Big things are wielded by small packages.
How do you make both a weapon and its wielder more impressive without making them overly complex? Well, Bigger Is Better, so making the weapon dwarf its wielder makes the weapon more formidable, and shows off the wielder's strength, usually making them a Pint-Sized Powerhouse, having them use something that would be otherwise impractically heavy.
Not all BFS, BFG, and the many other great-weapon trope examples would count as this because sometimes those are just bigger versions of regular weapons, but attached to a similarly big person to match.
Neither do all Chainsaw-Grip BFG count, because some aren't
all that big.note
Giant's Knife; Human's Greatsword isn't a subtrope either, since the giant's knives might be equivalent to a regular sword instead of an overly long one.
Sufficiently Humongous Headed Hammers would also be this, if said heads are unusably large relative to the wielder, such as being larger than the wielder's entire body.
So, be careful of adding examples. They have to be truly unbalanced in size, compared to their wielder and if the wielder's generic humanoid in size, their weapon must also be larger than anything found in Real Life combat. A good rule of thumb is anything one-handed that's bigger than 4 meters at its widest / longest since that's more than double the average man's height. Such a thing would count as this trope for any regular human wielder.
Small Girl, Big Gun is a subtrope, and Little Useless Gun is a possible trope for when a gun is really dwarfed by the hand that wields it. Usually this trope averts Operator Incompatibility, unless it's showing off how impractical the weapon would actually be, unless the size's usually matching weight is waived by some method, like being hollow, or being a massless Laser Blade.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Bleach: The size of a zanpakuto depends on the power of the wielder (plus the amount of control they have over said power; one notes that all captains would be walking around with skyscraper-sized swords if they didn't know how to reduce their output), and even if it's reasonably-sized normally, bankai releases are almost always giant. Thus, any of the smaller characters who have bankai, such as Hitsugaya, fall straight into this trope. Word of Kubo is that even such massive weapons weigh basically nothing to their wielders due to being part of their souls.
- City Hunter: Kaori, the petite and annoyed deuteragonist, wields a hammer that's as big as her and with a head that dwarfs her torso to punish our Loveable Sex Maniac hero.
- The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family: Dai, despite his name (Which means big/large in Japanese) is very short while the weapons he uses are much larger than him:
- His Lightning Sword, a free item is a little over twice his size. He has no trouble holding it. Its primary use is to slice and tear enemies apart.
- In the second episode of the anime, he uses the Item Card, Hammer Head, a very large item (significantly larger than the user's whole body) that is wielded on their head. It's primarily used to smash the bottom of the Large Flying saucer and shove it up into space afterwards.
- In episode seven, he uses the item card, Rhythm Saucer Wave a weapon that has large saucers that clap together to create waves so powerful that it defeated the alien and destroyed a factory. Each saucer on their own is significantly larger than Dai.
- D.Gray-Man: Lavi's hammer can extend and expand enough that he can travel by being carried on the hammerhead.
- Eat-Man: The Boer Sword. Despite the fact that it's only ever used in one hand, the thing's easily twice the size of anyone who uses it.
- Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: Beatrice Flowerchild wields a Berserker card giving her access to the powers of Thor's son Magni and with them Mjolnir. Here it's portrayed as looking like a giant version of a traditional Mjolnir pendant, with a head several times the size of her entire person.
- Final Fantasy: Unlimited: Cid has two mechanized hammers that hit his enemies on command, with each hammerhead being as big as himself. Somehow, both hammers can fit inside his backpack.
- GaoGaiGar:
- The eponymous mecha possesses the Goldion Hammer, a hammer with a head as large as the titular Humongous Mecha. In addition to the force created by its sheer mass, the hammer creates an artificial gravity well at the point of impact that reduces all matter it strikes into photons. But this power also meant that GaoGaiGar couldn't wield the hammer without damaging itself, so they built GoldyMarg: a tough robot that is himself built around the Goldion Hammer, and can transform into a massive hand that allows GaoGaiGar to safely wield it.
- GaoGaiGar FINAL introduces both a Downplayed and Exaggerated example in the Goldion Crusher. Downplayed in that the head isn't quite as oversized in comparison normally. Exaggerated in that A: The entire weapon is made from the combination of three battleships and B: When deployed, the "head" splits apart to form the frame of an energy hammer the size of a small moon.
- Lyrical Nanoha: Vita's magical hammer, Graf Eisen, has a "Gigantform" that causes Graf Eisen to become several times larger than its Glacier Waif wielder. Combined with her incredible strength, Vita boasts that there's nothing she and Graf Eisen can't destroy.
- O-Parts Hunter: Jio Freed eventually carries a Big Effin' Boomerang/Ninja Star whose size and amount of damage it can inflict is proportional to the fear and hate a person has. Thus to a fearful mook the thing fills the entire sky while to a pure-hearted angel, it's a useless ring of metal.
- Record of Ragnarok: Thor is by no means "little", but his Mjölnir, being larger and thicker than his torso, is still too oversized and cumbersome for a normal person or god to use. It is all the more impressive when he can lift the hammer one-handed and toss it like a boomerang.
- Space Runaway Ideon: Ideon. One of its weapons, the Ideon Sword, is a beam of pure light emitted from each of Ideon's hands. While the beam's destructive power is immense (even cleaving a planet in half at one point), its most peculiar quality is its length. While adjustable, the maximum length of the sword is depicted as being quite possibly infinite.
- Symphogear: In general, a common form of most Symphogears is the ability to create massive weapons that dwarf their wielders. To a list a few examples, Tsubasa's Symphogearnote and has the power to create swords, which can range from reasonably-sized but capable of lighting on fire to building-sized rocket-powered monstrosities that fall from the sky. Hibiki's Symphogearnote can turn into a gigantic Power Fist that is more than thrice her size. And Kirika and Shirabe's Symphogearsnote take the form of a giant scythe and buzzsaws respectively that can be tripled in size. And all of these examples are without using X-Drive mode. All made possible by The Power of Rock. It's that kind of show.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Gilford the Legend: While it's pretty big in the first place, the guy who summoned Gilford proceeds to equip several more swords onto him, each of which is absorbed into Gilford's sword, making it even bigger. By the time he's done, he's a warrior humanoid with a sword that easily measures over twenty feet long.
Fan Works
- The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Played for laughs in chapter 35. Night Blade and Wind Breaker have been studying weapons in a vault, with each of them in turn grabbing progressively bigger swords and bows (to the point where they were holding ones that were so large they couldn't realistically use them in battle) in a game of one-upmanship... when Vix-Lei the minotaur unwittingly outdoes both of them by walking by while carrying and talking to a hammer with a head as big as her whole body. Both males end up realizing their foolishness and laughing themselves sick as a result.
- Witches Wizards Shadows and Souls: During his duel against brainwashed Koji, Joey brings out a giant BFS. Kaiba tells him he has no monsters to equip it to, but Joey proudly replies that he does... and he equips it to a Scapegoat Token. Which is a pastel fluffball the size of a basketball. The poor thing is obviously struggling to lift it up. Kaiba declares this one of the most ridiculous things he's ever seen, while Koji starts laughing hysterically.
Literature
- The Adventures of Samurai Cat: Tomokato's nephew Shiro delights in guns, the bigger the better. When he sees that Al Capone's guards (a group of Norse trolls who escaped Ragnarok in the previous book) are armed with GAU-8 Avengers, he is immediately smitten, spending much of the Chicago story try to chase one down. Not only does he succeed in finding one, the kitten was able to lift and aim this weapon (which is 100 times his size) through 'the strength of madness'. Actually firing it proves a bit too much, though, as the recoil sends him flying through several walls.
- The Beginning After the End: Mica Earthborn, one of the Lances, is a literal Cutesy Dwarf who looks like a little girl even by her race's standards. Yet she is a Cute Bruiser who acts as The Big Guy among the Lances, as her Gravity Master allow her to create and wield massive Humongous-Headed Hammers and maces that are more than thrice her size.
- A Certain Magical Index:
- Fiamma of the Right is able to produce a Flaming Sword that is 30-40 km long.
- The Knight Leader wields Hrunting, the sword Beowulf used, which is roughly 3.9 meters long yet weighs as much as a regular sword. Hrunting shrinks down to 80 cm when not powered up.
- I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But I'll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time: Main protagonist Alina Clover might seem to be an innocuous guild receptionist, but in her guise as the Executioner she wields a massive Humongous-Headed Hammer that is as tall as she is, can be pulled out of Hammerspace, and she is able to effortlessly wield in spite of her small figure.
- Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Episode 4, the description of Bianca's headache contrasts a "tiny" fairy and their "big" tool:
Behind her forehead, a tiny little fairy with a whomping big hammer was ringing her skull like a bell.
Tabletop Games
- Magic: The Gathering: Colossus Hammer is an equipment that gives a creature a massive +10/+10 buff but is so heavy that it prevents the creature from flying. The artwork depicts a dwarf carrying a warhammer with a head alone that's bigger than his entire body.
- The Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG: Several illustrations in the book depict small bugs wielding clubs considerably larger than their entire body. This is also entirely possible with the game's mechanics, as the Concentrated Might trait allows a small bug to swap their Might and Grace stats, allowing them to wield weapons that would otherwise be suited to a much larger warrior.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem:
- One of Ann's weapons is a double-sized great-sword that was formerly part of a Mini-Mecha, capable of incredible wide-reaching damage that she wields with piddling ease.
- In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is a young girl who's able to handle a selection of large weapons like a rocket launcher or a heavy sword that are bigger than her own size, with each of them being huge enough that she's able to carry easily to fight enemies.
- ATLYSS: The customizable player character can become this when wielding some of the bigger weapon classes, like Heavy Melee weapons (hammers and axes) or Bells, since they are very short even at maximum height.
- Bayonetta 2: Valor wields a big, fancy golden sword that can extend to prodigious sizes (ie: something like 10 times as tall as he is).
- Bunny Must Die: The little girl main character can obtain and swing a sword three times her height. Justified in that it's a Laser Blade.
- God Eater: The titular Aragami hunters use weapons called God Arcs that are Morph Weapons that come in different forms but are usually a weapon bigger than its wielder.
- Hollow Knight: The Great Nailsage Sly is a tiny fly wielding a greatnail bigger than himself.
- Kingdom Hearts II: The Berserker nobody's axe is around the same size as itself, however one of its attacks involves it shrinking down to the size of a toy, about 5 times smaller than usual, while the hammer remains the same size.
- League of Legends: Poppy is a yordle, the setting's equivalent to fairies, and is thus one of the smaller Champions in both gameplay and lore. She wields the Hammer of Orlon, a hammer thrice her size that she holds on to in the belief that one day the "Hero of Demacia" will wield it. Little does she know that the hammer is destined for her, but she has not realized it in the centuries since she picked it up.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Tinkaton is a 2-foot-tall Pokémon who casually swings around a hammer whose handle is taller than itself, and where the hammerhead is bigger than its own body.
- Especially in the latter installments of Thing-Thing the guns themselves are considerably longer than the Thing-Things are tall.
- Unicorn Overlord: The Warrior NPCs are all large, fat men wielding big bloodstained hammers, but several of the named Warriors are small girls with the same big hammers.
- Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth: in this game, Anju inherits Karulau's BFS and starts wielding it in battle. Anju is a small girl, and said sword is as long as she is tall, and is ludicrously heavy even for its size. While Anju is strong enough to use it, the fact that her weapon weighs more than she does actually causes issues with her balance (evident in her clumsy-looking attack animations), and she frequently hurts herself with it accidentally (which translates to her taking a small amount of damage with every attack she makes).
Web Animation
- Journey to the Quest: Mara's battleaxe normally doesn't qualify given that she's the tallest member of the party by far, but her episode of Before the Quest shows that she's been carrying the thing around since she was five years old. In this case, there's actually a symbolic purpose to it, as it belonged to one of her late parents and it being far too big for her as a child represents how she was being weighed down by her grief over their deaths (in contrast to the present day, where she's mostly at peace with her trauma and can effortlessly wield the axe).
Webcomics
- DeathSitter: Lloyd's daughter Mary, like all reapers, has a scythe. But she is a small child, or at least that's what she appears to be, despite being twenty three years old. Because of this, her scythe is much bigger than her. This makes it makes it harder for her to use, but this doesn't stop her from slaughtering a entire bar full of people.
Web Videos
- Multiverse Tales: The hammer of the Elemental Embodiment of the earth... forged by Husky Russkie Vasilia Kuznet.
Vasilia: the mallet was nearly as large as his body! I could not even come close to lifting thing myself, but he swung it with one hand like it was child's plaything!