First introduced in Dragon Quest II, the humble Cypress Stick is recognized as a recurring weapon in the series and is typically the weakest choice available. It has grown quite iconic over time, even appearing as a guest item in NieR: Automata described as something that “can hardly be called a weapon, but somehow grants courage to its user.” As highlighted by Japanese outlet MagMix, since the real life Japanese cypress (hinoki) is regarded as a premium timber that doesn’t usually suggest weakness, the Cypress Stick phenomenon is somewhat peculiar. However, series creator Yuji Horii revealed it stems more from technical constraints and the nuances of the Japanese language.
In an interview cited by MagMix, Horii explains that the limited storage capacity of Dragon Quest II’s Famicom cartridge forced the developers to adapt. Because kanji characters (which convey both meaning and sound) were not yet supported at the time, all of the game’s text, including the names of monsters, weapons, and items, had to be written in hiragana, which only conveys sound.
Japanese wooden swords are commonly made of white oak or red oak, generally referred to as “kashi” (樫). But since Famicom cartridges did not support kanji, Horii stated that simply writing “kashi no bo” (かしのぼ, “oak stick”) in hiragana would have sounded too similar to the Japanese word for snack (“okashi”). Shortening the word to its basic hiragana form “かし” (kashi) wouldn’t have worked either, as people wouldn’t recognize what it represented.
To resolve this, the word “hinoki” (ひのき, meaning “Japanese cypress”) was selected. While Japanese cypress is more frequently used in the construction of shrines and temples, the word is easily understood when written in hiragana as it’s distinct in sound and lacks any homonyms that could potentially cause confusion. The original Japanese Dragon Quest games use the term “hinoki no bo”/ひのきのぼう, which avoids confusion and has since become an iconic recurring weapon in the franchise.