Luffy VS Dhalsim is a What If? Death Battle originally created by Shrek-it Ralph. It has since been adopted by MP999.
It's One Piece Vs Street Fighter As These Two stretchy characters duke it out! Can Dhalsim take down the Pirate king, or will Luffy have the last laugh?
Beginning[]
Boomstick: There's a lot of weird, super powers out in the world of fiction!
Wiz: Flying, shooting lasers, super strength, and intelligence are usually the norm, but some people just stretch the possibilities. Get it, stretch?
Boomstick: Wiz, I'm the funny one. You're supposed to be boring. Anyway, like Dhalsim, Street Fighter's Yoga Master!
Wiz: And Monkey D. Luffy, Future King of the Pirates.
Boomstick: He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick!
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor and skills and find out who would win a Death Battle
Luffy[]
Wiz: Pirates. Terrorizing the seas from the times of Caesar to even the modern day, the sight of one of their ships on the horizon can strike fear into the hardiest of seafaring men.
Boomstick: When you think of pirates, you generally think of beards, peg legs, zombie parrots, eyepatches, guns, and other symbols of manliness. Unless you’re that one chick, uh, what’s her name?
Wiz: Anne Bonney.
Boomstick: Yeah, her. Unless you’re her. But I’m pretty sure she was still manly. But what you DON’T think of when thinking of pirates is a skinny muscular kid with a goofy smile and a straw hat.
Wiz: Unless you’re one of the people aware of One Piece, the world’s best-selling Manga nearing its twenty-year anniversary and with far more chapters than Dragon Ball itself. Meet its protagonist: Monkey D. Luffy.
Boomstick: Inspired by his legendary idol Red Haired Shanks and the stories of the Pirate King Gold Roger, Luffy always dreamed of becoming a pirate himself, following the ideals of his two foster brothers. Even as a child, he would stab himself in the face to prove his manliness, but Shanks’ crew wouldn’t let him in, saying he was still too young. And god damn, did he learn that the hard way.
Wiz: At age seven, Luffy’s comedic appetite got the better of him and he managed to eat an entire Devil Fruit unknowingly, a feat in itself since the taste of such a fruit can cause even mature, stoic adults to keel over in pain. The Gum-Gum fruit gave Luffy a rubber body at the cost of being able to swim: A pirate’s worst nightmare.
Boomstick: And that’s not even the half of it! After a falling-out with Shanks, Luffy got the bright idea to stand up to a dangerous group of mountain bandits. When Shanks intervened to save Luffy’s life, he sacrificed his arm in the process, scarring Luffy mentally for life.
Wiz: now thoroughly convinced he needed to wait a while before setting out on his pirate adventure, Luffy received his iconic Straw Hat from Shanks, promising to return it when they met on the high seas once again. A decade later, Luffy did indeed set out, and gathered a small but powerful and unorthodox band of members that would become one of the most famous rookie crews in history: the Straw Hat pirates.
Boomstick: Devil Fruits were rather uncommon in the East Blue, Luffy’s starting point, and he took nearly every fight he was in by absolute storm with his surprising abilities. His most famous technique, the Gum Gum Pistol, has him line up a punch with an extended fist so powerful it knocked out a sea king in one hit as the FIRST THING HE DID WHEN HE LEFT THE ISLAND.
Wiz: Luffy’s rubber body has a wide variety of attacks involving punches, kicks, headbutts, holds, and counters all based off its stretchy properties. As a man made entirely out of rubber, Luffy is immune to blunt force from attacks like punches and bullets, but can still get damaged by blades.
Boomstick: His childish personality gives him an extreme edge in combat, being able to make up new abilities and techniques on the fly. And he backs it up with serious power. His trademark Bazooka technique can send victims flying beyond the horizon, and his Gatling attack is so fast it looks like he’s spawning several fists at once. The battle axe technique can destroy entire buildings in one strike, floor by floor. And not only is this all pre-timeskip, this is pre-Grand Line.
Wiz: By inflating his massive stomach, Luffy can redirect cannonballs and other attacks and survive falls from monstrous heights without taking any damage whatsoever. Borderline unstoppable in the east blue, it was well into the Grand Line where Luffy suffered his first major defeat since setting out. And I’m not referring to Smoker or Crocodile, I’m referring to Aokiji, Admiral of the Navy.
Boomstick: Luffy’s seriously determined to protect his friends at all costs, but Aokiji was the first to hand Luffy a total defeat when after one of his crew members. Unlike the sandy warlord of the sea, Luffy didn’t get a second chance to fight, and could very well have died if not for Kuzan’s laziness. Knowing that if he didn’t get any stronger he couldn’t protect his crew, Luffy developed some new insane powers: the Gears.
Wiz: Luffy’s entire body is made of rubber, allowing him to develop some pretty smart abilities that completely bypass the paramecia-type fruit’s usual predictability disadvantage. They all relate to three major tissue sections of the human body: blood, bone, and skin. In Gear Second, Luffy widens his blood vessels allowing for faster circulation; by pumping his blood faster with his rubber heart, Luffy can reach speeds faster than the eyes of trained assassins can see. In combination with his ranged punches, Luffy can knock people out from range seemingly without even lifting a limb.
Boomstick: Although this technique used to require a pose to initiate and cost him a lot of energy, Luffy was able to quickly gain it back by eating meat. Post-timeskip, no longer the case.
Wiz: In Gear Third, Luffy bites his thumb and blows air into his hollow bones, inflating them and his limbs to the size of giants and increasing his already insane strength exponentially. A punch in this mode was able to knock out a giant marine in a single shot, and can level large buildings and ships with total ease.
Boomstick: Because of physics or something, Luffy usually reverted to a weak chibi form for the same duration he was in giant form afterwards. Post-timeskip, no longer the case.
Wiz: And in Gear Four, Luffy coats his skin with Haki, making it incredibly bouncy and nigh-resistant to any form of attack, bouncing them back without any loss of force to friction. His skin becomes so bouncy he is unable to stand still on the ground, and is able to bounce off the air to fly, or redirect his punches at sharp angles.
Boomstick: The only gear with a notable drawback, as it drains a large part of his Haki and leaves him vulnerable for ten minutes. Say, Wiz, what IS Haki?
Wiz: I’m glad you asked. Haki is a mysterious aura-like ability found within every living being in the One Piece world, and it comes in three distinct colours. If awakened and harnessed properly, Haki can be used to increase physical power exponentially to the point of damaging even Logia type Devil Fruits, sensing an opponent’s attack before it even begins, and projecting one’s willpower so as to knock out anyone not worth fighting. Luffy has mastered all three.
Boomstick: When his skin glows black, you know you’re about to take a serious beating. When his body goes limp and he gazes off into space, you know your attacks are not going to hit for shit. And when he blinks... well, you can just kiss 50 000 members of your army goodbye.
Wiz: The last colour, known as Haki of the Supreme King, is incredibly rare, belonging to only one in several million people. As if Luffy wasn’t special enough, there are several coincidences that link him to the pirate king, including the mysterious middle initial “D”. It is a topic of conversation among everyone except his own crew whether or not Monkey D. Luffy will follow in the footsteps of Gol D. Roger.
Boomstick: But with all his power comes a lot of weak points. The most common is the sea itself; as a Devil Fruit user, Luffy will lose all his energy when he comes into contact with the ocean, or a special rock that embodies its essence, Seastone. Fucking Kryptonite, man.
Wiz: Luffy is also very dim-witted. While he can think up attacks and bizarre strategies well on the fly, he is often caught off-guard by opponents themselves, and can get very pressured during the beginning of the fight until he finds a way out.
Boomstick: Don’t let that get you down, though. Luffy has defeated self-proclaimed gods, ran with a 60 thousand pound golden ball on his arm, city blocks with one strike, defeated several warlords with bounties much higher than his own, and survived the Whitebeard war after being made public enemy number one. He may be a fucking idiot, but he’s certainly a very powerful one.
Wiz: If opponents were more willing to kill him outright rather than toy with him, then perhaps we wouldn’t see such a rise to fame from such an unexpected beginning.
Luffy uses Gum Gum Gatling in Gear Second, driving dozens of steaming fists into Rob Lucci’s chest simultaneously and barraging him with hundreds of punches.
Dhalsim[]
Wiz: India. Population, 1.2 billion. Rich in history, this country is known for its immense pride in its culture and its people.
Boomstick: Even I have to admit, the place looks really beautiful. But since I spent all my money hiring guards to save me from mobs of angry Dragon Ball fans, I sadly can’t afford a vacation there.
Wiz: A large number of people in India live in poverty, especially the small villages that dot the country. But as India’s history has shown, certain extraordinary individuals will not let poverty stop them from trying to change the world for the better.
Boomstick: And yet, in a cruel twist of fate, history’s greatest pacifist came to be the partial inspiration of one of the fighting game genre’s most well known characters: Dhalsim.
Wiz: Dhalsim lives in a small village in the Indian countryside with his wife and son. Quality of life was rather poor; food was scarce, most of the village’s water came from a single river, and the fear of plague was a legitimate concern. The skulls Dhalsim wears around his neck belong to deceased children who lost their lives in such a plague.
Boomstick: His style of dress, skulls included, hint that he is a Kapalika, an ancient Hindu priest of Shiva. Much like the barbaric deity, these skull-men decorated themselves with blood, ashes, alcohol and meat in order to invoke his supreme power. Many even hoarded human corpses to channel their powers through meditation, or... cannibalism. Ironic given his power, Dhalsim is pretty fucking metal.
Wiz: Sorry to burst your bubble, Boomstick, but Dhalsim is actually a dedicated pacifist who prefers yoga and meditation over violence. Of course, that begs the question of why he entered a fighting tournament, but he did so against his better judgement in order to win enough money to save his village. Too popular to stay out of the limelight, he returned to fighting later as a cover for his investigation of S.I.N, a corrupt organization that had at the very least brought drought to Dhalsim’s village by creating a dam upstream.
Boomstick: Damn, that’s cold.
Wiz: There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in a storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
Boomstick: Dhalsim’s fighting style, known as Esoteric Yoga... hey Wiz, what does “Esoteric” mean?
Wiz: Hah, now THAT’S ironic.
Boomstick: Well, it’s an odd one to say the least, and reflects his non-violent personality. But there are three things about it that make one completely forget it’s about Yoga: One, is he fucking floating? Two, is he fucking breathing fire? Three, is he fucking stretching?
Wiz: Being able to attack from a distance is the key to Dhalsim’s fighting style. Many an Indian have made headlines when showing extreme feats of flexibility gained through yoga and meditation, and Dhalsim takes this up to eleven. Through years of training, Dhalsim’s body has practically become rubber, and he can elongate his limbs over twice his body length in order to punch unsuspecting foes.
Boomstick: And in his old age, Dhalsim's elasticity has grown to levels I would call straight-up absurd. Like seriously, I'd put that at no less than 20 feet. The best part is, Dhalsim doesn't appear to lose any power based on how far he throws the punch. I knew beards were magical.
Wiz: This Street Fighter doesn't show much of a need to wind up before he extends a limb. Although throwing a punch or kick forward would no doubt help increase the range, he appears to be able to extend his limbs to their full length at will.
Boomstick: His ability to contort his body in a shit done of different ways shows a high resistance to pain injury as well, especially since I, your regular American, throw my back out whenever I do so much as try to touch my toes.
Wiz: Dhalsim’s physical strength isn’t anything special, his attack and defense are actually sub-par given the fighters in your average Street Fighter tournament. So his strategy in battle is based around keeping the opponent at range and keeping them confused. Not many people expect a punch from that length, and with his ability to contort out of almost any hold, he’s a difficult one to catch. Should an opponent close the gap, he has a short-range teleportation ability to keep him out of harm’s way.
Boomstick: His teleporting is also linked to some magical energy he has gained through the power of yoga, which allows him to float in the air given the right pose, but sadly, not fly. He's mastered how to levitate in the lotus position to stall in the air, float over projectiles and get behind opponents, but Wii Fit can only make you so much of a metahuman. But my favourite way he uses supernatural Hindu power is by his fire-breath.
Wiz: Dhalsim has stated he cannot actually breathe fire, only cast an illusion that makes the weak-willed feel like they are being burned, allowing him to fight oil-wrestlers like his rival Hakan without the worry of killing his opponent.
Boomstick: Whether they’re covered in manly oil or not, I’m pretty sure setting ANYONE on fire can be fatal. Remember kids, stop, drop, and try to tech off the ground to recover.
Wiz: The confusion generated by his flames allows Dhalsim to distract and knock out opponents as powerful as the Muay Thai god Adon. Before you get to scaling issues and say he can beat Ryu who tied with Hugo who lost to Sagat who lost to Adon, remember, willpower is unrelated to physical strength. Dhalsim can take on a wide range of foes with this ability, but against more level-headed opponents, the fight is much more even.
Boomstick: Or maybe not level-headed so much as arrogant. Zangeif ain’t the sharpest crayon in the box, but due to his immense pride in his hulking physique, he claimed Dhalsim’s yoga fire had no effect. Of course, Zangeif never heard Dhalsim's mixtape before either.
Wiz: And that’s just the interesting source, stemming from the UDON manga. The ability of Dhalsim to breathe fire hasn’t quite been narrowed down, but in other sources, the flames are legitimate. This has been theorized to be a gift from the Hindu God of Fire, an energy attack similar to the Hadoken, or the side effects of eating too much curry.
Boomstick: Street Fighter. Taking stereotyping way too far ever since 1991. Dhalsim can manipulate the flame to a certain degree, spitting out gaseous streams, tossing arced fireballs to zone opponents, or inhaling deep enough to spit out a massive fireball that even Bowser has to respect: the Yoga Catastrophe.
Wiz: Perhaps Dhalsim’s greatest technique is the flame carpet, where he blankets the opponent in a layer of flames to do damage over time.
Boomstick: And he certainly uses it to great effect, damaging opponents while playing keep away.
Wiz: The last in Dhalsim’s surprising arsenal is, in fact, his malnourished body. Although his small stature doesn’t seem to present any health problems and is likely just a side effect of poverty and meditation, it makes him an even more difficult opponent to hit.
Boomstick: But should one get past the flames, the limbs, and the frustrating hitbox, Dhalsim isn’t too hard to put down. Hindu monks can meditate for months at a time, but such stamina is hard to keep up when you’re getting pounded repeatedly by fists and feet to the face.
Wiz: But, as you said, Dhalsim has plenty to keep the opponent guessing. His unpredictability and element of surprise make him one of the most accomplished Street Fighters, and while he has never won a World Warrior Tournament, he has definitely solidified himself as a combatant not to be underestimated.
Boomstick: All this kickassery from a pacifist. I guess when he says that, he means he will pass a fist into your face, huh?
Wiz: ...
Dhalsim's hypnotic moves and glowing eyes restrain E. Honda on the ground, unable to move. He keeps up his power until spotting Ryu in the crowd.
Intermission[]
Wiz: All right, the combatants are set, lets end this debate once and for all.
Boomstick: IT’S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLE!
Death Battle[]
(Misty Rain forest, 0:00-0:43)
Luffy: Oi! Zoro! Where are you!
Luffy is walking through the forests of India completely lost. His stomach growls, and he facepalms.
Luffy: Man... I should have brought my card... or a map... or food... or water. So... thirsty...
Stretching his head above the trees, Luffy searches for a bit before spotting a river nearby. With a look of delight he runs off in Gear Second, and reaches the river in the blink of an eye. Putting his mouth to it, he begins to drink as much water as he possibly can.
Meanwhile, in Dhalsim’s village, Dhalsim and his son are walking along a forest path holding buckets. When they reach the river bed, however, they discover it is completely dry. As Dhalsim stares in shock, Datta starts to cry.
Dhalsim: Return to the village. Tell them S.I.N is up to their trickery again. I will go upstream to investigate the matter. Go!
The two run their separate ways. Cut to Luffy, who has drank the entire river dry and is now lying next to a tree napping with a large gut. Dhalsim comes across him and immediately puts the scenario together.
Dhalsim: You! Wake up!
Luffy struggles awake and sees Dhalsim standing over him.
Dhalsim: You did this?! You drank all of my village’s water!
Luffy: Oh... I’m sorry.
Dhalsim: This is not something mere words of apology can fix! Who sent you? Bison? Seth?
Luffy: Nobody... now please, excuse me. I know how we can fix this.
Dhalsim: You are not leaving my sight. I don’t want to fight, but I will if I must.
Luffy: I feel the same.
Luffy twirls his arm, stretching it for Dhalsim to see. Dhalsim doesn’t flinch.
Dhalsim: So, you are a yoga practitioner as well? How humiliating to Shiva, that one who can stretch as you is so wasteful of resources!
Dhalsim stretches his arms and grabs onto a tree before dropping down, increasing the distance between him and Luffy.
Luffy: No way! Another Gum Gum Fruit?
FIGHT!!!
(Arabesque, 0:42-2:23])
Luffy and Dhalsim each throw a punch, extending their arms. Their fists collide in between them, creating a small shockwave that shakes the trees. The two keep it up, meeting their extended fists halfway between them before Dhalsim reaches up into the trees and pulls himself up. As he swings from the branch, he kicks with his legs, stretching them to hit Luffy from several feet in the air.
Luffy: Gum Gum Spear!
The future pirate king backflips into the air and sticks the soles of his feet together before shooting them at Dhalsim’s approaching legs. The impact breaks through them and the spear strikes Dhalsim square in the chest, knocking him back into a tree.
Luffy: Whip!
Dhalsim can only barely duck in time as a sweeping kick from Luffy flies overhead, cleaving several trees out of the ground and removing his cover. As he senses another punch approaching, he opens his palm and strikes the underside of Luffy’s wrist. A bend forms in his arm, and it carries along back to Luffy’s body, hitting him in the face with his own shoulder. As he recoils, Dhalsim rushes him and begins a melee assault, connecting several punches and kicks on the pirate’s body. One final punch sends Luffy’s head flying backwards, but he merely smiles when his neck is fully stretched out.
Luffy: Gum Gum... Bell!
Luffy headbutts, using the stretch to gain momentum, but Dhalsim is able to teleport out of the way in a small flash of white light. Luffy’s head smashes the ground, and Dhalsim reappears behind him, his cheeks swelled up. With a large exhale, a stream of flames flies towards Luffy’s back.
Luffy: YOWOWOW!!!
He leaps into the air and scurries into a tree, taking his hat off his back and shaking it to extinguish a small flame.
Luffy: He plays with fire, huh? I’d best leave you here...
Dhalsim: You’d best leave here!
Dhalsim punches into the tree branches, but Luffy stamps down with his foot; his attack overpowers that of the Street Fighter, and Dhalsim is hit in the face. Luffy jumps down and grabs Dhalsim by the shoulders, backflips over him, and throws him deeper into the forest. As he flies away, Luffy punches after him, striking him repeatedly before Dhalsim lands and is able to deflect the strikes away. Luffy smirks and winds up a more powerful punch; Dhalsim braces himself.
Luffy: Snakeshot!
As the punch flies, Luffy “twangs” his arm, shaking it on the end and multiplying his fist into numerous copies. Dhalsim is unable to block them all and the blow cripples him, bringing him to his knees.
Luffy: Done so soon, huh? Well, not before I try this new trick!
Luffy’s arm grows black and shines, and he punches Dhalsim from range again. Dhalsim teleports into the air to dodge, but Luffy’s fist redirects off the air right to Dhalsim’s new location.
Dhalsim: What?!
The brutal attack smashes Dhalsim through more trees, and he struggles to get up in the pile of splinters.
(Sacred Chants of Shiva, 0:16-0:30)
He merely brushes himself off and begins to levitate in the air, chanting in Hindi. To Luffy’s amazement and confusion, Dhalsim’s wounds begin to heal.
Luffy: Woah, that’s so cool! I want to try that!!!
Luffy tries to cross his legs, but twists himself up and trips face-first onto the ground. Dhalsim, now fully recovered, stares at him in disappointment.
(Drink Up Me Hearties, 2:06-2:46)
Dhalsim: The skills of yoga are learned through patience and decades of training. You may be able to stretch, but your young age and reckless attitude prevent you from realizing the full extent of your power!
Teleporting in front of Luffy, Dhalsim lays into him with everything he has. Punches, kicks, breaths of flame to the face. Luffy is unharmed by the strikes, but the recoil he receives prevents him from counterattacking. Dhalsim then grabs Luffy’s wrists and kicks his body into the air, stretching out his own arms. Jumping into the air himself, he slams Luffy to the ground, and rides on Luffy’s retracting arms to slam into him with a kick that drills into his back.
Dhalsim: It seems brute force will not hurt you. Try this!
Teleporting a ways back, Dhalsim’s stomach swells up, and he puckers his lips. Putting his face to the air, he shoots out a dozen small fireballs, arcing into the air and down onto Luffy with the effect of a meteor shower. Luffy, who by now has stood up, closes his eyes and sways around them as they fall to the ground beside him. Dhalsim inhales deeper and spits out a massive fireball which follows the same path. Luffy stands beneath the falling ball of flame and inhales.
Dhalsim: (Internally) He will attempt to breathe fire as well? Well, he will not expect this technique. Today, I will win again!
With a wave of his hands, Dhalsim blows a stream of fire onto the ground, which snakes its way over to Luffy. Luffy, now finished breathing in, blows up like a massive balloon, and shocking Dhalsim to the point where his eyes pop out of his skull. The fireball bounces off of Luffy’s stomach, and he forms a square in front of his eyes with his fingers. Locking onto Dhalsim, he rebounds the fireball in his direction. Dhalsim is hit the same time the flame carpet envelops Luffy, and two bodies of fire begin to burn up the whole field.
It is Dhalsim who breaks free first, inhaling his own flames and spitting them out harmlessly into the air. As he sees the flame Luffy is in, he gasps as Luffy’s silhouette twists like a corkscrew then unwinds, spinning Luffy around quickly enough to extinguish the flames... and making him dizzy to the point of barely being able to stand up. Dhalsim wastes no time in attacking again, this time from range, but as he punches with both fists, Luffy disappears in an instant, and they hit empty ground. As Dhalsim looks around, Luffy appears behind him, giving off an aura of steam.
Luffy: You said I never learned to use my rubber body to its full potential. Maybe that’s true, but I’ve learned enough to surprise you! JET BAZOOKA!
Luffy’s arms strike Dhalsim so fast it appears he blasts away from an invisible gust of wind; Luffy is above him in the air in the blink of an eye and shoots him back down into the ground, where Luffy’s Gatling strikes him with twenty fists simultaneously. As the Street Fighter looks into the sky, the sun is blocked out by Luffy’s now-giant fist, which drives into the ground and creates a massive crater.
When the dust settles, Luffy smiles as Dhalsim wearily stands up.
Luffy: And that was me going easy on you! I don’t want to kill you!
Dhalsim: And I you. But this recklessness must be stopped!
The two brace their legs, and fly into the air; Dhalsim while sitting in the lotus position, and Luffy by rapidly rotating his lower body. They each fly around the arena, striking each other whenever they approach each other, and their fight carries into the sky. Levitating in the air, they attack with stretching punches again, meeting fist for fist multiple times before Luffy’s legs slow down to a stop.
Luffy: Oh geez...
He falls to the ground, and his body sprays across the floor before popping back into shape. Dhalsim remains sitting in the air.
Dhalsim: This will end you, painlessly. Great rain of Shiva!
Luffy looks up from the ground and sees hundreds of small fireballs raining down on him. He begins to punch each and every one out of the sky as Dhalsim comes to land, but to the pirate’s horror, one of the fireballs lands on Luffy’s resting hat and begins to burn it up. As he screams in agony, Dhalsim’s stomach swells up the size of a hot-air balloon.
Dhalsim: Yoga Catastrophe!!!
Dhalsim spits out a ball of fire that dwarfs his previous one, no less than twenty feet in diameter. Luffy, now in a state of pure unrefined anger, covers his arm with Haki.
Luffy: Red...
His arm goes up in flames, and he punches Dhalsim’s miniature sun.
Luffy: HAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!
The sun explodes and Luffy’s punch connects with Dhalsim’s face.
In super-slow-motion, Dhalsim’s neck begins to stretch further and further away from his body, even after Luffy’s fist retracts from his face. Nearing five feet long, an x-ray of his neck is shown, with his skin and bones stretching to their near limit.
The bones in his neck begin to crack, then split apart into dozens of tiny shards. The X-ray effect disappears, and Dhalsim’s face is in agony as a line of blood appears on his neck. From this cut, the skin begins to tear apart, and his head slowly flies off of his body.
And, back in regular time, out of the continent.
K.O!!!
Luffy fans his hat off quickly, and to his relief, the damage is minimal.
Dan Hibiki is enjoying a bowl of soup in France until Dhalsim’s head lands in it, causing him to faint.
Conclusion[]
Boomstick: He stands like a flamingo, but he didn’t stand a chance.
Wiz: You’re right, Boomstick, this was a clear matchup in Luffy’s favour. The one thing that could have been considered an advantage for Dhalsim was his tricky fighting style matched against Luffy’s easily tricked mind. However, Luffy’s rubber techniques and attacks match and even surpass Dhalsim’s in terms of bizarre capability, and even he uses the element of surprise against most opponents; the Street Fighter couldn’t manage to outdo the Straw Hat Pirate at his own game.
Boomstick: His observation Haki rendered that entire aspect moot anyways, being able to see Dhalsim’s attacks the second he moved a muscle and leaving him hopelessly outclassed.
Wiz: Luffy’s physical strength, speed and durability surpassed Dhalsim’s on the exponential level, even without the gears. This pacifist has never shown the ability to dodge bullets, smash arks, or lift massive balls of solid gold. Luffy even stretches further than Dhalsim, leaving him out of his element, as he’s not used to being out of range.
Boomstick: Yeah, Capcom’s not catching a break here.
Wiz: Luffy is also immune to blunt attacks outside of Haki; even though it resides in every living being and a yoga practitioner would probably have knowledge of internal spiritual forces, the idea of Haki is not canon to the Street Fighter universe. Dhalsim wouldn’t know how to manipulate it properly in order to damage Luffy.
Boomstick: Add in Luffy’s own ability to levitate with the Gum Gum UFO, yesthatisarealattack, and all Dhalsim had was his flames, which weren’t enough. No matter how Dhalsim got his flame powers, Luffy has dealt with much more difficult attacks before, namely getting punched by a fist of solid lava!
Wiz: Well, he nearly died from that attack, compounded with all the other damage he received in the war.
Boomstick: But still...magma. It’s not like eating too much curry makes you a bigger natural disaster than a freaking volcano.
Wiz: Well, what’s even more impressive is that Luffy can conjure flame attacks of his own using his Arnament Haki; these flames, as a tribute to his brother Fire-Fist Ace, can burn even at the bottom of the ocean, and the punch is so powerful it knocked out an underwater Fishman, who was overdosed on energy steroids, making him far over one-hundred times stronger than a regular man.
Boomstick: Lets also keep in mind that Dhalsim is a pacifist who avoided fighting whenever possible; he spent a couple years out of action on purpose until S.I.N’s actions forced his hand. Luffy, on the flipside, nearly lives for combat, and while he doesn’t enjoy violence, he trained under Silvers Raleigh for two straight years honing his combat and Haki skills to protect his friends.
Wiz: Finally, Luffy has fought far more diverse opponents than Dhalsim, and has no trouble adapting his strategy to take out a new foe. His encounters, and later adventures, with Franky the Cyborg, left him as no stranger to firebreathers.
Boomstick: Crap, that’s a lot of advantages for Luffy. They had similar powers, but Dhalsim had no business fighting in this neck of the woods.
Wiz: The winner is Monkey D. Luffy.
Trivia[]
- Tournaments excluded, this is MP's first written fight with a returning character. Dhalsim previously starred in his fanon episode of OMM Nam Vs Dhalsim
Next Time[]
Boomstick: NEXT TIME, ON DEATH BATTLE!!!