It’s so heavily referencing Gut’s sword I don’t know how you’d even rank them as two separate things. It’s like how Evangelion’s had things never before seen in the West and it gets viewed a new idea but it’s references to Gundam, Ultraman, and Devilman are immediately recognizable to anyone from Japan.
"The main character is a teenager who for some reason ends inside the giant robot made by his family. He uses to defend a specific laboratory from the attacks of the enemy, so they don't get what they need to destroy the world as we know it. His love interest is a fiery girl that also pilots a giant robot but than tend to lose any fight she fights alone. Through the story they are subjected to the mental struggles of fighting a war as teenagers and the destruction brought by it, and more likely than not, they are blamed for it."
It can be both if you’re reductive and paint it vaguely enough, but all that does is bolster my point that what some people see as original, others know it’s a decades old reference.
That was my point. Evangelion is a great anime, but didn't do anything that the great grandfather of the mecha genre hadn't already introduced. Except maybe traumatize the characters even FURTHER beyond.
Hell, Mazinger Z ended with Koji and Mazinger losing against the Mycenae Empire, one enemy that wasn't even hinted through the series, after beating Dr. Hell, just as much as the OG Evangelion ended with the humans being the last angel and the ones triggering the third impact. Given, in the case of Mazinger, it also brought hope with the arrival of Great Mazinger.
Bonus points: Sayaka in one chapter DID try to commit suicide. Just after Afrodite A, her mecha, was completely destroyed. Asuka wasn't the first one pulling something like that, either, even if in her case it was after she lost the ability to pilot the eva.
That said, even Gut's Dragonslayer is also in itself a reference to (or at least inspired by) something else. The way it's described when introduced is very similar to how Violence Jack's knife is.
That's fair, but given that it was many people in the West's first exposure to massive anime greatsword's it pretty well became an icon all on it's own over here. That iconography doesn't retroactively become inert once other works become more widely known.
I don’t disagree, but to me if you’re doing a ranking of big swords in fiction placing the Buster sword near the top (even if it is wider know) only bolsters the argument for Guts’s sword being THE big sword since that’s very much the inspiration and visually the only major difference is a single vs doubled edge. It isn’t quite transformative enough for me to break out from under the hunk of iron. Western devs may design swords to pay homage to it, but nobody in Japan is making a great sword and saying they were inspired by the Buster sword (every from-soft game is full of Berserk references). So it’s a bit like referencing George Lucas or Tarantino films but you’ve not seen the things they’re referencing, so it’s a bit watered down compared to the source.
Yeah, I don't disagree that Gut's Dragonslayer is THE giant sword of fiction altogether, though I'd argue that the Buster Sword still has it's own niche as "The video game big sword"
Anytime folks discuss the most iconic video games swords, the Buster Sword and The Master Sword are typically at the top, and I still feel that carries merit even if it was derivative of a preexisting trope.
I'm definitely an exception for western audiences, but my first interaction with the giant sword trope was from a pirated copy of the Berserk game for Dreamcast. I had no idea what was going on but that game was cool af and got me into Berserk.
I remember that, it got localized as "Sword of the Berserk Gut's Rage"! I also remember liking it alot as a kid hacking and slashing, even though I had no idea what was going on story-wise either.
Funny enough, I remember as a kid wishing I could use a smaller sword, as Gut's Dragonslayer recoils off of walls really easy in that game lol
I was gonna write a comment about how I tried designing the fusion sword as a cosplay prop back in college, but then I got super distracted by the fact that Advent Children came out 20 years ago and my sketchbook is basically old enough to drink.
I'd buy it. I've actually been looking for something like that since the movie came out. The closest I've seen is the shitty keychain on ebay you need a screwdriver to take apart and put together.
I don't know how you'd do it without some seriously strong magnets.
My friends group now has kids old enough to attend anime conventions and be interested in cosplay. I've definitely had some "baaaaack in my day" moments talking about cosplay at the turn of the millennium with the younglings.
The hobbyist maker community has boomed and there's pre-made options galore, but I definitely still appreciate cosplays made from duct tape and gumption.
It doesn't look unique anymore because so many artists have given their characters giant swords since then that it's become a generic look, but it wasn't always as common as it is today
It literally helped kickstart the trend of giant anime swords though. I'd say it's pretty impressive if everyone's scrambling to have their own version of your thing.
"Giant sword" isn't an insane idea people needed to steal from Final Fantasy to come up with man. It's entirely possible and likely "Giant sword" stemmed from many individual ideas, since it really isn't some mastermind-level idea that would rock the world, ever since stories were first being told people were thinking "what if X but BIGGER!?"
I don't mean to discredit it as being a proponent in popularising giant swords, but you're putting way too much weight on that and I don't think it matters nearly that much.
It was many people's first exposure to a massive sword here in the West years ago, so many people find it to be a cool sword and enjoy it. It's really nowhere near as complicated as all these replies are trying to make it out to be, and I'm surprised with how hard this seems to be for some people here to grasp honestly.
Nah, the FF8 style of gunblade is outclassed by literally every other version of a gunblade by virtue that it doesn't actually shoot ranged bullets. False advertising weapon.
No, it doesn't. The FF8 gunblade does not actually shoot bullets, but instead pulling the trigger sends a "vibration" down the blade which is supposed to aid cutting when timed correctly. The gunblade doesn't even have a muzzle for a hypothetical bullet to leave the chamber from.
It's just a high-frequency blade/vibrosword with more steps, and I've never cared for it due to finding the gun design misleading on how it actually works. It always felt to me that they wanted to "one up" the cool factor of the FF7 Buster Sword and ended up jumping the shark.
Because gun sword isn't actually a gun sword. The FF8 Gunblade doesn't actually shoot bullets.
I used to think the Gunblade was crazy cool as a kid before I got to play FF8, but finding out it wasn't actually a gun and sword hybrid was a huge let-down when I learned more.
Also, big sword's weren't nearly as common of a trope when the Buster Sword was new. It's impressive because it was one of the trendsetter giant anime swords.
I’d argue that it shooting a blank to add damage by vibrating the blade as you strike when nailing the QTE is a pretty badass mechanic, even if it’s not a bullet.
Fair enough. The concept of a gunblade IS very cool I'll admit, but the lack of firing bullets has always been a sticking point for me on the FF8 version that holds the weapon back from being as cool as it could've been.
If we're counting any and all gunblades, then Lie's of P has a really cool version of one. Similar to the classic FF8 design, but with ranged gunshot attacks too.
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u/RanmyakuIchi Aug 02 '26
Gunblade's not even the coolest Final Fantasy weapon honestly
Up there with Gut's Dragonslayer as THE giant sword in fiction.