How a katana is made — and why Japan still makes them

Japan has not needed a sword for anything but ceremony in well over a century. It still licenses the people who make them, still fires the one furnace that produces their steel, and still counts the days a single blade takes.

That is the strange fact this series follows. A katana today is not a weapon in the eyes of Japanese law — it is a registered work of art, and the person allowed to forge one has served years of apprenticeship and passed a program approved by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. The pace is set by the work, not by demand.

Across eight parts we go from the ore to the polish: where the steel comes from and why only one place still makes it, what folding actually does to metal, why the wavy line along the edge is a border between two different steels rather than a pattern, and who finishes the blade after the smith puts down the hammer. Then we follow the same skill into a kitchen knife, and into places where you can stand and watch it happen.

Read them in order and the sequence builds an argument. Read any one and it stands alone.