"The following is the opinion of only those involved in its writing. It is not officially endorsed by Rooster Teeth Productions or necessarily representative of the views of the Death Battle staff at large."
DIO vs Alucard (Q&A)
Summary
Before we get into direct questions, it’s probably useful to reiterate the episode’s recap in greater detail and establish a baseline logic for the reasoning before going into its rebuttals.
DIO Advantages
Stronger, faster, and tougher by significant margins, even being generous to Alucard and conservative to DIO. This applies to both The World and DIO.
The World can’t be seen or harmed by Alucard, and is fast enough to intercept all his attacks.
Unlike with Jotaro and Star Platinum, DIO’s time stop can be spammed and will get longer each time he uses it.
Not weak to holy weapons, and would not have his healing factor impeded by the Casull and the Jackal’s blessed bullets.
Vaporization Freezing nullifies Alucard’s attempts at hand-to-hand combat.
Space Ripper Stingy Eyes are long range and powerful enough to quickly wipe out Alucard’s Level 0 familiar army.
A weaker healing factor overall, but still one that can regenerate from any kind of damage Alucard can inflict, especially with a time stop to recover.
Can drink Alucard or his army’s blood during a time stop to heal himself easily.
Stands can interact with intangible things, preventing Alucard from using his intangibility to avoid attacks.
Generally fights more cautiously and tactically.
Alucard Advantages
Superior healing factor: while DIO can only reassemble lost limbs and damaged body parts, Alucard can regrow his entire body from a puddle of blood.
Far more combat experience than DIO, especially against other vampires.
Greater numbers when releasing Level 0; essentially becomes 3.5 million VS 2.
Without releasing Level 0, DIO would need to kill him 3.5 million times to win.
Guns and telekinesis give him more consistent long-range options than DIO.
Can trick DIO with illusions and potentially open DIO up to sneak attacks.
In short, while Alucard clearly has advantages, chiefly his broken healing factor and survivability, he cannot capitalize on this like he can in the rest of his fights. The difference between opponents like Anderson, Alhambra, Rip, and Walter versus DIO is that the latter far outstrips the Hellsing-verse in stats like strength, speed, and durability, and has a lot of hax that both counters Alucard’s own abilities and that Alucard simultaneously does not have a defense against. This essentially gives DIO numerous “cushions” against Alucard’s offense, while also allowing him to deplete Alucard’s massive *but still limited* health pool at his leisure.
For instance, the time stop: Alucard has no way to avoid or circumvent the time stop other than regenerating after being pummeled during it. He could use an illusion to trick DIO and bait a time stop, but DIO’s time stops get longer and longer each time they’re used, giving more time for DIO to discover he’s been had and react accordingly. Jotaro’s time stop could be more easily predicted because its duration was static (five seconds), so the distance Jotaro could move and his eventual location were more predictable (as with the fight against Ratt). Not so here. Alucard has no way to consistently plan against what Dio will do during a time stop, and frankly his illusions are fairly basic (he uses it once out of desperation in order to avoid certain death; never before and never again).
Because Dio’s speed is so much greater, he can also time stop reflexively if he is caught off guard, while Alucard is essentially moving in slow motion. If the stats were not so much in Dio’s favor, his hax would indeed only be delaying the inevitable, but in combination they form a multi-layered defense.
Even if Alucard gets past the time stop, he has to deal with The World, which is fast enough to blitz and intercept him, and which will defend Dio automatically.
Even if he gets past The World, he’d have to get past Dio’s own attacks. Dio was able to match Star Platinum in strength and speed without The World’s help (during road roller da), so Alucard would again be physically outmatched and torn to pieces.
Even if he does get a hit on Dio, Dio can freeze anything that touches him reflexively. If Alucard tried a sneak attack or attempted to drink Dio’s blood, he’d just get frozen and shattered. Rinse and repeat.
Even if Dio decides not to freeze him, frankly, his durability should be so much higher than Alucard’s strength that he shouldn’t be able to do appreciable damage. He’s taken hits from Star Platinum, and even a fraction of that is more than what Alucard is packing physically.
Even if Alucard does somehow manage to do damage, Dio can just regenerate. His healing factor isn’t as good as Alucard’s, but it doesn’t need to be, it just needs to be good enough to survive the kind of damage Alucard can do. Dio can survive being blown into pieces (after Jotaro defeats him at the end of Part 3, it’s stated he’s still alive in the next chapter), and has shown to be able to stop time with a hole in his head. Take damage -> stop time -> heal (with the option of drinking Al’s blood as well). Getting hit is not the end for him.
That’s what we mean by a multi-layered defense. And Alucard’s own options can’t compensate in return. Dio can just stop time and destroy Alucard’s guns right off the bat, and Alucard’s telekinesis is measurably too weak to affect Dio, forcing Al to rely on hand-to-hand combat which Dio has several counters for.
At that point, it’s only a matter of whether or not Alucard will use Level 0 to try to overpower Dio. If he does, he hands Dio a relatively quick and easy win. His army is all still physically human and wouldn’t be strong enough to challenge Dio. Dio could choose to cut a swathe through them or stop time, ignore them, and go to Alucard. Then, it’s just one fatal blow to destroy Al’s heart and the fight is over.
If Alucard does not use Level 0, then it’s essentially Dio whittling Alucard’s lives down until he stays down. That will take significantly longer, but without any options to fight back, Alucard can’t really do anything other than get hit, heal, and then immediately get hit again. His intangibility could stall Dio, but to what end? His own attacks would phase through Dio. That’s likely why he has never used it in combat. Plus, Stands have interacted with intangible enemies before, so even that’s moot. Eventually, the fight will end in Dio’s favor.
So with that out of the way, let’s get to questions!
DIO Questions
A: This one isn’t too common, but I have seen it, and it is a crucial point technically. To some people less familiar with JJBA, it might seem like Dio Brando and DIO are fundamentally different characters. The former has a bunch of weird vampire powers and the latter has a time-stopping Stand.
In short, we’re not compositing them; they’re just the same character. 100 years have passed, and Dio got a Stand and changed his name, but that’s it. He’s never stated to lose any of his vampire powers. Narratively, it makes more sense to focus on his Stand, since Part 3 introduced Stand combat, as opposed to rehashing the mechanics of fights from Part 1.
But why not do the same for Pre and Post-Schrodinger. Well, actually, we gave a lot of thought and discussion towards how it’d be possible to composite them. As explained in the episode, having both was literally the Major’s plan to “kill” Alucard, so short of Alucard draining himself of souls with Level 0 and then miraculously finding and absorbing Schrodinger in the middle of the fight, it’s impossible to combine them without ignoring the whole point of Schrodinger’s function in the story.
As we’ve said before, we’re fine compositing when it doesn’t contradict. This is the most contradictory we could possibly get.
A: We’ll cover the actual calcs below, but I’ve also seen some people wondering how DIO’s stats are so high when the characters in JJBA are portrayed as fundamentally human.
And, yeah, that’s a recurring feature of fictional characters. Take Superman: sometimes he can throw cars and knock over buildings, and sometimes he can casually shatter planets. JoJo fights are far less like Dragon Ball Z battles, and more like mind games. Everyone has a single super OP ability that could one-shot their enemy if given the chance, so most confrontations are fishing for that chance. It’s great! And most fights are seemingly between normal humans physically.
But that’s a narrative direction, and Death Battle analyzes feats and abilities in a way that can often result in surprises. Maybe it’s shocking that characters like DIO can have punches that are as powerful as town destroying blasts, but is it any fundamentally stranger than a character having a magical ghost that can create zippers on any surface it touches?
All of our results come from research and feats that we present in the episode. If there was a hypothetical canon crossover between DIO and Alucard, Alucard would surely win, because it makes sense story-wise. Alucard’s the hero and he’s basically invincible in Hellsing. DIO is the villain and it’s incredibly fun to watch him get crushed by someone like Al. Death Battle looks at things differently, and attempts to analyze mathematically what characters can do as if they’re real people, and we can come to conclusions that are different.
A: This is a common misconception. There is nothing stating or indicating that DIO lost any of his vampire powers in Part 3 due to Jonathan’s body. In fact, the reality is the exact opposite; DIO gains at least one new vampire power in Part 3: The flesh buds. So where does this notion come from?
On pg. 10 of Ch. 97 of Stardust Crusaders, DIO states that his healing factor has been slowed as a result of not having fully adapted to Jonathan’s body. This is likely the scene people are referencing when they say DIO cannot use his vampire powers in Part 3.
Except, DIO is clearly using one of his vampire powers in this scene: His regeneration. Just because it’s slowed doesn’t mean he can’t use it. Furthermore, it’s only slowed on the left side of his body, as reinforced when Jotaro crushes the left side of DIO’s head in Ch. 148, and DIO cannot manage to stand. No pun intended.
What we think happened was a telephone situation where DIO having slower regeneration on half of his body became “DIO’s vampire powers are weaker in Part 3”. Which became “DIO can’t use his vampire powers in Part 3.” However, DIO displays a variety of vampire powers and attributes in Part 3 while attached to Jonathan’s body. Let’s go through some examples...
-DIO uses his flesh buds in Ch. 7, Page 9. These flesh buds are NOT a Stand ability, they are an extension of his vampire powers, specifically transmuting parts of his body.
-DIO absorbs the blood of a civilian in Ch. 145, Page 7. He does this to regenerate from being impaled by Star Platinum in Ch. 144, Page 17, so it doubles as an example of him using his vampiric regen too.
-DIO uses his enhanced senses to attempt to hear Jotaro’s heartbeat in Ch. 147, Page 13.
If DIO had lost his vampire abilities after taking Jonathan’s body, what sense would it make for him to still have these powers? The simple answer is he didn’t lose them.
While secondary canon, DIO also states that he retained his freezing powers in the Over Heaven novel after taking Jonathan’s body. He just doesn’t use it because the ability wouldn’t be useful in a Stand battle.
"When looking at Pet Shop's "ice" Stand, I cannot help but remember a technique I once used, "Vaporization Freeze Technique". I suppose you could call it a technique I created in order to oppose the Ripple techniques...... It is a technique performed through manipulation of the vampire body. Essentially, by vaporizing the moisture inside my body, I can "freeze" another body. I am still certainly able to use it now, but as my body is now that of Jonathan's--- it is currently difficult for me to control perfectly. And more importantly, the Vaporization Freeze Technique is not very useful in a Stand battle." - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Over Heaven, pg 174.
At best you could argue DIO not being accustomed to Jonathan’s body slightly diminished his vampiric abilities (though only on his left side), but it does not prevent him from being able to use said abilities. Any hindrance Jonathan’s body could cause would also be moot by the time DIO had taken Joseph’s blood, since DIO had fully adjusted to the body by that point.
TLDR: There is no reason to exclude DIO’s vampire powers in this vampire fight.
A: This is fairly tertiary to the actual flight, but yes, DIO can levitate and fly by simply using his Stand to move himself. This is pretty clearly shown in his fight with Jotaro (2:24) in the anime.
A: No, DIO is very clearly flying in the manga too. We see him float in mid-air in the upper right panel of Ch. 141, Pg. 11. There literally was no surface for DIO to push himself towards Joseph in the panel in question, and he even pauses mid-flight a few pages later after Kakyoin’s Emerald Splash hits the giant clock.
A: DIO’s time stop can be spammed, actually. Jotaro is unable to spam his version of The World’s time stop because it consumes stamina and puts a strain on him.
Stone Ocean, Vol 17, Ch. 152, pg.6 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/0fe82a6c-c855-4fb0-b982-03bdb3206cc6/6
Being an immortal vampire with effectively limitless stamina, this is a non-issue for DIO. We see Dio spam it outright when he trolls Polnareff using the time stop.
Stardust Crusaders, Vol 15, Ch. 135, Pg. 9-18.
https://mangadex.org/chapter/98a27f68-0e90-476e-9483-fb3906ce6532/9
A: Yes. There are multiple faster than light to massively faster than light feats in Jojo that The World scales to. The most infamous one being Silver Chariot slicing apart the Hanged Man as it was travelling as a beam of light.
Stardust Crusaders, Vol 4, Ch. 32 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/616bce59-6afe-408f-ae23-6d8ba78ac5f1/15
Q: But Polnareff & Silver Chariot had to know Hanged Man’s trajectory in order to target it. Doesn’t that prove they’re slower than it?
A: Polnareff had to know Hanged Man’s trajectory because it moves as a tiny slit of light that is normally difficult for the human eye to perceive, and because there were dozens of possible paths it could have taken to another reflective surface. It’s not a matter of just speed, but also its size, visibility, and predictability. Silver Chariot has shown no issues timing and perceiving larger, more prevalent rays of light, such as the lasers fired by The Sun.
Stardust Crusaders, Vol 6, Ch. 54 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/8f071da4-edce-405b-95a6-60f8939412b4/8
We also know for a fact that Polnareff can perceive Hanged Man while it’s moving as a beam of light, at least to some extent. He deduced how Hanged Man’s power works by tracking the Stand while it was moving.
Perceiving and tracking Hanged Man as it moves as light. Stardust Crusaders, Vol 4, Ch. 31 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/cad4f3ef-a48c-464c-bf68-7ff7e764f358/8
Polnareff confirming he saw it moving between reflective surfaces a couple pages later - https://mangadex.org/chapter/cad4f3ef-a48c-464c-bf68-7ff7e764f358/10
https://mangadex.org/chapter/cad4f3ef-a48c-464c-bf68-7ff7e764f358/11
In the anime adaptation, he literally moves his head in-tandem with the beam (0:50) before said beam reaches its destination.
And regardless of all of this, Silver Chariot still swung its sword much further and much faster than the beam moved in the same allotted time. Meaning it attacked at faster than light speeds, no matter how you slice it (pun intended).
This is all pretty well-corroborated by feats from other characters, such as Kars and Joseph. Who have reacted to a laser blast from a UV ray, and the Stone of Aja respectively. Both of whom DIO would scale to.
The UV Ray. Battle Tendency, Vol 4, Ch. 42 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/25ca30dc-6420-4e24-bf9c-2ec3327d278e/6
The Stone of Aja’s laser blast. Battle Tendency, Vol 3, Ch. 32 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1fc4a4bc-d80b-4152-9cfa-a48e0b0538b3/10
A: It exploded because it ignited a gas tank on the boat Joseph and Caesar were on. We very clearly see this in the manga page above. If the stone’s laser exploded on contact normally, it would have done so during Part 2’s finale, rather than burn through the stone beneath Joseph and Kars.
Star Platinum, the same Stand-type as The World, is also outright stated to be faster than light.
A: This one is a bit silly, but no on both accounts. The Stand description states, 'Faster than the speed of light. When fully developed (when Jotaro was 18 years old) can stop time for a maximum of 5 seconds.' The texts describing these two abilities, those abilities being Star Platinum’s speed and its time stop, are separated into independent sentences. Common sense linguistics dictates they are referring to two different abilities.
If stopping time was required for Star Platinum to surpass the speed of light, it would make much more sense for the description to say something like ‘Faster than the speed of light while stopping time.’ But this isn’t the case, because Star Platinum’s speed and its ability to stop time are independent of one another. This is even more clear cut if we go off of a more literal translation of the Stand profile, which states, "It surpasses the speed of light by sheer fast speed".
It also wouldn’t make sense to describe Star Platinum’s time stop as ‘faster than light’. Light moves at a finite speed over a certain period of time. But there is no actual passage of time when moving during stopped time (for anyone affected by the time stop at least). Kakyoin himself states when DIO stopped Hierophant Green, he sliced apart all of Hierophant’s tendrils simultaneously, as if no time had passed (because no time did pass).
Stardust Crusaders, Vol 15, Ch. 141, Pg. 7 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/71cd579a-a69f-47ce-850f-3d5d971b2e85/7
A: Alucard’s intangibility isn’t passive, he has to activate it. He’s routinely hit by physical objects like bullets, so him phasing through a wall involves him in some way choosing to do that. Dio is so much faster that he’d never be able to activate it before being hit.
But that’s only initially. Sure, after enough of them he’ll be able to turn intangible and stay that way for the rest of the fight, unable to be harmed ever again. This should be an instant win condition, right?
Well, no. Alucard has never fought anything in his intangible state. Logically, his punches would just phase through his opponent the same way theirs would phase through him. And second, Stands are intangible too, and can affect intangible things.
Jotaro uses Star Platinum’s intangibility to reach into his own chest and force his heart to stop beating.
Star Platinum using that same intangibility to reach into Joseph’s chest.
Silver Chariot can block an attack from Sethan, which is manifested from Alessi’s shadow.
Heaven’s Door was able to affect the ghost Reimi Sugimoto, despite the fact that she is a ghost and intangible: Vol. 36 (pg. 20), Vol. 46 (pg. 94), and (pg. 97). In fact, Rohan himself was even able to interact with her body, implying that Heaven’s Door interaction with her is what made her tangible.
Stone Free’s strings were able to wrap around Whitesnake’s ankle while Whitesnake turned intangible to pass through steel bars.
So even if Alucard went intangible, it wouldn’t do him any good; the World would still be able to attack him. And even if we forget all the examples provided above, Alucard would still need to turn tangible again in order to hit Dio, at which point, Dio would just hit him faster than he could turn intangible again. In essence, there’s a reason why Alucard has never actually used this technique in combat: it’s ineffective offensively and redundant defensively when he can just absorb damage with his regeneration.
A: Let’s take a look at that scene, since I believe it’s been misunderstood.
Just as Dio attempts to cut Jotaro’s head off, Polnareff leaps at Dio from behind. Polnareff readies his sword as Dio continues to focus on Jotaro (as indicated by the downward angle of his eyes, he isn’t looking backwards). Dio does not realize at that moment that Polnareff is launching an attack.
Polnareff impales Dio through the back of the head with Silver Chariot’s sword. Also important: Dio’s pupils disappear, indicating he has briefly lost consciousness. No surprise, he has a sword in his brain, and his regeneration is still weaker than it was as a full-blooded vampire (which he will soon return to being once he consumes Joseph’s blood).
We zoom in on Dio’s blank pupils to emphasize his loss of consciousness. Polnareff expresses his disappointment in Dio’s behavior. I’ve heard that Polnareff yelled at Dio before stabbing him, but it clearly happens after.
Dio recovers immediately and stops time.
But wait, how do we know that Dio’s eyes glazing over is an indicator that he’s losing consciousness? Well, aside from the fact that it’s obvious visual language, on (pg. 38) of the very next chapter, Jotaro forcibly stops his own heart, he says he is beginning to “lose consciousness”, and his pupils fade in the exact same way.
Dio didn’t react to Silver Chariot’s attack because he wasn’t aware of it as it happened, and as it made contact, it briefly eliminated his ability to respond (by damaging his brain). He is more than fast enough to do so as evident by his battle with Star Platinum.
Alucard Questions
A: This is a big one! Alucard’s reputation as being unbeatable to a lot of people comes primarily from his insane regeneration. The way the manga/anime/OVA portrays him is that he’s basically invincible, and indeed that’s central to the plot.
However, as you saw in the episode, Alucard isn’t invincible: his healing factor has a weakness, and it’s not a new weakness. The idea that his regeneration is connected to the amount of souls he has inside him that he previously consumed (in that, each time Alucard is mortally wounded, he “uses up” one soul, like a “life” in a video game) has been acknowledged for a while as the “soul count theory.” “Theory” being the operative word for a lot of people. On the wiki it’s stated that this idea “is just a fan theory, and has never been definitively proven,” and that sentiment has been echoed in forums and discussions.
Not only has it been definitively proven and confirmed by three major characters, it’s integral to the plot. If this isn’t how Alucard’s regeneration works, nothing anyone does or says (including Alucard) makes any sense, as you’ll see below. Let’s go through all the examples!
Side note: I transcribed Anderson and the Major’s dialogue without their accents for clarity’s sake.
Anderson: No wonder he didn’t die. No wonder I can’t kill him!! Just how many lives does he have?! Just how many human lives has he sucked?!
Anderson introduces the concept of the souls Alucard has consumed as lives he has and establishes it as the reason he didn’t die in their previous encounter.
Anderson: No!!! It has to be now. Now, when Alucard’s restriction system is fully released. That is a system that lets him release all the lives he has and send them into battle. All the soldiers have sallied forth out of the castle in a combined force. Just one stands inside the castle, the lord!! Perhaps this and this alone was yon insane battalion commander’s goal. A sacrifice for overthrowing Alucard alone.
Anderson deduces that Level 0 releases all the lives he has, and that this fact is integral to the Major’s plan: it gives Alucard an army, but also leaves him vulnerable, or, as Anderson puts it, alone.
Major: He has again started to build the castle walls. I win.
Without any prompting from Anderson (the two have never met), the Major echoes Anderson’s castle analogy, a shorthand for the audience that Anderson’s earlier deduction was correct. This is in reaction to Alucard absorbing London’s blood and consuming souls, essentially rebuilding the castle.
Major: He’s a castle, a dominion in motion. Serfs as a river of death, led by the will of a tyrant.
Repeating the castle symbolism, and emphasizing the souls he’s consumed as “serfs” or slaves to his will. They do not passively exist inside of him, they are used for a purpose.
Major: He regenerates and slurps the blood of others…making it food for his life.
The Major connects Alucard’s bloodsucking to his regeneration and what sustains his life, reinforcing their purpose as “lives.”
Major: The life of souls assimilated through the currency of blood.
This reiterates the point above.
Major: Alucard released Level Zero and emitted all his lives. When he became “the only one in the castle…”
The Major confirms Anderson’s statement that Level Zero releases all of Alucard’s souls, and uses the castle analogy again to explain it.
Major: How the hell many lives does Alucard have now? A million? Two million? You can no longer beat him.
After absorbing London’s blood, he now has so many lives that Walter could not hope to beat him. If the souls Alucard consumed were not tied to his regeneration (this page happens directly after Alucard easily regenerates from Walter slicing him in half), this statement would make no sense. Either the souls are irrelevant to his healing and their entire fight was pointless, or they don’t help him and Walter could kill him with one attack. Neither makes any sense.
Alucard: Keep killing. You’ve only got thousands upon thousands more to go.
Strike three. This is the third confirmation, this time from the man himself. Alucard states that Walter needs to kill all the lives he’s just eaten in order to end him. If the souls he’s consumed were irrelevant to his healing, this line wouldn’t make sense.
Major: Don’t associate me with a pitiful monster like Alucard who uses blood as the currency of the soul...and has to keep taking in other people to go on living.
Further reiterating the connection between blood, the soul, and that Alucard needs it to survive. If this was a line describing a generic vampire, I’d believe that “go on living” was simply a reference to longevity, but in context, he’s describing Alucard’s regeneration.
Alucard: I’ve been killing...my lives...inside me.
Alucard again refers to the souls inside him as his lives.
So I think all that’s pretty definitive, a far cry from some fan theory. It’s explicitly described and necessary to the Major’s plan. If the souls inside Alucard weren’t souls that absorbed his fatal wound, the Major wouldn’t have had to force Alucard into Level 0 in order to expel all of them. Walter would never have had any chance at victory. Alucard wouldn’t have had to absorb all that blood to replenish his lost lives. He would have never been tricked into consuming Schrodinger.
I’m confident that’s how it works. You’ll notice though that Alucard still took damage and regenerated his body after going into Level 0. How’s that possible if all his souls were expelled? Well, that’s because Alucard’s healing factor changes in Level 0. Now, he can “heal” by shape-shifting his body back into shape as long as his heart isn’t destroyed.
This is another interesting point. I never see the heart thing brought up, but it’s echoed quite a bit in the manga. Let’s take a look.
Alucard: The heart. Take the heart out in one shot.
Alucard instructs Seras to kill a vampire by shooting its heart specifically.
Alucard: So I lost.
The instance in the past where Alucard was staked through the heart and admitted his defeat.
Alucard: Rival! Come kill me!! Come pierce this heart with your bayonets!!
Alucard states that piercing his heart will kill him.
Alucard: Like that man, come and dexterously pierce the bowels of my heart!!
The same thing again.
Alucard: Now for us both, the one way to die, rot and perish...is to bore this out. The bowels of our hearts.
Importantly, Alucard states that the only way to be killed now is to destroy his heart. This applies to both himself and Anderson, who has become a “monster” just like himself. Later on, Seras kills the Captain by shoving silver into his heart, so this concept likely applies to all “monsters” in the Hellsing mythos.
Alucard: Had it been that day -- that day 523 years ago. I would even have given you the heart in my chest.
Again, he continues to bring up the heart. It’s a recurring motif for a reason, the author wants to convey its importance.
Alucard removes Anderson’s heart, defeating him, and confirming his earlier statement.
Walter: His heart! His heart!
Even Walter understands the necessity of piercing Alucard’s heart. Of note, Alucard has yet to have his heart damaged in any way up until this point in the manga (post-initiating Level 0 of course).
Alucard: Yup, too bad. You screwed up. I had thought I was all out. But half-eaten dog bait’s surprisingly good.
Alucard reinforces that destroying his heart would have worked. He needed to fake Walter out long enough for Walter’s body to deteriorate in order to keep from dying. If his heart was irrelevant, he could have just tanked the hit. He even admits that he thought he’d lose.
Major: All of those were sacrificed to create a single instant. The one instant in which Alucard can be killed. And even then your filaments didn’t reach him.
The Major once again confirms that Walter was entirely capable of killing Alucard, specifically by ridding Alucard of his extra lives and leaving him vulnerable in Level 0.
To sum up, the way to kill Alucard is: 1) force him to go into Level 0, then 2) destroy his heart. To tie it back to the fight, you might be wondering how Dio would know about this in order to exploit it. He absolutely wouldn’t! He has no way of knowing.
And that doesn’t matter. Dio’s superior strength and power would force Alucard to use Level 0 in the hopes of overwhelming him, and Dio’s strength is enough that he would destroy the entirety of Alucard’s body with a single punch, especially once he became annoyed at Alucard’s pesky regeneration. Remember, it’s not like Dio has to target the heart alone - destroying the whole body counts as destroying the heart too! Plus, Dio’s proclivity for donutting enemies means it’s inevitable he’d try it eventually.
And just in case anyone brings this page up…
Integra: Cut off his head? Stabbed through his heart? Don’t think of him as one of those vampires. He won’t die from just that!
Before anyone goes saying this disproves all the other instances above of Alucard’s heart being his weakness, Alucard was not in Level 0 during his first fight with Anderson. Integra’s correct, stabbing him through the heart at this point would do nothing but use up one of his souls. Once he is in Level 0, and his souls can no longer be used to absorb damage, his heart becomes a vulnerability, just like in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the events of which are canon to Hellsing.
A: Schrodinger is interesting. Alucard absorbing his soul and possessing his powers is the basis for a lot of Alucard’s reputation as being unbeatable. More than just having impressive regeneration with his normal powerset, now it makes him impossible to be killed by normal means. As long as he can recognize himself, he can heal himself, just as Schrodinger can.
Well, perhaps. It’s a safe assumption to go with, but just an assumption. Alucard never actually uses any of Schrodinger’s abilities, and only supposedly possesses control of them for the last few pages of the manga. That being said, we are led to believe he has them.
Here he seems to appear from out of nowhere. This could just be the artist playing with time between panels, but I think it’s a purposeful application of Schrodinger’s abilities.
Alucard: Now I’m nowhere, yet I can be anywhere.
This statement echoes Schrodinger’s earlier statement on Vol. 7 (pg. 114) that he is “everywhere and nowhere,” strongly implying that Alucard has his abilities. We’ll come back to this quote, however.
The biggest indicator though is that Alucard is passively affected by his absorption of Schrodinger’s soul and assumption of his powers. The Major is using them as a weapon against Alucard, but still, if Alucard didn’t possess Schrodinger’s abilities in some capacity, this attack wouldn’t have worked.
So I think that despite Alucard never showing off Schrodinger’s powers in a fight or clear demonstration, it’s pretty clear that he has them. However, there are some misconceptions about what that means for this fight.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Hellsing-chapter-4-page-110.html
There’s a claim that the Major’s statement that Schrodinger is “everywhere and nowhere” equates to omnipresence. However, there’s nothing else in the manga to suggest that. Schrodinger has only every appeared in one place at any given time, and has even lost his instruction booklet, something that would be impossible if he were truly everywhere.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Hellsing-chapter-4-page-147.html
Here he even states that he’s going between places. If he were omnipresent, he would be unable to travel anywhere, as he’d already be there.
Schrodinger’s limits have never been fully explored, but like the theoretical cat off of which he’s based, Schrodinger can determine his quantum state. For example, “I am in London” and he’s in London, “I am not dead” and despite being shot he’s not dead.
So even with Schrodinger, Alucard isn’t omnipresent. Still, he’s basically impossible to kill normally with it. So why wasn’t it included?
Well, the entire reason Alucard was tricked into absorbing Schrodinger in the first place was to effectively kill him. With Schrodinger’s soul mixed in with the consciousnesses of the other 3.5 million souls Alucard had consumed, he was incapable of recognizing himself anymore, and incapable of determining his quantum state. Because of that, he could no longer affirm his existence and thus faded from reality. Because Alucard had absorbed Schrodinger, this effect applied to Al too, and he faded as well.
So if we have both Alucard with all his normal souls and his army plus Schrodinger in the fight together, the fight would immediately end as Alucard would fade out of reality. We can’t just ignore that effect - it’s the whole point of Hellsing’s conclusion.
So why not choose Schrodicard and ignore the Level 0 stuff? Well, a couple of reasons. Aside from research/analysis, it’s just way less cool for the animation. Secondly, Alucard only has Schrodinger in a stable state for the last 5 or so pages of a 100 chapter manga. It would be silly to ignore Alucard’s primary powers/moveset for something he never technically uses and whose limits we don’t know.
But like what was said in the episode, even if we did, DIO still had a wincon. Schrodinger makes Alucard impossible to kill normally, but his strength is literally not enough to overpower Dio’s durability, so it’d still be a stalemate. Eventually, DIO would think to hypnotize Alucard, ask him how his powers work and why he can’t kill him, find out about Schrodinger and Al’s familiar mechanics, and then just tell Alucard to activate Level 0 again and eject Schrodinger.
Suffice to say, that’s incredibly anticlimactic and unsuited for a fight animation. But it’s important for us to recognize during the research and debate process. That’s why it needed to be addressed in the recap, but not necessarily displayed in the fight.
A: Two answers to this. One, for the sake of the fight animation, going Level 0 presents too much of an opportunity not to explore in its full glory. An ocean of blood? Dio fighting zombies? Come on. This was stylistic, and had no bearing on the result. If we had determined Alucard would win the fight, he’d still go Level 0 regardless. It’s just too cool not to.
Two, him going Level 0 or not in a theoretical fight would not impact the result. The only difference is how long the fight would take. As outlined in the episode and summary at the top of this blog, Dio would be more than capable of chewing through Alucard’s 3.5 million lives even if he didn’t go Level 0 and trade defense for power. It would take significantly longer, but the result would not change.
In terms of personality, I’m (Liam) 50/50 on whether or not he’d do it. He could decide that Dio’s power is such that he couldn’t risk leaving himself vulnerable, and just hope to whittle Dio down. Or he’d get frustrated and attempt to overwhelm Dio with his “unstoppable” army. People forget that Alucard is incredibly arrogant too, and Dio being a monster would only compound Alucard’s feelings of invulnerability (remember, Alucard is convinced only a man can beat him).
Alucard also generally employs strategy to a far lesser degree than Dio does. Even the road roller da was strategic: it created a buffer between himself and Star Platinum, allowing him to attack Jotaro without being open to a counter hit. He did the same thing with the knives earlier. Sure, it’s flashy and flamboyant, but it was careful and cautious.
Alucard on the other hand, really has one strategy: take hit after hit until his opponent has gotten tired or lost their will to fight, then tear them apart. Occasionally he’ll use an illusion or distraction to open them up (vs Dandy Man and Walter), but that’s it. I can absolutely see him making a strategic blunder by using Level 0 and hastening his own defeat.
And if he doesn’t, like we said, it doesn’t ultimately matter.
A: No. There’s a misconception that Alucard can read minds like Charles Xavier. He can’t. He gains access to a person’s memories when he absorbs their soul by drinking their blood. He’d have to drink Dio’s blood in order to read his mind, and by that point he’d have already won. So it wasn’t a factor.
A: Yes, it stands to believe that Alucard can be killed. His life was in danger when fighting Monster of God Anderson and Vampire Walter. Without the interference of Seras and Alucard’s illusions, the Bird of Hermes was at a distinct disadvantage (in the former, he would have been killed). The Major’s plan was specifically to create chaos large enough to have Alucard release Level 0 restriction to make him vulnerable to be killed. Without souls and with his weaknesses being exploited, his regeneration will be overtaxed eventually. All DIO has to do is destroy him exactly 3,424,867 times (Note: this soul count is after he takes in the blood from all of London, his standard soul count is way less), or destroy his heart after he releases Level 0. Both are possible given the stat gap.
A: Despite both characters having methods of mind control, neither has displayed a resistance to it. Alucard’s Third Eye helps him see through illusions, but it needs to be consciously activated, which would be impossible if he’s hypnotized. It’s also been fooled before (by the Dandy Man), so it’s not automatic. DIO has nothing to suggest he could resist mental attacks. So they’d mostly cancel out. Though DIO is significantly faster and could implant a flesh bud during stopped time. So he'd still have the edge here if it came down to mind manipulation.
A: For context, DIO’s Flesh buds work by burrowing into the victim’s brain.
Stardust Crusaders, Ch. 7, Pg. 7. - https://mangadex.org/chapter/a2908e52-b6c3-4c54-ab1a-4637faadf83e/6
Despite Alucard’s supernatural nature, he still very clearly has organs, blood, and a brain when assuming his normal form. As evident in the many times we see those organs and blood whenever he gets hurt. Ergo, there’s no reason to think the flesh buds wouldn’t work.
Q: Would Alucard’s illusions work on DIO?
A: Yes. DIO has no way to resist illusions, so Al could use them to distract him. Once DIO physically interacts with an illusion though, it’d disappear. The World is also fast enough to protect DIO automatically, so Alucard probably couldn’t get the jump on him in a significant way in spite of this.
A: Vampires in Hellsing don’t disintegrate while exposed to sunlight like DIO does. So Alucard wouldn’t know about DIO’s weakness, and wouldn’t think to outlast him until sunrise. DIO also isn’t an idiot, and wouldn’t stand out in the open while the sun is about to come up. Even assuming the fight took place in a barren wasteland with no buildings or surroundings to use for cover, DIO could either punch up terrain to create barriers against the sunlight, or just take the fight underground by creating a tunnel with The World.
Jotaro has implemented similar strategies against The Sun (the Stand, not the celestial object), and the Wheel of Fortune. DIO should be able to do the same, since they both have the same type of Stand.
Jotaro uses Star Platinum to dig a tunnel underground. Stardust Crusaders, Vol 4, Ch. 40 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/87572fee-11b4-4363-b05c-fa05ac128f7d/18
Jotaro uses Star Platinum to punch up terrain, creating a barrier between him and the Sun’s rays. Stardust Crusaders, Vol 6, Ch 54 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/8f071da4-edce-405b-95a6-60f8939412b4/8
A: DIO certainly has his moments of arrogance, but he’s more than willing to get serious and play things smart against opponents he realizes pose a threat. If anything, he’s overly cautious against many of his foes.
DIO taking measures to make sure Jotaro is dead before getting close to him. Ch. 146, Page 10 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1212d3ee-1dab-4f3b-80c5-a32670304b34/10
You could possibly argue DIO would start the fight overly confident. But after Al regenerates for the dozenth time, DIO’s going to realize Al isn’t going down easily, and will start acting carefully. There also isn’t anything Al could really do to capitalize on DIO’s arrogance. DIO’s durability and regen is too high for Al to do any lasting damage, and he should be more than fast enough to time stop his way out of any trap Al would set.
We’ll also note that Alucard is pretty cocky in his own right, and arguably less cautious than DIO. Given his main strategy when fighting tends to be to fall back on his healing factor, face tank any damage inflicted on him, and wear his opponent out. Which, to Al’s credit, is a valid strategy against most of his foes, but against DIO he doesn’t have a means of wearing him down.
A: Holy weapons are more effective against Alucard, but they’re not necessary to kill him. Walter was going to kill him with a plain metal rod (Vol. 9, pg. 136), and Alucard felt the need to use an illusion to avoid that despite always allowing his opponent to brutalize him (even earlier in that fight). His weakness in Level 0, once his souls have been released, is his heart. Destroying it will kill him, and it doesn’t matter how that’s done.
A: Alucard has only ever shown the ability to manipulate blood that is outside of a body. If he could manipulate the blood from within a foe like a blood-bender, he would have done so in the manga or anime.
Likewise, the strength of his telekinesis is significantly lower than DIO's durability when scaled to Star Platinum's punches. So even if he tried to rip DIO's blood out of his body, he wouldn't be strong enough to break through his organs and skin. So, short answer, no.
A: If Al ever got the jump on DIO, possibly. However, DIO’s too fast for that to realistically happen, and if push came to shove, he could always just time stop his way out, or overpower Baskerville with The World before he’s eaten, much in a similar vein to Jotaro in the High Priestess fight (Vol. 8, Ch. 69).
A: In a nutshell, no. Alucard only gains the souls of his victims after consuming their blood and reviving them from the dead as his familiars. This is how souls work in Hellsing. Seras gained Pip Bernadotte as a familiar after he died and she consumed his blood. No vampire in Hellsing has ever taken the soul of a victim who was still alive. Meaning in order to take a victim’s soul, the vampire needs to kill them in the act of taking their blood (or take the blood of someone freshly dead in the case of Schrodinger).
So, even if Al somehow manages to make DIO a familiar, DIO would be long dead by that point. Making any power or Stand Al could get from DIO moot to the fight. Though it’s very unlikely Al would ever take enough of DIO’s blood to kill him for several reasons.
DIO’s speed and strength advantage would make Al getting close enough to take his blood difficult, if not impossible.
Even if Al did manage to bite into him, DIO could just time stop his way out before enough of his blood was taken.
Or just stop Al from taking his blood altogether by freezing him on contact with the vaporization technique.
To top it off, souls and Stands are 2 different concepts in Jojo. We’ve seen the souls of Stand-users plenty of times. Take for instance Avdol, Iggy, and Kakyoin. After they passed away, their souls were shown in their human forms rather than their Stands. If souls and Stands were one and the same, we should have seen their respective Stands like Magician's Red, The Fool, ETC when they died. There also other examples within Diamond is Unbreakable (Reimi) and Vento Aureo (Bruno’s soul passing on) which confirms this notion.
Avdol, Iggy, and Kakyoin passing on, Vol 16, Ch. 152, pg. 15.
https://mangadex.org/chapter/dc6bf844-a5d8-4815-a73b-f42b09450386/15
One of the earlier Part 3 villains, D’arby, also took the souls of several members of the Stardust Crusaders, which were clearly separate entities from their Stands.
D’arby taking Polnareff’s soul in Vol 11, Ch. 98, Pg. 1. https://mangadex.org/chapter/35d9e766-104e-432c-85b5-1fa82a331169/20
Lastly, the Stand White Snake actually has the power to steal both Stands and souls and store them on discs. We see this when it uses its power on Jotaro, storing Jotaro’s soul on one disc and his Stand Star Platinum on another.
Stone Ocean, Vol 3, Ch. 18, Pg. 20.
https://mangadex.org/chapter/5bd12786-7e08-4262-b218-8b7388712ca9/20
All of this is to say it’s unlikely Al would ever be able to take DIO’s Stand, or get a Stand of his own through DIO’s soul.
Q: Alucard claims he would only ever let a human kill him, and hates people who reject their humanity. So, wouldn't DIO fail to fulfill the criteria for Alucard to use Level 0, or allow himself to be killed?
A: Setting aside the fact that by DEATH BATTLE rules, these personality restrictions are left at the door...
This did not help Al against Anderson. Alucard acknowledged Anderson as a foe worthy of killing him, but he took that back and hated Anderson for rejecting his humanity when Anderson took on his Monster of God form. Anderson still nearly killed Alucard after he didn't want that to happen. Seras had to save him at the last minute.
Seras saving him at the last minute. Hellsing, Vol 9, Pg. 9.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Hellsing-chapter-9-page-9.html
In fact, Alucard has been nearly or completely defeated 4 times by either getting outsmarted or outmuscled. First by Abraham Hellsing, then by Monster of God Anderson, again against Vampire Walter, and finally by Major / Schrodinger. Only the first of whom fulfills his personal requirements for who he considers ‘worthy’ of killing him.
Calc Questions
A: I think the big difference is the time frame. The VSBW calc which has it at 100-200 tons of TNT has a larger time frame of several minutes. Jolyne and Viviano Westwood were in the middle of an intense, life or death struggle, and would have had to hold positions for several minutes straight without moving in order for that time frame to make sense. We thought 10 seconds or so was more appropriate. We might get a more accurate time frame from the anime adaptation, though JoJo also has a penchant for fights taking much longer than they should, aka cinematic timing. That’s of course a feature in lots of anime.
https://i.imgur.com/POLu2DQ.png
Panel width: 307 px
Panel height: 941 px
Earth diameter: 231 px
Earth diameter: 7971.5 mi
(I’m using this calculator for the equations below)
2*atan(tan(70/2)*(panel_width/panel_height) = FOV
2*atan(tan(70/2)*(307/941) = 25.735883648014
2*atan(object_size/(panel_height/tan(FOV/2))) = degrees
2*atan(231/(941/tan(25.735883648014/2))) = 6.419421292608
Plug those numbers into this calculator for the distance!
Click “Distance” and then fill out the degree and the object size.
The planet’s diameter is the object size, which is 4813 miles.
Distance from meteors to Earth: 71074 miles
Time frame: ~10 seconds
Speed: 7107.4 mi/s
= 11438251.5 m / s
Kinetic energy: 1845800391798275 joules
= 441156.881 tons of tnt
= 441 kilotons of tnt
A: Death Battle is perfectly fine using anime-only feats, as long as they don’t contradict. This feat technically isn’t anime-only as well. Dio fires off a laser beam in the manga too, we just don’t see where the laser goes after it leaves the castle. The anime adds a shot that contextualizes that and shows it cutting through some clouds. Not a contradiction, just an addition.
The calc is notably higher than other people had it pegged (I’ve seen it calc’d to about 30 or so tons of TNT). This is more a matter of opinion, and I don’t think that version is wrong. The main difference was assuming standard cloud thickness instead of measuring it from the ground. The angle of the clouds versus the castle is not entirely clear IMO. If you’d rather go with the lower one, that’s fine! The point of its inclusion wasn’t to scale it to Dio’s physical strength, just to show it had the power and range to take out Al’s army quickly. A 30 ton laser beam accomplishes that just as well.
https://youtu.be/7-ehkmuWhfA?t=125
https://i.imgur.com/x7VrqeC.png
Cloud thickness: 170 px
Cloud length + gap: 1274 px
Clouds gap: 370 px
Cloud length: 1274 - 370
= 904 px
Avg. cloud thickness: 1500 m
1500/170
= 8.82352941
Cloud gap: 370 x 8.82352941
= 3265 m
Cloud length: 904 x 8.82352941
= 7976 m
/ 2 for radius
= 3988 m
Volume of a cylinder: 7.49 x 10^10 m^3
Cloud density: 1.003 kg/m^3
Mass: 7.49 x 10^10 kg
Speed: 3265 m in 3 seconds
3265/3
= 1088.3 m/s
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy
KE: 44358380694417272 joules
= 10,601,907 tons of tnt
= 10.6 megatons
A: Honestly, the pre-existing calc from Narutoforums is just kind of janky. It assumes that Hellsing humans having more blood than normal is a physical reality of the universe, and not a stylistic choice for a violent, bloody manga. It also assumes a very generous time frame of about five minutes. In the anime, this is closer to 15 minutes, even cutting out flashback scenes that happen in between. There are several conversations going on, the fight between Alucard and Walter is over (so we can’t assume the same kind of time frame like we did for Jolyne vs Westwood), and visually the blood is not moving very fast. This is, in our opinion, a much more reasonable estimate.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Hellsing-chapter-9-page-181.html
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Hellsing-chapter-10-page-181.html
Dead humans: 3,424,867
https://www.livescience.com/32213-how-much-blood-is-in-the-human-body.html
https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight
Blood per human: 6 kg
3,424,867 x 6
= 20,549,202 kg
Inner London area: 123 mi^2
Inner London diameter: ~11.1 mi
= 17863.72 meters
https://youtu.be/K5wlXzeUlRE?t=401
Time frame: 6:50 - 25:10
= 1100 seconds
Speed: 17863.72 / 1100
= 16.2397455 m/s
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy
Kinetic energy: 2,709,713,678 joules
= 0.647637112 tons of tnt
