next time you pick up your anime replica and think that it might be
fun to try and cut a water bottle or else you might find a chunk of Steel flying back at you
that's all I've got for you today until next time stay Sharp