Driving a katana through books would be considered a sacrilege by most people (unless it’s the Fifty Shades or Twilight trilogies that we’re talking about), but this doesn’t make the following bookends any less impressive.
It’s impossible to become sharp without reading. This must be exactly what the designers of these bookends must think. Basically, the Katana bookends are for people who don’t only have an inner child, but also an inner samurai, for that matter.
There is not much known about the dimensions of this katana, just that it’s scaled-down. The bookends include the handle of the Japanese sword and the end of the blade. Even though real katanas measure 60 to 73 cm in length, it’s up to you and your bookshelf how long this one will be. Using too many books in-between might make this look a bit ridiculous, though.
Presumably, the Katana bookends are attached to heavy faux books, since there doesn’t seem to be anything supporting the two sides of the sword. Provided that the faux books have samurai-related titles and that you pick some Japanese history books to put between them, the bookshelf would look really great. Please do that only if you really are interested in medieval Japan and/or if you are a sword enthusiast, as there are plenty of snobby Japanophiles out there, already.
In case you’re keen to learn more details about this product, Jude Kilama from Just Mustard stated that “designing products for people as elusive as Ninjas is tricky — we had to draw on what we’ve learned of them from popular culture, which is that they can sneak, leap, slice, throw things, and hover. We can only assume they achieve this broad skillset from reading LOTS of self-help books, therefore any self-respecting ninjitsu master would do well to have a have a set of bookends. In the style of a Katana sword, they hem in your favourite titles and brilliantly look like you’ve impaled all of literature with your mighty (metaphorical) knowledge.” The only problem with this statement is that katanas are associated with the samurai, while Ninjas were using the ninjato, a straight sword.
The Katana bookends will be available on the Mustard online store on March 1. The price tag of $30 is pretty reasonable, and hopefully the bookends will look as good in reality as they do in the above pictures. I don’t expect the manufacturer to use Japanese steel, but including some decent-quality materials would be highly appreciated. It remains to be seen if a golden quality-price ratio is hit.
If you liked this post, please check these glorious LEGO Alien bookends and the retro 8-bit hearts bookends.