Oddly-Shaped Sword

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Useful to look awesome or catch an enemy sword. Less to stab your opponent.

Swords are cool. That's why heroes prefer them. But for some authors, it seems that a sword with a plain, straight blade, a curved katana or scimitar, or some other exotically functional real blade like the wavy kris is still not quite cool enough. They need to invent their own special blade. So screw functionality and ergonomy! They will design swords with the weirdest shape possible, as long as it looks cool, or at least unique. The odd shape won't have any practical purpose other than looking special, when it isn't outright Awesome but Impractical… not that it will prevent the wielder from fighting perfectly with it.

Usually the "odd" shape can either being used to give the character using the sword a distinctive character or can also be used for "humour" or alternative to a family friendly weapon: seeing such an odd sword makes you think that you can't possibly harm someone with that.

Sub-Trope of Cool Sword. Compare Impossibly Cool Weapon, Improbable Weapon User, Laser Blade, Vibroweapon and BFS. Can overlap with Serrated Blade of Pain. A defensive equivalent would be Scary Impractical Armor. Contrast Boring but Practical.

Examples of Oddly-Shaped Sword include:

Anime and Manga

  • Bleach: every Zanpakutou release that looks like a sword will have an unusual shape. During Ichigo's Bankai training, he has to retrieve his real sword among a Field of Blades. Every single sword in the field has a unique design. The most egregious example is maybe Izuru's sword: curved with two right angles and with no pointy end. One of his opponents even lampshades how impractical it is to fight (although shortly after he discovers one way the blade can be used)
  • Samehada, Kisame's sword in Naruto. If you can really call this thing a sword… it's more like a giant spiked club, but is refered to as a sword anyway…
    • If we really want to get technical, it looks more like a cross between a shark and a sea urchin.
    • Among the Swords of the Mist we also have Raiga's swords: really thin dual blades with spikes protruding from them.

Film

Live-Action TV

  • The bat'leth, the iconic Klingon sword from the Star Trek franchise, with a crescent (often complex shaped) edge on one side and multiple handles on the other side. Also less iconic mek'leth, which looks like a scimitar with an additional knife attached under the crossguard.

Tabletop Games

Theatre

  • Don Quixote's sword in Man of La Mancha—it ends in an impressive spherical helix, though it is rather second-hand. However, this isn't a result of intentional design -- it's been damaged. Not that Quixote cares. Or notices, even.

Video Game

  • The Soul Reaver from Legacy of Kain looks odd, but this kind of wavy blade actually exists, and is called a Flamberge.
  • The Dark Dragon Blade in Ninja Gaiden, depicted above. A fully upgraded Dabilahro also has plenty of unnecessary curves and flourish. Enma's Fang in Sigma 2 just… cannot be described with words.
  • The Seven Punishment Sword in Okami is another example of the "flame shaped" variant.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Link wields the Double Helix Sword [dead link] which has two blades that cross back and forth before coming to a point.
  • The blades of both Noel's primary sword and Caius' BFS in Final Fantasy XIII-2 are odd, to say the least.
  • Samurai Warriors: Kenshin Uesugi's standard weapon is a seven-bladed sword. Kojiro Sasaki can summon giant blades with a really weird design. Kunoichi's best weapon is a flame-shaped dagger.
  • Sengoku Basara: Yukimura starts out with a spear. Ok, fine. His last weapon is a multi-pronged, flame like monstrosity. And he's not the only one. Hojo Ujimasa stands out too: His basic weapon is a pike with twelve blades that, in Real Life, would be a waste of wood and metal.
  • The Darksword from Dark Souls looks more rectangular than anything else, but the prize goes to Quelaag's Furysword, which looks like a ramp/wedge attached to a stick and covered in shells, bones, spikes and grey paint. Also, it glows red whenever you swing it.
  • While most weapons in the Soul Series series are fairly reasonable and realistic, several extra weapons you can buy/obtain tend to fall into this category, such as Siegfried's Flamberge (a zweihander with a wavy flames design, not unlike the page image). Revenant, an extra character in Soulcalibur III and IV, also uses twin wave swords known as Gatekeeper.
  • Sol Badguy's Fireseal/Fuuenken in Guilty Gear is a blunt, rectangular blade. It makes up for its supposed lack of sharpness due to its ability to generate intense flames (presumably thanks to an engine/exhaust-like mechanism installed in the sword) although the blade is still able to draw blood in-game. By the time of Overture, however, the weapon has undergone heavy modification and resembles a more traditional sword (the tip of the blade is still fairly blunt, though). Back during his days as a member of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights, Sol instead used an unnamed sword that appears to be little more than a giant slab of stone or concrete.
  • In BlazBlue, Ragna the Bloodedge wields Blood-Scythe, a sword he inherited (via Jubei) from the original Bloodedge, an unsung hero of the Dark War who singlehandedly halted the advance of the Black Beast for a year (unknown to Ragna, Bloodedge is actually an amnesiac Ragna thrown back in time). The sword has a somewhat wavy, almost hook-like shape to it. In its awakened state, the Blood-Scythe holds true to its name, assuming the form of a scythe with a blade made out of crimson energy (the blade extends from the hilt and turns to resemble a scythe).
  • The Sparda sword in Devil May Cry has a huge crescent-shaped blade, and the position of the handle should make it quite difficult to wield. Lampshaded in the last line of this Manly Guys Doing Manly Things comic.
  • In Fate Extra, Saber wields Aestus Estus, a large sword that tapers and widens somewhat randomly and comes to three points on the cutting edge... Well, see for yourself.
  • In Musashi: Samurai Legend the first four Elemental Swords may be unusual, but otherwise fine. Then there's the Void Sword: it looks like there are two blades merged: the one in the middle is straight and squared, the other one has a wave shape and is merged with the former. In Real Life this sword would be awfully hard to use properly.
  • In Neverwinter Nights 2, the Silver Sword of Gith [dead link]. Possibly justified by it being an Infinity+1 Sword of Plot Advancement. And by not being human-made.
  • A lot of the higher-level swords and daggers in Dragon Age: Origins have serrated, zig-zagging, and/or wavy-edged blades.
  • In Might and Magic VI, VII, a Great Sword is a two-handed sword with a wavy blade and an extra cross piece. Unfortunately, its usefulness as a weapon is only mediocre.

Visual Novel

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Drew of The Secret Saturdays has a broadsword that is normal except for a sunbeam-shaped sculpture at the top of the blade.

Real Life

  • The sword depicted, along with a few other examples on this page actually take after the Seven Pronged Sword, which exists in real life, along with several replicas.
  • The Italian spatulated blade rapier. It had a leaf-shaped point rather then a straight one. This was because Italian fencing schools of the time they were fashionable often advocated tip cuts and a spatulated blade is more efficient for that.
  • The Mensur blade is cut off so that it will only do tip cuts. Being scratched up once was a Rite of Passage in German schools and still is in some.
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