For years, Dragon Ball‘s Goku remained the defacto anime character fans would compare every other hero to when determining the power scale of their favorite series. However, that changed in 2009 when One-Punch Man came onto the scene. Since then, the biggest power scaling debate for anime fans has been whether Goku could actually beat Saitama in a fair fight — and now fans have their most definitive answer yet.
In the most highly anticipated episode of the beloved animated series Death Battle in years, Goku faced off against Saitama in a battle for anime supremacy. And Goku won.
Goku’s Victory Over One-Punch Man’s Saitama Gives Death Battle One of Its Biggest Hit Videos in Years
Death Battle’s Goku vs Saitama has been an immediate hit for the popular YouTube channel, swiftly surpassing 5 million views in less than a day. For context, the channel’s last big video, Mewtwo vs. Shadow from Sonic, which was already the biggest video the channel has released this year, reached 5.7 million views after 4 full weeks. It’s clear that Goku vs. Saitama was Death Battle’s most hyped episode in a very long time thanks to the years of history these two characters have between them.
The reason so many fans have endlessly debated about whether Goku can beat Saitama is due to the nature of each of the characters’ abilities. Goku is infamous for being able to constantly surpass his limits to always achieve a new transformation when he needs it most. He never stops pushing himself as a martial artist, which is why he always inevitably wins in the long run, even if he loses the first battle or two.
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Image via Death Battle -
Image via Death Battle -
Image via Death Battle
In contrast, One-Punch Man’s Saitama is almost the complete opposite. If Goku is known for playing the long game and pushing himself through constant hard work, Saitama is a limitless gag character whose true strength is never fully tested. Saitama’s biggest struggle in One-Punch Man is actually finding an opponent who can match his strength and make him fight seriously. One “Serious Punch” from Saitama is more than ample to decimate any foe he fights (much to his own chagrin).
Because both Goku and Saitama are iconic for their strength, they’re bound to be compared by anime fans, but what makes their hypothetical fight so debatable is how different the sources of their powers are. For many, Saitama’s nature as a gag manga character means that he should never really be beaten, as it goes against the nature of his character. For Goku supporters, on the other hand, the Saiyan warrior’s sheer scale of strength in Dragon Ball Super far exceeds any feats Saitama has shown in One-Punch Man, proving him the superior fighter until directly proven otherwise.
Death Battle Provides the Most Definitive Answer Yet to the Goku vs Saitama Debate
For many fans in the power scaling community, Death Battle is a respectable source, if for no other reason than that it’s entertaining and theoretically unbiased. If there’s any “official” source for fictional battles to take place between different franchises, it’s Death Battle, which is what makes Goku’s victory over Saitama so special.
In Death Battle’s video, Goku and Saitama are largely equal in strength throughout the fight. Saitama takes on a position similar to Broly from Dragon Ball Super in that he can constantly adapt quickly to any power level Goku reaches. Each time Goku seems to surpass Saitama with a new transformation, Saitama swiftly rises to the occasion to match him.
From Super Saiyan to DAIMA‘s Super Saiyan 4 and even Super Saiyan Blue, Goku constantly pulls out all the stops to overcome Saitama as the two battle it out across the universe, destroying countless planets as collateral damage from their unbelievable strength. In the end, Goku is forced to combine Kaioken with his Ultra Instinct form (a combination that has itself proven debatable among fans), giving him a boost of power too insurmountable for Saitama to quickly overcome.
While Goku is now the definite victor over Saitama in their most “official” battle to date, there remains an outspoken group of One-Punch Man fans who disagree with the result. However, the video has nonetheless brought the powerscaling community together for its biggest event in a long time, and it has given One-Punch Man fans something to look forward to amid the regrettable state of their anime adaptation as of late.
As one commenter succinctly put it under Death Battle’s video: “Although I disagree with the result, I’m just happy to see Saitama animated properly.”
New episodes of Goku’s latest adventures in Dragon Ball Super: Beerus are made available for streaming every Sunday on Crunchyroll and Hulu before then coming to Netflix the following Saturday.
- Cast
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Sean Schemmel, Laura Bailey, Brian Drummond, Christopher Sabat, Scott McNeil
- Created by
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Akira Toriyama
- Latest TV Show
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Dragon Ball DAIMA
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