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Death Battle Predictions: Saitama vs Popeye

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Death Battle Predictions: Saitama vs Popeye

(Djangor)


(Credit to Dekhead)

(Hyperstarman)

(GumballViking)

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Saitama, the Caped Baldy and legendary One-Punch Man.

Popeye, the spinach-eating cartoon Sailor Man.

Powerful heroes are absolutely everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. The greatest among them are truly inspiring, able to break barriers and push themselves beyond their limits. But what happens when a hero has no such limits to push?  

At first glance, these baldies don’t seem like anything special, aside from a mediocre man in a costume and a grumpy old sailor. But peel back the mundane layer and you will find two unbeatable powerhouses with the might to plow through any obstacle that comes their way. This 10-year anniversary season is capping off with a throwdown of unmatched strength, sure to shake existence to its core. When east meets west and new meets old, only one can win a DEATH BATTLE!

Note:

It should be noted that a fair chunk of Popeye’s material comes from the 1930s-1940s where what was considered to be appropriate is vastly different from what we consider appropriate today. As such, it should be noted that there will likely be insensitive portrayals of different ethnicities and cultures showcased in some of the gifs/feats that we use in the blog. We put this note here as a warning in case there is anyone reading the blog that would be potentially offended.

Also, credit goes to Jasonsith for some of the Popeye Calculations, as well as DoctorMooDB.

With that out of the way, please enjoy the season finale blog! 😀

Background

Saitama

“Having overwhelming strength is… pretty boring actually.”

Living in Z-City, there is a man with the power to defeat any adversary that comes his way with merely a single punch. A hero whose efforts are completely unknown to the general public. A hero known as… Caped Baldy.

Saitama’s childhood isn’t what one would expect if they knew how he’d turn out. In school, he was always ridiculed and despised by teachers and targeted by typical bullies to the point where he never really fought back. With the growing threat of monsters slowly rising, it seemed like the entire world was ganging up on him, and for the most part, that was relatively unchanged until the day he failed an unimportant job interview and ran into the monster Crablante. After finding out he was after a child, Saitama decided to battle this monster and be a hero, which is something he wanted to be as a child. The rush of battle after winning made Saitama look into another lifestyle, and thus began his three years of long, unforgiving training to not just be a great hero, but the best one there ever was. Eventually, he lost his hair and gained incredible power. From then on, he became a hero for fun, but his great power came with a terrible cost; His limiter, the mechanism that could control his growth as a living being, was completely broken, allowing Saitama to reach unimaginable levels of power.

Now capable of defeating any enemy with only a single punch, Saitama began to live a life of extreme boredom, with no monster or threat proving to be fun at all. Then something unexpected happened one day. After saving a cyborg known as Genos from a Mosquito Queen, he decided to “mentor” him, which would lead to his discovery of the Hero Association. Despite setting new records in every physical exam, his written exam was so bad that he joined the association in the lowest ranking possible, C-class. Over time, he would slowly grow in ranking as more and more people took notice as to how powerful he truly is. He may not experience a fight on his level ever again (until today that is), but Saitama is slowly starting to find out that there’s more to a hero than the damage they can deal. Whether he’s saving the world from alien threats, or enjoying a casual trip to the supermarket, he always tends to be in the center of some kind of trouble, but he can rest easy (and disappointed), knowing that at the end of the day, all he needs is one punch.

Popeye

“I yam what I yam, and dats all what I yam!”

Near the seas of Santa Monica, a child was born which would change the ways of the seas and animation itself forever. Popeye was “born of the seas”, and was nearly caught in a massive typhoon shortly after his birth. Popeye had a very rough childhood growing up, given that his father, Poopdeck Pappy, and his mother left him at a very young age. Left with only Pappy’s pipe to remember him by, Popeye would live in an orphanage where his first fight made him a prized child in winning contests, even going into American football. But he left the orphanage because his heart was empty, and would live in the streets wearing flour sacks as his clothes. This thankfully changed his life when a sailor named Whaler Joe took him in and taught him the skills to become a sailor. 

With a new pipe and some determination, Popeye would train his body and manners until he was 12 and decided to become a man. He one day accidentally went out to sea and wandered upon his future ship, Josie Lee, where he would discover his love of fighting and the sailor’s way. In his first voyage, he would lose his eye when he suffered his first defeat against one of his crewmates, The Ape. In their rematch, although he took a heavy blow to the jaw, Popeye emerged victorious.

At 14, he would go to another crew of the Mary Ann and meet his best friend, Bill Barnacle. Having fought and survived their battle against The Sea Hag, they joined the navy, where Popeye would later meet his arch-nemesis, Bluto. In his mid-thirties, Popeye’s life changed during his trip to Dice Island. It was there, in doing service with Caster Oyl to discover the powers behind Bernice the Whiffle Hen, Popeye would meet his future wife, Caster’s sister Olive Oyl. While they hated each other at first, they became a couple, eventually marrying and having a son, Popeye Jr.

This is where the order of things gets a bit murky. Being a classic cartoon character, a lot of Popeye’s adventures took an episodic approach, taking place in different times and places. Throughout all of it, however, he has stayed consistent in many areas, especially in his love for his wife (or girlfriend, or whatever Olive decides to be), his rivalry with Bluto (or Brutus depending on the era), and his reliance on wet leaves. No matter if it is the seas, animals, or the world against him, he will stay strong to the finish because of eating his spinach. Because he is POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN!!

Equipment

Saitama

Hero Costume 

Saitama’s completely standard super hero costume. He has to clean the gloves every time he kills a monster. The fact the gloves (usually) survive punches like that must be a testament to their durability.

Grocery Bag

Man’s gotta do his grocery shopping. Especially when there’s a bargain at the supermarket. It’s usually seen with leeks hanging out, which are incredibly nutritious. Leeks are rich in flavonoids, which help prevent awful things like diabetes and cancer.

Popeye

Spinach 

The iconic can of spinach that serves as Popeye’s power-up in all his Bluto-bashing glory. Fun fact: the power-up apparently comes from a typo in an explanation of spinach, that accidentally put the amount of iron in spinach as 10x of what it should be. Upon eating spinach, Popeye increases in strength, speed, and even intelligence and skill. Spinach does more than just elevate those dramatically, it also gives the user many other useful abilities, such as de-aging him back to his prime, increasing his size, transforming his clothing, creating magnets and ​​letting him come back to existence even after being completely erased. Yes, we said users. The benefits of spinach are not exclusive to Popeye, but instead anyone who happens to eat it. In fact, one of the few times Bluto has gotten the better of Popeye is when he ate spinach himself.

What is most impressive is how even if he is disarmed of his ace in the hole, Popeye can always summon it at will. He has shown many times to be very creative in summoning his spinach when he truly needs it at most. He has called upon The Goddess of Spinach with just a whistle, painted a can to life, materialized one out of thin air, and can ask for spinach from outside of his world. More on that later. 

Ye King’s Spinach

A special enchanted version of spinach Popeye found on a ghost ship. On top of his usual buffs, it allows him to go invisible and harm ghosts.

Quaker Oatmeal

This breakfast meal is one of Popeye’s favorite foods and like spinach, gives him a boost in strength to the point that he can send aliens all the way to Saturn with a punch. Considering that Saturn is 1.5739 billion km away from the Earth, this is mighty impressive.

Dutch Milk

By drinking Dutch Milk, Popeye can give his punches explosive power, to the point of exploding Bluto into fireworks with a strike. 

Corn Cob Pipe

Popeye’s signature pipe. Though it may not seem like an offensive weapon, Popeye has used it to stop a boulder thrown at him, open a vault, or to suck spinach in when his hands aren’t free. The pipe also seems to function as a flamethrower at times, as Popeye has used it to start fires with a jet of flames. And on top of all that, if Popeye eats a bunch of spinach, his pipe can become a ray gun, shooting “spinach rays”. These spinach rays not only work like a regular ray gun, but also turn the target to the side of the user, regardless of past hostility. Sadly, this comes at the cost of causing him lung cancer. Don’t smoke, kids.

Pistol

Popeye carries a pistol with him. Despite relying on brute force a lot of the time (well okay, pretty much ALL the time), the Sailor Man is a rather skilled marksman, being able to accurately aim and shoot the gun so that it strikes an apple on his head.

Shotgun

Popeye has a shotgun when he wants to go for the kill. It’s a good ranged weapon and was able to destroy an entire house in 17 shots.

Giant Tree Root

Yes, that’s Popeye using a giant tree root he just ripped clean from a tree as a bat. After somehow pulling an entire tree through the ground and snapping it apart, Popeye weaponized the root to bat numerous logs away. The force was so powerful that the logs continued moving up a slope, because gravity doesn’t get any say in anything in classic cartoons.

Lasso

You think we’re done with Popeye’s ridiculous arsenal? Not quite yet! The next weapon up on the Sailor Man’s list is his lasso, which he’s shown above pulling a mountain closer after Bluto cut the ropes connecting the bridge.

Whiffle

A magical bird that can grant wishes to anyone who rubs their hand on its head feathers. For instance, Popeye made it so Wimpy despised hamburgers, meaning he can basically manipulate the minds of others if he wished for it..

Anchor 

Used in Popeye: Ijiwaru Majo Seahag no Maki, this is Popeye’s main attacking weapon. Basically, it’s an anchor attached to a chair that allows Popeye to attack from all directions (like Simon in Super Castlevania 4).

Abilities

Saitama

Advanced Development/Limiter Removal

Every living being has a limiter, a mechanism that restricts growth of power within them. As Dr. Genus puts it:

“No matter how much effort one puts in, every living being has an intrinsic limit to its growth. Too much power becomes unbearable and overwhelms its host, turning it into a mindless, rampaging monster. To ensure that we do not enter the realm where we lose all purpose and reason, God has set limits to the growth of every being. The mechanism with which growth is controlled is called the limiter.”

Dr. Genus believes Saitama, through effort alone, evolved beyond his natural limits and achieved strength not measurable, breaking this limiter in the process. The cost for this power is believed to be permanent baldness for Saitama. There may be truth to this theory, as Psykos confirms the existence of the limiter existing within humans, having experimented herself to try and break them (thus creating Orochi).

Saitama also notes he gets stronger each day, to the point of being capable of defeating himself from the day prior. This makes sense, as he trains everyday.

Normal Punch

It’s as straightforward as it sounds. Saitama’s famous normal punch casually obliterates most foes he comes across in one shot and was strong enough to destroy a meteor that would’ve annihilated a whole city.


Consecutive Normal Punches

(Eat your heart out, Kenshiro)

A series of single-handed rapid fire punches from Saitama’s right arm that effortlessly tears foes apart in one go.

Two-Handed Consecutive Normal Punches

Why use one hand when you can use two? This is pretty much what you think it is: Saitama’s Consecutive Normal Punches, but using both of his hands. It’s strong and fast enough to contend with Garou’s God Slayer Instant Attack.

Serious Punch

On the rare occasions Saitama gets “serious”, he’ll throw out a punch with some actual force behind it with devastating results. The shockwaves from it alone were strong enough to part a massive amount of clouds on the earth while stopping a blast that would’ve wiped out the planet’s surface. Despite the name though, it’s implied not even this qualifies as Saitama going all out, at least if Boros is anyone to go by.

Serious Consecutive Side Hops

Saitama performs a series of side hops so quickly that he creates multiple afterimages of himself. He can move while in this state and create shockwaves that knock foes back. 

Serious Squirt Gun

(Not with water)

With the use of nearby lava, Saitama uses his hand to shoot out lava as a pressured stream of molten liquid. Despite the silly-sounding name, this attack was powerful enough to overcome Orochi’s Gaia Cannon, which drew power from the core of the earth. 

Serious Headbutt

Saitama headbutts with a great amount of force. This was able to take out one of Garou’s monster forms in one blow.

Serious Table Flip

Saitama flips the entire battlefield into the air, such as when he flipped the entire Monster Association Base. Note that if he tried this on an actual table, it would break.

Death Punch

Presumably Saitama’s most powerful attack. Saitama becomes dead serious and unleashes an all-eclipsing fist of utter devastation, that we never see him land properly in the series. However, the shockwave from the pull-back of the punch alone was strong enough to destroy a mountain. 

Mental/Spiritual Interaction

Saitama has shown the ability to enter mental/spiritual planes, allowing him to hear Phoenix Man and Child Emperor’s mental conversation.

Resistances

Saitama has shown resistance to the following:

Popeye

Body Manipulation

Popeye’s body appears to be extremely malleable, able to twist and shape in ways that the normal human body wouldn’t be able to replicate. This is due to the fact that Popeye cartoons were primarily made in the era of Rubber Hose Animation, where everyone was extremely stretchy and never really kept on-model.

Twisker Punch

Popeye’s ultimate move, the Twisker Punch, or the Twisker Sock. Popeye twists his arm in the counterclockwise direction, punches, and then his arm starts unwinding, making whoever’s unlucky to be in its path spin along with it. The Twisker Punch itself can end up being lethal, and as such Popeye opts to only use it when pushed over the edge.

Transmutation

An odd ability that Popeye strangely uses extremely often, he has the power to punch someone or something so hard it turns into something else. A simple graze from the sailor’s fist can turn just about anything into whatever Popeye feels is appropriate, though a lot of the time they revert to a previous state or have some of the components of what they were previously. In terms of the things he can transform, Popeye has:

Shape-Shifting

Popeye’s ability to change stuff into other stuff isn’t exclusive to just other people, he also changes aspects about himself. He can change his entire body into something like a rock or a tire. He also has the ability to change specific parts of his body, like turning his arms into air brakes. Also, given his cartoony nature, he is able to stretch his limbs to extraordinary lengths. In terms of the things he can shapeshift into:

Magnetism

Armed with the power of spinach and a steel beam he bent into shape, Popeye can form an enormous magnet and manipulate the movement of metal objects. This goes far beyond common magnetism, as shown here where Popeye constructs a massive steel bridge in a few seconds.

Elemental Manipulation


Throughout the years, Popeye has displayed the ability to manipulate the elements. Ranging from shooting them from his hands to grabbing and interacting with them. He has showcased:

  • Electricity Manipulation: Somehow, Popeye has displayed the unique ability to interact with electricity, such as lightning. He has used this power to grab lightning bolts, resist their effects entirely, or thrash them into submission. He can also send an electric punch through wires, and channel electricity throughout his body. 
  • Fire Manipulation: Popeye with spinach has the ability to manipulate fire. He can shoot it out of his hands to fly, shoot it at his enemies, and breathe it through his Corn Cob Pipe. He has even shown the ability to manually move fire with his bare hands after eating spinach.
  • Wind Manipulation: Through the power of spinach, Popeye can transform into a tornado that gives him flight, allowing him to fly from a town to a house on a cliff in a matter of seconds. His breath is strong enough to be sent through telephone lines and blow up a building in seconds. 
  • Water Manipulation: Popeye strangely has the ability to manipulate flowing water, bending it into many different shapes, such as when he tied flowing water together. He can also shake waterfalls like a carpet.

Gravity Control

With the power of spinach, Popeye is able to manipulate his own personal gravity to stop himself before getting impaled on a mountaintop.

Age Manipulation

With the power of spinach (as usual), Popeye is able to counter the effects of an enhanced aging device used to turn him older. This then proceeded to de-age him back to a much younger self. As a result, Popeye could potentially use spinach to manipulate his age and physical condition when needed.

Merging

Another power bestowed to him via spinach, Popeye has the ability to fuse objects together, often amplifying them in the process, as shown when he caught multiple mortar shells and fused them into a larger explosive.

Clairvoyance

As per usual with the absurdity of Popeye’s biceps, they can somehow turn into crystal balls that can see things that are occurring far away.

Healing

Even after taking heavy damage, Popeye still has the ability to recover from his wounds. Unsurprisingly, all that Popeye needs to do is eat a can of spinach. After doing so, the spinach can completely eliminate any wounds Popeye might have at the moment, restoring him to prime fighting condition. Popeye can even regenerate from complete erasure.

4th Wall Awareness

As shown in the spinach section, Popeye has the ability to interact with the real world. In other words, he can break the fourth wall. Popeye has shown to interact with the audience a lot, and can even go as far as to interact with his original creator. He and his dad once destroyed his world, requiring the animators to quickly fix it, and tried to escape to the real world to sleep peacefully. He failed.

Toon Force

The most powerful ability Popeye has is him being aware that he is a cartoon, or a Toon. For review: Toon Force is an extremely potent method of reality warping, often attributed to cartoon characters and the like. All of the other abilities Popeye has shown, like summoning spinach or attacking his creator, shown above, are all related around Popeye gagging the plot to his will. 

As a matter of fact, just about everyone in the world of Popeye is capable of toonforce in some way, shape or form. It’s possible that the spinach that gives Popeye his powers is one of, if not the main catalyst of toonforce he has at his disposal, but as you’ll see later, he has many noteworthy feats without it, so it’s hard to tell if there’s an explanation within Popeye lore (Can’t believe I said Popeye and lore in the same sentence, what am I DOING with my life?).

Resistances

Even without his heavy resistance to physical damage on account of his toon force, the Sailor Man is still one tough guy to put down. Throughout the years, Popeye has shown that many common abilities can’t crack his shell. Shown resistances are as follows:

  • Fire: Popeye once effortlessly tanked flames straight from a dragon’s maw.
  • Electricity: Popeye has been zapped by lightning numerous times, to no avail.
  • Ice: Even when his entire body was completely encased in ice, Popeye remained conscious enough to observe events around him and eventually break free.
  • Hypnosis: While not entirely immune to its effects, in a duel with a hypnotist, Popeye broke out of, resisted, and reversed mind control multiple times.
  • Transmutation: Popeye was able to resist and reverse Bluto’s transmutation magic, turning Bluto into a bird as a result.
  • Age Manipulation: Similar to hypnosis, Popeye is not entirely immune to this form of hax, however he’s easily capable of resisting and reversing it when necessary. Sometimes a little too well.
  • Size Manipulation: Extremely similar to the counter Popeye has to age manipulation, though Popeye doesn’t have to worry about growing too large, as he can simply revert himself back to normal size.
  • Existence Erasure: Was still able to chow down on spinach after reality had been turned off.

Feats

Saitama

Overall

  • Became a hero for fun and saved the world on many occasions, unintentionally or not
  • Caused the creation of the Hero Association
  • Ranked A-Class in the Hero Association
  • Took on Genos as his student (and his only student)
  • Defeated Speed-o’-Sound Sonic, Genos, Garou, Boros, and Tatsumaki without breaking a sweat
  • Helped stop an alien invasion 
  • Made it to the finals of a martial arts tournament (despite not knowing any martial arts)
  • Helped many heroes overcome their struggles without noticing
  • Befriended numerous S-class heroes

Power

Note: Saitama implies he doesn’t really have “super moves”, so even his normal attacks scale to all the feats below.

Speed

Durability

Popeye

Overall

  • Became the greatest sailor of all time and endured many adventures around the world
  • Found his Pappy after long years of searching
  • A Godfather of Cartoons alongside Mickey Mouse 
  • Married Olive
  • Became friends with Betty Boop 
  • Fought in World War 2
  • Beat up numerous spinach-amped beings
  • Defeated Bluto, The Old Hag, Sinbad, Ali Baba, Ogbert, The Aliens from Mars Attacks, and Hercules
  • Inspired children to consume more vegetables
  • The reason why Mario exists

Power

Speed

Durability

Weaknesses

Saitama

Spicy food, mosquitos, rock paper scissors, and video games. Yeah, as expected, it’s hard to really pinpoint a character like Saitama with any major weaknesses, as his character is meant to be as overpowered as possible. But as a fighter, it should be noted that he lacks a lot of martial arts training that even B-Class heroes are knowledgeable about. Also, since he never truly goes all out, Saitama usually holds back for the chance of an opponent surviving one of his punches, giving opponents that are on his level an opening to deal some serious damage against him.

Popeye

Popeye is nothing short of a powerhouse, but like every other classic cartoon of his era, mice tend to get the better of him. And despite his appearance, he’s a big softie at heart, usually willing to put himself in harm’s way if it means protecting friends like Olive Oyl and others. Also, his overreliance on spinach leaves him with a fairly big setback should it get disarmed, at least until he gets more. But most of all, the basic formula of his cartoons begins with him taking a lot of damage before he gets the spinach and saves the day. Should a fight to the death follow this pattern, there’s no guarantee he’ll survive the initial ass whooping.

Summary

Saitama

“Who, me? I’m just a guy who’s a hero for fun! I never lose… and the surface is guarded by me!”

Advantages:

  • Is debatably faster in travel and combat speed
  • Can match Popeye depending on where you place Popeye
  • Is balder

Disadvantages:

  • Lacking in non-physical attacks
  • Less experienced
  • Has no counter to Popeye’s Toon Force

Popeye

“I’m strong to the finich ‘cause I eats me spinach. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man!”

Advantages:

  • Much more solid evidence of being more powerful
  • Can attack non-physically 
  • Far more experienced
  • Toon Force is just too broken
  • Can regenerate from any damage Saitama can deal
  • Spinach increases his strength advantage and could potentially help close the gap in speed
  • Follow him on Twitter

Disadvantages:

Before We Get to Verdicts

Since the season finale fighters are deciding the factor between two of fiction’s strongest powerhouses, we would like to clear out some confusion to address in making the two main questions more clear. 

  1. Popeye’s Broken Toon Force & “THE” Star Feat

As shown throughout the section for Popeye, many of Popeye’s showings are difficult to understand and quantify. A lot of us had concerns in trying to scale Popeye’s strongest feats because the sizing and physics are nearly impossible to calculate. The two Sun feats in particular seem impossible to calc, but thankfully there were some that we were able to do.

Speaking of the Sun, let’s go into the biggest problem we had to face: The “Bluto Constellation” feat. For those who are not aware, supposedly early in the comics, there was a moment where Popeye punches Bluto so hard, he bounces and destroys a whole star constellation. Unfortunately, we could not find it, so we couldn’t in good faith include it in the blog. There is also an infamous list of feats that Popeye has allegedly performed:

While some of these feats are real, a lot of the bigger feats like blowing the sun out like a candle and pulling the Sun close to the Earth haven’t been found and are exaggerated/false. There are definitely some impressive feats that Popeye has done in this list, but some feats just don’t exist and are still being used in discussion regarding this matchup, so we felt the need to mention why they aren’t being used. 

  1. Popeye’s Universe Level Switch

When it comes to feats, this was one of the craziest feats we have seen come from Popeye. However, we think it is likely that this is more indicative of hax resistance on Popeye’s part, rather than a physical durability feat. As Popeye said, it was more than likely that it was his spinach that saved him rather than his durability, similar to how spinach brought him to life after being erased from his electrons being disintegrated. It also needs to be noted that Big Guy was stated to be “the principal of the 4th dimension”, but it’s not clear if he physically controls or just rules it. Still a WTF feat, though.

  1. Saitama’s “Limitless” Scaling

Saitama is a character that has gained a massive reputation in the VS scene. Due to the nature of his series, he is typically said to be capable of one-shotting anyone, and is often said to be a “gag character.” However, these arguments don’t hold much ground outside of Saitama’s own series. Saitama can one-shot anything in One-Punch Man simply because his power is far greater than the rest of the cast, which is something that can’t be automatically extended to characters outside of his own universe. And while it is said that Saitama has “no limits” and grows stronger everyday, the best that can be done for something like this is to examine the most powerful feats done by lesser characters, and argue Saitama massively upscales from that.

As for the “gag character” argument, the One-Punch Man manga isn’t actually a gag manga at all, being more satirical in nature. Saitama cannot be compared to someone like Arale, for example, whose world and story are completely centered on comedy. He can have silly and funny moments and be portrayed as a less serious character when compared to others like Genos, but that does not make him a “gag character”.

Verdicts

Mal

Man, it’s strange that we are on the season finale of DEATH BATTLE Season 8, it has certainly been an interesting ride with some of my all time favorite episodes happening on this season..as well as some episodes that I am less than keen on. But all in all, I would definitely say this season has been one of my favorites with it probably being second or third on my personal DEATH BATTLE season Rankings though but i might make a list regarding that later down the line. 

Anyway, onto the big season finale. Saitama vs Popeye, which i ironically called as happening when on DEATH BATTLE Cast – Ben said “one character that you would expect as well as one character you weren’t expecting” and my mind immediately went to Saitama vs Popeye which I said in a discord chat – granted my mind moved away more to that a little but I am surprised that I still guessed it in the first place. Anyway, i will be honest, this fight is one I am extremely keen on – I have always thought that it would be the best matchup for Saitama as I personally feel that Saitama vs Goku or Saitama vs Superman wouldn’t really play to the strengths of Saitama which I felt that this was the best option. 

Enough preamble, you wanna know who wins this fight? Well I feel like it’s a little bit more complicated than people give credit for. I have seen people say that this is a one-sided stomp for Popeye and I don’t really agree. I will explain my cause as efficiently as possible. 

First let’s talk about Popeye whose stats and feats have been widely debated – as explained in the Before the Verdicts section. There are a fair few feats that have been spread by the internet that state that Popeye can move constellations or Popeye hit Bluto into Constellations and based on the research that we have conducted – those are false. Based on the research we have conducted we have seen no evidence that those feats have happened. It was likely things being incorrectly spread around or exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Granted – Popeye has done plenty of absurd shit on his own but not to the level that some people think. In terms of actually calcable feats there are the two instances of Popeye shooting the sun and the planet tilt feat. To Be honest, I am not so sure about the shooting the sun feats as well as used as a measure of destructive capability because in both of these cases Popeye is using another object to hit the sun – not using his own destructive force. If we hypothetically use them then they were put at 11 Foe or Large Star Level 61.63-923.18 exatons of TNT which ranged from Moon to Small Planet Level. Even if we ignore these feats there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Popeye is planet level – his attacks have been shown to be capable of shifting the planet as shown with his fight against his adopted son Swee’Pea. Their clash generated power described as being comparable to 50 atomic bombs. It also shook the Earth massively which at its lowest would be  1 teraton and at its highest would be 20 petatons. Popeye also was able to cause the Earth to Tilt which got to 524.64 Yottatons or Large Planet Level. It’s pretty safe to say that Popeye should be placed at Large Planet Level though you can buy Star with his highest feat. 

Saitama on the other hand is pretty easy to pin down even though we haven’t seen him go all out in a fight. With his serious punch Saitama cancelled out Boros’ Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon which could destroy the planets surface (183.24 petatons of TNT). In order to cancel out Planet Attacks – Saitama would need to be outputting an equal force in order to cancel it out. The anime further back this up as in the anime, Boros can fully destroy the earth, as explained here with the One Punch Man Compass also stating that Boros has enough energy to destroy entire planets. (while they are translations that hint that Boros can destroy stars – that is likely a mistranslation. Either way, at the moment the best that we can put Saitama at is Planet Level (which is further based up with characters Psykorochi having planet level feats). Saying that Saitama is Star level requires a lot of dubious assumptions and believing some mistranslations. Either way I feel like planet level makes the most sense based on what has been shown so far. 

So how close this is depends on which feats you use, if you buy that Popeye is Large Planet Level and Saitama is Planet level then the gap isn’t really that big – granted if you buy Star Level Popeye then the gap becomes much wider. The point is, both are fairly even in terms of destructive capability in my opinion with Popeye having the advantage though it isn’t too the point that it is a stomp.

Now here comes speed and now things get very interesting, Saitama actually has speed in the bag at first. Let’s talk about Spinach Power…

Spinach Power is what grants Popeye his power and allows him to perform all of these frankly absurd feats to the point that when a Rocket was fueled by the Power of Spinach – it moved faster than the Speed of Light and broke time to the point that Popeye literally traveled back through time and this power is all in the palm of Popeye’s hands. While you could argue that the Rocket Feat doesn’t count due to the fact that Popeye didn’t eat the spinach, we have seen him capable of relativistic speed as shown when Popeye transformed into a Rocket from the moon to earth which was called at 0.626919707c. In terms of Saitama’s speed, he is actually a fair bit faster than Popeye due to the fact that he can keep up with Flashy Flash who can move fast enough to keep up with and blitz Gale Wind and Hellfire Flame in less time than it takes for an explosion to go off  which was called at being faster than light – 1.76c). While the speed gap isn’t massive – realistic compared to faster than light, there is still the potential for a blitz. 

Now that’s where the interesting part comes in. Popeye is stronger while Saitama is faster. The question is, could Saitama land enough hits to keep Popeye down for good due to his greater speed. Saitama could win this fight if he can put down Popeye for good but ultimately the issue is…complicated.

An argument can be made that Popeye can’t be killed through unconventional means – not just through his Toon Force but also the fact that he can constantly revive himself through the use of Spinach and he can constantly call on spinach any time that he wants. This was shown in an episode where he had electrons disintegrated – literally the fundamentals of the human body and yet Popeye and came back and was completely fine after eating his spinach. His survivability is to the point that you can turn off the universe and Popeye would be completely fine. Though to counter argue – you could say – well if Saitama kills Popeye once then that’s fine by DEATH BATTLE rules but i don’t think that would work due to Spinach instantly bringing Popeye back to life. 

Saitama is straight up fighting a losing battle – while he is a great deal faster – he doesn’t have the means of putting Popeye down for good even if he tries to prevent Popeye from eating Spinach as he can literally create more Spinach and with Spinach he is basically immortal. Plus Saitama’s not really the type of person who would try and prevent his opponent from getting stronger. And that’s not even considering the fact that Milk and Oatmeal also makes him significantly stronger meaning he doesn’t necessarily even need Spinach to best Saitama. 

Ultimately even if Saitama was significantly stronger then Popeye – which he isn’t, this fight comes down to one simple fact – Saitama does not have the means to put Popeye down for good. Finally there’s the nail in Saitama’s coffin – Popeye’s transmutation. Popeye only really needs to land one punch in and he can transmute Saitama into something else – to the point with one hit he can just transform Saitama into a Sausage or turn him into coins and then the fight is literally over. 

Overall – Popeye can survive literally everything Saitama could throw at him, only needing to land one hit to transmute Saitama and end the fight right there. Ultimately I really wanted to go with Saitama, but I have to go with the Sailor Man here. Popeye just has so many advantages that make it nearly impossible for Saitama to get a win here. 

Anyway, thank you for reading my verdict – it’s been really fun and I am looking forward to this season finale as well as what the future holds for Season 9. Looks like Popeye is the winner in this bout. 

GumballViking

Before I begin, I just gotta say; what a year. I never expected to see half of the match ups that we got, and the animation quality has left me speechless in a lot of ways. Some good, some… well you get the idea. It’s been a blast and half to discuss and analyze them all, even if some are lopsided to the point where the loser is literally incapable of killing their opponent. Speaking of, Saitama VS Popeye. I can already see a lot of people typing angry comments over who we think wins, and trust me there are four other people ready to explain why Popeye decimates, so I’ll take this opportunity to advocate for Saitama to the best of my ability. Not that I think he wins, but people tend to overlook him in terms of actual stats and abilities and just gravitate to “he’s a gag character, he can’t lose!!!!” 

First of all:

A gag character is someone primarily known for their comedy aspect and is usually someone who shouldn’t be taken seriously or comes from a series that puts comedy as a primary focus. While his ability to one shot everything is funny and often played for laughs, this does not make Saitama a gag character. He is a parody of the superhero genre that questions what it’s like to be a hero that cannot be defeated no matter what. Saitama as a character has real struggles, real emotional moments and has a lot of conflicts throughout the series, just never ones involving a villain he has to overcome (traditionally at least). His issues are more about what to buy at the store, how does he get people to notice him, and what does it mean to be human? Saitama is easily one of my favorite characters of all time and to see him mislabeled so often is really irritating, and oftentimes he’s labeled as such to justify his NLF argument of one shotting everything, regardless of stats and whatnot. But let’s say that this is the case for some reason, that Saitama’s full power eclipses everything else in fiction. It’s not exactly off the table, to be honest, as he should massively upscale everything in his own universe, which we know has its own God and everything. Assuming this is God by traditional means, this would mean that he is responsible for creating the universe, or even the multiverse. Since God exists in One Punch Man, we can safely say Saitama should upscale. Popeye has no known way to scale to such a thing, unless we’d allow the reality erasing switch feat, which was already determined to fall under hax and not stats. So Saitama takes the stat trifecta and wins no problem, right? Well, that’s the funny thing: no.

While Saitama can very easily surpass Popeye one day in any and all stats, the hax at Popeye’s disposal is just too powerful for Saitama to overcome, no matter what stats are given for either side. To his credit, Saitama does possess a lot of resistances and potential immunities to a lot of things, including some abilities Popeye is capable of, but Popeye can transmute people with a punch, something Saitama just has no answer to. But how would Popeye land a hit like that before Saitama would kill him? Well, he wouldn’t, at least if we assume Saitama gets to multi+ stats down the line, but recall the multiple instances where Popeye has been removed from existence itself and came back instantly, or in the Reality Switch instance, was never affected to begin with. Popeye has come back to life from all sorts of things, even if they massively overpowered him. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Saitama, which is thanks to no one ever putting him into a position like that. And we can’t assume he’d just magically get the hax to deal damage on that scale anyway. He has no need to erase people from reality, manipulate molecules or whatever. His punches alone can take down anything, and he can resist a lot of shit anyway, but there has never been a single instance of returning hax like those to sender. Even if there were, Popeye has survived fights where his opponents had the same spinach as him, which means they should reliably scale in power and hax to Popeye in those situations. 

But I have to stress this: just because someone loses a match up, even if they’re designed to be the most powerful character ever, they’re not any less of the character you or I have loved after all these years. And I have to stress more that characters you don’t want to win that do end up winning their match ups are not characters you need to despise. The reason 99% of the people you see in Death Battle are here to begin with is because people love them, are inspired by them or maybe it’s something you and I don’t know about. But more often than not, it comes from a good place, and just because there can only be one winner, doesn’t mean the loser should be seen in a negative light as a result. It’s fine to disagree with the result, it’s fine to prefer one over the other, because at the end of the day, we’re all gonna think different things. But never assume for a second that it’s “bias” or “favoritism”. If it was, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t see characters like Saitama to begin with. Shows like these… no, COMMUNITIES like these are made because of the love and respect for these characters, regardless of who they are, and regardless of how often they win. And before I go, I want to say thanks to the people who let me on board this year, and to you reading this. The fact that you’re giving us the time of day to hear us out means a lot, and I hope we’ve been able to inform and entertain you guys after all this time. Here’s to the rest of this year, and whatever waits for us in the next. 

Da Lunge Fish 

                          

The season finale. Season 8, the legacy season. DEATH BATTLE’s 10th anniversary, with all the most widely requested matchups. Aizen vs Madara is done, now for the battle announced year ago with two big space du-

………………..

………………..

What the fuck?…

I don’t think a single person on this sinful Earth ever has even considered this matchup happening as an S8 finale. But at the end of the day, it makes sense. Kinda. Saitama is one of the most iconic characters in the vs community. Even if said fame borders with being infamous.  And ofc Popeye, the first example of an absolutely broken cartoon character. And this was one of Saitama’s better ideas, I’d certainly take that other the freaking Squirrel Girl. Basically, I’m hyped now.

 And surprisingly, Saitama takes speed. Via the Flashy Flash scaling and reacting to objects being telekinetically thrown at lightspeed, he should get  about 2c. Popeye, meanwhile, should be about massively hypersonic+ in base via reacting to lightning, and baseline in FTL via spinach making a rocket go unquantifiably FTL and breaking time. Considering just how much Saitama upscales from everything in his series, he should have a strong advantage.

AP wise, it all flips. Saitama can get planet via upscaling from Tatsumaki and Boros. Cute. Popeye can flip the goddamn earth, reaching above 500 yottatons and large planet. He also gave the sun a black eye (small planet) and even cracked one by yeeting a tree at it (11 foe, large star). And guess what? The two latter feats don’t even have spinach. Popeye’s one tough gazookus.

 However, we have to address the elephink in the room, Saitama “not being supposed to lose”. Of course, well, I’ll have to answer that. Trust me, I will. First of, newsflash, this is the vs community. And we just don’t do things like that around here. No limits fallacy is a big no here, and most importantly, I just don’t remember ONE ever stating Saitama is actually not supposed to lose. I just don’t recall it. The supposed statement is literally a headcanon fans made up based on Saitama not losing fights in canon. Nothing implies he literally always one shots people either. He’s just massively stronger than everyone else in his anime, nothing else.  Also, he didn’t hold back against Boros, but it’s not like he punched him harder than anyone else in the series. And Boros did survive one normal punch. So if one can survive a normal punch (again, not Saitama specifically holding back just not going all out either), being able to survive a serious punch doesn’t seem so unlikely. But you know what, screw it. Saitama can one shot everyone. Well, this doesn’t save him. By eating spinach, Popeye regenerated from complete physical erasure. Yeah. He took a spinach can with hands he didn’t have and put it into his mouth he also didn’t have. Fucking cartoons. That means, to kill Popeye you’d need to destroy his soul, and I don’t think you can wank Saitama to having soulhax any possible way. But can Popeye kill Saitama if the latter apparently can’t be damaged? Um, yes. He can turn Saitama into a sausage, causing him to go through months of therapy and lose his fate in god, he can punch the frame so hard it breaks, and cause Saitama to fall in. He can shoot spinach rays at Saitama and pacify him. He can go intangible and invisible with the “Ye King’s Spinach”. He can turn into a freaking magnet. He can shoot fire. He can fly. What can’t he do?

  Well, what if Saitama just disarms Popeye off his spinach? Welp, it’s very unlikely, cause 

  1. Saitama has no way to know about Spinach, and once Popeye eats it once, Saitama is a dead man.
  2. Saitama wants a good fight, so he won’t purposefully weaken his opponent.
  3.  Popeye can just summon another can, by drawing it into existence or just taking it out of nowhere.

 And finally. Popeye doesn’t even need spinach to win. I only included the NLF part for Saitama for the sake of a debate, realistically, it shouldn’t be a thing. And Popeye can do the large star sun cracking with no spinach, and he retains his transmutation in base. Saitama would be MUCH faster then, but it only gets him so far. 

However, I do need to mention that Saitama isn’t the only one who gets his feats overblown. Popeye has his fair share of wank too. Firstly, the Big Guy is likely not an AP/Dura feat. He does resist existence erasure, but the Big Guy turned the universe off with a switch, not his own power. He was stated to be the “principal of the 4th dimension”, but that could just as well simply mean he rules it. There’s another feat, specifically, Popeye beating up Ogbert the Jeep. The 7th dimensional guy. However, even if we did slap AP ratings on anyone with a dimensional statement, the jeeps are consistently portrayed as higher dimensional beings in lower dimensional shells. Popeye just doesn’t scale to their true forms, as far as I know.

 Anyway, despite that, Saitama holds a speed edge, but Popeye is consistently stronger, has more hax, and could regenerate from any (physical) damage even if Saitama was powerful enough to deal it.

“With is strength hax and tenacity, Popeye will finich this Saitama along with Death Battle Season 8”

 eXoRy

(Honestly, best way to describe my thoughts)

Hey y’all eXo here and whaddup whaddup, I don’t think anyone would’ve expected this to be the finale (to me at least and I’ll bet my 2 cents you as well, fellow reader) to a frankly awesome season with the sprite animation this season being the best I’ve seen to this date and hopefully it becomes even better in the next, and future seasons. 

With that out the way, let’s start my verdict on Galactus vs Un—

Wait, I read the episode wrong, my bad… let’s try again

Let’s start my verdict on Samus Aran vs Master Chie—

Wait… shoot… sorry I’ve been reading the wrong list, ‘matchups that will happen in the year 3021’ not ‘matchups that will happen in the year 2021’, my bad

Ah yes let’s see what we got here:

(my legit real-time reaction)

As I said, I don’t think anyone would’ve expected this to happen, I expected this to happen as part of those 3021 matchups but here we are I guess; the funniest, confusing-ist timeline, and dare I say, the best timeline. 

Anyways, let’s break down the first thing I’m sure all of you can predict by now:

Ze Stets

When comes to AP for Popeye there’s plenty of talk of what he can do, “he can punch Bluto so hard he blows up a constellation”, “he can blow out the sun like a candle”, he can punch someone so hard they turn into sausage”, “he can lasso the sun closer to Earth”. All in all, how much of what I just said was true? Only one, the others uhhhhhhhhhhhhh probably not. We went through a ridiculous amount of effort to find them but to no avail but y’know this whole situation gives me deja vu…. of something… something familiar… something like trying to find Palpatine’s galaxy chu— *hears a gun loading from behind*

Uh um well…

Maybe they do exist somewhere in some alternate timeline or are just lying in someone’s old, dusty basement to be discovered by people in the year 3021. So how powerful is Popeye really? Well, there’s still plenty of feats involving celestial bodies like him cracking the Sun, giving the Sun a black eye, and causing the Earth to tilt, so let’s put in the planet – star range because why not. 

Now moving on to THE ONE-PUNCH MAN, Saitama has been able to overpower Boros’ Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon with a casual punch with a bit more force put behind it. Now does Boros’ ultimate move actually collapse stars? No, but screw it, this is my verdict and I’m going to say it does. So doesn’t that mean both are relatively close in AP, to where no-one one-shots? Well since Boros’ move doesn’t specify what type of star can collapse let me uhhhh choose uhhhh this random star V4647 Sagittarii and well would you look at that, it’s 100 times bigger than the Sun, boom Saitama AP stomps now but why stop there when you have UY Scuti which is 1700 times larger than the Sun, surely now Saitama AP stomps into oblivion, well let’s go even further than the peak with Stephenson 2-18, 2150 times the Sun! And the largest, known star to date. So it looks like Saitama has 2150x AP lead now but hold up let me introduce you to Quasi -stars, hypothetically stars with a black hole as its core, even its average size would dwarf Stephenson 2-18 with it over being 7000 times the size of the Sun! And guess what, Saitama MASSIVELY upscales from this. Boom. 

Then what about speed huh? Well, Saitama easily takes that as well! Popeye’s best travel speed feats only clocks in about rela while the Caped Baldy sees those speeds as nothing but a bad joke! So now SAITAMA EASILY BLITZES AND ONE SHOTS! Before Popeye can even get a eeny weeny piece of spinach, this has to be one of the stompiest fights this season as the winner for this fight should be…

Drum roll, please.

…

Popeye.

Yup, you’ve heard me right. Popeye the Sailor Man. Even with the amount of BS I tried to argue in the last 3 paragraphs or so in favor of Saitama, the sheer amount of haxes that Saitama has no resistance to, the fact Saitama can’t kill him even if you give him the AP advantage via the fact he can just spinach himself AND his spinach back to existence even after being completely cellular vaporised, him also massively upscaling in terms of AP, his shown attack speed being much faster than Saitama best shown reaction speeds (at least currently) and various other factors that everyone above me has gone into much more detail about (so you better go read them).

So in the end, who wins this matchup? As much as I love Saitama, Popeye. Who will win the Death Battle? Probably Popeye again, although I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if it ends in a draw or like Chuck Norris vs Segata Sanshiro or something along those lines. Wholeheartedly, I really wouldn’t mind any of these options happening and with that being said:

I wish y’all the best,

Enjoy your holidays,

Enjoy your Chritsmas,

And here’s to another 10 years of Death Battle!

eXo out

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