To make it easy, a chisakatana is simply a shortened katana. A katana was two shaku or longer in length (one shaku= about 11.93 inches, roughly rounded up to approximately one foot). However, a chisakatana is longer than the wakizashi, which was somewhere in between one and two shaku in length. The common blade length for a chisakatana was approximately 24 inches (or two feet). Chisakatana were not really all that common, since a katana was made for a tall person or a wakizashi for a short person. The most common definition of a chisakatana is a shortened katana that does not have a companion blade. They were most commonly made in the Buke-Zukuri mounting (which is generally what is seen on katana and wakizashi). The chisakatana was able to be used with one or two hands like a katana (with a small gap in between the hands). The hilt length was usually around 10 inches in length. Katana of the 16th or 17th Century, with its saya. ... Wakizashi style sword mounting, Edo period, 19th century A wakizashi (Japanese: 脇差) is a traditional Japanese sword with a shoto blade between 12 and 24 inches (between 30 and 60 cm, with an average of 50 cm), similar to but shorter than a katana but also quite longer than the kodachi. ...

Hypothetically, because of its light weight and smaller size, it would be fair to assume that the chisakatana was often used in the nito-ryu style (two-sword style). It seems that the chisakatana is somewhat synonomous with the kodachi. A kodachi (小太刀) literally translates into small or short tachi; this Japanese sword was too short to be considered a long sword but too long to be a dagger. ...

Fictional Use

In the manga/anime Samurai Deeper Kyo, Akira, a blind samurai, formerly one of the Four Emperors and a friend to Demon Eyes Kyo, uses twin chisakatana as his weapons of choice. For other uses, please see Samurai (disambiguation) Japanese samurai in armour, 1860s. ...