Honjo Masamune

The Honjo Masamune is a Wind-elemental cat toy available to NoLegs in Epic Battle Fantasy 5.

Description

The Honjo Masamune is a kodachi (a traditional Japanese shortsword) with a black hilt decorated with small golden diamonds. It has a bright silver blade with a white cutting edge and a small gold section where it meets the rectangular crossguard. Its offhand item is a dark red sheath with ornate golden details and a black rope tied around the middle.

Normal

The Honjo Masamune is one of the most potent "glass cannon" weapons in EBF5, boasting the highest offensive stats of any Cat Toy - a 150% boost to both Attack and Magic Attack when maxed - as well as decent boosts to both Accuracy and Evade. It powers up Wind skills, like Tornado Tantrum or the Tempest it can unleash with weapon-elemental attacks; conveniently, it counters with a Normal Attack to give NoLegs more chances to use his unleash. All of this comes at the cost of halving NoLegs's HP, but his usual durability is poor enough that the drawback is largely insignificant; of course, Morale and Auto-Revive support is useful to mitigate this.

In general, the Honjo Masamune is an immensely synergistic weapon for NoLegs, letting him tear through foes while making him incredibly vulnerable to anything that lives long enough to hit him. It effectively outclasses all of NoLegs's elemental cat toys - being able to do more damage with the relevant skills despite lacking an elemental boost - and it's arguably even better than the Star Hammer for nonspecific offensive output. Although it's much frailer than the Star Hammer, it has even more offensive power and a useful Evade boost to improve NoLegs's best defensive stat; additionally, it's available about halfway through the game, while the Star Hammer can only be acquired near the end.

The Honjo Masamune resists Thunder, Wind and Stun. The latter becomes an immunity at Level 5.

Equip Remix

Although the Alt Honjo Masamune is very different from its normal counterpart, it retains its amazing synergy with NoLegs in exchange for comparatively modest downsides. It is a non-elemental weapon with decent offenses and solid Accuracy, a chance to give Good Luck between turns, and boosts to buff skills and non-elemental attacks. While NoLegs can certainly exploit all of these effects, the cat toy's main selling point is its obscene Evade; it doubles the stat even at Level 1 and triples it when fully forged. Since NoLegs has high base Evade to begin with, he's practically impossible to hit when he wields this Cat Toy - however, a 70% HP penalty leaves remarkably little room for error if something does hit him.

The Alt Honjo Masamune is best used in a Target tank build, allowing NoLegs to draw enemy fire away from his teammates while minimizing risk to himself by dodging everything that comes his way. It pairs nicely with the Alt Genji Helmet, the Alt Ninja Gear, the Alt Pixel Glasses, the Alt Agnry Faic, and perhaps the Alt Fairy or the Alt Green Cross if the player does not want to maintain Auto-Revive and Regen themselves. Alternatively, it can be used for an incredibly evasive buff build, but the Alt Dragon's Feather and Alt Accelerator have the advantage of permanent Haste effects and the Alt Elven Shield has more versatility and bulk in exchange for much less Evade.

The Alt Honjo Masamune resists Stun, Syphon, Disable, and Dispel. It becomes immune to all of them at Level 5.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

The Honjo Masamune can be found inside a chest in the Glitch Area in the Mystic Woods. The chest is on the leftmost island, guarded by a battle that appears as a Muddy Bush.

	Honjo Masamune
	A legendary katana. It's a bit shorter than expected. Boosts the damage of wind skills. Level 3: Counter-attacks with Normal Attack. Level 5: May unleash Tempest while attacking.

Statistics
Stat Bonus												Resistance
	LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5		LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5		LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5
	-50%[-70%]	-50%[-70%]	-50%[-70%]	-50%[-70%]	-50%[-70%]	-	-	-	-	-	-		10%	20%	30%	40%	50%
	70%[100%]	90%[125%]	110%[150%]	130%[175%]	150%[200%]		-	-	-	-	-		10%	20%	30%	40%	50%
	70%[100%]	90%[125%]	110%[150%]	130%[175%]	150%[200%]		-	-	-	-	-		20%	40%	60%	80%	100%
	0%[10%]	5%[15%]	10%[20%]	15%[25%]	20%[30%]		0%[10%]	5%[15%]	10%[20%]	15%[25%]	20%[30%]	Element		50%
Spells & Statuses
			Power					Chance Modifier				Attack Status
Auto Skill			--					--				-	-	-	-	-	-
Bonus Skill			180					(30%)					-	-	-	-	-
Auto Status			--					--				-	-	-	-	-	-
Defend Status			--					--					-	-	-	-	-
Note: Stats in brackets (below/right from actual) are for its pre-v2 update version.

Forging Information
Lvl	Requirements			Lvl	Requirements
2	x 2	--	--	3	x 8	--	--
4	x 3	x 16	--	5	x 1	x 32	--

Statistics with Equip Remix enabled.

	Honjo Masamune
	A legendary katana. It's a bit shorter than expected. Boosts the damage of non-elemental skills. Level 3: Increases the effect of buff skills used. Level 5: Gives the player good-luck status.

Statistics
Stat Bonus												Resistance
	LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5		LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5		LV1	LV2	LV3	LV4	LV5
	-70%	-70%	-70%	-70%	-70%	-	-	-	-	-	-		20%	40%	60%	80%	100%
	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%		-	-	-	-	-		20%	40%	60%	80%	100%
	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%		-	-	-	-	-		20%	40%	60%	80%	100%
	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%		100%	125%	150%	175%	200%	Element		----
Spells & Statuses
			Power					Chance Modifier				Attack Status
Auto Skill			--					--				-	-	-	-	-	-
Bonus Skill			--					--					-	-	-	-	-
Auto Status			2x					(25%)				-	-	-	-	-	-
Defend Status			--					--					-	-	-	-	-

Forging Information
Lvl	Requirements			Lvl	Requirements
2	x 2	--	--	3	x 8	--	--
4	x 3	x 16	--	5	x 1	x 32	--

Trivia

• The Honjo Masamune is named after a real sword made by Gorō Nyūdō Masamune, widely considered to be the greatest swordsmith in all of Japan. The real Honjo Masamune was considered to be one of the smith's finest creations, being named a Japanese National Treasure in 1939; however, its whereabouts are unknown following 1946.
  • Like Lance's Gungnir, Natalie's Kaladanda, and Anna's Sharanga, NoLegs's Honjo Masamune is named after a legendary weapon. However, the Honjo Masamune is the only one to be named after a real-world weapon instead of a mythological one, and the weapons are otherwise very different from each other.