Why didn't the Japanese use shields at all throughout history? I can understand why the samurai didn't...

Why didn't the Japanese use shields at all throughout history? I can understand why the samurai didn't, since it took two hands to wield a katana, but what about the ashigaru? Didn't every other culture use shields of some kind?

Because they are genetically inferior and their imagination is bankrupt.

They used deployable shields, mainly as a cover for archers. And don't forget that the spears ashigaru mainly used were still quite long, so it wasn't exactly handy to carry a shield. Still a fucking mystery, since they had a bunch of shorter swords that could be one-handed.

>majority of casualties from arrows
>don't use shields

This is some weeaboo fighting magic shit.

It's not like they never thought of the concept. In the very early pre-samurai era they did in fact use shields. Pic related

I've never seen a straightforward answer on why they stopped using shields however. By the sengoku era it makes sense since we were beginning to see wide proliferation of firearms but for a couple hundred years before that there were still no infantry shields besides the weird deployable ones.

It's a bit of a mystery I think. I've seen many explanations but none that are concrete.

pavise

>At all throughout history

They did. They only stopped using personal shields by the 1500's because warfare moved mainly to ashigaru with long spears and samurai mainly used two handed weapons. Spears, bows, muskets, naginatas, etc.

The shields they used were instead deployable palisades that were used to protect the front lines from archers.

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How can you be a true swordsman when you have to carry a shield? And if you're not the better swordsman is it really right that you beat someone simply because you outguessed them when you have shield and they don't, or you threw your shield at them and then killed them in a cheap move?

Why didn't cowboys carry a shield for dueling? I mean, they could've easily made some sort of cheap plating or helmet, since dueling kits were mass-produced. Because the end result is the same if your opponent has the same advantage. You either lived or you died.

That's probably not why, but it's my take so I'll believe it.

That's utterly fucking retarded logic

Grandma's gonna be pissed that someone broke her cupboard

>And if you're not the better swordsman is it really right that you beat someone simply because you outguessed them when you have shield and they don't, or you threw your shield at them and then killed them in a cheap move?

wtf is this logic? How would the Japanese produce a shield that could stop a sword? The island hardly has any metal, barely enough to mass produce swords

Stormfag """""education"""""

Honour, I reckon.

You have to understand that throughout history the Japanese had a mentality of "muh honour".

They were fucking crazy

But isn't the "muh honour" a meme, at least until the Edo period where there wasn't much fighting?

When with this meme die?

You're posting blatant bullshit on a history board.

>but what about the ashigaru?
Try and hold a shield while using a 12-23 foot bamboo spear, also they did use shield just not in a fashion typical of anywhere else in the world, you know those big fuck off shoulder pads?

The popular image of Japan and samurais is from ~1500-1800, when everyone else stopped using shields too.

Muh honor, specifically muh bushido was bullshit invented by the Tokugawa so they wouldn't have to fight Sekigahara every decade, it's testament to their propaganda machine people still believe it now

They did but they were more like pavises instead of what we traditionally think are shields.

You do realize shields were primarily wood, right?