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Many myths surround Japanese swords, the most frequent being that the blades are folded an immense number of times, gaining magical properties in the meantime.
While blades folded hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times are encountered in amateur fiction, there is no record of real blades being folded more than around thirty times. Note that with each fold made by the maker, every internal layer is also folded, and so the total number of layers in a sword blade is two to the power of the number of folds made; since the thickness of a katana blade is less than 230 iron atoms, going beyond thirty folds no longer adds meaningfully to the number of layers in the blade.
Furthermore, while heating and folding serves to even up the distribution of carbon throughout the blade, a small amount of carbon is also 'burnt out' of the steel in this process; repeated folding will eventually remove most of the carbon, turning the material into softer iron and reducing its ability to hold a sharp edge.
Some swords were reputed to reflect their creators' personalities, most famously those made by Muramasa and Masamune.
Kusanagi (probably a tsurugi, however) is a famous legendary katana.It is a commonly-encountered article of faith that katanas are intrinsically superior to European swords. This belief is frequently bolstered by roleplaying games that assign superior statistics to katanas, and also by many movies. However, these claims are largely based on misunderstandings about the manufacture and role of European swords, and comparing the schools on their worst examples instead of their best.
Because Japan was an iron-poor society, making a sword was an intrinsically expensive undertaking; the supply of swords was limited, and so it was in the smiths' interest to make the most of the materials they could afford. Europe also had superlative swordsmiths; Toledo steel swords from Spain are one example of legendary quality swords from outside Japan. However, the greater availability of iron made it practical to produce cheap, low-quality weapons in large quantities. Where Europeans had the choice between expensive good swords and cheap bad swords, Japanese had the choice between expensive good swords or none at all.
European swords were also designed for different modes of combat. The katana's sharpness makes it an excellent cutting weapon, suitable for use against lightly-armoured opponents, but easily damaged when used against heavier armour. In this light, the relative bluntness of a good European sword is due less to the limitations of its maker than to the requirements of its use. Attempting to establish the superiority of the one over the other is ultimately meaningless without first defining the circumstances in which they are to be compared.
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