JayCee,
The Japaneese swords are what I would call Damacined (sp). They heated steel to bright red and then slit it open and introduced another type of steel and then hammered it, heated it, folded it, hammered more and folded more, stretched it out to the length they wanted and then hammered more.
The end result was that looking at it hightly polished you could see waves of where the steel was introduced and folded.
I have a kitchen knife by Ken Onion, it's called Shun and it has that pattern in it. This one is made from Cobalt and stainless, which isn't a good knife steel, but for women/men who don't dry after using this is what they do.
Overall length is about 14 in.