Death Battle!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Does anyone else watch this web-series?

Personally I've followed it for years and always find it to be super fun. It's simultaneously incredibly nerdy in a way that I respect while also being fun and not taking itself too seriously. It's sort of like MTV's Celebrity Death Match, except replaced with comic book, animated series, movie, and video game characters. Some of my personal favorite fights are:

Goku Vs. Superman (first battle)

Mega Man Vs. Astro Boy

Hercules Satan (Dragon Ball Z) Vs. Dan Hibiki (Street Fighter)

Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden) Vs. Strider Hiryu (Strider)

Dante (Devil May Cry) Vs. Bayonetta (Bayonetta)

Mega Charizard (Pokémon) Vs. War-Greymon (Digimon)

Green Arrow Vs. Hawkeye

Snake (Metal Gear; voiced by Chris Sabat!) Vs. Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell)

Raiden (Metal Gear Solid/Rising) Vs. Wolverine (X-Men)

Goliath (Gargoyles) Vs. Beast (X-Men)

Deadpool Vs. Deathstroke

Tony Stark/Iron Man (voiced by Chuck Huber!) Vs. Lex Luthor

I think that if you enjoy this kind of geeky debate stuff for what it is, with a healthy touch of humor and some impressive animation for such a low-budget production accompanying it, then you'don't find it to be a fun series. It's just fun to see characters that I like beat the shit out of each other in spectacularly over-the-top fashion.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The next episode of Death Battle will feature Zoro from One Piece, but I hope that it isn't Samurai Jack that he fights like some people are suggesting. I remember him having some absurdly OP abilities in certain episodes to the point that a fight between the two wouldn't even be a fair match if those are included. But, maybe I'm remembering it wrong since it's has been a while.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Jack and Zoro isn't a bad match-up considering what both have been shown to be capable of in both series, imo. They are both pretty over-powered in their own rights as swordsmen, so it could be interesting to compare the two.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I do remember Jack fighting literal God-like beings, but to be fair these concepts are all relative to each individual series, so it could be more even like you suggest.

To be honest, I really want to see him fight Raiden from Metal Gear Rising, who they already used in the Wolverine fight, but they've never had a problem reusing characters before. Though, having him fight Jetstream Sam from the same game would possibly make even more sense since they both have strong mentalities of pride as swordsmen.

I just hope that the suggestions that I've seen people say in the comments of him fighting Sasuke from Naruto are false. On top of hating that character to begin with, he doesn't even fit the bill since even if he carries a sword, he's not really a swordsman.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Well, it was confirmed yesterday that Zoro will be going up against Erza from Fairy Tail.

It's a sensible matchup since they are both swordsmen from similar toned shonen battle series, but yeah, Erza is way more overpowered than Zoro so that's not going to be much of fight. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Zoro Vs. Raiden would've been super ultra cool, though....

I still take consolation in the fact that Zoro is a better written character (aka my favorite Straw Hat) than Erza (yes, I've dabbled in Fairy Tail before).

[LumRanmaYasha]

Erza is arguably one of the worst characters in Fairy Tail, which says a lot considering how many bad characters there are in that series. She always wins her fights because of some asspull. The most baffling was when she fought against an opponent that literally robbed her of all of her senses - sight, hearing, sense of touch, taste, smell - everything, and broke several of her limbs, and yet she still managed to beat her because, and this is literally what they say in-series, "because she's Erza." That is the ONLY explanation given, no joke.

So when I'm saying that Erza is way more overpowered than Zoro, it's because she literally cannot lose no matter what. When Zoro does something over the top, it's freaking badass. When Erza does something over the top, it's fucking bullshit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's called Bleach-syndrome. It's when writers try too hard to make their characters seem like bad-asses to the point of unintentional absurdity, in which you can't even take them seriously anymore.

That isn't to say that you can't make them crazy powerful like in One Piece or Dragonball, but the characters in those franchises work because their powers and abilities still have clear limitations and aren't inherently overpowered in the context of their respective universes. Every time a character wins a fight there's a clear reason for it, and when a fight is laughable or ridiculous, it's ususally because it's specifically written to be humorous and not to be taken too seriously like the recent fight between Luffy and Cracker in One Piece or the fight between Gotenks and Majin Buu in the Room of Spirit and Time during the Buu saga.

When your reason for a character winning a fight is "just because they were supposed to" regardless of how many disadvantages are stacked against them, then you have a flat, uninteresting bout of power fantasy won by a boring character, and the victory ends up feeling hollow and unearned.

[Rynnec]

Most vs. battle sites actually have Zoro above Erza, and Fairy Tail's as a whole is considered below OP (both in power level and in quality  )

Albeit, that probably won't stop Erza from winning given this is the same Death Battle where Bayonetta lost to Dante despite the former having much better feats.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Actually, to be fair, they touched on that point. Bayonetta IS a stronger character than Dante in terms of raw ability, but Dante is infinitely harder to actually kill, whereas Bayonetta can still die by relatively normal means since she is shown to be much more susceptible to mortal wounds, and Dante had reasonable counters to most of her useful abilities, such as Quucksilver countering Witch Time.

The only match I can think of where I really had to question their reasoning was Batman Vs. Captain America. Otherwise I find their outcomes to usually be pretty well-supported.

As for Zoro Vs. Erza, the people in favor of Zoro seem to argue that most of Erza's OP-status has more to do with bad writing conveniences and plot armor rather than scientifically quantefiable feats, which is usually what holds more water in DB's research for these match-ups. That said, my knowledge of FT is far too limited to really comment on this, but I rarely care much about the outcome myself so long as the actual match is entertaining, like in the first Goku Vs. Superman or Mega Man Vs. Astro Boy, among others.

[Rynnec]

FWIW Current Zoro is calc'd at city level due to his cutting Pica and apparently surviving an attack by Fujitora. While Erza's stting slightly below that from what I can gather, however, Zoro is considered faster (albeit, mostly from scaling). The matchup could go either way, but I've learned not to really take DB's assessments at face value.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, it's out: http://youtu.be/T2A1N4Q-_z8

Spoiler

I'm not sure how accurate the results are, but you certainly won't hear me complaining about Erza being cold-bloodedly cut in half.

[close]

[LumRanmaYasha]

No complaints here!