Japanese daggers and knives

Daggers and knives were always considered to be ones of the most popular Japanese weapons used by Japanese warriors in close-quarters combats.

If talking about high-rate blades, the tanto will be the choice number one for samurai warriors and ninjas. The tanto making was almost the same as swords making process. Light-weighted and sharp-edged tanto was especially convenient for assassination and close combats. Being both effective in cutting and stabbing, tanto was often quite a usual way to defeat a foe. Most samurai women were also capable of fighting with tanto and as well as their husbands and brothers would commit suicide in order to protect their honor.

Battle daggers were often called yoroidoshi (an armor piercing tanto) and there were actually three main types of them: tanto, hamidashi and aikuchi. The main difference between all of them was in size of the guard: tanto guard resembles one of the normal size Japanese sword-wachizachi while aikuchi had no guard at all. Tanto was basically worn by samurai who were serving out, and aikuchi was a choice for those who quitted the army as to prove they were capable enough. In the ancient times yoroidochi was worn thrust through his belt from behind and later it was worn thrust from the right side with the handle forward and cutting edge upwards.

Draggers in kubikiri style had their own specific purpose. The word "kubikiri" is translaetd as "head cutter" These daggers were worn by high-rank samurai who would cut the heads from the dead foes, and later taken as a trophy in war. And though such usage of the dagger was surely a real fact, kubikuri daggers were mainly worn as a merit badge.

Another type of yoroidoshi used mainly by samurai was hachiwari. It couldn't be called a dagger in its full meaning, as it was a forged iron square-section blade with a hook near the handle. Hachiwari was basically a weapon to defend oneslef from the enemie's swords and to punch into the armor.

Fan tanto was basically used by women, by retired samurai, doctors, monks and others who didn't want to show they were wearing weapons. Most of these daggers had low-quality blades.
Cases of the most small daggers (less than 25 cm) often didn't have any metal details. Slightly bent kwaiken was worn by samurai women and their daughters for self-defense and for jigai(ritual suicide by cutting the jugular vein).

Small dagger-knives ,which wree worn in special slots in the saya of Japanese swords were called gokatana(or kozuka), kogai, wari-bashi(or wari-kogai) and umnabari. Wari-kogai or wari-bashi was a kogai, split in the middle which could serve as chopsticks during meals. There are a lot of versions about the usage of the kogai. It is most likely that kogai was a kind of hair pick accessory, worn under the helmet and often used for grooming hair after the helmet was took off. Besides it was considered that kogai was used for stabbing in the head of the enemy so that later one could specify the name of the winner. Umabari("horse needle") was a weapon found on the Japanese swords and daggers, enchased by masters from Higo province used as a lancet for bleeding horses.