stardustLUST
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Navilapiano017
Today i learned those first two bows would just snap, they're not strung in front of a curve to better hold the pressure...
... ummm pretend there's a pun here. I swear.
Styxwash
#3 and #5 Arrows are on the wrong side for those draw styles (thumb or index)
AlwaysUpvotesCatgirls
Upvote pointy shooty catgirls.
Endocrom
Poppypoppoppop
"Anita Ekberg aiming at a paparazzi with a bow and arrow (1960)"
ucbadger75
#3 is my favorite
Fendeezy
#3 Kikyo when she shoots Inuyasha for betraying her.
ImperfectDad
I thought the same thing.
SteveD31415
#3, absolutely fantastic perspective.
Styxwash
To bad the arrow would flip off to the side if that was a real draw đ
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Ironlily does amazing art
/gallery/lady-lucerne-arm-up-ZjIaHuq
friendsofsandwiches
That opening statement sounds like a warning for the entire election season here
WienerBeener
"Bloody archers..." - armored girlies, probably
hetnkik999
#2 is my main in Dragon's Crown.
ydwyrd
A game that desperately needs a PC release.
YuffieK
https://c.tenor.com/jl-HGUpQzXkAAAAd/tenor.gif
SamuraiChemist
gonzar09
Princess Mononoke still reigns supreme in my book.
rockarolla
#1
PackratMagpie
DeVleermuis
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1MHpxbDd5MnFzMTZ5aW05Mng3bmlmdnZ4OTNnYWcwcXJqOXNqenp2eiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/NU4bLSam0M2UE/200w.webp
Endocrom
xtav
If you've never tried blindfolded archery, you don't know what you're missing.
UncharacteristicallySalted
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1Z29hbjV3ZnkyYmhjcjUwaGx4c20zdmxxanBiNjE5eGY0b3ZoYWh3NCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3RyZW5kaW5nJmN0PWc/NEvPzZ8bd1V4Y/200w.webp
Endocrom
Athol
#1 I've always wondered how the Japanese long bow compares to the English/Welsh long bow.
UsualLoser
I don't know what are people high on but after using both for a few years. The English bow is quite powerful, it was literally the signature weapon of England for centuries, feared on the battlefield. The Japanese bow is relatively weak and more suited for horseback.
I don't know what the others are smoking but the actual real bow masterpiece in Asia was the Mongolian composite bow which was both small and much more powerful than anything but the pulley box that was invented only recently.
nullbr
I want to know how they would compete with the greek bows depicted on the odyssey, because I dont know how they could fire it like that

nullbr
slowshootinpete
That thing looks like a toy
Styxwash
Most likely a light prop bow, but that type and size of bow might as well have been 100lbs and extremely deadly.
GravyEducation
From what I know, which is not much, Japanese is better overall because it's less draw weight and that asymmetric design means it's better with horseback stuff if you were to be riding. Idk I ain't Sensei Ishikawa
Imalwaysready
Less draw weight is less power. Weird to say it is better overall because it is less powerful.
Neither is âbetterâ than the other. They were each designed to meet different needs and each meets the needs it was designed to meet pretty darned well. Itâs apples and oranges.
KnucleheadFlow
You don't kill 5000 French knights with less draw weight.
GravyEducation
I'll inform the Japanese. I think I meant it could be made to equivalent draw weight and be easier to draw because of that design. I don't know terms. Plus you can say anything about "oh but it would be better in this battle" okay well the Japanese bow would be better in this battle. So what's our metric for best bow? Cuz if it's dead Frenchman then yeah you win England
allergictocantaloupe
I do actually know a little bit about this. The English longbow is basically worse in every way...except one. It didn't fall apart in the English weather. They optimized their bows to not fall apart when used in the rain/damp, which was a big advantage when fighting in a rainy climate. Invading armies would frequently have their bows fall apart from water damage. They were incredibly well adapted to fighting in England, but sacrificed some of their stats as a result.
baldbear
When you are the one with the usable bow, you win.
narniasreal
cyno01
Styxwash
You forget that Japan and Korea are actually very humid and rainy environments, maybe even more so than England.
Styxwash
That's not right at all. A well made historical laminate bow doesn't just fall apart from a little rain, they often used fish based glue and other water resistant glues and they had quivers to protect from the rain while on the march.
KuldFyt
Who told you fish glue was water resistant? It needs oil, wax or tar to protect it like any other animal glue.
Styxwash
Obviously there's more steps to it, but yes, i've heard and read that many places from people who shoot and build handmade asiatic bows.
KnucleheadFlow
Nonsense. Japan is every bit as wet and damp as England, much hotter in the summer. The compound yumi didn't fall apart.
What "stats" did they "sacrifice" carefully optimizing their bows of English weather? If they absorbed a lot of water they'd lose strength and power. Their considerations weren't weather but simplicity and strength. It's carved from a single piece of yew, made in vast numbers. Its draw weight was 1.5-2x the yumi, piercing steel armour further than the yumi typically could.
allergictocantaloupe
I was basing what I said on this video, and others like it:
https://www.tiktok.com/@stakuyi/video/7535624611065629965
I originally saw it on YouTube, but anything Google search is garbage nowadays, so I can only find it again on tiktok.
Martraxz
Mostly right except the draw weight claim, draw weight would have been mostly the same ranging from around 100-160 lbs (maybe 180 for later english longbows?) But the only reason you wouldnt see as many heavier yumi is there was no reason for them to increase the draw weight in an attempt to pierce heavier armor. In europe, the armor just kept getting better and better requiring more powerful weapons to deal with it, whereas in japan it had stagnated due to lack of competition.
allergictocantaloupe
Basically the argument is that being shaped out of a single piece of wood instead of a glued compound bow limits the range of the bow, but allows it to survive better in the rain/wet. They optimized for function in rain over range and power.
MentionSignificant
It's honestly fascinating how convergent Japan and the British isles are in many different ways considering how far apart their cultural lineages diverged over the distance. Geography will have it's say, apparently.
ArchMagos
People adapt to their surroundings to be as comfortable as possible. So, of course, nations founded on temperate rainforest islands are going to have some convergent development.
Nikolii
I'm an archery instructor at a university, I've trained Olympic recurve and English longbows. Shooting the bow is basically the same because of biomechanics. (Kyudo rituals aren't optimized archery.) Japanese warbows had the same weight range as most other cultures (humans are the common limitation). The asymmetric draw is due to working around the properties of bamboo (denser base, more flexible higher). Yew is perfect bow wood: exterior flexes, interior compresses. But, yeah, mostly similar.
KuldFyt
Wasn't medieval yew extra good because of the little ice age leading to slow growth and tighter ring structure?
ToSisPoS
I thought the asymmetry was so they could use them in horseback?
Once a great long, long time ago someone told me âsamuraiâ meant something like âway of the horse and the bowâ, and that their sword fixation only came about after the instruction of firearms made their archery skills obsolete.
This was 1991 so I would not be surprised if history has marched on since then.
NefariousGoop
Iirc the fact they could be fired on horseback was just coincidence, but I'm happy to be corrected by someone with more knowledge
Nikolii
It was absolutely a factor. The first bows were from the Northern horseback tribes and were one-piece bamboo. Bamboo kinda sucks, so they need to be bigger to get sufficient power. It's chicken or the egg on which was the leading factor, but the asymmetry of bamboo helped enable horseback archery with sufficiently powerful bows. Later on, they developed composite material bows, got more powerful, but kept the asymmetry.
dragoonwraith
The horseback thing is *a* theory but not one thatâs been particularly born out (or refuted) by the evidence. Ultimately, we have historical evidence of asymmetrical bows in Japan that is far older than we have evidence of horseback archery in Japan, suggesting the bows were asymmetrical for some other reason, but itâs also possible that they were doing horseback archery with asymmetrical bows far earlier than we thought and the evidence just hasnât survived (or, at least, been found).
dragoonwraith
(My source for this, by the way, is just Wikipedia. I donât actually know shit about historical archery in England or Japan, or anywhere else for that matter.)
ToSisPoS
The hardest thing getting as old as I have is trying to unlearn things that I was taught as âfactâ when I was young, but were actually âapocryphal opinions based upon biased observation and not real archeology or history studiesâ.