Strike hard and true with the MSI GF Katana series, giving you a cutting edge in gaming. Like a sword forged in and folded unto itself thousandfold, the GF Katana is the perfect laptop to let you cut through the competition with all the regalness of one of the most iconic weapons in pop culture.

With the announcement of Katana GF series, let’s take a look at the ideas behind modeling them after some of the most iconic weaponry in pop culture.

The Legend of The Dragon Blade

According to MSI, the laptop comes from the powerful Dragon Blade, sealed away on the Dragon Island. Now no longer bound to the island, the powerful and durable blade exists as the GF Katana, bringing that power to gamers everywhere.

The MSI GF Katana series comes in a sleek pure black, giving you all the sleekness of the laptop’s iconic Japanese namesake. It wears this color scheme regally, along with a powerful red backlighting to make sure anyone who sees you with it will have nothing but envy for you.

The Katana is available in both GF76 and GF66 models too, so you’ll be able to choose which of these legendary blades matches your budget while still getting top-tier MSI quality.

Real Life Counterpart

It makes sense MSI would base their newest line of laptops after the katana. The katana is a Japanese blade, and arguably one of the most prominent swords in popular culture. Appearing in various movies and videogames, katanas have long evoked the imagery of faster-than-light slashes, as well as decisive victories thanks to the works of visionary filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa, who popularized the trope.

In reality, they represent a lineage of single-bladed swords forged with a special technique that allowed for it to be incredibly durable, slicing through things with naught a care when used in the right hands. The special technique used to make these swords is carried over from Chinese and Korean traditions, culminating in the weapon that would capture the imaginations of many to come over the years.

Introducing The Swordsman Behind The GF Katana 

The face of the GF Katana Series is a powerful black swordsman, decked out in sleek black samurai armor.Complete with with its own ornate crest, the swordsman stands at the ready to draw his blade to face whatever enemy stands in his way.

The character is  designed by famed Japanese illustrator Tsuyoshi Yagano, whose most famous work was featured in the DOS game Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The game series would go on to inspire the popular Dynasty Warriors franchise, some of the most beloved games based on that story.

As a result, the swordsman looks deeply grounded in its design- popular culture has often given the public supernatural expectations of the traditional Japanese curved blade. Yet Yagano’s design looks believable enough in the sense that it lacks any blatant supernatural fantasy. Instead what you get is the simple elegance of the character in motion, with his sword at the ready to deliver a blow that would make Akira Kurosawa weep tears of joy.

Yagano has also redesigned the MSI logo in the style of a feudal Japanese crest, emblazoned on the armor of the swordsman. The red-on-black strikes a terrifying image, screaming both power and elegance in its design.

Embodying The Values Of A Sword In A Laptop

The laptops themselves also further embody the values of the concept, with the Pure Black GF Katana series sport a clean and sleek look with black body, complete with  red backlighting, to really make your machine stand out like an elegant blade.

The underside of the laptop also feature a design that allows for better airflow, as well as represents the guard, or Tsuba, of the katana. These elongated honeycomb-like patterns make sure the laptop looks good from every angle, while also keeping it cool so you can run the best games at their optimal settings.

Legendary Specs

Aesthetics aside, the GF Katana series is an amazing laptop. It sports the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, allowing you to run all the latest games with Ray-traced graphics, giving more natural lighting, reflections and shadows in all your games.

You’ll do so super efficiently too with NVIDIA’s DLSS technology, letting the computer prioritize where in a shot to focus rendering power, making every part of a frame look as detailed as it needs to be, so it feels like your GPU is punching way above its weight class.

On top of that, It’s also sporting the new 11th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, meaning you’ll be able to both multitask or play even the most CPU-intensive games with ease, as the GF Katana series boasts a 30% performance upgrade compared to previous GF Series machines.

This works in tandem with NVIDIA’s Dynamic Boost and Resizeable BAR, letting the already powerful Intel Core i7 Processor tap into the RTX 3050 Ti  for even more power, making sure whatever game you run is adequately supported, be it the CPU-intensive Rainbow Six Siege or the RTX delight Resident Evil Village.

The DDR4 RAM boasts a 30% write speed upgrade to its predecessors, meaning you’ll be able to do creative work on top of your gaming thanks to the power of these new machines.

Finally, with all this power, it means nothing if your games aren’t being presented in a legendary manner. That’s why the GF Katana comes with either a 15 or 17-inch display (Model dependent) that supports up to 144hz, regardless of the size. The FHD resolution also makes sure your images are always looking sharp, like the edges of the laptops namesakes.

The MSI GF Katana will be available soon and can be bought via your authorised MSI reseller or MSI Store.

MSI GF Katana 76 

MSI GF Katana 66