Some L’s are bigger than others and today we are going to offer you our selection of the finest ass-whoppings and overwhelming defeats in Anime. These are our personal favourites, so feel free to disagree in the comment section, or tell us your favourites. Here, we go.
10. Jotaro Kujo vs Steely Dan
This extremely satisfying beatdown took place in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure part three: Stardust Crusaders. Steely Dan was a follower of Dio Brando, who was sent to assassinate the crusaders party, while they were travelling through Pakistan. Steely Dan was a particularly petty and sadistic antagonist who spent a lot of effort humiliating Jotaro while the cards were stacked in his favour. Once the tables turned, however, he was punished by one of the best “Ora Ora’s” in the series. Good stuff.
9. Escanor vs Galand
Now this is a particularly memorable fight in the Seven Deadly Sins, and one of the finest fights from the best character in the series, the Lion’s Sin of Pride, Escanor. Escanor is a regular human, that receives a sacred power “Sunshine” each day, during the daylight, and becomes a regular human again with nightfall. Escanor, who works as a bartender, was visited by two powerful demon warriors, Galand, and Melascula, who were looking to exact revenge on some of Escanor’s friends, but upon seeing Escanor Galand decided to amuse himself by drinking and playing a game with Escanor. The game consisted of taking turns to hit each other until one of them dies. As encouragment, Galand patted Escanor on the back and consequently knocked him out before the game could even begin.
To their misfortune, however, the amused demons decided to spend the night drinking and in the morning were surprised to discover an overwhelmingly powerful Escanor, who had gained the blessing of the sun and proceeded to wipe the floor with both demons in a spectacular way and definitely earning a spot in our list of the most overwhelming defeats in anime.
8. Goku vs Kefla
Goku’s Kamehameha attack against the Super Sayan Kefla was in my opinion the best moment in the Dragon Ball Super anime, and also one of the most overwhelming defeats in anime of all time. The animation, music and choreography were just superb!
In the anime, Goku and his friends are involved in a tournament created by Zeno, the supreme ruler of the universe. Zeno has decided to host a tournament involving the strongest fighters in all eight universes, and destroy everything except the universe that wins the tournament. So, stakes are high as Goku battles his way through his opponents, one of whom is a pair of Super Sayians from a neighbouring universe, Caulifla and Kale, who as a last resort use Potara earrings in order to fuse into one being and achieve insane amounts of power.
Their overpowered form serves as a perfect counterpoint to Goku’s newly gained ability, Ultra Instinct, a skill called “the state of gods”, which is “an ultimate technique that separates the consciousness from the body, allowing it to move and fight independent of a martial artist’s thoughts and emotions”. [1] Goku uses this ability to deliver one of the most punishing Kamehameha’s, by sliding on the energy wave of Kefla with his own Kamehameha, and unleashing it all on the unsuspecting Kefla. Check it out.
7. Giorno vs Ciocolatta
In part five of Jojo’s Bizarre adventure Araki surprised us with a disturbing and hilarious fight between the part’s protagonist Giorno Giovanni, fathered by Dio Brando, who at the time possessed the body of Jonathan Joestar, thus making Giorno a Joestar as well.
Cioccolatta was a member of the Passione mafia, who was sent to kill Team Bucciarati and ends up fighting Giorno and Mista, both members of the Bucciarati team. Ciocolatta was a former surgeon known for his sadistic tendencies and his strange stand allows him to safely dismember parts of himself and inflect his enemies with deadly mold. After a long, intense fight however, he ends up being defeated by an extremely violent barrage of attacks by Giorno, which send his obliterated body flying straight into a passing garbage truck. Savage, but very entertaining indeed.
6. Whitebeard vs Ronse
Edward D. Newgate, aka “Whitebeard”, was hyped up to be the “strongest man in the world” right before the Marineford arc, where he actually showcased his abilities, and boy were they amazing. One of the first, unfortunate marines to take a shot at the King was Vice Admiral Ronse, a high ranking marine giant, who got throttled in the most spectacular way.
Ronse’s plan was simple, cleave Whitebeard in half with his giant battle-axe, as he loudly declares: “You are wide open Whitebeard!” To his misfortune, Whitebeard was probably both one of the physically strongest characters in the verse, while also controlling the extremely powerful “Gura Gura” (Quake Quake fruit), which can create earthquakes emanating from Whitebeard’s fists. One of these blasts hit Ronse straight in the face, ending that man’s whole career in a couple seconds.
5. Jotaro Kujo vs Telence T. D’arby
This next one’s a treat! Part three is one of my favourite parts of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and this was one of the most memorable and hilarious fights in the whole saga. D’arby, the villain is not a physical fighter, but rather relies on a tricky stand, that can both steal the souls of people who admit defeat to him, and read the minds of people in a simple yes or no scenario.
Darby used this stand to take control of the soul of Kakyoin, Jotaro’s friend’s soul after defeating him in a video game. His goal was to steal the souls of the entire party of the Stardust Crusaders and report to Dio with success, but ended up losing the game thanks to old man Joseph’s clever way to cheat in the game. This resulted in the hilarious internal monologue of D’arby, who was trying to guess the nature of his imminent overwhelming defeat.
4. Genos vs Saitama
The next one was a shocker in more ways than one: the overwhelming power of Saitama, who perfectly counters every move the cyborg Genos has to offer, and the awesome way his power is portrayed through Genos almost experiencing his trademark ‘One Punch’. Genos, who’s weapons had almost levelled the entire area realises that if his master were to fight seriously, his death would be absolutely certain. Genos is outclassed both mentally and physically and takes one of the most overwhelming defeats in Anime. Luckily for him, Saitama is a hero, not a monster. Bonus points for god-like animation!
3. Luffy vs Bellamy
Eichiiro Oda is brilliant with symbolism and with adding deeper meanings to fights. Luffy vs. Bellamy, besides being one of the most epic one shot K.O’s in Anime, was also a battle of ideals between the nihilistic Bellamy, who had given up on dreams despised and violently attacked anyone who dared to spout about grand adventures, and the Great Pirate Age, which he considered to be nonsense. Because of people like him, Loguetown was a place where many dreams came to die. The dream of the Straw Hat Pirates, at the time was to reach the mythological “Sky Island”, a world literally situated in the sky. Bellamy, who was infuriated by these “grand ideas” attacks Luffy and his partner Zoro.
Luffy, after seeing Bellamy’s state of mind, initially refuses to fight and suffers a beatdown, echoing the actions of his mentor Shanks as a child agains the bandits, who were insulting him. Shanks always refused to fight without a real reason, and did not consider insults to his person to be sufficient cause for a fight. Similarly to Shanks back then, however, Luffy returns to fight once more, when he discovers Bellamy had hurt two of his friends. Bellamy confident, that he can deliver a beatdown once again, prepares to end Luffy’s life for good, but gets obliterated with one clean punch that nearly shatters his skull. Luffy declares his next destination to be “Sky Island” and wins over the Bellamy pirates both physically and in terms of ideals.
2. Gon vs Pitou
Now this is a classic within the Anime community; although there isn’t a main character in Hunter X Hunter to the same extent as in most Shonen, characters with probably the most screen time are Gon and Killua. Whereas their adventures where light-hearted in tone, when compared to many other characters arcs in the series, in the Chimera Ant arc, things take a darker tone, and Gon is faced with the murder of a person very important to him. His reaction is shocking, brutal and leads to one of the best overwhelming defeats in Anime.
Gon uses a “nen-contract” which is a highly dangerous way of gaining greater power by an equivalent exchange of risk to oneself. The result of the exchange gives Gon the power he would have as an adult, fully matured Nen user; as probably the most talented character in the series the resulting power is Godly to say the least. Gon’s extremely powerful opponent, Pitou is battered into oblivion with Gon smacking Pitou around with his own dismembered arm by the end of it. Watch it, it is insane.
1. Giorno Giovanni vs King Crimson
The number one spot goes to the recently released climax fight scene of JoJo’s bizarre adventure part five, because of the sheer magnitude of defeat, that the villain King Crimson suffers. In line with Araki’s style, the demise of King Crimson is deeply ironical. King Crimson’s stand allows him to erase time, as if it had never happened, thus being almost invulnerable to all manner of attacks and damage. He uses this to rule the Passione mafia organisation with an iron fist, while keeping his identity secret, even from his own daughter.
Giorno Giovanni, however, after being pierced by the arrow that has the ability to grant stand powers develops a second stage of his ability “Gold Experience Requiem”, which has the extremely overpowered ability to revert everything “to zero”, including al attacks, time and reality itself. If an enemy is attacked by this stand, they will get stuck in a loop experiencing this moment of destruction for eternity. King crimson can erase and rewind time, but he is forever stuck in a reality where he experiences his own demise over and over again; truly deserving spot one in out list of most overwhelming defeats in anime!