DAMNIT! I had a huge reply written up and my crappy-ace browser crashed! Piece of sh*t!
Oh well, here\'s my new pic.
The handle is made from bone and the blades were forged in manually.

It\'s pretty rough, but it\'s more of a concept than a showpiece.
Here goes again, I\'ll sumarize with jot-notes:
- literal translation of \'sword\' = \'ken\'
- thus \'shuliken\' (pronounced \"shoo-lee-ken\") = thrown sword
- \'shu\' = hand, \'li\' = ?, \'ken\' = sword
- Jap has five vowels: a, i, u, e, o
- pronounced as read in this sentence:
Ah, we soon get old.
a --- i --- u --- e --- o
- from there combos are made by adding one or two consonants:
ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
sa, si (shi), su, se, so
ga, gi, gu, ge, go (\'g\' soft as in \'garden\')
etc.
- words formed by combining these
sake (soy wine)
yuki (snow)
- double vowels can occur, in which case the word is read with a slight pause as in \'bookkeeping\'
yuuki (courage)
- only stand-alone consonant = \'n\' (as Kintall said)
- kana (letter) very similar to english \'h\'
- thus \'ken\' is \'ke\' and \'n\'
My knowledge of japanese is limited, but I\'m hoping to improve.
