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I started reading _Rurouni Kenshin_ , and came across this scene:

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgUGW.png)

Is it possible to perform such a clean cut, or is this just some made up anime
fiction? If so, what is the name of this style/trope? (I don't particularly
dislike seeing it. It has its charm.)

**Edit:**

As it seems materials seem to play a large role in the possibility, the tools
used in this particular setup are:

  * A [daikon radish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon)
  * A kitchen knife in the 11th year of Meiji (1878) made by a legendary swordsmith's son.


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question
tropes rurouni-kenshin
Is it possible to make such a clean cut?


I'm not sure if the [Sceptics](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/) site would
be a better fit for the "is this possible" portion of the question, but I'll
give my attempt at an answer.

As stated by my comment, TV Tropes calls this [_Clean
Cut_](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CleanCut) (which it argues is
sometimes related to [_Absurdly Sharp
Blade_](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AbsurdlySharpBlade)). Given
that their naming for this is very "straightforward" (i.e. this trope
describes making very clean cuts with blades) compared to others (e.g. "idiot
hair" or "ahoge") it seems reasonable to conclude that this trope is generally
referred to as "Clean Cut".

It's not very clear whether or not this is possible in real life - this would
most certainly depend on the sharpness of the blade, the thickness of the
material in question, and the exact material being cut, among other things.
For example, in my experience, it's much easier to cleanly chop reasonably
sized vegetable segments (at least with carrots, onions, turnips, etc -
vegetables that aren't of the leafy type) than to cut meat that way.

As per the now edited question: the vegetable here is a daikon, which is used
in a lot of East Asian cooking. I'll need to look further to check the
possibility of cutting daikon very neatly in that form. With this specific
vegetable, a relatively clean cut (assuming good technique) seems possible, as
per videos such as [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Byhrzu2p0) and
[this](http://www.monkeysee.com/play/18321-how-to-cut-daikon-radish), but I'm
not really sure.


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answer


No. The sharpest blades ever made are composed of obsidian and artificial
crystals, as they can fracture down to an edge mere molecule thick Even under
magnification they retain an edge that are sharper than metal. Even so they
are incapable of producing such a cut. Cells adhere to each other through
cell-surface proteins called cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), they bond cells
together and bond on the molecular level, far smaller than any blade edge.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OqePK.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OqePK.png)


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answer