Garou vs Kenpachi
 | |
|---|---|
| Season | 3 |
| Air date | Janurary 25, 2023 |
| Written by | Animegx43 |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Orochimaru vs Medusa |
Next Electro vs Surge |
Garou vs Kenpachi is a what-if episode of Death Battle by, featuring Garou from the One Punch Man series and Kenpachi Zaraki from the Bleach series in a battle of battle-seeking, self-made monsters.
Tagline[]
Whether human or monster, they will fight anyone, be it human or monster.
Interlude[]
Boomstick: So imagine this; You have your standard anime protagonist who wants to get their ass kicked really, really hard so that they can go through that training montage that suddenly makes a one-man army and beat even the big bad of the season. Well, it turns out that some of those baddies can do that too.
Wiz: Well, not necessarily baddies, but someone misunderstood that grow to comical levels of power for the sake of surpassing their own limitations in order to defeat those they couldn't before.
Boomstick: And completely rofl-stomp literally everyone else. Like Garou, the hero-hunting martial artist from One Punch Man.
Wiz: And Kenpachi Zaraki, the combat addicted soul reaper from Bleach.
Boomstick: He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win...a Death Battle.
Garou has awakened for DEATH BATTLE[]
Boomstick: You ever played pretend as a kid? You know like when you want to be like that superhero you thought was cool and strive to be like. It was just fun acting out fights between good guy and bad guy.
Wiz: Not if you're stuck playing the bad guy. Granted as a child, Garou already found appeal of monsters and villains. But because of the status quo of the hero always winning, he was forced to always lose...and get beat up because that's what happens to monsters.
Boomstick: That is simple childhood hierarchy. The nerdy kid gets pinned to the ground, the popular kid gets to beat the shit out of him, and the teacher takes the side of the abuser which ultimately leads to a fucked experience that creates future serial killers and school shootings. Hehe...uh...boy, that got dark.
Wiz: According to this bully, Tacchan, he was the hero of this playground feud. After watching a superhero show that night, the idea of a hero always beating the monster appalled young Garou. So that day, he made up his mind; He would become a monster that would always defeat the hero. He would become the ultimate evil.
--
- Age: 18
- Height: 177 cm | 5'10
- Aliases: The human monster. The hero hunter
- Disaster Level: Dragon/God
- Trained by Bang
- Bathes in the public restroom
--
Pop-up: For this analysis, both the manga and webcomic versions of the character will be looked over. Despite some differences, neither source material contradicts the other.
Boomstick: So to become that unbeatable monster, he sought out the strongest dude he can find to train him into someone strong.
Wiz: This was Bang, an aged martial arts master that would go on to join the Hero Association as the 3rd highest rank hero of the entire organization. Oblivious to Garou's true motivation, he trained the youth his martial art; The Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist. While purely fictional, it is inspired by a handful of real life martial arts.
Boomstick: Such as Xing Yi Quan, Baguazhang and Tai Chi, all of which is about unpredictable arm movements. Xing Yu Quan in particular aims to reach into an opening and then beat the ever-loving piss out of you, much like Bang's Rock Smashing Fist.
--
Martial arts
- Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist
- Water Stream Encampment
- Piercing Fang
- Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist
- Combined Martial Arts
- Cross Fang Dragon Slayer Fist
- Whirlwind Water Stream Roaring Aura Sky Ripping Fist
- Monster Calamity God Slayer Fist
--
Wiz: While he didn't completely finish his training, Garou's talent and acquired skills had allowed him to learn and improvise many techniques and even other martial arts, such as the Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist, or Bang's old fighting style, the Exploding Heart Release Fist . He can anticipate enemy movements and properly counter their blows even when against speedier foes, or he can even redirect their attacks to force them to hurt themselves.
Boomstick: Imagine the whole "stop hitting yourself" thing if it was an actual attack. He can even figure out that he's being watched by feeling their killing intent. His senses are so refined that he can even dodge sneak-attack bullets in the dark.
Wiz: By the age of 18, Garou was already capable of defeating numerous S-Class heroes, which are the highest ranked heroes within the Hero Association. This include the likes of Metal Bat and Tanktop Master.
Boomstick: Okay yes. Tanktop Master sounds like a dumb name. But this is the same Tanktop Master that regularly fights monsters and travels by throwing entire buildings around, sometimes with just one hand. And Garou kicked this guy's ass.
Wiz: At the time, both of these heroes were physically stronger than Garou himself, but by fighting smart, he was able to overwhelm them both despite being just a normal human. In fact, he was already considered to be a Dragon-level threat at this point in time. For reference, the Deep Sea King who terrorized J-City and defeated two other S-Class heroes was Demon-Level, one level low of Dragon.
Pop-up: The disaster level system refers to how much of a threat a monster is to humanity rather than simply its power. Deep Sea King was very likely physically stronger at the time despite the different threat levels.
Boomstick: Since he knew how awesome he had gotten, he left Bang's dojo and started beating up every hero he could find, including those S-rankers that we mentioned before. Things started off really well until one day where he had a really, REALLY bad day.
Wiz: While intending to fight another S-class hero, he was stomped, both metaphorically and, in a way quite literally, by the caped baldy himself, Saitama.
Boomstick: And before that, he nearly mauled to death buy a guy in a dog suit, but yeah. He got dunked on pretty hard that day. And after that, he had to fight 8 other heroes while injured AND keeping them from accidently killing a kid he befriended. Oh, and after that, he had to fight two more S-class heros, including Master Bang and his bro Bomb! He's the guy that used that iron wind punch thing.
Wiz: Before fighting the masters, he fought Genos. A new, but powerful hero, who was already holding his own against some dragon-level monsters. Even landing a blow onto the Elder Centipede with a hit worth as much as 15 megatons of TNT (As determined in Genos vs War Machine). Unfortantely for Garou, he had yet to properly rest from his enounters with Wathdog Man and Saitama, with the 8 heroes before doing him no favors.
Boomstick: And after getting beat up by the cyborg, he got ganged up by Bang and Bomb, who together smashed up the shell of that centipede monster, which Genos himself couldn't even do. He had taken all of that damage and had literally no stamina left. And you know what he did?
Wiz: He kept fighting fighting all three of them without stopping. No matter much how much pain he went through or how tired he got, he just kept fighting.
Boomstick: Yeah, about that Wiz...how? How do you just ignore your own stamina like that?
Wiz: Sheer willpower and nothing else! But more importantly, he had begun to grow even stronger by fighting Bang, Bomb and Genos. This is because by breaking through his limitations, he began to remove his limiter altogether.
Boomstick: Limiter, huh? That sounds familiar. Is it like that myth you hate about us using 10% of the brain?
Wiz: Somewhat, but it's actually closer to the very real phenomenon called the plateau effect, which, in the context of body improvement, refers to when you can no longer get any stronger. Typically, you see the fruits of your labour early on, but as you train more and more, you may find yourself unable to get much stronger, even if you train harder.
Boomstick: Oh, so it's if you were to walk up a hill that gets steeper and steeper until it's at a 90 degree angle, at which point you can't exactly walk up it. A literal plateau.
Wiz: Exactly. In the world of One Punch Man though, the limiter acts at this phenomenon, but if you could theoretically break it, your body that previously had a limit to its potential could suddenly have infinite potential.
Boomstick: So now we're flying up that hill. That seems like cheating.
Wiz: Putting a pin in Garou for a moment, let us talk about someone who has already removed their limiter; the One Punch Man himself, Saitama. Once an ordinary human with no special talents or hidden abilities who has such absurd superhuman strength that a mere sneeze could devastate Jupiter and launch himself at lightspeed just by farting. How he got this strong is...freaking hilarious.
Boomstick: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10 km run every day for 3 years. Like...is that really all it takes?
Wiz: Absolutely not, but the workout routine is much harder than it sounds. Even someone who is already in peak physical condition cant realistically pull this daily routine off for more than a few days before causing intense pain. Even if he had acquired the diet and hydration needed to maintain the workout, the strain from the torn and broken down muscles would cause such pain that he shouldn't have been able to even move without proper rest.
Boomstick: Saitama got around this by...just powering through the pain for 3 years straight. The guy really, REALLY wanted to be a superhero, so he decided that no matter how muuch it hurt, he just...kept doing it. He pulled this routine off and broke his limiter through sheer willpower.
Wiz: This workout routine and drive to train actually explains Garou's own growth perfectly. Just like Saitama, he worked his body to exhaustion to the point that a normal person can't realistically keep moving, but kept going only through sheer willpower.
Boomstick: As his reward for not giving up anime-protagonist style, he started to break that limiter and became stronger, but unlike Saitama who broke his limiter and went bald, Garou started to become exactly what he wanted to be; a monster.
__
Monster abilities and gained abilities:
- Half-monster
- Enhanced Strength, speed, and durability
- Improved rate of growth
- Full Monster
- Regeneration
- Enhanced Resistances
- Evolved Monster
- Controlled transformation
- Flight
--
Wiz: As a half-monster, Garou's abilities were boosted in every way. He became stronger, faster, and even his martial art talents improved. But even with this change, he had a lot of room for improvement, but that room was now without a ceiling.
Boomstick: So it turned out that there's a big club of monsters that really wanted Garou to join to become the ultimate monster, but where as the monster group just wanted to kill monsters, Garou wanted to be a monster to just to beat up heroes, so he fought them back out of spite. From there he just got his ass kicked a lot...again.
Wiz: From there, he fought overwhelmingly powerful monsters like Overgrown Rover and the Monster Assiciation's leader, Orochi. For reference, Genos mistakenly believed that a weaker monster, Gouketsu, would be a problem for Saitama, despite previously seeing him destroy a meteor that was on 9 on the Torino scale, which would have an impact similar to what killed the dinosaurs.
Boomstick: That's nothing. Orochimaru...I mean Orochi, siphon energy directly from the Earth's core and caused an earthquake that shook Japan while doing that, and after getting his limits pushed further, Garou easily surpassed that when he went full monster. Even his old master Bang just got shat on by Garou.
Wiz: As a full-on monster, he also gains additional traits. He can block mental and fire attacks, gained improved senses and instincts, and an ever impressing healing factor. At its peak, he was able to regrow an entire limb after getting it completely destroyed.
Boomstick: And even after entering his iconic full monster form, he just kept growing stronger and stronger. After a while, he stopped looking even remotely like a human and more like a monster from Yu-Gi-Oh. Any numbers we threw around up at this point is just meaningless because of how strong he got.
Wiz: For instance, when he went full-monster and battled the ridiculously powerful Platinum Sperm, and yes that is what he was called, they fought at such high speeds that they were able to form a brief constellation of their movements.
Boomstick: Okay, first; That is the most Dragon Ball Z thing I've ever seen. Second; WHAT THE F--K AM I LOOKING AT!?
Wiz: That is just over 2,000 miles worth of dashes within the span of 1.3 milliseconds. Assuming both Garou and Platinum Sperm did their fair share, they each would've had to have been moving more than 4 times faster than light.
Pop-up: The agonizingly tedious calculation for this feat is credited to USklaverei of the Vs Battle Wiki who measured every single line of the constellation.
Boomstick: He then proceeded to kicked Platinum Sperm's ass. Hell, kicked the ass of every S-class hero that tried to fight him, and when he fought the Sage Centipede, whose body was could stretch out into space, Monster Garou kicked his ass FROM his head. That's easily a 60 mile ass-kicking.
Wiz: He's gotten so powerful at this point that even One Punch Man's creator, ONE, admits that he wouldn't know who would win between him and Lord Boros, a villain who can unleash all of his power into a single attack that's capable of destroying planets.
--
Feats:
- Defeated five S-class heroes.
- Killed Royal Ripper, Sage Centipede, and Platinum Sperm.
- Fought off Bang, Bang, and Garou while exhausted.
- Survived Saitama's serious headbutt.
- Shook the Earth with an attack.
- Compares to Lord Boros.
- Who nearly destroyed the Earth.
--
Boomstick: With all of that insane power, speed, durability, and ever-growing list of techniques, he faced his ultimate challenge. To prove that he was the absolute evil, a monster that could defeat any hero, he faced the caped baldy himself, this time, in a true fight to the death. A battle that had shaken the Earth in the most back and forth battle of good and evil to ever be witnessed!
...
Boomstick: Pffft. Nah, I'm just kidding. Garou got his ass kicked without Saitama even trying. Even after Garou smacked him so hard that it gave the Earth an outie belly button, Saitama literally punched the monster out of him.
Wiz: The impact of Garou attack there had an estimate width of around 400 kilometers and reached the other end of the planet, the impact would've displaced nearly 100 quadrillion tons of the Earth's crust. Depending on how fast it took for the kinetic energy to reach the other end of the Earth, it's possible for this attack to have been the equivalent of 60 exatons of TNT.
Boomstick: That's enough juice to destroy the Earth's moon twice in one go. He finally became the ultimate evil that he wanted to be since childhood...and there was still a hero that could no-sell him. Even after a cosmic eldritch horror man, literally called God, gave him the power to punch with the power of a God damn supernova...and Saitama still beat him with one arm. Man, this kid can't catch a break.
Pop-up: Cosmic Fear Mode was acquired and subsequently taken by God, a character with no other connections to Garou. Death Battle rule #3 does not protect this form from being used in the analysis.
Wiz: And after all of that, facing heroes and monsters alike, Garou finally defeated, but not without learning from his misguided ways. The truth is, his idea of an ultimate evil wasn't from a desire to be a villain. What he really desired to be was a hero. One that would fight against the injustices and misdeeds done onto others from those who call themselves heroes. In other words, he wanted to prevent someone else from becoming like he did.
Boomstick: Well, that little boy he was friends was seems like he's much happier now and even manage to make friends with his bullies. Now that's just wholesome.
Wiz: With a new chance at life but still the desire to get stronger, hoping to become as strong as he did without turning into a monster while atoning for his crimes. Be it as a human or as monster, it's clear that he will never stop trying to evolve further and further.
"If you don't want to get bossed around you need to become stronger."
-Garou.
Kenpachi will cut anything on DEATH BATTLE[]
Wiz: When a soul passes on without sin or corruption, they will enter Soul Society, where the souls of past lives will live out a new life until they reincarnated as a new life back in the physical world. Until then, many will live a happy life.
Boomstick: Well, maybe for some people. This place isn't like the pearly gates. No, this is place is actually run by Hell itself...a bureaucracy.
Wiz: Well, yes. Soul Society is consisted of two parts; The Sereitei, the center area run by said bureaucracy and its military, and the Rukongai, a series of additional districts that make up the vast majority of Soul Society. Naturally, the districts closest to the Sereitei would be the safest to live as they so close to each other.
Boomstick: But if you lived in one of the 80th, such as the Zaraki district, there is no one there to keep you safe from local serial killers except yourself. If this is meant to be Heaven, then what's literal Hell like?
Wiz: Among the many murderers and fighters in this district was a young boy who loved to fight. His name...well, actually he didn't even have a name until he was an adult, but this is the guy we're covering today; Kenpachi Zaraki.
---
- Age: 1000+
- Height: 202 cm |6'7
- Weight: 90 kg | 198 Ibs
- Captain of Squad 11
- One of the 5 special war powers
- Spends 3 hours a day on his hair
---
Boomstick: Naming himself after Yachiru "Kenpachi" Unohana, the strongest person he ever fought and he wanted to be just as violent and bloodthirsty as she was. He even named his adopted daughter, Yachiru after her. Aww, look at her. She loves her huge murdering Daddy.
Wiz: Interested in fighting other strong opponents, he continued in following Unohana's footsteps further by joining the Gotei 13 and became a Shinigami, or soul reaper.
Boomstick: These guys are basically an organized grim reaper force, guiding the people to Soul Society, and well as purify corrupted souls called hollows so that they can go there too, and they purify them by taking out awesome swords and slashing them to bits!
Wiz: Much like any other spiritual beings, their bodies are made of reishi, which is spiritual matter. As spirits, they are completely invisible to normal living beings unless they themselves are spiritually sensitive. Still, spiritual matter is still matter, and thus they are still tangible and can be damaged or injured in the same ways as a living person.
Pop-up: A claim that spirit beings can't be touched by normal humans in chapter 9 was a mistranslation. However, the inability to see or hear spirit beings is still correct.
Boomstick: And on his first day, Kenpachi challenged the current 11th squad captain to a duel...and killed him in one attack. By doing so, HE became the new captain. Kind of like how I became the new Boomstick, by outdrinking the other.
Wiz: But even after becoming a captain, Kenpachi faced the same problem he had before. For as much as he loved to fight, most of his opponents were simply too weak to last very long. Even without using his full power, Kenpachi could easily overwhelm two other captains going all out together.
Boomstick: If you're wondering why these captains are meant to be such a big deal, here's some context. There are these villains called Espada that weren't allowed to use an attack called the Gran Ray Cero in their home base because it could destroy it. We talked about this place before and found it would take over 400 gigatons of TNT to destroy (as determined in Naruto vs Ichigo), and soul reaper captains were able to fight these guys.
Pop-up: One such attack was used by 6th strongest Espada, Grimmjow. Kenpachi would latter defeat Nnoiria, who is ranked 5th. Although harder to justify, the 7th and 8th, and former 6th ranked Espada were defeated easily by other captains.
Wiz: To handle this problem, Kenpachi had commissioned several items made specifically to give him a handicap. A set of bells that allowed others to hear him moving and an eyepatch made specially to weaken him
--
Skills and Abilities
- Immense spiritual pressure
- Minor damage resistance
- Master Swordsmanship
- Ryudan
- Shunpo
Equipment:
- Zanpakuto
- Shikai: Nozarashi
- Unnamed Bankai
- Eyepatch
- Spirit Bells
--
Boomstick: Now you'd probably be thinking that all the the patch does is block off your vision. But nope. This little bastard wants to eat your eyeball! Good God, imagine having it over your eye. If it didn't already block off light, this is what you'd have to see all the time.
Wiz: The true purpose of the eyepatch is to seal off the bulk of Kenpachi's reiryoku, spirit energy which basically acts like Dragon Ball ki, allowing for superhuman abilities and increase physical abilities, which is released as reiatsu, or spiritual pressure, which is that same energy weaponized. Because of how insanely powerful Kenpachi's reisatsu is, not even he can fully control it, thus he uses the eyepatch to further cripple himself for the sake of longer fights. His reiatsu is so intense that it can passively block attack from weak opponents.
Boomstick: But if the fight's getting good and he doesn't wanna hold back, all he has to do is rip that sucker off and just go nuts. All he needs to be happy is a strong opponent and his trusty sword to cut them up with.
Wiz: This is his zanpakuto, a sentient sword imbued with a piece of its owner's own soul, becoming a further extension of their own power and abilities. Being a fairly straightforward individual, Kenpachi's own zanpakuto is all about cutting and nothing more.
Boomstick: As if he needs anything else. It's way more fun to just swing a sword and act like an idiot.
Wiz: Of course YOU would say that.
Boomstick: Wizard. You recreated the BFG 9000 just so can blow up a bunch of cows. You aren't any different from me and I'm tired of seeing you pretend that you aren't.
...
Wiz: You...do have a PhD. We aren't too different in that sense.
Boomstick: That's the spirit. Now how does throwing grenades at squirrel sound after we finish up here?
Wiz: That's a bit too mindless for me...but sure.
Boomstick: Haha. Nice.
Wiz: Squirrel bombing aside, it's worth noting that Kenpachi is not actually a mindless brute, but like Boomstick and I, simply appreciates mindless destruction. In fact, he's shown to be highly intelligent, even figuring out a winning strategy against an enemy that robbed him of his sight, hearing, and even smell.
Boomstick: Yeah, but letting the guy stab him in the gut and just slash him back. Dude got impaled and he acted like it he didn't even get attacked at all. That's the brain of someone who's been doing this for...uh...wait, how old is he again?
Wiz: Well, the exact timeline in Bleach isn't exactly set in stone, we do know that by Unohana's gown that she fought Kenpachi after the Gotei 13 were founded she and other captains stayed violent and murderous until after their first war against the Wandenreich faction, an event that occurred a thousand years prior.
Pop-up: The anime adaption of the Thousand Year Door arc showed that Unohana had the scar she received from Kenpachi during this war, further supporting this timeline.
Boomstick: So he's just been walking around for a thousand years just beating up whoever he wanted and shedding blood just for the fun of it? Okay, you know what? I take it back. This sounds like a good afterlife for me.
Wiz: It would be for Kenpachi as well, but having to limit himself so much just to make fights...actually no, he never could find a fair fight.
Boomstick: Until he met an orange-haired teenager that managed to break in and picked a fight with him. Turn out this Ichigo kid actually managed to make Kenpachi pull that eyepatch off and go all out. And get this; it made Kenpachi want to get stronger! How can he even do that? Could he?
Wiz: Oh no, he absolutely did. Turns out that because of his fight with Unohana, he's been subconsciously suppressing his own potential so that he could enjoy fighting more, that on top of his eyepatch and active effort to hold back. But when that latent power was needed to save the world, she spent days fighting him to the death in order to unlock that power.
Boomstick: Turns out that Yachiru Unohana was also Retsu Unohana, captain of squad 4, so they were already pretty familiar with each other. Funny enough captains for squad 11 is chosen by killing the last one, yet no one ever actually killed her.
Wiz: Until their training ended and Kenpachi finally released his true limits. Having finally surpassed his most idolized foe, he finally killed and became, both in name and title, the true Kenpachi. By doing so, he also unlocked the full power of his own zanpakuto; Nozarashi.
Boomstick: You know that little girl that he adopted and named after his best frenemy? Well, it turned out that she was actually Nozazashi the whole time, waiting for Kenny to learn her real name. This mean he could use his shikai, the true form of the sword. In this case, Kenpachi's real sword was a big f**king cleaver the size of him! Fun fact; Kenpachi's sword spirit had a sword spirit of her own. That's right. He is so badass that his own sword had its own sword.
Pop-up: While Yachiru had a zanpakuto of her own, complete with its own shikai and unique abilities, nothing has so much as implied that Kenpachi's can use the same powers.
Wiz: He was already one of the strongest soul reapers around, but through his training, he became one of the strongest soul reapers...period. Even the heaviest hitters of Wandenreich didn't know how they were suppose to deal with him.
Boomstick: Take this one kid, Grammy, who had literal wish powers, he couldn't beat him. He made some clones that couldn't be hurt, so Kenpachi hurt it anyway. He Made a meteor meant to destroy the Sereitei, so Kenny chopped it up like nothing. The kid even made him go into a pocket of space, and Ken still kind of just cut his way back through...somehow.
Wiz: And he did all of this without removing his eyepatch, which restricts much of his power. And it wasn't until he faced an even stronger foe before he unleashed his final secret weapon; his bankai.
Boomstick: This is the strongest form of the zanpakuto and is something that you're suppose to already have as a captain, but Kenpachi never even needed it for all this time because of how badass he is. And with it, he's even more badass ever before as a big, berserking, oni-like monster.
Wiz: Generally, a bankai's power is 5 to 10 times greater than what the shikai can do, and given that Kenpachi's a physical transformation it's likely a simple multiplier power-up, but in this case it makes him so unbelievably strong that initially, not even his own body could handle its power. That's unusual for a transformation.
Pop-up: It takes 10 years for someone to fully master bankai. By the Bleach's original epilogue and the Echoing Jaws of Hell arc, Kenpachi should have his mastered.
Boomstick: You know that kid I was talking about and how he made shit up and made it real? Yeah, he actually died because he made himself as strong as Kenpachi in his base and the massive gains literally ripped his body apart. That's how swoll this dude is. So swoll in fact that he was the only captain that could 1v1 Gerald Valkyrie, and that guy had even crazier wish powers.
Wiz: To be clear, he was never able to actually win and it took an outside force to ultimately defeat Gerald. Still, that's impressive given that he is the literal heart of the Soul King, a being that controls the balance of Soul Society, Earth, and Hueco Mundo.
Boomstick: That third one is basically Mexican Hell, sorta. These three worlds all co-exist with each other and the Soul King's job is to keep them all from fall apart, something that started to happen just from the guy being messed with.
--
Feats:
- Killed three quincies on par with captains at once.
- Casually no-sold Captain Komamura Tosen's attacks.
- Ripped off Gerald Valkrie's arm with his mouth
- Killed Nnoitra Gilga, Gremmy Thoumeaux, and Ikomikidomoe
- Defeated and surpassed Kenpachi Unohanda
- Went toe-to-toe with a full powered Hikone Ubuginu
--
Wiz: Similarly, Kenpachi would go on to battle Hikone, a child who was created specially to become the Soul King themselves by having spiritual power on par with Ichigo, another potential candidate. Kenpachi specifically was sent out to deal with them because he was the only of three individuals that can beat them. The other two being Ichigo and Aizen themselves.
Boomstick: Makes sense since they have power similar to the damn Soul King and move at lightspeed, something that Hikone could do as well. And Kenpachi was able to match them in a fight. And when some monster went and stole all of Hikone's power and even some pieces of the Soul King to become a super monster, Kenpachi answered by one-shotting it with his shikai.
Pop-up: The novel stated that Hikone's movements were causing time to look as if it stopped for them. This is a phenomenon that occurs when an object approaches the speed of light.
Wiz: Even during his early days as captain, he was only given a single day of formal training under the fear that he would become a threat to the Sereitei itself. Ironically, his overwhelming power and simple desires have made him one of the most dependable allies for Soul Society.
Boomstick: Because at the end of the day, all you need to do to save the day is point somewhere and say "Hey look! Someone strong!" and then run like hell.
“Death and pain are just a small price to pay for the enjoyment of battle!”
-Kenpachi Zaraki
Fight[]
At the bus stop of an unbusy street in the city, Garou was casually napping on the bench. He was enjoying the quiet time, but when he heard a loud tremor, he he woke up and jumped into a battle stance. Much to his confusion, he saw nothing around. Despite that, he could still hear the tremors.
In reality, there was a hollow across the street that had its eyes on the young man. It took a step forward, creating yet another tremor, let out a bellowing roar, and...
SWISH!
...the hollow was slice in half by Captain Zaraki, killing it instantly. Yachiru, who was sitting on his shoulder, was giggling at his victory, but Kenpachi wasn't please.
"Man, what a wimp that was. At this rate, I'm going to get rusty."
"Hmm...what about fighting him, Kenny?" Yachiru said as she pointed at Garou. "I think he can see you."
In truth, Garou saw nothing in front of him. Even so, he still felt a murderous presence within the area. A normal person would think he was crazy, but he certain that he had to stay in his battle stance because of a gut feeling.
"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out."
With his sword still in hand, Kenpachi dashed across the street and lightly swung his blade down at the bystander. Much to everyone's surprise, including Garou himself, he instinctively caught the soul reaper's sword by clapping his hands on the blade. Despite being ambushed, Garou had an evil grin as he was given the chance fight someone new.
Both Garou and Kenpachi looked forward to this...
FIGHT!!!
But Garou wasn't dumb. He knew he was already at the disadvantage, so he forced the invisible sword to his side and leapt over to make a tactical retreat. Kenpachi would have none of that and began chasing after him.
"An invisible opponent, huh? An interesting, but cowardly challenge." Despite not seeing anyone, he paid close attention to the sound of the wind and managed to dodge the shockwaves from the swings of Kenpachi's sword.
"Kenny, I don't think he can see you after all." Yachiru said.
"You don't say. Hmm..."
As he looked up ahead, Kenpachi found that they were running toward a park with a large fountain in the center. With an idea to make the fight more interesting, he dashed and leapt at a fast enough speed to leap ahead of Garou. Upon landing, Kenpachi was knee deep in deep in water and was overall soaked by the resulting splash. By doing so, Garou took a quick look at the invisible force standing in the water.
"There he is."
As Garou found where his invisible foe was standing, he dug his hands into the ground as he approached, dug up two hands full of dirt and smashed them into the soaked Kenpachi, creating a dirty outline of Kenpachi's body. With a clearer view of his opponent, Garou followed with a leaping roundhouse kick straight to the neck.
The impact...got no reaction from Kenpachi.
Garou followed this with a couple of punches and kicks, landing them on what seemed like an unmovable object. Then, as streams of blue light follow a slow, but controlled movement of his arms, he took aim for a major opening. "Water Stream Rock Smashing fist." And then, he followed up with faster-than-eye movements where he struck Kenpachi with significantly harder punches, which ended with a final punch in the chest.
But there was still no response. "Is that it, kid?"
Taking his turn to attack, Kenpachi delivered a very simple standing kick into Garou's stomach and sent him flying before tumbling onto the ground. As Garou tried to recover and get back to his feat, from his perspective, he saw narrow hole appear in front of him, created from when Kenpachi stabbed his sword into the ground. From there, he lifted Garou off the ground with the dull side of his sword before flinging him into the water fountain, smashing it to pieces.
"Ugh. Guess he was a wimp after all." Already bored, Kenpachi turned around and started to walk away from, she noticed that Yachiru, who had been on his shoulder this whole time, was suddenly alerted and leapt away from Kenpachi. "Hey, where are you--"
BAM!!!
Out of nowhere, Kenpachi was sent flying and bouncing down out of the park and ragdolled down the street, smashing the road up each time his body hit it. Upon hitting the ground a third time, Garou, who suddenly sported red hair from his half-monster form, appeared instantly and punched him back in the direction he can, slamming the soul reaper into a building so hard that the impact left a crater as well as sticking him to it.
While he still had a good idea as to where Kenpachi was, Garou charged forward to get back in range. Happy for a challenge to finally appear, Kenpachi grabbed a handful of rubble from the building and chucked it forward. With no wasted movements, Garou's hand gracefully grabbed each rock in one motion before tossing them aside.
"Seriously? If you think some rocks can hurt me, then you ain't worth fighting?"
As Garou hyped himself further, leapt down from the building to meet him back on the ground, swinging his sword down upon landing, but it was dodged at the last moment. As Kenpachi's body was covered in mud and dirt, Garou was able to see, predict, and dodge the barely visible movements while also landing the occasional, yet ineffective punch.
As Kenpachi swung his blade once more, Garou countered by hitting his hand specifically and forced the soul reaper to miss entirely. Despite the counter attack, Kenpachi took a step forward and landed a punch straight into Garou's face. The instant Garou felt something hit his face though, he instinctively launched a counter-punch back at Kenpachi. As a result of these blows, both the hero hunter and soul reaper were launched in opposite directions.
Kenpachi managed to dig his sword into the ground to slow him down, then slammed it down onto the road to create a large chunk of debris, twice his own size. Having learned nothing from before, he grabbed the chunk of concrete with one arm and tossed it forward.
During which, as Garou flown, he performed a spinning kick mid-air on a street light and caught it as he himself landed on the ground. As the debris Kenpachi came at he, Garou swung his new oversized weapon and knocked the debris back to sender, only for it to be sliced in half by the zanpakuto immediately after.
With Kenpachi's blade momentarily lower, Garou charged forward and launched his street light like as a polearm, feeling a solid impact as he lunged his makeshift weapon. In truth, Kenpachi caught the light with his free hand. By doing so, he was able to pull it towards himself while also thrusting his sword forward. Before getting stabbed, Garou managed to step right on top of the blade before jumping in the air.
"I get that he's invisible, but that invisible sword is just bull sh--" As Garou assessed the situation, he was caught off guard when he saw the streetlight be thrown square into his head, knocking him even higher than he intended to jump. He started spinning for that matter which left him wide open for another attack.
While Garou was flying upwards, Kenpachi was looking at him with a smile. At that time, Yachiru reunited with her partner and was happy for him. "Wow Kenny. It looks like you found someone really, REALLY strong this time."
"Haha. Looks like it. Let's see how far we can take this." With a quick swing of his sword, Yachiru vanished into thin air. As Garou began to fall back to the ground, Kenpachi put both hands on his sword and got ready to swing. "Drink, Nozarashi!"
With a swing of Nozarashi, which became a large cleaver upon command, Garou was hit with so much force that it not only launched him through multiple buildings, but Garou's body sliced through them and sent the buildings flying into the air. Excited to go all out, Kenpachi chased after, dashing at speeds that knocked the same flying buildings even higher.
As Kenpachi caught up, Garou landed his feet on the side of a building instead of smashing through it. Kenpachi swung his blade down as he approached the building, Garou dashed out of the way, jumped off of another airborne chunk of debris and struck. Then, he bounced off of a building that was launched from before striking again, following by yet another punch after jumping off another building.
This process of dashes and attacking at such a fast pace that it appeared that Kenpachi was getting hit by flashes of light in all directions. To finish this combo attack off, Garou appeared over Kenpachi and delivered an axe kick that launched the soul reaper straight down. The impact was intense that the ground below exploded, which sent debris from the concrete and nearby buildings up in the air.
All of this happened so quickly that it wasn't until after Kenpachi landed on the ground that his previous attack had actually destroyed the building that Garou was previously in front of.
"Damn it, I lost him! Did that at least beat him?"
Unfortunately for him, Garou hadn't won yet. The rubble that remained on the ground exploded upward. Kenpachi, who had lost his eyepatch, unleashed his spiritual energy and returned to the fight.
"HAHAHA! YES! SHOW ME MORE!!!"
With a swing of Nozarashi, a large gash appeared on Garou's chest and sprayed out blood. But Garou was undeterred and the attack revealed Kenpachi's location. Using the airborne debris created from the fight, Garou lunched himself to deliver a kick to the head that knocked the soul reaper back. Kenpachi in turn landed, and subsequently leapt off of, a flying rock to return to the fight. Garou tried to go in for a follow-up punch, only to be grabbed by the head midair before being thrown back to the ground.
Initially, Kenpachi was ready to relax, but after he took a closer look, something grabbed his attention. "Hehehe...AHAHAHAHA!!!"
Risen from the rubble, not only did the debris fly up from the chaos, but on one such rock stood Garou, who had once more turned into his full monster form. Despite Kenpachi having been invisible this whole time, that didn't stop him from staring the soul reaper down with Kenpachi doing the same.
...until a rock briefly flew in front of Garou and after it was gone, he disappeared.
Kenpachi leaned forward to get a closer look as he struggled to comprehend that his opponent had seemingly vanished. While he was wide open, he failed to see that Garou had already appeared right behind him.
"DIIIIIIEEEEE!!!"
With a single punch from behind, Garou launched Kenpachi out of the city into the sky, and before he could even recover, abruptly landed on solid ground, creating a large crater on impact. Eager to get back into the fight despite the damage taken, he got back up on his feet to see where he had even landed. He figured this out very quickly when he looked back at where he came and saw the Earth itself before him.
Garou had launched Kenpachi to the moon.
But the soul reaper saw that he wouldn't have been alone for long. From the Earth, he saw that Garou was flying toward the moon as well as he wounded-up another punch. Since the human monster was finally going all out, Kenpachi responded in kind.
"Bankai."
As Kenpachi transformed, Garou's attack landed and pushed both of them under the moon's surface. From there, the intensity of their back and forth attacks caused shockwaves to erupt from the inside out. After one slash attack specifically, the moon was sliced in half from the inside out. Shortly after, another attack caused the moon to fragment altogether with chunks of it floating away from all directions.
One large chunk in particular was instead blasted back towards the Earth which wasted no time in getting back close to the planet's atmosphere. On this chunk of the moon, a monsterized Garou already struck downward against the transformed Kenpachi's zanpakuto with a crater underneath the latter. At this point, neither remembered or cared how or why they were in this situation. All that crossed their minds was to beat the other.
The maddened Kenpachi laughed manically as he swung his weapon, which sliced Garou's right arm clean off. In response, he countered with a hook from his left, which knocked Kenpachi back. As Garou stepped forward for a follow-up, his lost arm regenerated at the exact time he needed to land its fist square into Kenpachi's face. Kenpachi in-turn gave Garou a kick in the chest after getting close, then knocked him back with a headbutt.
Kenpachi kept laughing and laughing as he got more and more excited and raised his blade to deliver one more swing of Nozarashi. In contrast, Garou started screaming as he got more and more enraged as he placed himself in the perfect pose to land one more punch. They both threw their attacks at the same time and aimed for their targets.
However, Garou's target was the zanpakuto itself and stuck it with the power needed to lodge it into Kenpachi's shoulder, spewing blood out of the giant gash. This punch was followed up with a roundhouse kick that the blade in so much deeper that the arm was sent flying off the body.
Ignoring the damage, Kenpachi tried to swing his blade again, only for it to countered again and had his arm and sword pushed to the side. With this opening, Garou stepped forward and swung his arm with one final attack. "Feel the might of the world's strongest monster!!!"
And with one hit, Garou's fist passed through Kenpachi's chest. A decisive strike that would end any fight.
But that didn't happen.
Garou felt his hand was inside the invisible opponents chest. He knew that his attack landed exactly as intended and landed a critical blow that should've killed. Even then, he felt that the body his hand was inside of refused to budge. This was when, at long last, he finally saw an image of what he was fighting; A towering, monstrous shadow with an evil grin staring down from above as if it were ten stories tall.
"Wh-what....what the hell...even are you?"
"Hehehehehe...AAAAHH HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
In a panic, Garou ripped his arm out of Kenpachi's chest to back off, only to stumble back as he lost balance. At the same time, Kenpachi took a step forward and planted his foot on Garou's. With an opening created with no chances of missing, Kenpachi raised Nozarashi one final time only to swing it back down.
Like a superheated knife cutting through butter, the blade sliced through the monstrous hero hunter down the middle of his body.
Upon the blade's contact with the moon chunk that the two stood on, it was destroyed in a massive blast. A single piece of the moon had suddenly turned into millions of pieces of rocks that rained down onto the city where the battle initially took placed, destroying every building that wasn't already smashed to bits before.
After it had all been settled, nothing but rubble was left as if the entire city was hit by a wrecking ball. On the top of a small hill of metal and stone, Kenpachi rested with both of his legs broken, and arm long gone,, a massive hole in his chest, and a broken sword. Despite all of that, he had the happiest grin on his face. As he held what was left of his sword over his head, Yachiru finally reappeared to greet her master with a smile of her own.
"YES...yes...now THAT...was a damn good fight."
With that being all of the strength he could muster, he dropped his arm to the ground as he finally started to rest after all of the chaos that transpired, weakly laughing from the joy the human monster had given him. Yachiru in turned giggled alongside him.
Results[]
KO!
Boomstick: You know, we probably should've thrown them into a bigger battlefield. That city stood no chance.
Wiz: This was an oddity. This matchup was both straight forward...and unexpectedly complex. There were a lot of factors to look into and compare, but very few ultimately amounted to much, making this very difficult call.
Boomstick: Okay, so let's start by adressing the most obvious question; How the hell could this even be a fair fight? Kenpachi is invisible and across all of One Punch Man, nothing has ever imply that Garou could even see ghosts. How can he even fight?
Wiz: That's one such interesting factor that's not nearly as impactful as you'd might think. First of all, Garou has faced opponents in scenarios where his vision was hindered. That time he avoided gunfire in the dark being one such case. His enhance senses would aid him very much. However, Garou senses would not be the main reason he'd be able track Kenpachi. In truth, Kenpachi would likely resolve this issue all on his own.
Boomstick: So on Death Battle, we always aim to see what would happen if two guys went all out to murder each other, but it's also important to us to keep the character in-character, and because Kenny is more than willing to handicap himself to make a good fight possible, it would make total sense for him to help Garou see him. Randomly killing a dude that can't see him just breaks the character altogether.
Wiz: Exactly. Similarly Kenpachi would be patient enough to let the fight go on long enough to let Garou evolve into his numerous monster forms. Helpful, as base form Garou simply stood no chance in hell, as any feat he could scale to in that state was nothing to any one of Kenpachi's lesser feats.
Boomstick: As monster Garou though, that was a completely different story. At their best, Garou could move and fight four times faster than light, and maybe even faster, while Kenpachi was lightspeed exactly at best, and given his crazy martial arts talent, that sounds like a winning combination.
Wiz: But Kenpachi is definitely used to fighting foes faster than him, even before his training with Unohana. More importantly, he's been active in battle for more than a thousand years and has frequently fought and defeated enemies with centuries of training and experience of their own. And for as talented as Garou is, remember that he is only 18 years old and hasn't trained throughout his entire life.
Boomstick: So no matter how you cut it, that's a HUGE experience advantage for Kenny. Even a regular looking dude suddenly transforming into a monsterous form isn't really anything new to him. His years of fighting acquired problem solving skills meant that Garou didn't bring anything that hasn't seen before.
Popup: Fellow captains such as Sui-Feng, Sajin Komamura and Kensei Muguruma, are all masters of Hakuda, the soul reaper's art of unarmed combat. Kenpachi had once fought Sajin in particular whom teamed up with another captain, without going full out. Suffice to say, Kenpachi has fought master martial artists before.
Wiz: And don't misunderstand the whole 'invisible solution' thing. No matter how what Kenpachi would do to let Garou find him, he would still be invisible. The effectiveness of martial arts is heavily reliant on precision. This meant he would still have a difficult time to reliably land critical hits or counters at opportune times. And while he may still hear Kenpachi interacting with the real world environment, he would still be unable to hear his bells or even acknowledge the blind spot caused by his eyepatch.
Boomstick: Well, maybe someone could've gone out to buy a can of paint mid-fight, but that would probably be an unlikely outcome. So in the end, both had some clear advantages over the other, but ultimately nothing that amounted to an easy win. So this really came down to one very simple question; Who had the power to just straight-up kick the other's ass?
Wiz: Both own impressive feats power, but surprisingly little to determine their full might. No faults on their end of course. Garou stood no chance against Saitama and thus couldn't demonstrate his potentially properly while Kenpachi rarely fights anyone strong enough to even bother going full power.
Boomstick: Huh, maybe we should have Kenny fight Saitama then.
Popup: While Garou moving the tetonic plates is more impressive than Kenpachi's meteor busting feat, the latter was performed far more casually without the bankai's transformation or eyepatch removed. Similarly, Garou's full potential should still be better than this moon-level feat.
Wiz: Don't you start! Anyway, it makes perfect sense to compare Garou to Lord Boros, as a what-if fight between them has been acknowledged by One Punch Man's creator, ONE. He openly stated that they would make for a 'good fight', only further mentioning that Garou had the edge in hand-to-hand combat. Further more, illustrator Yusuke Murata stated on ONE's behalf that the two were equally strong.
Popup: These interviews were done before Cosmic Fear Mode was introduced in the manga, ensuring that these claims all apply here.
Boomstick: There's definitely different ways to interpret these statements, especially since these characters have very different powers, but this does mean that they are basically even, so scaling Garou to Boros can totally be done. And remember, Boros can destroy a planet with the Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon attack. Best attack name ever by the way.
Wiz: By his own accord, this attack uses up nearly all of his energy, and despite housing this move, Garou is still considered his equal. Now obviously, Garou has never personally demonstrated a planet-busting attack of his own, but this does mean that the total power he has within him could equal that same level of energy.
Boomstick: Meaning that he potentially can have 50 zettatons of tnt worth of power flowing through his veins. I mean, if there's so much uncertainty about who would win, then Garou has to be that strong. But for as crazy strong as Garou and Boros would be, Kenpachi is even crazier and even stronger.
Wiz: While Kenpachi's exact power is much harder to pin down exactly as the level of destruction is tame compared to, say One Punch Man, we do know that without using his bankai, he was already strong enough to fight Hikone whom, much like Garou, constantly grew in power by evolving.
Boomstick: Meaning that Kenpachi's spiritual power must be at least as strong as them since he was able to match them in battle, and with his shikai, Kenny flat out killed the dude that stole Hikone's power.
Wiz: Being a candidate for becoming the Soul King, Hikone's spiritual power would have to be enough the maintain the balance of Earth, Soul Society, and Hueco Mundo, all three of which are worlds that co-exist across their respective planes of existence. That would mean that the Soul King's energy, and by extension Hikone's, would need to output that same 50 zettatons worth of energy for each world.
Boomstick: Now there's more requirements to actually be the Soul King than just raw power, so we're not implying that Kenpachi can even be Soul King himself. This does, however, shows that his power is still on par.
Popup: Yhwach's list of Soul Society's 5 special war powers placed Kenpachi and Aizen as ranked #2 and #4 respectively, implying that Kenpachi was considered a greater threat. Aizen was on this list specifically because his ritatsu was on par, if not greater, than the Soul King. This was also before Kenpachi unlocked Bankai.
Wiz: Furthermore, his power would increase further when transformed through his bankai, with the estimate being between 5-10 times greater. Even with the average, that would mean that Kenpachi's full power can reach over a yottaton of TNT.
Boomstick: That's twenty times greater than what we know is Garou's max, and even a greater difference when compared to their speed. But hey, Garou's whole thing is that he just gets stronger and stronger the more he fights. Can't he eventually just overpower Kenpachi?
Wiz: Theoretically, but unlikely. Garou's limiter may had started to break, it has never broken outright. His powers may have reach to ridiculous levels far beyond a normal human, not unlike a certain caped baldy, but he still has very real limits. Limits that has cost him many fights. In fact, it's because lost those fights that he was able to grow in the first place.
Boomstick: So he's like a younger, edgier Goku. But since he does still have a limit, there's still that plateau effect going for him. In fact, that was exactly how he lost to Saitama in the original web comic; He had finally reached the end and just couldn't push himself any farther. Even the manga didn't really change that, and Saitama didn't even have to use a serious attack like with Boros.
Wiz: The fact that Garou vs Boros being such a topic even for the creator himself tells us that this would still be where Garou's power ends. Even if Garou still could grow stronger, it's unlikely that he could grow enough without getting overpowered first, especially once bankai is factored in as Kenpach lose his self-control and stops holding back entirely.
Boomstick: Granted, he'd probably stop holding back even before using his bankai. Not even Kenpachi likes the idea of dying, like the time Nnoitra had racked up damage on him, so he decided to just win the fight already. Ironically, Garou wasn't nearly weak to encourage Kenpachi to hold back.
Wiz: A lot had to be addressed as there was so much that looked vague on the surface. Beneath it all however, Kenpachi's centuries of experience, undying tenacity and overwhelming power ensured that even Monster Garou would ultimately get cut down.
Boomstick: If there's one silver lining for Garou though, at least he can say that he 'can-punch-he'.
Wiz: The winner is Kenpachi Zaraki.
Trivia[]
- The connections between Garou and Kenpachi is are both are shonen manga/anime characters that desire to fight strong opponents for the sake of a thrilling win. Both had lived as outcasts due to their upbring as well as their reasons for fighting. . Both have befriended and bonded with small children that became important in their lives (Tareo and Yachiru Kusajishi respectively), as well having individuals who outclassed them in might and gained a strong desire to surpass them by going past their limits (Saitama and Retsu Unohana respectively). Due to said desire, both achieved transformations that gave them monstrous-looking forms.
- As a noticeable contrast, Garou is an anti-villain while Kenpachi is an anti-hero.