Death Battle Prediction: The Real Winner is Corporate Commander
Well...at least I get more time to work on the Cell Vs. Metal Sonic review?
Is the Matchup Goo-
No.
You know what this is. A dumbass "agenda war" and "they explode stuff" ain't it.
Seriously, 95% of the anime-characters they use make shit explode. Hell, most everyone on this show does that.
The best you're going to get out of this is "their looks are decieving", and even that's a stretch. Bakugo is a "hero" (read: fed) who looks and sounds like an unstable asshole, and that's because he is. Yeah, he's smart, but still an ill-tempered jackass who's very willing to maim his own classmates. We barely get to know Reze aside from her faking a crush on Denji. Her personality post heel-turn is ill-defined and, frankly, really inconsistent, both with itself and her backstory. She goes back-and-forth between crazy slasher villain, "I'm just doing my job" and budding flower with little reasoning.
The Wiki's attempt to add connections here is somehow worse than with Cell Vs. Metal Sonic. It ranges from stuff like 'one went to school, the other didn't' to outright lies like claiming that Reze is a prodigy (never said anywhere in Chainsaw Man).
What I Want to See
- The next episode.
- Yang Vs. Bakugo.
- I hope the explosions look cool.
Who Should Win?
Some would say I don't have to even bother this time. You might be right, but in-that-case, what's the point of making this whole prediction anyway? The answer is because it's fun to do, even when the matchup is both bad and an obvious blow-out (literally). Plus, I did find some unique stuff to talk about, though mainly in the next section.
For the few people who're still wondering about this one, let's ask the obvious question first: who makes the bigger kaboom? Now, if you're a Deadliest Warrior vet, you'd know that comparing explosion size really doesn't matter that much irl. Like, sure, if all-else is equal you'll take the larger blast, but in a small-scale fight, shrapnel is the real killer. At a certain scale, huge payloads also demand more set-up; contrary to what the show would tell you, the Medellín Cartel don't run around with car bombs in firefights.
How is this relevant to a shonen Death Battle? More than you'd think.
Explosions don't get into DBZ beam-clashes, so one being more powerful than the other only matters if one fighter can reliably survive their competition's blast. How quickly and reliably an explosive can be used and hit the opponent is what really matters. This logic goes beyond explosives and into most weaponry; sledgehammers and rocket launchers have never been staple infantry weapons, that honor goes to swords and assault rifles. This real-world logic applies to battleboarding discussions too; its why speed is by far the most important stat in most fights.
Comparing Reze and Bakugo's explosion sizes is the easy place to start, but hardly the most meaningful. The key counterpoint is that Big Pyro dominates our psyche, so we're doing it anyway.
Reze's explosives are her own body; it makes a strange-sort-of sense that the amount of herself involved acts as fuel. Her finger-flick ones can clear-out rooms and are comparable to some rocket-launchers. A punch blasted through roughly 1/3 of some building's first story; her whole body exploding covered two floors of another. That last one's a little misleading since the interior seemed fairly intact afterward, but it's still impressive.
By turning her leg into a fleshy torpedo (a great mix of body horror and cool-factor; very in-line with her acting as parallel to Chainsaw Man) created at least one explosion comparable in height to a few stories. I say "at least one" because we don't know if the other two were generated with the same method; they could have taken more or less effort. But no-matter the assumption you go with there, that's where Reze caps visually.
But What About the Anime?
Let's nip this in the bud right now. When talking about who I think should win, my viewpoint is mostly not factoring in the anime adaptations of Chainsaw Man and My Hero Academia. They aren't the original source material, and have a lot less involvement from the guys who wrote and drew what they're based on. I think it's a little dishonest to treat what certain animators add and remove from stories they aren't the authors for as superceding the primary stuff. Fujimoto and Horikoshi aren't gonna barge into the storyboards and tell the animators what to draw. I'll include them when talking about what Death Battle will say, but not here.
There are two exceptions though, those being the first two MHA movies. Two Heroes was stated to be part of the manga story; the events of Heroes Rising are directly referenced in said work.
Back to Your Regularly Scheduled 'splodin
Let's switch-gears to Bakugo. In the first chapter of My Hero Academia, Bakugo makes an explosion several stories tall. That's already enough to match Reze's best; the two are similarly wide. As you'd expect from typical shonen power-creep, Bakugo gets way stronger after this. We're talking powerful enough to fairly easily destroy 3 tons worth of rocks in one-go.
Then there's his trump-card: Howitzer Impact. By circually propelling himself with explosions to create a tornado, he adds even more oxygen and momentum to the final explosion. The result? One powerful enough to destroy a small glacier. And "small" is a relative term here; it was still taller than a massive football-like stadium while extending around half its length.
Of course, that level of power requires a lot of set-up. But in the first movie, he destroys several massive metal cubes that should weigh thousands of tons each. That's even more impressive, and it was done without any extra steps. If you want to call it an outlier, fair-enough. The comparison is lop-sided enough as is. Keep in-mind Bakugo also gets equipment to store his nitroglycerin sweat (another cool concept), allowing for even greater firepower. None of the feats I've brought-up involved those, which would obviously boost his output more. Hard to say by how much given his best showings are without them, but still.
As if all that wasn't enough, one of late-stage MHA's many nonsensical bits of plot armor involved Bakugo gaining a Kaioken-esque 'take damage to more' ability, where his explosions triple in-size. This isn't reflected well by the art, but needless to say it doesn't bode well for Bomb Girl.
But as I made-clear earlier, this isn't the most important category, not by a long-shot.
Reze's Non-Kablooey Stuff Vs. Bakugo's Kablooey
Aside from explosion size, the most immediately apparent difference in this battle is Reze's healing versus Bakugo's. Another baffling MHA bail-out was Dynamight using a bead of sweat travelling to his stopped heart and reviving him. This occasionally gets brought-up when discussing fights with Bakugo, but is actually a non-factor. He only had the chance to pull off that trick thanks to your typical healer power, one he doesn't possess.
By comparison, Reze's a Hybrid Devil, and that means her healing factor is broken. We're talking instant limb regeneration and coming back from both decapitation and complete head-destruction. In the former case, that included blowing her head off the body, then throwing it as a grenade to transform. Meanwhile, the original Reze can still act as a suicide-bomber.
Needless to say, Reze's got a lot more room to take damage and keep-on trucking. But there's some fine print, and we're talking near Wrestlemania XXXVII levels. Her recovery is reliant on having blood and pulling the pin on her neck to initiate the proccess. She can use outside sources of blood and skip that second-part, but the point is that she only gets a couple heals per fight without very specific circumstances.
You often see people cite the blood limitation as a crippling weakness, but that's not really true. We're talking at least one or two full heals from wounds that would kill you like, a dozen-times over. But in the gladiator pit of Death Battle, Reze won't have readily-available blood save her own supply and Bakugo's. Trying to get his will be basically impossible; explosions aren't exactly good for precise bloodletting. Bakugo also has a really good counter for if she tries to draw the stuff up-close; remember that sweat drop explosion? He can do that from any part of his body at any-time, making conventional H2H nigh-impossible.
That also makes one advantage you commonly see people give Reze moot. She's shown to be decently skilled up-close, likely recieving Soviet millitary training. Once again, there's a catch here. Her transformed fighting style is far more focused on explosions; her melee-strikes are single, explosive blows. Why go for a rear-naked choke and sleeper-hold when you can blow shit up?
Bakugo fought and won against Deku despite the latter completely outclassing him on a physical level. This was when young Midoriya was just a punch-kick guy, and Bakugo didn't win by spamming explosions from afar or anything. He was in the thick of it (shut up) in CQC, using greater skill and his powers to outmaneuver and overwhelm him. That's more impressive than anything we've seen Reze do for CQC, albeit with the use of powers allowing for that victory.
Without getting into raw stats, Bakugo actually has the advantage up-close. He's got a better track-record of using his H2H in fights, and his full-body explosions can be spammed to overwhelm Reze's options. Yeah, they gradually strain his body, but that's a small-price to pay when he nabs a win long before it's an issue. She can detonate her whole body, but that's a huge ask on her blood reserves. Even assuming her firepower is enough to kill Bakugo, she still needs to land clean projectile shots or physical strikes. The difference in explosive output and ease-of-use presents Dynamight with a clear advantage. You might assume the clone trick would even-the-odds, but that's a time-and-blood consuming proccess. Reze only did it before a fight started, and for good reason. It's not convenient mid-battle. Even if she did get a chance, Bakugo just 'splodin his immediate vicinity takes care of the matter.
You might hear people bring-up Reze's Devil Hunter suit, which is extra-durable and fireproof. That's cool-and-all, but Bakugo's explosions are hot-enough to burn those who can handle extra-hot fire. He trains to handle their heat and - to an extent - recoil. When considering the gap in firepower, he's still got the edge in defense.
The Brass Stats
It should be clear by now that Bakugo's got this on-lock unless Reze's got some major stat advantages over him. A passing-glance at either series would lead you to think she does; this fight's a cyborg demon going-up against a high-schooler. Luckily for Bakugo, he's the lancer of a series with several hundred chapters facing a side-character who fights in about 10.
Reze stopped a kick from a devil-posessed human which cratered the ground beneath her when blocked. She tanks her own explosions no-problem barring the self-destruct I mentioned earlier. Even untransformed, she can move like a slight blur.
Bakugo can hurt Deku using 5% of his Quirk and continue fighting after a hit from him, even at 8%. He and Deku survived a blast of lightning that cratered the ground beneath him, and later got dragged up a cliff so-hard the top shattered. That should be above anything Reze survived, and since Deku did so too, Katsuki's got way higher strength. As for speed, we've seen him react to and dodge energy blasts moving around Star Wars blaster bolt speed. Keep-in-mind he did this through precise explosive propelment, something he regularly employs. With enough-time, that movement lets him create a sizable tornado too.
So with the most direct comparisons, Bakugo's got clear edges in the stat trinity. Does scaling help Reze out?
Believe it or not, yeah. Her pitched battle with Denji's Hybrid Chainsaw Man form shows the two are plenty comparable. Hybrid Denji was tough-enough to partially survive an attack that destroyed most of a six-story building. He's deflected bullets and scales above the Angel Devil doing-so as well.
Let's compare this to Bakugo; he beat Deku when he could reliably use 5% Full Cowl and briefly manage 8%. By MHA's horrendous war arc, he could keep-up with 30% Deku's cruising speed. We've seen 5% Deku dodge fully-automatic fire as it was heading towards him. That obviously outclasses blocking pistol shots, and Deku only got faster from there. As for strength and durability, 5% Deku was unharmed after dropkicking a supersonic metal pillar so hard it shattered. This pillar's width was several times Deku's...and several city blocks long. That blows anything Reze compares to out-of-the water. Keep-in-mind that Bakugo has taken hits from this Deku and his 8%. Hell, the cliff and lightning feats I mentioned earlier are already way more impressive than what we can compare Reze to.
This is all assuming Reze starts the fight transformed, by the way. I actually think that's reasonable given she's a fusion of two seperate individuals; it'd be weird to use Venom and start with only Eddie Brock. It's still an allowance though, and not one that gives her any chance.
But Who Will Win?
Death Battle's going to use the anime adaptations of these series and all the movies. We just saw this with this year's last 3 anime combatants and with many from last year. As per usual, they'll ignore story context and the idea of outliers to put both characters way beyond what they can consistently do.
Reze will be scaled to the Typhoon Devil's storm like they previously did with Makima. This storm wasn't created physically in the manga, but was in the movie. This...doesn't actually matter, since it was made over-time in both versions. But they previously went with calculations that said it was, so expect them to do so again. In the movie, Denji implies this storm would've grown big enough to cover all of Tokyo. DB will take this at face-value despite it coming from Denji - who is a few tools short of a meteorologist - and place Reze at city level.
Speed is easier to figure out for her. She'll be scaled to Makima "reacting" to the Gun Devil's bullets, which were moving hundreds to thousands of times faster than sound depending on interpretation. Makima didn't actually react to these - it's made clear she prepared her ability in-advance of them hitting - but again, they aren't going to backtrack.
How does this stack-up against what Bakugo will get? Well, he'll be scaled to MHA's heavy-hitters due to that final arc plot armor I keep bringing-up. Deku sharing his power with Bakugo's saw them split a storm many-times bigger than an island. Their wanked KE calc had each of them hitting with 80 teratons of TNT.
That's tens of thousands of times greater than every nuke in the world combined. Even if they say that because nukes are bombs, Reze can hit with the world's nuclear arsenal ("Devils get stronger from fear"), she's still hopelessly outmatched in both power and durability.
But hey, maybe this'll be an episode where Death Battle actually treats speed as important. We've still got to look at how fast they'll place Bakugo.
Well...Shigaraki was placed at lightspeed. That was easy.
For context, the highest calc for the Gun Devil's bullets is Mach 1,390. The speed of light is over Mach 874,030. Funnily enough, about the same gap as with power...assuming they say Reze is at the level of all nukes put together, which I don't think will happen. Even for modern Death Battle, that would be really bad.
They could go further with All Might clearing clouds above Japan in an MHA fighting game or miscellaneous "laser" feats to put Bakugo at multi-continental and tens of times FTL, but those are contested among the show's inner-circle.
So, yeah, this matchup is complete overkill any way you slice it.
Category Predictions
Skill: Even
Stamina: Reze
Speed: Bakugo
Firepower (Boomstick will call this Kabooms or something): Bakugo
Final Thoughts
Look, Death Battle. I get you want views. But have some decency about it.
This isn't even a guranteed money-maker. Frankly, I could see it doing just okay or even bombing. The matchup's hype is largely dead because it was a flash-in-the pan trend and an obvious stomp. Say what you will about the last two MHA episodes, but they did have people - especially casuals - legitimately interested in who was going to win. Same thing for Gojo Vs. Makima. Anywhere you look, this one doesn't.
If we get a cool-looking fight out of this, that'd be nice. But just imagine if there was some real discussion to be had. Think about how nice it would be to have an MHA episode where the series wasn't blatantly punching-down for the fourth time. Maybe one considered a lock for years, where the DBX was split 49%-51%?
No?
Instead, we're getting the second filler fight this season?
Sounds about right.
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