{"id":60223,"date":"2023-11-30T15:55:38","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T06:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/nov\/30\/sasumata-samurai-sword-robbery-attempt-japan-sales-rise"},"modified":"2023-11-30T15:55:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T06:55:38","slug":"foiled-robbery-attempt-sees-demand-for-ancient-samurai-weapon-soar-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=60223","title":{"rendered":"Foiled robbery attempt sees demand for ancient samurai weapon soar in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defensive weapon called a sasumata gains popular appeal after jewellery store owner uses one to fend off attackers<\/p>\n<p>An employee at a jewellery shop in Tokyo has been hailed a hero after thwarting an attempted robbery and giving chase after the three suspects fled. But the hero of the hour wasn\u2019t armed with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/taser-electronic-weapons\">Taser<\/a> or pepper spray, but with a weapon invented hundreds of years by samurai warriors: the <em>sasumata<\/em>, a pole with two prongs attached to the end.<\/p>\n<p>After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cTpYvNTi2eg\">footage <\/a>of the attempted robbery early on Sunday evening attracted attention online, an auto parts manufacturer that also makes the forked pole reported a deluge of requests for the traditional weapon.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/nov\/30\/sasumata-samurai-sword-robbery-attempt-japan-sales-rise\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defensive weapon called a sasumata gains popular appeal after jewellery store owner uses one to fend off attackersAn employee at a jewellery shop in Tokyo has been hailed a hero after thwarting an attempted robbery and giving chase after the three susp&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60223"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60247,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60223\/revisions\/60247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}