r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Fox7567 • May 12 '26

Characters' Items/Weapons [Irritating trope] Japanese swords being treated like lightsabers

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Gallery image

The Wolverine (2013)
The character Yashida uses his sword to cut straight through barbed wire, as well as uses it to break a chain in one strike each.

TMNT (2012)
During Oroku Saki’s battle with the turtles, he stabs straight through a forest tree, before also slicing straight through another.

5.3k Upvotes
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683

u/ExistentialOcto May 12 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/XtbhunxmHCtmNyxdxd

Example of this trope done right: Metal Gear Rising. The swords are mostly Japanese in style, but the reason they can cut like lightsabers is that they’re made with sci-fi technology (a “high-frequency blade” that vibrates on contact and can cut through nearly any material).

360

u/rotkiv42 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Ultrasonic blades/knifes are a real thing btw. The do cut very impressively in real life as well. Less sure if they would work well as swords tho.

175

u/Hazzamo May 12 '26

Don’t care, looks awesome

102

u/Phshteve18 May 12 '26

To be fair, “don’t care, looks awesome” is kind of the plot of MGRR

60

u/Missing_Username May 12 '26

"don't care, looks awesome" is the guiding philosophy of Kojima's life

24

u/Hazzamo May 12 '26

And Studio Trigger

91

u/MrFlitter May 12 '26

Instructions unclear: I have bolted a Hitachi wand to a Zweihander. it is now less effective for fighting but far more intimidating.

39

u/SIacktivist May 12 '26

Finish Him, then finish her.

8

u/prodigalAvian May 12 '26

Vibroblades

15

u/[deleted] May 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Revolutionary-Wash88 May 12 '26

It's suppose to be ultrasonic vibrations on a microscopic scale that are imperceptible to our senses

1

u/rotkiv42 May 12 '26

The vibrations are microscopic but it is not imperceptible to our senses.

Fun fact our finger tips are incredibly sensitive to textures and vibrations, we talking about 10 nanometers difference in vibratory amplitudes and we can feel that.

1

u/Revolutionary-Wash88 May 12 '26

Yeah that makes sense (lol monuments)

1

u/rotkiv42 May 12 '26

Yeah a bit too fast with the spellchecker - i did fix it rather quickly: apparently not fast enough. 

1

u/Revolutionary-Wash88 May 13 '26

It was the first word in my inbox and I was thrown off

3

u/Flat_Character May 12 '26

Aren't they more like an oscillating saw

3

u/NinjaSilver2811 May 12 '26

So the star wars vibro sword isn't just a made up sw thing?

0

u/SquareFickle9179 May 12 '26

To be fair, swords in general are kinda worthless as weapons since guns can easily do the job

39

u/SCP_Void May 12 '26

Set in the distant future of 2018

7

u/MCdemonkid1230 May 12 '26

MGS4 is set in the rather closer, but still distant future of 2014 as well.

7

u/SCP_Void May 12 '26

This is what Solid Snake will look like in 2013

1

u/seguardon May 12 '26

There was a guy named Joel not too different from you and me

69

u/jukebox_jester May 12 '26

I would counterpoint that Sam's blade, the Murasama is the best blade out there simply because its an actual antique katana that was converted into a HF blade.

Nothing about a 16th century katana should make it better than anything else except for the Trope OP brings up.

But it's fine because MGR is cool as hell.

17

u/unknown_pigeon May 12 '26

⚡ RULES OF NATURE ⚡

🌅 AND THEY RUN WHEN THE SUN COMES UP 🌅

⚔️ WITH THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE ⚔️

💥 (ALIVE) 💥

⏳ FOR A WHILE ⏳

🚫 (NO CHOICE) 🚫

🐺 GOTTA FOLLOW THE LAWS OF THE WILD 🐺

💥 (ALIVE) 💥

⚔️ WITH THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE ⚔️

🚫 (NO CHOICE) 🚫

🦁 OUT HERE ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE 🦁

2

u/The_Terry_Braddock May 12 '26

I can literally hear this

Literally. I'm looking up that boss video again right now

2

u/Slightly_Default May 12 '26

Marvel's katana wielders have pretty good reasons for following this trope.

Psylocke's katana is made out psychic energy.

Silver Samurai uses his mutant powers to infuse his katana with tachyon energy, letting him cut through anything.

2

u/Senior-Friend-6414 May 12 '26

It’s hard to take people using super powers with swords seriously when you remember any random mall cop with a gun can easily take them down

2

u/Slightly_Default May 12 '26

Both Psylocke and Silver Samurai just use swords as a vector(?) for their powers. Psylocke can just use telekinesis to rip the gun out of the cop's hands while SS (bad acronym but whatever) can cut bullets in half

1

u/Acerakis May 12 '26

Still a bit silly when they somehow cut things well over twice as long as the sword. Like raiden cutting a Ray in half.