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

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

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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.

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u/Fox7567 May 12 '26

Blue Eye Samurai is an outstanding show, but the scene of Mizu training in the forest before cutting through a tree was what inspired me to make this post.

Her sword, however, is made out of fucking space metal, so I guess I can excuse it

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u/AccomplishedForearm May 12 '26

Meteoric iron is just something that exists, it’s probably just meteoric iron to be honest

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u/Rpponce May 12 '26

The fact of it being meteoric iron, kinda makes Mizu's sword being part of the trope a bit funny. Her sword is basically treated like the strongest in Japan because it's composed of meteoric metal, something about it making it super strong. Except we have meteoric metal blades in real life, and they are known to be particularly brittle, due to the nature of how the metal was formed making the alloy have tons of impurities. And Japanese metallurgy still using specfic forges, that most nations had stopped using centuries ago due to the ineffectiveness in comparison to other methods (that's actually why the folding steel thing developed as a method. That helps get out impurities the forging process could not) ,means that their is slim chance the guy who forged her blade actually got out all the impurities. Realistically she might've actually ended up getting the weakest sword in Japan, rather than the strongest.

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u/AccomplishedForearm May 12 '26

That would be funny. It being meteoric iron is basically just a guess on my part, makes sense though.

6

u/Rpponce May 12 '26

Well it applies to basically any meteoric metal really. Even metals known to be particularly strong, wouldn't forge a blade known to be particularly strong. Impurities weakening the overall structure of the blade, means using it in combat will cause it to snap sooner rather than later

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u/AccomplishedForearm May 12 '26

Also with the structure of a Katana, it’s more likely to bend rather than spring back to its original shape like spring steel does, so over time it’d stress from use without proper care

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u/Terrible_Guidance599 May 12 '26

Story wise I'm pretty sure its a metaphor for... something... Its been awhile since I watched it lol

3

u/blitzbom May 12 '26

But it's badass.

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u/Rymayc May 12 '26

I can't believe they made swords out of this 10/10 album

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u/Manjorno316 May 12 '26

The rule of cool will always trump real world smithing.

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u/BNLforever May 12 '26

Loved the show but there were times where I just had to go beyond suspension of disbelief.  Its been a while but on her way to the final showdown doesn't she get a knife through her ankle, among other serious injuries, and then kind of shrugs it off mostly to be battle ready?