What Made the Samurai Bow So Deadly?

I have been an Archer for the last 25 years, competed in international events and reached the ranking of GMB in Olympic recurve, and longbow. Always have been fascinated by the Japanese bows and would love to shoot one, perhaps a visit to Japan 😊❤ the spiritual connection is indeed something that develops over the years.

Now I finally understand why anime heroes and villains mutually respect their opponents' self-introductions.

Man japenese craftsmanship is awesome to watch

What happened to the Mongolian Deadly Bow? No doubt about the Japanese Bow and The English Bow, but the Mongolian horseback Bow was a force to be reckoned with...

Trying to compare or see which one is "better" is pointless, each of the bows served its respective culture and was made for a specific purpose

The longbow used in this video had less than half the typical draw weight used by trained medieval archers on the battlefields. It was more representative of a hunting longbow, rather than a war bow. It was a very interesting documentary though, thank you very much for sharing.

Awesome Documentary

Bamboo is not wood. It is a type of grass. A great material for building a vast variety of things and structures.

Well presented

point of disagreement #1: a 50lb draw weight would be stupidly light for a long bow #2: it's been established that the longbow was likely shot from both sides of the bow limb and its simply preference of the archer

As a kyudoka I find the the exaggerated rhetoric, the worn out stereotypes and the whole idea of comparing bows in this way rather puerile. Just one point: If one is to test the potential of a yumi, proper shooting technique is paramount. An arrow speed of 34 metres per second is embarrassingly low and simply due to a blatant lack of technique. Any of the Japanese students shown would have done better. We measured our arrow speeds systematically a while ago and averaged well above 50m/s (164 feet / second), even with lighter bows of about 18kg. With a starting point and “experts” like these, no meaningful results can be expected. Nice pictures, though.

I have built about 80 bows, some years ago, but the yumi has to be the most difficult bow ever to build well. Almost every other style of bow is balanced by tillering, or scraping, balancing the belly of each limb to achieve symmetry. The yumi is assembled with the outside of bamboo on the back and belly, no tillering possible without compromising the belly strength. Add to that the asymmetrical design, boggles my mind on how to achieve it well, if at all. I managed to build a few all bamboo bows, nodes intact, but symmetrical design. Very nice bows, but a Yumi is way, way beyond me.

I love how they artificially handicapped the English long bow. War bows regularly had draw weights of 75-100kg, 3x-4x the Yumi

I love how the Japanese archer hats almost look like coyboy hats, bamboo isn't a tree it's a grass and the individual is a stock of bamboo not a tree

i always thought that the Yumi was asymmetrical to facilitate it's use while kneeling and on horseback and not necessarily to give the arrow more speed.

So, the Yumi arrow went roughly a foot into the gel aka 30cm, and the Long Bow went roughly 10 inches aka 25cm. The reason the Yumi went deeper is simple. It uses a longer arrow. We already know they travel at the same speed. Physics teaches us that if two objects are traveling at the speed and one of the objects is longer it will have a greater impact. If they have the same mass. Which from the look of them if they don't the Yumi arrow is heavier and that would also make it go deeper. Side note: both would go through any normal size human's thigh.

I think it was probably more about the skill of the archer, than the bow itself.

The draw weight of your tested bows has nothing to do with a real warbow. The Mary rose bows are around 160 lbs of draw weight. How much is a Japanese war bow. In my opinion it does not make for a historic relevant comparison if you shoot weak target bows that have nothing to do with their historic counterparts.

I do agree the Japanese craftsmanship on everything they do is second to none. But you cant down play how important and affective the English longbow was. It was hated by all who came against it. It can also peirce chainmail.🙏

I would place a Mongol war bow up against either of these in a hot second.