Back in 2003 when I was fairly new to anime, I was all about swords. The shows that introduced me to the medium usually involved samurai and lots of fighting, so I considered the blade to be the ultimate weapon. I had always wanted to own a samurai sword back then, but my two younger brothers were cause for my mother to disallow it. I own a (rusty-ass) samurai sword now, and while I’m a bigger fan of guns these days, I still have a great love for the good-ol’ badass blades. I also just figured out how to break my posts into multiple pages and wanted to do a cracked.com-style post with it, so here goes my top 10 Badass Anime Swords!
Kazuya Nakai is a more recent addition to my list of fandoms, but a strong one nonetheless. Like most voice actors, I would have heard him in some roles before I knew who he was or really listened to voices at all, such as his roles as Karasu in Noein and as Mugen in Samurai Champloo (though in both cases I noted the character having a great voice, and the latter I want to rewatch for this reason) as well as his roll as Shizuka Doumeki in XxXHolic. My fandom of Nakai largely came to be when he was brought to my attention by No Name, who is also a big fan. Thanks to No Name I knew him as the ‘guy who played Zoro in One Piece,’ though I didn’t really come to know his voice until his awesome role as Date Masamune in Sengoku Basara.