Top 25 Least Wanted Matchups (Remastered) (2024)

Dia duit, ladies and gents and happy (early) holidays to you all. With Christmas fast approaching, there are many things I could do to spread the holiday cheer this December... but instead, I'mma play the role of the Grinch here and completely sh*t all over the time of holiday cheer with a blog detailing 25 (or more) matchups that I really, REALLY do not want to see happen. "But Pit", you may be asking, "You've already gone over this topic... twice. Why the hell you doing it again? You that desperate to make people hate you?". Well to answer that, yes I have already done two blogs on that... and they were both sh*t. The first one was filled with matchups slapped on because I couldn't think of anything else to put in, weird choices when it came to where I put them given far less egregious fights were put way too high on the list and my explanations were utterly woeful. The second one didn't really have the first two problems-I still stand by the placements and matchups on there- I just think some of them could have very well been explained better. I wanted to do this topic again because my grievances could have very well been explained better and there were some new stinkers that I wanted to discuss. A few things to go over before we start though:

1). This blog will use TNs made by other users. Credit will be given when applicable.

2). Like with the last two blogs, this will only be going over why I dislike them because talking about the connections, and my preferences for animation potential, music, and all that jazz for something I don't even want in the first place makes about as much sense as picking my favourite flavour of poison.

3). Do not- I repeat- DO NOT mix "least wanted" up with "worst". Yes, I dislike most of the entries on here with a burning passion but this is a list of matchups I personally do not want to see, not the absolute worst ones in existence. Some of these are on here for reasons beyond their quality and frankly, listing "the worst" matchups is... well, impossible. It's too easy to just name the most random idea possible and slap it on this list without any thought or care despite it having no fanfare or hype. While they may vary, these are all ideas I've seen tossed around at one point or another.

4). I don't plan on pulling any punches when writing this. Some of these entries I will likely have some very choice words for. If you like any of the matchups on here then this will be the on and only time I say... great! You can find enjoyment in something I can't and I can't take that away from you. We'll never all have opinions that completely line up one-to-one and I would like to hear exactly why it is that you like these matchups while I don't. Keep that in mind because while my points are all exactly how I feel, for sake of both emphasis and entertainment, I will more than likely get rather... hyperbolic about some of these.

5). No rematches, remasters or remakes... consider yourself lucky Ben vs Hal 2.

6). Here's a cute dog... this isn't really relevant, I just wanted something we could all agree makes us happy on here.

Also, like with my favourite games list, I'll be going through an entry a day (which means number 1 will be unveiled on Christmas... aren't I a great party pooper). With that out of the way, let's begin.

25. Naruto Uzumaki vs Monkey D. Luffy (Naruto vs One Piece)[]

Kicking this list off, we have one of only two entries from my "popular matchups I don't like" blog from a while back, and in a vacuum, it may seem like an odd choice for me to dislike it. They have a major rivalry (which I'm always down for), they're among the most well known characters in the anime circle and on paper, it would seem like a fight that has a lot of potential in every area: animation, dialogue, music, etc. Sooooooooooooooooo where's the issue? Well take a step outside the vacuum for a moment and it becomes abundantly clear what that issue is: Naruto vs Ichigo.

To put it bluntly, this fight does absolutely nothing that we haven't already seen in that fight. This fight has fantastic animation potential with tons of variance in their super-powered forms to keep things escalating at a ridiculous pace? Yeah, that's already been covered with Ichigo's various forms, which reach far more ludicrous levels of power and spectacle. The connections are there and so is their rivalry? The same applies to the Fanta-haired phantom. He shares the same rivalry and while his personality may not be as similar to Naruto's as the Strawhat Pirate, Ichigo shared more connections beyond just being part of the Holy Shonen Trinity (namely that he and Naruto had strange births (thanks to Naruto being a reincarnation of one of the Sage of Six Paths' kids and Ichigo's... interesting heritage), and both had insanely dangerous beings trapped inside their bodies thanks to their parents that they eventually learned to live with and use to gain far more power and unique states of being). And while Naruto vs Ichigo was fairly close, the same absolutely cannot be said for this fight. Naruto has Luffy beat in nearly every category that isn't speed, where they're in a similar boat and even then, Naruto's Chakra sensing, Shadow Clones and ninjutsu techniques still turn that category in his favour anyways.

Now the main thing that keeps this fight so low on the list (besides it having a lot of upsides on its own when not thinking of Naruto vs Ichigo) is that Luffy is a rather difficult character to lock down an ideal opponent for. No-one can really seem to agree on one and none of the ideas mentioned for him are stupidly high in popularity. That said, personally, Natsu has my vote. Natsu's first fight with Ace wasn't too great as a matchup or an episode and given Natsu's iconic status and list of sh*t to work with, I have zero objections to him coming back, especially considering that Natsu vs Luffy is extremely close and also has great animation potential. Now, Natsu does have other opponents such as Tsuna Sawada but Luffy vs Natsu has so much going for it that I'd be fine with either. Same goes for Kamala Khan, who doesn't really suffer from the competition problem that Natsu has in my opinion (yeah there's Deku and Delsin but I prefer Gon and Korra as their opponents), has some solid connections and great animation and dialogue potential as well. Neither are favourites of mine by any means but they are extremely solid matchups in their own right and unlike this one, neither are just aping a fight we've already gotten but not nearly as good in any way, which is ultimately why this fight is on here and why I don't get how it still has a fairly sizable following even in spite of that massive elephant in the room (though trust me, this isn't gonna be the last example of a fight like that... god help me).

24. Travis Touchdown vs Scott Pilgrim (No More Heroes vs Scott Pilgrim)[]

Like with Naruto vs Luffy, this fight isn't that bad in a vacuum... unlike Naruto vs Luffy though where it's main competition wasn't the most top tier, must-have matchup around, this fight is in direct competition with one of the most hyped up and overdue matchups in Death Battle history: Travis Touchdown vs Jack Cayman. Here's the thing with me: I like when people look for more out-there ideas for requested characters. I may not always like the idea as a whole, but I can appreciate people trying to get creative and find something new instead of just defaulting to the same thing as everyone else... here's the caveat though: if you're gonna come up with an idea that competes with an existing and highly popular matchup, you'd want it to have some tangible benefits to the competition, to entice people to want it, which is where Travis vs Scott falls flat on its face with enough force to shatter the pavement and piss off the roadworkers that had to build that thing, because it's a downgrade to Travis vs Jack in pretty much every category.

The connections are fine (gamers who battle through a series of varied crazed bad guys for a girl they simp over) but Travis vs Jack's are more unique (assassins who climb the leaderboards of a bloody game against several crazed fighters of varying shapes and sizes) and they have a notable rivalry given that both of their games were compared to one another many a time when they released due to them both being styalised action games that were among the only of the Wii's library to carry an M rating. The animation potential is decent and could bring some of the lively mix of comic and video game style from Scott Pilgrim but again, it doesn't hold a candle to the insane visual style of Madworld and how it compliments No More Heroes' style with stuff like their quicktime events (similar to Dante vs Bayonetta referencing the button prompts for the Umbran Climax), plus the fact that the fight could afford to go far more all-out with the bloodiness given the games they come from, whereas the tamer nature of Travis vs Scott would just make that level of bloodshed feel out of place. Also, Jack brings the possibility of Howard and Kreese commentating the fight so that earns it points by default. As for closene-yeah, we all know where this is going. Travis vs Jack may draw some criticism for being rather one-sided (though a good bit of that can be attributed to how under-researched Madworld is for feats and calcs) but I don't think the solution is to pit Travis against someone that's worse in almost every stat, with way less tangible advantages. It's an even more obvious outcome that Travis vs Jack, which is like being the Olsen Twin that looks more like they've seen the End of Days.

None of this is getting into who Scott also has to work with. Viewtiful Joe is the obvious one, though him also having Wonder-Red and crushing Scott even harder doesn't make it an automatic choice in my eyes. Still, it's an option that's also got good connections and stellar animation potential, though for my money, Satou Kazuma from Konosuba is another solid option for him. Not only is it way closer, but they have most of the same connections (yeah Kazuma's not a simp per se but he sure as hell is a hornbag so it isn't too far off), strong animation potential in their own right and Kazuma is pretty dry on better ideas, with the only other one being Natsuki Subaru from Re: Zero. Realistically, this matchup is barely gonna make a dent in the mega-titan that is Travis vs Jack's popularity, but this matchup still has a major following that puts stronger competition for equally popular matchups to shame, and I... just don't see why. It's fine, but when compared to just how great Travis vs Jack is, it offers almost nothing tangible, especially when unlike Jack, Scott himself just has better (yes Jack also has Rick Taylor but that fight's also less interesting and Rick has Denji from Chainsaw Man). So yeah, passable idea, terrible competition.

23. Incineroar vs Kintaro (Pokémon vs Mortal Kombat)[]

The biggest problem that comes with doing any unique combination of franchises is that in doing so, you often invalidate any solid reason to do any others between those two series. We've seen this with how certain matchups between, for instance, Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon or Star Wars and Naruto started popping up after a matchup between them was made into an official Death Battle due to how the similarities between the two series became more apparent as a result of them, at the cost of also giving them little reason to be done since... well, we kind of already know the answer to "who wins". Not every combination of franchises is like that (if the back-and-forth victories and defeats of Marvel and DC are anything to go by) but in this fight's case, it absolutely is a case of "second verse, same as the first", and here especially it's in more ways than just the victor.

The connections between these two are that they're tiger-themed fighters that do battle in a tournament setting, while representing their master. Seems pretty solid, right? Well here's the thing... replace "tiger-themed" with "four-armed" and read the sentence again... sound familiar? Yeah, it's almost an exact copy of Goro vs Machamp, just with more furries in it, and the outcome, very much like Goro vs Machamp, is extraordinarily one-sided and for the exact same reasons: Incineroar outstats Kintaro HEAVILY and his arsenal gives him an edge not just in versatility, but in allowing Incineroar to just pile onto his already far higher stats with some of the boosting moves at the Heel Pokémon's disposal. And just like Machamp's Guts ability, Incineroar's Blaze ability would also screw Kintaro over even harder since it makes even hurting Incineroar a risky gambit- too much damage and Incineroar is gonna be able to throw out even more firepower. Even the animation potential is extremely similar. Yes, Incineroar and Kintaro don't fight exactly like Machamp and Goro but it's still a mostly melee brawl that would struggle to have much of its own identity from one of the best fights in Season 7.

While this fight could work as a DBX since it's certainly not a boring idea by any means, there just isn't any reason to do it when Goro vs Machamp has already answered who would win most, if not all Mortal Kombat vs Pokémon fights and the bar that fight set is too high to really be worth trying to jump. Both have more unique opponents anyways, with Incineroar having Leomon from Digimon, or if you really wanted Incineroar to fight a fighting game opponent then King from Tekken is a better option and in my opinion, the most interesting one he has, while Kintaro could fight Sagat from Street Fighter or even Tiger Claw from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Kintaro's other options may not be much but they at least do enough different to be worth a look, especially the latter. This fight isn't the worst case of utter redundancy that'll be covered on this list, but it's still the big thing that completely kneecaps this idea before it can even leave the starting gate.

22. Harley Quinn vs Domino (DC vs Marvel)[]

I'm just gonna say this right out of the starting gate: I have absolutely NO qualms with Marvel vs DC in Death Battle. It's a major rivalry, they have an absolutely monstrously sized line-up of characters of which DB has only scratched the surface and it's the thing that brings in the views and thus, the big bucks. They have a major incentive to do these matchups because of just how requested they are and how popular (or infamous) they get and if the matchup makes sense, I'm perfectly okay with that. Yes I do agree that the amount of these fights being pumped out should seriously be toned back but I don't see the point in hating an individual matchup or episode solely because of Marvel vs DC. Miles vs Static and Winter Solider vs Red Hood were great matchups that deserved to happen because... well, they were the characters' best matchup by an absolute longshot, so I didn't have any problems with them happening. That said though, where my problems do lie is when a fight is Marvel vs DC solely for the sake of the tradition. It's why I was so disappointed when Batgirl vs Spider-Gwen was announced given their far more creative options with Kim Possible and Jolyne Cujoh and why, as great as the episode was, I found Cable vs Booster underwhelming as a matchup when Cable had far superior choices himself, such as with Trunks. While I gave both episodes a chance and enjoyed them greatly, the matchups still felts like they weren't willing to get creative or try something unique. This matchup especially is a major case of "Marvel vs DC for the sake of Marvel vs DC" because when compared to some of the amazing ideas thrown around for Harley... wow, this might be one of the absolute dullest things I've seen in a while.

It's pretty surprising that Harley hasn't appeared in Death Battle yet given she's one of the most iconic characters in DC's repertoire, but it's thanks to that absence that she's managed to accrue many different matchup ideas. The two big ones at the moment are Juliet Starling from Lollipop Chainsaw and Tira from SoulCalibur, which are not only extremely unique franchise combinations but just great fights overall when considering their solid connections, surprising debatability, animation and dialogue potential and many other great qualities. While opinions may vary on which of the two are better (I personally prefer Tira but could happily take Juliet as a Harley opponent), the key thing that makes these two great is that one special word that's completely absent from Harley vs Domino's dictionary: creativity. The connections for Harley and Domino are weak and extraordinarily bland, the animation potential is there I guess but is hilariously average and has little unique to offer given Domino's thoroughly forgettable arsenal, the dialogue potential is... fine, but their personalities don't present nearly as many possible interactions as the bubbly Juliet or the crazy Tira, there's just nothing to this.

Even excluding those two though, it's still not one of Harley's best ideas. Jinx has way more dialogue potential and is far more unique, Amy Rose has better connections and better animation and dialogue potential, f*ck, even Gwenpool is better. Yes, Gwenpool vs Haruko is infinitely better but if there's one word I legally can not use to describe Harley vs Gwenpool, it's boring, unlike Domino where I'm falling asleep trying to think of things to say about it... either that or the sleeping pills are finally kicking in. Now I'm not saying the aforementioned alternatives are flawless or anything but all of them are at least somewhat interesting, fun and most importantly, UNIQUE. Harley vs Domino is as generic as it gets, which is the absolute last thing you want for one of the most fun characters DC has put out there. The worst part too is that I could very well see it happening. Juliet and Tira are requested, no doubt but neither have nearly the presence Marvel has, not helped by Domino's being a fairly major character in Deadpool 2, which only strengthens her chances of getting picked since so many more people know about her. Harley deserves better and while Domino doesn't really have much else outside of maybe Qrow, Juliet straight up has no better alternatives (Ash isn't a better alternative before you say anything) and while Tira also has Punchline, Harley is still arguably one of her only good picks, so even that excuse hardly works. There isn't much else to say on this fight so let's move on before I fall asleep just thinking abo-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

21. Mercy vs Medic (Overwatch vs Team Fortress)[]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz- ah, sh*t, where was I? Um, sorry let me look at the script here- *flicks through notes* ah, there we are- Mercy vs Medic!... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... (christ, I'm tired). Anyways, back on topic, I find most Overwatch vs Team Fortress to be really... meh, if I'm being real with you. Aside from maybe Spy vs Sombra, most of them are just kind of forgettable in my eyes- nothing offensively bad, just nothing I find particularly interesting. But this fight in particular has more problems than just 'lack of interest' because wow, it makes Harley vs Domino look like a f*cking roller coaster through the nine circles of Hell in comparison to this utter snoozefest.

The problem with this fight should be pretty apparent if you have even the vaguest knowledge of either character: they're support characters. Not to say they can't fight, but it only takes one look at their god damn names to see that that isn't what they're meant to do. Their jobs in their respective games is to act as their teams healers, keeping their fellow teammates healthy so that their tanks don't get so easily worn down and their attackers aren't running on extremely limited borrowed time... which obviously doesn't translate terribly well to a straight up one-on-one where they have no-one to heal except... IDK, each other if they just gave up the idea of winning for whatever reason. So right off the bat, the very basis of their arsenals and how they function as fighters is completely off the table so not a very a good start, but the rest of their toolset is so utterly barren that it fails to pick up the slack. Mercy's only real offensive tool is the Caduceus Blaster and I don't know about you, but 3 minutes of Mercy firing at the good doctor with just a pistol isn't really what I'd call fun. Medic is better in this regard since he actually has a decent amount of stuff to work with, but even then, his arsenal doesn't play off of Mercy's well at all and isn't interesting enough to carry the animation on its own.

Now yes, this fight has some pretty good dialogue potential all things considered and seeing Mercy's reactions to Medic's... less than ideal medical standards could be pretty funny, but dialogue potential can't hold a fight up on its own. Its a cherry on top of the sundae but you wouldn't order a bad sundae just for the f*cking cherry. This fight is on the lower end of the list since, besides the animation potential, there isn't too much horrifically wrong with this matchup. The connections are fine, it's not that much of a stomp, and the amount of alternatives they have is pretty small, with the only one I've seen being Medic vs Richtofen from Call of Duty. But if I'm being frank, the lack of competition isn't really the big problem here, it's the characters themselves. Mercy in my eyes just isn't DB worthy since her arsenal just lacks any real meat for a VS fight. That and look at the members of the Overwatch cast we're still waiting to see get in: D.Va, Reaper, Genji, Hanzo, Reinhardt, Winston, Junkrat, Zarya, Roadhog, and so many others that offer so, SO much more than what Mercy can without having to abandon what makes them stand out since what makes Mercy stand out just isn't suited to Death Battle's format. Medic is better in this regard but he's still arguably the second least interesting character from TF2 to bring in behind Engineer, since like Mercy, his primary purpose (his healing abilities) aren't suited to Death Battle. Still, Medic has enough that Richtofen would still be the more stand-out opponent for him, while Mercy offers nothing of interest. It's a case of a matchup existing purely because of their rivalry, even when all signs point to it having too many problems to stand on its own two feet.

20. Byleth vs Luminary (Fire Emblem vs Dragon Quest)[]

The first five entries for this list were just the warm-up, before we start taking a crack at some real stinkers. Kicking the top 20 off is a fight that belongs to one of the most controversial matchup archetypes around: the trend fight. You know the ones, the matchups that are brought into existence to ride off of the coattails of a recent event, in this case Byleth and Luminary's appearances as part of Smash Ultimate's first batch of DLC. The big thing that makes trend fights get so much flack is how reactionary they are: often being rushed out before any thought goes into other aspects such as their connections just to throw in an idea that has more relevance than any of their other ideas, which in my eyes sums up this matchup in a freaking nutshell.

So what are their connections, you may be asking?... Good question. Like no, for real, their similarities are absolutely paltry. From what I've seen, it's pretty much stuff like "silent protagonists of recent JRPGs who are the chosen ones and wield legendary weapons". Ignoring the obvious problem that Byleth is never referred to as "the Chosen One" and the only argument you could possibly make for them being one is gaining the Sword of the Creator (which still doesn't really involve being chosen given the reason they're able to use it but I digress), these aren't connections unique even amongst the exclusive circle of Smash's DLC fighters, since this could also be used to describe Joker (minus the legendary weapon bit unless you want to stretch and call the Wild Card a "legendary weapon"). None of these connections are at all unique and could apply to almost ANY protagonist, and go deeper at that. Throw a dart at a random JRPG in your collection...y'know, as you do and chances are, you'd hit one who's main character fills any of the above mentioned criteria (aside from being recent which even then, that connection is hardly gonna last long). It doesn't even make for a unique or interesting theme in any way, shape or form. And none of this is getting into the other major problem with this fight: it is an absolutely MASSIVE stomp for Luminary. Byleth is fairly comfortably in country level with MHS or even FTL speeds, but Luminary absolutely dunks on that with low MULTIVERSAL power and MFTL speeds (assuming VSBW isn't bullsh*tting me). Combine this with Luminary's far more expansive and versatile arsenal and you have a recipe for "Jesus Christ, what did Byleth ever do to you?".

Now in fairness, one thing that can't be denied with this fight is that it does have a lot of animation potential, between the insane amounts of weapons at Byleth's disposal and the ridiculous amounts of spells Luminary has. But if the fight a). has no good connections, b). isn't even that thematic, and c). is a major sh*tstomp, then animation potential is hardly a leg you're gonna have much luck standing on. It may be the single most important aspect of a matchup in my opinion but flour is also the single most important ingredient of a cake and good luck trying to make a cake with nothing but flour. Byleth vs Rean may also be pretty one-sided (albeit to a FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR smaller degree) but that fight has something that this one can only dream of: CONNECTIONS. Byleth and Rean have similarities beyond just "recent JRPG protagonists" (namely that both are instructors at prestigious military academies that utilize an ancient power for combat purposes and have a special psychic link with another being), and that's just scratching the surface, unlike Byleth vs Luminary where the only thing below the surface is a big fat pile of nothing. Squint your eyes and you can see the idea going into this, but all in all, there's way more problems with this fight than there are benefits and when Byleth has such a good opponent standing right there in the corner, then I have little reason to give that up in favour of this. f*ck, if you really wanted a good Fire Emblem vs Dragon Quest fight, just do Marth vs Erdrick. Yes it's also a stomp but at least they have actually decent connections as opposed to this.

19. Spawn vs Doomslayer (Image vs Doom)[]

Spawn is gonna return to Death Battle sooner or later- it's inevitable really. While Kratos may have had some connections with Spawn, it's hard to deny that they could have done a whole lot better when it came to who to pit Spawn against given Spawn's reputation as not only one of the most badass comic book characters around, but also one of the most ludicrous and broken characters around. There are three big opponents currently making the rounds for him: Ghost Rider from Marvel, Demi-Fiend from Shin Megami Tensei, and Doomslayer from... well, Doom. Ghost Rider makes a lot of sense. Yes he had a perfectly satisfactory fight with Lobo but Spawn does enough different and in some cases better that I'd be happy seeing Johnny return to take him on, even if it isn't immediately because of how recently Ghost Rider appeared. Demi-Fiend is my absolute favourite Spawn opponent because... well, obvious SMT bias is obvious, but also because the animation potential is just downright insane. Doomslayer though... just feels so out of place in this trio and honestly, compared to the other two just feels like the same problem that plagued Kratos vs Spawn: a fight that technically wasn't bad but just had no reason to exist over clearly superior options.

The connections for Spawn and Doomslayer are that they were both marines who ventured into and royally f*cked up Hell... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's about it. Now to be fair, as a main connection this isn't bad and it is certainly thematic... but let's look at the connections for Spawn's other opponents, starting with Ghost Rider. Both Spawn and Ghost Rider ended up merged with a demonic entity by the devil himself (Spawn being given a symbiotic suit and Ghost Rider being fused with Zarathos) after selling their souls, later even overthrowing the devil in combat. Both also specialise in soul and chain based abilities for combat... sooooooooooooo not a good start. What about Demi-Fiend then? Both Spawn and Demi-Fiend were killed and brought back to life by the devil, though in a new form gained from a parasite (Spawn's aforementioned suit and Demi-Fiend's Magatama). They roam their world in a new light from before their death (Spawn coming back several years after his passing and Demi-Fiend returning to his world after it got turned inside out... literally) and grew to be so overwhelmingly powerful, both the forces of heaven and hell grew to fear and oppose them... welp.

But okay, a fight doesn't necessarily need to have better connections to be a superior choice. Is this fight closer than those two?... Yeah, not even close. Even if you buy universe level Doomslayer, it amounts to absolutely f*ck-all because Spawn is still way too powerful for him, way WAY too fast and haxes Doomslayer's f*cking balls off. Even with the Unmaker, Spawn barely even has to try in this fight because Doomslayer is punching so far above his weight class here. Now again, look at Ghost Rider and Demi-Fiend. Ghost Rider makes for a legitimately debatable fight given just how insanely powerful Zarathos is and how Johnny's Penance Stare is pretty much an instant win if it lands, even if whether it lands is somewhat of a question mark. Meanwhile, while Spawn vs Demi-Fiend is pretty clear-cut, it isn't a stomp by any means and Spawn certainly puts up a decent fight against Naoki and certainly more of one than most of Demi-Fiend's options. The same goes for the animation potential. Compared to the soul-destroying, inferno creating destruction of Ghost Rider or the hax-abusing, magic slinging versatility and insanity of Demi-Fiend, Doomslayer is just so plain it hurts. It's mostly just guns and a chainsaw, which is fine... but when your opponent is a haxxy god of death and destruction and all that jazz and his opponents are also like that, a few firearms suddenly don't look all that impressive.

The only thing that keeps this matchup from being any higher on the list is that Doomslayer's other options are... well, pretty dismal. The best he really has is Master Chief for a rematch, which I'm absolutely not thrilled about the idea of if I'm being honest. That said, with Chief's own lack of good alternatives (let alone alternatives that don't stomp him equally as hard), I'd still rather that than waste Spawn on him, and like with Harley vs Domino, the "only option" excuse doesn't fly well here either. Ghost Rider may have already fought Lobo but Spawn brings enough unique to the table that even Lobo didn't bring out that he's more than worth bringing back to fight him, which the other options for Ghost Rider... well, don't. As for Demi-Fiend, his other options simply pale in comparison, either in terms of closeness, connections, animation potential, some combo of the above or just simply having better for themselves, and given that Demi-Fiend is arguably the most iconic non-Persona character in SMT (which I should note is a massive series that despite its niche status, was still majorly influential as a whole), why leave him out for such a comparatively bland fight? That's really the big thing that kills this fight in my eyes: it just feels like an alternative that exists solely to be an alternative, and it's not like Spawn doesn't have better opponents in this regard either. Asura, Chakravartin, Etrigan, Dark Schneider or even Ragna are better in this regard since they at least match Spawn in ridiculousness. The best way I can describe Spawn vs Doomslayer is too liken it to bread... shut up, I know where I'm going with this! If Ghost Rider vs Spawn were a beautifully textured, buttery brioche and Spawn vs Demi-Fiend were a strange at first but unique and delectable chocolate babka, then Spawn vs Doomslayer is like a plain piece of brown bread. Like yeah, if it was just there on its own with nothing to compare then it wouldn't be hurting anyone but... you really gonna take plain brown bread over two options that good that are right there in front of you?

18. Madoka Kaname vs Reimu Hakurei (Puella Magi Madoka Magica vs Touhou Project)[]

I said it in my middle wanted matchups blog a while back but I'll say it again since it's relevant here as well. You're likely in one of two camps: either the camp that believes Sailor Moon's best opponent is Pegasus Seiya or the camp that believes her best opponent is Madoka Kaname, and as I've made clear in the past, I am very much in the latter category. Moon vs Madoka has really great connections, is extremely thematic, has phenomenal animation potential and absolutely god-like music potential (no pun intended). The thing is though, like with a lot of "you're in one of two camps" ordeals, a lot of the people in one camp absolutely despise the matchup that makes up the other. That said though, I don't hate Pegasus vs Moon. I don't love it by any means and ever since I made my middle wanted blog, Shazam has become my favourite Pegasus opponent but I get the appeal as much as I get the disdain. The connections are pretty weak but the theming is rock solid. The animation potential isn't as bad in my opinion as some make it out to be but it is pretty stompy. I get why some like it, and some dislike it, I get why some love it and some hate it, I get why some absolutely swear by it and some would rather shove a Star Seed up their ass than see it, you get the picture by now. Now with all of that said... did someone on the Pegasus vs Moon camp come up with this just to say Madoka has someone other than Moon to justify Pegasus fighting her instead? Because that really feels like the only reason this matchup exists because holy sh*t, it is absolutely terrible.

So what are the connections between Madoka and Reimu? They're both magical girls... and that's your lot. Like for real, their personalities aren't similar, their stories aren't similar, their fates aren't similar, their weapons aren't similar, there is so little these two have in common that it's almost comical. Even then... magical girls? Really? Oh yeah, that's totally unique. Not like there's an entire freaking GENRE revolving around that. Yeah Reimu fights gods on the daily but a). Madoka doesn't so that's not a connection and b). just because a character fights a specific character archetype doesn't mean that a character of that archetype is automatically a thematic opponent, otherwise the Monster Hunter vs Dracula would be a thematic fight.

So okay, the connections aren't... good, but is this fight at least closer than Moon vs Madoka... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaahhh, no. Reimu can reach the higher end of universal, while Madoka can get up to the high end of multiversal, while also being omnipresent vs Reimu's, at best, MFTL speeds... so that's not good. Now yeah, Moon still clearly dies to Madoka but she's well above even Reimu in strength (if you buy low multi Sailor Moon because of the Animamates) and has a downright stupidly long list of hax, so she'd still put up more of a fight. And yeah, animation potential is once again perfectly fine with this fight but it still wouldn't be able to reach the utterly ludicrous heights of ridiculousness than Moon's encounter with Madoka would bring, and as previously mentioned with Byleth vs Luminary, animation potential alone isn't gonna save a fight. Rayquaza vs Iron Man has decent animation potential and you'd have a seriously hard time convincing me that that's a good idea.

I could go on but honestly, there isn't much else I can say that Moe didn't already cover her in own blog, given her own hatred for this fight (link here). What I can say though is that ever since that blog, this fight has become even more invalid thanks to the rise of a far more popular and far better opponent for Reimu: Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. Now yes, that fight is also a massive stomp but their connections are actually rock solid (both being guardians of the spirit world tasked with fending off dangerous spirits that threaten the spirit and human worlds, who specialise in projectiles drawn from their spiritual energy and are generally headstrong and pretty lazy despite their highly important roles). Plus, with Yusuke's list of good opponents pretty much starting and ending with Ichigo (who the DB crew have already said they're likely not gonna do since they indirectly answered it already), Reimu is pretty much an ideal choice for one of the most popular shonen protagonists, and absolutely not for Madoka when Sailor Moon is standing right there and outclasses her so thoroughly in every possible category. If the consequence for not doing this fight is that Moon fights Pegasus and returns for Madoka later or vice versa, then that is a price I am more than willing to pay. Well, at least there isn't any other matchups on this list that are just extremely bad replacements for far better matchups with a controversial reputa- *looks at notes again and sees what's next*... F**K!!!!!!

17. Blaze vs Azula (Sonic the Hedgehog vs Avatar: The Last Airbender)[]

I'm about to say something possibly controversial... I don't get the pushback against Blaze vs Starfire... thanks for listening to my possibly controversial TED Talk.

Nah but for real, Blaze vs Starfire is anything but perfect and it has some notable flaws but I personally feel like it's been getting unfairly dogged on for the most nitpicky of reasons (like how Starfire doesn't actually use fire which... I get since it's a commonly spread misconception, even by myself, but why does that negate their other connections?). The thing about the pushback though that really baffled me though was how this matchup, of ALL things, was being pushed as a big reason why Blaze vs Starfire shouldn't happen, and with all due respect... how? How is this an improvement in ANY way? You know what actually, let's break it down and see what this fight does that Blaze vs Starfire doesn't:

Connections: Blaze and Starfire are both teenage princesses that hail from another world who join a rag-tag group of heroes in the fight against a greater threat. Nothing too special but it's decently thematic at least. Now let's look at Azula: Teenage princesses who specialise in pyromancy and debuted the same year... yeah that's about it. The connections for Azula and Blaze are simply not even close to being as unique and even the few similarities it does have can be argued to be shared by the former. The Teen Titans cartoon that most know Starfire from came out two years before Sonic Rush, so it's still in a similar sweet-spot for time. And yes, Starfire isn't specifically a pyromancer but not only do some versions of her literally have fire in her f*cking hair, but she still utilises heat-based abilities (namely with ultra-violet rays). Yeah these two aren't as strong overall as with Azula, but paired with the more unique and interesting "otherworldly princesses" connection, they make for a far stronger theming and overall set than what Azula offers.

Animation Potential: Simply put, Starfire's flight, martial arts prowess and ranged abilities compliment what Blaze has at her disposal far better than the far more limited Azula, who really only brings fire, lightning and a few martial arts moves into the picture, the latter of which Starfire already covers. Normal Blaze could work decently well with Azula (still not as well in my opinion but still fine enough) but when Burning Blaze comes in, it's no contest: Starfire would make for a far more interesting fight since she can actually keep up with Blaze's flight, unlike Azula who's flight is far more limited. It's not awful by any means but Starfire simply offers more in this field. None of this is even getting into who else Azula has to work with but one step at a time.

Closene-*wheezing* Hahahahahahhahahaha, yeah f**king right, this isn't even a contest. Word from the wise (and by wise I mean the idiot that came up with Ben vs Yu), if you're pitting a character against someone who could legitimately sweep their entire verse without any effort, without even needing their strongest ability, you might want to go back to the drawing board. We're comparing someone who is town level with MHS speeds, to someone who can get to LARGE PLANET LEVEL with FTL speeds... yeah, that sounds fair. And did I mention this is without Burning Blaze? Yeah Starfire isn't a close fight either but it's f*cking Wally West vs Archie Sonic levels of close compared to this!

And like with Reimu, this fight also denies Azula her own fantastic matchup: Cinder Fall from RWBY, which has far better connections (both being evil, sad*stic pyromancers with other elements at their disposal, who are among the most trusted servants of a villain feared all throughout their respective worlds), the animation potential is way better since Cinder's moveset works way better off of Azula's than Blaze does, and most importantly, it's actually debatable, unlike this where the only debate is the best place to plant Azula's tombstone. f*ck, even DABI is a better Azula opponent despite that essentially being Zuko vs Todoroki 2.0, given it's still closer and more interesting thematically. I just... how is this supposed to be better than Starfire, who I should also note has very little else to work with herself (the only ones I've seen for her are Ahsoka, who has a better fight in Psylocke, and Gwen Tennyson, who in all honesty still isn't a major improvement in most areas (though fair is fair, it's not nearly as bad as this))?

But I know what some of you may be thinking, "Okay that's cool and all but... why is this higher than Madoka vs Reimu? Because from the way you described both Pit, that fight would seem to be the far worse offender here in the 'terrible replacement for another matchup' department". Well, it's for one very simple reason... a good alternative for Blaze ALREADY EXISTS!!! While I may prefer for her to fight Phoenix Ikki, Sailor Mars is far from a bad opponent for Blaze, with again far better connections, animation potential and closeness. At least Madoka lacked good alternatives to Moon even if Reimu was at the bottom of even that pile, but Blaze vs Azula can't even do that much right. Even if we were to say, just for the sake of benefit of the doubt, that it had better connections than Blaze vs Starfire, it wouldn't matter. Connections may be a big aspect of matchups, but they shouldn't be the sole thing that make one better than the other. A fight with better connections than the competition that's worse in every other way is still an inferior choice, and even when taking Starfire out of the equation, it still doesn't make up for all of the fight's other shortcomings such as how one-sided it is and how much better Mars and Cinder are as opponents respectively. Simply put, this fight is just a hot mess... yes that was intentional and no I don't regret it.

16. Iggy vs Morgana (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure vs Persona)[]

You know, it's funny. With my original list, I planned to put Yu vs Josuke on there but switched it to this at the last minute because I felt like my problems with that fight were more blatant here... and history repeated itself. I very nearly put Yu vs Josuke on here again given the long list of problems I have with the fight, but in the end, I felt it would just be redundant to do that when Iggy vs Morgana has essentially all of my problems with that fight and far more on top of them. I get that Jojo vs Persona is a big versus rivalry and all that but like with Mercy vs Medic, just because you can make a rivalry fight out of something, doesn't always mean you should, especially when the matchup that spawns from that is as bad as this one.

So what are Iggy and Morgana's connections? Animal companions... really, you shouldn't be surprised by this point that I'm bitching about shallow connections. Even if you wanted to argue that that was enough when mixed with the similarities between Jojo and Persona themselves, that doesn't matter because those aren't unique even to those franchises. Pet Shop and Koromaru also fall into those categories (Pet Shop to a lesser extent since he's a villain to the main cast rather than a companion but he's Dio's underling so it still kind of applies), and it isn't like their roles in their respective stories are in any way similar either. Their connections are just so shallow a leaf could touch the bottom of them, and it isn't like anything else this matchup offers makes up for it in any way.

Let's get the big one out of the way because this is a problem I have with most Jojo vs Persona matchups: it is an absolute sh*tSTOMP'S sh*tstomp. Iggy is at best multi-city block, while Morgana, at absolute bare minimum, can scale to SEES, who have a feat that reaches moon level... I repeat: MOON LEVEL!!! And that's the bare minimum, since there's more evidence pointing to Morgana being way stronger than even that, putting him anywhere from multi-solar system to even multiversal. And frankly, the animation potential doesn't do much to make up for it since the way I see it, it would mostly comprise of just wind and sand spam for three minutes, not helped by Iggy not being much of a fighter on his own and relying almost entirely on his Stand so not like he can contribute much. Morgana is better in this regard since he actually does fight alongside his Persona but assuming they don't want the fight to have Morgana hacking away at a dog that can't do much to fight back, there's very few interactions he could have by himself with The Fool in the way.

There really isn't that much else to go over in all honesty since a lot of the problems speak for themselves, but one other reason this fight is on here is, if I'm being totally frank, general bitterness. There are a lot of phenomenal matchups out there that just get shot down immediately solely because "they're too stompy", which... fine. I don't agree with disliking a fight just because of that but whatever, it's definitely a flaw a matchup can have, but when I see that argument get used and see fights like these pitting characters with up to 6 TIERS OF POWER BETWEEN THEM getting continuously pushed, I think you can imagine that that would be just a wee bit frustrating to see. It's the big thing that makes Jojo vs Persona a rivalry I've never had an interest in: it's bad enough I find most of them just generally uninteresting as a whole in terms of connections or animation potential but throw in how utterly unfair half of them are and it goes from an overlookable offense to a genuine problem, especially when it takes literally broken abilities like Golden Experience Requiem for the Jojo characters to even stand a chance, assuming they have anything even vaguely close to that in the first place. And it's not like Iggy is the only opponent Morgana has: Dex-Starr exists and is infinitely better. He has more interesting and unique connections to Morgana, makes for far better animation and interactions and is way way way way way way WAY closer (to the point I've even seen some people say it's a debatable fight).

Even amongst my dislike for Jojo vs Persona though, I can at least see the appeal for most of them. Joker vs Giorno is somewhat debatable (albeit for all the wrong reasons but it's something), Adachi vs Kira has fantastic dialogue potential, Yu vs Josuke... still kinda sucks but at least is decently thematic, but Iggy vs Morgana feels like a major case of scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel just to get every last drop out of a rivalry. And I know some of you are probably waiting to say Iggy doesn't have much better but if I'm being honest, while Iggy doesn't have the Mercy problem of being flat-out not DB worthy, he really isn't that big a priority compared to the rest of the Jojo cast. So far, we've only gotten Jotaro, with Dio soon on the way as well, which still leaves the likes of Jonathan, Joseph, Kars, Avdol, Polnareff, Kakyoin, Josuke, Okuyasu, Koichi, Kira, Giorno, Mista, Bruno, Diavolo, Jolyne, Pucci, the list goes on, almost all of whom have so many great matchups to work with that in my opinion, take priority over what little Iggy's list of options offer. If Iggy can find a more suitable opponent then f**k it, add him to the list but if this is all he has to work with, I'd rather just leave the dog outside instead, which ironically wouldn't be as cruel as making him fight a f*cking MOON TO MULTIVERSAL OPPON- yeah, you get it by now.

15. Shadow the Hedgehog vs Ryuko Matoi (Sonic the Hedgehog vs Kill la Kill)[]

THIS... This right here is the main reason as to why I wanted to remake this god damn list, because my original explanation for why I don't want this fight was utterly woeful. Well, now's the time to finally take a stab at this and put to rest why I can't f*cking stand this matchup. Yes, the fight has a lot of connections that are pretty strong. Yes, this fight has a lot of animation potential. But for the love of all that is holy in this world, SHADOW DOESN'T NEED TO COME BACK!!! I'm sorry, but he doesn't! He's already fought his best opponent in Mewtwo, and there is genuinely no good reason he needs to come back! And the reasons that have been given for why he should are just... you know what, one step at a time.

The most blatant issue with this fight is that it's, once again, a major stomp. Ryuko is multi-continent (though I've heard moon level for her as well) with relativistic speeds, while Shadow is large planet with FTL speeds. Doesn't sound that one-sided, right? It's clear cut but it isn't a sh*tstomp at all... this is base Shadow. Super Shadow just turns this fight so one-sided that it's not even funny, and base Shadow's hax alone leave Ryuko with barely anything she can do against him... but you want to know what part of that gets me the most? Shadow getting such an easy win in this fight has been spun several times... as a positive. This fight legitimately has several people clamouring for it so Shadow can get a win after losing to both Vegeta and Mewtwo, and I'm sorry but that is absolutely asinine and is a major display of one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to matchups: liking or disliking matchups based off of who wins and loses.

Let me be blunt here: Shadow doesn't deserve a free win- no character does, just as no character deserves a free loss. If they win, they win. If they lose, they lose. I don't care if it's a winning matchup for Myne or a losing matchup for Speedwagon, because something as subjective as your preferred character/series should NOT impact any other part of what makes a matchup great, and seeing this fight get continuously pushed so Shadow can get a win feels disrespectful both to Shadow AND to Ryuko. It feels disrespectful to Shadow because it feels like you're bringing him back just to get a sad consolation prize. If every character "deserved a win", that would just ruin half the tension of Death Battle when the idea that they'll just be brought back later to beat up someone else is constantly in the back of your mind. And I don't think I need to really even explain why it's disrespectful to Ryuko. Your effectively just bringing her in so she can get killed off for the other combatant's glory, which is even more galling when you consider that Ryuko has a decently long list of opponents that are actually close (such as Crona, Akame and Tatsumi), so kneecapping those fights so she can get steamrolled for a pity victory just feels even more insulting.

"But Pit", I hear you saying, "Shadow's had it rough in Death Battle. This is his chance to redeem himself and not just get a win, but finally have an episode that isn't sh*t". Okay, there are several things wrong with this argument:

1). Vegeta vs Shadow wasn't that bad. It's no masterpiece but it's honestly held up better than most of Season 1's fights and it's far from a terrible episode despite it technically having an incorrect outcome (keep in mind this is back when DB would have composited every character, including Archie Sonic which would have given Shadow a major stats edge). And as for Mewtwo vs Shadow, yes that episode was sh*t... so just remaster it. Like seriously, with the push for episodes like Master Chief vs Doomguy and Link vs Cloud to get remastered, why not do the same for the episode where we know exactly why it went so wrong (for those who don't know, the animator for Mewtwo vs Shadow had a mental breakdown, rushed the episode, turned in a half-finished assignment and never worked with Death Battle again)? There's more sense in fixing what was clearly broken than wasting Ryuko's more than likely only chance to appear in Death Battle (more on that later).

2). Shadow is not the only character to have died twice in Death Battle. Captain Marvel got murdered twice, Mega Man got mutilated twice, Charizard got destroyed twice in the same season, you get the point. He isn't special in this regard.

3). Bringing him back a third time doesn't mean he's gonna get a good episode out of it. Wonder Woman's first two fights weren't that good and bringing her back a third time just added another load of mediocrity to the steaming pile (and that was a recent fight too so the "better research and animation" excuse won't fly here).

4). There are so many characters that got shafted way harder than Shadow. Characters that either only have one of their worst matchups (ie. Guts), characters that only have a bad episode (ie. Ragna), characters who have both in their only appearance (ie. Tifa), or characters who were shafted with multiple bad matchups or episodes (ie. Thor). Shadow has had a decent episode AND his best matchup, so what makes him more worth bringing back than them? And last but certainly not least:

5). Ryuko. Has. Way. Better. Crona has almost all of the same connections, is closer and unlike Shadow, was stuck with one of their worst matchups. Masane has a lot of connections, more animation potential and is pretty much reliant on Ryuko to even get into Death Battle in the first place. Akame may not have many connections, but she has a decently close fight and way WAY more animation potential. Black Gold Saw, Mordred, Guyver, Black Rock Shooter, hell even f*cking Tatsumi is better with his solid connections, great animation potential and decently close encounter and I say that as someone who thinks Issei is too good an option for him to pass up. And aside from Crona, none of them have even appeared ONCE in Death Battle, let alone twice!

It's one thing that this matchup is so utterly unnecessary, but for it to be requested so often out of sheer spite pushes it over the edge and off a cliff in my eyes. I know not everyone wants this matchup solely just for reasons as petty as that. There are genuinely good things about this matchup and a lot of the matchups I've already gone over on this list are worse from a more objective point of view. But you really can't deny it: it's a huge catalyst for this matchup's popularity. Almost any reason I see for why this fight should happen is because "Shadow this, Shadow that" and almost none of it is for Ryuko, when there's so many reasons why this is such an absolute waste for her. "But Pit", I hear you say yet again, "They could just bring Ryuko back after this fight", to which I say: Yes, they could. A meteor in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine could also strike the Earth right now but that doesn't mean it will! Between the DB crew's lack of knowledge on Kill la Kill and the fact that none of Ryuko's matchups are likely to retain their popularity after she gets in, her odds of appearing twice are absolutely paltry, so wasting her on Shadow when she has so much better, including characters like Masane who are basically never getting into Death Battle without Ryuko's help, just feels like a complete middle finger to her. f*ck, if you just had to bring Shadow back for whatever reason, then just let him fight Roxas instead. It's nothing special mind you but Roxas doesn't really have anyone else so it's not even close to being as big a waste... (oh trust me, I'll get to THAT one later).

Let's also not forget that there are so many Sonic characters that still haven't even been touched yet: Rouge, Omega, Espio, Vector, Mephiles, Infinite, Enerjak, Scourge, Fang, just to name a few. Many of them have great matchups still waiting to be explored in Death Battle: Rouge vs Sly, Omega vs Robo, Espio vs Greninja, Mephiles vs Cetrion, Enerjak vs Drakkon... but no, let's just focus on the one that's already appeared twice and has already fought their most thematic opponent. Shadow has had plenty of time in the spotlight so can we please, PLEASE talk about someone else for a change and not just dumpster Ryuko like that? She deserves better and Shadow deserves better than a victory handed to him out of pity, like a boxer with a losing streak fighting the accountant so they can finally have some kind of victory regardless of how unfair it feels. I'll continue to say it until I am blue in the face: Shadow does not need to come back.

14. Noctis vs 2B (Final Fantasy vs Nier)[]

If you recall on my original least wanted list, I summed up my feelings towards this fight within the first sentence: "I don't get this one". Well... now I know how this fight came to be (or should I say came 2B) and let me just say... it did nothing to help me understand the popularity of this fight. The story behind this, as I've been told, is that a user on this site came up with the idea after having played Final Fantasy XV simply because they wanted to find an opponent for 2B and it made sense as a way to capitalise on the popularity of both games. From there, its popularity somehow managed to explode, to the point where it even received a DBX episode and became the most popular matchup both had... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then this fight's creator regretted coming up with it when they came to the realisation that they had virtually no connections... yeah, sounds about right (not that I can judge given the sh*t I've tried spreading around before but we'll get there when we get there).

It's a shame honestly because I wanted this fight to work- I honest to God wanted to like this fight because it seems like so much fun on the surface... but none of that can mask just how truly poor this fight is in almost every conceivable area.

People have tried to justify this by finding any connections possible but the sad truth is, there's almost nothing these two have in common to remotely make this a superior choice to the competition. The connections are basically "Square Enix main characters that wear black and use lots of weapons"... that's really about it. Not only are the connections absolutely miniscule, they're not even the slightest bit unique or interesting. It's all surface level stuff that almost never goes deeper and everything else about them couldn't be more different if you tried. They don't have the same personality, they don't undergo the same type of quest, they don't have the same end result, they're not similar at all in anything that isn't shared with a billion other video game characters. And yeah, there IS a reference to Final Fantasy XV in Nier Automata in the form of one of the weapons in the game but if a reference to another game is enough to make a good matchup then Mario vs Cecil Harvey would be a top tier idea.

So okay, the connections are... well, bad, but is this fight at least close?... You really still asking this late into the list. It's an extremely clear victory for Noctis, who takes about every stat advantage while having hax that would royally screw 2B up. It isn't the biggest stomp on the list but it's a stomp nonetheless, and one accompanied by utterly dire connections with no real theming to them. Animation potential is once again fine, but still fails to make up for every other problem this matchup has.

And now for everyone's favourite daily program on the PitTheGaylord station: The superior alternatives to this complete shambles. Raiden has far more connections, including being from the same company (yeah they were published by different companies but they were both the leads in games designed by Platinum Games), is far closer and has arguably even more animation potential. Penny is far closer thanks to the recent RWBY buffs, has more connections and is generally more unique as a whole, Alita is even stompier but has better connections and animation potential, and my personal favourite, Officer Howard, has far FAR superior connections (yet again, accompanied by being from the same company since Platinum Games also made Astral Chain), is far closer again and has arguably way more insane animation potential.

Meanwhile for Noctis, Chrom has better connections, is closer, and would arguably have better dialogue potential, Ludger doesn't have anyone else, has more connections, is closer and just generally more interesting, and Shirou Emiya is... pretty much the ideal opponent for him: decently close, fantastic animation potentialm godlike music potential, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better connections, yeah you get the idea by now. And thus concludes today's episode of "The superior alternatives to this complete shambles". Tune in tomorrow where we'll be covering an even larger pile of mammoth dung.

While this fight may be losing quite a bit of steam on this site in terms of popularity, don't forget that many other places to discuss Death Battle matchups exist and many of them still peg both of these two as the best for the other, when in reality there is so little meat to this matchup's bones that you could get away with calling it vegan-friendly. Notice how all of the matchups I mentioned 2B and Noctis having have amazing animation potential ON TOP of actual connections, some of which are even decently close and ALL of which have some sort of theme to them? Yeah, so hopefully you can see how this fight having some good potential for a great fight to watch suddenly isn't such an attractive prospect when everything else about it is so utterly barren.

13. Vega vs Baraka (Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat)[]

Remember how I said in the Mercy vs Medic segment that just because you can make a rivalry fight, doesn't always mean you should? Yeah, here's the thing... at least Mercy vs Medic actually made sense beyond being a rivalry fight. Yeah, the animation potential killed it outright but at least it had actual connections and decent theming. Vega vs Baraka is what happens when you try your f*cking damndest to squeeze every last drop out of a rivalry without taking... anything else that could possibly be scrutinised about it into account, because this fight makes absolutely no sense even with the rivalry between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat in mind.

So what are the connections between these two? They both work for their games' main antagonists... okay, kinda small but not terrible so far. They both use claws for combat... no they f*cking don't. Vega has claws, Baraka uses retractable arm blades which good luck making a serious case for those being exactly like what Vega's packing. Um... they, uh... ugh... yeah, they really don't have a lot in common... like, at all. The only real connection between them is being a villain's underling, which isn't exactly unique in either series, let alone gaming or fiction in general. What gets me too is that this fight is also treated as a battle of opposites (given Vega's beauty and Baraka's hideousness) but the problem with that is that the fight has to have actual connections for it to be a good battle of opposites.

Captain America vs Deathstroke works as a battle of opposites because they were both soldiers in the military despite having no business being there, who were given a serum that turned them into unstoppable super soldiers (and also being in love with a commanding officer). Where they're opposites is how Captain America is a paragon of heroism and selflessness while Deathstroke... I mean, come on, does the name "Deathstroke the Terminator" sound heroic to you? Same with Dunban vs Baiken: Both lost the use of their right arm, as well as their family when their colonies were attacked and seek revenge on the one who stole the lives of their loved ones, with Dunban being a calm and collected leader figure and Baiken being a hot-headed lone-wolf. Even with matchups that already happened like Carnage vs Lucy or Gray vs Esdeath, they had some decent similarities between them (be it Carnage and Lucy being psychotic murderers who spread their kind through their tendril like appendages, or Gray and Esdeath being tattooed cryomancers who were spurred on to become stronger by the death of their mentor) which helped to create an interesting juxtaposition in how they take these connections in completely opposite directions (given Carnage embraces his murderous nature while Lucy seeks redemption for it, and Gray is a strong-willed fighter out to protect his friends while Esdeath is a psychotic general that enjoys the suffering of others). Vega and Baraka just don't have this. They have so little in common that labelling it a "battle of opposites" only serves to highlight just how little they really have in common.

It isn't even like this fight has much else going on though. It's another stomp given that Vega t-poses on Baraka in terms of stats and the animation potential is just... really average. Like, it's nothing offensively bad but neither really have much going on in their arsenals. They're both pretty bare-bones as a whole, especially when compared to the rest of their series' cast and there isn't really anything unique about how they could interact, like how Balrog made up for his bare-bones arsenal by presenting the opportunity for a boxing match, which was taken full advantage of when he fought TJ. Sooooooooooooooo it's a connectionless stomp that doesn't even have great animation potential... yikes.

And you know the drill by now, there are several better ideas for Vega too. Zhang He from Dynasty Warriors has actual connections (given he actually uses claws and has a similarly narcissistic personality to Vega) while also being closer and more interesting visually given the insanity that Dynasty Warriors is known for, and Voldo from SoulCalibur has... literally the same connections Baraka has (and I mean, actually has them since he actually has claws), has the same battle of opposites shtick since Voldo is one freaky looking motherf*cker and his weird movements and fighting style lends itself to a more unique and interesting fight. f*ck, if you really had to put Vega against a Mortal Kombat character... just put him against Kabal. He at least has more tangible connections and more interesting animation potential, while still maintaining the SFvMK rivalry.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking: "But Pit, Baraka doesn't have anyone else to work with besides Wolverine... and why the f*ck would you pit him against Wolverine?". True, Baraka lacks any solid alternatives but let me, in turn, ask you this... is Baraka really that big a priority to get into Death Battle? Like, no offence if you like Baraka but... really? Baraka... over Liu Kang, Kitana, Jade, Mileena, Quan Chi, Shinnok, D'Vorah, Cetrion, Kano, Kabal, Smoke, Cyrax, Noob Saibot, Ermac, Kenshi, Reptile, and several other members of the Mortal Kombat cast with actually good matchups like Kitana vs Lucina, or Cetrion vs Mephiles, or Noob vs Reaper, just to name a few. Like with Iggy, I'd rather he just sit this one out until an actually good opponent for him is found than waste Vega on what is clearly such a poor choice for him.

But what confuses me most is how this matchup is treated like the be-all end-all fight for both characters. Even when options like Voldo or Zhang He dangle right in front of people's faces, this matchup is constantly used as the reason why those have no business happening over it and I just don't see how. Like with Shadow vs Ryuko, it represents another pet peeve of mine: the "*insert matchup here* or bust" mentality. Look, I get it, some matchups are so good that there's little reason you would ever want to pass it up. Even if Ryuko vs Tatsumi has its perks and is a genuinely great matchup in a vacuum, Issei vs Tatsumi is too ideal for me to really want it myself. But that's the thing: at least give the matchup a chance before jumping to conclusions. It annoys me to see genuinely cool and unique ideas just dismissed so arrogantly because "this other matchup or bust", even when the matchup that they're saying "this or bust" to is as unimaginative and bland as this. I'm not saying you can't have preferences and I'm no stranger to giving ideas the thumbs down because of a preferred option, but at least preference is an actual reason to not want an idea, instead of something as dismissive as... yeah, you get the point by now. This matchup just has absolutely nothing of major worth going for it and seeing it get continually pushed as "the bar" for all Vega matchups to jump when a crippled slug could jump over it continues to baffle me. So moral of the story... um, be more willing to give an idea a chance instead of just dismissing it because of something that already exists... also, f**k this matchup.

12. Batman vs Iron Man (DC vs Marvel)[]

... Seriously? Shadow coming back a third time isn't pointless enough? Do we really need Batman back a FOURTH GODDAMN TIME?! He didn't even really need to come back after fighting Spiderman, he certainly didn't need to come back after fighting Captain America and he absolutely does not, in any universe, timeline or plane of existence, need to come back after fighting Black Panther, let alone for a fight that has serious problems even disregarding how many times Bruce has shown up, but absolutely exemplified when taking the utter redundancy of this matchup into account.

Even the theme of this matchup is redundant. It pretty much boils down to "comic book billionaires in combat suits"... that was literally both of their last fights. Both Iron Man vs Lex Luthor AND Black Panther vs Batman already had this theme and worked better for both when it came to animation potential (more on that later). Now yes, the theme being the exact same isn't necessarily the end of the world- Scarlet Witch vs Zatanna is my most wanted Marvel vs DC matchup and that has the same theme as Dr. Strange vs Dr. Fate... but let me explain why that fight gets a pass despite that and this doesn't:

A). Scarlet Witch vs Zatanna is the best matchup for both. Spiderman was a better opponent for Bruce and Iron Man himself has better.

2). Scarlet Witch vs Zatanna at least doesn't share a theme with a matchup either were already in.

D). Scarlet Witch vs Zatanna isn't bringing two returning combatants back, let alone one who appeared THREE TIMES ALREADY!? Like, Iron Man I'd be cool with seeing back given that Lex wasn't really the best they could have chosen, but can we f*cking leave Bruce alone for a second?!

And while we're on the subject of leaving Bruce alone, can we maybe not stick him in one of the stompiest Marvel vs DC fights to date please? IDK, that might be appreciated. At best, Batman sits at MCB level with MHS speeds. All of Bruce's opponents so far sat at around Town level with FTL speeds (though I've heard arguments for Spidey going higher than Town). So all of his fights have been fairly clear-cut, but nothing extraordinarily stompy... so with that said, can someone please explain to me why you would then have Bruce fight a guy that can pull Country level feats on a bad day and has suits that can contend with f*cking heralds?! Tony's stats eclipse Bruce's so hard it's almost frightening. Even the animation potential fails to make up for it. Like, it's fine I guess but their arsenals just don't have that much synergy between them. It's pretty much an expert martial artist with ninja tricks and gear fighting a flying robot man with lasers and occasional building sized suits. The DBX has already shown off most of what this fight can accomplish anyways, so it's even more pointless and an absolutely hilarious waste of Iron Man's extremely likely return to Death Battle.

Samus is closer and makes for better animation potential, X is far closer and also has far superior animation potential and while Erza may still get stomped, she still puts up more of a fight than Bruce ever could, while also having a more unique theme, animation potential and dialogue potential. f*ck, if you just had to have Batman come back- like the Swedish mafia or something were threatening to take your kneecaps if Batman didn't get back in a fourth time- Iron Man still wouldn't be the best option for such a hyper-specific scenario. Solid Snake would make for better animation potential, is actually close and would be something different from Bruce fighting a fourth Marvel character, let alone the most one-sided one he'd be against to date.

There just isn't much to say on this matchup. It's already a sh*tstomp that has okay at best animation potential, but throw in the amount of times Batman has already appeared and it just becomes so much goddamn worse. I get that Batman is one of the most iconic comic book characters out there and is one of the characters that brings in the mad bucks with each appearance he has... but for f*ck's sake, something different would be appreciated. Let Bruce just sit back and not have to worry about losing another limb, while Iron Man fights one of the several more unique options at his disposal that he can't just kill with a snap of his fingers... wait.

11. Ridley vs Rayquaza (Metroid vs Pokémon)[]

Greek... I know we tend to disagree on a lot of things... but if there is one thing that you and I can both absolutely agree on without a second thought, it's that this matchup... oh my god is it terrible. Let's get the obvious one out of the way: the connections for this fight are utterly rancid. They're both dragons from Nintendo that appeared as bosses in Super Smash Bros Brawl... what, did you expect more than that? Like I'm sorry but... NINTENDO DRAGONS!!? THAT'S IT!? Oh yeah, these two are TOTAAAAAAAAALLY the only two dragons Nintendo has ever made. It's not like there's also dragons that have appeared in other Nintendo franchises... except for Mario, Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, Kirby, Kid Icarus, Mother, just to name, y'know, a few. And no, being bosses from Brawl doesn't excuse how little there is to their connections otherwise. If that was enough to excuse similarly meager connections then Dracula vs Marx would be a good matchup because "they're magic wielding villains who were bosses in Smash" or Bowser vs Rathalos because "they're reptilian enemies who were bosses in Smash". The connections are just so, SO bad... and that's only scratching the surface because the animation potential isn't very good either.

I know we all make the joke of "haha, Ridley 2 big 4 Smash" but when you take a step back and look at it... Ridley's f*cking tiny. He's one of the smallest bosses in all of Metroid and compared to Rayquaza, he's a total shrimp. Combine this with Rayquaza's awkward to work with body shape and you have a recipe for a matchup with absolutely paltry potential for melee interactions between the two, leaving them with little option but to fill the fight with mostly ranged attacks. Problem with that, however, is that THAT'S NOT RIDLEY'S STYLE!!! Ridley is all about getting in your face with vicious, fast offense like an apex predator. Yes he does have ranged attacks but they're not his main means of attack, so this fight essentially forces Ridley to be... well, not Ridley in order to make it even somewhat work. Rayquaza is better in this regard since it's special movepool is quite vast but it would still ultimately just be mostly beam spam and is just awkward as f*ck to make work, let alone make interesting.

Oh, and it's also a stomp. Yeah their stats aren't that dissimilar in base but Mega Rayquaza obliterates Ridley in almost every category that isn't intellect, and Rayquaza's stat amps let it tear Ridley a new asshole anyways. And do I even need to say it at this point? The better options for these two are too numerous to name. Ridley has a far fairer fight in Vilgax, whom he also has better connections and animation potential with, K.Rool does the "Smash connections" thing better while having more unique similarities at that (because at least "Nintendo's reptile pirates" is still more unique than "Nintendo dragons"), and has more entertaining potential in their interactions given their polar opposite personalities, f*cking Metal Face has better connections and animation potential, Predaking, Andross, Clockwerk, Lord Dominator, these are all characters that make more sense for Ridley to fight! Hell, if you just had to have Ridley fight a Pokémon of some kind... just stick him against Naganadel. Not only is it closer and not only does Naganadel have no-one else, but even their connections are better (since they're Nintendo dragons who are also aliens AND evolved from a much more harmless species).

And as for Rayquaza... for God's sake people, Bahamut is RIGHT THERE!!! Not only does Bahamut have actual connections with Rayquaza (both being draconic deities among the strongest of their kind (Pokémon and Summons respectively) that only lend their powers to those worthy of them), but the fight is far more debatable and Bahamut's more insane list of moves make for FAR more animation potential that makes up for the wonky melee interaction potential (not that it's even as bad given Bahamut's more comparable size to Rayquaza than the far smaller Ridley). That and who the f*ck else is Bahamut gonna fight? Godzilla?

I just... how is this fight so requested? Better yet, how is this the most requested matchup that the Sky High Pokémon has when shovelware on the Virtual Boy would have more value than any aspect of this matchup? This matchup is such an ungodly waste of one of the most badass Pokémon around, to say nothing of how much it wastes Ridley too when he has too many great matchups to name. The connections are f*cking pitiful, the animation potential is poor and would essentially need to go against one of the fighters' fighting style to have any semblance of a chance of working, it isn't even debatable... what the hell else is there that makes this matchup good? Music potential? Like it's fine I guess but... you look me dead in the eye and tell me Rayquaza vs Bahamut has less music potential than this. That and if something as comparatively minor as music potential is all a matchup has going for it, then that's when you know it's flat out beyond salvaging. I just... I don't... ugh, let's just move on before I pop a blood vessel.

10. Sephiroth vs Suigintou (Final Fantasy vs Rozen Maiden)[]

So I know what some of you may be thinking looking at this: "Pit... what the hell is this? Since when was this a requested matchup? And who the hell is the one on the right anyway?". Weeeeeeellllllllll, do you remember on Moe's least wanted list, she mentioned that she used to be a die-hard supporter of Les Stroud vs Bear Grylls before dropping it harder than a TV station still showing the Cosby Show? Yeah, this is pretty much to me what that matchup was to her. If anyone has been around here for any length of time longer than me, then you've probably seen that Rozen Maiden is an anime I absolutely adore and consider my all time favourite. Now, would you believe me if I said I used to be even more obsessed with it? Because around 4-5 years ago, not too long after I first watched the series, I used to be f*cking bonkers for Rozen Maiden and for the longest time, this was the only matchup I had ever seen suggested for the series. As a result, I was absolutely desperate to see this matchup happen so Rozen Maiden would finally appear on Death Battle. f*ck, if you dig deep enough, you can find comments from me from half a decade ago where I requested this matchup (long before I officially joined the wiki). In all honesty, I'm happy nowadays that Sephiroth ended up fighting Vergil instead because it was the reality check I needed to step back and realise just how absolutely atrocious this thing is.

Their connections? They look similar- that's it! Nothing f*cking else about them is even remotely alike. Not their personalities, not their backstories, not their arsenals, not their fates, not their relationships, not their hopes, not their dreams, not their secret racist opinions, not their love of stealing jokes from Zero Punctuation, nothing! Even the few most minute of similarities between them are stretches that Luffy wouldn't be able to achieve after years of yoga! The only even vaguely unique connection they have is being made to be the perfect blank (the perfect monster for Sephiroth and the perfect girl for Suigintou) but even that's off. One was an attempt to make a new genus of Cetra to obtain Mako energy, while the other... was just a way to bring some f**ker's daughter back.

But connections isn't the only place where this matchup falls apart like a skyscraper built atop a pile of wet tissue paper because this fight is also an absolute godstomp. It's not even funny how hard Sephiroth utterly smashes Suigintou to pieces: annihalating her in attack power, stone-walling her in defense, blitzing her harder than the f*cking Luftwaffe, and haxxing her non-existent balls off. There is almost nothing that Suigintou could do to so much as scratch Sephiroth's coat, let alone kill the f*cker. Even if she could somehow drag him into the N-Field, too bad! One Supernova and problem solved. And you know what comes next: yes the animation potential is okay but everything else sucks so it doesn't save it yadda yadda yadda.

This matchup has only grown more and more invalid as time goes on. Sephiroth vs Vergil may have been somewhat rough around the edges, but by and large it's still one of season 4's best episodes and in my opinion, it was Sephiroth's best matchup as a whole. This matchup is an astounding downgrade to that in nearly every way and even if Sephiroth had to come back for... some reason, he's better off fighting Sigma anyways. Actual connections that aren't as shallow as a puddle of piss, far superior animation potential, not being a stomp that makes Indiana Jones vs Simon Belmont look like Kyle Rayner vs Simon the Digger, etc. And nowadays, I know full well who Suigintou's best opponent is: Shalltear Bloodfallen.

Shalltear doesn't just have actual connections to Suigintou, but damn good ones at that (both being artificial gothic humanoids made to satiate their ccreator's desires, who strive for perfection for the sake of the one they wish to earn the undying love of while competing with a bitter rival in love), and that description is just scratching the surface. It also has far better animation potential given they play off of each other's abilities far better and while it's still a stomp, it isn't anywhere close to being as one-sided as the One-Winged Angel, and Suigintou at least has a few tangible advantages over Shalltear.

Honestly, I think even then I knew that this matchup was a f*cking disaster but I didn't want to admit it because I was just that desperate to finally see Suigintou get a spot in Death Battle. She was my favourite character from my favourite anime, and one of my favourite characters in general, so even with everything else this fight does horribly wrong, I just wanted that much at least. But no, even that excuse doesn't fly, especially now that I know of an opponent for Suigintou that is so perfect for her. It's just as well that this matchup's odds of happening are virtually none because if this fight actually did happen and wasted Suigintou like that, then just... uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhh, I don't even want to entertain the thought so let's move on to what hopefully will be a matchup less likely to give me a herni- *looks at notes and sees what's next*... nope, no, you can't make me do this. Nope, not touching that one! Nope, not even looking in that fight's dire-oh fine, I'll talk about it next.

(Side Note: No, the next one isn't the one you're thinking of).

9. Ken Kaneki vs Eren Jaegar (Tokyo Ghoul vs Attack on Titan)[]

F**K THIS F**KING C**T-SUCKING PILE OF UTTER BULLS**T! JESUS CHRIST, I'D RATHER SLIT MY F**KING TAINT AND DRINK THE BLOOD OUT OF MY NEWLY GAINED vagin* THAN SEE KANEKI DONE THIS F**KING DIRTY WITH SUCH AN ASININE PILE OF SHI-*ahem* (alright, calm down Pit, you've got like eight paragraphs to get through with this thing, don't blow your load all at once). *Inhales* I'm sure most of you here are already aware or at least have seen me once or twice (or more likely more times than that) mention how much I F**KING HATE THIS PIECE O- *ahem*, don't particularly like this matchup idea. In fact, let's not mince words, if the word "hate" were inscribed on every nanoangstrom of my body, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for this matchup... and yes I did just steal that line from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream because frankly, the title of that game sums up my feelings towards this... thing better than I ever could.

"Alright Pit, we can already see your hate-boner for this matchup from orbit so... what? Are the connections THAT bad?". No, they're actually rock solid. "...Okay. Is it a sh*tstomp or something?". No, it's actually a fairly close fight. "...Okay, what the f**k is so wrong with this thing then? This matchup doesn't sound bad in the sligh"- Well, voice in my head meant to represent the audience, allow me to answer exactly why I can't stand this matchup one bit! You guys already know the big reason why that is: my literal most wanted matchup, Shinichi Izumi vs Ken Kaneki. I've made it no secret how much I am absolutely desperate to see that matchup happen, so it being competition to that is already not a good starting point. That said, I can at least stomach Kaneki vs Devilman and Kaneki vs Ganta. Obviously they don't even come a light year close to how much I want Shinichi but if they happened instead, then I could at least live with that. So why are they fine but this isn't? I'll tell you exactly why... because this matchup... has absolutely... NO. F**********************************************************************************************************************KING. ANIMATION POTENTIAL! WHAT SO-GODDAMN-EVER!!!!!

Let's start with the most immediate problem: Eren's VME. I've said it multiple times at this point but AOT characters' reliance on these things puts a major stranglehold on the animation potential of a lot of fights. Not only do they generally lack... well, anything else of note in their arsenals, but it often turns a lot of matchups they have into a game of Cat and Mouse. Exceptions to this are generally fights with characters that have either the mobility or range to keep up with them or at least keep them on their toes long enough to fill the 3-4 minute mark. So... does Kaneki have th-you know I'm gonna say no to this, right? There are some members of the Tokyo Ghoul cast with the movement or ranged attacks to at least kinda keep up with an AOT character but Kaneki doesn't have the type of agility or movement that characters like Touka have, nor does he really have any projectiles of any kind. Combine this with the lack of other tools in Eren's arsenal and you have a recipe for what's essentially just Kaneki trying to slap Eren out of the air with his Kagune while Eren flies around the place like a locust, which I don't think you really need me to say isn't in any way enjoyable to watch. But then comes Eren's Titan forms and... guys, let me be... 100% serious and not in any way exaggerative when I ask... what the hell is Ken meant to do with this thing?

Like no, I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely asking what in God's name Ken has that could work with this oversized f**k? This isn't like Megatron vs Frieza where Frieza makes up for the size difference with lasers, flight, planetary destruction, amazing dialogue potential, and so many other things, or Kyle vs Simon where Kyle can make constructs on the same scale of ridiculousness as Simon's mech to at least keep up with it there. Kaneki. Has. NOTHING. THAT. WORKS! WITH!! THE!!! TITAN!!!! The fight pretty much then becomes Ken either running away from Eren or getting kicked around by it like a f**king football! "Come on Pit, we all know you're ignoring the obvious answer. Kaneki has the Dragon, he can reach Eren's size then"... Have you SEEN the Dragon?! Does the Titan fighting an oversized earthworm sound like fun!? This is the same problem I had with Ridley vs Rayquaza- their body shapes are too dissimilar and too wonky to have ANY interesting interactions in melee combat and oh would you look at that, that's the only string to this fight's bow! Ridley and Rayquaza at least have ranged utility that at least one of them specialised in to in some way make up for it. Eren and Kaneki's arsenals go together like f**king oil and water! It's either Kaneki trying to swat Eren out of the sky, or a Titan having a slapping contest with the Alaskan Bullworm, with maybe him summoning more titans that still don't solve anything because they don't have that much else going on themselves! This isn't fun! This is the definition of absolutely mindless!!!

But you want to know the worst part of this sh*t? This fight is popular... not just popular, it's arguably even more popular than Kaneki vs Shinichi, Devilman AND Ganta combined! It isn't just a sh*t fight, it's one that has high odds of flat-out killing any chance of Kaneki vs Shinichi ever happening. "But Pit, they could just bring Kaneki back after this fight to fight Shinichi then". No... nuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhno. You and I both know that that is NEVER happening. Tokyo Ghoul isn't nearly as popular as it was when it first hit the scene and the only thing even keeping it vaguely relevant in the Death Battle scene IS Kaneki! As soon as he has his fight, that's it! Done! He's not coming back! His odds of ever showing up again are f*cking non-existent! And you try and tell me that they'd choose the main character of a franchise like Parasyte that hasn't been relevant in half a decade over motherf**king goddamn sons-of b**ching ATTACK ON TITAN!!! Kaneki vs Shinichi then never happens, and this f*cking stain on his matchup spread will be what he's stuck with. And just looking at this f*cking thing MAKES ME WANT T-

...Truth be told, this isn't the worst matchup ever. There are fights I've already gone over that I think are even worse from an objective point of view (Sephiroth vs Suigintou, Ridley vs Rayquaza, Vega vs Baraka, Noctis vs 2B, Madoka vs Reimu, just to name a few) and it having great connections and being fairly close (even if it's becoming more and more clear cut as Attack on Titan reaches its climax) are genuinely strong positives. It's just... you guys know how much I want Kaneki vs Shinichi. I want that fight more than anything because I love Parasyte and I love Tokyo Ghoul, and it has amazing connections, and the music potential is pog, and the animation potential is great as well. Devilman and Ganta I can accept because they're still interesting and have good animation potential too. Yeah, none of them work too well with the Dragon either (Devilman maybe but the Dragon's body shape still leaves little potential for interactions) but they all at least do enough interesting and more importantly FUN to make a satisfying fight otherwise. The Dragon could be part of the last minute kill and I wouldn't have any problem with that. This matchup does not have this. It's too boring on its own to possibly stall for that long and the fight between the Dragon and the Titan isn't in any way interesting enough to pick up the slack.

Eren is honestly a difficult character to incorporate into Death Battle given his arsenal is so weird that there's very few opponents that could take full advantage of it. Still, I'd rather he fights Shinji Ikari or Yuu Kannagi instead. Shinji is one of the only opponents Eren has that has actual animation potential, and pretty good animation potential at that, and while Yuu doesn't go too great with Eren's Titan forms, he works perfectly fine with Eren's base form and he doesn't have... well, anyone else to my knowledge. Neither are perfect matchups by any means but if Eren is gonna get in, at least let it be them.

I know some people are waiting to point out the amount of matchups on here that I majorly criticised for being stomps when all of the matchups I prefer for Eren and Kaneki are far more one-sided than this but let me make my point with those clear... the problem with the stomp matchups on this list so far is that their competition was more interesting and had more animation potential ON TOP of being closer. At the end of the day, I value animation potential far more than any other aspect of a fight, ESPECIALLY closeness. A fight could be a literal coin toss in terms of evenness with great connections to boot, but if it doesn't have any animation potential, it isn't a good matchup in my eyes. That's why this being one of the only close fights these two have means nothing to me, because at the end of the day, it isn't fun.

And you know what the worst part of all of this is... I still have 8 more matchups to go through!

8. Ayano Aishi vs Toko f*ckawa (Yandere Simulator vs Danganronpa)[]

If this were just a list of matchups I hated, then it would have just stopped with the last entry. Going forward though, we have matchups that in my eyes have fundamental flaws beyond bad animation potential, loose connections, better alternatives, and all that jazz. Stuff that is so difficult to overlook that the matchups are effectively dead on arrival before such things can even be thought of. If you recall my original list, this pretty much comprised the top 4 of that one... now it's a top 8 and I've already stated that one of those original entries isn't on here so... god help me. To start off this section of the list, we have a matchup that I frankly don't think you really need me to say what the major issue with it is but for those who aren't familiar at all with either, allow me to sum it up in two words: YANDERE SIMULATOR.

For those who don't know about this game, it's pretty much what it says on the tin: a game meant to simulate what it would be like to play the role of a yandere (or someone so romantically obsessed with a character they will literally commit murder for them). The game began development in April of 2014... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand still isn't out yet. I won't bore you with all the details and all the controversies that have surrounded the development hell this game has gone through or the sh*t its developer has pulled but long story short, it not only isn't a finished game, but one where it's possible it may not be finished for a very long time, if it even gets completed and released at all at this rate. That's a big contributor to why this matchup is on the list because frankly, it's a major case of jumping the gun too quickly.

The game is still likely to see drastic changes as time goes on, and ones that could very well completely flip this matchup on its head. What we have so far doesn't really indicate Ayano having any sort of feats or abilities to work with, so not only would Toko dunk on her, it also wouldn't exactly be the most interesting of fights to watch when Ayano doesn't really have any real combat prowess to work with outside of non-canon Easter Eggs that are there purely for the laughs and have been stated to be removed when the final build arrives (or if it arrives more accurately). Yes she HAS weapons but she doesn't really have much of a fighting style to work with since all she ever really uses them for is just extremely simple stabs or swings, nor does she really have any specialties or unique means of using them. They're just random tools scattered in the overworld that you can pick up and use, without any really interesting ways of using them. As it stands, Ayano isn't a very good opponent for Toko since she just doesn't have enough to work with as a whole.

But it's the fact that Yandere Simulator isn't even complete yet that really makes this matchup so iffy. It's likely that the Ayano we know now is gonna be completely different to the one we'll end up with in the final release. It's the same problem that plagues a lot of SCP Foundation matchups: the combatants whole stories could completely change on a dime and would make compiling a comprehensive researched piece on them a fool's errand when it could all be flushed down the toilet the next day. But at least SCP has stats, abilities and oh yeah, not being stuck in development limbo. It would be one thing if this was a similar case to Clive Rosfield vs Velvet Crowe where it's a placeholder idea until one of the combatants (in this case Clive) got an official release so that it could be explored more fully then, but no. People are genuinely requesting this idea NOW as it is, despite Ayano not even being a finished character. And at least we know Clive is gonna be a combatative character. Ayano's combat prowess is unlikely to evolve into anything flashy when Yandere Simulator is completed.

Even then, it isn't like that's the only problem this matchup has. Why Ayano in the first place? Besides "yanderes", she and Toko don't even have any great connections. You could substitute Ayano with any other yandere and probably get a better matchup out of it (Yuno, Rena, Toga, etc.). Hell, Two-Face even has some good connections to Toko (blame Dangerous for making me kind of like that idea). And all of these are characters with more tangible feats and arsenals too to match Toko's. Yeah, not all of them have much but they still have something and don't have such large practicality issues floating over their heads. That's ultimately what kills this matchup as an idea: the practicality. If Yandere Simulator ever comes out for real, then maybe I'll be singing a different tune... but what are the odds that will happen in the near future? This fight was simply made too early and chances are fairly high that it may not even work even if that fated day when Yandere Simulator sees the light of day comes.

7. Roxas vs Dark Pit (Kingdom Hearts vs Kid Icarus)[]

This is, unequivocally, unabashedly, undeniably, without question, without muss, without fuss, without a shadow of a doubt in this pea sized piece of matter I call my mind, one of, if not THE MOST, redundant matchup I have ever seen. It's... literally just Sora vs Pit. No, I don't mean "It's Sora vs Pit but with some even vaguely tangible gimmick or just anything to make it different"- NO, it's just Sora vs Pit all over again! Well, I tell a lie, there are two differences: one is that they have less sh*t to work with, because you know, that was Sora vs Pit's biggest problem was that there was TOO much going on on screen! Second is that Sora is more emo and Pit is more edgy- whoa, slam the brakes on this hype train mate, I can't take all of this excitement!

Sora vs Pit was already a flawed idea given it was a borderline unfair stomp and Sora had several other opponents that he didn't dispatch nearly as easily and would have arguably had better connections to boot (even if Pit lacked good alternatives of his own), so why are we doing it again but worse?! Incineroar vs Kintaro may have been redundant and too similar to Goro vs Machamp, but it at least had a difference of SOME kind to set it apart. I just... what in god's name could this thing possibly do differently?! Let alone differently enough to justify retracing the exact same steps that we've already gone over!?

I know this late into the list, you're probably expecting me to write an essay the length of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on why this matchup is worse than child p*rnography but... how many possible ways could I say "we've been through this before" before I ironically start to make this entry as redundant as the thing I'm criticising? I can't even go over their connections or the animation potential because... it's all the same! Well what I can say is that there's actually unique options for both of them! Bass and Lilith may also dunk on Dark Pit but they're at least something different that work great as standalone matchups, and while it isn't a masterpiece of an idea by any means, Roxas vs Shadow exists too. That and Pit vs Mega Man/Morrigan and Sora vs Sonic don't work nearly as well as matchups as these do, whereas Sora vs Pit, despite its faults, worked completely fine as an idea. Let's be real though... would this idea even be worth doing over Sora vs Pit even if that matchup didn't already get made into an episode? There is nothing this fight does to make it a more palatable choice than Sora vs Pit, and at least that matchup was kinda the best Pit had to work with despite Sora having several superior choices. This not only isn't even much better than the competition, but anything good that could be said about this matchup, can be said just as much with that one.

Overall, Sora vs Pit had good connections and great animation potential but was ultimately let down by being a massive stomp with superior alternatives...

"Uh, Pit, we're not talking about that fight."

Oh yeah, sorry my bad, lemme just reread the script her-ah, here we are. *Ahem*... Roxas vs Dark Pit is everything I just said, but worse and Sora vs Pit already happened, so like a man trying to find the sharpest edge of a sphere, I seriously have to ask what's the f*cking point of this thing?!

6. Kirito vs Neo (Sword Art Online vs The Matrix)[]

Do you ever have a matchup that to you, feels like it's trying way too hard to be unique or different from the other options one or the other may have? Because that's kinda the case with this one. Given his series was pretty much the one to shoot isekais into the mainstream (and oversaturate the f*ck out of the genre), it's no surprise that the majority of Kirito's matchups are against fellow isekai protagonists. Because of that, I almost want to say that I can see why this would have taken off given that it is at least a departure from that, but unfortunately... this fight really doesn't work on any level compared to them.

Let's start with their connections... or rather, lack there of. It's more or less the same idea as every other "Kirito vs *insert isekais protagonist here* matchup: unassuming guys who become powerful fighters in a digital world, with little else to really push past that. Now, you could argue that they also push the limits of their respective worlds and break it harder than Meta Knight in Brawl but... even that isn't anything new to isekai protagonists (*cough* Ainz Ooal Gown *cough*). That and their circ*mstances for even being in their respective worlds carry vastly different contexts. Kirito was trapped in a video game due to a deranged game developer removing the quit game option and killing players if they died in the game. Neo is the result of robots enslaving humanity and trapping him in an artificial reality. Connections wise, there's little they do that really stands out compared to any of Kirito's other matchups.

Same goes for the animation potential. When comparing Neo to his competition as a Kirito opponent, he has martial arts, firearms and... not much else to offer. Yeah he brings the slow-mo shots that The Matrix popularised but as The Matrix itself has shown, you can only do that so many times before it goes from styalised to repetitive. Given the amount of spell-tossing, versatile, bombastic opponents Kirito has, Neo's arsenal looks dry by comparison, not helped by it not really meshing too well with Kirito's to begin with. Pitting swords and guns together is somewhat of an awkward combo. One that can work (hell, I like Riza Hawkeye vs Mikasa Ackerman and that matchup is just that), but with Riza vs Mikasa, Mikasa's other tools compliment Riza's firearms in an animation sense: her mobility and ranged explosives work well when she's trying to dart around Riza's shots and fire back. Neo doesn't really have much like this, and his martial arts also wouldn't go with Kirito's weapons as well as another swordsman's for instance. It's hardly the most awful animation potential on the list but nothing I would really label as particularly enticing.

But this matchup wouldn't be this high on the list if there wasn't some major problem that shoots it in the foot with a f*cking grenade launcher so... what is it then? Well I'll tell you: what puts this matchup this high on the list is that it's a flat-out unfair sh*tstomp... for both characters. Now I know what some of you may be thinking: "Pit... that doesn't make any f*cking sense, how the f*ck do you stomp and get stomped by an opponent?" Well I'll tell you how... The Matrix itself. If the fight takes place outside of the Matrix, then Neo is completely and utterly f**ked. His stats don't even compare to Kirito's and his arsenal is equally as gimped. Set the fight in the Matrix and suddenly the script flips with an audible thud, as Neo's godlike reality warping abilities let him completely sh*t all over Kirito with barely any effort. I can excuse a fight being one-sided so long as it isn't a case of straight-up setting a combatant up for failure (not naming any Doomsday vs 682 names), but when this matchup somehow manages to set both up for failure depending entirely on where you decide to throw them in, that's where a line kinda has to be drawn. You wouldn't want to set it outside the Matrix because Neo has f*cking nothing to work with then, but you wouldn't want to set it in the Matrix because Neo is just broken there. So... what do you do? There isn't a right answer here- it's just not fair on either of them.

Oh and one last thing... c'mon guys, Kite is RIGHT there- like, how could you possibly miss him!? Jokes aside though, I get not wanting to stick Kirito against Isekai Protagonist #68419 and wanting to do something fresh and different- hell, that's part of the reason I like Ainz vs Merlin so much. The difference though is two-fold: a). Ainz and Merlin have connections that aren't shared with a trillion isekai protagonists and b). it isn't completely gutted by practicality issues. Neo and Kirito just lack any solid similarities that aren't found in the sea of isekai series and the fact that the matchup has issues this severe on its own hurts it that much more. Maybe as a DBX this could work since practicality and all that isn't a factor but as a full-on researched episode, yeah, no thanks, I'd rather just have Kirito vs Kite and leave it at that.

5. Spongebob Squarepants vs Gumball Watterson (Spongebob Squarepants vs The Amazing World of Gumball)[]

Oh god, what have I gotten myself into? I'll be frank, out of all of the entries on this list, this was the one I had been dreading the most to talk about (well okay, Shadow vs Ryuko and Ken vs Eren were also the ones I dreaded most but this one especially I wasn't excited for) and this is largely down to the fact that this isn't just a singular entry. Oh sure, Spongebob vs Gumball is arguably one of the biggest and most popular ones and the one that I personally take the biggest issue with but this entry is dedicated to an entire sub-genre of matchups that I flat-out fail to see the appeal in: a sub-genre that includes matchups such as Bugs vs Mickey, Daffy vs Donald, the Eds vs the Warners, Homer vs Peter, Dexter vs Jimmy and several other overwhelmingly popular matchup ideas that I just do not like at freaking all.

Now let me just get this first point out of the way because it's something I see a lot of people say about me: no, I don't hate matchups featuring cartoon characters. f*ck, I've gushed about matchups such as Vlad vs Zs'Skayr, Rex Salazar vs Blue Beetle, Azula vs Cinder, or even the out-there ideas that I've tried to get off the ground (to varying degrees of success) such as Ben vs Yu or Kevin vs Satsuki. I don't take issue with cartoons in Death Battle and I'd f*cking kill to see more like Generator Rex, Ben 10, Avatar, Transformers, Danny Phantom and several others get in or get more reps... but that's the thing, I'd like to see more LIKE THOSE ONES- action characters, ones that fight, that take names and kick ass. Not characters from slice of life series that aren't combatants of any kind.

I know that almost no story is written with VS debating in mind, even in series known for their balls-to-the-wall action so obviously consistency in stats and abilities is an issue for any series, but for characters like Spongebob and Gumball it's even more of a blatant problem since they're not written to look strong or formidable outside of a few gags and jokes. One second they could be fine after a nuclear explosion and the next, they fail to so much as open a bottle of ketchup. This is obviously because exaggeration is a big part of any good joke: making something as ridiculous as possible to always go above what we expect. In a VS debate though, that creates the obvious problem of them having no really good consistent level to put them at. And then there's the problem of what you give them for arsenal or abilities. They aren't written or designed to have anything geared for fighting so... what do you do then? It isn't as simple as step 1: find what they always carry and use at their prime, step 2: profit. You would pretty much have to give them a random assortment of whatever the hell they use throughout the series, regardless of how it would actually work in a combat sense.

The sheer amount of creative liberties fights like these would take is just ridiculous. But I know some of you are probably waiting to point out the elephant in the room: Smokey vs McGruff. We've already got a fight in this category that has happened so... what's the big deal? Well, look at that fight again and tell me if you notice anything... yeah, most of what Smokey and McGruff do in that fight is just generic punching and swiping, something you could get from damn near any matchup, and a good chunk of the analysis and verdict was them really reaching for stuff to give them (like them stopping time which... somehow I doubt the writers of those ads were going for the "making their mascots f*cking chronomancers" angle). All that episode really did to me was illustrate why these matchups fall so hilariously flat, and none of this is getting into the absolute ballache that is researching toon-force and analysing how what's effectively a complete middle finger to the laws of physics that really has no limit beyond the imagination would work.

Out of all of the entries on this list, this is the one that may be the hardest to really put into words why I don't like them and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a really easy counter-point to everything I just said right around the corner. Even still... these matchups just don't still well with me at all. These aren't characters known for fighting outside of a few iterations that realistically are too dissimilar to really justify even compositing (be it stuff like Kingdom Hearts, Toons Unleashed, any video game adaptations the above mentioned characters may have, etc.) so, to me at least, it feels like a slap in the face. Think of it this way: imagine you go to see Wrestlemania and instead of seeing the Undertaker take on Hulk Hogan... it's Dara O'Brian fighting Bono in a wrestling match. Like... sure, it's different I guess but... for f*ck's sake, I'm here to watch the professionals kick some ass here, not guys who don't throw down fists for a living!

This isn't to say a character needs to be from a franchise with ludicrous amounts of action or bloodshed to be DB-worthy but something would be appreciated. f*ck, I didn't have a problem with them bringing Twilight Sparkle in since at least she unironically fights some f*ckers with the abilities given to her. Characters like Spongebob, Gumball and all the other guys I mentioned... yeah, no bueno. This isn't even getting into the issues that Spongebob vs Gumball itself has such as how upscaling Spongebob would work seeing as how he's the size of a shrimp compared to Gumball (which unlike say, Kirby, has a major impact on his feats and puts him far lower than Gumball), but at the end of the day, these types of matchups just... aren't my thing and I can't really put in any better way why it is that they just don't sit right with me. So... what else is there to really say with this one?

4. Monika vs Flowey (Doki Doki Literature Club vs Undertale)[]

In theory, this is an idea that I do get and actually doesn't sound all too bad. The connections between the two are fairly good (both being villains from popular Indie games that discovered their ability to sh*t all over the fourth wall and toyed with their own world before getting bored and deciding to target the player next) and it does sound like an idea with a lot of great potential for dialogue and weird moments. But this late into the list, it shouldn't be hard to imagine what I'm about to say next. This fight, for as cool as it is ON PAPER, flat-out does not work in execution since Monika... doesn't actually fight... like, at all.

Sure, Monika is pretty infamous for making the fourth wall her bitch all throughout Doki Doki but by and large, she doesn't really do anything that could really work in a combat sense. Sure she may do sh*t like rewrite character scripts, glitch the game out, delete files, etc. but... IDK about you but none of this really sounds like something that would be interesting to watch in a fight. Monika doesn't use these reality and meta warping abilities for anything beyond f*cking with the player so animation wise, there isn't really anything she has to offer. This also impacts the researching side of this fight because... well, what is there to research? She hardly has many feats to work with, she lacks an actual arsenal to dissect and analyse, so realistically all she has is just her game f*ckery.

Compare this to Flowey who has a full-on arsenal to work with between his various forms and boss fights on top of taking a f*cking crowbar to the game's rules. Yeah there are still some notable problems with bringing him into Death Battle such as a lack of feats of his own and how Undertale's unique visual style in combat makes it extremely difficult to really do it justice in a fight animation without just slapping a straight up Undertale fight in its place and calling it a day, but he still has actual stuff to work with in a fight. Monika is simply too lacking in abilities to really make it work.

This also negatively impacts the animation potential for the fight since... well, how is Monika even really meant to interact with Flowey's arsenal? She really can't, which leaves a lot of what makes Flowey 'Flowey' in the dust, such as the majority of Photoshop Flowey's attacks. Granted yes, Flowey's big defining trait is his game-breaking shenanigans so it's at least not the Ridley vs Rayquaza conundrum of having to circumvent one of the characters' defining traits to make the fight work but that still leaves so many holes in his toolset that can't really be filled. That and their game-breaking is many things but 'fun to watch' really isn't one of them. A lot of the fight would likely just be them bickering over each other as they attempt to f*ck with each other's files. These moments worked in their respective games since they were quick and to the point, as well as unexpected so it was the shock and confusion of seeing it that made them work. A 3-4 minute animation of nothing but that, where you know from the get-go that that is what's about to happen unless you don't know anything about the two and skipped the analysis portion for... some reason, wouldn't work nearly as well.

There isn't really much else to say on this matchup. As a DBX it could maybe work since you'd likely be able to get away with bending the rules enough to get this idea to fly but as a full on researched piece, it just isn't practical in the slightest. It's another instance of a rushed trend fight but whereas the last one I mentioned (Byleth vs Luminary) was just a bad matchup, this is one that's just flat-out unworkable without having to take drastic creative liberties to give it a fighting chance of working. It's not a bad idea in theory, I'll give it that but I just don't see it working... like, at all and it's easily the most impractical fight that we'll be seeing for the rest of this li-*checks notes to see what's next*... I should really stop doing that.

3. Light Yagami vs Lelouch Vi Britannia/Goro Akechi (Death Note vs Code Geass/Persona)[]

This next entry is a double header as both of these matchups suffer from the same drawback that should be pretty blatantly obvious if you have even a vague knowledge of Light as a character. If you don't and as a result, fail to see the problem then allow me to spell it out. *Ahem*... Gimme an L, gimme an I, gimme a G, H, T, gimme a C, gimme an A, gimme an N, ', T. gimme an F, gimme an I, gimme a G, H, T, gimme a Light, gimme a can't, gimme a f*ck, ing, fight... wait.

But yes, like with Monika vs Flowey, both of these matchups are dead on arrival because of the fact that one of the combatants has no good means of combat. But at least Monika had some reality warping sh*t! Light's only- I repeat, ONLY- means of doing any damage is the Death Note. For those of you that haven't read or watched the series, it's pretty much exactly what you would imagine it would be based off of the name: you write someone's name in it and in 40 seconds, they bite the dust in whatever fashion you wrote that they would (unless what you wrote is physically impossible, in which case they just get the good ol'-fashioned heart attack).

So... let's be generous here and assume that right out of the starting gate, Light knows Lelouch or Akechi's full name and has a pen ready and on hand. If he already had a pen out, then let's be extremely generous and say that, if he's quick with his writing, then it would only take him about 5 seconds to jot Akechi's name down and 10 seconds for Lelouch (because no f*cking way he's writing all that down in 5 seconds). This would mean that Light would have to wait, at BARE minimum, 45 seconds to get anything done. I can already tell you an immediate problem there: look at any real world fight and tell me how many you can find where one fighter manages to avoid getting hit for nearly a full minute. Chances are, not many since 45 seconds can be a long time to have to constantly evade hits, made worse by Light himself not even being superhuman in any way. In the time it would take for the Death Note to take Light's opponents out, Lelouch and Akechi can just shoot him in the dick and call it a day, to say nothing of... literally anything else they could do to him from using the Geass, to squashing him with a giant robot, to summoning a Persona to Megidolaon his ass, etc.

This in absolutely no world would make for a fun animation to watch. Light never shows... well, ANY kind of fighting prowess in the series, not even doing martial arts or anything like that, so your options for how he could fight against Lelouch and Akechi are utterly miniscule, and 3-4 minutes of Light continuously dogding attacks before he inevitably gets hit by a killing blow would not only feel like a slap in the face to his opponents since... come the f*ck on, how could a bloke in a giant mech and a dude that can outrun bullets possibly struggle to hit someone with average human stats? But it would also be hilariously tedious to watch. That and realistically, how would they even incorporate the Death Note's effects into the fight? Unless they were to have the other combatants die after killing Light (which would just feel like a major cop-out), Light's one means of doing any harm really has no way of even being worked into the animation.

I've seen some arguments that these matchups wouldn't necessarily be a battle of brawn but could instead work as a battle of wits: seeing who could win with brains alone in a unique endgoal. There, however, are four problems with this idea.

1). This would essentially require a complete overhaul to the ruleset for one episode that could lead to one character getting a major advantage over the other solely because of which goal you pick. This would just create a situation where one character is being set up for failure because of whatever goal you decide they're after, be it finding the other's true identity, convicting them of a crime, learning the true meaning of Christmas, etc. Not that that really matters because...

2). Lelouch and Akechi still sh*tstomp Light with this style of fight anyways since what in the actual hell is Light meant to do against Lelouch's Geass or Akechi's Metaverse shenanigans, both of which would effectively just let the two get whatever info they need out of Light and boom, problem solved. This isn't even mentioning how both could realistically kill him anyways since their stats and natural abilities aren't something that you can just take away from them on a wim.

3). Good mystery stories take time, careful planning and foresight and most importantly, the long game. You have to keep the pot simmering throughout a mystery story for a good long while to keep interest in it going and build up to the big reveal. With that in mind, please tell me how you're meant to do that in, at most, 4 minutes?! Death Note needed six volumes to keep the suspense up and we already knew what the answer to the big mystery they were trying to solve was. It was the suspense of if or how they'd discover the truth that kept you going (even if the volumes after six drop the ball hard but I digress). Doing that in such a short timeframe is just not a realistic goal to set.

4). This wouldn't exactly be all too entertaining to watch. Even ignoring all of the pacing problems that would come with trying to condense an entire mystery into such a short span of time... there's no animation potential to get out of this! It's just bloaks talking or trying to get info out of one another, and I've already mentioned why the suspense or intrigue can't save that.

Yet again, this feels like a matchup that's trying WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY too hard to be unique, as well as trying to cram a character that if we're being blunt, isn't even DB-worthy, into Death Battle. Just because a series is popular doesn't mean they should be an automatic pick for Death Battle. Anohana was really f*cking popular a while back and good luck convincing me that anyone from that show is DB-worthy! There are matchups that work as a battle of wits- Constantine vs Raidou is a big example of that, but the reason that works is because both combatants... um, what's the word I'm looking for he-oh that's right: FIGHT. They can act upon their wits with their set of abilities.

None of this is even getting into the other options for Lelouch and Akechi that don't completely sacrifice their animation potential. Edelgard and C for Lelouch, Dimitri and Kyle Ren for Akechi, all of which I do admittedly have preferred opponents for... except for C, but all work way better than Light in terms of practicality. I like Light and I like Death Note... the first half of Death Note, but when Light has no feats to speak of and such an unreliable and uninteresting to watch means of combat, then maybe I won't lose sleep at night if we just leave him be instead of putting him in an environment where he's basically set up for failure from the get-go.

2. Phoenix Wright vs Makoto Naegi (Ace Attorney vs Danganronpa)[]

I swear to god that this is the last "dey dun't fite" matchup on the list. But man oh man, did I save the worst (or rather my least favourite) for last because at least with the last two entries, they were decent ideas that were kneecapped by poor animation potential and complete impracticality. This matchup doesn't even work on its own, let alone when you bring in the fact that NEITHER of these two can fight! Danganronpa may have a few DB worthy characters such as Monokuma or the aforementioned Toko, but Makoto isn't one of them, nor is Phoenix. Yes they technically have feats but a fighter that does not make. You could likely find feats for Peppa Pig and that wouldn't make her DB worthy. They don't have any sort of fighting style, weapons, abilities, ANYTHING to worki with in a fight to the death!

And before any of you bring up the big, grey, pulsating elephant in the room (christ, that sounded dirty), yes, I know that Phoenix appeared in Marvel vs Capcom 3... problem is, he's a joke character in that game! Look at how he "fights" in that game and while you're at it, note the quote marks I put around the word 'fight' because that pretty much sums up Phoenix in Marvel vs Capcom: a character whose means of fighting is literally just doing menial sh*t like sneezing or shouting except now it does damage to the enemy. It looks ridiculous in that game because that's the whole point: he's a joke character, one that isn't meant to be taken seriously. Try to translate that into a serious environment and it just looks silly, especially when you have flat-out nothing to work with for Makoto.

But I know this matchup isn't requested so people can watch them throw down fists. They want to watch them debate... but how are you meant to research and conclude who would win a debate that YOU'RE writing?! You judge a real world debate but how well the two debaters did by their own accord, without the outside help of the very people reviewing and judging their debating skills, so how would you even go about deciding who wins a debate that can't ever happen without an outside influence... since that outside influence is the only way it would ever happen to begin with? And like with Light vs Lelouch/Akechi, creating a unique ruleset and end goal for this matchup would also just be a recipe for disaster. What they're working towards or what the rules are could completely swing the fight out of one combatant's favour or the other through no fault of their own and what the ideal goal or ruleset would be is so subjective that it makes debating and researching this style of matchup a complete mess.

But the real reason this matchup is this high up on the list is that even by itself, this matchup is flawed. Please just answer me this one question: why Makoto?! Besides being the protagonist of the series, he has nothing in common with Phoenix. He isn't even a rival to Phoenix- that's Professor Layton and his baller ass hat's job! Wouldn't it make more sense to pit those two together instead? Or better yet, why not stick one of the actual detective characters (or someone in a similar vein) against Phoenix, like Kyoko, or Hajime, or Shuichi? Yeah Phoenix isn't a detective, he's a lawyer but it makes more sense than pitting him against a random kid. There is so little comparable about these two outside of "murder mystery game protagonists" that it's f*cking comical. Light vs the crazy bois and Monika vs Flowey may have had no good way of making them work... but they at least had actual connections that made them comparable. The fact that you could substitute Phoenix with anyone else from Danganronpa and get a just as good, or in some cases better matchup out of it speaks volumes to how massive this fight's flaws are.

This matchup at best would work as a DBX where research and analysis aren't a factor and you could just let the script writers and voice actors go nuts. As a full-on researched piece however, this matchup doesn't work on any conceivable level. The connections are completely f*cked from the get-go, and it having no animation potential and being completely impractical as a full-on episode doesn't do anything to help its case. Neither characters are even remotely DB worthy. There is just too many things that get in the way of them working to make it an even remotely viable option. Like I said before, popular =/= Death Battle worthy.

Dishonourable Mentions.[]

So quick note before we get into this segment: there were a lot of matchups that I wanted to talk about that didn't make the cut for the full list- to the point I had to cut a few from even the dishonourable mentions just so it wasn't so overloaded. There's still a chunky number of matchups to look at so I'll try to be as quick but thorough as possible. With that out of the way:

Eren vs Wander (Attack on Titan vs Shadow of the Colossus)

If it weren't for how much I f*cking despised Ken vs Eren, this would have easily landed a spot on the list. IconBoi already went over why this matchup fails so miserably in better detail than I ever could (link here) but long story short: the connections are flat, it's a massive stomp for Eren and the animation potential is somehow even worse than Ken vs Eren. Against base Eren, it's just Wander firing arrows at him while Eren zips around the battlefield. Against titan Eren, it's just Eren trying to shake Wander off while he tries to climb Eren's back and stab at him. Shadow of the Colossus is many things but fun to watch isn't what I'd call one of them, and many of Eren's abilities such as his titan summoning have no real way of being incorporated well into this. Eren's better off fighting Shinji or Yuu and Wander... is just better off not being in Death Battle at all. He may not suffer as badly from the issue as Mercy but his arsenal and feats are still too barebones to make for an entertaining matchup, especially when his only notable one is this bad.

Tifa vs Knuckles (Final Fantasy vs Sonic the Hedgehog)

Sorry Throw but... this matchup is just so unnecessary. Knuckles has already fought his best opponent and got a great episode out of it, so bringing him back for a matchup with connections as poor as this one's when Tifa has the far superior Makoto Niijima feels like a major waste of Tifa's return. It didn't get on the list since there wasn't much offensively bad about it otherwise but it only just narrowly avoided a spot on the list.

Killua Zoldyck vs Damien Wayne (Hunter x Hunter vs DC)

Yet again, we have a total spite matchup that mostly exists just to get a free DC win, and against one of DC's most hated characters at that. Throwing away Killua vs Akame or f*ck, even Black Star for something as comparatively dull as this just because "we gotta get that free DC loss guyz" is the definition of a bruh moment, though thankfully most agree that this matchup's a complete waste so that managed to save it from being included, though the spite behind it means it's another one that only just evaded a spot on the list.

Yusuke Urameshi vs Rin Okumura (Yu Yu Hakusho vs Blue Exorcist)

There are a lot of terrible Yusuke matchups and I could have put any of them not named Reimu or Ichigo vs Yusuke on the list: between Danny being horrifically unnecessary after his fight with Jake, to Pac-Man and Luigi having paltry connections, f*ck I nearly put Gon on the list but this one baffles me the most. Besides demon hunters, I seriously struggle to see what the two have in common and there arsenals clash horribly compared to the superior Reimu and Inuyasha respectively. It's lack of major popularity is what keeps it off the list but it's still a bottom tier among Yusuke's already messy matchup spread.

Deku vs Miles (My Hero Academia vs Marvel)

Miles has already fought his best opponent by a country mile (no pun intended) so bringing him back to fight one with less connections and weaker animation potential, who also stomps him into mulch is the definition of a waste, especially considering the superior options for Deku like Gon and Atsuko. Hell, if you had to have a returning combatant fight him or a Marvel character take him on, then Mob and Kamala respectively fill those roles better. It isn't a bad matchup at all in a vacuum, which is what kept it off this list, but it doesn't make a lick of sense to waste Deku on a character that absolutely is in no need of a return.

Deku vs Rock Lee (My Hero Academia vs Naruto)

This is literally just All Might vs Might Guy but with way less of the personality that made that matchup great, on top of that fight being the best those two had while both Deku and Rock have better. This matchup has virtually no shot of happening now after Rock Lee's scuffle with Sanji which is what keeps it off the list but it's still a major case of "been there, done that".

Rachel Alucard vs Shalltear Bloodfallen (Blazblue vs Overlord)

This matchup isn't bad at all on its own, but Shalltear vs Suigintou is my baby and I'm not letting that thing die because of this, especially when Rachel herself has several superior options in Remilia, Slayer and Valvatorez, all of which have better connections and put up more of a fight than the comparatively helpless Shalltear.

Cinder vs The Meta (RWBY vs Red Vs Blue)

This one almost ended up on the list but there wasn't much of anything I could really say about it in all honesty. It's just a matchup that only really exists because they come from the same company and their connections otherwise are pretty lacking. That and Cinder vs Azula is the physical embodiment of poggers so why would I give it up for such a comparatively meager encounter.?

Yu Narukami vs Josuke Higashikata (Persona vs Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

There wasn't any point in putting this on the list when it literally would have all been covered in more detail with Iggy vs Morgana but this matchup still just bugs me on so many levels. It's an insanely unfair stomp that doesn't even make up for it with amazing animation. Yeah Josuke's Stand ability is pretty versatile but that's just it: his Stand ability- singular. His arsenal is too limited compared to Yu's and his own lack of fighting prowess compared to Yu's would just make the animation completely lopsided. What gets me too is how people are so quick to mock Narukami's other options for not being this because... you know what, I don't even know since Ben, Milla and Sora have great connections too, better animation potential since their arsenals work way better off of Yu's and in terms of closeness, if Yu was Canada, then Ben, Milla and Sora would be Brazil vs Josuke being MACS0647-JD. Yeah, the former three aren't the closest in the world but they're infinitely closer than this!

Kyle Rayner vs Nova (DC vs Marvel) (Also shut up, I couldn't find a TN for Kyle vs Nova so Hal'll do instead- totally the same thing, right?)

Uh, guys? Guys! John Stewart is right over there, you could hardly miss him... no? You're just gonna waste Kyle on Nova instead of pitting him against the near perfect Simon? Even though John has better connections, is closer and has no-one else? Alright, you do you I suppose.

Johnny Joestar vs Simon the Digger (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure vs Gurren Lagann)

Shulk vs Trunks (Xenoblade Chronicles vs Dragon Ball)

In all honesty, this matchup isn't so explicitly awful that it warranted a spot on my original list, not helped by the fact I couldn't give less of a sh*t about Shulk's other matchups (including Lightning), but that doesn't save this matchup from having extremely weak connections and robbing Trunks of far superior matchups such as Cable or even Silver.

Sub-Zero vs Kula Diamond (Mortal Kombat vs King of Fighters)

So let me get this straight: people like to wrongly accuse Sub-Zero vs Glacius of having no connections beyond "fighting game ice users"... only to then request a matchup... that literally has no connections... beyond "fighting game ice users"... and is more one-sided and doesn't do much of anything new in terms of animation potential... yeah, that makes TOTAL sense. This is such a massive waste of a Kula matchup that it's honestly insulting, and when considering how good Kula vs Kolin is, or even Kula vs Emilia, wasting her on Sub-Zero is a massive slap in the face. If Subby's to come back, just stick him against Ken and move on.

Supergirl vs Sailor Moon (DC vs Sailor Moon)

I have nothing but respect for the Death Battle research team... but I flat-out fail to see why one of them is pushing for this. The connections are absolutely non-existent and it's a total throw-away of Usagi's great matchups such as Madoka or Uzume. f*ck, I may not be huge on it but even Pegasus is better for Usagi. Granted, I don't see this happening even with the push from the research team given that this matchup hardly qualifies as popular even with their help, but we also didn't think Batgirl vs Spider-Gwen would happen so look how much we know.

Gengar vs King Boo (Pokémon vs Super Mario)

This feels like an idea that exists just to say "yep, they have a matchup to work with". The connections are weak as sh*t, it's a massive stomp for King Boo and while the animation potential is actually not bad at all, that doesn't save it from still being an underwhelming pick over the infinitely better King Boo vs Spooky. Hell, Gengar vs Dark Danny is even better. The alternatives aren't so enticing that it earned a spot on the list, on top of a lot of my issues with it being better explored with Ridley vs Rayquaza but... yeah, no thanks.

Jason Vorhees vs Michael Myers (Friday the 13th vs Halloween)

Like with Shulk vs Trunks, this one didn't really deserve a spot on the original list, let alone so high up. It isn't getting in the way of any better matchups happening so it's more or less harmless. Tremendously boring with absolutely zero animation potential due to both characters' having ridiculous bare-bones arsenals and their slow stalker like approach translating horribly to a fight to the death when it means they barely have any fancy moves or stunts to work with to make it in any way fun or interesting, but harmless nonetheless.

Darth Maul vs Kurome (Star Wars vs Akame ga Kill)

This matchup is another case of unique for the sake of it. Their connections are weaker than the gravity on Pluto and it's another stomp fight. Kurome has a better matchup in Nui from Kill la Kill, who's closer, has more dialogue potential and has better connections. Nui vs Kurome isn't a matchup I'm head over heels for, same with Darth Maul's matchups which is why it isn't on the list, but this is still a fight I see get pushed a lot despite its glaring flaws, and if you really needed a matchup between a Zabrak and a crazy psychotic anime girl... for some oddly specific reason, you're better off with Savage Opress vs Mariko.

Blake vs Akame (RWBY vs Akame ga Kill)

It isn't explicitly appalling in any area, but the combination of meh connections that aren't in any way deep, a one-sided fight in Akame's favour, little dialogue potential and both having vastly superior options, all culminate in yet another matchup that feels like a supreme waste for both combatants.

And finally, the one you all expected to show up at some point...

Blake Belladonna vs Mikasa Ackerman (RWBY vs Attack on Titan)

...Well? What do you want me to say about this? That isn't a joke in any way... legitimately, what do you want me to say about this f*cking thing? I could go over how it's a colossal waste for both when the connections are shallow and the animation potential is ass, or that people love to treat this like the only good Blake matchup and that all the rest are just terrible imitators when that's clearly just horsesh*t... but this is all stuff I've already gone over. I guess I could also say that it's a stomp that like Ryuko vs Shadow, denies Mikasa her far superior and actually decent list of close opponents for a free RWBY win out of sheer pity... and that's it. That is EVERYTHING new I could possibly add. I didn't want to have to talk about this thing again, since I literally made a blog detailing why this matchup is so hilariously overrated and did so for the explicit reason that I was done talking about this and wanted to move on, but some folks just couldn't have that because the amount of drama, arguments and other bullsh*t that that blog started legitimately upset me to see. I know not everyone who brings this up around me does so out of malice, but the constant judgmental quips and literal essay long rants about how I'm full of sh*t for not sucking this matchup's dick from people who clearly have no intention of listening to my reasoning has made me go from not ever wanting to talk about this matchup again to not ever wanting to so much as look at it ever again. I couldn't give a rat's ass if you disagree with me or not and think this matchup is a gift from god, but leave me the f*ck out of it because it genuinely ticks me off when people can't respect a difference of opinion and just agree to disagree, and the more people try to shove this thing down my throat, the more I grow to utterly loathe it. I know a good chunk of this list has been jokes and hyperbole, but I pull no punches and make no exaggerations when I say this: I. Am. f*cking. Done with talking about this sh*t (Not that it would have been any higher than number 12 even if I did include it but whatever, the less I can say about this thing the better).

1. Saitama vs Goku/Superman (One Punch Man vs Dragon Ball/DC)[]

Call it a cop-out all you like for me to put two matchups at the top spot but frankly, I despise both of these matchups for the exact same reasons and more than any other matchup that has ever been proposed for Death Battle (well, besides Ben vs Hal 2 but you already read the rules at the start of this blog... right?). Both of these matchups represent the absolute worst of the VS community and in my opinion, aren't just some of the worst matchups out there but also some of the insulting, but as I seem to enjoy saying: one step at a time.

So what are the connections between Saitama and these two beloved heroes... nothing. Like for real, aside from being superheroes, Saitama has abso-f*cking-lutely NOTHING in common with these two! Personality? Totally different. Backstory? Not even close. Development? Not on your nelly. Appearance? Get the f*ck out of here. Species? Gimme a break. I thought that 2B vs Noctis and Sephiroth vs Suigintou were as bad as it got for connections, but no- these two matchups, more than ANYTHING else on this list, have got to have the absolute worst connections out of any matchup on here! And that's not even the worst aspect of this fight!

So... what does Saitama bring to the table? After all, Superman and Goku are both known for being pretty strong and having a lot of abilities. Goku has his flight, instant transmission, Kaioken, the Kamehameha, the Super Saiyan forms, Ultra Instinct and so on and so forth. Superman has flight as well, heat vision, super breath, light speeds, the precision of a surgeon, godlike strength, you name it, Supes probably has it or has had it at some point. So what does Saitama have to top these two behemoths?... Punching... that's it. He punches people. Can he do anything special with his punching? Well, he can create powerful shockwaves and air blasts... that's about it, really. I thought Yu vs Josuke was a bad case of lopsided animation potential, but at least Josuke's limited arsenal had a multitude of uses to it. Saitama's ONE attack doesn't even have anything fancy to it, versus these godlike fighters having arsenals you could fill an essay with. Saitama's "abilities" don't play off of either characters' well AT ALL, especially in comparison to when Goku and Superman fought each other. It's a complete mismatch!

And of course, no bad matchup would be complete without also being a sh*tstomp. It goes without saying but the claim that Saitama can one-shot every being in existence is dubious at best and routinely contradicted. The far easier to support answer is that Saitama is simply far more powerful than literally anyone else in his world and as such, one hit from him and they're goners. The best feat he's ever shown is multi-continent, a feat that jobbers in Goku and Superman's worlds can do on a bad day, with a few statements maybe hinting at planet level. Compare this to Goku and Supes being low multi or even flat out multiversal and comparing Saitama's just over FTL speeds to Goku and Superman's MFTL+ speeds and you have a recipe for a dead bald guy. Even if we were to wank Saitama to the Nth degree and give him that one-hit NLF, it doesn't matter! If Sanji vs Rock Lee has shown us anything, power doesn't mean anything if it doesn't f*cking hit and when Goku has a massive speed advantage, Ultra Instinct, flight and ranged attacks, the f*ck is Saitama gonna do? Never mind Superman having all that (minus Ultra Instinct) while also being able to just chill out in the sun to regain power while Saitama can't do sh*t. He's been shown to be unable to breath in space so how is he ever gonna reach Superman from Earth? Let alone when the Man of Steel can just piss off somewhere else in the galaxy and watch Saitama squirm.

This matchup fails on levels that are almost comical! There is legitimately nothing good that could possibly be said about it. And the worst part is, even its reason for existing is a problem. Let's not mince words here: these two matchups exist purely just to massively overplay Saitama as a combatant. It's no secret that Saitama is one of the most overhyped characters in the VS scene and that claims of him being able to solo verses that realistically laugh in his face are more plentiful than grass in a meadow. These aren't matchup requested because they're thematic and fun picks for Saitama- they're requested just so he can get continuously overhyped until it inevitably all comes crashing down when Death Battle concludes both Goku and Superman would f*cking annihilate him. It's a battle of "overpowered characters" MINUS an overpowered character on one side of the field. Goku vs Superman worked so well because they had connections and more importantly, a sh*t ton of history. Both are members of an alien race that was doomed to extinction when their planet was going kaboom and grew into powerful heroes dead set on understanding their powers the best they could to become the strongest they could be against beings threatening their worlds. Both are the faces of their cultures' fiction: Goku being the most recognisable face of the East and Superman the West. Take all of that history, theming and actually good qualities such as animation potential and closeness away and what you're left with are both of these utter flops.

And the worst part is... the VS community seems to be playing along with it. Both the One Minute Melee episodes and the DBX had Saitama beat both of them and yes, I know in the latter's case it was vote-based but you'd have to be either new to One Punch Man or really stupid to not see that coming a mile away. Look at the comments of those videos and you'll see people that continually miss the point of what Saitama is and continue to blatantly disrespect not just Goku and Superman, but the character they 'supposedly' know would beat them. One Punch Man is the story of someone who got bored because there was no challenge or suspense in his life. He knew he would always come out on top so there wasn't any fun in what he did, which is why when he does find someone that puts up a fight, he's thrilled to finally have someone he can consider an adversary. What so many who watched that series failed to understand was that Saitama was a parody of the overpowered superhero, and yet they seem to think of him only as another member of the OP hero category.

That's ultimately what puts this matchup at the top of this list- even above matchups that can't work without ridiculous creative liberties, matchups that are completely redundant to make, matchups with no connections, matchups with no potential for good animation or dialogue, matchups that are totally unfair, and matchups that are some combination of the above: because this matchup is just blatantly disrespectful. It exists solely just to take Saitama out of context entirely and make him the exact thing he was meant to be a deconstruction of. I'm not saying Saitama shouldn't be in Death Battle at all, but if he IS gonna be in Death Battle, then why not put him against opponents he bares actual similarities to, like Captain Underpants, or Popeye, maybe even Korosensei, or the absolute best one in my opinion: Squirrel Girl, a character who's journey bares many similarities to Saitama, being a parody hero meant to take the piss out of overpowered superheroes and break down the problems that plague them. Saitama deserves better than these. He's a great character and One Punch Man is a great series, so to see him done this dirty would genuinely be insulting. Never mind the fact that there's basically no upside to doing it since if Goku or Superman wins, bias claims will come flying at Death Battle like a flock of falcons and if Saitama wins, then they'll get accused of pandering. It's a lose-lose situation, and because of that, Saitama vs Goku and Saitama vs Superman both rank as my number 1 least wanted matchups of all time.

This has been PitTheSwordmaster, merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hopefully assuming I don't develop Alzheimer's or something, this will be the last time I dedicate a blog to the matchups I despise. Hope you enjoyed (or at least tolerated) reading this, until next time...