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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 10 months ago

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Ranking the Warriors of other Worlds Death Battles:

//Recently, I ran a poll asking everyone in the audience what their favourite Death Battle to come out of the Warriors of Other World's arc was, and I'm grateful to all those who voted.

//So before I get into the purpose of this poll, I wanted to quickly announce the results of said poll, and go over the community ranking of the series. These are the fights from least popular to most popular with their final percentage of the votes.

9th Place: Seiko Vs Lizard - 1.3% Tied 8th Place: Peko Vs RHM & Sakura Vs Jonathan - 2.7% Tied 7th Place: Akane Vs Chie & Narumi Vs Toga - 4% 6th Place: Komaru Vs Katie - 5.3% 5th Place: Mukuro Vs Kayano - 6.7% 4th Place: Mikan Vs Fluttershy - 9.3% TIED 3RD PLACE: Junko Vs Monika & Kaede Vs Sara - 12% 2ND PLACE: Makoto Vs Phoenix - 16% 1ST PLACE: Hajime Vs Deku - 24%

//With all that being said, while I do appreciate the feedback, I do have my own personal takes on the matchups and how they actually turned out in the end. So I imagine people actually wanted to hear my thoughts and opinions.

//This arc ended up being even more successful than I thought it would, and that makes be pretty chuffed. I was excited for this, and based on the feedback, everyone else seems to like it a fair bit as well.

//So yeah, I will probably be doing this again in the future. I won't, or rather can't, say when exactly, but if this is a concept people can get behind, then there's no reason to end it here.

//That being said, while this is definitely a new style that I'm not used to, I definitely did my best with the writing of this fight, and having my friends IRL help me with the analyses was great. But there are some battles that turned out greater than others.

//So I'm gonna be ranking them, because I know some people really wanted to hear my own personal reflections and feedback on this event, and I'm more than happy to provide it. Going into it though, these are the criteria that I will be judging the final products on, and things to keep in mind.

This will mainly be judged on quality of the analysis, how deep it goes, and how good quality the fight turns out in the end.

Considering we remain unbiased to each fighter, the verdict does not wholly matter.

A lot of this will be judged on the matchup itself, how strong the connections are, and whether or not I would want to see it happen in the actual series.

This is my own personal opinion.

//Alright, without further ado, let's get ready for a RANKIIIING!

#12: PEKO VS RHM

//I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this FUCKING SUCKED.

//So after I went back to polish and edit the original script to post on Tumblr, this fight and analysis ended up improving my opinion of it, and I don't HATE it anymore, but it still doesn't save it from being the worst matchup in this event by a long shot.

//First and foremost, the reason Right Hand Man ever ended up on Peko's list of combatants was honestly originally done as a joke. We found some loose connections, and decided that he could be a potentially interesting combatant to analyze if he DID win the vote.

//Which we were so damn wrong about.

//But he was by far the character on Peko's list of combatants that we were not only the least excited to do a battle for, but also the one that we least expected to win. But we figured out pretty quickly that he was picked due to the Henry Stickmin games being the most widely popular and well known at the time compared to Peko's other matchups.

//When I first ran the poll for people to vote for who wins this fight, it actually made me laugh to see Peko win the audience vote by a country mile, because to be perfectly frank, not only does this fight have the least amount of serious connections between the two fighters, but it's also the MOST one sided fight in the whole series.

//Sure, Mikan Vs Fluttershy was similarly one-sided against Mikan, but even Mikan Vs Fluttershy still has the benefit of the two characters being fundamentally similar in a way that gives them opportunity to interact.

//These two don't have that excuse because they have some of the most bare-bones personalities in their respective series. RHM is a one-dimensional jackass who's rude and hates everything, and there's no layers to him; not even a real name or a backstory. And while Survivor Peko definitely has grown from her canon iteration, she's still fundamentally a stone-faced warrior with little screen time to help improve upon that.

//And what makes it worse is that with that in mind, an analysis would mainly pertain to the characters unique abilities instead of their personalities and stories. But in that regard, RHM has so much to cover, and by comparison Peko has...NOTHING.

//She just has a sword, and if this was a battle between herself and another sword-user like Afro Samurai, it wouldn't be as much of a problem to cover it, since Afro also has limited weaponry. RHM however, is a machine of destruction with so many tools in his arsenal

//You'll notice that this is the shortest DB in the series because there's so little to actually cover and no way to drag it out in a way that's interesting. The saving grace is that the fight turned out to be alright in the end, but there was no way in a million years Peko was ever going to win this, and that upsets me immensely.

//I don't hold it against the voters obviously, since we were the ones who put the damn stick figure on the list in the first place, but this was not the right call in the end, and I regret it.

#11: MAKOTO VS PHOENIX

//Haha jokes on you muppets, I put your second favorite second from the bottom!

//Why? Well, no reason really! I just...kinda got bored of it?

//This fight has far more connections than Number 12, but still, it didn't turn out to be the spectacle I'd hoped it would be. It turned out to be really hard to portray Phoenix and Makoto in a hostile setting where they're at each other's throats and trying to kill each other. Upon reflection, I think this fight turned out ok, but it still could have been leagues better.

//If actual DB ever decided to do this, I imagine they'd do it better, but also they wouldn't use Survivor Makoto, so I doubt he would really win.

//The analysis was fine, but again, this being the first chapter in the series, it's really supposed to set a boundary of quality more than anything, and every episode that comes after it, save for Peko Vs RHM, just turned out to be so much better. And keeping both of them within character while also making them try to murder each other was far more difficult than it should have been.

#10: SAKURA VS JONATHAN

//The best part about this fight was that I genuinely wasn't expecting Sakura to win going into it. And the fact that she was the first actual fighter who won her battle made a lot of people very happy. Aside from that, there's not much to say here.

//It's a very standard fist fight between two beefy people. and honestly, I feel that Jonathan, as much as I love JoJo, was among the opponents I DIDN'T really want to cover.

//And while I know I said I wasn't taking the verdict into account, part of me is not wholly sure our judgement on this one was correct, and we were worried about facing backlash, but fortunately, everyone seemed to agree with our reasoning in the end.

//But other than that, while there is style, there's little substance. Analyzing both these characters was fine, but not something I remember being that exciting. Similarly to Peko Vs RHM, Jonathan is capable of so much with Hamon, and Sakura is just a regular fighter who turns out to be super duper powerful, but describing her techniques was a bit of a chore.

//What was nice was explaining how the functionalities of breathing work in a fight. That was pretty fun.

//But yeah, while I don't dislike this matchup at all, I still feel like both characters have far better matchups that can happen instead of each other.

#9: KAEDE VS SARA

//Given that she's hands down my favorite character, I was super disappointed with how Kaede's episode turned out.

//Part of it was because we were fully prepared for Kotone to end up winning the poll, but right at the VERY LAST SECOND, Sara swept it out from under her. So we ended up abandoning our planned script and instead rewrote about half of it to make up for it.

//That, and I unfortunately did not time this release well. This fight dropped IMMEDIATELY after Kaede achieved her latest and greatest feat in Survivor, and it made it clear to everybody that she had this one in the bag. Of course, that chapter and this fight were all pre-planned, so I can assure you that it's not unfair or cheating, and Kaede would have won regardless of whether she had taken down Himiko's robot or not. Even still, I do realize just how cheap it might seem from an outside perspective, and I acknowledge this, but trust me when I say that this was little more than poor planning on my part.

//But weirdly enough, what I enjoyed so much about this part wasn't analyzing Kaede. It was analyzing SARA.

//Going into it, we all knew that Kaede was going to win, because she's insanely powerful in DR Survivor, and against Sara, we never thought she was ever going to stack up.

//But our expectations were rather subverted when we started doing the analysis for her. While we were right in that Sara didn't have what it took to beat Kaede, we were pleasantly surprised by how much she DID have going for her, and how squaring up to the Ultimate Pianist turned out not to be such a pipe dream.

//One other issue I have with this part of the series is how much both characters analyses focused on their STORIES more than their capabilities in a fight, but again, like Peko, Kaede's lineup of abilities is rather straightforward and simple, and there wasn't any need to discuss the functionalities of the hacking gun, since Komaru Vs Katie already went very deep into that, and repeating it immediately afterwards was pointless.

//And as someone who loves writing Kaede, it became very difficult to have her and Sara interact in a way that was interesting without breaking character for either of them. The final result and the way they were both portrayed wasn't exactly what I wished for, even if it was...acceptable. It was just very hard to imagine how a fight would start out between them, given that both are very logical and try to assess a situation before deciding to leap into battle, so we were forced to get a little OOC.

//But while it could have been better, what we ended up putting together was pretty fun in the end, so it gets a little higher than some of the previous matchups.

#8: AKANE VS CHIE

//The reason why this fight ends up in the lower half of the countdown is because a lot of the actual fight is just Akane and Chie smacking each other. Chie uses her spells sparingly and there's not much substance to their actual duel.

//But the thing is that it's perfectly in character for both of them, so it's not really a good idea to change that aspect.

//Akane is already a character who I wasn't looking forward to analyzing, since while I don't HATE her, I certainly don't like her as much as ANYONE else in her home game. And a lot of it, for both of them, was going to pertain to their abilities more than their personality and history, since Akane is very one-dimensional, and Chie is a very standard character as well.

//But this was the first fight where I really felt like we were making something special, and again, while I said the verdict does not ultimately affect my ranking, this one is an exception, since I was VERY surprised that Akane pulled out the win.

//I'm GLAD. But surprised.

//Especially given how much people were underestimating Akane prior to the release of the fight, it was fun to see people react to Akane actually beating a character who comes from a series full of infinitely powerful magic users, since I, and everyone else, really underestimated how ridiculous Danganronpa scaling could be.

//And this was the fight that I think got a lot of people hooked on the concept, so I'm grateful that we ended up doing it. If either of these characters ever got into DB, which is quite unlikely, this is a matchup I would really like to see.

#7: MIKAN VS FLUTTERSHY

//Say hello to the thing that made me a Brony.

//Yeah, I had a LOT of fun with this one. I already knew that My Little Pony's lore ran deeper than it really should, especially with the latest DB season running Bill Cipher VS Discord, and I had guessed in advance that Fluttershy would somehow end up taking this.

//The fight is incredibly one-sided, even though neither Fluttershy, nor Mikan are really "fighters" per se. Given the fact that Fluttershy has access to so much powerful magic, there wasn't any way that Mikan could contend with it.

//Even so, the reason why this ended up being a rich man's version of Peko Vs RHM is that Mikan not only has so many more gadgets to work with, but both these characters have interesting, cute and well-made personalities that clash with each other PERFECTLY.

//Of every fight in this arc, this one is the one I feel has the most interaction potential. And in my mind, that tea party absolutely happened when Mikan broke out of that stone.

//When this fight won the poll, I wasn't particularly happy at first, and I still think Medic would have made for a more interesting fight, but I ended up falling in love with this one more than I meant to, especially with how much I learned about My Little Pony, and how much fun I had explaining the lore and scaling of Fluttershy.

#6: MUKURO VS KAYANO

//I had this one a lot lower originally, but when I went back to edit it and reread it, I fell in love with this one all over again.

//Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom have always been fundamentally similar stories, and not just because Monokuma and Korosensei are in similar positions in both.

//This fight was less of an argument between who would win between Mukuro Ikusaba and Kaede Kayano, and more of an argument between Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom, and which one has the more crazy scaling. And it was a BLAST.

//This is one of the few examples in this arc where both fighters are fundamentally similar and formidable warriors, in a way that I felt was akin to Black Widow VS Widowmaker, which to this day, is still one of my top DB episodes.

//And originally, this fight was going to be similar to that Assassin V Assassin fight, but factoring in Mukuro's Battle Trance and Kayano's tentacles, this was going to get anime as fuck at some point, and it did, and I really enjoyed it.

//Mukuro losing kind of sucked, but it didn't affect my enjoyment.

//And while I fully expected Reze to win the poll, given Chainsaw Man's popularity, I think that this is genuinely Mukuro's best potential matchup if she ever became a canon Death Battle character. And you know what? I'd actually like to see it.

#5: NARUMI VS TOGA

//So this was the first fight where I actually thought to myself, "yep, this one is my favourite."

//And as mentioned in the episode itself, we had FAR MORE trouble analyzing this fight than we thought, and we honestly didn't know if Narumi had it in her to beat Toga. It was only after hours of deliberating and getting all our facts together that we decided on a verdict.

//Toga being able to survive explosions that happened INSIDE her body as a result of her fight against Curious was the biggest outlier for us, and we read over everything that both these girls had done before we decided our final victor. And it was a fun ride throughout.

//Especially because I never quite realized just how many connections there were between Narumi and Toga, not even the fact that they're both yandere's for the main protagonist of their series.

//But the fun part was seeing how their own unique styles of fighting, which are REMARKABLY different, stacked up against each other. This fight will never happen, since Narumi Osone was never an official DR character, but if Survivor was canon, I'd love to see it. I've thought of some matchups for Narumi since, but Toga still retains her crown as the one with the most connections.

//Some of the later episodes dethroned it, obviously, but it's still one of my favourites, kicking off the top 5.

#4: JUNKO VS MONIKA

//I was really really worried that this finale was going to suck, and I'm super glad that it didn't. It was by far the most difficult matchup to write because we wanted to make it a spectacle, but were struggling on ways to do that.

//What made it so difficult was the analysis portion, not the fight, and the reason for that is because this is a composite version of Junko, which means we have to go over EVERYTHING she has across the whole series. And given the fact that Junko pops up in basically EVERY ONE of the series iterations, that's a LOT. Monika, in contrast, does not have NEARLY that much, so a lot of her analysis, at least in the beginning, details her origin story, then breaks down her powers and what she can do with it.

//And learning about the actual lore of how DDLC came to be in-universe was super fun actually.

//This was also probably the most even fight in the series, barring one particular fight that we'll get to next, for obvious reasons. Even if the setup is a little convoluted, it's not hard to imagine that someone like Monika could exist in the world of DR Survivor, especially given that there's already a chunky handful of AI characters in the main cast. And in the case of her and AI Junko, when they are at their best, they can both manipulate space and time in the digital world they live in to such an extent that stats practically mean nothing. The real fight comes down to which one of them is the more parasitic AI, just like in canon episode, Ultron VS Sigma.

//And that's what I think really sold this one for me - the fight, and the way it turned out. Junko was smarter, stronger, and generally had so many legs up on Monika that makes it almost impossible to beat her normally, but she didn't have the advantage in the ONE deciding factor that dictated this fight.

//And I think there's something really ironic about that, especially considering that's typically how Junko's plans fall apart in Danganronpa. The only reason that anyone ever beats her despite being so cartoonishly powerful is simply by never giving up, and exploiting the one weakness she has. Something that Monika does professionally.

//So while I do prefer Junko Vs Springtrap as a concept that I would like to see, this one turned out to be way more fun than I thought it would, and I'm glad we did it.

#3: KOMARU VS KATIE

//There's really not much to say about this one, it's just a fun time. But that's what you should expect when you put the goofiest protag herself against the protag of the Mitchell's Vs the Machines.

//Katie's analysis is one of the best in this series, and one of the most fun I had writing. Komaru's isn't AS good, but I still think both were solid sequences detailing the characters and their stories, even if in Komaru's case, it had to be cut a little to go over the important origin points.

//But the very obvious reason why this fight and its conclusion ended up being so good was obviously because of the verdict, and what we broke down in the conclusion. In that from the feats we see of them, Komaru and Katie are fighters on a near equal level, to the point where it's hard to know for sure which one of them could win if they did fight. Thus, it ended up as a draw.

//And I think that's a really solid way to conclude this thing. Both are (originally) gun-wielding teenage girls fighting against a robot apocalypse, with their stories throughout the entire series putting a heavy emphasis on family, and the importance of it. In a way, that makes these two perfect opponents for one another, and the way this fight ended up portraying that in the end was pretty fun to watch.

//And the interaction potential as a result leaves very little to be desired. Their personalities clash perfectly, as do their goofy little quirks and interactions, and the fight itself was also fun, especially with how it takes them across the city scape and forcing both of them to get creative, something they both excel at.

//Like I said, there's not much to say here. This one was just super fun and I like how it turned out.

#2: SEIKO VS LIZARD

//So you know how only like, one person voted this one as their favorite one? Yeah, fuck the rest of you, lol.

//This battle gets my verdict for biggest surprise of the series. Because this one turned out amazing and I didn't believe it would.

//I might have mentioned this before, but originally, the 10th battle in the original lineup was going to be Kuripa, but he was swapped out for Seiko last minute. This is because Kuripa still has some more insane feats on the way in future arcs when he makes his grand return, and I wanted to save his fight for a potential future season lineup.

//Seiko was a GREAT substitute though, especially with her fight against Kanade in the main series coming shortly before this. And weirdly, from both the analysis, to each characters similarities and stories, to how an actual fight between them would go, all of it FUCKS HARD!

//One thing you might have noticed with the lineup of this arc is I really really REALLY wanted to avoid putting any Marvel characters in the polls. The simple reason being that Marvel and DC are so drastically fucking overdone in Death Battle, and I didn't think anyone would want to see it in this because I know I certainly wouldn't.

//This however, turned out to be a GREAT exception. If Lizard ever got into Death Battle, there's quite a few opponents he could go up against; Man-Bat being his biggest contender IMO, but Seiko, I think, is an underrated alternative.

//The big thing that sells this fight for me is that it somehow succeeds at being both a Brains Vs Brawn battle, AS WELL AS a feral monster battle. As mentioned in the post-analysis, Seiko's genius with medicine is so potent, it's not impossible that she could have fashioned a cure for Connors, especially since unlike him, her bestial form still retains some of her humanity. But not only was Connors just too insanely powerful compared to her, he actually had the means to COUNTER this weakness!

//Connors winning was pretty obvious, considering Marvel scaling gets insane, and he was several hundred times more powerful than Seiko, but even so, this fight didn't feel totally lame and one-sided, likely because even though they take different forms, both characters had strikingly similar abilities and feats.

//And one thing everybody knew going into this that I'm so glad we were able to deliver for this was this fight needed to be VISCIOUS. It's basically the epitome of two mutant monsters trying to tear each other to shreds, very much like Beast VS Goliath or Sabrewulf VS Jon Talbein, and the sewer system made for an appropriate and gritty setting.

//This was certainly the most pleasant surprise of the series, and had it not been for one little thing, this would have EASILY been my favourite fight.

//That one thing being...

#1: HAJIME VS DEKU

//I mean...COME ON! How could it NOT be!?

//This is my most wanted Death Battle of all time, and it seems to be the most wanted for the voting audience as well, since it won the poll in an ABSOLUTE LANDSLIDE!

//And unlike the other top spots on the community poll, this is the one that we all actually agree on.

//Not just because Hajime would hands down be the best Danganronpa character to premiere in Death Battle (besides maybe Junko), but personally, Deku VS Asta, Deku's canon episode, left a lot to be desired. It feels like the team were trying to ham up the fact that they were finally getting Deku in Death Battle, but then put him against a super mediocre opponent with surface level connections

//The way THESE TWO contrast though? It runs a LOT DEEPER than that.

//Hajime and Deku's stories are basically the exact same. The only difference is the story beats and the outcome, with Deku's story being that of a rising hero, and Hajime's being a fallen hero. And as a massive fan of both Danganronpa and My Hero Academia, it was my duty to make certain that this one turned out the best it could be.

//Which is the reason why this is so goddamn long. In an actual Death Battle episode, a lot of this important info would be reserved for the black boxes, but since we don't have those, we went over BASICALLY EVERYTHING. And what helped with it is that both characters have deep lore, interesting personalities, awesome powers, and everything we could possibly need to rant on for ages without seeming contrived or bored.

//Essentially, it's the complete reverse of Peko VS RHM, where both characters have abundant content and character, as opposed to basically no content or character. Aside from that, there are three big reasons why this is my favourite one of the lot.

//Exhibit A: Symbol of Hope.

//Up until this point, I have never brought up the music tracks for these battles, simply because, like early DB, a lot of them aren't original music composed for the specific matchups, being either a random video game music track, fan song, or a commissioned matchup track by Brandon Yates, and some of them work better than others (personally hated the Mikan Vs Fluttershy one, but I legit had no other option when it came to a gritty, despairing track that also featured chipper-ass MLP.

//Symbol of Hope is one of the commissioned Brandon Yates tracks that wasn't made for an actual DB episode, but it's one of his best tracks ever. If I have anything to be concerned about, the lyrics of Symbol of Hope contrast quite heavily to the theme of the actual battle we presented, where in the song, Hajime and Deku seem to be at odds with one another, fighting for the same reasons, but are against each other because of their different philosophies. I think this is pretty realistic though, and it doesn't take away from the fact that I still love the track. Plus, it's pretty long, which is good because this fight is also pretty long.

//Exhibit B: Character interactions and dynamic.

//Speaking of which, in this battle, Deku and Hajime's dynamic in this episode is mainly inspired by All Might VS Might Guy, Goku VS Superman 3 and Saitama VS Popeye; kind of a mesh between the three. Throughout most of their fight, Deku's main goal isn't just to win the fight, but it's also to show Hajime the respect he deserves, and give him a battle to remember. Hajime, who doesn't take Deku seriously at first, going along with it for the sake of appealing to this kid, eventually starts to break out into a joyous sweat when Deku raises the stakes and starts fighting him on an equal level; something that Hajime has never gotten in his life since becoming an Ultimate Hope, not even from the likes of Fujimori or Komaeda, other Ultimate Hope's.

//Having Deku's optimism break through Hajime's apathy, even though it costs him the fight, turned out to be a heartwarming, fun ending, and a great way to end the semi-final match.

//And exhibit C: their powers and abilities.

//Analyzing the full potential of One For All and the full potential of the Ultimate Hope was AMAZING, especially given how much we needed to consider for the verdict. As we mentioned, and we stand by this, it's likely that Deku at his full potential is actually physically stronger than Ultimate Hope Hajime, even though his strength is supposed to be the peak of humanity.

//But even if that is the case, there's still the powers themselves to consider, Ultimate Luck being a VERY big caveat to take into account, but the fight we ended up coming up with showed off basically all their abilities and powers without being too weirdly contrived, and I absolutely dig it.

//If there are any issues with this, it's that the setting can be a little confusing, that much I am aware of. Halfway through the fight, it's revealed that Hajime and Deku are fighting in the Neo World because their power threatens to create potential world destruction if they clash, but since all these fights are taking place in a simulation already, it left a few people confused about the situation and...yeah I didn't really think that through, I'm sorry about that one.

//But yeah, that doesn't take away from how much I enjoyed this one, and it's easily my top pick for this arc.

-Mod

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #death battle #warriors of other worlds arc #ranking

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