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And if that's not enough, Squall gets a Gunsword.
"That sword needs its own zip code!"
There is nothing that my Colossal Blade cannot cut!
Big Fragging Sword (but they don't say "fragging"). A common trope to both video games and anime, a BFS is an unrealistically large sword most often owned by The Hero, The Chosen One, or whatever type the lead happens to be. The BFS is often nearly as long as its owner is tall, and may or may not have other special abilities besides being humongous. If a BFS does possess other strange qualities, one of them almost assuredly prevents it from being used by other people, whether that be weight, a magical barrier, a direct link to its owner, or other means.
Usually, no other character in a game or series is the possessor of a sword that is anywhere close to as huge as the BFS. Sometimes, even when unusual swords and weapons are an everyday occurrence, characters are still surprised by the size of the lead's BFS, as it is a physical manifestation of its owner's potential power.
The Rival or a villain will sometimes own a BFS, representing a significant hurdle and challenge for the protagonist to overcome. It is rarer for a secondary character, such as The Lancer or The Big Guy, to own a BFS, but if the lead character does not possess one, one of the others in the Five Man Band likely will.
One dubiously historical example of a BFS is the zanbato, an anti-cavalry sword big enough to kill a rider and his horse in one shot (Bringing new meaning to a certain phrase that ends, "...and the horse you rode in on!"). Such may have been made more as a test of swordsmithing than for actual combat. The zanbato itself is based on a shorter Chinese sword, the zhanmadao, roughly the length of a Scottish claymore, also designed to cut through rider and horse at the same time. It should be noted that real Zanbatos exist, but they're believed to have been made as display pieces and test-swords, and not actually used in combat.
This trope includes any type of improbably large ('anime-sized') melee weapon. After the aforementioned big-ass sword, gigantic lances tend to be the most common. However, humongous hammers and titanic axes also appear from time to time, most commonly in the hands of The Big Guy (or, just for the absurdity of it all, a little girl).
The name is a play off of BFG.
Compare Dual Wielding. See also Not Compensating For Anything.
Examples:
Live Action TV
Film
- The Kurgan in the original Highlander film has one of these. It's implied as so large that you have to assemble it (without nuts or bolts) before using it.
- William Wallace (also see Real Life examples below) wields one of these in Braveheart, and does the usual things of chopping horses' legs off and then the heads of their riders with it.
Western Animation
Anime
- Ichigo from Bleach is a recent and well-known BFS wielder; however, the sheer size of his zanpakuto is a sign that he has great spirit power, but lacks control of it; it can be easily broken by stronger shinigami with better spirit control. He eventually gets over this problem and upgrades his sword into its Shikai form, which, while rather large, is not as huge as his original sword. Zanpakuto have another upgraded form, Bankai; for most shinigami, this changes their sword into an extremely large and powerful weapon, but in a further subversion, Ichigo's Bankai is the size of a normal sword and simply increases his speed.
- His bankai is a daito, which is still longer than most swords, although actually used.
- Kazuki from Busou Renkin has an alternate weapon type - a BFL (Big Fraggin' Lance).
- Guts and his Dragon Slayer from Berserk are a classic example, although it's justified in that he has to go through vigorous training in order to wield it. Also, the giant swords he wields are relatively realistic in terms of being metallurgically problematic, with the Dragon Slayer stated to be forged from solid iron rather than carbon steel, and the art goes to great lengths to portray the weapon realistically with a lot of momentum and almost no real cutting edge. Many other characters of note have large versions of non-sword weapons as well, such as an atlatl-style spear thrower that generates cannon-like force or, in a semi-subversion, an Indian-style flexible sword that is of normal length but far more blades than normal. Ironically, despite a painstaking attempt at verisimilitude for the weapon's effects, Berserk's creator, Kentaro Miura, has admitted in interviews that he only hit upon the idea of the huge sword as a gimmick to attract readers.
- This extends to the video game of the series, as it's nigh-impossible to swing the Dragon Slayer in tight corridors without it bouncing off the wall to little effect.
- Tessaiga, the fang Inu Yasha carries, is a BFS that shrinks down so he can carry it normally. Another BFS wielder in this series is Bankotsu, leader of the Shichinintai. In a possible subversion, Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha's brother and chief rival, has carried several swords of relatively normal size one broke (it was really evil), and the other one was later absorbed by Inu Yasha's sword because apparently it was All According To Plan that Sesshoumaru power up his own sword for his brother; Sess eventually gets his very own sword.
- Sango uses a Big Effin' Boomerang called Hiraikotsu, with the same effect as a BFS.
- Jakotsu "the girly one" from the Shichinentai uses a Long Effin' Sword that's actually about ''twelve'' blades attached together. Interestingly, it's the only sword in the series with no magical powers.
- Mikoto from Mai-HiME fits the main trope when she becomes a Dark Magical Girl later in the series.
- This troper thinks it's averted in this case since as huge as her sword is and as skinny as she is she usually drags the sword along the ground and has to build up momentum before she can actually swing it.
- Arika from Mai-Otome is the proud wielder of both a BFL
 ◊ and a BFS◊.
- Zabuza, the first major villain that Team 7 faces in Naruto, has a rather nasty BFS. A later villain named Kisame has another BFS which, yes, only he can use.
- Not to mention both belonged to a group called "the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist", so presumably there's 5 more like them...
- There was a third mist swordsman in the show, Raiga, if I remember correctly. He didn't have a huge sword, instead he had dual pronged short swords that could call lightning with, then channel it into an attack. Considering that was in filler, however, it probably isn't canon.
- Expanding on Zabuza, Kishimoto said Zabuza's early character designs had his sword about the size of a skycraper, or at least a small building.
- Also, Gamabunta's tanto was used by Tsunade as an insanely giant sword. Though, it is somewhat logical for a frog of Gamabunta's size to have such a knife.
- Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin starts out with a BFS (a zanbato, in fact) and a rotten attitude. Soon after Kenshin destroys the sword, Sano becomes The Lancer.
- This may even count as a bit of a subversion, as during the fight kenshin points out how impractical a BFS really is, and proceeds easily outmaneuver the sword, which is bound by the laws of physics (especially momentum) to be a clumsy weapon.
- Not to mention that, being longer than its owner, the sword can only be swung in sideways or overhead strikes, making its movements easy to predict.
- The Empathic Weapon belonging to Fuu of Magic Knight Rayearth. It's bigger than she is (most pictures of her with it cuts off) and literally weighs a ton in anyone else's hands — only her wind magic allows her to carry it.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Asuna's Paper Fan Of Doom can upgrade into a BFS. How this works depends on whether it's in the manga or the Alternate Continuity anime series Negima?!. In any case, the fan is mainly for comedy (or sparring), while the sword is the business version.
- Meanwhile, Jack Rakan, a comrade of Negi's father, is known as "Rakan of the Thousand Swords"... Apparently, it seems, including one the size of a skyscraper.
- Asuna's classmate Kaede is a semi-closeted Ninja whose signature weapon is a four-pointed Big Fraggin Shuriken which is considerably wider from tip to tip than she is tall.
- Don't forget about Setsuna. That nodachi of hers is taller than she is (necessary for the demon-slaying work of her sword school).
- But in weapon-to-wielder ratio, nothing beats the sword that Evangeline's puppet Chachazero uses. Not an unrealistically large sword, but not one that would be easy to wield one-handed. Chachazero does it just fine, though...and she's less than a foot tall, making the sword seem absolutely gigantic.
- The Heavy Blade class in the .hack// series all wield these as a rule. For some reason, another rule for this class is skimpy armour for females, but that's another story entirely.
- After breaking four ordinary swords in a fight, Karura from Utawarerumono upgrades to a BFS that only she is able to lift; however, because she demanded it be unbendable, unbreakable, and never need sharpening, the edge is not as sharp as a regular sword, so people she hits with it tend to... splatter. She tests it out by splitting a giant boulder.
- The Ten Commandments sword, used by Haru Glory in Rave Master, is nearly as large as its wielder. Luckily, this only applies to its base form, Eisonmeteor; its other 9 forms are much more reasonably sized, with the exception of Gravity Core, which is even larger.
- Aya and Maya from Tenjou Tenge share a long, long katana that could not be wielded by either of them, y'know, in the real world.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Fate Testarossa and her intelligent device, Bardiche. Not only does its Zamber Form start out larger than she is, but it can grow to such immense length that Fate could cleave through Humongous Mecha at a distance.
- D's Masamune from the two Vampire Hunter D movies definitely fits this trope - if it wasn't for the curve of the blade, it would drag the ground whenever he wields it. As it is, it's a miracle he can unsheath it, let alone wield it with the superhuman speed he does. Well, he is a dhampir, I guess...
- Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has one of these. The series even subtly lampshades it when he first fights Viral: by the time you think he's finished drawing the sword from its scabbard, he still has that much further to go.
- Claymore: Look at the title!
- After using the Goldion Hammer (not a BFS, so much as a Big Friggen Hammer) during the original series run, Gao Gai Gar gets to use the Goldion Crusher - a hammer of light made out of battleships - during the OVA.
- And yet, when the main villain of the OVA Pulls out a regal-looking mech-sized blade, Gao Gai Gar counters with a green crystal version of Gai's "Will Knife," just scaled up to Gao Gai Gar size.
- In Shakugan No Shana, Sorath has one he calls Blutsauger. Both Tanaka and Satou later make several attempts to lift it, but neither of them succeeds to get it off of the ground completely. In Season 2, Yuji takes a level in badass and wields it with ease, at one point throwing it one-handed as a finishing move.
- The Kaiser Blades from the Mazinger Z OVA series Mazinkaiser. The movie sequel has two smaller blades that are deployed from the shoulders, but the original/Final Kaiser Blade was pulled out of Kaiser's chest, was three times the length of Kaiser, and able to cut through damn near anything.
- Silent Mobius features the magical shape-shifting sword Grospoliner, a sentient weapon of ridiculous size in its sword form. However, Katsumi rarely (or never) uses the blade of the sword to cut enemies, instead mainly using the weapon as a magic-focusing tool.
- The recently-revealed Galahad Knightmare Frame from Code Geass possesses a sword so huge that the sheath needs its own propulsion system.
- Of course Gundam also has it's very own example (It's wielded by a giant robot but it's fragging big anyway)
- Balgus from Vision of Escaflowne gets one in the second episode, when facing off against the Zaibach cloaked Melefs. Considering these things managed to incapacitate with ease several other melefs (for reference, melef=15 foot tall mecha), the fact that Balgus proved harder to kill when on foot and armed only with his 8-foot long sword even more awesome.
- The Di-Swords from Chaos;Head are giant swords wielded by the six main girls of the show. In addition to being very large, they also glow, feed off emotions, and are invisible to everyone except Takumi.
Manga
- Gundam SEED Astray goes for broke with the Astray Blue Frame's Tactical Arms flight pack can form it's wings into a giant sword (with a Gatling gun built in for good measure), while our hero, Lowe Guele, arms his Red Frame with a Mobile Suit-sized Katana, and eventually forges a 150-meter-long version of it that he first has to build a Power Loader for his Red Frame (that's right, a Humongous Mecha riding a Humongous Mecha) so he can use it. One of the first things he does with it is cut a wrecked space colony in half. In another battle, he throws the swords and impales a battleship with it. Note that Lowe is normally a Technical Pacifist, but the captain of said ship really pissed him off. He later upgrades Red Frame with oversized arms with built-in batteries to wield the giant katana without the Power Loader (as the Loader was destroyed in battle), though this doesn't last long either since it's a running theme that Red Frame upgrades are always temporary.
- From the main Gundam SEED series itself, there are ship-killing swords the length of the Humongous Mecha that use them. Portrayed fairly realistically - as far as "realistic" can be said when Humongous Mecha are around - as being unwieldy, slow and rather easily dodgeable.
- Eat-Man has a few of these, though The Boer Sword deserves a special mention. Despite the fact that it's only ever used in one hand the thing's easily twice the size of anyone who uses it, dangles a mass of apparently self- motivating cables, and commands the allegiance of an army of monsters.
- At one point, couple of mooks in Hokuto No Ken team up swing a giant sword. Of course, being Hokuto No Ken mooks, the mookiest mooks in mookdom, they die bloodily a panel later.
Comic Books
- In Marvel's Thor, the concept is taken to its logical extreme with the Odinsword◊, which is many times the size of anybody, human or Asgardian. Thor has successfully thrown it, but he could never wield it... not least because drawing it from its sheath causes the end of the universe.
- Shinryuken in Gold Digger whose Colossal Blade, Size-mitar, is one big reference to Sanger Zonvolt, listed above.
- Korvus' Phoenix Blade from X Men.
Webcomics
- Kenta ("Ken") Daisuke, from the webcomic No Need For Bushido, carries a zanbato which is as wide as he is, and approximately four times his length.
- Jillian Zamussels, from Erfworld, carries a BFS. Her listed strengths on the cast page include "Unrealistically Oversized Weaponry" and "Hack-slash-carve-stabbity-chopchop".
- Sir Eglamore of Gunnerkrigg Court has two swords, each nearly as tall as him: A normal metal blade, for normal threats like dragons and wolves; and a glowing blade of unknown composition, for fighting Shadow Men.
- A giftwrapped BFS in this Misfile strip: http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=1034
- Roy's Weapon Of Choice as leader of the Order Of The Stick (and specialist weapon, being a Fighter) is an heirloom greatsword, which while being realistic by standards of this page is still damn big.
- The intro comic to the first book parodies the "oddly effeminate male leads" of the Final Fantasy series by showing one of them with a sword larger than he is strapped to his back, rendering him unable to move.
- Taken to extremes in Adventurers!.
Videogames
- Common in the later Final Fantasy games.
- The most well-known video game example is Cloud's Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth, the Big Bad, also carries one, a superlong no-dachi called Masamune. In fact, Sephiroth's blade actually dwarfs Cloud's, no mean feat. It's interesting to note that, in both cases, the BFS is of sufficient size that nobody could reasonably carry it.
- The story actually references this, though, saying that Sephiroth is the only man skilled enough to wield his sword. Cloud's, though, passes through no fewer than three users, all of whom use it with ease.
- It should be noted that Cloud's sword is not actually that long; real life two handed swords were of similar (sometimes longer) lengths. It's just wide... and he often wields it with one hand...
- There's also the part about Cloud and Sephiroth both being genetically modified super-soldiers who have extraordinary strength. It makes perfect sense that the two are able to wield their weapons. Angeal was also a pretty special guy...let's try and figure out how Zack managed it.
- Technically, Cloud wasn't a member of SOLDIER. He was psychologically unfit to go through the modifications, which he was later put through, anyway. Still, he was never a formal part of the organization. It is shown that Zack was as strong as, if not stronger than Cloud.
- Same way the others could; he was a member of the exact same organization.
- In Final Fantasy VIII, protagonist Squall Leonhart and his rival Seifer Almasy do one better, as each wields a Gunblade, a BFS that doubles as a BFG. The headmaster of Squall's school mentions that gunblade specialists are rare because the weapon is difficult to use.
- Auron, the guardian from Final Fantasy X, has several swords that fit in this category, including his Ultima weapon.
- Averted in Final Fantasy IX, where the weapons are all realistically proportioned, perhaps because the characters are not. This is the odd one out among 3D FF games, and in this facet, as in several others, it connects with the traditional 2D series in a way that the other 3D titles don't. It is also averted in FFXII whose more realistic design theme overall, leads to generally reasonable weapons.
- FFVI (FFIII in it's original English release) had numerous swords which, due to the nature of the sprites, were rather large. However it had two swords which, even given the artistic style, looked too large to be allowed. The first was the Scimitar (in Japanese, named Zantetsuken (iron-cutting sword), a name normally reserved in the series for Odin's One Hit Kill weapon), about three to four times the height of most characters which had the fitting ability where it had a chance to instantly kill (cut in half) on each blow. The other weapon was the Atma Weapon, a Soul-reflecting sword that grew longer the more hitpoints you had. Equip it in the right person's hands at the end of the game and you were wielding a sword that was easily 10-12 times your height!
- Both Final Fantasy Tactics Advance protagonists hold a BFS called Judge Sword in their artwork (which make look the Buster Sword tame in comparison), but the only place they're ever seen in the games is a brief appearance during the Bishop's Judge spell in the first game.
- Both Siegfried and Nightmare from the Soul Edge/Soul Calibur series both use a BFS. Further, in Soul Calibur 3, there is an entire style based off of the BFS. The German sword style it was based on actually existed, but both characters use it in ways that a normal human could never accomplish with a two-handed sword of that size.
- By Soul Calibur 4, both swords are of the BFS variety, and are portrayed that way in every character's ending. In the three Custom Character endings, lifts and wields one of the swords with one hand. If you faced Algol as the final boss, you dual wield Soul Calibur and Soul Edge, in BFS form. You also levitate.
- Emelius in Grandia 3 carries a massive, jagged sword.
- The browser-based MMORPG Kingdom Of Loathing spoofs this with the "Ridiculously Huge Sword", which is a three-handed weapon.
- Kliff in Guilty Gear carries a sword that's larger than he is tall - but then, Kliff's a Miniature Senior Citizen. But then again, some of his special moves de-age him, and the sword's still as large as he is tall...
- In later games, little girl Amy combines this with Improbable Weapon User by weilding a functional anchor, minus most of the chain.
- Do you perhaps mean May? She's in the very first game.
- Sanger Zonvolt of the Super Robot Wars metaseries is the king of this trope. He pilots one of the biggest Humongous Mecha in the game, and his BFS Zankatou, roughly "Ship-cutting sword"/Colossal Blade is usually even longer than that!
- Averted in Silent Hill 2 with Pyramid Head. Yes, he has a fragging huge sword/knife/thing, but he is also shown to be physically incapable of lifting it, and instead drags it everywhere he goes, illustrating his tortured mentality. And when James has the chance to wield it, he also must drag it around, and swinging it takes him several seconds as well. The film version, however, has him swinging it around all willy nilly, probably because he gets a role transplant from a manifestation of guilt to a manifestation of protection and vengeance.
- And even if he swings it with ease in the film, he still has some trouble carrying it around. Whether this is a result of him being a representation of Alessa's pain and equal vengeance or simply the directors not caring is still a mystery.
- Maybe because the image of him dragging the giant thing is so damn creepy? And then there's the sound...
- Ninja Gaiden's Xbox remake features a sword known as the Dabilahro, which starts as a golden version of Cloud's Buster Sword. Upgrading it cuts holes out of its girth but doesn't reduce its length. It is explicitly stated in the menu's description to be 100 pounds in weight. Then there are the Fiend Nightmares, which wield Shikai Zangetsu-esque cleavers. And as also stated in One Winged Angel's page, Spirit Doku wields a nodachi Sephiroth would be proud of.
- In Okami, Amaterasu can equip swords called "glaives" as her primary weapon. Swords longer than she is, for the most part. Also, the second brush god, Tachigami, is a rat who pulls a BFS out of a scabbard much too small to contain it.
- From the very beginning, the original Monster Hunter had an entire class of weapons called Great Swords. These weapons were often as big if not bigger than the user, and though extremely damaging were slow and often clumsy. In Monster Hunter 2 another variation of BFS, the long yet thin Tachi or Long Sword, was added. While unable to block, the tachi was a compensated with speed and the ability to raise the user's fighting spirit (essentially a conditional built-in attack buff)
- Somewhat averted in the Monster Hunter series, however. While the large weapons are indeed quite a bit larger than could realistically be wielded, they do not whip around like weapons half their size, as is common in the vast majority of this trope. Particularly with the great swords, the character takes a lengthy amount of time winding up his/her swings and recovering from them thereafter, making these powerful weapons require a great deal of experience and timing to be even remotely effective.
- Monster Hunter also features big freakin' hammers, lances, hunting horns (also used for bashing monsters upside the head), &c.
- The character Arngrim from Valkyrie Profile wields one of the largest swords ever seen in a console RPG. It is about twice as long as Arngrim is tall, and as wide as a regular Claymore. Considering Arngrim's size, this makes it roughly 12 feet long from point to pommel, with a 9-foot long blade. There is little significance to the fact that he wields such a ghastly-sized weapon, except as a hallmark to the ridiculous one-up-manship that tends to pervade RPG weaponry.
- Kashell also has a BFS. It may only be half the size of Arngrim's, but it's still longer than the character is tall.
- Note that neither character's sprite is consistent with his artwork in this regard. The art depicts their swords as being closer to historical Zweihanders in size.
- Arngrim returns in Valkyrie Profile 2, but is one-upped by Dylan, whose sword is as long as Arngrim's but, almost twice as wide, looking like a curved (and dented) version of Cloud's Buster Sword.
- Considering Arngrim is an Expy of Guts to begin with, his choice of weaponry is hardly surprising.
- The MMORPG World of Warcraft is well known for the Big Fragging Swords, as well as Big Fragging Shoulder Armor. Case in point for both◊.
- And Big Fragging Guns and Big Fragging Axes and... you get the idea.
- Shown case-in-point is actually on the average side for the game. The more epic items can fairly easily dwarf the character who carries them◊.
- Also, Gnomes. Gnome Melee Classes (such as the Warrior and Death Knight) can wield two-handed swords. Often these swords are longer than the character is tall, causing them to clip through the ground when carried on the character's back. Especially ludicrous in the case of Death Knights, where the starter swords are more than one-third of the width of the character's back!
- An instance of Gameplay And Story Segregation in Drakengard. The sword that Caim wields in the cutscenes is larger by far than the sword he carries around in-game. This is taken up a notch in the sequel, when Caim's Sword is ridiculously huge when the protagonist of that game acquires it. There's also a literal BFS in Hymir's Finger, a sword that is said to weigh 50 kg (roughly 100 lbs.) and is long enough to qualify as a jousting lance. Also in Drakengard 2? A sword that's been broken in half - and is still SO huge (due to so many repeated forgings to add everything from a giant's leg-bone to the SOUL OF A CHILD, which is what finally snapped the blade) that it can only be wielded as an immense, overly-huge, ridiculously heavy AXE.
- If you look closely, it even appears that said axe is part of Hymir's Finger, which makes sense since the blade was forged from the pretty much scrap of everything the guy who forged it ever killed.
- The Biggoron Sword from The Legend Of Zelda series. Then there were the Darknut swords from the Wind Waker. Those things were so huge that they were only good for throwing and for breaking pillars. But they were VERY good as thrown/demolition weapons
- Surprisingly, despite taking a second or two to bring over your head so you could swing them, you could chuck Darknuts' weapons across the room with ease.
- Don't forget the Helix Blade from Majora's Mask — that thing was longer than Link was tall!
- The last fight in Rogue Galaxy is the main character Jaster vs. a giant monster ship-sized evil... thing. Lucky for you, Jaster just got a blade the size of a school bus!
- It starts off the size of a school bus, but is extended to ridiculous proportions during said fight. We're talking 10x Sephy's Masamune.
- In the 7th Fire Emblem game, Durandal can only be wielded by Eliwood when riding a horse, and appears to be longer than the horse he's riding. Somehow the horse can jump while carrying both Eliwood and the sword.
- Ike in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn wields a two handed sword with one hand(though it's quite shrimpy compared to the other swords on this page...)! Naturally, he's the most powerful swordsman in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
- Based on a CG in Radiant Dawn, there existed a woman who wielded Ike's Ragnell, and it's identical twin, Alondite, in a case of Dual Wielding BFSs. She was considered a hero, and became the first Empress of Begnion.
- The version of the Yamato nodachi wielded by Nero's Devil Trigger spirit in Devil May Cry 4 is long. For reference, one of Nero's Action Commands involves leaping inside a frog demon boss by the mouth and attacking it from within. The spirit, which stays outside, attacks with slashes the size of the monster.
- Not to mention Dante's zweihänder-long, Claymore-wide Rebellion which he swings faster than a rapier.
- The standard Broadsword and Katana models in City Of Heroes is already pretty big, but the unlockable Rularuu models are often bigger than the player character wielding it.
- The Rikti Sword models are also pretty huge. (and not exactly conventional)
- The entire point of the Flash game Ginormo Sword. If you can't hit the entire screen with your sword, you haven't done enough Level Grinding.
- Probably the last character you'd expect getting a BFS is getting a BFS: Sonic. Also, it can talk, and it's trying to make Sonic more chivalrous and knight-like.
- Nyx Avatar, last boss of Persona 3, stands about 18 feet tall and wields a massive zweihander roughly twice that size. In one hand. It's large enough that you're never quite able to see the sword in its entirety during the fight. Then again, if anyone deserves to wield a BFS, it would be the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death.
- The Main Character of Persona4.
- Several characters in Dynasty Warriors/Sangoku Musou, Samurai Warriors/Sengoku Musou, their crossover Orochi Warriors/Orochi Musou, or the me-too series Sengoku Basara/Devil Kings, have ridiculously large weapon wielders alongside characters with normal weapons. Examples include a jolly fat man with a mace whose head is the size of his entire body, two vanilla BFS wielders, a BF axe, a BF boomerang, a few BF spears, BF gauntlets-shaped-like-animal-heads, BF claws...
- A couple of borderline BF Ses appear in Dead Rising, but they are explicitly decorative items (the game takes place in a mall). There is a secret unlockable laser sword that grows in length if you do the spinning lariat while holding it, though.
- Duke, Balga, Gaia and Tau each wield a BFS in Battle Arena Toshinden. Gaia even uses his one handed.
- A form of Sora's keyblade, metal chocobo, qualifies for this. As you could quess, he got the corresponding keychain from Cloud Strife himself.
- The aptly-named Huge Sword from Golden Sun: The Lost Age and its unleash, "Heavy Divide". Also, Felix and Isaac's Ragnarok/Odyssey Psyenergy. And the multi-elemental summon catastrophe. And the Excalibur's "Legend" unleash. So Yeah...
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night brings us the Runesword, an oversized sword that you don't swing, but rather have fly out in front of you and come back to you. And then there's Aria of Sorrow's Claimh Solais, which swings in an approximately 135-degree arc in front of you and is the best sword in the game.
- Fiona Mayfield from Arcana Heart is a cute little eleven year old (sorta) in a wholesomely frilly maid's outfit... complete with gauntlets, steel boots, and a Zweihander at least as large as she is.
- Sarevok, the Big Bad in the first Baldurs Gate game, wields a massive sword suitable for his own great size. Even without his unholy power strengthening it, in the sequel it's one of the best big weapons in the early game.
- Touhou extra boss Flandre Scarlet has a spell which summons an energy sword. Given that this is a 2D shoot 'em up, that doesn't sound too dangerous... until you realize that it's 10 times her height - nearly as long as the screen.
- The Moiety daggers in the Myst series may count. Although they're never wielded by anyone, these giant metal kunai-like knives appear in several places in Riven, and show up occasionally as a Shout Out in later games. The knives here are merely symbolic, being scaled-up versions of normal-sized knives used by the Moiety.
Tabletop Games
- One of the big feature of Exalted are BFS called Daiklaves. Made from one of the five magical metals of the setting (Orichalcum, Moonsilver, Starmetal, Jade and Soulsteel), Daiklaves are gigantic versions of any kind of imaginable
weapon sword.
- Then there are Grand Daiklaves, which are BFS versions of regular Daiklaves. Yes, BFS versions of a BFS.
- Don't get me started on the Warstrider versions.
- Some Priests and the Sisters Repentia (sic) in the Witch Hunters Codex in Warhammer 40000 carry Eviscerators, which are chainsaw-bladed BF Ses. They are said to be able to cut through tank plating.
- Some fans believe that Japanese adoration of big swords stems from Japanese fantasy fans seeing western D&D miniatures. The miniatures had out-of-scale swords, which weren't a specific statement so much as a way to make the swords easier to see on the models as well as easier to paint. Reportedly, this was interpreted to mean that such a weapon was standard in western-style fantasies.
- On the other hand, edition after edition of Dungeons And Dragons featured the Hammer of Thunderbolts, a warhammer so large that you needed two separate magic items to even have the strength to wield it. Once you did have said items and knew the hammer was the said Hammer of Thunderbolts, much asskicking against giants followed.
- The hammer was based on the myths of Thor's hammer, Mjollnir, which was so heavy (even though it's handle was too short) that he needed both magic gloves and magic belt to increase his strength enough to wield it. (The Giants were the enemies of the Aesir in Norse mythology.)
- Later editions added the fullblade, a BFS which was larger and more powerful than the regular greatsword, but required an exotic/superior weapon feat to use. Similar big fragging weapons were also included in other categories, such as the Mordenkrad/Greathammer, a gigantic hammer favored by a race called goliaths.
- Goliaths, half-giants and users of the Monkey Grip feat can wield weapons made for creatures a size category larger than they are. This might lead to a character wielding a nine-foot bastard sword, one handed.
- Spycraft 2.0 has a sword weighing 30 lb that ostensibly represents a zweihander, which in reality weighed less than a quarter of that - an actual sword this heavy would resemble Cloud's Buster Sword more than any real weapon and be completely impractical in any setting pretending to be at all realistic.
Card Games
- In the Munchkin card game expansion, De-Ranged, there's a piece of equipment called the Three-Handed Sword, which literally requires three free hands, but gives your character a +10 bonus if you pull it off.
Literature
- Literary example, and a western one at that: Belgarion, the main character of David Eddings' The Belgariad, inherits a BFS halfway through the story. A basic gigantic greatsword forged from meteoric iron, it's got a Mac Guffin (the Orb of Aldur) attached to the hilt, effectively turning it into an Empathic Weapon that will kill (almost) anyone else that touches it (putting it into the 'only he can use it' category). Among other things, the Orb reduces the weight of the sword to enable Belgarion to easily wield it; in an amusing scene early in the sequel series, The Malloreon, Belgarion removes the Orb from the hilt with the sword still strapped across his back — and promptly gets crushed under the immense weight of the weapon. He barely manages to struggle out from underneath it, and throughout the rest of the series, he takes the sword off before removing the Orb.
- Fredric in The Castle of Otranto comes into possession of a sword so large a hundred men grow close to fainting under its immense weight.
- One of the oldest examples in Fantasy literature (popular in the 1970s and 1980s, although Stealer of Souls was published in 1961): bad-ass Anti Hero Elric of Melniboné and his evil sentient soulsucking black rune-sword Stormbringer. Alhough Stormbringer was not as ridiculously big as many animé swords, it was still on the large side, and could only be touched safely by Elric... or occasionally by his side-kick. Elric himself, being of a sickly constitution, could only lift the sword when he was filled by the blade's stolen soul energies; powered-up he could swing it with ease for hours, slaughtering whole armies, but without the stolen strength, he would collapse and be unable to even lift the heavy blade, let alone fight with it.
- One the Oldest Ones In The Book: Former adversary and later vassal of King Arthur, Osla Big Knife, carried Bronllavyn Short Broad, a sword whose dimensions are never completely specified. However, it is stated that it was large enough to be used as a bridge and that Osla himself died when the sword fell out of its sheath, allowing the sheath to fill up with so much water that he was dragged under and drowned. Osla appears twice in the Welsh Mabinogion, with the earliest text he appears in dating back to 1160 or thereabouts. Even without pinning down the date, this easily qualifies as one of the oldest ones in the book, and, interestingly, constitutes one its few non-Asian and non-Asian-influenced appearances.
- Although his fighting days may be done by the time A Song Of Ice And Fire starts, Ned remembers how his big eating, big guy, Toblerone deconstruction friend Robert Baratheon used to charge into battle with a Big Fragging Warhammer that most other people had a hard time lifting, let alone swinging.
- Let us not forget Ser Gregor Clegane, The Mountain That Rides. It is not that his enormous greatsword is oversized so much as it is that Ser Gregor wields it in one hand like a
longsworddagger.
- Beowulf wielded a giant sword when he fought Grendel's mom, Justified in that it was in fact made by giants.
- Oversized weapons were common in epics of all ancient cultures. Two of the main heroes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, were said to wield polearms that were over 40 lbs in weight and over 10 feet in length, respectively.
- Of course, that really isn't that big for a polearm. Pikes were commonly 18 feet long, and they were used by normal soldiers.
- Dragaera's Aliera e'Kieron wields her ancestor Kieron's greatsword for several books. It's literally taller than she is. But then, she's an elf by any other name, and her mother is a goddess, so at least there's a reason she can lift it.
- In Journey To The West, Sun Wukong takes an impressively large BFS from an enemy and ends up demanding a better weapon from a dragon. He inspects and rejects a series of larger and larger weapons until he notices Ruyi Jingu Bang, an 8 ton pillar originally used as a measuring stick to test the water's depth during the worst flood of Chinese history. Of course, it changes size at will, so it's only as ridiculously large as the Monkey King wants it to be. Due to its weight, the novel describes it as gibbing some of the people it hits.
- Discworld seems surprisingly lacking in these, but but the Klatchian enforcer 71-Hour Ahmed in Jingo has a very large scimitar.
- Quoth Vimes: "He's practically a concealed owner!"
- Dragonlance The character Kaz wields a BF Axe in Kaz, The Minotaur. It's said in the text that it was forged by a Dwarf for a human knight and that it took two hands to wield the massive weapon (I remember it being implied that it was never wielded very well) but Kaz wields it easily with one hand performing maneuvers which should have removed his arm from his shoulder with ease. Granted, the axe was mildly enchanted but it didn't alter the weight in any way. It's mirror finish would only show the reflection of people with honor It's not quite as huge as many of the blades mentioned here but it's always stuck with me.
- In Keys to the Kingdom, Sir Thursday wielded a massive, dual-handed longsword with one hand. Justified in that he's a nearly immortal, demi-god-like being. This is later subverted when the blade transforms into a slender rapier for Arthur. Don't think that made it any less badass: the blade's signature power was that it killed any living creature with even the slightest touch.
Web Original
- These sometimes appear in Survival Of The Fittest, where Danya sometimes puts medieval swords on the list of weapons to be assigned. Such swords include a 55 inch long Claymore, a 6 foot long Zweihander, and a Grosse Messer.
Real Life
- During late Medieval times, a Frisian pirate and freedom fighter existed by name of "Grutte Pier". In keeping with the trope, he rose to prominence after the infamous Black Band mercenaries sacked his hometown. Reported to be a very large man, Grutte Pier wielded a similarly oversized sword: The weapon believed to be his, now kept at the Fries Museum, measures 2.25m (7 feet) in length.
- Actual effective use of such a sword would have been effectively impossible; as an intimidating showpiece it's among the best, though.
- This mind-bogglingly enormous Japanese sword is 377 cm (over 12 feet) long, and is the largest sword of its type known to exist in Japan. Other examples, though none of quite that magnitude, can be found on the linked site.
- And this particular example was made to test a forging technique, not to be actually used in a battlefield.
- The Scottish claymore is a real life example; it was designed with the weight and length to take the heads off several unfortunate Englishmen in one swing once you got some momentum behind the swing. Having said that its use died out mostly because it was responsible for too many friendly fire casualties. The claymore was still definitely a BFS, albeit in a different order of magnitude than most of the ridiculously sized blades in this trope.
- William Wallace's supposed claymore was 5 and a half feet long.
- The German Zweihänder was up to 6 feet long, weighing up to 7 lb. (3 kg) and used in both hands, allegedly to break up pike formations.
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