The most brutal attack in Pokémon has a murderous real life background

In fact, Pokémon isn’t always for the soft-hearted.

If you look closely, you’ll discover some obscure or questionable things about Pokémon, even though the brand is primarily aimed at a younger audience. For example, if you take a closer look at the move Night Slash, you’ll see that it’s based on a brutal practice from feudal Japan.

Night Slash is actually a brutal samurai practice

What attack is it? Night Slash, or Tsujigiri in Japanese, is a Dark-type physical attack that hits 100 percent. It’s used by Pokemon like Porenta, Scyther, and Snibunna, among others. So far, so unspectacular. But if you take a closer look at the Japanese translation, you will come across a morally questionable method of the samurai.

Tsujigiri means “Killing at the Crossroads” referring to a method used by the samurai of feudal Japan to test a new sword or fighting technique. Instead of facing an opponent with honor or getting a feel for it through training, some samurai have taken a different approach. They hid (usually at night) at crossroads, waited for random and defenseless people and killed them with their katana.

Samurai who practiced this practice were themselves called Tsujigiri designated. In order to stop the killing of innocent bystanders, it was finally banned and punished with the death penalty.

More fun facts and interesting articles about Pokémon:

YouTuber Bill Cass even illustrated this obscure background story some time ago in what he calls a “pseudo-documentary”. Feel free to take a look:

link to YouTube content

So while Night Swipe seems quite unusual at first glance, with this knowledge it is probably the most brutal attack from Pokémon ever, although only innocent people had to give their lives in real life.

Do you already know where the Night Slash attack originated from?