Nope. Ninja were peasants, you cannot ATTAIN samurai rank by valiant deeds, its a birthright. Just because samurai used dirty tricks in anonimity doesnt make them a ninja, they are still a samurai, the trained shinobi were peasants, if they had been noble by birth they wouldnt have been called shinobi, they woulda been called samurai, and just because a peasant was a brave and noble warrior doesnt make them a samurai.
Myth is a whole other discussion: Troy was a city in Turkey. It was destroyed and raised many times. But the Illiad is not a myth, it's a story written by Homer. It's pretty good, but a bit longwinded. Some great cities were flooded prior to Greek classical age, when the meditarrenean landbridge to africa thru Gibraltar parted thru seismic activity. Thus the legend of Atlantis. The egyptians had a complex society long before Jesus, but the Isrealite ppl never lived there, but when a tribe who WAS enslaved there left via the red sea, they crossed at low tide, because their leader was wise enough to understand tidal action, and thus they called him a profit. All myths are based on actual events from long before, told and retold. But that is beside the point:
The time of the shinobi in japan was NOT long ago, it was less than a millenia ago, and I refer to factual accounts of what took place, europe isnt the only place that wrote things down, Japan has a great historic tradition and when mercenaries where hired, it wasnt a shady meeting in a back alley secret room, it was an organised contract, recorded by the clan leaders of whatever tribe was being hired. There is no room for myth when the events are recorded by accountants.
Do I look japanese to you?
Immaterial, no european would ever use a inferior sword design if using valuable steel. They wouldn't make a katana. African metalworking was best in the north, and they had superior weapon combinations to the katana also: Scimitar. When used correctly, the scimitar is close to impossible to defeat, simply because it is not held away from the body in the style of the japanese, it is more easily fought by european sword style, which has been seemingly forgotton or not understood by you guys: You DONT swing your weapon, block enemy, swing your weapon, nor do you use the avoid-swipe-avoid of the japanese sword schools, scimitar is held around the body and you rotate blade and body, with the weight of your body on the blunt back of the blade, european sword schools teach that you have your blade in a guard you like, and most duels prior to FENCING, the guard you chose vs. your opponent decided the victor, there would be ONE strike, one glissade, one dead man. Unfortunatly for modern tv/movies, fencing and early hollywood Robin Hood movies have most ppl convinced there is much parrying and slashing, this is NOT the case.
Back to your topic: You wouldnt need to make such a soft fat blade as the katana if using toledo steel, remember the japanese lapped their steel hundreds of times to get the strengh needed to slice even human flesh, I doubt you could even dent plate armour if you beat on it for hours with a katana, the steel is just too shit.
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