Death Battle Retrospective: 172-185,187

 I think that season 10 was objectively the best season of the show. It had some of the strongest animations, the strongest episode choices and the strongest research. I would say that it was pretty much a culmination of everything the show had built up to that point. 

That said, I would also say ironically that it was probably the most rocky. It felt like we were cutting things a lot closer in general compared to previous years. I also believe we started the season much later and that we had no mid season break either. The previous two editors also both left at once before the season even started. Luckily this gave DJ a chance to interview and get an editing position himself. Later on he also had a friend named Galaxy Max join him. They made a good team.

This was also the first time they attempted to have a “ballot” where discord users could vote for fights that the show could do.

This would again be repeated in season 11 with the “tournament of Champions”

DJ also made this whole “hint cipher” that people could analyze to attempt to figure out the episodes chosen that season.

Anyway I wouldn’t say too much changed, though we got a new research member, Swalot aka Juekum. He was another old time Srewattack member. I also talked to Jetz a bit more than previous years and he seemed cool.

Episode 172: Ant-man vs Atom

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/06/death-battle-predictions-ant-man-vs-atom.html 

Atom Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/05/character-analysis-atom-feat-akuma.html 

Ant-Man Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/05/character-analysis-ant-man-feat-kirby.html 

I didn’t have much investment in this fight, but I enjoyed the animation. I remember Luis posting a meme about this fight with the Thanos butt thing from Endgame. The character writing was also pretty good imo.

Episode 173: Skyrim vs Dark Souls

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/06/death-battle-predictions-dark-souls-vs.html 

DragonBorn Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/06/character-analysis-dragon-born.html 

Chosen Undead Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/06/character-analysis-chosen-undead-feat.html 

This was one of my favorite fights of the season as a fan who played all the Souls games up until that point. I did the character research for DragonBorn and Swan for Chosen Undead.I would say that the most difficult part of the research was just understanding Skyrim's bizarre cosmology. Cataloging all the spells and relevant abilities for both sides was time consuming, but relatively rudimentary. Figuring out how to frame the Chosen Undeads defeat was also a challenge in terms of writing, as he was basically unkillable in a traditional sense.

Anyway I love the setup of the fight being near the first flame. The back and forth of spells, and particularly the vow of silence segment. The ending where the DragonBorn snuffs out the first flame with a shout was also cool. Apparently Swan voiced the “prepare to die” line, which was pretty raw. I remember we attempted to get Solair into earlier versions of the fight, but it wasn’t feasible due to time constraints. Maybe one day he can have his own fight.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150316023041/http://www.screwattack.com/news/death-analysis-estus-chugging-sun-praising-jolly-cooperating-slayer-lords-chosen-undead 

If only

Fun fact this is another fight that Swan wanted to do back since his Screwattack days. I think he actually sided with the Chosen Undead back at the time.

Episode 174: Killua vs Misaka

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/06/death-battle-predictions-killua-vs.html 

Misaka Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/06/character-analysis-misaka-mikoto.html

Killua Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/06/charater-analysis-killua-feat-swallot.html 

Never seen either series, but I recall this being a fun episode. I think my most distinct memory is that sky shot with Killua in the air while performing a lighting attack. Supposedly they almost made a mistak with the design of the button Mikasa uses and that had to be corrected.

Episode 175: Stitch vs Rocket Racoon

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/07/death-battle-predictions-stitch-vs.html 

Stitch Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-stitch-feat-kirbykid.html

Rocket Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-rocket-racoon.html 

Another fun fight. One of the funnier things I learned about Stitch was all the weird spin offs he has where he’s basically a Dragon Ball character. The animation had a pretty decent  and had a large amount of humor I enjoyed. I remember Stitch’s lines are actually in his language for that matter.

I remember the 3rd Galaxy movie complicated the whole “he’s not a racoon” discourse, since in that movie he actually was established to have been an Earth racoon, muddying public perception of the character. 

Episode 176:  Darth Vader vs Obito

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/07/death-battle-predictions-darth-vader-vs.html 

Vader Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-darth-vader-feat.html 

Obito Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-obito.html 

This was the first episode written by Grand Blazer. I’m fairly certain he took the writing slot intended for me, after I decided I’d rather focus on Goku vs Superman.

Anyway I think he did a pretty good job. Both characters' interactions, particularly the ending where Obito gave Vader some peace, were written pretty well. Vader was also made fairly menacing during the fight. I recall some contesting of the result, but I recall the community going back and forth a bit over the years, so I don’t think it matters much.

Episode 177: Phoenix vs Raven

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/07/death-battle-predictions-phoenix-vs.html 

Raven Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-ravenfeat-swallot.html 

Phoenix Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/07/character-analysis-jean-grey-feat.html 

This fight is slept on ngl. I remember being pretty floored by the scale that it went up to, all the form changes and the fire/darkness effects for each character's respective attacks. The ending where Raven blew out the fire was also pretty rad. In general I’m kinda just glad Raven got better representation than in her original match.

This fight did result in A LOT of people getting angry over the outcome though. My guess is that part of it was just breaking the audience's suspension of disbelief due to the notoriety of Jean’s reputation in Marvel’s cosmology compared to Raven in DC’s. I recall us having a huge issue with people trying to screencap the researchers after the ep came out, with people taking their words out of context and spreading it in public to try to ridicule them. Accusations of rigging the fight were also common. Not invested in the outcome myself, but it was a bit much if you ask me.

Apparently there were also people in Seth the Programmer fandom demanding to know who the researchers of this episode were. Not the first time something outlandish had happened with that guy, as Seth once tried to manipulate a member of the G1 blog into saying some crazy things on a video stream.

Speaking of Seth this was the year he was outed by the community for….all sorts of things. Tbh I had seen this document outsing him for various things years earlier, so I was confused about why it took so long for people to hold him accountable. It was obvious from the start.

I remember in particular he went onto some stream to try to defend himself, but ended up having the equivalent of an Ace Attorney villain breakdown. It was wild to watch. *eats popcorn.

Episode 178:  Guts vs Dimitri

Fun fact I chose Eldegard’s route

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/08/death-battle-predictions-guts-vs-dimitri.html 

Guts Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/character-analysis-guts-feat-djtiki.html

Dimitri Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/character-analysis-dimitri-feat-lousy.html 

A good fight and great return for Guts. I didn’t dislike Gut’s original fight, but it  was basically just “Guts is cool” in the recap. This one had much better research and the fight itself did a great job of leaning into the gruff nature of both characters' series. I loved how Dimitri decided to protect Guts in the end for that matter.

Speaking of breaking the audience's suspension of disbelief from the prior episode post, I would def say this episode illustrates how that can happen with the causal audience of a given franchise. The Fire Emblem fanbase largely did not have faith in Dimitri winning this fight, and a lot of them didn’t buy the calcs used for him. It really shows that how a character is presented on screen can matter a lot to the people watching Death Battle. As well as the fact that power scaling logic sometimes goes at right angles to the narrative(Batman dolls out FTL nuke punches).

Episode 179: Martian Manhunter vs Silver Surfer

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/08/death-battle-predictions-martian.html 

Manhunter Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/character-analysis-martian-manhunter.html

Surfer Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/character-analysis-silver-surfer-feat.html 

This was a difficult fight to research. Manhunter just had so much material, that other researchers had to jump in to help out Grand. I myself actually read through all his N52 and rebirth appearences.

Anyway I would say the fight turned out well. The dialogue is its strongest point, particularly the ending exchange. The set up with the detective agency was also pretty cool. I think some middle portions of the fight are a little slow.

Episode 180: Bill vs Discord

Locked

This is objectively one of the best episodes the show has ever made. DJ went hard with the editing, it has the most tabs since Naruto/Ichigo, Billy was crazy with all the animation changes, the characterization was great and so was the music. Bill winning was also framed in pretty much the perfect way, with him more or less being screwed over by Discord regardless.

But on an entirely “personal” level, I just can’t jive with the episode myself. There was a lot of toxicity around this match for years and most debates had this habit of spiraling out of control basically everywhere. To this day it’s the only episode thread in the Official Discord to have been locked for a significant period of time and to be the only match the G1 blog opted out of predicting. A lot of previous incidents with the MLP fandom, particularly the Speed impersonation attempt, also made me uneasy with doing the episode. I realize the casual audience wouldn’t know about that stuff, but I’m frankly still surprised that there’s people in the community aware of those incidents and still pushed the episode so hard anyway. Doesn’t seem like a great set of priorities. 

But in the end it worked out.

Episode 181: Cole vs Alex

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/09/death-battle-predictions-cole-macgrath.html 

Cole Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/09/character-analysis-cole-macgrath-feat.html

Alex Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/09/character-analysis-alex-mercer-feat.html 

This was the other Ballot champions episode. 

Cole vs Alex has been pushed for a LONG time. I remember it being super big back in the 2010s when both series were still recent. But over time both series kinda lost relevancy and the ep became the fandom's white whale. In the end an organized campaign from multiple people was the main reason it won the poll.

Anyway I think the episode's winner had largely been solved for several years at that point. Pretty much everyone knew that Cole should win. 

The fight itself was pretty good, and I remember being surprised about how much mileage they got out of Cole's powers. I’m happy they also used the good Cole, as it kinda gave the fight a sense of stakes, and a cathartic conclusion. The “this world isn’t perfect line” is also one of my personal favorites.

Episode 182: Freeza vs Megatron

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/10/death-battle-predictions-freeza-vs.html 

Freeza Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/10/character-analysis-freeza.html 

Fun fact this was originally the G1 communities most wanted fight. They made a blog for it back in 2018-ish. I was even a guest on that blog. Since then they flip flopped a bit on what exact incarnations of Megatron they wanted to use though, with many citing Unicron Trilogy Megatron after Nem pushed the idea.

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2020/07/death-battle-predictions-frieza-vs.html 

Anyway this was another great fight. It was much longer than average, had an amazing soundtrack and moments like Freeza Pulling Cybertron with TK were awesome. I would also say that Megatron “won” despite technically dying. He also got some of the best lines too.

I would say leading up to this fight I decided to be unclear of what exactly Megatron was going to get composite wise. I realized that developments in the Japanese continuity were likely going to be a huge point of contention in arguments about Megatron strength, and I didn’t want to risk tainting the conversation. In the end we didn’t use the Japanese continuity for a various number of reasons, though I think we’d be more open to it in the future. I find the causal and vs fandom divide on this episode really interesting btw, cause opinions on the “closeness” of this fight was split in a similar way to opinions on Dimitri with Fire Emblem fans.

Man it’s crazy to remember Street Fighter lost for 6 years straight 

I’ll definitely say I noticed some “weirdness” leading up to the fight. Dragon Ball had lost a few battles in a row and it seemed as if some people were getting it in their head that the show was out to get them. I think some people even unironically believed I hated the fanbase.  I remember on a few occasions beforehand having people implicate I was making the series lose cause I loved comics or Sonic or was holding the rest of the team hostage or something(despite me killing multiple Sonic or Comic characters at that point). In the lead up to the fight people were also preemptively going through my prior blogs to ridicule me on discord and vs wiki. Even some arguments people pushed at the time seemed very “specific” and I remember seeing a person in public I didn’t know speak as if they knew about my discord conversations from a secondary source. Ultimately I just stopped talking about the series much publicly after that and nixed anymore Q and A blogs (something multiple researcher members had proposed due to the community being pushy about them and feeling they were attracting negative attention).

On a separate note this is the first ep where I updated the DragonBall universe's size. Though it wouldn’t make its appearance until Goku vs Superman.

Episode 183: Gojo vs Makima

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/10/death-battle-predictions-gojo-vs-makima.html 

Gojo Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/10/character-analysis-gojo-feat.html 

Makima Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/10/character-analysis-makima-feat-lousy.html 

The real death battle is between Gojo and Makima’s goon squads tbh.

Anyway I recall the debate internally on this one being pretty intense with a lot of the fight coming down to how Makima’s powers work. I also recall the ongoing nature of both series causing some nervousness. If something new came out we might get screwed over.

Anyway I think the final battle was pretty great. It had a lot of trippy visuals, Gojo was cool and Makima died like she deserves.  Supposedly some people didn’t like Makima’s characterization, but I don’t think I get that. 

Episode 184: Scooby Doo vs Courage

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/11/death-battle-predictions-scooby-doo-vs.html 

Scooby Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/11/character-analysis-scooby-doo-feat.html 

Courage Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/11/character-analysis-courage-feat-dj-tiki.html 

Probably the best episode made by Luis himself. It’s amazing how he could draw this entire animation. The fight was pretty creative with things like the god bone and the giant Scooby transformation. The set up with the chase and Eustace being the one killed in the end was also pretty fun. I’m glad it ended in a draw.

Episode 185: Rick vs Doctor

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/11/death-battle-predictions-rick-sanchez.html 

Rick Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/11/character-analysis-rick-sanchez.html

Doctor Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/11/character-analysis-doctorfeat-lousy.html 

The controversy and firing of Roiland happened mid production of this ep and it totally lowered my hype a bit. The next season of Rick came out shortly before the ep did though, and it was decent enough that I “kinda” got that back.

Anyway I love the set up, and Swan’s writing was on point. Interestingly he managed to keep the Doctor fairly pacifistic despite it being a battle to the death.

Research wise this ep wasn’t hard, outside of the fact it was just so much history to go over on the Doctor's side. It was also a good thing he had the De-mat gun, since that served as an easy work around Rick’s defenses.

Episode 187: Galactus vs Unicron

G1 Blog:

https://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/12/death-battle-predictions-galactus-vs.html 

Unicron Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/12/character-analysis-unicron.html

Galactus Blog:

https://ulltraguy.blogspot.com/2023/12/character-analysis-galactus-feat-akuma.html 

The finale of Season 10. This fight had been requested for' for a long time, but had only been able to be realized now. It was fun to work on. Personally, after reading so much Transformers stuff I’m amazed by how concise, and well thought out the official continuity is.

I liked the fight, though I’ll admit it's not my favorite finale. It’s mostly high scale cosmic destruction and robo punches. The special effects were really good though and almost movie quality.  I also loved the part where they chucked galaxies.

Ah yeah. Chuck those galaxies like an ancient sith lord!

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Goku vs Superman will be its own part.