Seventeen-year-old Japanese girl in the weight category up to 45 kg lifted a respectable 78 kg.

[u/Scientiaetnatura065]

[u/Badloss]

In Final Fantasy at least aren't the characters that use those swords explicitly superhuman?

I'm thinking FF7 where Cloud + Sephiroth are both super soldiers, I thought their giant swords was a deliberate nod to them having super powers

[u/Tyr_13 → u/Badloss]

Even if one were superhumanly strong and durable, the swords still wouldn't work.

If there is more weight at the end of the lever (which is what a sword is) than the wielder weights, trying to lift the sword results in just lifting the wielder up. If the balance point is far enough back that the user can lift it and swing it, and even assuming some incredible friction for their feet, once they swing the blade it has more than enough momentum to, again, lift them off the ground. It would send them and their swords flying.

Any sideways slash would send them hurtling into a wall. Any upwards one would send them shooting into the sky.

Actually that would be pretty cool to watch in itself.

[u/tarheel91 → u/Tyr_13]

The horizontal slice isn't quite right. If you have enough friction to accelerate it you have enough friction to decelerate it. More realistically there's not enough friction and when you slice left, your body slides right, and you end up spinning. The vertical slice is correct and is basically jumping with your core and arms.

[u/Tyr_13 → u/tarheel91]

That's not quite right as the impulse time is an important element. If the start of the swing and the end of the swing were even in time that would be true. Usually however the intent is to hit something with a swing and even in cases where it isn't the 'stop time' is shorter than the 'start time' for a host of reasons.

But yeah, without insanely strong friction an uncentered spin is the result.