CHENNAI: Let me take you back to a forgotten childhood memory. One where you are at a grocery store with a parent, eyeing that one bottle of chocolate milk mixture among several others not for its flavour but the free merchandise hidden within. It’s a collective memory; the need to own something from our favourite show or movie to mark ourselves as fans. An urge that adulthood doesn’t always diminish, as in the case of Vellore resident MS Raghul whose search for a sword from an anime led to a swordmaking endeavour.
An unexpected trajectory
In the solitude of the pandemic, we all drowned ourselves in the endless sea of content. Raghul was no exception. A search for his favourite anime from his childhood, Capeta, led him to several more that made it to his watchlist. As a result of all his searches, Google began recommending related videos of the sword of Totsuka from Naruto. “I wanted the sword so I tried to purchase it but the legality of the same was questionable. I am a mechanical engineer, so I thought why can’t I create it on my own? So, I did. I made a sword out of wood. I even used a material called photoluminiscent pigment powder that absorbs radiation and emits it in the dark, to make it glowing like the anime without any need for batteries,” Raghul recalls. Upon posting his creation on his social media pages, another fan requested one for himself, ready to spend three times the cost of production and wait for two weeks to receive it. It was at this moment that Raghul realised there is a gap in the market to be fulfilled.
To Raghul’s good fortune, the customer had a popular anime meme page that became a potential customer pool when the latter posted a picture of the sword. More requests came in and thus began Raghul’s swordmaking career. “People asked me to create various swords from animes. With the money he (the first customer) gave me, I began experimenting on other swords. I even learned painting from a Russian artist. I began making swords last June and now, I have 42 at home and 20 that have shipped out,” Raghul says. These have found homes in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and even Himachal Pradesh.
Safety over style
Despite being a fairly new venture, Raghul has already found some repeat customers, some cosplayers, and others, fans looking for a keepsake. And for this, they are also rewarded. “When I sell a customer their first sword, it is a fixed price. But when they come for their second, I give them a discount. Because, when they buy from me, I split the money and half goes to research and development. If they buy again, there will be a big change in my work and that has happened because they (helped me by buying it),” he shares.
According to demand, he also streamlined his work timings so a sword that took him two weeks, now takes him only two days. The 62 swords are from various anime; fans of Naruto, Demon Slayer, One Piece are in for a treat. You may even recognise the 5-feet Gut Sword from Beserk. One can choose between the 100 cm or 110 cm swords; Raghul recommends the latter for people over 5 feet.
But, no matter how cool the swords, safety is a well-addressed concern. A few requests for sharper swords have come his way but Raghul refrains from creating anything that could be dangerous. “My swords are such that if someone tries to fight with them, they will break before they hurt someone,” he explains. These swords may not be your weapon of choice but they certainly make for interesting merchandise.