DEATH BATTLE

Counting PC-98 and the Expanded Universe stuff? You got over 100 characters to choose from, and over half of them can potentially be broken as shit.

Few pages ago there was discussion on Samurai Jack vs Afro Samurai and someone said battle is lopsided worse than Thor vs Raiden. I was prompted to watch two Afro Samurai movies and now I'm bit confused - why would battle between the two be lopsided. Is there something in other media where Afro is like million times stronger than in movies or he uses #1 headband to do some divine shit? Because, as far as I can tell, both samurai are fairly comparable.

That was someone saying the battle would be lop-sided in Jack's favor without really explaining why. There's this supposedly common knowledge that Jack has pulled off much higher-end feats of strength, but I don't think they've actually compared that to the things Afro's done.

I'd say Jack probably edges him out in strength, but it's not a complete stomp. But then I haven't watched Samurai Jack in years and never watched all of Seasons 3 and 4.

edited 26th Feb '17 6:42:08 AM by Soble

Jack lifted stone pillar while fighting Aku in their no magic and no weapons duel as well got smashed through a stone wall by gargoyle. Afro smashed a guy across a room and through a wall. I would say they are pretty close. They are closer than many battlers and certainly much closer than Thor vs Raiden.

(2) And then there's this mess - swinging a sword and deflecting strikes from an android that hits hella hard while in freefall, hell surviving the fall:

I'm not saying it's lopsided either, I think it's pretty close.

edited 26th Feb '17 7:52:40 AM by Soble

Quick question, if Jack and Afro can both die to a single sword slash/stab, then why does their strength matter so much? Surely, the winner of a sword fight (with no significant super powers) is the first one to land the first clean hit, so wouldn't their speed and skill level matter far more?

That's ridic... a fair point.

Hm.

Strength comes into play to decide who would break whose guard if their swords were to clash. If Jack breaks Afro's guard or Afro's sword breaks - well. Speed, skill, and agility would matter more though I guess.

Jack can jump stupidly high, but Afro can resist g-forces to a ridiculous extent.

Oh wait, there was that time Jack did the "kill everybody in the room before a drop of water hits the ground" thing.

Though given the highly stylistic nature of this show I find this sketchy, because this implies that all of those bounty hunters, and all of the events - the explosion, the caltrops, the guy falling to the group - all of them moved/all of that happened before the drop of water hit the ground. Between that and Jack never doing anything like this again I label it more Rule of Cool, because then by association this feat would mean that nearly all of Jack's opponents are moving faster than the speed of a falling drop of water. And then you'd have several situations where Jack's reaction speed is contradicted by other events occurring at speeds slower than Jack should be able to react to.

At one point Jack was being fought off by a group of three archers in a tower. Are the arrows traveling that fast? How fast can an arrow travel?

Deflecting bullets from a machine gun. That's pretty solid. But Afro does a similar thing against Justice and from a closer range.

edited 26th Feb '17 8:50:19 AM by Soble

That is indeed a good point. There's a reason in Japanese media that being larger and bulkier generally indicates a weaker fighter, and that reason is very relevant here: because combat between samurai generally came down to who could land a hit first. Between samurai, speed, skill, and technique far outweigh physical strength.

Hence why in a lot of fighting games, the best character is usually never a heavy character.

Except in Game of Thrones, where the heavy guy beats the quick guy every time.

For the record, the quick guy would have won if he hadn't gotten too emotional and got into the bigger guys range.

But still, it's american sensibilities versus japanese one.

Anime has taught me that the bigger buffer guy will always lose no matter what, and I'm rather sick of it myself.

And yet sumo wrestlers are a thing.

Just gonna point out that this sentiment is probably partially responsible for Broly's absurd popularity in the West.

And I think that's why when I play Smash Bros with my friends, I tend to see Bowser, DK, Ganon, or Charizard a lot. Most of them really seem to like the heavy characters despite ones like Diddy and Sheik being better.

Oddly, though, I'm the only one who picks Dedede.

But yeah, fighting games generally have the slower, heavier characters be low tier characters, whereas faster, lighter characters are the better characters to use.

Then again, Americans like being manly whereas Japan flipflops with that.

Though this only applies to the competitive scene and not the casual scene.

I'm not really sure about "bigger guy is weaker" theory. One Piece plays both sides of the spectrum, but we have some impressively-sized people like Whitebeard who can effectively trounce armies all by themselves. While terminally ill and long past their prime. Oh, and with a giant cannonball hole in their chest. Of course, Whitebeard trounces a guy who's like twenty stories high in that same sequence, so what do I know.

Spoilered information might be old news, but I'd rather make sure. >.>

"For the record, the quick guy would have won if he hadn't gotten too emotional and got into the bigger guys range."

Actually, I was referring to the slave fighting pits, where the assassin says theres no way that the slower, stronger guy can beat his opponent, right before the big guy just lops off the speedy guys head.

Oh right. I forgot about that.

Well, One Piece marches to it's own drumbeat honestly. Good to know someone plays with that a little.

The basic "Just gonna point out that this sentiment is probably partially responsible for Broly's absurd popularity in the West."

Not really. Every movie villain gets huge. Garlic Jr., Super Android 13, Lord Slug, Bojack, Cooler...

The basic pattern for any and every DBZ character is Step 1. Scream for a long time, Step 2. Git hooge, and step 3. Become unstoppable until opponent begins step 1. Far as I remember, Buu is the only opponent to ever get any smaller and quicker, and that came with a huge power down.

edited 26th Feb '17 5:10:49 PM by PincerMove

Re:Fighting games: Heavy hitters also tend to be allowed to make more mistakes, but that's to offset how mistake-prone they are which in turn is meant to offset how hard-hitting they are. Theoretically, it's balanced, but in execution it means that quicker characters always fare better because they have less ways to commit to mistakes since they're quicker. Ergo, at tournament-level play there's usually no reason to pick the heavy hitters when they're more liable to slip-ups than anyone who can play footsies or hit-and-run really well.

I'm sure there's ways to balance it out and there's a good chunk of exceptions, but that's why the on-paper definition of a heavyweight character is usually less intimidating in execution.

Re:Otherwise: Considering the Biblical story of David and Goliath AKA Rocky in more ways than one, I'd say the classic trope of... well, David Versus Goliath is one of the oldest ones in the book. It's hard to not want the little guy to come out on top of the big one, and I'd chalk that up to power fantasies nine times out of ten.

On the hero's side I feel like part of it might also be how the beefy guy is almost always the dumb one. A tense fight will usually have wit behind it, and wit is not something the Dumb Muscle has.

Isn't David Vs. Goliath really just a story about a rifleman shooting a man with gigantism in the head?

Pretty much, but the analogy stood the test of time.

The REAL moral: don't fuck with slings.

Well, in Death Battle, David vs. Goliath is usually combined with Badass Adorable, like Yoshi, Rainbow Dash, Kirby, and Pikachu.

edited 26th Feb '17 7:46:16 PM by FlutterFire

Pikachu got eaten.

@Some of Jack's feats being more stylistic than feasible to analyze.

Death Battle almost certainly wouldn't care. Taking those sorts of moments razor straight and figuring out how powerful they would need to be in order for them to work is their schtick.

Several of their fights come down to meticulously analyzed stylistic or aesthetic moments. Peach vs Zelda is a good early one, but there are many, many others. The most known example of something that could also have that criticism applied is the "Superman has literally infinite strength" idea: them taking a moment meant more for shock and action value rather than to accurately represent the character in, and taking it at face value.

If she show has Jack taking out a whole room faster than it takes a drop of water to hit the ground, you can bet that Death Battle would be hinging their comparison on whatever level of super-speed that means Jack has.

edited 26th Feb '17 8:09:44 PM by KnownUnknown