Guys, can we please be civil about Death Battle!? PLEASE!

So, if youve been online at any point in the last 16 years, you might have heard or seen a webseries called Death Battle. Two guys, Wiz and Boomstick, research and analyze the skills and abilities of two characters from pop culture with similar backgrounds and try to see who would win in a fight. They’re pretty well-known and popular online, helping to provide wish fulfillment for people who want to see certain characters fight it out. I’ve personally been a fan of theirs since high school, and have enjoyed many of their matchups. However, they’ve done so many matchups over the years that many of them have been known to anger fans. Take, for example, Goku vs Superman, aka one of the most hotly debated fights in fiction. The first time they fought back in 2013, Superman won, angering a lot of people, myself included. So much so that years later, they had a rematch with Goku’s newest forms just so they could explain why he can’t win. The short version: there would be no other hills left for him to climb, and that would be boring!

I LOVE DEATH BATTLE!

Now, I love Death Battle like crazy. I’ve even gotten to meet the creators of the series at a convention once. But at the end of the day, I understand that what they’re doing is just wish-fulfillment. They do an insane amount of research and try to be as unbiased as possible (except with Deadpool), but this is still just their opinions. It’s not the word of god that a match-up would go the way they have it going. Which is why I don’t understand why the fandom has become so toxic!

Fandom toxicity was, is, and always will be a problem. That’s why I tend to avoid it like the plague. However, even I have started to hear about the hate going on between fans who are upset about how their character didn’t win, and it’s only gotten worse in recent years. People are getting trashed online, harassed, and potentially worse over their opinions, and it’s giving us a bad name. Worst of all, though, it’s making some of the people who work on the show quit! And I know some of those people!

They Hurt my Homie!

Take DevilArtemis, for example. He’s a self-taught animator who mainly does parodies of Dragon Ball Z. Usually, they involve Cell and Kermit the Frog (yes, that Kermit) meeting some random characters who come to the Cell Games arena to harass them. I’ve been following him for years now, and he is genuinely good at what he does. I’m also part of his discord server, have spoken to him a few times, and even played a round with him in Multiversus back when it was a thing. And when he got hired to animate some of the episodes of Death Battle, we were all happy for him! And he did a great job on them. I loved Kratos vs Asura! Which made it all the more heartbreaking when he announced to us that he was quitting the series!

As it turns out, DevilArtemis had been getting a lot of backlash over that Kratos vs Asura video. People were blaming him for the outcome of the fight, when in actuality, he had no control over who won! He even made an alternate ending showing what would’ve happened if Asura had won! Needless to say, the hating made him hate working on the series, so he left. It was for the sake of his mental health.

Needless to say, those who know DevilArtemis, like the people on his personal Discord server, were shocked and appalled. He’s worked hard to turn his passion into something that can pay the bills, and I was proud that he got to work on Death Battle! To see him decide to quit like this was a wake-up call for me about how bad things have gotten with parts of the fandom. It’s only gotten worse since then, with the latest episode at the time of this writing: Goku vs Saitama!

I didn’t care about Goku vs Saitama

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t really interested in seeing Goku vs Saitama fight. I knew the fight would be epic, but by that point, I had already seen both of them fight on Death Battle before. Goku had fought Superman three times, and the last time was just for the love of the game. Saitama had gone toe-to-toe with Popeye, and I was thrilled that he lost! Saitama’s whole joke was that he could never find a fight that he could take seriously, so his losing was the best thing to happen to him. So when Goku managed to beat him by stacking Ultra Instinct with Kaio-ken, I didn’t think much of it.

But some One Punch Man fans did. They hated seeing him lose, completely forgetting the joke behind his character (he wants to potentially lose.) They were saying that Goku cheated using some non-canon techniques, and thinking that Saitama still should have won. Did they forget that this is Son Goku we’re talking about? One of the most powerful fighters in all of fiction? There are only a small handful of people who could realistically beat him, Superman included! I should also note that, at the end of the day, Goku would lose against his inspiration, Son Wukong the Monkey King. A character that is so broken, he’s almost impossible to beat, let alone kill! Even Superman himself would have a hard time against him! So I think that these haters need some perspective on where Saitama ranks on the cosmic pecking order.

But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that some of these angry fans did something that disgusts both me, Aaron, and pretty much everyone who loves anime: they insulted Toriyama.

I wasn’t even aware of this until Aaron told me on Discord, but apparently, a small group of Saitama fans decided to insult Akira Toriyama, the late and great creator of Dragon Ball. They were mocking his death and calling him a loser! Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of people were willing to call this out and defend Toriyama’s honor. If it weren’t for him making Dragon Ball, anime wouldn’t have gotten to where it is worldwide as fast as it has!

But then, we got the preview for the next Death Battle, and i could hear the alarm bells going off in my head: Naruto vs Luffy. And I hate that.

Please be Civil about this!

I have been a fan of Naruto and One Piece for most of my life. I love both series with all my heart. Those two and Bleach are legendary in the anime community as the Big Three, the heirs to Dragon Ball and the shonen genre. And I have been wanting to see a matchup between Naruto and Luffy for years now, thinking that it would be absolutely epic. But when I saw that Death Battle was doing this right after what I knew would be a divisive matchup, my heart sank. The toxicity levels are going to hit new highs.

I avoid fandom toxicity like the plague so I haven’t seen any of it yet. But I already know that it is going around. There are shorts on YouTube and TikTok talking about both fandoms slandering each other and their respective mangakas. Which isn’t just rude, it’s completely disregarding the relationship between Eichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto. In real life, the two are famously known as friendly rivals due to them starting out around the same time and constantly encouraging each other to improve. When Naruto ended, Kishimoto famously included the Straw Hats’ Jolly Roger in the final chapter, and Oda responded in kind with a cover page of Luffy and Naruto enjoying ramen together. And since I love and respect both them and their work, I don’t get why they’re acting like this! I can understand it from an emotional perspective, but logically, it doesn’t make sense since everybody wins!

Here’s the thing about this upcoming Death Battle!: I don’t care who wins. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about who would win. All I cared about was getting to see two of the biggest powerhouses in Shonen history, characters that I admire and try to embody, go head-to-head without holding back. The fight will be grand, epic, and full of plenty of awe-inspiring moments. It’s one of those moments in life where the experience is more important than the actual outcome! And no matter who ends up winning, I’m going to be satisfied, because I will get to sit down and enjoy a feast fit for kings. And I hope that many members of both fandoms will be willing to join me, because when the fight is epic enough, everyone wins. Isn’t that enough for everyone?

I just wanted to get this off my chest because it’s been bothering me for a few days. I know that these kinds of fights can make people passionate about who will win, and that passion is coming from a place of love. There are people who care so much about these fictional characters that they are willing to die on the hills upon which they will defend them. Do you know how badly that kind of passion is needed in this world? Just don’t forget that at the end of the day, these are fictional characters and fans who are ultimately sharing their own opinions on things. Death Battle may do more research on who would win than most, but they’re just as much fans as we are. So can we please just be respectful to the people who make these things? And if we can’t do that, go outside, touch grass, and get a date?