Andrew Lee was inspired to create this pair of miniland samurai by a T-shirt he saw at Comic-Con earlier this summer:
Peter summarizes my reaction to this scene rather nicely:
This reminds me of those awesome and cliche’d scenes in anime where they dash at each other with swords, run right by in silhouette and stand a minute, opposite each other… then one of the guys falls apart.
Note the excellent ponytail on the samurai on the right.
:D
(In other news this is rad. Think I said that already on Flickr, but hey.)
Why is the left Samurai’s sword drawn, and the right one’s sheathed?
Fisch: because he sliced *and* sheathed his sword before the other could make a move. He’s that good.
Whoa, really? I bet that all of the pirates are afraid of him.
Yeah, sheathing your sword is an integral part of Iaido, and yes it is possible to do it that fast. From a battojutsu (drawing) standpoint, you should be able to slash and notto (sheath) your sword once per second, or so some sensei claim.