Onimusha: Way of the Sword — How to Beat Rasho-gan

Rasho-gan is the third major boss in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and he shows up during the Careful What You Wish For main quest as the first real wall in the game. He is a multi-limbed Genma who has been feeding on the anxieties of Kyoto’s residents and granting their wishes in the worst possible way. He is fast, he hits hard enough to erase Musashi in a couple of exchanges, and he drags half the arena into the fight with him.

Quick answer: Parry his three-hit blade combo to stagger him, Reflex Dodge the overhead slam and the grab, and shoot his tendrils with the Oni Bow the moment he starts hauling trees and boulders into the air. Sever the threads feeding him power, drain his stamina bar, and finish him during the stun.

Rasho-gan attack patterns and the correct response

Almost everything Rasho-gan throws at you has a fixed answer. Learn the tells and the fight stops being a coin flip.

Attack	Tell	What to do
Blade combo	Three swings, with the third one delayed	Parry all three. He staggers, giving you a free three-hit punish.
Parry follow-up	He strikes again immediately after your first parry	Counter the follow-up as well. Only appears after his health drops to about 60 percent.
Slam	Arms raised above his head	Reflex Dodge. This one cannot be parried and takes a large chunk of health.
Grab	He reaches to lift Musashi off the ground	Reflex Dodge. If it lands, expect a punch barrage and a throw into a wall.
Tendril grab	Tendrils snap toward you	Counter straight away, because a strike follows. Mash the on-screen prompt to break free.
Tendril throw	Tendrils pick up trees, stones, or pieces of buildings	Shoot the tendrils with the Oni Bow to cancel it and drop the object on his head.
Spin attack	Second phase only	Move out of range. It is technically parryable, but the window is brutal.
Projectiles	Ranged fire, including a large blob	Dodge or deflect. Shoot the blob out of the air rather than eating the damage.

Phase 1: Build your punishes off the blade combo

Absorb the dark mass to start the encounter, then stay defensive for the first thirty seconds. Do not open with attacks. Let Rasho-gan commit to his three-hit string so you can read how late that third swing actually arrives.

Musashi trading blows with Rasho-gan while the Careful What You Wish For objective marks the boss as the target — The Careful What You Wish For objective lists Rasho-gan, Wish Warper, as your target for the duration of the fight. Image: Capcom

Parry the full combo instead of dodging out of it. A clean set of parries briefly stuns him and opens a window for roughly three attacks of your own before he recovers. Take those three hits and reset your guard rather than pushing for a fourth.

Watch his arms between combos. Raised overhead means the unparryable slam is coming, so Reflex Dodge instead of holding your ground. Any lunge toward Musashi is the grab, which also needs a dodge and nothing else.

Musashi lands sword hits on Rasho-gan during the stagger window created by a full parry — Punishing Rasho-gan after a clean parry chain. When he locks Musashi into a struggle, the prompt asks you to press Square or Triangle repeatedly. Image: Capcom

Keep absorbing the souls he drops as you go. They feed the health, Oni Power, and Awakening gauges you will need later, and picking them up costs you nothing during his recovery frames.

The 60 percent shift: What the enhanced state adds

Around 60 percent health, Rasho-gan enters an enhanced state. Damage output climbs, and his moveset picks up two additions that catch most players out. The blade combo now has a follow-up that fires the instant you parry the first hit, so a single parry is no longer a safe exit. He also gains a spin attack that briefly stuns you on contact.

The grab is the single most dangerous move in this half of the fight. It lifts Musashi, chains a series of punches, and ends with a throw into a wall, and the whole sequence can end a run outright. Treat any lunge as a grab and dodge on reaction rather than trying to trade.

Rasho-gan's boss health bar on screen as Musashi backs away from an incoming attack — Rasho-gan’s health bar sits at the top of the screen. Once it drops past roughly 60 percent, the enhanced moves come out. Image: Capcom

Note: bosses in this game shift into their enhanced state dynamically. Take heavy damage early and Rasho-gan will flip over sooner than expected, so playing clean in phase one directly buys you an easier phase two.

Sever the threads with the Oni Bow

Rasho-gan is not fighting you on his own power. He draws strength from the surroundings through the threads bound to his body, which is why chipping at his health bar alone feels so slow. Cutting that connection is the actual solution to the fight.

Draw the Oni Bow whenever his tendrils reach out and grab something from the arena, whether that is a tree, a boulder, or a chunk of a building. Shooting the tendril cancels the throw, and the object often comes crashing down on him instead. Severing the binding leaves him stunned and wide open, which is your best sustained damage window in the entire encounter.

The same applies to his projectiles. The large blob he lobs at you can be shot down before it reaches Musashi, and doing that is far safer than dodging through it.

Blazing state, Oni Armament, and breaking his stamina

Consecutive parries fill the Blazing Gauge. Once you enter the blazing state, deflecting his attacks deals a significant amount of damage on its own, which turns his relentless aggression into your main source of chip damage. That is the loop to build the fight around, not raw offense.

Oni Armament gives you a short stretch of invulnerability. Save it for moments when you are boxed in by projectiles or an area attack and need to keep attacking without reading his patterns perfectly. Landing Oni Armament hits also generates souls, which feeds straight back into your Awakening gauge.

Musashi pressing an attack on Rasho-gan next to a large rock in the arena — Oni Armament buys a short invulnerability window, which is the safest time to push damage inside his reach. Image: Capcom

Deflects and parries drain his stamina bar. When it empties, his posture breaks and he is stunned, and you get a choice of what to take from the opening. Red soul sparkles convert into direct damage on the boss, while purple ones release health, Oni Power, and Awakening souls. Against Rasho-gan, take the direct damage when you are healthy and the souls when you are not.

The Defeat Rasho-gan objective on screen as Musashi strikes the boss in the closing stage of the fight — The objective reads Defeat Rasho-gan through the final stretch. Breaking his posture here ends the fight quickly. Image: Capcom

Why attempts fail

Trying to parry the slam. It is unparryable, and eating it usually sets up the next attack to finish you.
Burning every healing item in phase one. Keep a reserve for the enhanced state, where a single grab can wipe most of your bar.
Ignoring the tendrils. Letting him keep the threads intact means grinding down a health bar that regenerates its power source.
Attacking into his combo. Parry the string first, then punish. Swinging early loses the exchange nearly every time.
Treating the on-screen button prompts as reaction cues. They tell you which button applies, not when to press it, and the timing is on you.

Confirming the kill and the Oni Strength reward

You will know the fight is over when his posture breaks for the last time and the finisher plays out instead of him recovering. Careful What You Wish For then moves forward, and Musashi picks up a new skill, Oni Strength, which is the game’s way of handing you the muscle to shift the heavy objects blocking your progress from here on.