ink,
Sorry man but I gotta call you out, because I think you're buying into a couple myths about Samurai.
The Katana is one of the finest achievements in sword making, but it is not the greatest in every respect. Remember that every weapon is a tool, and every tool is designed with a specific purpose. No tool can serve every purpose.
Japan has relatively little iron ore deposits, and what it has is largely of a lesser quality than can be found through mining or trade on the continental block of the old world. This is one of the reasons why Japanese armor never went over to full plate like in Europe, but remained more a composite of wood, bone, leather, some metal, and other things. It also left them lighter and more mobile, contributing to their difference of style from European heavy combat.
The truly awesome achievement of the Katana was to create such an amazing sword from such awful material stocks. For sharpness I would probably agree that it is unmatched, but then again the chromium edged swords they just pulled out of that tomb in china are still sharp today. One must remember at this point that most technological and much cultural development in Japan was taken from China. One can even find this evident in the multiple translations of "Kara-te", which I'm told can mean either "empty hands" or "Chinese hands", Chinese in this case being synonymous with 'good'. Don't quote me on the translation though.
Would this blade have been able to stand up to the plate armor of Europe? I don't know. I've never seen anyone swing one against armor before. Late medieval European swords mostly began to take the shape of long thrusting blades, something the Katana does well but not excellently. If not long thrusting, European weapons went a little more towards crushing, like maces and such. I can't see a Katana fracturing good plate armor, or punching through it like a war hammer. Getting a Katana in the chinks of good armor might be hard. But would a fully armored, visored Knight be able to even hit a bouncing Samurai?
This leads us to compare the skill sets and fighting styles of the two worlds. It is often problematic to draw parallels with feudal Europe and 'feudal' Japan.
Still, both Nobles(as opposed to just knights) in Europe and Samurai in Japan represent the upper class rulers of society. Aristocrat=Samurai, not Knight=Samurai. Both respective classes got their start as a military class, but depending on what time period you're talking about for both they might not all be warriors. Many Samurai later on in Tokugawa Japan were more administrators and bureaucrats than anything else, and though allowed to wear swords could not be considered expert swordsmen. Same goes for Europe at varying times. One of the
few good points about
The Last Samurai is that it shows the less martial minded coming out on top of the Meiji Restoration when the martial class itself was abolished.
And what of skills? While the well trained Samurai were certainly masters of their domain, so too were the European warriors. Anyone who sits around all day training for battle is going to get pretty good at it. This also explains the predominance of professional military forces today. There are some interesting Italian unarmed fighting styles whose names escape me that even have a lot of parallel with Jujitsu and some of the Eastern styles.
In short, put two good warriors in a room and you should sell tickets. It would come down to the two individuals, and maybe just to one crucial mistake. Kinda like a dogfight?
Remember too that Iaido is the specific discipline of the draw-cut-return that you describe, and wouldn't necessarily have been practiced by everyone. If known, it was more a reaction to an attack, and not a state to be seen as prepared for battle. A Samurai probably would have drawn his sword before engaging if given the chance. I do love that one Kurosawa scene in
Seven Samurai though.
Now if only I could find time to lean to use mine better.
