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Death Battle Predictions: Spider-Gwen VS Sakura (Remastered)

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Death Battle Predictions: Spider-Gwen VS Sakura (Remastered)

Spider-Gwen, graceful Ghost Spider of Earth-65.

Sakura Kasugano, student of the Ansatsuken.

“With great power comes great responsibility”, a lesson these two combatants have learned despite their young age. These two highschool age heroines have a lot on their plate yet try their very best not to let it get to them. While sometimes they may fall, letting their darkness consume them, they’ll mold that darkness and come back stronger than ever to fight the good fight. Whose strength will be greater in this bout of Marvel vs Capcom? Will the Ghost Spider turn Sakura into the real ghost here? Or will this street fighter give Gwen the good ol’ 616 treatment? Find out in today’s DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

For this fight, we will be expanding the scope of our analysis beyond the primary media for both characters. Since recent Spider-Man content like No Way Home, Across the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Geddon have consistently established the idea that the Spider-People of various media share a multiverse and are comparable to one another, we will be examining this more extended “Spider-Verse scaling” to get a clearer picture of Gwen’s full potential.

Likewise, to balance things out, we’ll be including all the various Street Fighter media, including UDON, the various Street Fighter manga, Final Fight, EX, and other crossovers, despite the messy nature of Street Fighter’s canon. In other words, we’ll be examining a “composite” Sakura in a similar manner as a composite Spider-Verse.

The main exception to this ruleset will be Marvel VS Capcom, which is harder to justify composite-wise, and also creates overlap between the two franchises that the two would both benefit from. Therefore, while we will look at it for a full understanding of Dark Sakura’s moveset in particular, no scaling from Marvel VS Capcom will be afforded to either character – so we won’t be scaling them both to Galactus, basically.

Lastly, it should be noted that Gwen currently has her original Spider powers back after spending years simulating them with the Venom symbiote. However, since she had the symbiote for the majority of her history, it will still be included regardless.

Background

Gwen

“Let’s do this differently, WAY differently.”

The amazing Gwen Stacy, one of the iconic lasses and allies of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. They were nigh inseparable until one day, what would be a moment of bliss in Peter’s life, ran out. During a battle with the Green Goblin, the villain pushed Gwen off a bridge. Spider-Man attempted to save her by webbing her leg but little did he know that the quick stop would make things worse. It instantly snapped her neck, killing her. Leaving a catalyst for Peter, a canon event in his life he will mold for the better. BUT- what if all of that played differently? What if Gwen didn’t die? Better yet, what if Gwen was Spider-Man instead? Let’s do this one last time.

In the world of Earth-65, you wouldn’t think much is different. However when you get to the grounded stuff, the individual, you start to see something’s off. The famous and fantastic Reed Richards was only a 13 year old. Daredevil? Now aiding the Kingpin instead. However, the craziest of all was that Spider-Man or on this Earth, Ghost Spider was a killer. And who is this Ghost Spider? The amazing Gwen Stacy. On this Earth, Gwen is a normal girl. She goes to high school, even plays drums for a band called the Mary Janes. One day this would all be flipped upside down when she was bitten by a radioactive spider which gave her superpowers. Using these great powers, she responsibly took the streets to fight crime as Spider-Woman (she has a lot of aliases).

Being a superhero with all these cool abilities is fun. Although not everyone in this story can say the same. Enter the average nerd Peter Parker, one of the greatest best friends of the friendly neighborhood Gwendolyn Stacy. They were nigh inseparable even being considered family by Gwen’s father and Police Chief, George Stacy. Although one day, that moment of bliss in Gwen’s life would run out. Despite Gwen being at the top of the world, Peter was hurting. He was a constant result of bullying with Gwen being his only friend. He just wanted the pain to stop, and the only way he knew how was to be super as well. He figured that if he had powers like Spider-Woman, he wouldn’t be bullied anymore. He’d have a purpose. So one day he concocted a formula, to show those who wronged him what he can really do. So one day, Peter Parker didn’t go to school. The Lizard did…

The Lizard busted in causing a ruckus, chaos all over. Nobody knew what this creature was or how to stop it. It was a monster with no signs of the lovable nerd Peter Parker from before. Just like everyone else, Gwen couldn’t tell as well. The spectacular Ghost Spider had swooped in and fought hard against the beast, eventually dealing a mortal blow to the Lizard, but little did she know the reptilian foe would revert back. Back to a familiar face. She was shocked while Peter layed on the ground eventually succumbing to his wounds. With the entire school and quickly the police force, the Spider Gwen was deemed a killer. Leaving a catalyst for Gwen, a canon event molding her for the better. She would be constantly on the run by the police and more so by George Stacy, who was also struck by the grief of losing Peter. However one day something different happened, way different.

She was pulled away into various dimensions. Meeting other Spider people like herself. Those who have lost someone, those who feel like the world is against them. Most notably she met the Spider-Man of Earth-616, Peter Parker. They connected over the grief of losing each other, feeling directly responsible for each other’s death. Promising to each that they would protect each other, to make sure the same mistake isn’t repeated. She even met the dorky Miles Morales, the cool Miguel O’ Hara, and the annoying Peter Porker. With her help and many others, they wouldn’t just be friendly neighborhood spiders, they’d be friendly multiverse spiders. With Gwen traveling into, across, and beyond this “Spider-Verse” to make sure no one suffers her fate.

Sakura

“Do you have time for another beating before my next class?”

In Tokyo, Japan, you probably wouldn’t think too much of the Tamagawa Minami High School…except for the fact the energetic and cheerful Sakura Kasugano was enrolled in it. She was just your average high school student until a chance encounter with Ryu and witnessing his incredible martial arts fighting style. This inspired Sakura to take street fighting herself, imitating his Ansatsuken fighting style, but in her own unique way. Her fists were righteous though as her first times fighting were against bullies who would dare threaten her friends.

She realized she had a love and joy for fighting and looked up to Ryu for inspiring her. It was to the point she skipped school just to search the world for her idol (sidenote: please don’t actually do this in real life) and study under him. She would meet all sorts of new people from Cammy, Karin, Ibuki and she would even become friends with Dan (though one could say the relationship is a bit one sided!) She would eventually meet up with Ryu and even spar with him, earning his respect and friendship as well, though he would refuse to be her teacher as he thought he still had much to learn himself. Still, this didn’t discourage Sakura at all and promised to meet each other again.

And that she did, meeting not just with her idol Ryu, but all sorts of fighters while improving upon her own. She would even enter the World Warrior tournament herself, hoping to find Ryu again. Imposing a self greuling hard working train regime on herself, she did wonder if she was getting closer to be as strong as him. While she was improving her skills, Ryu was also becoming stronger, learning to control his inner demons and have a better state of mind. That never discouraged her though as long as she had that goal, she would still love fighting and become a stronger person in both body and mind as well.

As time passed though, while she would still have that contagious spunk and energy that would make almost anyone happy to have her around, she did eventually graduate out of high school and attend university. Now working part time at an arcade, she wondered about the future and what to do about it. She didn’t have nearly as much free time as she did when she was younger to wander the world anymore, making her lose some of the passion she had for street fighting. Despite having some of this anxiety, she did bump into Ryu one more time. After a sparring session and a heart to heart talk about the future, she now knew what she wanted out of life. Whether it’s having the power to protect those she cares about or the strength to keep on fighting and carry on her legacy, Sakura would find a way to bloom once more.

Experience & Skill

Gwen

Despite being a formidable hero since she was 17, the real hero here are Kung Fu movies. Since those are the only thing that gives Gwen some semblance of skill, as without those Gwen lacks any proper training to the point she can’t even throw a proper punch. However, skill isn’t just about fighting. Where Gwen lacks in combat skill, her deductive capabilities definitely make up for it. Growing up with a police chief father allowed for Gwen to be a natural when it comes to detective work and analytical reasoning. Which helps her come up with creative tactics on the fly or even maintain distance when she knows her opponent is stronger than her.

These natural instincts of Gwen’s are even praised by Spider-Man Noir, stating that they are the best he’s ever seen. She’s also surprisingly stealthy, being able to evade Earth-65 Matt Murdock’s senses. On this Earth, Matt was stated at even a young age to have the “sight of a thousand eyes” and can still hear heartbeats of course. Making Gwen’s stealth incredibly impressive.

Sakura

Despite her young age, Sakura has proven to be one of the most talented fighters within the Street Fighter Universe. Being able to just simply imitate Ryu’s Ansatsuken fighting style from imaging him teaching her each maneuver, including the legendary Hadoken is simply just one of many impressive accomplishments. Even in the midst of combat she has shown the ability to analyze a fighter’s patterns, to the point she figured out Maki’s fighting style off of a sentence. She’s battled and even bested many martial artists such as Zangief, Honda, Maki, and most notably Karin Kanzuki. Karin in particular has studied a plethora of martial arts, and displayed even as a high schooler the skill to adapt quickly to unknown situations.

Her self-made Ansatsuken fighting style was developed enough to even keep up with even her idol Ryu. Prior to traveling the world, Ryu was noted to master every technique and form that Gouken crafted to the point of appearing he created them. His travels would open him up to several different martial arts that he analyzed and learned from to constantly improve himself.  He’s even incorporated techniques from other styles into his moveset, such as karate, judo and taekwondo. With only a fraction of the time Ryu had, Sakura was able to keep up in technique, even surprising the World Warrior himself.

Equipment

Gwen

Spider-Woman Suit

Not much to the suit other than looking super dope. The hood technically would give an extra method of hiding her secret identity, so that’s smart!

Web-Shooters

Created by Janet Van Dyne, who was the Wasp, these web shooters operate like your typical web shooter, which is pretty much used for swinging around, and  trapping enemies.

Venom Symbiote

Created by Dr. Elsa Brock, this artificial symbiote was used by Gwen to restore her powers after they were stolen by her reality’s Cindy Moon. By combining the Lizard Serum and Cindy Moon’s radioactive isotope, a symbiote that bonds to host bodies and amplifies them, as well as granting them abilities identical to Spider-Gwen’s original power set. While it would prove fatal to bear for most hosts, Gwen’s immunity to the symbiote’s radioactivity allows her to put it on without harm to herself. In addition to getting her powers back (including organic webbing), the Venom Symbiote also grants Gwen the Lizard Serum’s regenerative abilities, allowing her to quickly heal small wounds, dispel poisons and toxins from her body, filter air, and even provide Gwen with oxygen should her airway be restricted via Gwen breathing through the suit.

The symbiote itself is also technically not a singular entity. It’s made out of a ton of tiny spiders that Gwen has full control of. These tiny “gummy” spiders can survive long periods on their own separated from Gwen and can stick/have them follow individuals for Gwen to spy on.

An interesting thing to note as well is how close Gwen’s symbiote is to an actual Klyntar. It is stated to be inorganic and not alive by Gwen, yet powerful Symbiotes can wrest control over bits of it from her. It even intrigued the God of Symbiotes, Knull, and compelled him to want to have it due to how similar it is to the Klyntar. But perhaps the most important takeaway here is that Gwen was able to pushback against Knull’s attempts to control her and her symbiote, showcasing her incredibly strong bond to it, described by Gwen in her own run as having found balance with it.

Ticket to the Multiverse

Created by the Gwen of Earth-3109 after Spider-Gwen saved her, this device allows Gwen to create portals. These portals, as one would assume, make it so Gwen can freely travel the multiverse as she pleases. This in practice is very similar to another multiverse device Gwen had in the past which she once used to completely teleport away an enemy. Another Gwen aka Spider-Guin, once used her Ticket to the Multiverse to teleport various villains to different universes as well. So it’s fair to say Gwen on a bad day can send you to Earth- 10011 or Earth-2149.

Sakura

Gems

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, blue, red, and yellow gems are gems that can be collected in big or small sizes. Each time you collect a lot, it powers up a special move of Sakura. Examples include such as Sakura’s Hadouken getting bigger with each level, earning more hits with her Shou’ou San with her umbrella, and Shunka Shuuto which makes her run farther and more hits.

Scooter

A green scooter driven by Sakura herself. She can use it on unfortunate foes.

Yellow Umbrella

A yellow umbrella that she uses in her Midare Zakura…that’s it.

Item Balls

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura can obtain these elemental orbs to throw at opponents. Each orb can burn the opponent, freeze them, poison them, she could throw a bomb, a banana orb where the opponent can slip and fall if landed, petrify them by turning them to stone, or shock the opponent.

Disguises

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura will sometimes take different outfits/disguises in each of her attacks. Some can range such as a playboy bunny costume with hat, wand and wine, tennis outfit with a tennis racket, soccer outfit, one piece school swimsuit with a bat and towel, and finally a training outfit with polearm.

Abilities

Gwen

 Spider Mutate Physiology

As a Spider-Person, Gwen gained a lot of physical enhancement far above just your average superhuman. So much so that they typically hold themselves back against other street level characters just so they won’t accidentally splatter them in one hit.

Spidey’s are so tough due to their physiology they can resist a plethora of attacks. Whether it be electrical, sound based, radioactive, nerve severing, acid, petrification, and even anti-matter! They can be filled with toxins deadly enough to kill a city, tank constant powerful explosions, and even have shown resistance to their main weakness of ethyl chloride. Gwen specifically has been able to show resistance to cold temperatures and fire even with her Symbiote. She hasn’t been able to even get a cold or food poisoning because of how fast she can recover.

Her recovery doesn’t just heal sicknesses but far more vital injuries. Such as blindness or even broken bones. However these aren’t like Wolverine, they do take hours to fully heal. Thankfully her stamina and endurance can buy her enough time. These remaining two abilities are some of the defining characteristics of Spidey’s across the multiverse.

Spidey’s are surprisingly resilient, being able to keep on fighting through the toughest of challenges. Their stamina is stated to be 40 times more than the average person which could be an understatement given they can fight for hours straight on end. They can survive in space, hold their breath for more than 10 minutes, and can go without drinking water for two days without feeling thirsty. Peter Parker, who has the same physiology as Gwen, can fight crime for 3 days straight with food or sleep.

Spider-Sense

The classic Spider staple (unless you happen to be from the year 2099). This ability is probably the most iconic power in all of Marvel and for good reason too. As most know the Spider-Sense acts a danger sense, warning Spider-People of harm that they would reasonably have no way of detecting. Although it’s much more varied and much more potent than what people first believe. The spider sense first and foremost acts like an “alarm” of sorts, allowing Spidey’s to sense incoming danger even if they can’t see it and it’s extremely efficient. This efficiency comes about through various reasons; it can predict several future outcomes, seeing which ones are safe and which ones are dangerous. It can slow the user’s perspective to a crawl and let them be several steps ahead of their opponent. Regardless of if he’s blinded the spider sense will also force Spidey’s to aim exactly where they need. Basically “it buzzes on the bad ideas and goes silent on the good ones”. It even continues to work while the user is sleeping.

It’s able to detect not just attacks but nigh everything that’s potentially unsafe. Working on a 360 degree radius it can detect radiation, cameras and detectors, mind control, beings on the astral plane, lies and tricks, intent, other people being in danger, teleportation, someone’s speed, and even changes in space-time. Spidey’s can also reverse this ability to find where the most danger is specifically. Even with all this, if Gwen still can’t evade an attack flatout, the spider sense will make sure she sustains as little damage as possible. While for Gwen specifically it was stated to be a bit unreliable compared to other Spidey’s, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily weaker and would be comparable. Furthermore, outside said statement, this hasn’t been shown to be the case.

Wall Crawling

While not as notable as other abilities and equipment, wall crawling is an underestimated facet of a Spidey’s powerset. As already known it’s often used as a form of mobility as it allows for Gwen to stick and traverse to any surface at high speeds. Furthermore, hands and feet aren’t needed as some think, as every part of Gwen’s body retains this adhesion. This ability is so strong that Peter Parker has once stated that he’s never encountered anything that severed this bond, only in cases where the surface itself is completely broken. The fact that it extends across the entire body also means that Spidey’s can use other parts of their body similar to hands and grab things. It might be unorthodox but with this, random objects can be used as impromptu weapons in a pinch.

This ability is strong in the sense that there’s nothing shown that can sever this adhesion. Even things moving at high speeds can’t shake Spidey’s off once they are in contact, such as jets, planes, or even space shuttles. Lastly as previously mentioned, this ability can be used in an offensive manner. It can be used to overcome the momentum of speeding objects stopping them in their tracks. Inexplicably it can also be used to turn the tide on stronger opponents. Peter Parker with this ability was able to flip the Hulk around. Gwen herself was able to tear off the armor of Earth 616’s Super Adaptoid using this very ability as well.

Sakura

Ansatsuken

Thanks to copying Ryu in nearly every way possible, Sakura studies under a fictional fighting style called Ansatsuken or Assasination’s Fist. Ansatsuken is a fighting style that has roots towards killing the opponent via assassinations techniques. Characters that use this style are Ryu, Ken, and Gouken, which Gouken taught the nicer side of Ansatsuken, which Sakura copied from Ryu.

Ansatsuken is based off of Shotokan or Shoto by FGC standards. Shotokan or Shotokan Karate is a subsection of Karate, which focuses on such as punches, hand/elbow strikes, knee strikes and kicks. It teaches self-defense through a series of kihon(basics), kata(forms), and kumite(sparring). It is known as a hard martial arts style due to its emphasis on strikes, long stances, and sparring techniques.

Ki Sensing

While Sakura was training after losing Ryu to Bison and Urien, she was able to sense Akuma coming.

Hadouken

The classic Street Fighter fireball. While Sakura’s version is more of an imperfect version compared to Ryu or Ken (especially with the smaller size and shorter reach), it’s still a strong and fast projectile that’s good at keeping opponents out. Sakura can charge it for even more power, but it does decrease in reach and speed the longer she does. She’s also capable of detonating her Hadouken mid charge to create a bright flashbang.

Tengyo Haduoken

Sakura does the Hadoken at a 45 degree angle to hit any opponent approaching in the air. She can charge it to make a bigger fireball shot in the air. In her Dark Sakura form, she charges up for some time before firing 10 massive Hadouken in the air in rapid succession, obviously they’re also much stronger then they usually are.

Shinku Hadouken

The Shinku Hadoken is a large, multi-hitting Hadoken (the maximum usually being 5 hits) made of vacuum energy. It’s described as “A Hadouken in which the body’s ki is concentrated and condensed into your palms before firing. Its swift speed and invulnerability can quickly turn the tables on an opponent.”. Its power propels it the length of the whole stage, and easily lets it plow through other weaker projectiles, though some games lower the amount of hits landed for each one before it ‘breaks.’ Sakura has also been able to use the Shinku Hadoken in most, if not all, of her appearances, and sometimes has an anti-air variant.

While in her Dark/Sunburned state, the Shinku Hadouken becomes an invulnerable large beam of energy that can blast through any projectile and do devastating damage in the process, while firing this, Sakura is fully covered in electricity.

Nekketsu Hadouken

Sakura fires a very fast and powerful, large Hadoken with a pink color (ignore the fact that it’s red here, it’s just the charge up) that inflicts even more damage than a Shinku Hadoken and any other move in the game. It can only be used when her energy meter is at maximum.

Shunpukyaku

Sakura jumps into the air a bit before swiftly floating down with a series of spinning kick(s). While Sakura’s version of the hurricane kick doesn’t exactly have her travel across the screen and defy gravity, it’s still a handy move for getting past projectiles and ending combos. Some variants like the EX version of it even allow follow ups for cool combo extensions.

Haru Ichiban

A special move that consists of a series of low, sweeping, spinning kicks followed by a backward-facing kick to the opponent’s midsection.

Shouoken

AKA that one move you’ll mash on wake up because you’re too impatient to block. Jokes aside, Sakura’s will leap into the air and do a rising uppercut, similar to the classic Shoryuken, the EX version having invincibility making it a good reversal tool. Despite the similarities, it’s surprisingly not very versatile as an actual anti-air considering she moves forward a bit, so timing it is key, but it’s a great damaging combo ending move that’ll reset neutral and can knock the opponent far away enough to force them to fight against Sakura’s fireball game.

Midare Zakura

Sakura performs three Shouokens in a roll that sends the opponent into the air. In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, she uses a yellow umbrella while doing the move. Sakura describes the technique as inspired by several different fighters she has fought, combining teachings of Ryu, the spontaneity of R. Mika, the power of Zangief, the relentlessness of Karin, the perseverance of E. Honda and the unpredictability of Dan (sure).

Sakura Otoshi

Sakura would leap forward in the air preparing to do a double axe-handle on the unfortunate opponent. If landed, she would hit the opponent three consecutive times before the opponent hits the ground defying gravity once again. While certainly a damaging move, if she misses, she will lose her balance, making her vulnerable if she’s not careful.

Haru Ranman

Sakura’s Ultra Combo from Street Fighter 4, Sakura first does her Haru Ichiban by down three sweep kicks, but this time she kicks them into the air. She jumps after them to Sakura Otoshi, hitting them and slamming them into the ground. She ends it by landing on them, feet first then backs up.

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, she does a more comical version and older version of this move as puts on a playboy bunny outfit as she calls in two muscular men to take the unfortunate opponent away. In the background, it’s likely implied that they beat up the opponent in which the opponent is thrown back as they’re beaten up or being crazy in love.

Hadosho

Sakura envelops her hands with the same energy from her Hadouken, but instead of a projectile, she does a double palm thrust, knocking the opponent back. She can charge this move to increase its size and strength. The EX version is stronger, bigger and instead of a double palm thrust, she straight up DECKS the poor opponent. This move only hits in front of her, however whoever she hits will instantly be knocked down.

Focus Attack

A cast wide attack that was introduced in Street Fighter 4, a focus attack is a Heavy attack that gives her an augmented and unbreakable defense during the execution, making her ignore any attack that hits her. If it lands it causes the opponent to get paralyzed for a bit and then crumble down like a wet sack of potatoes.

Okakyaku

Sakura does a dive kick at the opponent. The EX version adds a kick at the start.

Floral Kick

An overhead attack where Sakura raises her leg, turns her hips, and does a downward roundhouse kick. Great for catching people blocking low.

Hanakaze

Sakura first grabs her opponent by the collar. Next, she takes a small step forward and shuffles her feet, positioning her front foot slightly past her opponent. Sakura pulls on their collar with one hand to throw her opponent over her thigh, she uses her other hand to push their leg over. Her opponent flips over and lands on their hip.

Sakura Shoulder Throw

She dashes towards her opponent, grabs their arm and throws them over her shoulder, slamming them onto the ground on their back.

Sailor Hop

While in midair, Sakura grabs her opponent and vaults herself on top of them, placing her feet on their shoulders. She ends the throw by leaping off of her opponent’s shoulders, using the downward force from her legs to send them crashing into the ground.

Sailor Shoot

Sakura puts her legs on the opponent’s back. She then uses her momentum to throw her opponent forward in the air straight towards the ground…. ouchies.

Sakura-Jime

Sakura leap frogs over her opponent and delivers a dropkick to their back mid air. In older games, this attack was completely different, as Sakura would climb her opponent’s back and wrap her arms around her opponent’s neck, strangling them. before knocking them down with an elbow strike on their head.

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix a more comical version of the older Sakuma-Jime was used where Sakura would climb onto her opponent’s back and give them wet willies. It is otherwise functionally equivalent to her Alpha counterpart. Instead of clubbing the opponent’s back of the head like the Alpha version, this version shows Sakura biting her opponent on the back of their head.

Daydream Headlock

Yeah Sakura is a pretty big Rainbow Mika fan and got to do this move with her hero to knock the lights out of Zangief. The user grabs the opponent in a headlock and crushes them repeatedly before saluting with one arm and Neck Riding their captive.

Shunka Shuutou

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura runs at the opponent with her arms flailing around to hit her opponent. Each level from the move increases the distance of her attack, more hits, and more damage.

Genki Ichiban

Sakura walks across the stage towards her opponent before pointing at them and laughing, sending them flying and dealing massive damage. How this does massive damage we’ll never know.

V-Trigger

Haru Arashi

From Street Fighter V which introduced V-Trigger, Sakura’s fists are enveloped by blue ki energy, which enhances her Hadokens, making them stronger and safer on block. This also let her gain Hogasho. This V-Trigger is typically used for a better fire ball game increasing their versatility as both a pressure and combo tool.

Sakura Senpu

Another V-Trigger, but this time Sakura’s fists and feet are enveloped by blue ki energy, enhancing her Shouoken and Shunpukyaku. This V-Trigger is more strictly about damage and combo potentially and gives her Shouken invincibility on startup on all versions.

V-Skill

Haru Kaze

A command jump which Sakura leaps into the air at her opponent. She can follow up with such moves as Sakura Otosh, Okakyaku, mentioned above, and Kashinfu, a command grab which Sakura grabs the opponent at their waist, then uses their body as a platform to do a backflip off the person’s body, knocking them into the ground.

Haru Hayate

Sakura somersaults forward towards the opponent which she can follow up with a rising knee at the opponent.

V-Reversal

Floral Spin

Another attack that was widely introduced in Street fighter V; The V-Reversal. The attack is performed after blocking the opponent’s attack for a counterattack. Some V-Reversals are attacks that either knock down the opponent, or push them backwards to give their character some space, dealing Provisional Damage and being incapable of knocking an opponent out.  V-Reversals are safe on block (with the exception of Cammy’s) and are strike and projectile-invincible, though can be grabbed if an opponent recovers in time.

Sakura’s V reversal: The Floral Spin, Makes Sakura perform a single low, sweeping, spinning kick that is visually similar to her Haru Ichiban.

V-Shift/V-Shift Break

Floral Side-Kick

Another Cast wide defensive option/counterattack in Street fighter V. Sakura performs a back dash with her entire body radiating with blue energy. After activation, She is invincible to almost any attack; including throws and projectiles. When this move is performed as the opponent attacks, a brief “slowdown” occurs. Another follow-up added to this move is the V-Shift Break, which is a counterattack. During the slowdown effect after avoiding the attack Sakura can retaliate with a strike that knocks the opponent back and inflict provisional damage. Not only does the V-Shift Break have decent range, but it allows the player to break through an opponent’s chain of attacks.

Sakura’s version of this move is the Floral Side-Kick. Sakura slides forward with a side kick to her opponent’s middle, knocking them away.

Sakura Rain

Sakura’s critical art in Street Fighter V and her most damaging move in the game. After she has enough meter, she can throw a fireball to stun her opponent before doing a barrage of kicks into a very powerful uppercut. It also has invincibility on startup, allowing it to be a good reversal option as well. It’s sure to finish off most of her opponents should this land.

Forms

Gwen

Gwenom

While her current suit is already composed of the symbiote, it can transform even further into the “Gwenom” suit. In this form the suit gains a few extra features such as an air filter and even a snorkeling mask… that’s attached to her lungs. That’s an image I don’t wanna picture in my head.

Camouflage

As an extension of the symbiote’s self-clothing ability, Gwen can enter a “Predator Mode” that allows her to become invisible to the naked eye.

Biomass Manipulation

A Symbiote staple, Gwen’s suit is able to shapeshift to form talons, tendrils, wings, and even generate organic webbing when she’s in a pinch. Though of course its most common usage is allowing Gwen to switch from her superhero outfit to civilian clothes. She can even replicate new clothes and create new hero outfits.

Spider Control

Thanks to the mental bond with the spiders that make up her suit, Gwen is able to use them as semi-autonomous scouts to seek out any criminals, civilians that need saving… or to swarm someone with hundreds of them. They can also work alongside her webbing to restrain her targets and hang them over ledges. Individual spiders are also quite tough, as adults are unable to crush even one and they appear to be resistant to pesticides.

Sakura

Dark/Sunburned Sakura

A transformation gained when Sakura gives in to the Dark Hado, either because of an intense desire to win, being close to death, or possessing enough rage and hatred that she becomes willing to kill. She can also get this form by getting sunburned, yes really. While Sunburned, she also gains the powers of the Satsui no Hado, except without losing her humanity.

Satsui no Hado

The Satsui no Hado (which translates to “Killing intent” or “Surge of murderous intent” if that isn’t raw enough) is a strong, dark, murderous (if the name didn’t already showcase that) and corrupting power source in the world of Street Fighter. It’s a form of spiritual energy that focuses on the desire to win, being unrestrained by violence and battle. Its main purpose is to kill (SHOCKER) the opponent brutally. In the UDON comics it represents vast amounts of dark energy that permeates all things, which can be bent to the user’s will. The Ansatsuken is connected to this martial arts, causing even experienced martial artists to succumb to this killing intent, losing focus, becoming mad and only focusing on fighting, Sakura herself isn’t any different.

A user of the Dark Hado gains several techniques besides the enhancement in their original techniques and amp in their physical stats. A user has the abilities to Teleport, use limited telekinesis, levitate, phase through attacks, create after images, deflect Ki projectiles, and even travel between dimensions . They’re able to sense the Hado in others and even absorb it from them. Of course they’re also able to do the Shun Goku Satsu.

Sakura in the Udon comics hasn’t mastered the Satsui no Hado at its fullest yet, but Akuma himself said she had the potential too and he’d be proven right! Cuz in MvC where she somehow has mastered the Satsui no Hado by being sunburned. Obtaining its full powers yet not going mad or bloodthirsty, she just has a nice tan. How this even works, we have no clue.

Metsu Hadoken

An amped version of the Hadoken using Satsui No Hado, even more powerful than the Shinku Hadoken (hitting up to 8 times now). However it leaves a strain on the body, seeing as both Ryu and Evil Ryu reel from the attack after using it.

Zanku Hadouken

An airborne version of the Hadoken often used by Satsui No Hado users. Used primarily as a means of countering close range assaults and pressuring opponents on the ground.

Ashura Senku

A technique that utilizes the Satsui no Hado, Sakura widens her stance, glows red, then lifts one knee and glides along the ground, this move grants complete invulnerability while gliding, as she will phase through attacks or people while using it. It’s a good move to get behind or away from her opponents.

Shun Goku Satsu

Alongside an amplification to many of her techniques, Sakura can utilize one of the deadliest techniques in Street Fighter History: The Raging Demon. In the UDON incarnation, this attack doesn’t just simply instantly kill the opponent, but sends their soul to hell to be tormented by denizens of Makai. While Sakura within UDON hasn’t displayed this ability herself, other users like Dan Hibiki could utilize it the first time he received the Satsui No Hado. Spinoff games like Marvel vs Capcom also display her utilizing the technique when in her “Sunburn” state, leading more credence that she can do it.

Feats

Gwen

Overall

  • Became an established member of the Web Warriors
  • Has saved the multiverse on several occasions
  • Defeated her universe’s Lizard, Captain America, Kingpin, Man-Wolf, Carnage, the Sinister Six
  • Traveled to dozens of alternate universes
  • Sought forgiveness in herself with her relationship with 616 Peter Parker
  • Her drumming skills can’t be matched

Power

Speed

Durability

Sakura

Overall

Power

Speed

Durability

Scaling

Gwen

Peter Parker

Naturally as THE Spider-Man himself, Peter Parker has plenty of feats that further show the true potential of Gwen Stacy. Considering they have fought alongside each other plenty of times and share the powers/physiology, it only makes sense for them to be comparable.

Other Spideys

During Gwen’s ventures across the multiverse, many other versions of Spider-Man appear to help. Similar to Peter Parker, all of the ones mentioned below are shown to be comparable to Gwen, Peter, etc.

Symbiotes

The symbiotes are a major part of the Spider-Man mythos. These beings are some of the few regulars shown to be on par with the friendly neighborhood Spidey’s. Whether it be through the occasions they fight alongside or the many many battles they have against each other. Furthermore, Gwenom would certainly make them comparable regardless of previous bouts.

  • Mac Gargan Venom survives an explosion that eclipses part of a mountain
  • Carnage’s body was able to contain the explosion of the Gene Bomb and prevent its effects from spreading planet-wide

Misc. Street Tiers

Spider-People might work on a street level but aren’t “street tier”. It’s often shown time and time again that there’s a massive difference in power and speed between Spidey’s and other peak human to superhuman characters. So every feat below isn’t just scaling to Gwen in this case, but actually far below her true capabilities.

Arno Stark (Debatable)

Peter Parker managed to easily defeat Arno Stark from the year 2020. While it is admittedly unsure how strong Arno’s armor is compared to the entire collection of suits Tony Stark has at his possession, it should be reasonable to assume it’d be stronger than the suits Tony had used up until Arno’s first chronological appearance, such as the Silver Centurion. Peter, at the least, scaling over earlier Iron-Man suits can be backed up with his occasional scuffles with Iron-Man where he can damage and take punishment from more modern suits and even some of his rogues gallery. And to back that scaling up further, members of Peter’s rogues gallery have fought the Silver Centurion and even stronger armors like the Model 9, the Neo-Classic armor and damaged them. 

That said, there’s a reason we’re titling this scaling chain as debatable. While some of Spidey’s rogues have fought Iron Man armors, Tony generally has held the advantage for most of those encounters, even breaking Rhino’s horn with one attack, and Doc Ock only managed to break the Silver Centurion armor after Emma Frost stun locked the armor to leave him wide open to attacks. Additionally, the power of Arno’s armor fluctuates depending on his power source, which could mean he wasn’t operating at full power when Peter fought him.

Sakura

Ryu & Ken

Sakura uses a similar fighting style to both Ryu and Ken and has battled the duo evenly across different continuities. Even during the Alpha days she was capable of breaking Ken’s ribs and fighting Ryu for seemingly hours on end. E. Honda even made claims that she might even be stronger than Ryu during the Alpha era. While Ryu has obviously gotten stronger since then, his feats during this period should still apply to Sakura, and by extension Ken.

Street Fighter Wrestlers

The wrestlers of Street Fighter are anything but slouches in combat, and Sakura has traded blows with them on multiple occasions. She’s beaten Zangief multiple times in combat and has beaten E. Honda in Street Fighter Alpha 3. The aforementioned sumo wrestler has even noted that he and Zangief are rivals, making it more clear that Sakura should be stronger than the Street Fighting Unofficial Wrestling League.

Street Fighter Gal Pals

The big gals of SF have displayed plenty of impressive feats across the series. Sakura has managed to keep up with fighters like Cammy, and other shotos like Ken have managed to keep up with Chun-Li, making it possible for her to scale to feats performed by the girls.

Final Fight

Turn the beat back! Final Fight takes place in the same universe as Street Fighter and several characters like Cody, Guy and Poison even appear as fighters throughout the series. These characters are generally depicted as on par with the main roster of SF characters Sakura would scale to, so feats from this classic beat ’em up series should be applicable.

Street Fighter EX

The cast of the Arika developed fighting series Street Fighter EX have had their fair share of run-ins with the SF cast. Given her already existing scaling to other SF characters who have fought evenly with the EX cast, it’s fair to say Sakura should be in the same ballpark.

Weaknesses

Gwen

As with most symbiotes, intense sounds and heat can disrupt the bond between the black goop and the wearer, with Gwen being no exception. While she is able to power through being inside a burning building just fine, even being near her universe’s Human Torch was enough to drive her Spider-Sense crazy and give her headaches. The Venom symbiote is also sensitive to Gwen’s emotions. Whenever Gwen feels too much anger, fear, or pain, she can lose control of herself and lash out on innocent people, letting the symbiote control her mind.

Oh and the suit can get hungry. The symbiote needs calories and nutrients, specifically cellulose-dense foods like celery and wheat-bread and her abilities will weaken if she doesn’t consume enough food for it. Oh she also cannot even throw a proper punch, what a fraud. Like, girl has zero hands.

Sakura

Sakura undoubtedly has proven herself as a strong skilled fighter and not to be underestimated. In fact, in terms of physical weaknesses, she doesn’t really have any. However, that doesn’t mean she’s invincible. She’s still relatively inexperienced and is mostly self taught, aside from training with Dan (which…come on, do we really want to count that?) and a couple sparring sessions with Ryu. It doesn’t help that she still has to balance her school life with fighting, so this limits her time to train. She still has yet to master the full potential of the Ansatsuken let alone the Satsui no Hado.

Before The Verdict

Multiversal Gwen???

Oh no Sakura bros

Ah, the infamous scan of Gwen holding together the Marvel multiverse. For some context, a pop idol from the end of time, Finale, accidentally struck Gwen with temporal energy and altered her timeline, as well as creating five additional timelines with their own unique histories revolving around their iterations of Gwen Stacy. Towards the end of the storyline, we see that the creation of the Gwenverse and Finale’s own recklessness with the fabric of space-time begins to break apart the multiverse itself, unraveling backwards from the end of time. In an attempt to fix this, Gwen uses a device to absorb the life force of all the other Gwens to try and go back in time to stop Finale moments before the multiverse unravels itself. However, this proves to not be enough and all seems lost for our heroine…

…until, somehow, Gwen came to the realization that absorbing the life force of her alternate selves linked her to all of their timelines turning her into a multiverse capable of creating webs “made out of eternities” that Gwen would use to hold the multiverse together (as shown above) and save the day!

It goes without saying that the specific circumstances for Gwen to attain this level of power are in no way replicable during a typical fight.

Fight Script

While this blog was happening, one of our users, The Black Shulk, wrote this fight script for this match up. We hope you enjoy what he wrote!

Verdict

Stats

Since this fight is analyzing a wide variety of sources, we’ll be tackling it from various angles to determine who takes which stats most consistently and provide a range of estimates. Do keep in mind that this is a composite analysis, that is to say we are factoring in feats and media that would not normally be usable under a strictly canon lens.

That said, let’s lay down a baseline by looking at their canon media. Before getting into scaling, it’s important to first look at the characters’ direct showings to get a general idea of where they land visually.

That being said, neither of these characters have a whole lot of direct feats to work with. Gwen’s best direct strength feat amounts to punching Rhino through a wall, and she’s stated to be able to lift 10 tons in guidebooks. In the Spider-Verse movies, her webbing has explicitly outsped bullets after they were fired, so she should be some degree of supersonic via direct feats. You might be able to measure her reacting to Electro’s lightning in the comics, but not only is in-tandem movement hard to measure, but Electro’s bolts aren’t natural lightning regardless, with regular blasts of electricity being more in that low supersonic range.

Sakura’s direct feats are few and far between as well, with her Hadoken clash with Ryu likely being her best showing. The blast that this created dwarfed multiple buildings in size, putting her somewhere in the range of building to large building level directly. Her best speed feat would be dodging a taser, which typically fire at a couple hundred feet per second, a respectable fraction of the speed of sound.

With this in mind, if you look at only direct feats and nothing else, Gwen is sitting around wall to maybe small building level and supersonic, while Sakura is around building to large building level and subsonic. Which would make Sakura significantly stronger and Gwen significantly faster. And this is actually pretty consistent when you look at their higher scaling, too! So with this in mind, let’s look at characters they are consistently comparable to in order to get a feel for their typical weight class.

Despite hailing from Earth-65 originally, Gwen has consistently shown to have comparable strength to other Spider people such as 616 Peter Parker, and 1610 Miles Morales. This is backed up by handbooks, which consistently rank most (emphasis on MOST, we’ll come back to this) Spider-People at an equivalent level in terms of strength and speed, Gwen included.

Spider stats are a widely debated topic, but one we’ve treaded consistently in the past. Peter Parker can survive explosions powerful enough to rupture the top of a volcano, exceeding 70 kilotons of TNT. He can fight on par with Mayan gods like Wayeb, who summoned a blizzard over Manhattan. Most impressively, he’s matched the Insomniac version of Spidey in comic crossovers, and is rated equal to him in strength. Insomniac Miles Morales was able to absorb and withstand an explosion that would have vaporized Harlem, clocking in at over 15 megatons of TNT. With all this in mind, Spider-People like Gwen are consistently landing in that town to city level range of power.

Sakura, meanwhile, is consistently a fairly mid-tier character in Street Fighter. That is to say, she can consistently fight characters like Karin and Ibuki and beat the brakes off of heavyweights like E. Honda, but still falls short of Ryu and the big villains such as Bison and the like. And this makes a fair amount of sense for Sakura’s character. She’s a ki user and has trained directly with Ryu, in addition to being able to use the Satsui no Hado, one of the strongest powers in the setting. But at the end of the day, she is still in an apprentice role relative to him. She’s portrayed as a prodigy who can outperform most people in the verse, but isn’t matching up to the top tiers.

That being said, even a mid-tier Street Fighter is incredibly powerful. As a simple baseline, let’s scale Sakura to Cammy, whom she has directly fought on par with and matched. Cammy has tanked Chun-Li’s Kikosho hitting her directly, with said Kikosho being strong enough to blow up theme parks and create massive craters, easily reaching into the kiloton range of power. Taking that up a notch, Cammy has also survived the explosion of Bison’s Psycho Drive, which produced a nuclear blast that covered a wide area. Calcs for this have varied, but generally speaking it lands in the hundreds of kilotons of TNT to potentially slightly higher. Given that Sakura is directly on par with Cammy, she should scale to this in durability. And in strength, given that Cammy has also consistently harmed Balrog, who tanked the same explosion in his own ending.

Now, you might be wondering whether this is an outlier for mid-tier Street Fighters, but it really shouldn’t be. Even a very early Ryu’s energy was able to power a city busting energy weapon, and Sakura was actually stated to be stronger than this same version of Ryu by E. Honda. Speaking of E. Honda, Sakura has directly fought and beaten him one-on-one, and he has actively noted how strong she is. Additionally, she has directly beaten Zangief, who is stated to be on par with Honda. This is extremely impressive given that E. Honda can destroy meteors reaching up to several hundred megatons of TNT.

Altogether, there are quite a few feats supporting mid-level Street Fighters landing in that large town to large city level range. Obviously, characters like Gill and Akuma have way higher feats, but even with the Satsui no Hado, Sakura likely doesn’t scale to them, capping out at a level more similar to the likes of Cammy, Balrog, and Honda, and rivaling that early version of Ryu.

From there, it’s kind of apparent that in terms of strength, Sakura’s scaling tends to be better than Gwen’s beat-for-beat, if we’re sticking to what’s canon and consistent. Balrog and Cammy have tanked explosions larger than the volcano blast that Peter tanked (double digit kilotons VS triple digit) and E. Honda smashing that meteor is likewise about fifty times higher than the Harlem explosion that Miles barely survived. At best, you might be able to say that Gwen has better natural lifting strength via scaling to Peter Parker holding up portions of a building, but even then, building level is nothing that Sakura’s ki enhancements can’t far outmatch.

On the other hand, just like with their direct feats, speed is a different story, at least when we stick to canon. Peter Parker can dodge light beams and outspeed microwaves, both of which are landing in that relativistic to low FTL range. He can also outspeed lower-level street tiers like Wolverine, who can react to Cyclops’ lightspeed optic blasts and cut through them. And Gwen’s Spider-Sense also gives her exceptional field awareness that improves her reactions even further than that.

In comparison, most of the arguments for Street Fighter being relativistic or FTL come from tertiary canon sources. Mike Haggar is stated to be lightspeed in the English manual for Mighty Final Fight, and Vega is stated to be lightspeed in Namco X Capcom, but those both aren’t main canon. There are several feats well beyond lightspeed in Street Fighter EX, but that’s not really canon either. Haggar also has a relativistic feat in Final Fight Revenge where he piledrives through the planet, but that too is only questionably canon at best.

The best inarguable speed feat in canon Street Fighter would be Bison intercepting his own satellite laser. If you calculate the speed of the blast directly, this can get at most, a little over 1% lightspeed (it would be higher if you assume it’s a lightspeed laser, but that’s debatable). While Sakura doesn’t scale to Bison’s strength, since he’s comparable to stronger versions of Ryu than she is, she should be comparable to Bison’s speed at this point in the timeline, given that it takes place during SF Alpha, at which point Sakura could match Ryu for hours.

With that in mind, Gwen is consistently much faster if we stick with canon sources, with her relativistic to light scaling being far more consistent and viable, whereas Sakura would need secondary canon media to reach that level of speed. So, with everything laid out on the table, canon Sakura is significantly stronger and canon Gwen is significantly faster.

However, what happens if we do go balls to the wall and bring in that secondary canon stuff? Full Spider-Verse scaling for Gwen, and all Street Fighter media for Sakura. Excluding crossover scaling to other franchises like Fortnite and the Darkstalkers crossover, of course.

Well, the first thing to note is that Sakura gets much, much faster. Multiple lightspeed statements become viable, and you would also have characters from Street Fighter EX smacking each other between planets at dozens of times lightspeed, more than enough to eclipse Gwen’s scaling from Peter and other street tiers.

You could argue that Gwen scales to Toei Spider-Man’s mech to maintain an advantage, given that said mech can cross interstellar distances. But for one, that’s a mech that wouldn’t get any kind of “reaction speed” from that kind of feat, making it tricky to scale it to combat speed. For another, remember how we said that most Spider-Man are rated equal in handbooks? Toei Spider-Man is the exception. All his official stats are off the charts compared to the other spiders, so scaling Gwen to his mech is unfortunately off the table.

Well, okay, so Sakura has bridged the speed gap and then some, and is probably faster than Gwen with non-canon sources included. Does Gwen get stronger to overcome the strength gap? The answer is… well, yes and no. In the Ultimate cartoon, Peter has several feats in the double to potentially triple digit megaton range, and Tom Holland Spider-Man can push people out of the way from meteors, requiring similar megaton levels of kinetic energy. This adds consistency to the Harlem feat and potentially puts Gwen’s strength level much closer to E. Honda’s feat.

However, this is only looking at Gwen’s secondary media. Sakura also gets stronger if you bring in secondary canon, to a much greater extent. Just look at Haggar smashing people through the Earth, for instance. Way out of scale with canon feats? Absolutely, no question about that. But Haggar and Zangief are rivals, shown repeatedly in UDON, so if you were to bring in non-canon stuff, Sakura would be comparable via overpowering Zangief. Other Final Fight characters like Cody are top tiers in Street Fighter, but Haggar isn’t, with actual top tiers like Akuma outstripping him. Even if we call it an outlier, which is fair enough, that would at best make strength close to even (triple digit megatons for both) and Sakura would be faster via EX feats.

To shore up a few common Spider scaling arguments before we conclude:

  • Carnage was able to stop Apocalypse’s gene bomb, but it was a biological weapon and it blew him apart, requiring him to regenerate, so it doesn’t scale to his durability
  • Peter Parker was able to fight and defeat Arno Stark, who should be comparable to earlier versions of Iron Man, but Arno’s suit fluctuates in power and was weakened at the time
  • Symbiote Dragons can fly through space, but there is no evidence that this scales to anyone’s reactions
  • Peter Parker was able to withstand a blast from a scepter that could produce an exajoule of energy, but only a portion and it still knocked him out easily, he did not survive the scepter’s full power
  • Peter Parker survived a blast comparable to the one that sunk Atlantis, but he was protected by the Cosmic Cube at the time
  • Miguel O’Hara fought a villain named Chernobyl who “survived” a blast that eclipsed the side of the planet, but it destroyed Chernobyl’s body and turned him into pure energy, so it doesn’t scale to anyone

Even if you were to use all of these feats with no consideration for any of the context or mitigating factors, they would at best make Gwen faster than Sakura again, but still far below the Haggar feat in strength. While it is perfectly fair to label Haggar an outlier, it would be unreasonable to use the above feats for Gwen but reject Haggar scaling for Sakura, since the latter is by all accounts more straightforward.

In summation, canon Gwen scales to around double digit kilotons to double digit megatons and relativistic to FTL. Canon Sakura scales to around triple digit kilotons to triple digit megatons and MHS+ to sub-relativistic. This would make Sakura over 50 times stronger consistently, and Gwen roughly 10-100x faster consistently. It should be noted that this scaling is without accounting for the Satsui no Hado for Sakura, which would potentially make the strength gap bigger and the speed gap smaller.

If you include secondary canon sources and outliers from other media, Gwen would potentially be strong enough to match canon Sakura, while Sakura would be fast enough to match or exceed canon Gwen. But, Sakura would get much stronger and thus maintain the strength advantage, while Gwen would not get significantly faster and thus would not maintain her speed advantage.

However, at most levels of argument, the consistent summary is usually that Sakura is much more powerful while Gwen is much faster.

Arsenal & Abilities

At a glance, neither character appears to have a whole lot of absurd techniques relative to others in their casts, with Sakura having a slight edge in overall quantity due to the abilities afforded by the Fighter Gems and the Satsui No Hado. What matters above all else is quality, and Sakura’s kit lends her more options to take the win.

On the more simple side most of Gwen’s webbing related abilities won’t be of much use here given the sheer power gap allowing her to snap them fairly easily. The symbiote’s options such as the spiders, bladed weaponry, and flight are not only not new to the Street Fighter cast given their run ins with Twelve, but Sakura’s massive AOE could easily deal many of those tools. Her fight with Ken way back in the Alpha era created a city block sized explosion, which is supported by feats from other comparable ki users, making it unlikely Gwen would be able to avoid any potential fatal damage that comes her way. Even abilities like camouflage and the Spider-Sense can only do so much due to Sakura’s Ki sensing and AOE allowing her to easily hit and counter any surprise attacks made on her.

And that’s a pretty big deal. Sakura’s kit is well-suited to countering Gwen’s speed advantage, while Gwen doesn’t have very many options for countering a stronger foe who can nuke the whole area. The one win condition that she might be able to pull off would be BFRing Sakura to another universe, but even this doesn’t come without a few problems. Gwen herself hasn’t actually used this in the middle of combat, and even when an alternate counterpart did, she displayed a hesitancy to actually go through with it and only did so because of how many enemies there were at that point. The Spider-Sense at its peak could give Peter a series of scenarios and options to consider at once, which could potentially help Gwen come up with unorthodox strategies like BFR. But in the very same scan it’s mentioned Peter was only able to get to this point after years of growing accustomed to said Spider-Sense for years and understanding it better. In comparison, Gwen has notably less experience, and has called her own Spider-Sense unreliable.

On the off chance it does work, it’s not entirely unlikely that Sakura could use the Satsui No Hado to dimension hop, as depicted in UDON when it’s likened to the same world hopping abilities as the Aensland, and Akuma’s seemingly using it to escape the void between dimensions. Obviously Sakura hasn’t shown these abilities off making it not 100% reliable, but Gwen hasn’t BFR’d anyone either, so it balances out. Altogether, it’s unlikely that something this hyper-specific would reliably happen before Sakura gets the one hit in to kill her.

“But what about web choking?”

For those who don’t know, this is referring to the possibility of Gwen shooting her webs down Sakura’s throat to suffocate her, which is a tactic that pretty frequently comes up in spider debates when they’re facing an opponent much stronger than them. For starters, Gwen has never done this and would have no reason to think of it. For another, it would require her to hold Sakura still, force her mouth open, and shoot the webs in there for an extended period, which would be hard given that Sakura is stronger than her and is going to be constantly moving around. Even if Gwen is able to get her restrained, there’s nothing stopping Sakura from AOE nuking the area with ki to escape before Gwen has time to choke her. Gwen might be faster, but suffocating Sakura is going to take time, regardless of how fast Gwen herself is.

In comparison, the haxxier abilities Sakura has on her would be easy options for her to win the bout. The gems afforded to her grant her access to many weird elemental powers, the two most relevant being petrification and flame powers. While spiders have resisted the former, it wasn’t instant and took minutes to fully wear off, giving Sakura plenty of time to kill her beforehand. As for fire… well… yeah, the symbiote doesn’t handle that very well, that goes without saying. Last but certainly not least, the Raging Demon’s famous soul hax would just be an easy one way trip to hell, and between side games depicting her using it and Dan learning it instantly upon obtaining it, Sakura could easily use it without much effort. All Sakura needs is one simple touch, and it’d be game over for the Ghost Spider.

Overall, Sakura’s options for this fight are more useful, easier to apply, and far more fatal compared to Gwen’s tools in this fight.

Tertiary Factors

In terms of tertiary factors, both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, in terms of skill, it frankly isn’t even close – Sakura takes skill by a very, very wide margin. Gwen’s been stated in the past to not even know how to properly throw a punch, while Sakura’s been able to imitate Ryu’s fighting style and nearly get on the same level with her own training, with Ryu being obviously one of the greatest martial artists in the world in terms of skill. In addition, Sakura has been able to figure out fighting styles with a glance, meaning she could work out the flaws in how amateur Gwen’s fighting style is immediately. Sakura takes this category for sure.

In terms of experience, Gwen should likely come out on top, though it’s worth noting that she’s struggled with opponents on similar power levels to her who’re more skilled, as demonstrated by her fights with Cindy Moon and the like, meaning that this shouldn’t actually negate Sakura’s massive skill advantage, especially considering both have shown similar levels of adaptability in the past. Sakura has been shown to be able to adapt to counter fighting styles after reading them within a single sentence of her opponent, while Gwen has used her deductive reasoning in the past to be able to do similar things with said advantage. Meaning that Gwen likely isn’t going to be able to fully adapt to Sakura’s attacks before Sakura can do much of the same, evening out this category. In addition, both have fairly impressive stamina feats, with neither being much more impressive than the other, evening out there as well.

Overall, Sakura is far more skilled than Gwen, while Gwen is likely more experienced than Sakura, with both being around even in adaptability, stamina and staying power, meaning that Sakura should likely take tertiaries, with her sheer skill advantage being far better than Gwen’s noticeable, but not nearly as good, experience advantage.

Conclusion

“I never found the right band to join, so I started my own, with a few old friends. You want in?”

Advantages:

  • Faster at most levels of argument
  • Spider-Sense could help with evasion and determining strategies
  • Can potentially BFR Sakura
  • Much better mobility
  • Resists a number of the item balls via her physiology
  • Suffocation via webbing is a valid wincon

Disadvantages:

  • Weaker and less durable at most levels of argument
  • Has little to no skill in actual fighting
  • Forced to play things much more safe compared to Sakura
  • Only has one conceivable way of putting Sakura down
  • Ki sensing would make stealth and invisibility useless
  • Has no counter to the Raging Demon

“I hate to say it, but your moves are just plain booooring.“

Advantages:

  • Much stronger on a consistent basis
  • Substantially more skilled
  • High area of effect counters speed gap
  • Gems like petrification and fire could easily incapacitate Gwen
  • Raging Demon would be a one shot
  • Comparable adaptability and stamina
  • Ki sensing should counter camouflage and stealth attempts
  • Could debatably dimension hop to deal with Gwen’s BFR…
  • Choking is not, in fact, a reliable wincon
  • The most popular SF character! (During 2017 but still!)

Disadvantages:

  • Typically slower at most levels of argument
  • …though she has never done so
  • Less experienced overall
  • Spider Sense could be very annoying to deal with
  • Still isn’t in Street Fighter 6

Overall, Sakura should win almost any way you run through this. While Gwen may have some decent advantages in her own right, they simply pale in comparison to what Sakura has going for her in this fight.

First of all, the power advantage is not something to be underestimated. At least 50 times might not sound like a crazy difference compared to some others, but that’s more than the difference between a 10 year old child and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And that’s without the Satsui no Hado or higher-end calculations for Sakura. If Sakura is punching to kill and the hit lands, that punch will be fatal. On the other hand, while Gwen might be faster, she doesn’t have very many options for hurting Sakura, and thus lacks the means to capitalize on her speed advantage. Sakura’s ki sensing is a match for the Spider-Sense and counters her options for hiding, and her area of effect is big enough to hit Gwen, speed gap or not.

Most possible arguments for Gwen being able to squeak a win, like BFR or web choking, are things that she has never done and that likely would not work in practice. The Satsui no Hado can be used to traverse dimensions, a hypothetical counter to an equally hypothetical tactic. On the other hand, petrification via her gems or the Raging Demon are both one-shot options that Gwen has no good answer to.

And the biggest difference between them, at the end of the day, is their skill. Don’t jump to the wrong conclusion just cuz she’s a Spider: Gwen isn’t a martial artist or a tactician, and her Spider-Sense isn’t nearly as developed as Peter Parker’s. She barely knows how to throw a punch, and gets by mostly on her powers and natural talent. Even setting aside calcs and scaling and gaps in speed or strength, if the fight comes down to a hand-to-hand fight, Gwen isn’t winning in a million years.

Overall, while Spider-Gwen was a dangerous threat, Sakura’s strength, skill, AoE, and ki sensing got her the win. Looks like the Ghost Spider was a Kasu-goner. The winner is Sakura Kasugano.

Final Tally

Spider-Gwen (3) – Lofty, Spidey, TheCardinalKing

Sakura Kasugano (10) – door-kun, TheBlackShulk, Pasbros, TWILTY, Retro, Joshski, Makotofanboy, Rina Antiqua, Strunton, greymerlion2

Remaster Notes

This is probably overall the blog that has required the most adjustments so far, out of the ones we’ve remastered, even accounting for the verdict change in the Universal Monsters Royale blog. Frankly, the original blog was just a bit of a mess and got too “lost in the sauce” VS-wise. It focused a lot on very brainrotted high-end arguments, like Arno and Leopardon scaling for Gwen, and Haggar and EX scaling for Sakura. While the intent of this blog was originally to research Marvel and Street Fighter media outside the primary canon for the sake of being informative, we think it ended up feeling way too disconnected from the actual characters that we were talking about. Obviously country level Spider-Gwen and continent level Sakura with MFTL+ speeds on both sides is way too ridiculous to be the primary point of comparison, even for a “composite.”

On top of this, a lot of the feats and arguments pushed had a lot of actual objective flaws. For instance, Carnage’s gene bomb feat, the symbiote dragons, and the aforementioned Arno and Toei feats for Gwen. In the time since the blog, these have been discussed to death and debunked, but even at the time, most people on the blog thought they were way too generous, and they were mainly addressed for the sake of argument. On the other hand, while most of the feats brought up for Sakura are “legit” (in the sense that they are feats that do actually exist and are mostly calculated accurately, though a few have been updated with some higher or lower calculations), the blog didn’t do a good enough job of delineating what was canon and what was non-canon, and what was consistent VS what was not consistent. It also didn’t elaborate nearly enough on Sakura’s scaling relative to Street Fighter as a verse. It came off like it was saying she is comparable to every character in the series, and was thus misinterpreted as a weird composite of every Street Fighter character ever, rather than an analysis of Sakura specifically.

Hopefully, this version of the blog will have mitigated some of these issues. We can’t just completely avoid scaling Sakura to other characters, obviously, but the verdict is now much more specific about what characters she is comparable to, and what characters she is not comparable to. It also makes an effort to more clearly talk about why Sakura scales to these characters, rather than just brushing past that part. The section discussing their direct feats is also intended to serve as a more “character-specific” analysis of the two fighters, where we are looking exclusively at what they themselves have been shown to do. This is an element that was absent in the original blog that we felt was sorely needed, to help make sure this still feels like “Spider-Gwen VS Sakura” and not “Every Spider-Man VS All of Street Fighter.”

In order to accommodate these changes, we ended up condensing the argument from two verdicts into one. That is to say, Gwen previously had a verdict and now does not. This is because many of the arguments made in her favor are no longer agreed upon, broadly speaking, and thus the Gwen verdict was outdated. Additionally, it is worth noting that Gwen’s team was heavily outvoted even when the blog first came out, and the two verdicts were repetitive with one another, making many of the same points with slight variations. With all this in mind, we felt that with the adjustments made to the blog, a second verdict was unneeded. If we had made one, we would have only done so for the sake of it, rather than out of any real or honest belief that Gwen wins. This is not due to a lack of fondness for Gwen’s character or any attempt to “censor” her arguments, if anyone is concerned about that. It’s just a matter of making the blog more cohesive.

Lastly, Gwen has technically lost the Venom symbiote in the time since the original blog release. However, because of the sheer amount of time she had it for, we see no reason to deny it to her in a debate. Thus, it remains in the blog, though we did add a mention of the fact that she lost it to the introduction section.

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