The kusarigama confuses me. The design itself is perfectly reasonable: It's a flail with a short-range weapon attached for when you get a bit too intimate with your enemy. It leaves me wondering why European flails didn't have a spike on the handle just in case, but whatever. No, the confusing thing about the kusarigama is why a sickle of all things? Why not use a kunai, a hatchet or a pick instead? They are typically seen as ninja weapons and in that regard the obvious answer is to use the sickle as a grappling hook. However, a Japanese sickle would be an absolutely shit grappling hook because the shaft is longer than the blade is wide and that's the opposite of what you want. And even if you do manage to catch something, you're going to be putting half your bodyweight directly onto your carefully sharpened blade so now all you've got is a shitty warpick. A normal pick would make an excellent hook, with the downside of losing your throat-slitting capability. And as for skirting ATF-san? Do you really think your local glow-kokujin is going to believe you when you tell him that you thresh your grain with a meteor flail, and that you do it out in the rice paddy? It would be perfect if you could just stick the chain on with a bow shackle, but I don't know if the nips had anything quite that convenient back then.