Overthinking the apocalypse

I thought I would make an analysis of how SaGa Frontier uses a lot of kendō terminology, but Sevon already did most of the job. I still have a few remarks and I sent them as a comment, but I'm saving a copy here in case Wordpress spam moderation silently eats my comment or something.

Fig. 1: Kirikaeshi, a kendō exercise (＊写真はイメージです).

• 切り返し Kiri-kaeshi (DoubleSlash / Double Vertical): As Sevon already noted in the main article, it's a basic exercise in kendō (and a fun one, too). We don't do it just “double”, but any number of times, typically 9, 11 or 13; in the game it might be double, though.
• 巻き打ち Maki-uchi (HardSlash / Winding Strike): In “maki” techniques you twist around their shinai with a circular movement of your wrists, then strike. Done properly, it feels super weird to take this, in a way I have trouble explaining—the force vectors go to places they shouldn't, and before you know what's happening, your shinai flies to the ground dramatically.
• 諸手突き Morote-tsuki ([Two-Handed] Thrust): One of the 4 fundamental techniques of kendō. It's quite different from the thrust in Western fencing in that we don't lunge, we step onto them both feet almost as if running over them, but with a pointy thing on the way. We also have a katate-tsuki (single-handed thrust), which isn't a move on SaGa.
• 二刀十字斬 Nitō-jūji-giri ([Two-Sword] Cross Slash): Not a kendō technique but has the feel of one; we have nitō (two sword) techniques, and a cross stance (jūni-no-kamae) and a cross guard (which is in the game, jūji-dome 十字留め), but not a cross cut (an idea which feels kinda pointless to me, but in a videogame it's ok).
• かすみ青眼 Kasumi-Seigan (Kasumi/Optical Slash): As Sevon already noted, “Seigan” refers to the middle of their eyes, and in kendō to the principle of always tracking their eyes with the tip of your sword. Kasumi, “mist”, refers to an old kenjutsu stance where you keep the sword horizontally at eye level with the opponent, now uncommon in kendō (you might have seen kasumi-no-kamae in samurai media; it looks like this). It's called “mist” because the purpose of this stance is to hide the length of your blade.
• 無拍子 (NoMoment / No Rhythm): In the sense of “syncopated” or “offbeat”. This refers to taking the opponent unprepared by striking all of a sudden in between the natural rhythm of their movements (the pacing of actions like lifting the sword then striking, or measuring the distance then lifting it, etc). You match the opponent's rhythm, then purposefully break it ( 「拍子合わせて無拍子で打て」).

払車剣 I think it's specific to SaGa. As a kendō player I immediately thought of harai-waza 払い技, techniques to sweep your opponent's sword off-centre forcefully. But I never heard of kendō techniques named 車; these are famous in judō throws, like ō-guruma, kata-guruma, te-guruma etc., and while some forms of kendō have throws, none of this make sense in context—this technique doesn't disarm or stun enemies, nor throws them. Since the game description is “車輪が転がるような剣の軌跡で切り刻む”, and it hits in a cone area, it seems to be pure fantasy, and called “wheel” because the fencer is pivoting while slashing multiple opponents; and “harai” in the sense of making wide swings that sweep a large area. The description in Minstrel Song is more evocative: “素早く移動しながら逆けさの連撃で敵全てにダメージ”, so they would be chasing enemies while repeatedly drawing reversed (bottom-up) diagonals.

A cultural note about SaGa series' iconic katana combo 乱れ雪月花 (“snow, moon and flowers in profusion”) is that snow, moon and flowers is a trope in Chinese poetry about the beauty of the seasons, originally from Bái Jūyì, which was highly influential in Japan (wikipedia article).