Dual Wielding / Anime & Manga

Dual Wielding in Anime and Manga series.

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• The titular character in Afro Samurai, who wields a single katana fights a dual wielder, and ponders briefly on the technique's worth. He decides on balance a single blade is better, but the fight is inconclusive.
• In Akame ga Kill!, wielding two Teigus is more or less considered impossible, due to the combined physical and mental strain placed upon the user being strong enough to kill them in the process. That said, Esdeath notes that is technically possible if the Teigus in question are compatible to the user and said user can endure the strain. Only one named character has ever succeeded in doing so: Wave of the Jaegers with Grand Chariot and his dead friend Run's Mastema.
• Angolmois: On his second clash against Fuheng, Jinzaburou wields the fallen Onitakemaru's broken naginata along with his katana.
• In Armed Girl's Machiavellism, pushing Mary to the limits means she grabs her scabbard to use as a second blade. While the scabbard doesn't cut, it helps her counter a much heavier sword, and being slammed in the face with a scabbard still hurts.
• Dual wielded swords are the standard issue weapon in Attack on Titan; justified by how soldiers are not fighting against other human (or -like) beings with weapons but rather toweringly-humanoid Titans with Titans' weak point being a portion of flesh that requires two blades to cut away, rendering the risk of two swords getting tangled while using them in combat irrelevant. It has also been revealed that the newest weapons of the survey corps , nicknamed Thunder Spears , are also dual-wielded.
• Used for comedic purposes once in Azumanga Daioh. After Tomo accidentally lands a tray straight onto Yukari's face, cue Red Eyes, Take Warning... and Yukari dual-wielding trays onto Tomo's head.
• Chikuma Koshirou from Basilisk dual wields two kama scythes.
• In Black Butler Chapter 57, Elizabeth Middleford is revealed to be a Dual Wielder. Who slays Zombies
• In Black Clover Asta dual wields Anti-Magic swords on occasion. Given the size of his swords, this is no small feat.
• Bleach:
  • Captains Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake possess dual zanpakuto. Between them, Kyoraku is the only shinigami that dual-wields even when his zanpakuto is sealed due to the fact that it seals into the form of two swords. Ukitake's seals into the form of a single sword.
  • Ggio Vega's release allows him to use three blades, one on each hand and one in his hair.
  • Nnoitra Jiruga releases into a six-armed being that wields a weapon in each arm.
  • In the final arc, a new dual wielder is revealed. The true form of Ichigo's zanpakuto turns out to be two blades of differing lengths to accommodate his Soul Reaper power (the larger one) and his Quincy power (the smaller one).
• In the manhwa Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun, Ha-Rhang Whur quad-wields Chinese longswords and their scabbards, in an attack style that resembles a Cirque du Soleil juggling routine as much as it does Dual Wielding.
• Undine of the Twin Swords from Claymore is (of course) well known for the massive physical power that lets her use two standard issue BFS' at once. Upon her demise, Deneve took up her blade and spent the Time Skip learning to bulk herself up to pull the same trick.
• Code Geass:
  • Suzaku Kururugi pulls off some dual-wielding in his mecha.
  • Near the end of the series, Gino Weinberg's Transforming Mecha Tristan is upgraded to the Tristan Divider, and its main weapons include a pair of swords that used to be Bismarck Waldstein's mecha Galahad's BFS.
  • Rolo's prototype Vincent Knightmare had a pair of these that could combine into a double-bladed spear.
• Not weapons, but similar: in Comic Girls, Tsubasa manages to triple-wield brushes in an attempt to increase her output when faced with a deadline.
• Kamika from Corpse Princess fights with a pair of katanas.
• Cyborg 009: In the 009 vs. Devilman OVA, 002 is able to wield two blasters at once.
• Death Note does this with pens. Just watch me L, I'll solve equations with my right hand, and write names with my left.
• Digimon:
  • Daipenmon dual-wields popsicles. It even has a special attack for each of them — Strawberry Death for the red one, and Blue Hawaiian Death for the blue one.
  • Lobomon dual wields light sabers (which can be combined to one two bladed lightsaber darth maul style) and some other sword wielding Digimon like Karatenmon, Yasyamon, Vajramon and many others. A few like Dinohumon and Zanbamon wield two different types of blades at once.
  • Korikakumon dual-wields axes, which he uses for a Blade Spam attack.
  • Shutmon wields a pair of giant, wrist-mounted scissor-blades that cause anything they cut to stop working plus another pair that he can wield normally. The Digimon Universe: App Monsters manga even shows him multi-wielding all four at once.
  • Lamortmon wields two big curved swords, though he's just as likely to bludgeon hostile Digimon with them as he is to slash them.
• In the Dragon Ball Z film Dead Zone, two of Garlic Jr.'s minions, Nicky and Ginger, are shown pulling two katana out of their own bodies. It's unknown whether or not Sansho had the same ability, as Piccolo killed him before he would have had the chance.
• In Fairy Tail Erza dual-wields on occasion sometimes quad-wielding using her feet as well as multi-wielding with 200 swords at once.
• El Cid from Fate/Nuovo Guerra dual wields swords, and as a bonus, creates Sword Beams with them. New Transfer Student Tetsuro dual wields shinai.
• Although he does have a bow, and some ridiculously powerful Trick Arrows, Archer from Fate/stay night more often fights with two Chinese dao, Kanshou and Bakuya. Later on, Shirou uses Projection magecraft to make copies for himself. (It's usually around this point that fans start to wonder at the many similarities between Archer and Shiro...)
• In the Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals manga, King Zephiel dual-wields the BFG Exaccus and the Infinity +1 Sword Sword of Seals!!
• In the FLCL climax, Naota dual wields two guitars in the final fight with Haruko after absorbing Atomsk's power. Wielding Atomsk's Gibson EB-0 in one hand and his own Flying V in the other.
• King Bradley does this in Fullmetal Alchemist, using two sabers at once. Sometimes he carries multiple extra swords, so that he can keep dual-wielding even if one or more of his swords get broken. This is also parodied in an omake, where King Bradley wields five sabers at once: one in each hand, one in each ear, and one in his ass. Denied, his saber, he then dual-wields a set of trench knives.
• In Gamaran, the Souen School led by Nikaido Misaku specializes in Dual Wielding katana and wakizashi, a fighting style which is noted for being perfect for defense and even the author thought it was "a tad too overpowered". It's shown that Shinnojo, Iori and even Gama can, occasionally, resort to Dual Wielding. Outside of swordsmen, there are also Agon and Hakuryuu (dual-wield battle axes), Tsuchiryuu (chinese duck-bill Axes), Sekiryuu and Seirin with Iron Whips and also Muraku Matsumoto's secret weapon has him dual wielding two weighted chains at once.
• Getter Robo: Getter Robo G's Getter Dragon form dual-wields battleaxesGetter Tomahawks for the Double Getter Tomahawk attack. It even throws them for the Double Tomahawk Boomerang! This goes double for Getter Robo Armageddon's Shin Dragon!
• Gintoki does this for a while against Housen in Gintama. He his often seen dual-wielding in flash-backs to the Joi war. Nowadays this is something he use only against opponents against which even simply switching his wooden-katana for a real blade wouldn't be enough.
• Common in Gundam series.
  • Amuro Ray from the original Mobile Suit Gundam, who would use both the Gundam's beam sabers on occasion. His perhaps most famous instance of doing so is during his duel with Zeon commander M'Quve in the Texas colony.
  • From Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Haman Khan and her Quebley often did this as well, mostly because the Quebley had no other equipment that required hands as it had no shield and all its other weapons were built in (or free-floating) so there was no loss in doing so. Paptimus Scirocco's The O is also notable in that it uses four arms in order to wield four sabers at once (two regular arms and two smaller retractable ones in its skirt armor).
  • Sandrock in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing uses a pair of heat shotels — a pair of very massive, and very heavy blades — as its primary melee weapons. The redesigned version in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz has even bigger heat shotels, to the point that they're probably as heavy as Sandrock itself. It still dual-wields them.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Kira Yamato in the Freedom Gundam tends to dual wield his beam sabers when facing stronger opponents albeit at the cost of abandoning his shield. When he upgrades to the Strike Freedom — which has beam shields built into its arms — he can do this with no penalty. Yzak and Athrun are also prone to this.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
    • Setsuna does this all the time in his Exia (which actually has seven swords, but with only two arms it can't use them all at once).
    • The 00 Gundam can do this as well. Like the Exia, it can dual-wield beam swords but also can dual-wield a pair of similar sized solid swords that also act as a pair of laser rifles.
    • The absolute nadir of this trope is the Seravee variant that appears in the manga. It has three Seraphim units attached to its back, all of which are capable of fighting independently. When attached to Seravee, they can each pull out two arms, meaning that Seravee can wield a total of 10 beam sabers at once.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: AGE's Asemu Asuno dual wields beam sabers as his favored combat style, against his father Flit's rifle in one hand and saber in the other, and his son Kio's using a two handed rifle. After he upgrades to the Double Bullet he gets beam sabers installed in the shoulders allowing him to quadruple wield. After the time skip as Captain Ash, his new Dark Hound dual wields a spear and saber.
• In GUN×SWORD, Dann of Thursday uses a massive katana with a detachable knife (or presumably a wakizashi) attached to the reverse side. Van uses it occasionally to take on multiple enemies, while a twin-bladed mauling (Daitou Renzoku Kougeki, or Greatsword Multiple Attack) is one of Dann's attacks in Super Robot Wars K.
• Hayate × Blade gives us Jun, the only student granted the right to use two swords; Shizuku, who wields her partner's sword sheath in addition to her own sword during the council battle; and Maki, who has not been shown Dual Wielding per se but can be inferred to have the ability to do so because of her ambidexterity.
• Father Anderson of Hellsing, Ciel of Tsukihime, and Kotomine of Fate/stay night fight with thin swords held between their knuckles, up to a total of six. (My-Otome pokes fun at this by having Yukariko do it with chalk. In both that series and My-HiME, she often uses a bow and arrows.) This seems to be some kind of Church Militant ability, as all three characters are associated with the Catholic Church (notably, the second two are members of the same organization, though vastly different rank).
• Commander Mary in Kurogane Pukapuka Tai dual-wields a pair of (small) cutlasses.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), Rusl wields both a sword and his machete during the final assault on Hyrule Castle Town.
• The title mech from Linebarrels of Iron. This is made notably less impressive when the soon-to-be-lancer starts quad wielding (and even then it has another sixteen swords to rely on), then there's Tsubaki-hime, that can dual wield chainsaws.
• In the second season of Lyrical Nanoha, Fate's Bardiche was upgraded into Bardiche Assault and gained the Zamber Form, a BFS. By the third season, it has the ability to separate it into two halves, effectively twin long swords. Other dual-wielders in the series include Teana with energy daggers/pistols, Schach and Chantez with tonfas, Deed with energy swords, and Quint with Power Fists (which were split between her daughters).
• Magilumiere Co. Ltd.: Makino's "Fallen Petal Flash" allows her to transform the rose-ribbons on her waist into twin swords.
• Mazinger Z: The titular mecha wielded dual arm-blades.
• Mazinkaiser can deploy two "Kaiser Blades" from its shoulders. By all appearances they're broadswords.
• And for some strange reason, the titular protagonist of Monster Princess does lots of this too. (Of course, she also wields chainsaws and jackhammers as befits the situation.)
• The anime of Murder Princess often has the titular character dual-wielding a katana and a dagger.
• Akane Higurashi from My-HiME, wields a pair of tonfa as her personal weapon. In her case however it's totally justified; tonfa, being both offensive and defensive armaments, are one of those weapons which are intended to be dual-wielded even in real life.
• Midori from My-Otome carries a pair of swords which she draws from a single sheath (which really shouldn't work given how long they are.◊
• Killer Bee, the 8-Tailed Jinchuriki in Naruto prefers using 7 swords at once, in a way that's so weird it's hard to describe (you are not seeing things; none of those swords are in either of his hands). He fights by spinning around like a buzzsaw and juggling his swords, in case it wasn't absurd enough^note His 7-sword fighting form starts at 8:33. It's so absurd and unpredictable that even the Sharingan can't properly predict every attack.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Punch-Clock Villain Tsukiyomi uses a dagger along with a katana.
  • Kotaro has an Imagine Spot involving Chizuru dual wielding onions.
  • Setsuna has her sword for her main hand and sixteen daggers for her off hand. Kaede often has a knife in both hands. Rakan's artifact can be used in both hands. He'd still rather fight you unarmed.
• One Piece:
  • Roronoa Zoro often triple-wields katanas, with one in each hand and one in his mouth. This being anime, of course, it's always quite effective, as absurd as it would be in real life. It goes even farther, however, with Zoro eventually learning to nonuple-wield — that is, use nine swords at once, or at least create the appearance of this.
  • Not long after meeting Zoro, and long before Zoro's nontuple-wielding, Captain Kuro is seen wearing gloves with katanas on each finger. Combined with his incredible speed, he attempts to defeat Luffy, killing off or severely wounding most of his own crew, in order to carry out his master plan.
  • Hatchan (an octopus fishman, meaning he has two legs and six arms to match an octopus's eight tentacles) uses six swords at once.
  • CP9 member Kaku uses two swords, and thanks to a special technique his legs act like blades making a total of four.
  • Mr. 1 is literally made of steel and can make blades appear from his body.
  • Flower Sword Vista of Whitebeard's crew is notable for actually using just two swords, not three or six. He is a very strong swordfighter, able to be recognized by Mihawk, the strongest swordsman in the world, who said that among swordsmen only a idiot wouldn't be familiar with Vista.
  • Shiki the Golden Lion from the Strong World film also uses two swords. Though his are notably not katana, more resembling double edged sabers. He also uses them as makeshift legs and can cut apart lake-sized sections of water with them.
• In Panzer World Galient, Hy Shaltat uses twin axes when he fights.
• Sayaka Miki of Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a moment of this with her swords in episode 6.
• Ranma ½:
  • The Hidden Weapons Master Mousse keeps a rather improbable number of weapons (bladed, blunt, piercing, etc.) hidden within his clothing and all over his body. A favorite intimidation tactic consists of him whipping up both his arms and displaying a frightening amount of blades from his giant sleeves, making it look like the swords and knives are his actual hands. And he's good at using them.
  • Shampoo also regularly dual-wields chúi, large Chinese maces. These demonstrate her prodigious strength, as they are known to be unbelievably heavy and unwieldy, yet she swings them around like they were nothing.
  • Kodachi has been shown to use multiple clubs at one time.
  • Ukyo uses both her large spatula and smaller spatulas at one time, though the smaller ones can double as projectile attacks.
• One of the myriad forms of the Ten Commandments in Rave Master is Blue Crimson, which splits the weapon into two different swords: one of fire and one of ice. Interestingly enough, the hero finds it somewhat difficult to use because he's right-handed. Both Haru and Lucia of temporarily do this whenever they use Blue Crimson, as Lucia has the Decalogue.
• Genkishi, the Phantom Knight of Reborn! (2004) carries around four swords at this belt and usualy dual wields two of them. Adding on to this, Yamamoto Takeshi's box weapon is in possession of three swords, carried on its back. What makes this more interesting is that the box weapon is, in fact, a dog.
• In Reborn to Master the Blade, a few characters use two weapons simultaneously, and perhaps not coincidentally, both are Hieral Menaces, artificial beings created by a highly-advanced race to serve as living weapons. One is Eris, who uses two short swords and incredible agility and speed to overwhelm her opponents, another is Ripple, who uses two revolvers simultaneously.
• Rebuild World: The Cyber Ninja Master Swordswoman Nelia fights using two blades, at first liquid-metal based blades held in place by force fields, and later Laser Blade ones in her Mini-Mecha.
• In the climax of the Record of Lodoss War OAV, Parn dual-wields the Holy Sword of Valis and the Demon Sword Soulcrusher to shatter Kardis' barrier, in which Deedlit was imprisoned.
• Record of Ragnarok: After gaining a Heroic Second Wind, Sasaki Kojirō faces his opponent Poseidon using the Nitō-Ganryū style, which involves fighting with two blades at once, with the longer one in one hand and the shorter one in the other. It is the ultimate culmination of his Ganryu style of Swordsmanship combined with Miyamoto Musashi's Niten-Ichi-Ryū. This style is so effective that Kojirō leaves Poseidon covered in wounds, marking the first time where Poseidon, the god that has never known defeat, is dealt significant damage. And then Kojirō eventually wins...
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • Nanami faces the Ohtori duels with a scimitar and curved dagger. She only has the sword during her duel in the third arc, however; if you think of the sword/dagger combo as representing Touga and herself, then it makes sense as her relying purely on her own strength in that fight.
  • Later, her Stalker With A Crush Mitsuru Tsuwabuki "borrows" said sword and dagger in his Black Rose duel. And he's frighteningly good at using them.
• Rurouni Kenshin:
  • Shinomori Aoshi gets an upgrade to dual-kodachi disguised as a single nodachi like this one◊ the subterfuge befitting his onimitsu (ninja/spy) heritage.
  • Aoshi's "mentor" Okina, wields a pair of tonfa (which is of course justified, see above).
• Saint Seiya: Some of the weapons provided by the Gold Cloth of Libra, such as the tonfas and the nunchaku, are meant to be dual-wielded. The Andromeda Cloth also wields the Andromeda Chain — one type of chain on each arm, and Shun can whip them out simultaneously to attack, unless the enemy requires more thoughtful tactics. Somehow, they never become entangled with one another, and Shun can wield them easily despite being the youngest, wispiest Saint ever.
• In Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo, Fumio mentions that her legendary grandfather could wield three chainsaws simultaneously, to good effect. She herself only uses one for the duration of the story (since it's the only one she owns), but since she can hold it with one hand easily, dual-wielding would be within her capacity.
• Samurai Deeper Kyo: Akira uses two katanas. Later, during Akira's fight with Tokito, her sword splits into two swords.
• Kyuzo from Samurai 7 wields two katanas. Conservation of Ninjutsu never really comes up, but Kambei manages to defeat him (or at least hold him off) using his scabbard as an extra parrying weapon.
• Mifune from Soul Eater carries multiple swords. Usually he uses one sword but he does multi-wield we he gets serious. Kid dual wields guns, and appears unable or at least very unwilling to use only one of the two.
• Star Driver:
  • Tsunashi Takuto reveals that he is a dual-wielder in an I Am Not Left-Handed moment, specifically of swords. When piloting Tauburn, he dual-wields two "Star Swords" — mecha-scale swords made of pure light/energy (the anime never goes out of its way to explain the composition of the weapons) — Emeraude (green) and Saphir (blue).
  • The finale reveals another dual wielder: Big Bad Head, who is also Takuto's father and learned his art under the same teacher (his father). Unlike Takuto, however, he has to use Star Swords connected to two different marks to achieve this, and, again unlike Takuto, is is also very competent with just one sword.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
  • Viral has a mech that dual-wields katanas. Later, he pilots a mech that quadruple-wields them, and LATER, he gives the Tengen Toppa form of Gurren Lagann the ability to create and dual-wield katanas.
  • Gurren-Lagann is also seen dual-wielding giant sunglasses/boomerangs or drills for some of its attacks.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann wields two Giga Drill Breakers in the final battle against the Anti-Spirals.
  • In the second movie, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, Viral's Tengen Toppa Gunmen, Tengen Toppa Enki Durga wields eleven swords (and a club).
• In Tokkô Kureha wields a twin pair of daggers. In the Manga, Ranmaru gets two swords when he awakens his powers, but in the anime version he only gets one, but dual wields his and Sakura's swords in the final battle.
• Hatz from Tower of God dual wields Katana. Except that one of them, the Sword That Flies Higher Than Any, really flies around and incepts attacks.
• In the final episode of Transformers: Armada, Optimus Prime breaks off Galvatron's horns and uses them as a pair of swords.
• Duke Fleed from UFO Robo Grendizer also dual wielded using the twin scythes of his Humongous Mecha, although usually he joined them to form the Double Harken, a double-edged Sinister Scythe.
• Somewhat avoided in the Takehiko Inoue-drawn/written manga Vagabond, with two exceptions where it was acknowledged: Musashi used it as a reaction to being outnumbered by four senior disciples of the Yagyuu, and then he uses it to surprise the chain and sickle wielder Shishido Baiken (Tsujikaze Kouhei, who'd killed the original Baiken) and defeat him. Apparently, Musashi is the only character to dual-wield in the manga because he's so strong that dividing his strength between the two swords isn't a problem, as he proves when he uses a one-handed sword to break a katana held in both hands.
• In Vinland Saga the hero Thorfinn fights with a pair of daggers. Not particularly strange, pretty reasonable. Contrast that however with his first major opponent and secret great uncle. Thorkell the Tall, who dual-wields axes. Not just any old normal sized axes, big mo' fo' great axes almost as big as the hero.
• Guitar, the dog/deer swordsmaster from Violinist of Hameln, wields at least four swords at once, holding a pair in a claw-like grip in each hand. He's murderously proficient with this style.
• Vividred Operation: An impromptu kendo match has Akane using twin swords against Wakaba.
• World Trigger: Border agents can carry up to eight Triggers into battle and can only use two of them at once. Can result in Guns Akimbo or Sword and Gun depending on how agents use them.
  • Suzunari-1’s Kō Murakami, a confirmed righty, switches the position of his main weapons Kogetsu and Raygust depending on his stance. If he prioritizes offense, he wields his Kogetsu in his right hand since it's a sharper blade, if he prioritizes defense, he carries Raygust in his right hand since it can transform from a blade to a shield at will.
  • Kei Tachikawa, the highest ranked Attacker in Border, fights by swinging two Kogetsus in each hand at the same time. His dual Senku Kogetsu attack is strong enough to down a massive Ilgar in a single strike.

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