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"I've done what I swore an oath to God twenty-eight years ago to never do again. I've created "something that kills people". And in that purpose, I was a success. I've done this because, philosophically, I'm sympathetic to your aim. I can tell you, with no ego, this is my finest sword. If, on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut."
- Hattori Hanzo, Kill Bill
Gamers are Nippophiles - the popularity of ninjas and samurai makes this fairly clear. Not only this, Japan is the country of origin of several games. This trope is essentially a manifestation of that love for Western pop-culture conception of Japanese history and culture. Rule Of Cool says swords are cooler than guns (except for a certain type of gun), and Japan, historically, didn't take to guns as quickly as the West.
This means that in some games or fantasy universes where Eastern and Western archetypes exist side by side, such as knights in shining armor vs. samurai, ninja vs. thieves, and so forth, the Japan-themed selection tends to just be better. Flashier, more honorable, more skilled, sometimes portrayed in a more positive fashion. (The overwhelming positive representation of ninja in anime and fantasy is an example.) In some extreme cases, anything Eastern/Japanese is just inherently better, logic be damned.
Perhaps the single most obvious example is the ancient Japanese vs Western Swords debate In many games where, say, a katana (and on film, Every Japanese Sword Is A Katana) exists alongside Western swords, the hero is more likely to wield the katana and it is definitely more likely to be the superior sword. Chinese and other 'eastern' weapons are often subject to a lesser version of this. This trope may sometimes be used even if it's utterly out of place or anachronistic. Wielders of such weapons frequently possess Implausible Fencing Powers, particularly the kind where a katana can slice through things it really should not be able to cut. Katana-wielders may be shown to be able to deflect bullets with the blade and then cleave the firearms they were launched from - but someone wielding any european-style blade, regardless of whether it is a huge two-handed claymore, a katana-equivalent longsword/sabre or a lightning-quick rapier, will never be shown to manage such feats.
Since fencing with katanas will usually be depicted as being an "honourable" manner of fighting, it will in most cases be implied if not stated outright that using firearms is despicable, cowardly or somehow "low". At the same time, fencing won't be depicted as "low" compared to hand-to-hand combat, nor will it be "low" to for a katana wielder to attack people armed with less effective melee weapons, like knives or farming implements. Other standard melee weapons like mauls, flails, and polearms are generally not subject to this trope, but Rule Of Cool says none of them are cooler than a sword to begin with.
It's not just Japanese ethnocentrism, either - this trope appears even in some Western productions, probably part of the mystique that Japanese medieval culture and archetypes holds over anime fans and many gamers. Part of it may be backlash, part of it may be fascination with a view of the Japanese as very traditional, obsessed with honor, and willing to commit ritual suicide at the drop of a hat.
As this trope has its roots in Rule Of Cool, occasionally designers just create a unique sword that would be useless in real life, if not outright impossible to wield.
A number of modern myths about the capabilities of a Nihonto, especially against modern weapons, have been confirmed. In one notable video, a Nihonto blade withstood, with some chipping, seven direct strikes by .50 BMG heavy machine gun bullets before snapping (note: the bullets hit from the sharp edge of the blade and were essentially having to go through an inch and a half of steel. Shoot side-on and you'll get a very different result). [1] The same sword had previously been struck by a .45 ACP bullet and been subjected to a sheet metal shear without obvious damage. Of course, since the 50. BMG bullets are made of lead with a copper jacket the hard Martensite edge of the sword resists the projectile (traveling at 1200 meters/second) and the soft Pearlite core dissipates the impact. A sword should be able to replicate it only if created with the differential hardening used in the tempering process of some sword production. What would be impressive would be a swordsman quick enough to actually cut the bullet and then dodge the two bullet fragments that would remain. Modern factory-made Japanese-style blades have been shown to be rather less impressive by the Mythbusters.
Another Myth is the a Katana is stronger then a normal longsword in battle. Not true in the sense that Japan has vastly inferior iron quality (at least when applied to a European sword) as not to mention a costly effort in Japan where a master swordsmith would have to go to great lengths to remove impurities from the iron, such as the famous 'folding of the blade' (though this was normally left to the apprentice). That said, a Katana is far more *flexible* than a European sword.
This trope is distressingly common amongst Mary Sue characters (especially in tabletop roleplaying). Indeed, the image of the purple clad girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes walking down the roads of Middle Earth with her trusty katana by her side is one that seems to come naturally to a lot of amateur writers. It's not so much the ownership of the blade that marks the Sue as it is the total out-of-place anachronistic implications of having one in settings that either shouldn't realistically have them or have rendered them obsolete. Add in the rest of this trope and you can practically hear the eyes rolling.
And never you mind that it should really be katana are just better, singular and plural like Samurai and Pokemon. Never you mind it's in the picture there is no error!!!
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Assassin from Fate Stay Night is a pretty cool guy, he uses a katana and doesn't afraid of anything. The long range of his weapon, excellent skills, and a nigh-undodgeable ultimate technique make him a very difficult recurring opponent to the Western swordswoman protagonist, Saber. This technique isn't even really a special, unique skill like the other Servants have—he's just that good.
- Partly averted in one way: in Saber's second fight with Assassin (both the anime and one game route), Saber kills Assassin while barely dodging his ultimate attack...only doing so because, in the course of the fight, Assassin's sword had gotten bent out of shape.
- Averted in Naruto, as Orochimaru's Kusanagi sword is accurately depicted as a double-edged sword. Later on, Sasuke obtains his own personal version of the Kusanagi that, while very similar to a katana, is actually a Chokutō, a much older straight-bladed sword. Indeed, the only named character who uses an actual katana is killed seconds into his first (and only) fight by an opponent who brags that wind is far sharper.
- Aya, the primary protagonist of Weiss Kreuz, uses a katana as his weapon of choice even against enemies wielding guns, and pulls off a couple of Diagonal Cuts throughout the original series. On the other hand, the trope is also subverted several times throughout the series:
- In the Radio Drama Endless Rain, several characters discuss the idea that Katanas Are Just Better, with one of them remarking that the katana is just a weapon like any other and, all things being equal, he'd just as soon have a gun. In another scene, Aya, wielding a katana, is defeated effortlessly by another character who wields only a paper fan.
- After a katana vs. katana battle by at the conclusion of another Radio Drama, Dramatic Precious, Aya finally defeats his former swordmaster by shooting him with the gun he carries as a backup weapon.
- And in the manga sequel Weiss Side B, Aya is provided with his pick from another character's collection of katanas before going into battle, and takes all of them, correctly expecting all of them to break before the fight is over.
- Code Geass has Humongous Mecha wielding Chainsaw Katana, but this is pretty well justified as they were designed for use by strongly nationalistic Japanese soldiers. Additionally, their superiority comes from the fact that they're some of the few powered melee weapons in the series, with The Empire having yet to mass produce the vibro-swords seen on the show's iconic Super Prototype.
- Cowboy Bebop's Vicious, in a world where most characters are gunmen or martial artists, uses a katana as his weapon of choice. And he is damn good with it, good enough to match his rival, The Gunslinger Spike Spiegel, in no fewer than two one-on-one duels.
- And of course, in Samurai Champloo, everyone uses katanas, all the time!
- Pretty sure whatever Mugen has isn't a katana: It's double-edged and has a pronged hilt that points upward. Also, Mugen tends to fight enemies with less orthodox weapons like a Giant Mook with a naginata, a lunatic with a scythe on a chain, and a guy using a rocket launcher. Jin does have a katana, but then so do all of his opponents.
- As is Ginji Matsuzaki from Black Lagoon, an underboss of the Washimine Group who takes a shirasaya katana to a mess of gunslinging yakuza goons and performs Implausible Fencing Powers feats like slicing bullets in half and slicing one cocky yakuza's gun (and his hands!) to pieces. He's even Badass enough to take on Revy herself on equal footing in a one-on-one battle to the death, even though he ultimately loses the duel.
- This troper feels he threw the fight.
- Thoroughly subverted by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; every single time Viral draws his katana-esque swords in his Ganmen, he's going to lose (after a Heel Face Turn he's able to make it work, though). Kamina does use a katana, but only on foot, and only actually wields it in a few scenes (he mostly carries it around for looks) and he's not particularly good with it.
- Lowe Gear in Gundam SEED Astray prefers the Humongous Mecha-sized katana Gerbera Straight to the Beam Swords his mecha comes with. Partially justified in that Beam Swords are rather power-intensive.
- Gundam 00 takes this one step further in season 2 when Graham aker (puzzlingly referred to as "mister bushido") takes to the field with a custom 'Ahead' mobile suit, complete with samurai armour styled armour plating and...wait for it, a Humongous Mecha-sized beam katana.
- Justified in Lupin III; Goemon's katana is made from an unearthly metal hard enough to cleave steel. There are still harder objects in the series that break it from time to time.
- For a series about disgraced samurai-turned-assassin, Lone Wolf And Cub sure averts the heck out of this one: the protagonist doesn't use a regular katana in the first place, he is just as likely to skewer his opponents with one of many spears concealed in his son's cart and Guns. Are. Better. Period.
- Used interestingly in Busou Renkin - the Sword Samurai X Busou Renkin is noted to be abnormally fast an accurate, but is otherwise played as the equal counterpart to the main character's European-super-lancey-thing Busou Renkin, itself excelling in overpowering the opposition. It doesn't necessarily help matters that the character holding the sword had previously been training in kendo, and bokkans are very different in weight to a katana. It's also totally useless against European Victor's axe-type Busou Renkin, Fatal Attraction.
- Averted ironically in Vagabond — Miyamoto Musashi's skills are more important than any katana — which by the way are not not breakproof (in fact multiple swords break throughout the story) — and other characters comment on how by their time firearms have surpassed swords on the battlefield. The only two times where a gun vs. sword encounter is shown, the swordsman's win has nothing to do with the sword. (The first has the gunner being caught by another swordsman after shooting a young Musashi in the leg, the second has grown-up Musashi closing the distance so quickly — despite standing right in front of the wielder — that the other guy simply tossed it aside, claiming that he didn't even know how to use it and that it was probably inoperable anyway.) Heck, this troper was reading a page where Musashi decides that one of the swords he picked up from a just cut down enemy is so "inferior" that he sees it only fit for tossing it at a crowd of opponents. (It doesn't seem to hit anyone, so if it was meant as an actual attack throwing it ''didn't'' work.)
- Heck, even his archetypical [2] averts the trope: he uses it against the kusarigama, a weapon whose method is by definition immune to the katana trope, and his success isn't because they're katana and wakizashi, it's because he's now got a backup weapon and is so physically strong (at least with his right hand) that he's not disadvantaged by wielding a sword with only one hand.
- No mention of Roronoa Zoro, the badass three-sword-style swordsman of One Piece? Holding a katana in each hand and a third clenched between his teeth. He's also capable of cutting trains to pieces, repelling bullets, and swinging his swords so hard it generates tornadoes. Despite taking loads of abuse without any recorded maintenance, his katana are nearly breakproof. Two were broken by the world's greatest swordsman and much later, Yubashiri was rusted to a fine powder [[spoiler:His most recently acquired katana is strong enough to take the weight of a fully-grown dinosaur without bending.
Comic Books
- The Muramasa Blade is a katana occasionally used by Wolverine (and others in related stories), and is one of the few weapons that is stated to be capable of killing him on its own, without otherwise negating his healing abilities. This weapon was used to kill Sabretooth. Thus, while not necessarily stronger than adamantium (itself Unobtainium), it is still better.
- Of course being that this is the Marvel Universe there are many western style weapons that are superior to this, including Thor's Mjolnir, Namor's Trident, and of course Hulk's fist.
- The DC heroine named Katana wields a magical katana called "Soultaker". It cuts through just about anything. It completely resists melting. And yes, she can deflect bullets with it. But it also has a curse: Those killed by the sword may have their soul taken into the world within it, and can subsequently be summoned to do the wielder's bidding. And it makes an evil person who holds it even more malevolent.
- Groo The Wanderer fights with two katanas, one in each hand. A "swords origin story" in the Epic run established that his skill in combat is due to them. The first time he uses them, he is stunned by how well they work.
- Deadpool frequently uses and is often seen dual wielding katanas, and kills a ton of people with them.
- It's not clear whether this has anything to with the katanas, though.
- Green Arrow recently took up the katana under Judd Winick's authorship. By all accounts, he's fairly good with it, although this is more out of a tremendous amount of life-or-death training than the weapon itself.
- Toyota, the female ninja mercenary in Ythe Last Man, displays open pleasure whenever someone challenges her to a sword fight, as her previous (male) sparring partners were all killed in the gendercide. However she prudently vanishes when her sword is shot in half by one revolver-wielding opponent.
Film
- The Last Samurai is based on a historical revolt against the Meiji regime in 19th century Japan, at a time when the rapid modernisation of the country had just begun. The "honourable" rebels are depicted as wearing anachronistic armour and using "honourable" weapons such as katanas against "dishonourable" loyalist troops fighting in the "despicable" modern, "Western" style, with rifles, field artillery, machine guns and "barbarian" uniforms. In the historical uprising the rebels used the same modern-style tactics, equipment and uniforms as the loyalists; anything else would have been outright suicidal.
- To be fair, the movie demonstrated that fighting that way really was outright suicidal.
- Also, the actual protagonists of the Satsuma Rebellion did do a fair amount of fighting with katana — remember that only 20 years earlier Japan was still under a policy of isolation and were essentially still fighing with technology that had more or less been stuck at the year 1600... Now Saigo Takamori's samurai army was nowhere near as backward as the movie lets you believe — they didn't wear the full samurai armor, instead opting for civillian clothes and a smattering of western-style military uniform, but they would have used the katana in battle.
- Given that the hero of the movie was Tom Cruise, this troper was rooting for the loyalists all the way, and fully expecting to be disappointed when Cruise uses his katana to save the day. The moment when the gatling opened up on the samurai charge remains high in this troper's list of feel-good movie moments.
- The other aspect of this trope is also played straight in the first fight; a horseback-mounted samurai is shown cutting through the barrel of a rifle to kill the infantry recruit behind it.
- In Kill Bill, The Bride and several of her adversaries wield katanas crafted by Hattori Hanzo, the greatest swordsmith to ever live. The Bride's sword in particular is said to be his finest work; upon giving it to her Hanzo states, with no small amount of pride, "If on your journey you should encounter God, then God shall be cut."
- It should be noted, though, that when she fought someone skilled with a weapon other than a katana (Gogo Yubari and her meteor hammer), she nearly lost and her victory had nothing to do with the katana itself.
- Not to mention when Bud simply blew her away with a shotgun.
- Samurai 7; samurai armed with katana are able to take on powered armor, cyborgs, and more. One enemy samurai turns to using a BFG; he is looked down upon for it, as are the former samurai cyborg bandits, who have given up their bodies and, according to Kambei, their honor as well. He insults them, doubting they were ever samurai.
- In Pulp Fiction, Bruce Willis' character chooses a katana over a variety of other weapons (including a small CHAINSAW) to battle his former captors/attempted rapists. Of course, it's a lot easier to sneak up on someone while using a katana than a chainsaw.
- Subversion: In Dead Man's Shoes, wielding a katana (possibly a sword-like object) doesn't do the Anti Hero's prey much good at all.
- Morpheus slices through a car with a katana in The Matrix: Reloaded.
- Perhaps they hacked the statistics of katanas so they WERE better.
- Although not exactly a Katana, in King Arthur (2004), Tristan fights with a Dao, a Chinese sword (in 5th century England!), and is depicted as the group's best swordsman.
- Somewhat subverted in that he loses to the broadsword-wielding Viking/Saxon Big Bad at the end.
- Much as it grates upon This Troper to mention it, the Kevin Costner flick The Bodyguard uses this trope. Costner demonstrates the implausible sharpness of the katana by tossing a silk cloth into the air ... which lands on the katana and is cut in half just from that impact.
- The only swords known to actually cut a silk cloth in midair were those made of so-called "Damascus" steel (or, more properly, "wootz"), and you still had to swing.
Literature
- A western example, the swords of Grayson in the Honor Harrington series are katanas with a western hilt put on them and a sharpened stretch along the back of the blade. Amusingly justified with the idea that the forty-third century settlers who created them had no IDEA how to actually design a sword, so they cribbed their blueprint from a Kurosawa film. These are also the only swords ever displayed in the series, and they're used only in traditional duels- never against modern weaponry.
- Their shape would make them very similar to the shashkas — a cossack sabers adopted from Caucasian highlanders, except that shashka had a one-hand grip, unlike Grayson swords' two-hand one.
- Eric Lustbader's Nicholas Linnear novels (The Ninja, The Miko, and White Ninja) tend to use katanas. A lot. At one stage the protagonist cautions his Love Interest against touching the blade of a katana because if she did it would sever her finger.
- Brisingr: The method of forging the special swords used by the Dragon Riders are admitted to be taken from Japanese forging methods, making them katanas in all but name. The one forged in the book is tested by cutting through iron posts.
- Are they shaped like katanas?
- Niko, the Badass Normal of Rob Thurman's Leandros Bros series, is proficient with a variety of edged weapons, but his favorite is the katana. Interestingly, his brother Cal fares as least as well or better when he just shoots monsters with a gun.
Live Action TV
- In the Highlander franchise, the main heroes (Connor and Duncan Macleod) both tend to use katanas, despite being, well, Scottish highlanders, already familiar with European swords when they first discover their immortality. In each case it is justified by the sword having sentimental importance: Duncan's was bequeathed to him by a dying samurai who was his only friend during his time in Japan, and Connor's was previously owned by Ramirez, the mentor who taught him about Immortality before being killed by the Big Bad. Ramirez, in turn, also had a sentimental attachment to the katana, which was a gift from his Japanese father-in-law.
- And considering the katana's main superiority over European swords (being focused on slicing), they are a weapon slightly better suited to cutting off your opponent's head, something important for both characters.
- Katana (and many other types of Japanese sword) are curved and very sharp, which makes them ideal for slicing through unprotected or lightly-armored flesh, as opposed to European swords, many of which were designed to be used against more heavily-armored foes, and as such were wielded more like an axe or metal club, and weren't necessarily as sharp. The main exceptions would be the cavalry saber (which would be a reasonable alternative) or the rapier (which would have trouble decapitating anyone). Of course, many Middle Eastern or Asian swords would probably be well-suited to fighting in a low-armor environment.
- Plus, when hiding a sword under your coat is a consideration of your weapon, I'd prefer a Katana over a Claymore too.
- Hiro Nakamura of Heroes was horrified that the Alternate History he found himself in would lead to guns supplanting katana in Japan sooner than they did historically.
- This would be more a case of preventing Alternate History. His used of the katana in the present day is a better example. Of course being able to stop time and teleport through time and space makes any weapon better.
- In Xena, the titular heroine's sword is sliced in half by a Japanese katana. Her response? "I want one!". She promptly kills the swordsman and takes the katana for herself.
- Kamen Rider Ryuki starts off with a katana in his blank form. Subverted when it easily snaps against the very first Monster Of The Week, only to be replaced by a Chinese saber which easily minces the same monster while deflecting all its attacks.
Tabletop Games
- Exception: In 3rd Edition Dungeons And Dragons, a katana is a just a masterwork bastard sword under another name, no better or worse than its identically-priced European equivalent. However, this is a change from 2nd Edition, in which a katana was better, able to deal more damage with the right roll.
- The 3rd Edition version may be a more watered-down instance of Katanas Are Just Better, but it is an instance nonetheless. All other weapons might either be "normal" or Masterwork (more expensive but better); but all katanas are "Masterwork".
- Given that katana come from Japan, where the price of steel made swords very expensive, combined with the fact that the techniques they developed for coping with the crap quality of said steel were very difficult to master, it could be argued that, by the standards western swords were made to, any katana that wasn't a masterwork was crap.
- D20 Modern has the katana as the best sword in the core rules, but it requires the Exotic Weapons Proficiency feat to use.
- Very much used in the first version of the World Of Darkness, where statistically the katana was undoubtedly the best weapon you could use.
- Just like the above D&D example, however, this changed over time. By the Revised (third) edition of the old WoD, katanas were simply lumped under the heading "swords" (in other words, Strength+2 damage and required a trenchcoat to conceal).
- In the 'new' World of Darkness this is half used. While a katana is no stronger in terms of attack bonus than swords of similar size, it is noted as being more durable, the reason given being that it has superior craftsmanship.
- And in the Armoury book, it explicitly states that that only applies to "genuine" ones; the one you're likely to be able to buy barely has better stats than a competitive fencing foil.
- In the StickGuy Role Playing Game, most equipment provides either a +1 or +2 bonus on a roll. Katanas ALWAYS provide a +3, whether the situation makes the use of a katana logical or not.
- Shadowrun 4th edition takes this trope in a weird direction, with the katana being better than the generic sword, as good as the mono-filament sword, but worse than the combat axe.
- It's the same way in 3e. However, as one of my GMs put it: "(...) if you hit a tank with a katana, I will laugh. If you hit a tank with a monosword, I will start rolling Body." Well, he would. If one managed to get such a Strength score to get through a tank's Hardened Armour.
- Arguably justified by the resurgence of Japanese imperialism and nationalism in the setting causing public demand for a traditional style melee weapon for the Imperial army, updated to use more recent materials and techniques. Traditional western swords don't get this treatment as no comparable nationalist sentiment provides a market.
- Not to mention that mono-filaments are all the rage in Shadowrun. That said, Radioactive Zombie and his buddies sliced their way through waves of mooks with daggers, sais, and rapiers, though his character used to have a masamune (the MUD IMM had it as a tribute to FF 7 - Sephiroth jokes abounded)
- The Final Fantasy Role Playing Game neatly averts this issue: katanas and single handed swords match each other stat for stat, the only differences being price (katanas are more expensive, owning to their more complicated method of creation) and weapon abilities, and even then one doesn't top the other. Katanas are, however, necessary for the Samurai job to use it's full abilities, though that is more a function of the Samurai job than of the katana itself. The strongest weapons in terms of pure statistical power are, fittingly enough, the weapons most likely to be swung with the most strength behind them: the greatswords and polearms (spears, lances, etc).
- In Unknown Armies, Katanas give a +9 damage bonus in melee, three more than a regular sword. As do chainsaws.
- Although that's merely because they're assumed to be wielded two-handed. Any two-handed sword gets the same bonus. (Weapons get +3 each for being "penetrating", "heavy" and "large". The system doesn't differentiate between specific weapons in any way.)
- In GURPS 3rd Edition, a katana wielded two-handed did more damage and was better at defending than any comparable western blade. After many "Magical Sword of Ethnic Badassery" jokes, this was fixed in the new 4th Edition.
- Averted in Feng Shui, which lumps katanas and every other sword you can wield under the category of "sword," which along with spears do the most damage out of all melee weapons of the game, particularly when you take one as a Signature Weapon. Feng Shui being Feng Shui though, that just means that you get to use said katana to rock all over the opposition without having to worry about stealing the other characters' thunder.
- Used and (partially) subverted in Legend of the Five Rings. In fact, the book lists half a dozen weapons as "the only truly honorable ones for Samurai". In due fairness, however, it then proceeds to list exceptions by clan, and the katana is not an all-purpose superweapon in this game (heavy weapons are more useful against opponents with carapace, bows can be devastating if used right, etc.). Nearly all of the powerful magical weapons in the setting are katanas, though.
Video Games
- Almost every Final Fantasy game features a sword called the Masamune, after legendary Japanese swordsmith Masamune Okazaki, which is typically the best sword in the game. This actually occurs in many japanese RPGs such as Onimusha. More often than not, it is a katana. A strange translation added a Masamune to Chrono Trigger; it was originally a European knight's broadsword called the Granleon.
- For some reason, this trope's been overturned through the last few games. In Final Fantasy X, Auron's base weapon is called a "katana," and his ultimate is "Masamune," but none of his weapons (or anybody else's, for that matter) even remotely resemble the real-world article. In Final Fantasy XII, katanas are handled a bit differently than greatswords, but aren't neccessarily better. Even the best katana (again, Masamune) is only good for its ridiculous combo rate. Meanwhile, the weapon with the most raw power is a spear, and the overall best weapon is Tournesol, a wave-bladed greatsword.
- However, from the third onwards, even the best katanas are overpowered by European style swords like the Ragnarok, Ultima Weapon, and sometimes the Excalibur. Besides superior base attack power, the western counterparts usually had special bonuses that made them the obvious ultimate weapons.
- Over 80% of weapons in FF series are European-base and 99% of the ultimate weapons are European-base too. I think this applies to most jRPGs and animes too.
- Chrono Trigger: Crono, the main character, wields a katana as his weapon, and his ultimate weapon, the Rainbow Sword, is the most powerful PC weapon in the game. (Usually. The random damage multipliers of Lucca's Wondershot can sometimes best it.)
- Final Fantasy Tactics: The thief and standard knight classes are comparatively easy to acquire and have fairly mundane abilities: The knight breaks armor, and the thief steals things. Their Japanese equivalents, the ninja and samurai classes respectively, are both much harder to acquire and have mystical abilities: The samurai is capable of drawing upon his or her 'sword spirits' to unleash ki attacks, and the ninja can turn invisible as a counter technique.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 doesn't have Katanas as a stronger weapon type in general, but the skills learned from them, most notably Dual Wield, are much more powerful. And by extension, the katana-wielding Paravir is easily the most physically powerful close range class. Ninjas less so, but they have the best speed growths of any hume class (they are both Glass Cannon classes, though).
- Although the Samurai and Ninja are very powerful classes, that can overpower the rest when properly utilized, katanas and ninja swords are atrociously weak. The game's Infinity Plus One Sword (the Javelin II) is a polearm, and Knight Swords and Fell Swords are stronger and more versatile than even the highest-level katana.
- Balanced by Brave Fencer Musashi's titular hero who weilded both a katana and a large, double-sided sword. Technically the double-sided sword was more powerful, to the point of being the only weapon that could damage certain bosses.
- In the Devil May Cry series, Dante, the main character, wields as his primary weapons a broadsword and twin pistols. He amasses numerous other weapons, both melee and firearms, in each game. His brother and Worthy Opponent, Vergil, uses a katana and has eschewed firearms as being beneath him. Although Vergil has definite Magnificent Bastard overtones, Dante is by far the more stylish of the pair. When Dante does get his hands on a katana, incidentally his brother's old "Yamato", he is less competent with it than with any of the other weapons, demonstrated as a tiny moveset.
- Nero's Devil Trigger spirit uses a version of Vergil's with considerable reach and grants moves superior to those Nero can do without it.
- Averted and used in different Castlevania games. For example, in Curse of Darkness, the nodachi (A larger cousin of the katana) is both slightly more powerful and much faster than the comparable Western sword, the Zweihänder, while in Dawn of Sorrow, the katanas are actually among the weaker weapons, with what advantage they have being entirely in attack speed.
- Soul Calibur never really mentions the fighting ability or skill or the characters within the story. Except for Mitsurugi, who is pretty much referred to as a One Man Army against the many, nameless opponents he's apparently slaughtered from his constant searching for an opponent to test him, therefore the only character who's practically explicitly called a Bad Ass. Naturally, he has the whole Samurai/Ronin look to him, complete with a katana... But considering who he's been based on... (Subverted in that his backstory involves firearms becoming predominant in war in general, and he wasn't completely successful with his idea of a style to overcome this.)
- Also somewhat subverted in that one of the best weapons Mitsurugi can wield in the later games is the Middle-Eastern Damascus Sword rather than his default Japanese katana.
- Also, gameplay-wise, Mitsurugi is only a balanced fighter. His speed is no match for the Gladius (actually a Xiphos, but no-one knows that one) of Sophitia or the Rapier of Raphael, and his power is obviously lower than Nightmare's highly modified Broad Sword (a BFS) or Astaroth's Giant Axe. Although the game has yet to give us characters with a fighting style with an European medieval sword...
- Tales of Phantasia is mostly based on Norse Mythology. So it's no surprise that the best weapons for the protagonist are based in Norse and Arthurian myth, with the katana trailing far behind.
- If memory serves, if you visit Japoni at the earliest opportunity, the Muramasa is the best slash weapon for a while. Just not forever.
- In Tales Of Symphonia the main character's most powerful weapons, the Kusanagi Blades, are legendary katanas.
- The Kusanagi Blades are Lloyd's most powerful slash-type weapons, the strongest thrust-type weapons are the bulkier Valkyrie Sabers, decidedly not katanas.
- Blazing Warriors (also known as Mystaria) on the Sega Saturn reversed the rule; the "Western" characters were good guys with better powers and weapons, and with the exception of a couple of ninja allies, the "Eastern" characters were evil and with lesser but still respectable powers.
- Record Of Lodoss War, an anime influenced almost entirely by Dungeons And Dragons and other Western role-playing tropes, featured no Eastern swords at all, but the Dreamcast game based on it includes a folded-steel "Oriental Sword," which has an absolutely absurd critical-hit rate and deals eight times normal damage on a critical strike (the average weapon's critical deals double damage or less). Needless to say, that makes it one of the game's best weapons, especially when you can customize a weapon to give it a 100% critical chance.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Chainsaw Good, because it can kill in one hit. But Katanas Are Just Better because Tommy can run with them and still kill in one hit.
- In San Andreas, there's a moment in one of the missions where your enemy throws you a katana, inviting you to a duel. Not that you can't immediately gun him down with a UZI...
- There are two katanas in Drakengard, Nobuyoshi and Takamasa, and they both do good damage, have decent range, and have useful magic attacks, qualifying them as among the best weapons in the game. They are outclassed by certain other swords though.
- In Civilization III, most civilizations build the "knight," an armored soldier on horseback. The Japanese build "samurai," foot soldiers in kimono, with identical speed and defense and no need for horses.
- In Civilization IV, the samurai remains as a unique unit for the Japanese but it replaces macemen. It has the ability to deal damage before the enemy gets to attack, in a similar way to archers.
- This is arguably logical, though, since historically samurai were archers in the battlefield, the sword being a weapon of secondary resort.
- In Dead Rising the player can find both Katanas and western-style swords and battle-axes. This is partially subverted because the character swings the western sword horizontally, wounding several zombies at once, while he swings the katana overhand and usually gets hit from the sides. Though the mini-chainsaw destroys both of them.
- Daikatana. Not only a powerful melee weapon in its own right, but it has random powers of time-travel.
- Daikatana does manage to subvert the Rule of Cool trope at least though, because, well, it's Daikatana.
- The trope is hilariously (and frustratingly) inverted when grates that can be knocked open with a mere pistol cannot be opened with the most powerful sword in history.
- In Fable, a katana is more powerful than any other melee weapon of the same material.
- One-handed weapons anyway. The greatsword does more damage, has greater range, and can hit multiple enemies with one swing, but it moves much slower.
- In No More Heroes, Travis' best Energy Weapon is a beam katana, stronger than all others, never running out of energy with the right upgrade, and somehow curved despite being a beam of light emitted from a single point. It also has the ability to split into three blades to hit a wider arc during one of his Finishing Moves.
- All of Travis' weapons are called beam katanas, though admittedly the Mk. III is the only one that resembles the name. Also, the Mk. II is more powerful than the Mk. III. The game is close to the ultimate example of this trope given you play a loser who becomes an assassin simply because he won a beam katana. The game especially reinforces how great katanas are given the diversity and craziness of your opponents weapons.
- In Princess Maker 2 katanas are better than Mithril swords!
- In Rogue (at least some versions, such as iRogue for Palm), the katana is the most powerful stock weapon available and is essentially a necessity in the deeper dungeons. In this troper's experience, however, the easiest way to get one is with a "create object" scroll, as actual katanas on the dungeon floor are very rare.
- In The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Akaviri katanas are lighter and do more damage than regular steel swords. While there are vastly more powerful weapons out there they are much heavier, making the katana the best in terms of damage/weight ratio.
- Despite that, they will get outclassed by everything else eventually. The Goldbrand brings them back to glory though.
- Also, in The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, the dai-katana only comes in two flavors: steel, and daedric.
- Averted in City Of Heroes - the Katana is faster than the Broadsword but does less damage, so it averages out. The Katana does look much cooler, though.
- Says you. The Broad Sword gets more customisable skins too (including, ironically, a 'katana'- one used by an enemy group with the Broad Sword animations).
- In Vampire: The Masquerade - Requiem, the katana is the best melee weapon in the game, which is saying something, since guns do just about squat against other vampires. Unfortunately, you only get it right before the penultimate boss.
- The Infinity Plus One Sword in Super Robot Wars Original Generation is a katana for Humongous Mecha called the Shishioh Blade. It's not the most powerful weapon in the game, but it's the most generally useful melee weapon since it deals as much damage as many Limit Breaks yet has no energy or morale requirements. Averted in Original Generation 2, however, with the similar but more powerful Boosted Hammer and G-Impact Stake. Also oddly averted in Sanger Zonvolt's BFS-wielding endgame mech, whose katana shapeshifts into a massive effing broadsword for the more powerful attacks.
- The Katana in La Mulana deals good damage, is about as fast as the whip, and has a very effective hit area. Unless you figure out how to completely power up the whip, you'll be using the katana as your main weapon (with some Axe thrown in for overhead enemies) once you get it..
- In Nethack, while the Katana is certainly the strongest vanilla longsword, the Artifact katana Snickersnee is outclassed by more impressive traditional longswords like Fire and Ice Brand, as well as the special longsword Excalibur, as it only offers bonuses to hit and minor damage, as opposed to automatic improved searching and level drain resistance like Excalibur, or the double damage against non-resistant enemies like Fire and Ice Brand. However, the Samurai quest Artifact, the Tsurugi of Muramasa, is indeed a fearsome weapon that can bisect non-gigantic creatures, it's only drawback being that it is a two-handed weapon (specifically, a broadsword-type).
- Subverted in Cadash, where you could choose to play as a fighter, mage, priestess, or ninja. Already considered the worst balanced character, the ninja also gained levels the slowest. It didn't help that the arcade version had a time limit
- While in canon he is a master fencer, Kurt Wagner's (aka Nightcrawler) weapons of choice in the X-men Legends series appear to be Katanas, not rapiers.
- Subverted in the original Gameboy SaGa games (Final Fantasy Legend) where katanas (and knives) are Agility-based weapons and European swords are Strength-based. While the Agility-based weapons sort of win out because they increase Agility and thus your chances of hitting faster late-game opponents, the European sword Excalibur ("XCalibur") is the only weapon in the game that will never break.
- In the third game which follows a more traditional inventory system, the Excalibur is simply the strongest "Mystic Weapon", with the katana Masamune in second place.
- In Shadow the Hedgehog, you can find katanas in special weapon boxes. Although they are close-range melee weapons as compared to the guns, they are still extremely powerful and can destroy almost any robot or thing with one swing. I suppose the writers thought "Shadow with guns is cool, but not cool enough. Let's add a katana!"
- Both parodied and played straight in zOMG. In the introductory comic, the guard's weapons all shatter on the hides of the Animated. When a heroic looking guard steps in to save the day with his katana, the other guards express awe at the sheer awesomeness of his weapon... only for them to scream in horror as his Katana is shattered and he gets attacked by Animated Buzzsaws. Despite this, the Mantis Ring generates a G'hi Katana that actually can harm the Animated. (Even then, the Katana isn't the most powerful weapon, as the Hack and Slash rings (Which summon cutlasses) deal more damage in exchange for speed and energy consumption)
- In Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Empire of the Rising Sun's basic infantry normally uses laser rifles...but activating their secondary ability causes them to ignite laser katanas and charge the nearest enemy infantry for an instant kill.
Web Original
- Subverted in Survival Of The Fittest; while people have been assigned katanas as weapons before, the people with katanas are not shown as any more skilled than anyone else for the most part, and rarely accomplish much. In fact, the person assigned a katana in v1 was quickly killed off in their debut thread, and to add insult to injury their killer discarded the sword as useless.
Western Animation
- Inverted in Avatar The Last Airbender. Most of the weapons are Chinese, including Sokka's ultra-special space sword, but you see a pair of katanas exactly one time. They're used to make fruit drinks[3]◊.
- In the Transformers Generation 1 episode "The Burden Hardest to Bear", a Japanese man is able to use a katana to hurt a Matrix-powered Scourge.
- When Danny and his friends follow Vlad into unknown Asian land in Danny Phantom, Danny (dressed in awesome ninja/samurai garb) and Vlad duke it out with katanas; Vlad's is an ectoplasmic katana.
- Justified in Samurai Jack in that it is a magic katana. Also averted in the episodes with the Scotsman, whose magic claymore is shown to be equally indestructable.
- And technically speaking, as it has an edged end instead of a curved one it's not a katana.
- That has a lot to do with the art style, Jack himself is essentially made of angles and lines.
- Ulrich Stern from Code Lyoko is certainly victim from this trope. The Lyoko forms are created from the subconscious of the virtualized persons... and seeing himself as The Hero, his avatar is quite naturally a samurai with a katana. Since this is a virtual world, he can get away with things like deflecting Frickin Laser Beams, Throwing Your Sword Always Works or Sword Dragging.
- But in "A Bad Turn", he uses an authentic katana in the real world with just as much skill.
Real Life
- Using katanas (occasionally made of wood) Miyamoto Musashi was able to win dozens of duels who wielded weapons ranging from spears to staffs to scythes. He later wrote The Book of Five Rings in which he describes the katana as being the most versatile weapon, being able to be used in virtually any environment.
- By World War Two, comparing a Japanese military katana to one of its European counterparts would give the impression of this trope being a case of Truth In Television. In reality, most European nations learned about the obsolescence of the sword the hard way in the First World War, and by then the semi-automatic pistol had replaced it as everything but a uniform decoration, to the point where they didn't even bother sharpening them anymore.
- Except that the vast majority of katanas carried by officers in WWII were cheap, mass-produced pieces of stamped machine steel, no better or more useful than any other hunk of sharpened steel.
- A famous piece of film showed a master swordsman using a katana to cut the barrel of a machine gun in half. The footage was, surprisingly, undoctored; the sword was real, and no camera tricks were employed. But the barrel had already been cut through, and was held together by the cooling shroud, which for the shot was made of little more than aluminum foil, and the actual cut was made by a tamashiwara master. Marvellous propaganda, though.
- Memetic Mutation turned this into the idea that a katana can cut a tank in half. "I'd like to see a sword that can cut through a tank" was posted to a message board in response to this, and someone replied with a picture of Anakin Skywalker with his lightsabre.
- Mythbusters took this one on, and found that while a manufactured reproduction of a Nihonto swung with extreme power and against a heated barrel still wouldn't cut through, it would definitely screw up the machine gun. (And the reproduction katana.)
- In the same episode, they also test the strength of the katana against various different kinds of weapons such as a Scottish Claymore, a Gladus, and a Rapier. Every weapon the katana struck against except the rapier ended in the katana getting nicked and damaged while the opposing sword was undamaged.
- The United Kingdom banned the selling of modern production katanas (both cheap "wall hanger" replicas and serious swords used by martial artists) due to their use in violent crime by certain sectors of the population who have fully bought into the principle that katanas are better. Possibly one of the few laws enacted specifically in response to a trope.
- The rule as I heard it was that only modern cheap display katana were banned, and that weapons traded for martial arts or historical re-enactment purposes, or authentic Japanese antiques, were OK. So, cheap rubbish in the hands of a common thug, illegal. Genuine razor-sharp deadly samurai weapons of old Japan, in the hands of trained iaidoka? Not a problem.
- You joke, but when one considers the likelihood of being mugged or assaulted by a trained iaidoka, the above scenario seems perfectly rational.
- In spite of that however, some folks who collect or at least admire the Katana had to admit Japan's lack of metalworking technology they made a pretty damn cool sword
- Speaking as a metallurgist, the crazy amount of work and the number of tricks the Japanese swordsmiths used are downright amazing, especially considering the fact that they would have mostly had to work out those techniques by trial and error. The folding didn't just purify the steel, it refined the microstructure (increasing strength, hardness, and toughness). A piece of hard (but brittle) steel was used for the edge and tip of the blade, with a piece of softer (but tougher and more flexible) steel in the spine of the blade, and the blade was painted with clay of various mixes and depths to slow the cooling in the final quench. The end result of this was an edge so hard that an entire sword with those properties would quickly snap under an impact, with a flexible, durable spine that was far too soft to make a decent cutting edge.
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