My 25 Most Wanted Death Battle Matchups (WIP)

Demitri vs Slayer (Darkstalkers vs Guilty Gear)

Connections: Classy vampires from fighting games.

General Thoughts: Kicking off this list with the fan-favourite fighting game matchup. There's no shortage of great fighting game matchups (Guile vs Jax, Cervantes vs Spinal, Liu Kang vs Jago, just to name a few examples), 

Track Title: Class of their Own

Jenny Wakeman vs Robotboy (Nickelodeon vs Cartoon Network)

Connections: Robotic cartoon adolescent heroes.

General Thoughts: Death Battle needs more cartoon fights (though they have slowly gotten better about this over the years) and more robot fights, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

A few people might think that the "robotic child heroes" quota has already been fulfilled by Mega Man vs Astro Boy, but I disagree for a number of reasons.

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Doomsday vs SCP-682 (DC vs SCP)

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Eleven vs Flynn (Dragon Quest vs Shin Megami Tensei)

Connections: Saved multiple lands ravaged by apocalyptic events, acting as beacons of hope in worlds of monsters and perpetual night. Reincarnations of legendary figures from ages past who gave their lives to seal a great evil

General Thoughts: RPG's are criminally underrepresented on Death Battle. Yeah, we've had Final Fantasy, Pokémon and Persona, but given how much the genre has to offer, that's scarcely scratching the surface. It's high time that the genre got some fresh blood on the scene, and what could be better than arguably the two biggest RPG series Death Battle has yet to use? Combine this with my love for both series (in spite of my limited experience with them both), and you've got a matchup that was tailor made for me to love.

The only potential sticking point is that, while Dragon Quest packs harder punches than most would expect, it isn't competing with Shin Megami Tensei in that regard.

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Perseus vs Gilgamesh (Greek Myth vs Mesopotamian Myth)

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General Thoughts: One of the most unique matchups in recent memory has to be Hercules vs Sun Wukong. Breaking down that barrier and saying "yes, we can do mythology" was so out of left field, and a huge breath of fresh air for the show. So, it's only natural that I want Death Battle to have another go of it. While plenty of excellent mythology matchups have come out of the woodwork since that episodes announcement, for my money, this is the best one.

In terms of art style, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the game Apotheon, but if possible, I would love for the fight to emulate the look of that game. It still rocks that signature ancient Greek style aesthetic while still remaining visually distinct from what Hercules vs Sun Wukong offered with the scrolls.

The choreography between the two has a ton of potential

Plus, if Perseus wins, we can have an interesting and unique death where Gilgamesh gets turned to stone by Medusa's gaze and gets transformed into a statue of himself that persists through to modern day.

Track Title: Godlike

Grovyle vs Hovernyan (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon vs Yo-Kai Watch!)

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General Thoughts: Pokémon has had an .. odd history with Death Battle. It's the number 1 best selling media franchise in the world, is based primarily on combat, is never NOT relevant, and has more than enough characters to justify frequent fights, and yet, it feels Death Battle hardly uses it. So, what's say we rectify this? Originally, I was going to go with Mewtwo vs BlackWarGreymon to give Mewtwo a good episode, or an Arceus matchup so we can see what the top dog in Pokémon can really do, but how about we instead divulge Death Battle's recent excursion into specific incarnations of characters?

Track Title: Futureproof

Bowser vs Eggman (Super Mario vs Sonic the Hedgehog)

Track Art courtesy of AwesomeEthan48

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Track Title: Hard-Boiled Fury

Cole McGrath vs Alex Mercer (inFamous vs PROTOTYPE)

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General Thoughts: The fact that this matchup outright needs community push frankly leaves me at a loss for words.

Track Title: Infamous Prototypes

Piccolo vs Magus (Dragon Ball vs Chrono Trigger)

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General Thoughts: Ah, Dragon Ball, that consistently volatile workhorse of a series. There's plenty of good Dragon Ball matchups to choose from (Gohan vs Ultraman Zero, Frieza vs Pyron, Gogeta vs Omegamon, etc.) but for my money, Piccolo vs Magus is the one that does it for me. Piccolo's unique physiology as a Namekian helps him stand out from all the Saiyans that that get requested (I think even Dragon Ball fans will agree a fifth Saiyan in a row is getting a bit repetitive), Chrono Trigger is a beloved timeless classic well worth Death Battle using

Piccolo's got your standard Dragon Ball loadout, with flight, ki blasts, transformations, etc., but he is a Namekian, and as such, gets a bunch of unique abilities that we've not really seen much in Dragon Ball. Regeneration, 

I'm not really going to touch on the characters alternative opponents in this blog, but I feel like I need to talk about Piccolo vs Martian Manhunter. The connections aren't awful, and I don't think a stomp automatically makes a matchup bad, but it puts a character who literally can't do anything to their opponent, against a character who can win with a thought. You could argue that the character interaction might make up for it, but that was done about as good as it could in the One Minute Melee. And the matchup doesn't have the obvious potential to play it off as a joke episode in the same way as something like SpongeBob vs Aquaman without coming across as mean-spirited.

I've seen Chrono Trigger characters bounce back and forth between planet and universe level, and the higher end of that should reasonably allow Magus to contend with Piccolo (albeit still at a disadvantage).

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Ridley vs Vile (Metroid vs Mega Man)

Album Art courtesy of DekHead

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Track Title: Cunning Vileness

Spy vs Agent 47 (Team Fortress vs Hitman)

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General Thoughts: Team Fortress needs another go around at Death Battle

I know Dead Ringer into backstab is the obvious kill that everyone who discusses the matchup brings up, but 

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Arle Nadja vs Reimu Hakurei (Puyo Puyo vs Touhou Project)

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Axe Cop vs Inferno Cop

Album Art courtesy of DekHead

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General Thoughts: I feel like no list like this is complete without that one matchup that's just good, dumb fun. And if that's what you're after, not much is beating Axe Cop vs Inferno Cop. It'd be raw insanity, distilled into its purest form and brought to the screen to break the mind of all who witness it for generations to come.

Maybe have a sequence where they hit each other so hard that their artstyles swap.

Track Title: Hot Chop Justice

Death vs Black Flash (Castlevania vs DC)

Connections: Two of the most overpowered grim reapers in fictional history that serve as recurring antagonists to powerful families of heroes (the Belmonts and the Flashes).

General Thoughts: I love Castlevania, so it's only natural that I want it to return for Death Battle. But looking among the pool of main options, the bulk of them don't really do it for me. I think that most of the Belmont matchups are mid at best (though, I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong on this), and the only other Castlevania characters of significant note are Alucard and Death. This effectively gives me the choice of Alucard vs D and this matchup, and for as good as Alucard vs D is, and for as much as I like Alucard, I just like this better.

First of all, let's talk atmosphere. Two physical manifestations of Death trying everything they can to kill each other, I should be able to cut the tension with a knife (as an aside, most meta-fitting thing for a show called Death Battle). This was made to be a Halloween episode.

While on the topic of atmosphere, let's talk fight location. I feel like a graveyard is a pretty natural place for them to start the fight, The interior of a clock tower is an incredibly unique setting for a fight.

Even without the location, there's some fun choreography potential here. Death could summon a bunch of sickles to attack Black Flash, only for him to jump from each one to strike Death, each sickle he jumps on left decaying into rust. Have Black Flash move so fast he's in multiple places at once and Death duplicate himself to keep up.

This brings me on to how they should characterise Death in this fight. Death's most well known personality nowadays is how he appears in the Castlevania Netflix show which, while entertaining, is quite different from how Death is in the main Castlevania series (both in terms of personality and what he actually is). That said, I'm sure a compromise could be reached between his personality from the main continuity and the fan favourite Netflix adaption (bet that's the first time you've read that).

Track Title: Death's Battle

Sailor Moon vs Madoka Kaname (Sailor Moon vs Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

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Yu Narukami vs Takumi Aiba (Persona 4 vs Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth)

Track Art courtesy of DekHead

Track Art courtesy of Star Bee

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Track Title: Midnight Sleuths

Maxwell vs Rudy (Scribblenauts vs ChalkZone)

Album Art courtesy of Star Bee

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General Thoughts: Scribblenauts Unlimited is one of my favourite games ever made, and Maxwell is one of my most wanted characters for Death Battle, so a matchup featuring him was essentially a lock-in for a list like this.

Track Title: Creative Sparks

Asura vs Atrocitus (Asura's Wrath vs DC)

Artwork courtesy of StarBee

Artwork courtesy of CarbonatedJems

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General Thoughts: Asura might just be the single most overdue character in Death Battle history (if not, he's definitely up there). The dude has been a consistent request for the show since his game came out, he has a wide variety of opponents to draw from, 

Atrocitus is my preferred opponent for Asura simply because he offers the perfect balance of creative choreography and cosmic scale that a lot of Asura's other matchups lack. Z-Broly would be a step back from his previous outing against Hulk (being weaker in both power and character), Amaterasu is weak thematically and doesn't gel particularly well with Asura's hand-to-hand combat, and Kratos would look off fighting at that cosmic scale that Asura requires (the fact that Kratos has Dante as an option further diminishes the appeal of Kratos vs Asura to me).

Track Title: Rage Against the Heavens

Shulk vs Lightning (Xenoblade Chronicles vs Final Fantasy)

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General Thoughts: Revisiting what was discussed with Eleven vs Flynn, RPG's are severely underutilised by Death Battle. 

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Cuphead vs Peacock (Cuphead vs Skullgirls)

Album Art by Star Bee

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Track Title: Rubberhose Ruckus

Little Mac vs Makunouchi Ippo (Punch-Out!! vs Hajime no Ippo)

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General Thoughts: One of my favourite things about this matchup is the smaller sense of scale, which sounds like a weird thing to say, but roll with me. With all the fights in Death Battle having characters flying around at zillions of times light speed and destroying galaxies by farting, it can leave you wanting for something a little more grounded.

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Thaal Sinestro vs Yuki Terumi (DC vs Blazblue)

Album Art by Star Bee

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Track Title: Fear the Worst

Senator Armstrong vs Funny Valentine (Metal Gear vs Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

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Track Title: Scars and Stripes

Destoroyah vs Iris (Godzilla vs Gamera)

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General Thoughts: If Death Battle needs to use more cartoon characters, they REALLY need to use more kaiju. Over Death Battles 160+ episode run over the course of more than decade, we've had 1 (1.5 if you count MechaGodzilla vs DragonZord) kaiju fights, and frankly, that's unacceptable. 

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Lucina vs Clairen (Fire Emblem vs Rivals of Aether)

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General Thoughts: Fire Emblem on Death Battle has been LONG overdue, and while you can't exactly say Rivals of Aether is super-overdue or a verse that Death Battle should've gotten to by now, 

Track Title: Future Tense

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Bass.EXE vs Beelzemon (Mega Man Battle Network vs Digimon Tamers)

Sometimes, a matchup just needs to vibe with me to get me to like it. Two edgy black-clad cyber warriors with lone-wolf personalities and get stronger by absorbing other digital beings? That'll do nicely! Battle Network and Digimon also just feel like two universes that gel well together, so there's that going for it as well. Tell it wouldn't be the best thing ever if Twitter got destroyed during the fight, that would be amazing...

Track Title: Based.EXE

Blaze the Cat vs Sailor Mars (Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sailor Moon)

Ultimately held down here by lack of real familiarity with Sailor Mars

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Foo Fighters vs Spiders-Man (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure vs Marvel)

When you make me, a hopeless arachnophobe, a fan of a matchup where one character is literally a bunch of spiders, you've done something right. 

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Sonic vs Kasen Ibaraki (Sonic the Comic vs Touhou Project)

Kirbonic Pikmin made a fantastic blog on this matchup, and I highly recommend giving it a look.

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Simon the Digger vs Kyle Rayner (Gurren Lagann vs DC)

This is essentially THE community matchup by this point, to the extent that I'm all but convinced it's going to happen in the near future. Gurren Lagann is one of the biggest anime that Death Battle has yet to use, 

Track Title: Beyond Belief

Cybermen vs Borg (Doctor Who vs Star Trek)

We're LONG overdue for another army fight. I don't believe we've had one since ... I want to say Ultron vs Sigma? Have the two try to assimilate each other.

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Yusuke vs Yoh (Yu Yu Haskusho vs Shaman King)

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Captain America vs Kamen Rider Ichigo (Marvel vs Kamen Rider)

It's not exa 

Have a scene where Steve throws Mjolnir at Ichigo, and Ichigo just catches it. That'd be one of the rawest moment in any Death Battle.

I'm not going to predict who would win for a lot of these, especially for a character I'm as unfamiliar with as Ichigo, but from what I hear, he should comfortably take it? From what I'm told, Steve should take the experience advantage and Ichigo has to work around his shield, but apparently Ichigo edges out just about everywhere else that counts, so this sounds pretty open and shut

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Mewthree vs SSJ5 Goku (PokéGods vs Dragon Ball AF)

I know.

Believe me, I know.

Is this matchup the textbook definition of a shitpost? Yes.

Does this have absolutely zero chance of happening? Yes.

Am I putting this on here over other objectively better matchups? Yes.

Do I have any regrets? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Track Title: Playground Myths

Jin Mori vs Monkie Kid (The God of High School vs LEGO)

I just find the idea of Lego being seriously analysed on Death Battle interesting and funny, I don't know what to tell you. Looking over all the possible matchups for Lego, this is my favourite (though Ninjago and Bionicle would be fun to see at some point as well). The idea of pairing anime characters against Lego just sounds like a fun contrast, and the fact that this is possibly debatable (?) is just the icing on the cake.

Track Title: Journey to the Best

Saber Artoria vs Ky Kiske (Fate vs Guilty Gear)

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Thrall vs Ghazgkhull (Warcraft vs Warhammer 40K)

Track Title: Warhammer of Doom