"Katana24"

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

So, this is new......? Looks like it's doing (weirdly) similar work as NihontoWatch.

 

(https://www.katana24.com/en)

 

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

By quick look it would seem to resemble Nihonto Watch bit too much to my liking. While color themes etc. design features might not be unique, selecting very similar options to a similar site for extremely small focus group would not be the direction I would go for.

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

Thank you, Mr. Jussi, this is exactly what I was thinking! And the "about" page also provides nothing, so we don't know who made this, why, or how they monetize. It's a little concerning.

 

The wayback machine showed that the domain "katana24.com" was for sale for quite some time, and I'm first seeing this new katana24 just today. 

 

This website currently does not look like it's doing anything nefarious, but if one "borrows" not just the idea, but almost copies the whole design, this kind of thinking and approach might not be all very above board or well-intended.

 

This is, of course, if it is indeed without NihontoWatch's acknowledgement.

[Lewis B]

@Hoshi

[Sebuh]

Not a fan. NihontoWatch loyalist till i die! 

[Takezo]

Welcome to AI, where every software clone is a simple "Claude, copy this website" command away

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

Oh! I see it now, all of its "Articles" are very clearly just AI slop. This is sad......

 

 

"I have organized what is written in a certificate of appraisal and how to read each item, making it easy to understand for first-time readers." 

[Hoshi]

Hi, 

 

Thanks for pointing this to my attention.

 

As the saying goes, copying is the most sincere form of flattery. 

 

Grace is the best response, I wish them luck.

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

[dimitri]

Very nice philosophy.

 

But indeed, your site is much better 😊😊

[Takezo]

How did you find this @YourBabyBjornBorg? Did it come up on a search or posted elsewhere?

[nulldevice]

2 hours ago, Takezo said:

Welcome to AI, where every software clone is a simple "Claude, copy this website" command away

 

You forgot the most important part of any pro vibecoders prompt. "Make no mistakes"

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

13 hours ago, Takezo said:

How did you find this @YourBabyBjornBorg? Did it come up on a search or posted elsewhere?

 

Yes! I searched "大和守藤原国行" (Yamato no Kami Fujiwara Kuniyuki) on Google, and this page popped up.

 

https://www.katana24.com/ichiba/3bc48704-bbcb-4f0f-8bb1-4f2f90218250

 

Some of its "articles" are dated in March 2026, but I'm not sure if it's that old, because I do this kind of search quite often, and this is the first time I'm seeing this website.

 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

 

After talking about this with my Nihonto friends in China, we found that the only two lines of comments are in Japanese, but I doubt this kind of behaviour is actually from a Japanese person, perhaps a smokescreen/camouflage.

 

Also apparently there are already some Chinese brokers who want to build this kind of website with AI, so please don't let it be actually one of them......

[John C]

6 hours ago, YourBabyBjornBorg said:

Chinese brokers

Baby Joe:

When you say brokers, do you mean liquidators like some of the other sellers on Ebay or scam sites or start up businesse too lazy to make their own website?

 

John C.

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

15 minutes ago, John C said:

Baby Joe:

When you say brokers, do you mean liquidators like some of the other sellers on Ebay or scam sites or start up businesse too lazy to make their own website?

 

John C.

 

I think they are just regular intermediaries that go between Chinese collectors and Japanese sellers. Japanese swords are kind of in a gray area in China, and they can't come directly into the Chinese market through customs (except for Hong Kong), also international wiring is quite difficult with everyone's miserly 10K US dollar maximum per year. So there must be some kind of intermediaries with "connection" in Chinese customs and the ability to "exchange" Chinese currency to Japanese Yen. It's not 100% legal and above ground, so Chinese collectors can hardly sue these people even if they got scammed, and they get scammed a lot. All my top collector friends here complain about not knowing any intermediary honest and trustworthy enough to buy very expensive swords with.

 

So yes, some of them are......quite scammy.

[John C]

I think I get it. So the sword brokers are using a legit search site to "advertise" products that a buyer can go through them to get. But whether or not they actually get it is another story.

 

John C.

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

1 minute ago, John C said:

I think I get it. So the sword brokers are using a legit search site to "advertise" products that a buyer can go through them to get. But whether or not they actually get it is another story.

 

John C.

 

This makes a lot of sense! I've heard some cases where scammers just post some swords with pictures on the internet to get people interested. They come to ask about the sword and pay for it, and the scammers just come up with all kinds of excuses to explain why the sword still isn't here after 2 years......or just block the buyer the second they get the money. I mean what are the buyers going to do, call the police and say "Help! I paid someone to smuggle in an illegal foreign Restricted Blade Weapon, and he ghosted me!"? Not likely......

[katana24]

指名検索やリファラルが急に増えてたので、調べてみたらたどり着きました。

日本人が個人で開発・運営してます、よかったら仲良くしてください！（英語は得意でないので、日本語ですみません）

https://note.com/katana24

https://x.com/katana24com

[John C]

Translation of the above post by Microsoft Word:

 

"Since there had been a sudden increase in specific search and referrals, I looked into it and found this place.

It's developed and operated by a Japanese person individually, so please get along if you'd like! (I'm not good at English, so sorry for using Japanese)"

 

John C.

[jdawg221]

On 7/30/2026 at 7:58 AM, Jussi Ekholm said:

By quick look it would seem to resemble Nihonto Watch bit too much to my liking. While color themes etc. design features might not be unique, selecting very similar options to a similar site for extremely small focus group would not be the direction I would go for.

To be fair, nihontowatch also heavily borrows its look from yuhindo. 

[Natichu]

23 minutes ago, jdawg221 said:

To be fair, nihontowatch also heavily borrows its look from yuhindo. 

My understanding is that is intentional and at least to me seems overt. You can select "Yuhindo" as a style option, and I believe Darcy was a mentor of Hoshi's. So a bit of a different kettle of fish. 

[jdawg221]

24 minutes ago, Natichu said:

My understanding is that is intentional and at least to me seems overt. You can select "Yuhindo" as a style option, and I believe Darcy was a mentor of Hoshi's. So a bit of a different kettle of fish. 

That's true, but it seems to default to that appearance for me and others I have talked to. Basically I was stating that stealing the look is not the most grievous offense that makes this site an obvious copy. Also since we are talking about nihontowatch, I wish that hoshi would stop using ai to write his descriptions of different smiths and schools. While it takes a lot of work to go through each of them, it really only makes the site useful as a price aggregator if you do not know what sites to keep an eye on yourself. Pic related is rather obvious with the random adjectives thrown in, but if you are into shinto or shinshinto smiths like myself, these types of run-on descriptions with weird vocabulary are present everywhere.

[Natichu]

3 hours ago, jdawg221 said:

That's true, but it seems to default to that appearance for me and others I have talked to. Basically I was stating that stealing the look is not the most grievous offense that makes this site an obvious copy. Also since we are talking about nihontowatch, I wish that hoshi would stop using ai to write his descriptions of different smiths and schools. While it takes a lot of work to go through each of them, it really only makes the site useful as a price aggregator if you do not know what sites to keep an eye on yourself. Pic related is rather obvious with the random adjectives thrown in, but if you are into shinto or shinshinto smiths like myself, these types of run-on descriptions with weird vocabulary are present everywhere.

Fair enough. I suppose to me there's a distinct difference between what's clearly a visual homage to a well-respected site that no longer operates versus what appears to be wholesale copying, style and all, of a going operation. But I do appreciate your point that may just me being charitable to Nihontowatch or antagonistic to Nihonto24.

 

I can see the irritation with some of the AI content though. My hope is that as things switch to a more pay model the substantive content will improve as well; I'm willing to give the site and Hoshi some time to make it happen as it seems potentially a very powerful resource for new faces like myself. 

[nulldevice]

3 hours ago, jdawg221 said:

That's true, but it seems to default to that appearance for me and others I have talked to. Basically I was stating that stealing the look is not the most grievous offense that makes this site an obvious copy. Also since we are talking about nihontowatch, I wish that hoshi would stop using ai to write his descriptions of different smiths and schools. While it takes a lot of work to go through each of them, it really only makes the site useful as a price aggregator if you do not know what sites to keep an eye on yourself. Pic related is rather obvious with the random adjectives thrown in, but if you are into shinto or shinshinto smiths like myself, these types of run-on descriptions with weird vocabulary are present everywhere.

 

The good thing is that @Hoshi is very open to feedback! As for the content, its impossible for 1 person to write literally the whole book on every smith out there in a way that can give you a clue on kantei and workmanship. If there are errors in a smith's description, I'm sure he'd be happy to get it fixed! 

[Hoshi]

Hi,

 

I replied here:

Please try to keep NW feedback in the NW feedback thread. Any complains, wishes, and so on that might have, I want to hear all of it. Everything helps. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

 

 

[katana24]

ご紹介・翻訳ありがとうございました。
katana24へのフィードバックもいつでも歓迎です。間違いや改善点があれば、ぜひ教えてください！
info@katana24.com