Super excited! Don, any chance you could contact the creators about the hand placement on the sword of the Jack of hearts? Its not a big deal but it doesnt look right (im not talking about an issue concerning proportion etc as everythings obviously abstract, its judt that the actual fingers do not fit right).
Blue blood is one of, if not my all time favourite deck. I have my calendar booked for release! Keep us updated please!
If the man wielding the sword were striking with the flat of the blade, this would actually be just fine. There are also some blocks that would employ a similar hand placement, with the second hand making contact with the dull edge of the blade for support. Furthermore, one's hand would likely shift position just a bit, were this to be a strike with the blade's sharp edge, as the other hand gripped the handle -
samurai rarely use
katana as a one-handed weapon outside of a period movie.
Aikido requires some amount of practice with a
bokken, a wooden sword roughly the same size as a samurai's katana, and we use it in a similar fashion. I've not been attending regularly, but I'm still an
ikkyu in the art - that's the last rank before
shodan, the first "black belt" rank.