Guts Sword – The Legendary Blade from Berserk

Guts Sword – The Legendary Blade from Berserk

The Guts Sword, better known as the Dragon Slayer, stands among the most legendary weapons in all of fantasy. Featured in Kentaro Miura's dark fantasy epic Berserk, this massive blade is wielded by Guts — the "Black Swordsman," whose story of tragedy and defiance is one of the most iconic in manga and anime history. But the Dragon Slayer is only one of the swords Guts carries. This guide answers the questions readers ask most — what his sword is called, how long and heavy it really is, what he fought with before the Dragon Slayer — and goes through every sword in his story in order. And because we forge them, it ends with the ones you can actually own.

Everest Forge's Guts swords are independent hand-forged interpretations and are not official or licensed Berserk products. Berserk, Guts and the Dragon Slayer belong to Kentaro Miura, Studio Gaga and Hakusensha.

What Is Guts' Sword Called?

Guts' sword is called the Dragon Slayer (written Dragonslayer in some translations). It is the only one of his swords with a name in the story, given to it by Godot's granddaughter Erica when Guts first takes it up. The oversized greatsword Guts carries before the Dragon Slayer — through the whole Golden Age arc — has no name in Berserk at all. Fans and replica makers call it the Raider sword or Hawk Raider sword, and because it is the sword of the forest fight, the Hundred-Man Slayer sword. "Hundred-Man Slayer" is actually one of Guts' own titles, alongside "Black Swordsman" and "Struggler." If you are looking for the sword in real life, both are sold under those names: the Dragon Slayer, and the Golden Age sword in its anime pattern and manga pattern.

Origins of the Dragon Slayer in Berserk

The Dragon Slayer was forged by the reclusive master blacksmith Godot, long before Guts ever saw it. A king commissioned a sword that could slay a dragon; Godot hammered out a slab of iron so crude and so enormous that the king took it as an insult and exiled him, and the sword sat in his workshop for years as a joke nobody could lift. Guts gets it after the Eclipse. He returns to Godot's forge with one eye and one hand, the new sword Godot forges for him snaps on the first apostle he meets, and Guts picks up the discarded slab and cuts the apostle in half with it. The manga introduces it with the line everyone remembers:

"It was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough. It was more like a large slab of iron."

From that chapter to the last, Guts carries nothing else.

Design and Construction

The Dragon Slayer is the simplest of all Guts' swords, and that is the point. It is a flat wedge of steel, very wide at the base, tapering straight to a short point, sharpened along both edges. There is no fuller and no cross-guard — just a slotted disc collar where a guard would be, a wrapped two-hand grip and a plain faceted cap at the end. No engraving, no inlay, no ornament of any kind. The simplicity highlights the brutal realism Berserk is known for.

In the story, the Dragon Slayer becomes soaked with the blood of the demons and apostles it kills. Over years of battle that corrupt energy changes the blade into something more than metal, so that Guts can wound ethereal and demonic beings with it — by the later arcs it is as much a cursed relic as a weapon.

How Long Is the Guts Sword?

Honestly: Berserk never says. Miura gave the Dragon Slayer no dimensions, and when asked described it only as "just the right size to be still somehow carryable." The figures that circulate online — about 6.5 feet (2 metres) long, about 1.5 feet (45 cm) wide, and anywhere from 180 to 220 pounds (80–100 kg) up to several hundred kilograms — are fan estimates scaled off manga panels, and they vary from one forum to the next. None is official, and the proportions shift between the manga, the anime and the games.

How Heavy Is the Guts Sword in Real Life?

This we can answer, because we forge it. A Dragon Slayer forged in 5160 spring steel at the width of the drawing, with a 45-inch blade and a spine thick enough to be rigid, weighs around 13 kg (29 lb); the same proportions at a 36-inch blade come to around 8 kg (18 lb). Push the steel up to the 25–30 mm plate some makers use and the sword passes 25 kg, cannot be heat-treated, and cannot be hung on a wall. For comparison, a genuine fighting two-hander in a museum with a 45-inch blade weighs under 3 kg. Any Guts sword in real steel is a display object at several times a fighting weight; the only question is whether it is one a person can lift. Ours are, and every size has its weight published on the Dragon Slayer page.

Guts' First Sword – The Sword Before the Dragon Slayer

For most of the Golden Age arc Guts is not carrying the Dragon Slayer at all. He fights with a plain, brutally oversized mercenary greatsword that is already far too big for an ordinary man — the sword he brings to the Band of the Hawk and keeps through the Bazuso fight, the duel with Nosferatu Zodd, the hundred-man fight in the forest and the siege of Doldrey, where it finally breaks against Boscogn. It never gets a name. The anime draws it with a near-parallel blade, a shallow channel down each face, a thin twin-plate riveted guard, a long cream wrap and a square block pommel; the manga draws it with a tapering fullered blade, a big block guard with six rivets a face, a dark grip and a heavy faceted pommel. Both drawings are the same sword, and we forge both: the Guts Raider Greatsword (anime pattern) and the Guts Hundred-Man Slayer Greatsword (manga pattern).

Symbolism of the Dragon Slayer

The Dragon Slayer symbolises Guts himself — crude, far too heavy, rejected by the person it was made for, and useful only because the man carrying it refuses to put it down. Every swing mirrors his struggle against fate, betrayal and monstrous enemies; Miura draws those swings as whole-body efforts that leave him gasping, and the sword's weight is a cost he pays in every fight. It is his rage, and it is also the thing he puts between himself and the people he protects.

Influence on Modern Fantasy

The impact of the Guts Sword extends far beyond Berserk. It set the template for the modern anime and game greatsword — a flat slab with minimal fittings, carried on the back, swung with the whole body — and inspired countless oversized blades, most famously Cloud's Buster Sword in Final Fantasy VII. The two are confused so often that we get asked for "the Guts sword from Final Fantasy." They are different swords from different franchises, and we make both: the Dragon Slayer and the Buster Sword.

Collectors, blacksmiths and sword enthusiasts around the world continue to recreate the Dragon Slayer as a tribute to Miura's masterpiece — from YouTube builds in railway steel to 27 kg slabs cut from structural plate. Ours take a different approach: forged from 5160 spring steel at the proportions of the drawing, with a spine chosen so a collector can actually own, hang and carry the result.

Types of Guts Swords

The Black Swordsman carries several swords across Berserk, and the names fans use for them are a mix of canon, replica-market labels and community in-jokes. Here are all of them, with where each comes from and what it is actually called in the story.

1. Sword of Thorns

The Sword of Thorns is not a weapon in the manga or anime. It is a fan design and figure concept — a dark, gothic blade with red accents and a spiked guard — that captures the look of Guts' suffering rather than any sword he carries. If you see one sold as canon, it is not; if you want one forged from your own drawing, that is a custom forge request.

2. Dragon Slayer

The Dragon Slayer is Guts' most iconic weapon and one of the most famous swords in anime and manga: the slab Godot forged for a dragon-hunting king, taken up by Guts after the Eclipse and carried to the end of the story. Over time it absorbs the essence of the apostles and demons it kills and gains the power to cut things beyond the physical world. It is the only one of his swords with a name. Ours is the Hand-Forged Dragon Slayer Greatsword.

3. Godot's 1st Replacement Sword

After the Eclipse, Guts returns to Godot's forge with his Golden Age sword long gone and asks for a new one. Godot forges him a large, heavy greatsword — the 1st replacement sword — and it snaps on the first apostle Guts meets. That is the moment he picks up the Dragon Slayer instead.

4. Godot's 2nd Replacement Sword

Fans use "2nd replacement sword" for the Dragon Slayer itself, counted as the second blade Guts takes from Godot's forge that night, and sometimes for the repaired and re-tempered Dragon Slayer Godot's apprentice Rickert maintains in the later arcs. Either way, it is not a separate design: from the Black Swordsman arc onward there is only the Dragon Slayer.

5. 1st Duel with Griffith Sword

When Guts first meets Griffith he fights him with his own oversized mercenary sword — the Golden Age greatsword — against Griffith's slim sabre, and loses. The duel is remembered for what it starts, not for the blade: Guts joins the Band of the Hawk, and everything that follows, follows from that.

6. 2nd Duel with Griffith Sword

Years later, when Guts leaves the Hawks, the two duel again in the snow and Guts wins with a single stroke. He fights with the same Golden Age greatsword, by then a well-worn companion; the sword has not changed, Guts has. The duel marks his break from Griffith and the start of his solitary road.

7. Hawk Raider Sword

"Hawk Raider sword" (or just "Raider sword") is the replica-market name for the Golden Age greatsword — the one Guts carries as captain of the Hawks' raiders, from Bazuso through Zodd to Doldrey. It is not a separate, lighter military sword as some listings claim; it is the same oversized blade, and it is the sword of the hundred-man fight. We forge it in both of its drawings: the anime pattern and the manga pattern (Hundred-Man Slayer).

8. Horse Killing Sword

The "Horse Killing Sword" is a fan nickname, not a weapon. It comes from the Golden Age battles where Guts' greatsword goes through rider and horse in one stroke, and from the long tradition of real "horse-killing" blades (the Chinese zhanmadao, the Japanese zanbato) that the design evokes. It refers to the same sword as entry 7.

9. Pupper Slayer

The "Pupper Slayer" or "Puppy Slayer" is a community joke, not a sword in the story: the name fans give to a small Dragon Slayer — a scaled-down replica, a dagger-sized version, or the little sword young Guts trains with under Gambino. There is no canon weapon of that name. If you want a small Dragon Slayer, our 28-inch build is the closest thing to a real one.

So, counting only what is actually drawn, Guts carries three swords that matter: the Golden Age greatsword, Godot's short-lived replacement, and the Dragon Slayer. Two of those are worth forging, and we forge both — the Golden Age sword in both of its drawings.

Buy a Hand-Forged Guts Sword

Our Guts Sword collection holds four giant swords, each forged to order in Kathmandu from thick 5160 leaf-spring steel on a riveted full tang, in five blade lengths (36 inches standard) with your choice of finish, wrap, fittings and scabbard or cover:

• Guts Raider Greatsword, Golden Age Anime Pattern — the Golden Age sword as the anime draws it. Approx 6.5 kg at the standard build; the lightest of the four.
• Guts Hundred-Man Slayer Greatsword, Golden Age Manga Pattern — the same sword as the manga draws it: fuller, block guard, faceted pommel. Approx 8.5 kg.
• Dragon Slayer Greatsword — the post-Eclipse slab, forged at the drawing's width with a spine that keeps it under 10 kg at 36 inches. Approx 8.1 kg, with an open-back cover and shoulder harness.
• Buster Sword — not a Berserk sword, but the other giant blade every collector asks for. Final Fantasy VII-inspired, approx 8.7 kg.

Guts Raider Greatsword

Golden Age sword, anime pattern — channel, twin-plate guard, white wrap

Approx 6.5 kg at 36 in · five blade lengths · forged to order

View Sword

Guts Hundred-Man Slayer Greatsword

Golden Age sword, manga pattern — fuller, block guard, faceted pommel

Approx 8.5 kg at 36 in · five blade lengths · forged to order

View Sword

Dragon Slayer Greatsword

The post-Eclipse slab — 174 mm wide, slotted disc collar, back harness

Approx 8.1 kg at 36 in · five blade lengths · forged to order

View Sword

Buster Sword

Final Fantasy VII-inspired — not a Berserk sword, but the other giant blade

Approx 8.7 kg at 36 in · five blade lengths · forged to order

View Sword

They are forged, not cut from sheet; every one is weighed and photographed on the scale before it ships; and every page says plainly that these are display and collector's swords at anime weight, not cutting swords. A thinner-stock version you can actually swing is available through the order note.

Forging Inspiration at Everest Forge

At Everest Forge we recognise the philosophy the Berserk saga embodies — strength through struggle. Nothing about a Guts sword is easy to make: the stock is twice the thickness of a longsword, the slab fights the hammer at every heat, a fuller on 14 mm steel takes a fullering tool and patience, and the tang has to be forged to carry a blade that would snap a normal one. We make them the way we make everything else — by hand, from 5160, with a riveted full tang — and we tell you what the result weighs rather than what the manga implies it should.

Legacy of Guts and His Sword

The Guts Sword – The Legendary Blade from Berserk remains an enduring symbol of resistance and courage. Forged for dragons but wielded by a mortal, it captures what it means to fight against impossible odds. Thirty years on it is still the sword people mean when they say "anime greatsword." It works because it is not a good sword. It is an impossible one, carried anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is Guts' sword called?
The Dragon Slayer. It is the only one of his swords named in the story. The greatsword he carries before it, in the Golden Age arc, has no canon name; fans call it the Raider sword, the Hawk Raider sword or the Hundred-Man Slayer sword.

What was Guts' first sword?
The oversized mercenary greatsword he carries through the Golden Age arc — from the Bazuso fight through Zodd and the hundred-man fight to Doldrey, where it breaks. It is the sword he has before the Dragon Slayer, and it is sold as the Raider or Hundred-Man Slayer sword.

Is the Guts Sword real?
Not as a historical weapon — nothing like it was ever carried in battle. But it can be forged in real steel, and we do: the Dragon Slayer and the Golden Age sword in both patterns, from our Guts Sword collection.

How long and heavy is the Guts Sword?
Berserk never gives figures. The 6.5 ft / 80–100 kg numbers online are fan estimates. Forged in 5160 at the drawing's proportions, our Dragon Slayer weighs about 8 kg with a 36-inch blade and about 13 kg at 45 inches — several times a real two-hander, which weighs under 3 kg.

When does Guts get the Dragon Slayer?
Right after the Eclipse, at the end of the Golden Age arc (manga volume 14), when the new sword Godot forges for him breaks on his first apostle and he picks up the discarded slab instead.

Who forged the Dragon Slayer in Berserk?
The blacksmith Godot, for a king who wanted a sword to slay a dragon and exiled him for the result. Godot's apprentice Rickert maintains it in the later arcs.

Why is the Guts Sword covered in blood?
Years of killing apostles and demons have soaked their essence into the steel, giving it the power to cut beings beyond the physical world and the dark, stained look that defines it.

Is the Sword of Thorns a real Berserk weapon?
No. It is a fan design and figure concept, not a sword from the manga or anime.

Is the Buster Sword a Guts sword?
No. The Buster Sword is Cloud Strife's weapon from Final Fantasy VII. It was influenced by the Dragon Slayer and the two are often confused, but they are different swords from different franchises. We make the Buster Sword as its own listing.

Has the Guts Sword influenced other fictional weapons?
Yes. Its massive, minimal design set the template for oversized fantasy weapons across anime, games and film, from the Buster Sword to the colossal greatswords of modern action RPGs.