What is up with flat point yari? Blunt tip is ... weird.

[GreyVR]

I've seen these many times, and I've heard a lot of theories on them, but seriously, what is the logic behind this design? 

I've heard it's a Palaquin spear, (which would explain short, but not blunt) I've heard it's for beating people to death with, for hitting armor over and over.... As a last ditch weapon you couldn't afford to lose the point on so you just didn't have a point to start with.... 

But ... none of these explinations seem to work. I know the Japanese could make amazingly sharp pointed spears because I've seen and drooled over a great many of them... and I know just enough about spear fighting to know it's about the point, not the edge. You might catch someone with the edge if you miss and pull back, but the leverage is wrong for a serious cutting weapon, for that you want a naginata or glaive or billhook or halberd or partisan. A spear is about being light and faster then fast with the point. 

That's also why naginata tangs do not look like yari tangs and halberds have langets down each side. 

So, knowing that, a sharp point but small and light tip like this is amazing design. 


And really you can go smaller. A tip that penetrates three finger widths deep is most often mortal, as the Romans used to say. 

So, knowing the Japanese could make excellent spears.... this shovel point most likely has a good explanation as to the logic behind it, and I'm very interested to know what it is. 

Does anyone have more then a theory? A serious 'for real' explanation?  

By the way, the bottom spear image was from the net, but the top is from here. https://shop.nihontou.jp/products/detail/31698

Actually, I followed the link on the top one, it's here if you're in Europe. I'd think of buying it myself but for shipping. https://www.proantic.com/en/1170220-yari-spear-Japanese-samurai.html#

If the link doesn't work delete the #

Edited June 4 by GreyVR

[Bugyotsuji]

Yes we’ve discussed these Ginkgo nut blades (銀杏穂) Gin-nan-po/ho here before, quite a few years back.

 

They’re beautiful, aren’t they! Perfectly formed curving facets. They come in various sizes, some quite small. I’ve seen bronze examples from 5th-6th century AD tombs. 
 

It has been said that the weakest spot of an armoured warrior is the eyes, for which you do not need a long blade. Maybe there is indeed more than symbolism and beauty to them though…

[Bazza]

Would the shape be for an armour piercer???  I once had a pair of arrowheads with this shape and was told at the time they were armour piercing points.  Ballistically the shape appears to be sensible for the task...

 

BaZZa.

[John C]

3 hours ago, GreyVR said:

Does anyone have more then a theory? A serious 'for real' explanation? 

Not so much a theory as a consideration. Many yari were made as pikes, not spears. I could see where one would not want their pike to get stuck in armor or a horse during a cavalry charge. So having a blunt tip would make sense. The force of the charge hitting a stationary blade would do the damage.

 

John C. 

[Scogg]

Some good discussions for cross-reference:

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/14310-bakumatsu-kaei-ginnan-po-yari-osafune-sukesada/

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/51765-yari-blade-shape-question/

 

[jdawg221]

They are for armor piercing. Yari in that style, like others have stated, are typically quite small, even when compared to other yari. So they may look much larger than they actually are. Another point of consideration is the force imparted on polearms when using them. For someone on horseback charging at you, you do not need a super sharp yari to kill them, in fact something very pointed may break in such a situation. Therefore you would want a flatter, wider surface that can sufficiently distribute the force of a charging enemy as well as one in armor. For the palanquin yari I am not sure where you heard that. They carried shorter yari as they were cheaper than a sword(which they would not be able to carry anyways), easier to use, and a key point that many forget: they could be thrown. We have historical examples of shorter yari being used almost like javelins. Combined with the fact that they would be easier to carry than longer yari, and you have a rather multi purpose weapon for an unskilled user. They were not for "bludgeoning" an assailant to death. To add to the point I brought up of them being thrown, Uchine were common palanquin weapons for similar reasons. 

[GreyVR]

2 hours ago, jdawg221 said:

They are for armor piercing.

 

 

2 hours ago, jdawg221 said:

For someone on horseback charging at you, you do not need a super sharp yari to kill them

I've heard this idea, but I confess I'm unconvinced. While sometimes armor failed, it was not to be expected. Mounted troops would have an easier time, and I've seen a breast plate in Sekigahara that failed to stop a spear, and my theory was it might have been from a cavalryman. But even then most of the time lances have sharp points. I've seen knightly lances so designed, and I have two Uhlan lances on my wall right this moment and they are VERY pointy.

On foot an acute point will allow better penetration against anything you can penetrate without horse momentum... and on horse there's enough world examples of acute points to ask why we'd see blunt points. The joust as a sport used blunted points, but I believe these are still sharp edged? 


This image is of the same model as mine. The blade before the socket is about a finger longer than an iphone. 


So if horseman lances.... question remains, why not sharp points?  There is some evidence that a blunt type might not 'skip off' armor as easily, but we rarely see anyone with that on a pole facing out except in sport. (Though if anyone has a counter example I welcome being proven wrong.) 

One of the linked threads had video of guys using them in some sort of armor demo and they were beating each other with them, like they were long shaft maces. Unsure they were doing it right though..... ?

As to how small they are, some were posted by @Bugyotsuji here, and several sizes are in evidence. I've seen sharp points in the same sizes.


This one on NihontoWatch looks to be about the same size (or a little longer) then his smallest... (and would work well half as long in the blade and I've seen originals with such small but sharp points....) 
 

This one on NihontoWatch  seems fairly large. (By Satsuma Motohira) and it lists with a Nagasa of 21.3cm. That's BIG. (It's link to dealer is broken though. I suspect it was sold and not updated.) 



Though the identification of them as ginko nut spears is extremely helpful as the name tells me how to do more research in the future. (Thank you Bugyotsuji!) Sometimes the right search words helps tremendously. 
Bugyotsuji, can you favor us with how sharp the edges are compared to other Japanese cutting implements? Generally in the world spears aren't for serious cutting, sometimes a pull back slash across something soft, but with the way they are mounted/designed, that ends up being the bailiwick of the naginata and other glaive/partisan type implements, but still good to ask.

@John C's thoughts on Pike formations are very interesting (thank you John!) as a group of pikemen in Europe would actually be called a 'push of pike." At slower speed they might actually work well for shoving against armor.... 

Sorry I didn't get back to you guys on this more quickly. It's an interesting subject but I have a tyrannical cat who keeps demanding my attention. 

[jdawg221]

35 minutes ago, GreyVR said:

 

 

I've heard this idea, but I confess I'm unconvinced. While sometimes armor failed, it was not to be expected. Mounted troops would have an easier time, and I've seen a breast plate in Sekigahara that failed to stop a spear, and my theory was it might have been from a cavalryman. But even then most of the time lances have sharp points. I've seen knightly lances so designed, and I have two Uhlan lances on my wall right this moment and they are VERY pointy.

On foot an acute point will allow better penetration against anything you can penetrate without horse momentum... and on horse there's enough world examples of acute points to ask why we'd see blunt points. The joust as a sport used blunted points, but I believe these are still sharp edged? 


This image is of the same model as mine. The blade before the socket is about a finger longer than an iphone. 


So if horseman lances.... question remains, why not sharp points?  There is some evidence that a blunt type might not 'skip off' armor as easily, but we rarely see anyone with that on a pole facing out except in sport. (Though if anyone has a counter example I welcome being proven wrong.) 

One of the linked threads had video of guys using them in some sort of armor demo and they were beating each other with them, like they were long shaft maces. Unsure they were doing it right though..... ?

As to how small they are, some were posted by @Bugyotsuji here, and several sizes are in evidence. I've seen sharp points in the same sizes.


This one on NihontoWatch looks to be about the same size (or a little longer) then his smallest... (and would work well half as long in the blade and I've seen originals with such small but sharp points....) 
 

This one on NihontoWatch  seems fairly large. (By Satsuma Motohira) and it lists with a Nagasa of 21.3cm. That's BIG. (It's link to dealer is broken though. I suspect it was sold and not updated.) 



Though the identification of them as ginko nut spears is extremely helpful as the name tells me how to do more research in the future. (Thank you Bugyotsuji!) Sometimes the right search words helps tremendously. 
Bugyotsuji, can you favor us with how sharp the edges are compared to other Japanese cutting implements? Generally in the world spears aren't for serious cutting, sometimes a pull back slash across something soft, but with the way they are mounted/designed, that ends up being the bailiwick of the naginata and other glaive/partisan type implements, but still good to ask.

@John C's thoughts on Pike formations are very interesting (thank you John!) as a group of pikemen in Europe would actually be called a 'push of pike." At slower speed they might actually work well for shoving against armor.... 

Sorry I didn't get back to you guys on this more quickly. It's an interesting subject but I have a tyrannical cat who keeps demanding my attention. 

The tip isnt actually "blunt", it just doesn't end at a narrow point. Yes. 21cm is rather large for a yari, but you weren't giving the impression that you thought that was large. Also if you noticed what I stated, the design isnt necessarily to be better at armor piercing than a standard yari, but to increase durability of the weapon. Yari in standard sankaku form are of course still rather durable, but ones made for war tend to be expediently forged. As a result there is a chance that they develop failures which can prove fatal especially when experiencing high amounts of shock. Also just an fyi but Japanese armor during the muromachi was not that thick on average. We are talking only .6mm-2mm thick at the domaru. No offense, but doing a damage test on a modern western spear repro does not mean anything data wise. Especially not when discussing potential damage on a pre modern Japanese yari. 

[GreyVR]

19 minutes ago, jdawg221 said:

but doing a damage test on a modern western spear repro does not mean anything data wise. Especially not when discussing potential damage on a pre modern Japanese yari. 

Oh I didn't do a test, I saw a breast plate in Sekigahara which failed. Antique. Doubt the guy wearing it lived.

But I've quite a lot of data on armored combat throughout history, and as a result I'm generally down on the idea of armor penetrators. Most of them seem to have been disproven, except in regards to mail.  

Armor can be divided into three main types. Solid plate, laced plate, and mail. For mail we know the Japanese had their own version of the European Roundel dagger, the Yoroi-dōshi.


And the Japanese did sometimes use full mail, but you don't see it as much on display because it doesn't look as Japanese as the other types that are so very stylized.


 vs

But with mail, to directly overcome it, we usually see the use of needle points as on the above dagger, or an Oakeshott Type XVa, or something heavy like a club. 

The next major type is solid plate which won't be penetrated by less then a heavy lance on a horse or a firearm, (and the Sekigahara armor museum did have a breastplate with a bullet hole) but perhaps the laced plates could be? Even then you'd seem to be best off with a sharp point... as on the dagger above. I've heard (though not from what I'd consider reliable sources) that sometimes the armor could be opened by cutting the laces, but I haven't really seen a reliable source on that.   

Generally when hard armor is on a person, it's rarely going to give when it's hit... usually the person is going to move, the point is going to glance off, and they are going to counter attack. That's why we hear so much about either aiming where the armor doesn't cover (the armpit being a prime example) or wrestling/attempting to knock someone down to have an even easier time of aiming at gaps. 

The second is partly because one of the main drawbacks to wearing armor is that the weight increase/distribution causes the center of gravity to rise, making one more top heavy than out of armor. This is a very slight drawback compared to not wearing it, but it would be known to everyone with armor and so throws such as in jujitsu and ringen were important to armored fighting. 

Heck, even a hammer blow to the head can largely be shugged off by a man with a solid helmet. This seems to have been done hoping to ring his bell rather than to kill him outright, and having stunned him, move to a throw. 

So while armor did break, attacking anything except mail with the expectation of breaking it with less then a gun would be overly optimistic with the other guy fighting back. So from all that I've become dubious on the idea that people tried to penetrate non-mail armor at all with less then a gun or a couched heavy lance... and mail required sharp heavy points. 

But I'll admit most of my data on armored combat is focused on German Harnessfecten, (Liechtenauer system,) which didn't involve nearly as many small laced plates, Norse warfare, Roman warfare, and other European sources... few of which focused on laced plate or lamellar construction. 

[Shugyosha]

3 hours ago, GreyVR said:

So if horseman lances.... question remains, why not sharp points?

 

I don't actually know the answer but a lance penetrating a body deeply can drag the lance from the cavalryman's hand and even the rider from the horse if he hangs onto it and his techique is off for any reason. Perhaps it was thought that limiting the potential to penetrate might mitigate against this problem?

[Scogg]

It's always been my understanding that piercing wasn't necessarily the goal. 

 

A spear thrust carries a lot of momentum, and even if it doesn't penetrate armor, that force can still knock a man from a horse, dent metal, damage joints, crack bones, and/or incapacitate a person. It's probably worth noting that this is not the predominant shape of yari that we encounter, which leads me to suspect it could have a more specialized use.

It's easy to speculate, but let's not forget that these items are from a long time ago from a culture we may not entirely understand.
Speculating is fun, but short of some good data or expert input, it's just that.
All the best,

-Sam

 

[GreyVR]

On 6/15/2026 at 10:05 AM, Scogg said:

It's easy to speculate, but let's not forget that these items are from a long time ago from a culture we may not entirely understand.
Speculating is fun, but short of some good data or expert input, it's just that.

Very strongly agree. But it's possible we have someone with something specific on here, like an entry from a densho scroll (if anyone is following, these were secret manuals for specific martial arts schools, like fencing manuals but more vague) on when to use one of these vs a regular spear, or an entry from a castle's inventory referring to these as "pike formation yari" 'in the form of a ginko nut' or so on. Direct sources might exist! 

I'm personally convinced that about 50% of the myths about weapons are 'caveman explaining the moon' stories where one person guessed and they other thought they knew. Like how 5.56mm is STILL thought by many to be designed to wound instead of kill because no one explained the theory behind it to regular troops issued it. Regular army training isn't about theory, it's about aim and clearing malfunctions.... so they speculate and the speculations get stuck in the minds of others as facts. 

Since I worked that that out, I try to tag my speculations as speculations at all times, just so that information is received with a confidence level. 

(That said, that is my speculation on how these myths form.... 😉)