About the Anime section, what about Dragonball series? Man, there are less than ten sword/weapon users in the whole series, and they're all useless! Except Yajirobei (he managed to bisect Cymbal and cut Vegeta's Tail) and Trunks (he turned Freeza into space dust) but since then, each and every sword is doomed to be smashed by the other characters...

Is it just me or does the Baccano example not count? Firo's immortal, of course weapons aren't going to be of any use against him.

About knives, as someone who has had a bit training in unarmed fighting and knife fighting, I can say that unless you are trained with a knife, its pretty hard to take someone down quickly enough before they can pummel your head in with their fists or grab your wrist and stab you with your own weapon, there's a reason most stabbing murders require upwards of 20 stabs. So in most cases, fists are actually better than knives