Was the wakizashi meant to act as a shield? Also by no means am i claiming the japanese were the only warriors not to employ shields, but they are the only ones i know of. Thanks in advance
Well, the Japanese did use shields in fact, but they abandoned the usage of hand held shields around the 10th Century.
Primarily, the samurai class were not swordsmen as is often shown in popular media, but rather mounted archers, and when unmounted they preferred a long spear as their primary weapon. The katana and wakazashi were secondary weapons for self defence, much as a modern soldier may carry a pistol. The use of a large Japanese yoroi bow is difficult if not impossible with a shield on one arm, and while mounted there is nowhere to place the shield down temporarily while drawing one's bow. In addition, Japanese spears required the use of two hands also to operate, being much longer than those the Greeks used in their phalanxes before the Macedonian pike became commonplace. A shield would have been a huge encumbrance in both cases.
While the use of the hand held shield disappeared, the Japanese still used shields even into the age where gunpowder reigned dominant, but in two modified ways. The first was in their armour itself. The shoulders of the o-yoroi armour form a pair of long, hanging plates which function similarly to a shield, protecting the wearer down to their elbows. A samurai could easily use them to block or deflect blows much the same way as a European knight or Roman legionnaire might use their shield. Secondly, there were large portable shields made of wood that warriors would carry and place on the ground as a static defence, leaving both hands free to operate a bow or arquebus.
So it's not so much that the Japanese didn't use shields, but rather how they used them differently from other cultures.