A/N: Keep a lookout for numbers like these: [1], [2], [3]. When you find one, feel free to scroll down to the "Special Notes" section of that particular analysis (just below "Weaknesses") to find out what more there is to be said about the topic that was just mentioned!
A/N#2: All the One Piece titles and terminology used is a mix between the most official possible translations and the terms that are used by the vast majority of the fanbase. I know that the topic of names and spellings is very sensitive for a lot of you. Please don't kill me just because I called a guy Eneru instead of Enel.
This episode was requested by Denied love494. Comment with your requests and they may become future episodes.
Episode 26: Ragyō (Kill la Kill) VS Doflamingo (One Piece)
LZ: As a famous philosopher once said, "I've got no strings to hold me down. To make me fret, or make me frown. I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me."
TWO: That might be what we think, but what if the leaders of our world were super-evil puppetmasters that secretly took care of any and all threats to their powers behind the scenes while plotting to control the world?
LZ: …
TWO: Okay, fair, but what if that, but they also had the superpower to literally make and control strings? And took over an entire country while doin' evil economics with everywhere else in the world?
LZ: Kiryūin Ragyō, the host of the Primordial Life Fiber.
TWO: And Donquixote Doflamingo, the Heavenly Demon of Dressrosa.
LZ: I'm LittleZbot, and it's my hobby to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.
…
Ragyō
LZ: Millions of years ago, before the Earth was even a thought in the consciousness of the universe, the Life Fibers floated throughout the galaxy.
TWO: They're kinda like the Borg, if the Borg were clothes. And could only assimilate super-smart things.
LZ: Life Fibers coalesce as a unified entity and rebirth themselves into many Primordial Life Fibers, which scatter around the galaxy until they eventually come to rest on a planet. There, it forces the primitive life to wear it as clothing and forcefully evolves it, covering what should be millions of years of evolutionary potential in only a few millenia while granting a number of extra abilities. Once the creatures are advanced enough in intelligence and creativity, the Life Fibers feed off their life force, eventually consuming the entire planet, which then bursts into new Primordial Life Fibers to start the process all over again.
TWO: So, basically, it's a supersuit that secretly eats you?
LZ: Very basically, but yes.[1]
TWO: Well, bad news for THAT thing when it reaches Earth! We're a bunch of morons, yeah, but we're highly suspicious morons who love free will, don't trust random superpowers, and have kicked the butts of nature four billion times over. The only way to get us into the whole Life Fiber schtick would be for some big megacorporation that we trust to feed it to us while pretending they invented superpowers.
LZ: …
TWO: Oh, no.
LZ: Enter Kiryūin Ragyō, a member of Japanese high society who looks like a store mannequin with too much makeup and rainbow-colored hair. She's a pinnacle of culture, embraced the trappings of classism and sexism alike and used them to her advantage, and the CEO of the company that sold 100% of all clothes on the planet. In this world she is the worst effects of Barbie, toxic femininity, every supermodel and every false image every person has ever had about their own self-worth. Basically, the Queen Bee as a story concept, turned into a rainbow, turned into a human.
TWO: I think I hate her already.
LZ: Oh, just you wait. Ragyō is the inheritor of the Kiryūin clan, and their responsibility: wielding and weaving the Earth's Primordial Life Fiber. Whether she found it or her ancestors did (which changes in mediums and translations), it was her duty; her joy, to propagate its existence and ready it for the purge of humanity. To the world, she was a Walt Disney figure, a kindly mother to humanity that gave them the ability to stay warm and keep their children in school. But behind the screen, she sees herself as a goddess among men, and displayed that clearly by working with the Primordial Life Fiber as it activated, creating endless Life Fibers borne from it and implementing tiny portions of them into the everyday lives of us regular humans.
TWO: That "kindly mother" thing might be the biggest lie of all. Every kid she's ever had has ended up in some of the worst experiences a human can have. Because Ragyō's also a scientist who experiments on every object, animal, and living creature in sight. Including herself. And, uh-
LZ: And her two daughters. Both of which were, um, not treated the best they could have been.
TWO: I'll say! Ryuko was thrown out with the trash when Ragyō tried to fuse her body with Life Fibers and it didn't work. Well, she thought it didn't, but that's a story for later. The dad had to man up and run away to save Ryuko's life, giving her schooling, weapons, and an edgy badass attitude to compliment the set. Oh, and lifelong trauma, when he was murdered by Ragyō and died in Ryuko's arms. Tossing her kid into the garbage was actually the worst mistake Ragyō ever made, 'cuz Ryuko ain't the type to forgive and forget, especially not someone who gave her the worst life ever.
LZ: I'd actually argue that the elder sister, Satsuki, had it worse. Ragyō kept Satsuki well after her father left, and raised her as the perfect soldier/model/puppet. Grooming her into the family business of manipulation and envy, with more pride than power, and more power than anyone but Ragyō herself. The intention was for Satsuki to grow into the position of her right-hand woman. A miniature version of herself, with no chance for freedom, or even achieving the number one spot. And Ragyō made sure Satsuki knew who was on the top of the food chain in rather… forceful ways.
TWO: I think Japan calls it "family skinship." Non-consensual, psychologically-damaging, really, really messed up family skinship.
LZ: But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. And by the Fire Nation, I mean Ryuko, and by attacked, I mean joined the same combat school as Satsuki.
TWO: Yeah, so, this is Hinnouji Academy, a big ol' parody of Japanese classism and societal standards for school, work, and freedom. The higher-rankin' you are here, the better uniform you get, which is a big deal because THESE uniforms are "Goku Uniforms," made with a percentage of Life Fibers, giving ordinary folks all kinds of superpowers!
LZ: Particularly, the Elite Four-
TWO: Insert Pokémon reference here.
LZ: -wore three-star uniforms that granted several unique abilities. Like attacking with sound, creating omnidirectional explosions, forming illusions, predicting an opponent's attacks by the subconscious movements of their body, turning invisible, and even analyzing an opponent's fighting patterns over time.
TWO: But even THOSE guys were small fries compared to Satsuki and Ryuko! They wore their mother and father's biggest works, respectively, two sentient outfits named Junketsu and Senketsu. These guys were "kamuis": human-fused outfits made completely out of Life Fibers, and upped Ragyō's kids so much, they were punching craters around with just the shockwave of their attacks! A single clash between 'em made an explosion that sent everyone in the mountain-sized academy flying into the air, then did a vacuum effect to pull them back in!
LZ: Assuming said shockwave expanded across all of Hinnouji, which we assume to be similar in size to Mount Fuji, and the anime's timeframe is reliable and said vacuum effect was caused by rapid collapse of air akin to nuclear bombs, we can calculate this to be a feat worth 91.9 Gigatons of TNT![2]
TWO: But you might be wondering, hey, why're these two fighting? Welllllll Ragyō never exactly, ya know, told Satsuki that she had a sister, and Ryuko's dad never told her, well, anything. And when Ryuko found out that Satsuki was a Kiryūin, the folks who made the weapon that killed her dad, she assumed the worst, and Satsuki was groomed into thinkin' that classism is cool and that wearing kamuis was exclusive to her family, and it all just kinda blew up at once.
LZ: Ryuko made her way through the strongest that Hinnouji had to offer, including the Elite Four and Satsuki herself, thanks to Senketsu and her weapon: the Rending Scissors, two blades made to permanently destroy Life Fibers. And could combine into a giant pair of scissors, because, well, Kill la Kill.
TWO: Until the day Ragyō herself dropped in and went "FYI, you two are sisters, and I'm taking over the planet right about now." Then she exploded the mountaintop, unleashed a bunch of zombie Life Fiber outfits around the world called COVERs, and sent all the good and not-so-good guys fleeing for their lives.
LZ: Eventually causing the two girls to reconcile under their hardships, victories, and shared hatred of their mother. They would lead the rebellion and take the fight to Ryukō herself on many occasions.
TWO: And good luck with that, because Ragyō's at the top of the Kill la Kill power ranking.
LZ: Ragyō's strength, speed, and durability are extreme even in an extreme world. To such a degree, she can stand still and watch fighters as powerful as the Elite Four break their bones trying to damage her skin. Even if she does somehow take damage, it hardly matters; by infusing her human biological matter with Life Fibers, Ragyō gained incredible superhuman abilities. Not the least of which is her healing factor.
TWO: The Life Fibers in her body reconnect as soon as they get cut. It's sort of like automatically getting stitches, 'cept it's the human body instead of thread, it's way finer, and way faster.
LZ: Ragyō has healed from holes piercing her chest, countless stab wounds and explosions, being impaled by a weapon specifically created to destroy Life Fibers, and having the same weapon used to bisect her. Vertically and horizontally, at the same time. Yet she not only pulled herself back together in seconds, but was able to fully speak, move, and use her brain, despite her head being cut in two halves!
TWO: Also, remember how she tossed Ryuko in the garbage because the Life Fiber infusing stuff didn't work on her? Well, in true anime fashion, it actually did, and Ryuko got Ragyō's same exact super-healing later through the power of hate.
LZ: Since it's the same, Ragyō's healing should be just as good as Ryuko's, who can heal from being impaled by spikes bigger than half her body, and even having all of her outer skin ripped off!
TWO: Not kidding, to take off a kamui that was sewed into her body, she literally ripped off all of her outer skin, leaving just muscle and bones! And she regenerated just fine! Absolute badass. There's no weakness to this thing! That healing is just an auto-win-button!
LZ: Well, aside from internal injuries, blunt force will still impact Ragyō perfectly well without activating her healing factor. Additionally, this ability is tied into her Life Fibers, and can be canceled or circumvented in a few ways, such as cutting fast enough to completely sever the fibers before they can begin to reattach in any way. Although they have regenerated while being struck at speeds faster than light. The other primary way is to perform a molecularly clean cut on both sides of the Fibers, cutting in sync and meeting in the middle. This will permanently sever the Fibers from the rest of the core. This is one of the reasons Ryuko uses the Rending Scissors as her weapon, as it was specifically made to perform this task.
TWO: Or, you know, you could just destroy her heart. Even though it's just as Life Fiber-ey as the rest of Ragyō's body, for some reason breaking that thing perma-kills people like her. Literally, they unravel like a quilt. It's weird.[3]
LZ: This healing would aid her greatly in every endeavor, like when Satsuki betrayed her during the Hinnouji Festival, stabbing her mother through the back with a weapon designed to kill her.
TWO: But Ragyō shrugged it off, stole Satsuki's kamui, and showed off her other powers, too, like controlling all Life Fibers that she can touch! That meant she could throw around strings to make all sorts of weapons, blockades, and extra limbs. And if she can get a few strings inside someone's body, she can control them! Like when she wrapped a bunch of 'em around Ryuko's brain and sent her on a rampage. Until Ryuko punched a hole through her own skull and tore out the strings! Why aren't we bringing her back?!
LZ: Although Satsuki eventually reclaimed Junketsu, Ragyō proved that she needed no such external aid.
TWO: After awakening the Primordial Life Fiber, she set herself as its guide, the captain of a world-eating ship, so to say, and absorbed some of its power into herself to make two new blades and a new, even rainbow-ey-er outfit. Which, being made of fibers that she can mind-control, shapeshifts all over the place.
LZ: Wearing this uniform, Ragyō's speed and power was far above any surrounding her. She could block and parry every single attack from both Ryuko and Satsuki on both sides, one hand each, without even looking. Her skin blocked Ryuko's Sen'i Soshitsu attack, taking the same amount of damage as a paper cut (which, of course, instantly healed), and when she used her own transformed jets to rocket away, the light behind her split like a prism, showing the colors of the rainbow. That's only possible by piercing speeds faster than light!
TWO: And since she has access to the source of all Life Fiber stuff, she could shut down any opposition. I mean, other kamuis do that, just fine. One time, Ryuko was bein' hit by a crazy-strong soundwave attack. So she vibrated the Life Fibers inside Senketsu to a counter-frequency, so he could absorb the attack and then just… shoot it back! That's unbelievable.
LZ: And, given her strength and superior control over Life Fibers, Ragyō should be capable of the same.
TWO: Plus, those weapons matched and outmatched everything Ryuko could do, even in her transformed states. The feats in this series are usually real hard to lock down, because Ryuko and Satsuki's weapons are specifically made to fight Life Fibers, which makes up, well, everything that fights. It's kind of like using kryptonite to take over Krypton. BUT, that's not the case with Ragyō's swords and stats. She's just that overpowered. So we can measure the biggest feats we got and give those numbers to Ragyō without any problems.
LZ: In this case, Ryuko destroying the Primordial Life Fiber. Specifically, she destroyed the Life Fiber's core, which is specified to contain all the energy of the mountain-sized creature of death. As it's made entirely of pure alien Life Fibers, its durability must be just as pure.
TWO: Life Fibers have been directly stated to be stronger than steel, but there have been cases where specially-constructed steel has matched blows with Life Fibers directly.[4] So, comparing it to our strongest-known steel (Special Treatment Steel) seems fair.
LZ: Comparing its size to the mountain Honnouji Academy rests upon, destroying something with the same durability as the surrounding structure would take *ahem* 3.49 Teratons of TNT! That's enough to easily destroy an entire country!
TWO: And get this: the move Ryuko used to destroy the alien was the Sen'i Soshitsu. You know, the same one she used on Ragyō that only gave her a paper cut?
LZ: Even with all of Japan, both her daughters, and an entire faction that knew her plan ahead of time and had infiltrated her company from that start to kill her ALL opposing her, nothing could even hinder the CEO of Clothing. She would assist in consuming the world, and none could stand up. This was no story of give-and-take, but of an indestructible wall of might that not even main-character-plot-armor could break through alone.
TWO: Now, you might be asking: "Why the heck is she doing this? Sure, she's abusive and a bad person, but there's literally no benefit to sacrificing yourself and the rest of your race to aliens. What's the point?" And the answer is: She's the main villain of Kill la Kill. What else do you need?
LZ: Well, more than that, it appears that Ragyō actually bought into what the Primordial Life Fiber was selling. She seems to wholly and unironically believe that humans were meant, from the beginning, to be food for Life Fibers.
TWO: So, she's like a cow that herds other cows to the butcher?
LZ: And fattens them up. And restrains them while they're being cut into. And keeps them awake the whole time. And enjoys it.
TWO: I think we might have just found the worst character in the history of this show. We literally had a demon last season, and he wasn't even close to this messed up.
LZ: It was this, well, insanity, but also belief that led to her construction of her own kamui, Shinra Koketsu. Much like Senketsu and Junketsu, this outfit is composed of Life Fibers, but unlike the artificial/human-based ones those uniforms utilize, Koketsu is entirely Primordial Life Fibers, granting not just overwhelming power, but a direct connection to the goal the Primordial entity wished. After using the kamui's life fiber absorption to absorb both the original creature and her adopted daughter Nui-
TWO: GAH!
LZ: Ragyō gained multiple new abilities. She could already command Life Fibers to form weapons, nets, barriers, jets, spikes, and strings that restrain superhumans, but now she could pull on and activate all Life Fibers that hear her voice, regardless of whoever they belonged to. This Absolute Submission technique disabled any ability to fight against her, except as a regular human.
TWO: And when she rocketed out into outer space, she used a satellite to activate the Cocoon Sphere Genesis, causing all Life Fibers she spun in all clothes over the decades to follow their original programming and surround the Earth in an impenetrable barrier and eat humanity. Real Final Fantasy villain stuff.
LZ: Now, Ragyō cannot command these Fibers specifically in the same manner she can her regular ones, but she can choose to both raise and condense this barrier, given enough time. This is, on its own, quite powerful.
TWO: Yeah, since the barrier as seen in the show is literally hundreds of kilometers thick, and it was wrapping around the whole planet! Restrict that to, like, a country, and slowly squeeze in, and there's no way anybody's getting out of that alive. Remember, every single string of Life Fiber is as tough as the strongest steel!
LZ: Koketsu's power goes even further. It can shapeshift like a symbiote, turning into weapons or puddles or wings or, well, whatever Ragyō wants. Her speed and strength also increased significantly; enough to quite literally shatter Satsuki's Bakuzan with her bare hands. And Bakuzan is an exact equal to the Scissor Blades that Ryuko used to destroy the Primordial Life Fiber!
TWO: When Senketsu in Senjin Shippu form blasted her with all his energy, he made an explosion that literally cleared the sky! And, sure, Ragyō actually felt that one, but some healing later, and she's smiling it off.
LZ: Well, it did permanently remove her grasp over a group of Life Fibers, that energy instead devoted to maintaining her kamui's power. But even that is a small fraction compared to the amount of Life Fibers she had to control to cover the planet. And that's base-level Koketsu; by giving into the kamui's wishes, she can transform to gain even more power.
TWO: After unleashing the full power of Koketsu, she even overpowered Ryuko's final Kisaragi form, which could blow holes in the Cocoon Sphere Genesis barrier worth hundreds of Exatons of energy!
LZ: Er, that's questionable. Shortly afterwards, Ryuko and Senketsu revealed that they had been absorbing Ragyō's Absolute Submission power the entire time, and once they had enough of it, they could simply command the entire barrier to destroy itself. If this hole was truly created by Kisaragi (which is also questionable given that we do not see the event and it surrounded the same place Ragyō leapt from the planet), this is likely how it was accomplished. Particularly as Ryuko had never displayed power even remotely close to this level, and while Kisaragi was certainly a power boost, previous in-lore power boosts that allowed Ryuko to humiliate foes she was previously weaker than only increased her abilities by 50% or so.[5]
TWO: Okay, sure, but even ignoring that bit, she's OP to the max. A 50% boost ain't likely; Kisaragi's speed alone is dozens of times that of his previous max of Senjin Shippu. Technically, all its power came Goku Uniforms Senketsu absorbed, so, given the amount'a stars we see and how many Fibers are in those things, she could be, like, fifty times stronger. Maybe more! But even then, Ragyō was overwhelming her, stabbing her through with no effort! In her final form, Ragyō's the literal strongest character in the entire franchise. The only way Senketsu Kisragi could win was by absorbing her Absolute Submission and using it against her!
LZ: And even absorbing this power was more than Senketsu could handle. Even though his entire ability, the primary purpose for which he was created, was to absorb power, Ragyō's was too vast. Absorbing it literally killed him.
TWO: But not before putting the final kibosh on Ragyō and her nuttier-than-peanuts plan.
LZ: After taking her Absolute Submission and destroying most of the Life Fibers on the planet, Koketsu unraveled-
TWO: Like Ragyō's mind!
LZ: …and left Kiryūin Ragyō alone in the vacuum of space. Naked, but unafraid, she still believed that what she had done was right by the metrics of the universe. Even to her daughter's face, she was proud of everything she'd done. She insisted that the Life Fibers would keep going on and one day, return to Earth. And instructed her to count on it.
TWO: To which Ryuko replied "And people will go on being people. Count on that." Man, how are these two related?! Such. A. Badass.
LZ: Ragyō never had the last laugh, but she did go out on her own terms, by removing her heart and crushing it in her palm. She left the world, and her family, to whatever future they determined. But one without her in it.
TWO: So… happily ever after?
LZ: Pretty much, yeah.
TWO: Well, she might be insane, but she's also insanely powerful. Good luck taking out the world's evilest… well, second-evilest- um, third- actually, just, good luck killing any CEO ever.
High in orbit of the Earth, Ryuko's Kisaragi form does battle against Ragyō. The two's fight is too fast for mortal eyes, too striking for mortal hearts, and colorful enough to light up the darkness of space itself. Ryuko lands a perfectly-leveraged blow with the Rending Scissors, only for their blades to bounce off of Ragyō's skin, nearly breaking the weapon. Ryuko stumbles back in surprise.
Tittering laughter from Ragyō fills the vacuum of space. "Ohohohoho! What's the matter? You know, the blades of your Scissors ARE made of hardened Life Fibers. When Absolute Submission is activated, all Life Fibers become powerless against it!"
"What?!" Ryuko spits out.
Ragyō's grin grows further and the jutting eyes of Koketsu expand. "You turned your blade on this grand cloth, the equal to any god!"
The kamui begins shifting into enormous curved spikes that telekinetically rise up behind Ragyō and launch themselves at the company head's long-lost daughter. "For that, you must be punished!"
Ryuko manages to deflect a few of the strikes, but is quickly overwhelmed as seven impale her through the stomach, causing blood to fall down and burn in re-entry. Ryuko is thrown backwards in shock, but as her wounds quickly close themselves, she regains her stance and flies at Ragyō to take another swing.
Ragyō easily parries it, and the two fly throughout the orbit as little more than streaks of white and purple. The whole time, Ragyō soliloquies to the infused student. "Sōichirō's dying wish must have been such a burden for you, my dear. And yet, with all your power, you still don't understand the basic principle of the universe!"
Ragyō drives her face forward, catching it on a Scissor Blade as Ryuko blocks. She grins madly, eyes flaunting her enormous power and the blades cannot injure them. Ryuko pulls back and swings angrily, but Koketsu blocks every strike. "Look, Ryuko! That blue world, that shining sun, those twinkling stars! This is the cosmos, and one day, even this will come to an end."
Ryuko pulls back for a driving thrust, but Ragyō takes it through the kamui and ignores the painless wound.
"Since this galaxy was born, creation and destruction have gone hand in hand! The Life Fibers are part of this ecosystem! THEY ARE PART OF THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSE!"
Ragyō:
Name: Kiryūin Ragyō
Species: Human Borrowing Clothing
Height: 6'6 / 198 cm (according to Kill la Kill IF)
Weight: Unknown, but probably the thinnest person we've ever had on the show, including pre-timeskip Hiccup
Age: 35+
Occupation: CEO of REVOCS Corps.
Mother of Kiryūin Satsuki, Matoi Ryuko, and Harime Nui
Original founder and host of the Primordial Life Fiber
Likes: Clothes, Murder, Sexually Assaulting Her Daughters (in that order)
Dislikes: Nudists, Humanity, Logical Arguments (in that order)
Arsenal/Abilities:
Vastly superhuman statblock
Twin Life Fiber Swords
Kamui Junketsu
Shinra Koketsu
~Shinra Koketsu Form 1
~Shinra Koketsu Form 2
~Shinra Koketsu Unleashed
Primordial Life Fiber
Absolute Submission
Cocoon Sphere Genesis
Skilled swordsman
Control over and creation of Life Fibers, COVERs, and Primordial Life Fibers
Shapeshifting
Life Fiber-based Healing Factor
Flight
Life Fiber Detonation
Size expansion and body alteration
Potentially:
~Invisibility
~Predictive analysis
~Sixth Sense
~Sound manipulation
~Attack absorption & repetition
~Many other powers from Goku Uniforms
Feats:
Superior to Ryuko, who destroyed the Primordial Life Fiber
Broke Bakuzan with her bare hands
Easily matched Ryuko & Satsuki simultaneously
Survived being bisected through the head
Healing factor equal to Ryuko, who tore all her skin off and regenerated in seconds
Mind-Controlled most of Japan via specific circumstances
Base form flew at light-speed
Skin blocked Sen'i Soshitu
Overwhelmed Senketsu Kisaragi
Casually destroyed Hinnouji Mountaintop
Full energy was unleashed as a continent-sized explosion after absorption
Absorbing Koketsu overwhelmed and killed Senketsu
Easily survived Senketsu Senjin Shippu's full attack force inside her body
Took control over Ryuko via Junketsu for weeks
Created Nui Harime out of a womb of Life Fibers
Could have destroyed the entire planet over time w/ Life Fiber Barrier
Weaknesses:
Literally insane
Extremely overconfident and egotistical
Never used more advanced Goku Uniform techniques, implying that she does not know them
Healing Factor is bypassed by:
~Cutting both sides of a thread simultaneously
~Moving quickly enough to completely severe a collection of threads before regeneration can begin
~Weapons specifically made to interfere with Life Fibers
Regardless of all else, can be killed by destroying her heart
Special Notes:
[1] The events of the Kill la Kill IF game were a dream and contradict the events of the main story, and will not be included. This story is also in an unusual situation where the anime actually released before the manga counterpart, and is the primary source of research for this battle, although everything in the manga is, obviously, still studied and taken into account.
[2] The power of characters in Kill la Kill is not inherently tied to Goku Uniforms. Characters who do not use such uniforms are shown capable of handling power that would make them enormously superhuman in our world; Ryuko, in particular, can lift and throw millions of tons, destroy skyscrapers, and demolish both COVERs and other characters wearing Goku Uniforms all without Senketsu. Uzu has shown reaction feats in the massively hypersonic range without use of his uniform, and other characters have managed to land damaging hits on kamuis without any uniforms. While Life Threads are certainly a power boost, characters in this world appear to mostly have their power determined by their own strength of will.
[3] While destroying the heart of an Infused will kill them, destroying any and all other vital organs, including the brain, will not. Additionally, the heart must be destroyed; simply removing the heart will not get the job done. Ryuko was able to move and fight after Ragyō had torn out her heart and was threatening to break it, and when Ragyō removed her own heart, she was still capable of speaking and seemed no less powerful before it was crushed. This is an extremely specific weakness, like a phylactery, and not representative of a greater issue with Infused Humans.
[4] The strength of a Goku Uniform is not only reliant on the amount of Life Fibers, but the construction of the uniform and manner in which the Fibers are used, as well as the willpower of the one wearing them. Mako's Battle Club Uniform, for example, is a Two-Star made of 20% Life Fibers, but competed easily with Three–Stars with 30% Life Fiber makeup. The Ultimate Uniforms of the Elite Four at the end of the series could easily defeat stronger COVERs made entirely out of Life Fibers. Thus, the power increase Life Fibers give to humans are not determinate on the strength of the fibers themselves, and scaling Life Fiber power must be done through feats and battle comparison, not mathematically.
[5] The Barrier explicitly had not finished its construction before it was destroyed, or else Ragyō would have begun feeding it, and Ryuko would have lost. It's possible the visual hole is simply the opening left as the Barrier continued to grow, especially as the anime showcasing it slowly closing itself as the battle progresses. Another possible explanation arises based on Senketsu's conversation to Ragyō following the event, where he declares that he had just discovered the ability to "absorb an unlimited amount of Life Fibers." Also, Ryuko's entire power set, body, and weapons are designed to specifically counteract the power of Life Fibers, further discarding this specific feat.
…
Doflamingo
LZ: Over eight hundred years ago, the world went to war. The "D" Clan fought against the very gods, and an entire century of history was lost to time. We know not the war's reason, or even the victors.
TWO: What we do know is that after the mess, the World Government sprung up, a big alliance of over 170 countries, ruled by Kings, protected by the Marines, and overseen by the Tenryūbito.
LZ: Also known as World Nobles, or Celestial Dragons.
TWO: Wha- CELESTIAL DRAGONS? WE WASTED THE MOST BADASS NAME IN HISTORY ON THESE LOSERS?
LZ: Yep.
TWO: …Fair enough. Well, yeah, "losers" is pretty much the right term for everything there. The Tenryūbito are a buncha humans who think that they're gods. They even wear astronaut helmets so they don't have to breathe our air! They're the epitome of classism, racism, sexism- actually, name any bad "ism" and they've probably got that locked down. Walk in front of 'em? You're dead. Can't pay the tribute? You're a slave. And nobody can touch a hair on their bodies, or the entire Marine Corps will be after you!
LZ: Not every Tenryūbito is quite so nefarious, however. Such as St. Donquixote Homing, who chose to descend into the "human" world along with his family. He would live a regular life among the common folk, much to the horror of his young son, Donquixote Doflamingo.
TWO: And much to the joy of the common folk. Not because a so-called-god got off his high horse, nooooo. They wanted to pay back all the suffering they'd ever had on the one Celestial Dragon that couldn't do a thing about it.
LZ: The Donquixote family was hunted around the world and forced to live in squalor. Doflamingo blamed everything on his father for bringing him down to the "lowly humans." He was used to a life of luxury and elitism, with slaves attending to his every need. Now, he was lucky to find a rotted cabbage for food.
TWO: Until he ended up cornered, strung up the side of a building in chains, tortured, had the building set on fire on top of him, and he and the rest of his family were shot up with arrows from the people that were supposed to be beneath him.
LZ: Just so you know, Doflamingo was eight years old.
TWO: Um, wow, okay, no wonder he swore to burn the world down. When they managed to escape, he murdered his father, tried to rejoin the Celestial Dragons, and when they said no, he became a pirate instead.
LZ: Not just any pirate. Doflamingo trained his hatred and body alike to become one of the strongest beings in the One Piece world. When he grew into his late-30s, he became one of the "shichibukai" or "Seven Warlords," pirates who work alongside the Marines. In exchange for the World Government turning a blind eye to their crimes, they would lend aid in wars when called upon. And a great deal of the renown leading to this offer was the overwhelming power he achieved after he consumed a Devil Fruit.
TWO: Oh, yes, despite the bleached tips, fuschia sunglasses, and bright pink feathered-cloak, Doflamingo is a serious threat. Devil Fruits make you unable to swim and become super-weak if you're even up to your knees in water or similar liquid, so it's understandable why some folks don't want 'em in a world of, you know, pirates. But if you do eat one, you get a random superpower!
LZ: The Fruit Doflamingo ate specifically is the Ito Ito no Mi, or the String-String Fruit. This grants Doflamingo the abilities of a puppetmaster, able to create and control strings from his body.
TWO: Yeah, okay, it doesn't sound like much, but in One Piece, even random powers can end up being the most broken crap you can think of.
LZ: It's important to understand that Devil Fruits are not inherently scientific by our own understanding, and need not follow the traditional laws of physics. It all depends on general human interpretation.
TWO: See, Devil Fruits and their powers are actually made up of people's dreams. They're kind of… concepts turned into superpowers.
LZ: For example, Sakazuki's Magu Magu no Mi allows him to transform into and create lava. However, while normal lava is only physically capable of reaching around 2,200 Degrees Fahrenheit, his lava can burn anything, even fire itself, and was shown capable of killing even Monkey D. Luffy, who could withstand Accino's 18,000 Degree heat.[1] A fruit's power is entirely dependent on the strength of the wielder, and the imagination of humanity.
TWO: So Doffy's strings aren't any old sewing thread. Because he's crazy-strong, so are they. They can stretch out farther than the horizon and be as wide as buildings, or so thin that it's almost impossible to see 'em, even to characters like Trafalgar Law, who can see individual cells!
LZ: A single near-invisible string is capable of completely restraining characters as powerful as Diamond Jozu, one of the most feared pirates on the seas. And they're sharp enough to slice through basically any material, or human, in the world.
TWO: And don't be thinking that just one string is ever enough. Doffy can make thousands of 'em, and can control them to do anything! Even to gather together and fake-shapeshift into any object he wants, like clones of him that have all his same powers! He can superheat the strings into lightsabers that explode, use them like Spider-Man webs, and use the "God Thread" attack, where all Doffy's energy is spent in sixteen giant purple strings that shoot the other guy like that Pest Threads spell in Elden Ring.
LZ: Remember, the Ito Ito Fruit is less the concept of strings, and more that of a puppetmaster. As such, Doflamingo's strings can seek out any object and connect to them, allowing the shichibukai to control said object by pulling with his arms and fingers, effectively "playing" them like a marionette. This complete control is able to command both regular objects and any living individual weaker than Doflamingo himself.
TWO: Something that came in real handy when he took over the Kingdom of Dressrosa. Not through mind control (even though he does have a bit of that, too), but by using his string-powers to force the regular King and his entire army to steal all the money of all the people in the kingdom, then burn it in front of them, and then slaughter everyone they saw. Even while every one of 'em was fully conscious, horrified at what they were doing, Doffy's powers meant their bodies would keep killing innocent people forever. Yeah, he's, well, a monster.
LZ: Doflamingo seeks control over all else, and will perform any action to keep it. Such as killing every single boyfriend his maid ever finds, as well as everyone in said boyfriend's hometown. Not out of any kind of misguided love, but because he cannot stand for anyone in his life to hold anybody in higher regard than him.
TWO: Geez, that's just… I mean, it's real bad, but after going through everything with Ragyō, even war crimes and genocide feel a bit hollow. But, yeah, thinkin' that their King was a mass murderer, everyone in Dressrosa was only too happy when stringbean showed up to lead them into a rich future. Rich-while-profiting-from-wars-he-caused future.
LZ: But naturally, while a beloved King on the surface, Doflamingo's darkness appeared in every dark nook of the kingdom, every action he took behind closed doors, and every alliance he made.
TWO: And this guy's made a lot of alliances.
LZ: In addition to being a Tenryūbito, the King of Dressrosa, and a shichibukai, he is also the black market broker for the entire underworld. He deals in worldwide economics, frequently trading goods between not just the World Government, but their rivals in power, the Pirate Nation leaders of the Yonkou.
TWO: The Yonkou are the biggest, baddest, strongest guys in the world. One of them, Whitebeard, was so powerful, he could destroy the entire planet! And this planet's WAY bigger than ours.[2]
LZ: Don't get it twisted, Doflamingo is not on the level of a Yonkou. However, he has worked with them, even effectively becoming one of the Yonkou Kaido's Commanders, known as "Joker," on the same tier of authority as the likes of Jack the Drought, Charlotte Katakuri, or Shiryu of the Rain, all giants in the pirate world.
TWO: Oh, he's plenty of a giant himself, and not just 'cuz he's over three meters tall. He's inspired all sorts of other pirates, including one kid, Trafalgar Law, who'd watched all his family and friends get killed, and decided to join up under Doflamingo's flag to burn down the world alongside 'im.
LZ: Doflamingo took in and trained the young Law to master every kind of combat. Not out of care, but to gain even further control. He groomed the child, normalizing ideas like selfishness, envy, and murder, and guiding him into one day becoming his second-in-command, his "Corazon."
TWO: Luckily for the kid, the current Corazon, Doffy's younger brother Rosinante, took a shine to him and secretly taught him all the rest of the ways the world could work, becoming a sort of second father. Too bad that once Doffy found out Rosy was working against him, he murdered him up, too.
LZ: This left an imprint on Law that would never be forgotten. He secretly worked to upend Doflamingo for the rest of his life, and would eventually form an alliance with another upstart pirate who took the world by storm: Monkey D. Luffy and his crew of Straw Hat Pirates.
TWO: Luffy's a living legend, emphasis on the legend. With his Gomu Gomu Fruit allowin' for endless freedom in attacks, he was the thematic opposite to Doffy in every way. He'd already taken down two other shichibukai and freed several major countries from tyrants. Once he and Law became friends, the string-king was obviously next on that list.[3]
LZ: But Doflamingo was on a completely different level to any that either pirate had ever fought before. They took on the Heavenly Demon multiple times, and lost. Multiple times. Not that they could escape once they picked the fight, because Doflamingo's attacks can span the entirety of Dressrosa. A country that's close to 8000 kilometers in diameter!
TWO: And even though he can't fly, he can make strings attached to the air and clouds to make invisible paths that he can jump and walk around well enough where everyone thinks he can.
LZ: His strength lies not just in his Devil Fruit, but his physical abilities as well. Like when he was punched into a mountain, and for a moment, everyone thought that he'd been defeated.
TWO: Nope. He'd just been annoyed.
LZ: So, after a pause, he proceeded to take a single step forward, which broke the entire mountain.
TWO: He's stronger than anyone else on Dressrosa. No, not hyperbole, one time when he was super-weakened 'cuz he'd been fighting a bunch of the strongest guys in the world for hours on end, almost every single fighter on the island jumped him all at once. And he won.
LZ: He's capable of creating country-spanning shockwaves just by kicking, laughing off attacks that have defeated previous absurdly powerful foes, and outmatching Luffy even in Gear 2 and Gear 3, Luffy's higher super-forms that vastly increased his speed and strength.
TWO: Even when Luffy went Gear 4, his super-final-form at the time, flossy here just bled a bit and bounced back! What, does he ALSO have a healing factor?
LZ: No. Well, kind of. Humans in the world of One Piece have shown the ability to recover from would-be fatal injuries in record time, often with a little rest and a lot of nutrients. But if Doflamingo's mid-battle, he can substitute by wrapping his own insides in string, automatically pulling together broken bones or even shredded organs.
TWO: So, like that armor from Berserk?
LZ: Exactly. Except Doflamingo still feels every inch of that pain. Even so, with instantaneous suturing, he can keep his body going so long as he can withstand the pain and stay awake. That is, ultimately, the greatest flaw in most Devil Fruit users, Doflamingo included: all their creations vanish should they be knocked out in battle.
TWO: So… why doesn't it all go vamoose every time they take a nap?
LZ: Well, it's the whole concept of Devil Fruits being dreams again. Simply resting or not concentrating on an action doesn't mean you have lost sight of that action, and your influence is felt so long as you remain in control. However, losing a mighty battle against a powerful foe or having your dreams or mindset changed by another reverberates across your powers, literally causing your influence to fall apart by the seams.
TWO: I'm starting to think this story is too complicated for us.
LZ: Eh, it's fine so long as Doflamingo stays awake. Which a few strings to the brain can certainly help with.
TWO: Well, I'm sure it'll be fine. After all, all that string stuff from earlier isn't even his full power!
LZ: When a Devil Fruit user grows past their limits, their Devil Fruit will "awaken," granting even more power than before.
TWO: Doffy's awakening gave him the ability to transform everything he can see into strings! Buildings, ground, clouds, everything. Except sentient humans. Duh.
LZ: And, as he can mentally control all strings created by his Devil Fruit, this not only gives him a practically unlimited number of ammunition to call on with no stamina drain, but it effectively turns the battlefield into his own playground, making the environment itself on his side.
TWO: Not that he needs help from any ol' environment to kill you.
LZ: Doflamingo effortlessly broke out of being frozen by Kuzan's Hie Hie no Mi, a fruit that freezes everything it touches. Kuzan had previously used this fruit to freeze entire seaquakes, island-sized tsunamis, and enough water to make a safe bridge to walk between two islands.
TWO: This was deep enough for the ice to last "at least a week", froze a giant sea monster, and the island it reached was "four days" walk away. Using good ol' reduction energy would have the feat hit 726 Megatons, but takin' the kinetic energy instead (based on how fast it froze) hits the high Teratons! And sure, Kuzan wasn't using all his power to attack Doffy or whatever, but he was also super casual about that ocean thing, too. Besides, Kuzan was in the same tier of power as Fujitora, who Doflamingo could block and counter attacks from.
LZ: Which absolutely fits Doflamingo's MO, as he could slice Oars Jr.'s leg off with a single move, and Oars is powerful enough to literally move continents![4] Even early on in the story, Luffy survived an attack from Bartholomew Kuma that eclipsed an island… while he was unconscious.
TWO: Yeah, so, Bartholomew Kuma's power allows him to launch anything he wishes to any location at the speed of light, including objects as heavy as a 430,000 kg robot. That'd be an energy of about 4.63 Teratons of TNT, no effort, and multiple Straw Hats survived his attacks.[5]
LZ: And the island-eclipsing attack, the Ursus Shock, was his ultimate move, requiring entire minutes of charging time. Not only did Luffy survive it while near-death, but other Straw Hats were able to withstand it entirely, taking the hit and and still being able to stand and fight![6] And this is all pre-timeskip, in case you were wondering.
TWO: Oh, yeah, we didn't talk about the timeskip, did we? Halfway through the story we skipped ahead two years, and the whole world (but mostly Luffy and his crew) powered up super hard. Like, most of them now one-shot guys that the entire crew together couldn't beat. And everything in Doffy's arc is post-timeskip.[7] Heck, Franky, a relatively weak Straw Hat who's nowhere close to Luffy's level, can one-shot an ogre that was directly compared to Oars! But in the war on Dressrosa, he was relegated to fighting one of the minions!
LZ: Which actually tracks. Oars Jr. actually took an Ursus Shock inside his body, and not only survived, but kept charging forward. Yet Doflamingo was able to tear him apart with a single line of string!
TWO: Doffy's super powerful in the post-timeskip world, and was busted in the pre-timeskip world. Mainly because everything post-timeskip has Haki, which is, like, secret superpowers that people with tons of ambition have.
LZ: More specifically, Haki is a manifestation of your willpower, a little like Ki. It comes in three forms that work to allow even those without Devil Fruits or superhuman stats to fight among the gods. So just imagine how powerful someone who is already on such a level becomes.
TWO: Wait, you don't have to, 'cause we're here to tell you!
LZ: First up of the three categories is Observation Haki. This sends your spirit radiating outwards, feeding you constant information about your surroundings and people within. When focused on a single individual, Observation Haki reaches levels so extreme that you know what attack they are going to use even before they do.
TWO: Plus it gives total situational awareness, even allowin' you to see perfect paths for movement and dodging, like when Luffy dodged between the drops of a water attack so cleanly, it looked like he didn't even move![8]
LZ: Armament Haki, meanwhile, focuses the spirit inward, augmenting your body and weapons to be able to respond to any outside source of energy. Using Armament Haki to coat limbs or even your entire body vastly increases both your striking power and your durability.
TWO: Armament's got an even crazier power, though: canceling out other superpowers!
LZ: Specifically, it bypasses the defenses of extra abilities and harms the "substance" of the enemy. This allows you to kill even incorporeal beings made out of fire or snow, and can be used to cancel other abilities. When Kaido was struck by a Devil Fruit that turned him into a cartoon character (don't ask), he reconstituted himself using Haki. The cancellation isn't limited to Devil Fruits, either; Luffy used it to resist chemical weapons that transform biological matter, and when Jimbe fought Who's-Who, he was able to use his Haki to dispel his rankyeku and shigan attacks, two superpowers that have nothing to do with Devil Fruits.
TWO: And, finally, Conqueror's Haki! Even though it's the rarest, in the raw form Doffy's got, it's just a big omnidirectional wave of energy that bursts out from the user. It can dispel energy attacks, sure, but otherwise, it's just an auto-knockout button for weak-willed people. Fifty thousand weak-willed people at once!
LZ: There is a reason few people have their Haki active at all times. It's tied directly into your fighting spirit and willpower, and actively drains your energy with use. Doflamingo uses his sparingly, supplementing it with his Devil Fruit, but even so, it only lasts a little over an hour without rest.[9]
TWO: But even big superpowers like that aren't much when compared to his ultimate Devil Fruit technique: The Birdcage.
LZ: When activating the Birdcage, Doflamingo sprouts thousands, millions, perhaps billions of strings that combine into a wire-like dome the size of a continent. This dome then shrinks down, its "wires" destroying every single thing in its path, effectively creating a timer that will defeat any opponent.
TWO: That birdcage attack is crazy beyond crazy, way stronger than anything else Doffy's got. The only way to cancel the timer is to KO Doffy himself, because otherwise, it's totally invincible. Seriously, when he used it on Dressrosa in his fight with Luffy, the strongest guys on the island couldn't budge a single string. That includes Marine Admiral Fujitora, who can casually pull country-sized meteors from outer space, and Roronoa Zoro, who later blocked a combined full-power attack from two Yonkou at once.
LZ: Do not confuse this with Doflamingo's regular power set; he is not nearly this strong in any other way. This is a very specific move, albeit an extraordinarily powerful one. This led to Doflamingo and Luffy's final clash, a strike that flattened nearly the entire island.
TWO: Even though Doflamingo lost the fight, keeping Luffy on his toes and threatening his life on multiple occasions is still super impressive.
LZ: Pre-Timeskip and without any Gear changes, Base-Form Luffy was capable of dodging Foxy's mirror-reflecting light beams and Eneru's metal-traversing electricity. Additionally, Zoro, who we know was fairly similar in speed, could dodge dozens of machine-gunned air bullets from Kuma by weaving through them. And Kuma had directly, explicitly stated right before this that each air bullet was moving at the speed of light.
TWO: Comparin' the time it takes the bullets to reach Zoro in the anime versus how fast Zoro dodges (yes, we accounted for slow-mo, don't worry), Zoro's dodging at around, oh, just 8.4 times the speed of light. Which Luffy absolutely compares to. In Gear 2, Luffy was so fast, he vanished from a guy called Blueno's eyesight while attacking. And Blueno himself was fast enough to vanish from base-form Luffy's eyesight!
LZ: And that's pre-timeskip, no Observation Haki. Keeping up with and outspeeding that means that Doflamingo's speed has to be unbelievable![10]
TWO: When using both Haki and higher Gears, Luffy's strong enough to outmuscle Don Chinjoa's headbonk attack, which can split continents made of "Jewel Ice." Um-
LZ: Given the context and method of cleaving it, this appears to be an intentional reference to diamond. Assuming this "continent of ice" is a direct nod to Antarctica, splitting one of that size with the shear strength of diamond reaches over 40 Petatons of TNT.
TWO: And in Gear 4, Luffy would be hitting with strength like that in every blow!
LZ: And Doflamingo's own Haki is just as strong. It allowed him to resist the influence of Law's reality-warping Devil Fruit, which can destroy islands, attack at the cellular level, and even remove and change souls.
TWO: Doffy's power is up there, absolutely, but his greatest strength is arguably his mind. The guy is a creative genius when it comes to battle, and has been manipulating the world leaders under the table for decades with contingency after contingency after contingency. He's even managed to hide big-brain schemes and a bunch of his powers from Viola, whose Devil Fruit gives her stuff like mind-reading, truesight, and complete omnipresent sight of Dressrosa!
LZ: But even so, he ultimately could not see the futility of his own mindset. In a way, Doflamingo became the World Government itself. He tried to control everyone. Through status that was eventually revoked. Through tricks that were eventually seen through. Through fear that was eventually conquered. For all his power, all his intelligence, and his philosophical wanderings, Doflamingo never realized one of the simplest facts of life: you cannot control everything. No matter how desperately you may wish to extend the night, eventually, dawn will always arrive.
TWO: By method of a Gear 4 King Kong Gun to the face!
LZ: Doflamingo now sits, chained and laughing maniacally, at the bottom layer of the worlds' deepest underwater prison. Counting on the world to destroy itself. And not counting on that dawn to spread to the rest of humanity.
TWO: Teaching us all a valuable lesson: even the world's most fabulous outfits and swankiest walk can't save you from main character plot powers.
LZ: What's with you today?
In the midst of the Summit War, both Whitebeard's forces and those of the World Government clash in a battle unlike any the world has seen. Oars Jr. almost reaches the pirates' goalpost when Doflamingo appears out of nowhere, leaping into the air while laughing maniacally. His sunglasses slip down a little and Oars collapses, his suddenly-severed leg flying through the sky and raining blood over the remaining Whitebeard Pirates.
Doflamingo lands perfectly as the pirates cry out in horror at the death of their ally. His unusual laughter garners both dread and scorn. "I can't get enough of this! Fufufufu!"
Clenching his teeth, Whitebeard 13th Division Commander Atmos steps forward. "What's so funny, Doflamingo?!"
An array of explosions go off in the battlefield as the Marines force the pirates out of their shock with cannonballs. The battle picks up and Doflamingo meets Atmos with a grin. "What's so funny? This is what's so funny! We're present at the dawn of a new era, Commander! Fufufufufufu! Everything hangs in the balance, Water Buffalo Atmos!"
Atmos readies his sword to attack, but Doflamingo simply raises a hand and his swings turn around. Realizing what is about to happen, Atmos shouts out "Everybody get away from me!"
He's too late, as he slices down one of his own men. Doflamingo leans back, fingers twiddling as Atmos is physically forced to turn on his forces. "AGH! Stop it, Doflamingo!"
As Atmos relentlessly kills his brethren, Doflamingo lifts his face to the sun and howls in laughter. "Pirates are evil? The Marines are just? Things like that change with the seasons!"
At another side of the battlefield, an Admiral tortures and kills one of his men for attempting to flee. Across the world, families and children wait with bated breath, their futures hinging on the results of this war. Doflamingo sees it all in his mind's eye.
"Fufufufu! Children who've never known peace and children who've never known war have completely different ideas of right and wrong! It's the job of those at the top to write what's good and what's evil. They'll decide the future and how the past is written. Right now, it could go either way!"
Pirates and Marines alike fall to their death at his feet as Atmos is forced to slaughter another crewmate. Doflamingo does not notice.
"Will justice prevail? Why, there's no other way!
"Because the side that prevails will BECOME justice!"
Doflamingo:
Name: Donquixote Doflamingo
Species: Tenryūbito
Height: 10' / 305 cm
Weight: Unknown (but based on his shoulders, probably stacked)
Age: 41
Occupation: Shichibukai, King of Dressrosa, Captain of the Donquixote Pirates, "Joker" of the Beast Pirates
Bounty: 340,000,000 Berries (deactivated after becoming shichibukai)
Meant to reference flamingos (duh) and Alonso Quixano, for the illusion he casts over his country
Underneath his glasses lies… a second pair of glasses!
Arsenal/Abilities:
Superhuman Statblock
Limited Healing Factor via nutrients
Sword
Pistol
~Shoot bullets that instantly give you lead poisoning
Haki
~Observation (Kenbunshoku)
~Armament (Busoshoku)
~Conqueror's (Haoshoku)
Ito Ito no Mi (String-String Fruit)
~Awakened
~String creation, manipulation, and transformation
~Thousand Arrows (Senbon no Ya)
~Black Knight (Burakku Naito)
~Billow White (Birō Howaito)
~Marionette (Marionetto)
~Sky Pathway (Sora no Michi)
~Fallbright (Furuburaito)
~Overheat (Ōbāhīto)
~Parasite (Parasaito)
~Ever White (Ebā Howaito)
~Athlete (Asurīto)
~Bulletstring (Tamaito)
~Break White (Bureiku Howaito)
~Pentachromatic Strings (Goshikito)
~String Saw (Itonoko)
~Off White (Ofu Howaito)
~Spider Web (Kumo no Sugaki)
~Repair Operation (Shūfuku Sagyō)
~God Thread (Goddo Sureddo)
~Birdcage (Torikago)
Feats:
Defeated Diamond Jozu, Smoker, Atmos, Bellamy, Sanji, Gecko Moria, Trafalgar Law
Overpowered Gear 3 Luffy
~Luffy can destroy the Noah, tank island-eclipsing explosions while near-death, and move faster than light-timers can see
Survived hits from Gear 4 Luffy, a form stronger than Luffy had ever been in before
Far superior to Kyros, who is fast enough to "not get wet when walking in the rain"
Far superior to Sai, who outmatched Don Chinjao's continent-splitting strength
Effortlessly tore off Oars Jr.'s leg
Haki matched Luffy and countered Trafalgar Law
Broke a mountain by walking
Broke out of Kuzan's Ice Time attack
Faster than Caesar Clown can perceive
Controlled millions across all of Dressrosa all at once
Survived Law's Gamma Knife via suturing
Hid most of his history, status, plans, and powers from Viola's Giro Giro no Mi
The combined strength of everyone on Dressrosa could not stop the Birdcage, including the likes of Zoro, Fujitora, Franky, Robin, Bartolomeo, Orlumbus, Hajrudin, the Chinjaos, Riku, Elizabello, and the Tontatta
Heavily implied to be as strong or stronger than Fujitora
Haki-less skin was unable to be damaged by a rampaging Baby 5, who broke through General Franky
~ General Franky could one-shot an ogre as strong as Oars the Continent-Puller
Weaknesses:
Immenso ego and desire for control
Difficulty defending from attacks within his body
Haki can be overwhelmed and nullified by stronger Haki
Observation Haki can be nullified by opponents who attack without having to think
Haki drains stamina, can only last for so long
Tricked multiple times by Trafalgar Law
All strings and constructs vanish if he is knocked out in battle
Has several specific weaknesses as a Devil Fruit User
~ Cannot swim, sinks like a stone in water or any liquid
~ All his strength and stamina is drained once he is in any liquid up to his knees
~ Powers are nullified by and incapable of affecting Sea-Prism Stone
~ If forced to eat another Devil Fruit, he will die
Special Notes:
[1] While One Piece's anime has a great deal of filler material (and the movies and games are all non-canon), unlike similar situations with other popular franchises, everything was overseen by the manga's original author. He himself wrote several movies and adapted certain filler scenes and episodes into the main story canon. Outside of very rare instances where the filler contradicts canon, all of this should be included in the analysis, at least as potential timelines that could have happened.
[2] The planet One Piece takes place on is shown many times to be far larger than our own, and extremely different in structure. A globe of the planet showcases several moons similar in size to ours but noticeably small in scale to the planet, Kuma's light-speed repels can travel for days without circumnavigating the world, and Eneru's Skypeia storms indicate skies far more widespread than is possible in a Earth-sized atmosphere. Alabasta holds a 50km-wide river that barely takes up any room, and Viola's fruit allows her omnipresence of a 4000km radius, which was just enough to cover the island of Dressrosa. This indicates that a typical "kingdom" island would be nearly twice the size of an Earth continent, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such islands in the One Piece world. Dressrosa isn't even viewable from a wide shot of the globe!
[3] Unlike many similar groups in other manga, the shichibukai are not automatically similar in power and cannot be scaled to each other. Their ranks have included Mihawk, the strongest swordsman in the world, Edward Weevil, who is stated to be as physically powerful as the Yonkou Whitebeard, and Buggy the Clown, who was defeated by stubbing his toe. Shichibukai cannot be compared to each other; nor can Yonkou Commanders. While Doflamingo has easily defeated Jozu and Atmos, this does not automatically mean he would defeat the likes of Katakuri, King, or Marco the Phoenix. The power slides in that tier are enormous. However, the power levels of the Admirals are all fairly close to one another and should be mostly comparable.
[4] Oars Jr. did not directly display the same feats as his continent-pulling predecessor, but he also only lived for a few chapters, was specifically compared to Oars, and was obviously a direct reference to the ogre that had been seen as the final boss in the prior saga, directly meant as a parallel showcasing the sheer difference in scale and power between the two events. Moria also planned on using Oars Jr.'s corpse as a replacement for the previous continent-puller. It is fully reasonable to assume he was as strong as his predecessor.
[5] Pacifistas are created with an unknown metal, but, given Zoro's Haki-based Lion Strike, it must be stronger and denser than steel. Measuring Kuma's body in steel weight is how the minimum weight of the PX-1 Kuma sent flying was determined. While Kuma's "trips" are specific abilities that cannot be resisted except through Haki, he directly stated he was capable of the same power in attack potency.
[6] Assuming every pulse of the Ursus Shock attack is a condensation equivalent to Kuma's regular expulsion value, the strength of the blast the Straw Hats endured would be approximately 546 Teratons of TNT. He fully intended on knocking out all of the Straw Hats, and did not succeed, although all the Straw Hats took damage from the attack. Thus, this power must have been resisted, and should be immediately scaleable. Kuma also stated that the energy Zoro took while near-death would have been enough to kill even himself. There is a great deal of non-canon support for this level of power, such as the film Strong World, in which Luffy's Gear 3 attack defeated Shiki, who could move islands with similar levels of energy, or the Unlimited Cruise video games, where Gabri's Test involved raising four islands from the ocean floor. Additionally, Doflamingo also destroyed a meteor summoned from Fujitora; comparing the size of a later meteor to the 8000km Dressrosa and assuming top re-entry speeds of 12.5km/s, this attack would be worth, at minimum, over an Exaton of TNT.
[7] Assuming Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji's strongest blows were similar in power during their first Pacifista fight, which the story depicts as being the case, we can get an extremely rough estimate of the difference in power between times. The first clash in the anime involved 310 frames of constant attacks, each frame, based on changing visuals and audio, containing approximately 6 combined attacks on average. This sent the Pacifista flying backwards, but did not destroy it; it continued to attack afterwards, upon which the rest of the Straw Hats assisted in defeating it.
Destroying a Pacifista with one blow of equal power (a Gum Gum Gatling being a barrage of Gum Gum Pistols) indicates a bare minimum increase of 1860x attack strength for post-timeskip Luffy (he was using Gear 2 both times). Disabling the first Pacifista required several more minutes of fighting whereas this one exploded after a single attack, so this is likely an underestimation. Luffy's timeskip training also involved him defeating creatures that initially did not even feel an attack from Gear 2, and he was able to best Hordy Jones, a fishman that was explicitly compared to pre-timeskip foe Arlong, after he had consumed a sack of "energy steroids" that each doubled his strength (and doubled the double and so on). This supports such an increase. In non-canon scenes of the anime, the amount of pills Hordy ate would put his strength in the Exaton range at absolute minimum.
[8] Weaker users of Observation Haki, like Koby and Aisa, have been able to passively hear the thoughts and feel the emotions of hundreds of thousands of people at once across archipelagos. More experienced users can even sense the current strength, abilities, intentions, and weaknesses of all living things in the surrounding area. Observation Haki does have some weaknesses; when fighting Eneru before unlocking his own Haki, Luffy countered it by bouncing his attacks off of surfaces he could not visualize. Because Luffy neither knew about nor controlled the random angles of attacks, Eneru could not predict them.
[9] Haki has many deeper levels than discussed here. Certain characters, like Kaido and Katakuri, mastered Observation Haki thoroughly enough to literally see the future. A common use of Armament Haki for some warriors, especially those of Wano Kuni, is to expel it through your movements, bypassing durability and destroying foes from the inside out. Doflamingo has never shown or implied either of these abilities. Finally, the true power of Conqueror's Haki is using it to coat your attacks and impose your aura on everything surrounding you. This ability is extraordinarily rare, and the chances of Doflamingo even knowing it exists are minimal.
[10] Assuming the visual acuity scale in the One Piece world is similar to ours, the fastest humans can hit 143 MPH baseballs and visually track objects moving at up to 9000 MPH. Scaling to Gear 2 Luffy's Soru means that Luffy's speed increase would be around 63x that of base form. Depending on how we scale Blueno's Soru, which Base Luffy had to predict and could not track visually, this could go significantly higher. Gear 4 explicitly holds the same speed as Gear 2 and strength as Gear 3, and is imbued with both Observation and Armament Haki on top of that. Doflamingo has also moved quickly enough to vanish from Caesar Clown's eyesight, indicating far greater speed.
…
All right, the combatants are set, and we've run the data through all possibilities. It's time for a…
Death Battle!
…
It was a calm, noon day on the streets of Dressrosa. The colosseum was filled with excited spectators and warriors alike, the streets were clean, dancing girls lined various portable stages, and living toys hid in the shadows, trying to remember what it was like to be free. All in all, a fairly typical day.
Until the top of the royal palace was blown to pieces, a white-and-red streak jetting away from it. People in the streets shouted in shock or terror, with many running into their homes or pointing at the collapsed roof before a flurry of pink feathers tore after the streak.
Doflamingo bounded after the streak like an animal on the hunt, on all fours and seemingly grabbing the air to pull himself forward, with a grin that belied considerable malice and sunglasses that were somehow never jostled out of place. He lifted a hand and sprouted a dozen strings in front of the streak, causing it to break pace and turn to face him. Revealing itself as, of course, Kiriyuin Ragyō, fully clothed in Shinra Koketsu, bright rainbow hair and all.
"I warned your little country," she purred as she hovered in place. "If you continued to refuse to deal with REVOCS Corps., there would be… consequences."
Doflamingo stood straight, seemingly resting atop air itself, and imposing his gaze as he stood a meter taller than her. "I remember warning you, too. Was the box of beating hearts from each of your 'messengers' not enough?"
Ragyō tsked. "Those spineless worms were making no use of their hearts in this, or any, circumstance. I thought I might come myself, as a courtesy to my most valuable future customer."
Doflamingo threw his head back. "Fufufufu! I could smell the stench of your so-called clothing on the other side of the Grand Line! My subjects, my kingdom, my underworld would rather bare itself to the world before allowing one thread of yours on its body!"
Ragyō's grin fell. Farther than perhaps intended. In an unnatural state of humanity, she bared her teeth in a grimacing frown that showed nothing but contempt. "Very well, then. I will give you no choice but to witness the overwhelming grandeur that my outfits provide! Life Fiber: Submission! Shinra Koketsu!"
Rather than shrink and begin feeding on blood like other kamuis, Koketsu instead grew in size, pulling Ragyō's Infused body with it. A hood covered her rainbow hair and a radiant power emanated from her chest. The gleam bounced off of Doflamingo's sunglasses.
Ragyō threw her arms out in glee. "This is what it truly is to experience clothing! The nirvana of purpose! All you fools who reject your duty to clothing are better off as animals, and so, it is my purpose to treat you as such!"
Doflamingo's grin never faltered. "Fufufu. You're right; your spies and merchants were worthless. Their hearts meant nothing." He raised his left hand and curled his pointer and ring fingers inwards. "So I'll just take yours, instead!"
-FIGHT!-
Doflamingo whipped his left hand across the air in front of him as Ragyō threw out her right arm, forming dozens of Life Fibers inside of it like whips. Lacerations appeared across Koketsu, bleeding three or four drops of blood each before sealing themselves. Ragyō ignored it and drew back her hand, sending each of the Life Fibers bounding at Doflamingo, bouncing like a sinewave, ready to snatch his arm. Doflamingo easily stepped back mid-air, seeing the pattern of the threads, and grasped three in his hand as they bounded upwards, pulling them down and bringing Ragyō off-balance.
The rest of the threads wrapped around the arm he was using in retaliation, but Doflamingo flipped his entire body sideways to the right, stepping off an invisible string and spinning the threads, tightening Ragyō's fingers and pulling her into Doflamingo's physical range. From there, he easily brought his now-left-facing right foot up and snapped a kick into her cheek, causing a noise in surprise and a shockwave that created tremors across the entire island.
Ragyō, however, did not move, and grimaced in annoyance, rather than fear. She turned her hand into a club and pounded it upwards, catching Doflamingo off-guard and on the chin, pushing him back with some pain. She moved to bring in more Life Fibers to strangle his throat, but a burst of strings blocked the fibers and brought them down. In a bold move, the two both pushed their respective threads forwards, entangling the other in a web of death.
There was a brief moment as both realized that neither could command the other's actions. For one, their weapon was too weak, and for the other, their will was too strong.
Ragyō spat and transformed her legs into jets, firing ahead in a burst of speed to strike Doflamingo off-guard. Doflamingo brought five of his fingers across the air, restraining her movement slightly, and then leapt off his perched string, sending out another string from his hand as he fell. This string grasped onto the corner of a building, swinging Doflamingo through the air with continuously-building speed.
Ragyō finally broke through the string barrier and jetted after Doflamingo, her jets piercing the light into a rainbow behind her. Yet Doflamingo still managed to keep ahead of her. His knowledge of his country proved invaluable as he led her down alleys and corners, testing her ability to turn on a dime or risk losing him.
Doflamingo vanished around the corner of a larger building, and Ragyō powered up her jets to tear after him and finally catch up. She sharply turned around the same building… only to see a massive web of strings coating the entire street.
She immediately tried to brake, but Doflamingo had egged her into committing fully to her speed, and she was unable to prevent herself from slamming into the web. While not as sticky as she expected, all the string wasted no time in turning against her body, wrapping around her limbs and torso and tying her into the hundreds of strings making up the indestructible web.
From somewhere above, she heard a trilling voice that only agitated her. "Fufufu. Having fun, yet?"
Doflamingo hopped off the roof of the left building and reached out with his left hand, sprouting hundreds of strings from it that attached to the building's side and stretched with only a slight pull. From there, he ran through the air and spun backward, building momentum as the string stretched backwards, before letting all the inertia rebound and flinging him through the air, right at Ragyō, at speeds even faster than her jets could move. Ragyō was barely able to see the blur moving before both his feet struck her chest.
The blow exploded in a crackle of air, causing one of the seastacks in the nearby ocean to crumble, and jetted Ragyō's head and torso through the strings, snapping them and pulling off all four of her limbs, still caught in the web. Face frozen in anger, Ragyō's torso skidded across the street, leaving liters of blood in its wake and Koketsu mentally screaming. Doflamingo landed cleanly on his feet and chuckled lightly.
But then the limbs caught in the remnants of the web turned into thread and rushed past Doflamingo to rejoin the corpse on the ground.
Ragyō's body rose on its own as Life Fibers began spinning around her open holes, reforming her arms and legs and sealing all possible wounds. Life returned to her eyes as she chuckled herself, pushing her head forward with a creak and wiping a line of blood from her mouth. "Foolish boy. Immortality is the first boon of the gods."
Doflamingo was still smiling, but an artery visibly straining in his forehead belied his irritation.
"Now," Ragyō demanded, hovering up a meter into the air, "see the power you have given up."
Then the COVERs came.
From the sky, from the streets, up, down, all around. Some burst out of the ground, some were hiding behind clouds, and some flew through the walls of nearby buildings and sent civilians fleeing. Living jacket-like organisms, reddish-orange creatures with broken facial features and insatiable hunger. And they swarmed Doflamingo, collecting like bacteria across the island, all with the sole goal of bringing down the shichibukai.
Doflamingo tightened his lips. He looked up to the sky, choked with monsters. And he took a step forward.
And a burst of Conqueror's Haki blasted out of his body, the red wave consuming all of Dressrosa.
Civilian's screams vanished as they fell to the ground. Deep underground, dozens of living toys collapsed in the middle of their work. On the other side of the island, the colosseum went into an uproar as nearly an entire block of combatants stumbled and went unconscious.
And the entire COVER army rained down from the sky, concaving buildings and creating dents in the ground as they dropped. Thousands of enemies fell to a single move.
Ragyō stood, shaking. Another COVER fell on her head, and Koketsu quickly swallowed it without Ragyō even noticing.
"What," she breathed out angrily, "did you do to my beloveds?!"
She didn't wait for an answer, instead rushing ahead, rainbows splitting behind her as she made to kill the king.
Lips still tightened, eyes unmoving, Doflamingo whispered two words.
"Left kick."
Ragyō swung her left leg to kick his face in, but Doflamingo bent his head backwards, to such a degree that it almost appeared as though Ragyō did clip his head barely, but she only swung through empty air. The rainbow parting directly in front of Doflamingo's nose, Koketsu made another attack, turning its shoulder into extendable drills that whipped out at the shichibukai.
Doflamingo easily turned with the strikes, moving his own shoulders back and forth and keeping just out of reach of every attack. Until he whipped up with his own hands, catching the two drills within them and halting their spins completely.
Ragyō backed up. "I-Impossible! Nothing can withstand the might of Life Fibers! Certainly not the bare skin of an unclothed heathen!"
What Ragyō couldn't see was that Doflamingo's skin was hardly bare. His eyes glowed a slight red as his Observation Haki perceived every attack she made before she decided to make it, and he saw his hands as blackened, coated with Armament Haki.
Doflamingo pulled in with both hands, shoving Ragyō towards him, and raised a foot. "Athlete."
The foot grew several white strings in the air and Doflamingo swung his Haki-coated kick around. It crashed into Ragyō's stomach, caving it in and releasing spurts of blood as the strings cut apart her insides. The physical impact alone crushed part of her intestines, and Ragyō's eyes went white for a brief moment as the pain hit her.
The impact tried to send Ragyō flying backwards, but Koketsu kept her stable. A mistake, as it turned out, as Doflamingo snapped off the drills and pointed his hands straight at Ragyō's chest, all ten fingers outstretched. A black coating appeared over each finger as he thrust them into her flesh, creating ten shallow holes that dripped thread and blood.
Two lines of blood appeared at the corners of Ragyō's mouth as she tried to contain the red fluid. She blinked twice. "W-wait-"
"Bulletstring."
Ten hardened, Haki-coated bullets of string tore from his fingers through her body, creating clear holes visible from both sides and breaking through her nerves. The damage itself was no greater than she had faced before, but the pain was on an entirely new level. Only made worse when the bullets turned around mid-air and came back, shooting new holes through her body.
Ragyō stumbled backwards. Koketsu kept her upright, but the pain made it difficult to keep moving. She lifted her dizzied head, blood now coming from her mouth in four lines. "You keep-"
"Fallbright."
Several strings, previously invisible to her, fell from the sky, impaling Ragyō's body through the shoulders and head and locking her into the ground, the strings spreading through the street to root themselves as chains.
Ragyō's body was now filled with holes, and Koketsu had now been stained more red than white.
And yet, she smiled.
"You have sullied the divine form my loves have chosen to take. Be grateful. You do not deserve it, but I have chosen to show you the full truth of the Life Fibers."
Doflamingo held his hand forward and launched a cannon's worth of string, but nearly half of Koketsu leapt from her body to form a shield that blocked the attack. Behind the shield, Ragyō's wounds were healing rapidly.
Ragyō's body began to glow red. The strings containing her snapped. She transformed her feet into jets and began to hover again. "Go, Koketsu! Barricade this vermin from my splendor!"
Almost the entirety of Koketsu jumped from Ragyō and to Doflamingo, who surrounded himself with a web of string to keep back the kamui. But that was fine with Koketsu; it wrapped around the strings in an egg-like barrier, keeping Doflamingo contained and what remained of the kamui blasted Ragyō up into the clouds. In less than a second, she was there, and there she stretched out her arms, calling on the fallen forms of her COVER army to rejoin her as one.
One by one, then two by two, then one hundred by one hundred, every COVER lifted itself into the air and dissolved into strings. Strings that raced to join into Ragyō's body. Hundreds of thousands of bright orange strings, so grand and powerful that they might be seen as miniature stars to any that remained to watch, collided with Ragyō and formed into her, increasing her mass, fortifying her body, and forging a new white armor.
"Overheat!" came Doflamingo's voice from within the Koketsu ball. The kamui was sliced into four pieces, peeling itself like a tangerine as fire was set to the entire structure. Doflamingo, breathing heavily, saw the reforming Ragyō in the sky, set his teeth, and threw his four bright-orange strings at the CEO.
Koketsu reached her first.
As the kamui reformed with its master, Ragyō's entire body glowed a bright white. And in that glow the overheated strings reached her, and she snatched them out of the air and snapped them in her hand.
The glow died down, revealing Ragyō in a new pure-white outfit, with no hood, and dozens of floating protrusions hovering in the air around her. A set of disembodied demonic eyes stayed just behind her shoulders, and her rainbow-colored hair had dulled to a greyish-white with colored streaks, extended and pointed upwards into bull horns.
"Life Fiber Submission: Koketsu Unleashed," she cooed.
Doflamingo angrily clawed at the air, pulling himself up and racing on his feet to reach Ragyō. He saw Koketsu turning into a massive blade and flinging itself to attack him, and he readied to block it with his strings. But then he suddenly received a vision from his Observation Haki: the blade cutting through his strings and cleaving his entire body in half.
Doflamingo jumped into the air, connected a string to a building, and swung hard to the left, barely missing his death by a mere moment.
Ragyō left her spot as a mass of rainbow light, and appeared in front of Doflamingo, striking him across the cheek with her palm before he could properly react. The impact broke his mid-air strings and sent him careening into the ground, slamming into it with the energy of a meteor, creating a crater that extended nearly half a kilometer deep.
Doflamingo gasped, vision blurring. He coughed once, and noticed the blood that came up with it.
Ragyō coldly gazed down at the king in the dirt. She pointed down with one finger. "Erase him."
Koketsu formed into blades, saws, bullets, and scythes. A dozen raced down to finish off the shichibukai and crashed into the same crater where he rested.
Doflamingo saw all the instruments of death above him. He saw where they would hit. And he couldn't do anything to dodge them.
He grasped the dirt beneath him tightly.
And tore it upward, spreading across his body as if it were a shield.
"Ever White!"
And, with a flash of awakening, the entire ground, streets, buildings, carriages, plants, all transformed into white string.
Koketsu's weapons struck the far-stronger white string barrier that the ground Doflamingo had pulled had become, and found themselves wrapped in it, unable to progress. Like a sword struck into a stone, they couldn't pull themselves out. They couldn't return to their master.
Ragyō split light as she zoomed toward the beginning-to-stand Doflamingo. She formed two blades of Life Fibers in her hands and swung them both at the shichibukai.
"Pentachromatic Strings!" Doflamingo shouted, raising his hand to form five colored strings as a match for the blades.
Ragyō slammed her swords into the strings, creating a terrible screech that caused a nearby unconscious man's ears to bleed. The strings bent and waved, but didn't immediately break. Ragyō jetted upwards, ignoring the strings, and bounding across to meet Doflamingo.
"Off White!" The ground lifted itself and formed two enormous pillars of millions of strings, blocking an attempted strike from Ragyō and rebounding back, attempting to drive through her body. Ragyō vibrated the fibers alongside her back, causing an explosion that warded off the pillared strings. She lifted herself up further and threw one of her swords at a pillar of string, which swallowed it like a dragon. The strings halted almost immediately after, as they glowed bright orange and then exploded into a fiery storm, the sword flying back into Ragyō's hand.
"Break White!"
Two more large masses of string attacked Ragyō, though these were different. One attacked her directly, while the other attempted to catch her from the other side. Ragyō ducked out of the way of both of them, but they turned in mid-air, seeming to follow her every movement.
Ragyō glanced down and saw Doflamingo twiddling his fingers in the air. Of course. He was controlling them.
The two pillars reached her left and right sides, then shifted shape, turning into large hands with swords. Ragyō blocked a swipe from the left one, then turned to parry the blow from the right one. Before she could counter, however, she had to duck under a swing from the left hand of strings. She quickly found herself having to duel both at once, one with each sword in each hand. These strings were far faster than any creature she had seen before, including her own creations. Keeping them at bay was grueling.
So, instead, she allowed herself to be swallowed.
The white masses covered her entire body, cocooning it and stabbing into it. Within the white world, Ragyō was torn in half, crushed into a cube, and sliced into several pieces, in a row, then all at once. But nothing struck her heart. And so she endured. The more she bled, the more Life Fibers sank into the string constructs. The more vibrations began to field outwards. And in only a minute or two, both masses of white string exploded into bloody thread, leaving a blood-coated but satisfied Ragyō in the middle of the air.
Then Doflamingo was there, grasping thin strings all throughout the area between them, and swung a Haki-infused right punch into her stomach. The punch clashed with her outfit for a moment, creating a sound similar to broken glass. Vibrations emanated from both the fist and the Life Fibers.
And Doflamingo's wrist broke.
Doflamingo tore his hand back in pain, instantly resetting his bones with string, and trying to cease the bleeding from between his fingers. Ragyō simply laughed at him. "Ohohoho! This is my judgement! What you deserve for your crime of retaining humanity!"
Doflamingo creased his brow so hard that his sunglasses shifted position. "I am no lowly human."
"Oh? Perhaps not." Ragyō slammed her swords through Doflamingo's stomach, piercing through to the other side, causing him to cry out and gurgle on blood. "You're a bird. Wings for clipping." She transformed the swords inside his body, forming them into drills. "Feathers for plucking." The drills spun. Doflamingo's cloak was shredded as it was exposed to the rotating blades, and the king of the island screamed as he felt his organs churned into paste. "And a strangled song for singing."
Ragyō pulled back her arms. Doflamingo teetered in the sky briefly, skin pale, soaked in blood, before falling backwards. No strings to stop him, he hit the ground of white, a white that was stained pink and red.
Doflamingo shook his head and opened his fingers. He was fading. He needed a boost. So he stuck his brain with his strings, heightening his alertness and sending pain throughout his shocked body. While he still had some strength left inside of him, he summoned strings inside his body, pulling his organs back together and covering the hole within him. It was a temporary treatment, but it would hopefully last long enough.
Ragyō hovered above the struggling shichibukai. She stretched out an arm, and the remaining pieces of Koketsu, their trap weakened by Doflamingo's own weakened state, flew back and rejoined her body.
She laughed again. "Ohohoho! The little bird has fallen from its nest! Don't worry, sweetling, mother is coming to take away your pain." She raised herself with her jets. "But first, she will teach you what it means to soar."
And she blasted upwards at speeds surpassing light, creating rainbows that split rainbows, above the clouds, above the skyline, above sight, until Doflamingo lost track of her.
She decided she had gone far enough once she reached outer space.
So she shouted, turned back down, and rocketed at twice her ascension speed towards the ground.
The air burned. The clouds several miles below parted. Although she didn't know it, her descent was causing tsunamis in other countries. It broke part of a sky island, set the White-White Sea aflame, and made a red-and-black hedgehog turn in curiosity.
And as she fell, she called on the full power of Koketsu, reaching downward with a fist, and growing its size to that of an island. A fist strong enough to outmatch the Primordial Life Fiber even without the speed she was bringing it down. In a mixture of flame and color, the strike re-entered the Blue Sea, and she saw her target, standing tall, staring up at her.
"God Thread!" she heard him shout.
Fifteen purple, Haki-infused strings barreled up to her.
Her punch met the God Thread. And the strings cut into her fist. They spun through her arm, tore apart her body, and broke her bones.
But it simply healed in less than a second.
She saw Doflamingo's eyes widen a moment before her strike landed. But that was all. And, with an impact that rattled the sky, created waves across the ocean, collapsed the island of Greenbit, and broke the surface of Dressrosa, bringing down nearly half the buildings in the kingdom and shaking the string-based ground of the foundation of the island, Ragyō punched Doflamingo.
Doflamingo fell to the ground. His sunglasses broke. His wounds re-opened. And life left his eyes.
And suddenly, all the buildings that had become strings were buildings again. And the ground was dirt again. All the strings, all the white, all of Doflamingo's dreams faded as his body lost consciousness.
Ragyō landed lightly, breathless after using so much power. She smiled at the body of her enemy. "You sought to go against the law of the universe, and it has consumed you." She glanced up at the sky. "As it will consume everything."
She brought her gaze back down to Doflamingo's corpse in disgust.
And the corpse smiled.
And turned into string.
Ragyō felt her chest pierced. The ground turned back into string and sank her to her knees. Koketsu spread out to protect her, but suddenly found itself caught in an invisible web; one infused with Haki and far, far stronger than what Ragyō had touched before. It separated itself to rejoin at Ragyō, but Dofamingo had planned on that, and swaths of awakened string slammed down like weights, capturing the now-in-pieces Koketsu and separating each from each other and Ragyō.
Ragyō, in shock, felt up her chest, and grasped the handle of the Rending Scissors. Made of string. In her chest.
How… how did he know?
From under the string-sewn ground, a cave entrance built itself and protruded upwards. And from that entrance came the real Doflamingo, strutting forwards in confidence, with a new cloak to match.
"Law of the universe? What a load."
Ragyō face contorted in fury. She ground her teeth hard enough to be heard by any random passerby. "HOW?!"
Doflamingo spread out his hands. "There are no laws of the universe! Who eats, who gets eaten? All that depends on where you are and who you meet! Yesterday, this kingdom was the safest place in the Grand Line, and now, how many lives are left? A hundred? Fifty? Maybe it's just us!" He laughed radiantly. "Life is all about change! A new era is coming," he set his eyes down and matched his gaze to Ragyō, her fury matched by his calm, "and it doesn't have room for an old rag like you."
Ragyō shook, overwhelmed by her own hatred. She snapped her eyes around, just to burn something. "Let's see what he has to say about that."
Doflamingo cocked his head. "He?"
"A new era is coming?" Ragyō smiled, lidded with anger, the face almost looking more broken than happy. "How about a genesis?"
The sky darkened into red. Lines of Life Fibers gathered around the clouds and began to shrink. The fibers grew, in size, in structure, in solidity, and in seconds, there was a sphere of pure red encircling the nation.
"If you wanted to win, you should have never let me enter spatial orbit!"
Doflamingo tutted. "If you wanted to win, you should have never entered my country."
From outside the Cocoon Sphere Genesis, lines of black and silver became visible. And, with a chalking sound heard across the entirety of the New World, the Birdcage snapped through the barrier. It cut through the Sphere like a knife cuts jelly. And its fibers cleanly severed at all ends, the Life Fibers fell, and the Sphere faded.
"Im-Impossible…" Ragyō simply stared, unable to believe what she was seeing.
"There's no such thing," Doflamingo smoothly replied. He flicked his left-hand ring finger, and the strings containing Ragyō's body launched her high into the air, directly towards the apex of the Birdcage. Mentally broken, she couldn't even bring herself to move out of the way as the force of the throw sent her through the knives, slicing her body perfectly.
As Ragyō was sliced cleanly into seventeen horizontal pieces, the nearby clouds transformed into string and stretched out, catching every piece and wrapping it in a cocoon of string. The only one not entirely encased was her head, her eyes and mouth left open to the air, presumably so she could see exactly what was about to happen. Even when she snapped back to reality, she could do nothing. As much as Ragyō commanded it, the weakened Koketsu could not move enough to break through, and her Life Fibers couldn't connect to her limbs to reattach them.
Doflamingo fittingly crawled through the sky like a spider, his web of strings invisible to the naked eye. His Haki informing him of exactly where he sought, he reached out to one of the cocoons, which opened perfectly as his hand touched it. He plunged his right fist inwards and, in the spurt of blood, pulled out a still-beating heart, covered in bloodied thread.
"I warned you," Doflamingo stated with a grin. "This is my judgement."
Ragyō grimaced in haughty anger. "Even if you kill me now, it wouldn't change anything. The Life Fibers know about this place. About you. And when I am gone and their seed has fallen, they will come to claim what is theirs." Her own face twisted into another mad grin. "There are countless of them. They have existed since the dawn of time. They have birthed life, brought death, and given purpose to all. They are nothing short of gods!"
Doflamingo hadn't looked at her once during this speech. Now, he did, raising up her beating heart.
"Fufufufu. Then it will be a fair fight."
And he crushed the heart in his hand like straw.
And Ragyō, still grinning, unraveled in an explosion of blood and thread.
-KO!-
Doflamingo finally let his smile fall as he wiped his bloodied hand on his cloak. The clouds fell back into cloud formation, now literally raining blood. He frowned as he surveyed the damage down to his country. The outer edges were nearly completely destroyed; Greenbit especially appeared to be little more than rubble. But it could have been worse, he supposed.
That didn't make him any less angry.
He reached under his cloak and pulled out a transponder snail. He tapped in a number and raised the mouthpiece up. Once a familiar voice on the other side picked up, Doflamingo smiled again and he thought through his plan for the immediate future.
"Eh, Joker? I didn't think-"
"You've been doing wonderful work over there," Doflamingo interrupted smoothly, "but now I need you on a different project."
He could feel the reams of annoyance and slight anger from the other side. "Wait, you don't understand what I'm in the-"
"It can wait," Doflamingo answered his concerns with a demand. He hunched down and spoke softly, the darkness of his glasses gleaming. "Now, tell me, have you ever heard of… REVOCS?"
…
Conclusion
TWO: Aww, and I thought Doffy didn't have a heart!
LZ: Look, we're not going to sugarcoat it. Ragyō is extremely powerful, an excellent villain, and she had some unique properties that would make her a challenge, but…
TWO: But Doffy had this one in the bag?
LZ: Yeaaaaah.
TWO: The knitting bag?
LZ: …Doflamingo had many advantages. Perhaps most notably, speed.
TWO: It's hard to lock down a top speed for Koketsu. But if we assume it boosts Ragyō by a similar amount to how Senketsu Kisaragi boosts Ryuko, we can measure that just fine, because for travel speed Kisaragi could burst into outer space at 1/27th the speed of light, and in Senjin Shippu she moved from the Karman Line to the sea level in less than a second. So, comparing the difference plus Ragyō's base form prism-splitting, and, boom, Ragyō should be capable of reacting at around 71.5x the speed of light!
LZ: Far more than Zoro's 8.4. However, Doflamingo did not fight pre-timeskip Zoro; he fought post-timeskip Gear 4 Luffy. And in Gear 2, Luffy (whose base form has matched speeds with Zoro many, many times) could literally move fast enough to vanish from the eyesight of characters faster than his base. Even estimating conservatively still puts his fighting speed at hundreds of times the speed of light. And, obviously, he would be much faster when he fought Doflamingo.
TWO: This meant Doffy wasn't just faster than Ragyō, he was blowing circles around her!
LZ: Doflamingo was also much more experienced than Ragyō, having been fighting as a pirate for decades against powerful foes, while the seamstress saved all of her power for the final clash. Ragyō had never encountered anyone even close to her level of power, and her immense ego meant Doflamingo had many openings he could exploit early on. In fact, whenever Ryuko or Satsuki did manage to briefly match Ragyō in power, she was often overwhelmed and taken by surprise, suffering an injury or loss due to this same inexperience and ego.
TWO: Not to mention that Doffy's been scrapping with folks just as strong as him or stronger since he was kid. Plus, he might have his own ego problems, but it's pretty rare that it interferes with his smarts. He takes people seriously, and did his darndest to make sure Luffy and Law were in the worst position possible every time they took up arms. Yeah, he totally believed that he could beat them one hand behind his back, but he wasn't taking any risks. Even had his strongest subordinate fight alongside him just for insurance! And since he managed to rule and fight for ten years on the same island while restraining half his powers on the 1% chance that Viola would turn against him, he's never opening himself up to any trick Ragyō might try to pull.
LZ: While Ragyō's thread-control and shapeshifting might initially appear more versatile, Doflamingo's Ito Ito abilities are every bit its match. It's his experience in battle and refinement of his abilities that lead his more direct and distilled attacks in battle instead of simply constant shape-changing. Yes, he can make a sword, but why bother when it will never be sharper than his sharpest individual string? Yes, he can make a zombie clothing backup fighter, but why would he when he can use the same amount of strings to make an exact duplicate of himself with all his same powers?
TWO: Expansion, building nunchucks, mind-control, it's all stuff Doffy can do with no problems, too. The only part here where Ragyō takes the lead is flight. But when Doffy can mimic flight so good that even Observation Haki users think he can fly, is it really so much of an advantage? Sure, if she can fly somewhere that there isn't clouds, maybe, but that's not happening with the speed gap.
LZ: And both had battlefield-restricting techniques that were far more powerful than anything else they could perform; potentially a guaranteed win move. Let's break into that a bit, shall we?
TWO: Ragyō couldn't use the Cocoon Sphere as summons for attacks, but even using them to make a barrier around Doffy would be more than shoestring could take on. Even if we decided to say he's as strong as an Admiral, it'd be some pretty hefty arguments to say that he could break through a barrier like that if it was shrunken in circumference and made thicker. Trap Doffy in a city surrounded by those things, and he's probably lost.
LZ: But Doflamingo's Birdcage technique fills the same hole. It could expand around continent-sized islands, adapt itself into any location, and catch Ragyō in the same trap. When characters as powerful as Fujitora and Roronoa Zoro cannot breach it or even slow it down on their own, there's very little chance of Ragyō being able to break through the encroaching death. Ironically, the only thing she had that had the potential to withstand such a move was the Cocoon Sphere Genesis. And while it's a troubling question if the Birdcage could break through said shield, there's also very little chance of the shield getting past the Birdcage. In instances like these, the first one to summon their ultimate barrier without the opponent escaping is the winner.
TWO: Well, to activate Absolute Submission at its full power, Ragyō needs to reach her satellite first, and Doffy's way higher speed could keep her occupied long enough to activate Birdcage instead. The initial birdcage gaps are big enough so maybe Ragyō could slip through before it tightens up enough to guarantee-cut-her heart and just regenerate later, but with his cloud-hopping and crazy speed, you can make arguments just as strong for Doffy escaping the Genesis Barrier. This one's tough to figure out, especially with Ragyō's flight and Doffy's Haki, but Ragyō has a lower chance of summoning her barrier and a higher chance of escaping Doflamingo's, while Doffy has a higher chance of figuring out a way to nullify that barrier and a lower chance of feasibly surviving the restrictive powers. This one evens out all around.
LZ: Well, kind of. The detail that Ragyō needs to reach a satellite to even use her move does hamper it quite a bit when other factors are taken into account. But still, we ignore those specific techniques and judge the match on everything else to do with their powers.
TWO: And Doffy matches or surpasses everything else to do with their powers.[1]
LZ: Actually, thanks to his Awakening, Doflamingo would have constant access to a much larger supply of strings than Ragyō would have in Life Threads. Even if she could call upon and control the Primordial Life Fiber, that's still actually less mass than the structures Doflamingo has transformed. And remember that Ragyō cannot have access to all the Primordial Life Fibers and her full power in Koketsu at the same time. They are constructed from one another; it's a part of the story that when she loses the Primordial Life Fiber, she transforms it through Koketsu as an alternative to the power she lost.
TWO: Also, there's Haki. Yeah, hate to be a spoilsport, but Armament kind of obliterates Life Fibers. Regardless of how strong they are (and Doffy's broken stronger, I promise), they're still organic, opening them up for their "substance" to be wrecked. Observation means that Doffy would have no trouble seein' the spots between the threads in oncoming attacks that he'd be safe in, like Ryuko did against a good chunk of her own opponents. And Conqueror's is an insta-knockout for Ragyō's COVER army.
LZ: Ironically, as organic beings that were still non-sentient and treated like traditional objects and clothing, COVERs and everything else the Primordial Life Fiber creates would be open to both being knocked down through Conqueror's Haki and being transformed by the Ito Ito Fruit's Awakening. If it can transform plants, there's little reason it couldn't transform non-sentient Life Fibers. Remember that kamuis like Senketsu are organically artificial Life Fibers fused with humans; Life Fibers can gain sentience, but the Primordial Seed is not itself sentient.
TWO: There's another thing to note about Life Fibers and extra powers, though. It's pretty arguable if Ragyō should get access to the crazy superpowers of folks like the Elite Four. Theoretically, she should be capable of copyin' them, but never displays any of them even when it'd be super helpful. Even if we did give her all those powers, though, Doffy has counters to pretty much everything.
LZ: Like Conqueror's Haki to take care of multi-attacks, AOEs, energy blasts, or constructs, Armament Haki to completely bypass things like Gamagōri's Shackle Regalia, and Observation Haki for invisibility, illusions, or super senses. Even if she could use the Life Fibers to analyze Doflamingo's fighting pattern and predict his moves, that's still a weaker version of just one of the powers that Observation Haki provides. And it's not like any of that puts her on Doflamingo's level; remember, he fights Haki users all the time.
TWO: Now, admittedly, this is all the around-the-bush stuff. Clearin' up details and polishing around arguments to prove that Doffy wasn't outmatched in certain areas or even had advantages.
LZ: True. None of what we've said means a guaranteed win.
TWO: wellexceptspeedbecauseblitzingisathing-
LZ: What it really comes down to is power. How much could Doflamingo make and take in comparison to Ragyō's strongest forms? Which can cut through which, Ito Ito Strings or Life Fibers? What are the two's full power levels, and how do they compare?
TWO: When Senketsu attacked Ragyō with enough energy to clear the sky, she was attached to a kind-of-fake Primordial Life Fiber thing (it's complicated), so we actually see how much damage it did in total to her Life Fiber control. Scaling that up to the amount of power needed to control every Life Fiber on the planet, which Kisaragi absorbed and then broke down, comes out to 1.1 Petatons of TNT.
LZ: Obviously, this is less than Luffy's 40 Petaton attack. But that's not the whole story. Koketsu's strength was greater than Senketsu Kisaragi's, and Ragyō even transformed in the fight to gain an additional power boost. You could reasonably argue Ragyō's power to be in a similar ballpark to 40 Petatons, perhaps even more.
TWO: Except for two problems. First up, that's all of Ragyō's power, the full measure that she used to try to end the world, the same power that Senketsu absorbed and demolished Ragyō with. But for Luffy, that was just one attack, in a lesser Gear than he was fighting Doffy in. Doffy took a bunch of those kinds of hits, and could even block them with his strings!
LZ: And secondly, this is likely an overestimation. While other characters have unleashed Life Fiber-based attacks strong enough to overpower their own Life Fibers, scaling that up to a person made of them doesn't stack the same way, and Ragyō's Absolute Submission is unique enough where using it for any kind of scaling is questionable to begin with. This also assumes the cloud-clearing happened to the mountain's horizon, which we don't know, as we only see a small portion of the battlefield. All other feats and scaling suggest less power than this.[2]
TWO: Meanwhile, Doffy's Petaton scaling is pretty consistent. Heck, Don Sai got strong enough to do that exact same move, but even better, and he's nothing compared to hamstring. Fujitora had stuff in the Exaton range, and even that 932 Teratons-freezing attack from Kuzan was intentionally super-underestimated. If we assume the whole thing happened once the freezing sounds stop instead of just the visible water, that blows even diamond-continent-splitting out of the water. Ey, puns. And that's not even coming close to how crazy it is to way surpass strength that can drag continents around like a loaded shopping cart![3]
LZ: Such strength meant that, even if Doflamingo were to somehow become caught in Ragyō's Life Threads, he would have no issue breaking out. But the same could not be said the other way around.
TWO: It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for string & reed. That healing factor for Ragyō really put the work in, especially 'cuz basically all Doffy has are cutting attacks.
LZ: It's possible that Doflamingo's Armament Haki would allow him to bypass the Life Fiber healing. It has attacked and killed beings made of basic elements of nature, and has countered powers that had no relation to Devil Fruits. However, Ragyō's healing has also worked against weapons specifically made to counter it, is fundamentally organic in a way even Devil Fruits aren't, and Haki has never countered the super-healing some One Piece characters seem to have. It's more likely that Doflamingo would simply have to endure this advantage.
TWO: It wasn't so bad. With strings fine enough that Law had a hard time finding 'em and taut enough to make walkways through the air, Doffy'd probably eventually hit a severance attack that would perma-disconnect the Life Fibers. Especially when he's so much faster than Ragyō; you could argue that all his attacks would be too fast for the healing to take place. Even in the worst-case scenario, all Doffy needs to win is for any one of his attacks to hit her heart. With his big-brain energy, super speed, Observation Haki that can literally see weak points, and way more range in attacks, it'd happen eventually for sure. And with stats like that, a good hit to the heart is really all that's needed.
LZ: Actually, all of this is likely rather underestimated. We intentionally did not scale Doflamingo to any characters he did not fight unless they were specifically bested by a weaker version of a character he did fight, and we never once took the kinetic energy of speed into account with the higher speed numbers we know the characters can reach. Doing that raises the bar to absurd degrees.
TWO: As just one basic example, measuring the weight of Eustass Kid (a direct, albeit weaker, rival for Luffy)'s largest metal arms and assuming he's attacking with those massive hunks of steel at the same speeds as Gear 2 Luffy, even only going by pre-timeskip speed calcs, that's, uh, 6.27 Zettatons of TNT. With one punch.[4]
LZ: Enough to make even the highly-problematic feat of Kisaragi blowing a hole in the Cocoon Sphere meaningless. And not only should Doflamingo be far faster, but this didn't even take Haki into account. Other feats measured the same way reach much higher levels.[5]
TWO: So, Doffy didn't just have the technical advantages. He was stronger and faster than her by so much that he could end this fight with one hit, string or no string. You definitely can't say that for Ragyō.
LZ: To be frank, between Doflamingo's far higher speed, greater fighting experience and versatility, and with Observation Haki on top of that which allowed him to know what attacks, tricks, and techniques Ragyō would use before she herself knew, the chances of her even landing that single hit are fairly low.
TWO: Wow. I mean, we did pit a character from a show with 25 episodes against one from a show with almost 1100, plus tons and tons of expanded material. But still, I mean, how long has it been since we had a stomp like this?
LZ: Well, technically other battles have been larger "stomps," but didn't really appear to be so at first or had a bunch of other details screwing around in there. A stomp that's also pretty clear-cut? I don't know, Kestrel VS Hero?
TWO: I'd bow and apologize to all you Ragyō fans… but she deserves it.
LZ: What about Kill la Kill fans?
TWO: They deserve a better matchup.
LZ: Wha- hey! This is an exceptionally thematic fight with tons of connections! These are two wonderful villains with very few good opponents, and the fact that their powers, stories, and methodologies are so similar is a miracle! It should be an actual episode of the official show! It has style, substance-
TWO: And an obvious winner.
LZ: …Yeah.
TWO: Well, goin' from Rags to riches was tough on Doffy, sure, but he Threaded the Needle and made it with no Strings attached. Even against someone Sew ruthless, he just Strung her along until her Life was Don. Yeah, I think that pretty much COVERs it.
LZ: I think I should see a doctor.
The winner is… Doflamingo.
…
Special Notes (For the Conclusion):
[1] While Ragyō's attacks could expand to the edge of Hinnouji Academy and into the surrounding bay when she was at its center, Doflamingo's strings have reached across the entire diameter of Dressrosa and beyond. Given Viola's ability, the size of Dressrosa should be far, far greater than Hinnouji. Coupled with his Observation Haki and superior speed, Doflamingo could casually fight at long range without allowing Ragyō to come close enough to even attempt an attack. This would also make escaping to outer space or activating the Cocoon Sphere Genesis extremely difficult, if not impossible. It should also be noted that Eneru's cover story implies that humans in One Piece can also breathe in space, so even that was not a viable win condition.
[2] Senketsu absorbed well over two hundred Goku Uniforms (most being Two-Star) to transform into Kisaragi, plus all of Junketsu's power. Taking into account the amount of threads Senketsu needed to achieve the 50% boost of Senjin, then adding the equal-in-power Junketsu, Kisaragi comes out to around 149 Teratons of TNT per full-power strike. This is, admittedly, a stretch in logic without a great deal of evidence. A much better source of Ragyō's maximum power can be found in the series finale. After absorbing the power of Koketsu, Senketsu released it all in a massive explosion of light. Comparing this light's size to that of the Earth's and measuring its total volume, the amount of energy within this burst would have equaled 241 Teratons of TNT. An enormous amount of power, but not even half the strength of an Ursus Shock, which Doflamingo's strings are far stronger than.
[3] Very early in the post-timeskip, Luffy was strong enough to destroy the Noah even after being nearly killed and bleeding out. The Noah is an ancient ship half the size of the enormous Fishman Island, and was, according to Neptune, constructed of lost materials and techniques that cannot be replicated, making it stronger than any known vessel. Attempting to measure the (inconsistently-drawn) Noah's size via characters reaches the high Teratons, while assuming Fishman Island to be of similar size to one to Dressrosa reaches the Petatons even while being very conservative. Luffy being able to perform this feat even while on the brink of death supports his showing against Don Chinjao.
[4] Kinetic Energy scaling through character speed is typically problematic for Death Battle; the official show's researchers have clarified that they will use it if: it fits within the magic system, is consistent with non-KE feats, or is specified in-universe to be a metric by which power can be scaled. One Piece very explicitly uses Kinetic Energy speed scaling all throughout its story; Gear 2 is stated to be far stronger than Base Luffy due to the higher speed Luffy is punching at, Kuma's attacks are entirely based on launching low-density objects at high speeds, and Kizaru has noted that his speed is the entire reason his strength is considered insurmountable, even directly stating "Speed is power." These are surrounded by dozens of other examples; One Piece makes it quite clear that KE through character speed is a defined and expected method by which power levels can be determined in this universe.
[5] Applying the same speed scaling to Oars' attacks, who could move faster than Zoro could perceive, even pre-timeskip Straw Hats could endure attacks in the hundreds of Petatons! If we scale all the way to the Wano Saga, Zoro cut a portion of Onigashima, which flew upwards while his attack was still flashing. Assuming similar speeds puts the power of this attack at a minimum of 2.33 Yottatons of TNT. Enough to destroy the entire Cocoon Sphere Genesis barrier in one attack.
…
Next time, on Death Battle…
A large tube filled with green liquid rests in a lone laboratory, before a pair of piercing purple eyes open and a white and violet bipedal creature bursts out in a terrifying display of psychic power.
VS
A puddle of silvered molten metal creeps up behind a team of superhuman animal freedom fighters, before silently forming into a familiar blue and yellow shape, red robotic eyes searching for prey.
(Mewtwo VS Metal Sonic)
And there we have it! I'm glad I got to do this episode, because I've been wanting to revisit Kill la Kill for a long time, and I've been looking for a good One Piece matchup since I started writing. But, man, did I ever underestimate how much work doing a One Piece character would take! Even someone like Doflamingo, whose main story and feats are centered around just one arc, means I have to draw stuff from across the whole series! Plus I have to play like twenty mostly-terrible video games, watch all the movies and stage plays, and fill in a ton more stuff like that. Kill la Kill felt almost like easy mode in comparison. A short anime, a short manga, and a single non-canon very good video game. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This is an episode where the discrepancy in information ended up a bit clearer than I was hoping. A lot of Ragyō's bio is talking about the character and story, rather than feats, because she only actually has a few episodes of existing. Meanwhile, I have, like, double the Notes and way more words on Doflamingo, and it's all explanations of magic systems and various feats and stuff. I swear it's not bias (i'm the same man who killed my favorite fictional character…), it's just that one of these guys has SOOOOOO much more content than the other. I can't do anything about it. I hope you understand.
Oh, yeah, this is the first time I'm doing Japanese names correctly, with the family name first! This is something I kind of regret about previous episodes, as I just went with the popular romanization, instead of, you know, accepting and respecting the naming culture of a different part of the world. I'll try to be consistent in this from now on.
Anyway, next time is one of the OG requests. We're finally returning to our video game roots, and I couldn't be happier. Let's see if we can get this one out before Season 11 starts, yeah?
Don't forget to review, leave matchup suggestions, follow, all that good stuff. I'm doing a lot these days, but any and all interaction from you guys is my favorite part of everything I do. Thanks, and see ya!