The long-lived Jedi Grand Master Yoda, on account of his diminutive size, built his lightsaber as a shoto. Another member of Yoda's species, Master Yaddle, also had a shoto. Yoda and Yaddle wielded their lightsabers over the course of the High Republic Era and into the later years of the Republic Era.
In 132 BBY during the High Republic Era, the Sith known as "The Stranger" owned a lightsaber that could be split into a shoto. During a confrontation against Jedi on the planet Khofar, The Stranger used his shoto to kill the Padawan Jecki Lon.
A Lannik Jedi Master who was only slightly less diminutive than Yoda, Even Piell owned a shoto. Tholothian Jedi Knight D'urban Wen-Hurd had two shotos with a blue and green blade and adopted a unique lightsaber combat style which involved dual-wielding shotos, accompanied by acrobatic maneuvers and daggerlike thrusts.
At some point prior to the Mission to Mortis, the Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano adopted the practice of Jar'Kai, and constructed a shoto lightsaber to this end. This weapon was essentially an abridged version of her original lightsaber, and mimicked the saber's basic aesthetic, save for the shorter blade which possessed a greenish-yellow tinge. This shoto would go on to serve Tano throughout the Clone Wars, up until the moment when she severed ties with the Jedi Order and relinquished both her lightsabers into the care of her former master, Anakin Skywalker. Skywalker would ultimately return Tano's weapons to her when she agreed to help lead a 501st division in the Siege of Mandalore, although he substituted the crystals inside for blue ones; a change that he wryly remarked had improved them.
Tano would abandon her original pair of lightsabers after the execution of Order 66 in order to fake her death to the Galactic Empire. A year later, she constructed a second pair of lightsabers which also included a shoto during the uprising on Raada.
Cal Kestis’s new lightsaber was a split saber that contained parts from his master Jaro Tapal's weapon, and from Cere Junda's weapon. The hilt from Junda’s saber was smaller than Tapal’s.
The Imperial Inquisitor known as the Tenth Brother, formerly the Jedi Master Prosset Dibs, wielded a pair of shotos, in contrast to the double-bladed spinning lightsabers used by the rest of the Inquisitors.
A shoto lightsaber first appeared in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones through Yoda's lightsaber. The weapon's name was first given in canon via the mobile game Star Wars Journeys: Beginnings, while the alternate name "lightdagger" was given in the Disney+ audio description for The Acolyte episode "Night." In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, the character of Ahsoka Tano was given a shoto lightsaber as her second blade for her redesign in the show's third season. Tano's voice actress Ashley Eckstein was quite pleased with the new weapon, describing it as a "lightsaber dagger" that she thought was very cool.
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