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Ok... I know what you're thinking.
"C'mon Shade, what are you doing? Have you lost your marbles?"
To that I say, don't worry. That already happened a while ago. (Couldn't you tell with how Axe Cop vs Bobobo turned out?)
But the funny thing about this match that allures me is that most of the audience is going to think this is one-sided as all crap... and depending on the audience it could look like a stomp in either direction. But you know I'm a sucker for shattering misconceptions and pre-conceived notions, because I'm here to prove to you that this is the PERFECT match for both characters; in terms of both an even fight and themes. And yes, it is more than just "lol bald". These two are essentially on complete polar opposites of the spectrum in terms of anime tropes and storytelling, yet if these two switched places, both of their respective series would pretty much play out the same, and I find that most amusing considering how they're both viewed in their own series and the fandom, with Saitama being a memetic badass like 2005 Chuck Norris or that Shaggy meme from last year, and Krillin being viewed as a weakling.
And now, to preface:
In case you were wondering
Now, for those of you in the know, One Punch Man is a deconstruction of the "I wanna be the strongest" anime trope. It presents it as a sort of Monkey's Paw scenario; since Saitama is the strongest in his universe, and because of that nothing gives him any sense of challenge or excitement, nothing can give him any growth as a character. As such, he effortlessly defeats anyone he comes across, which can make it difficult to gauge his power from a VS standpoint because all of his feats are casual af. We may never actually see him at full power.
Tyler from Imaginary Axis actually does an excellent breakdown of the series and compares him to other fictional universes:
Essentially, it's the character struggle of Superman with the gag feats of Squirrel Girl.
Thus, most fans of the series are led to believe that for any potential opponent he faces, he'll just be pumped up to be that much stronger so he still beats them easily. Which is true... within the confines of his own series.
However, as stated in the video above, what would happen if he faced Popeye after eating his spinach or Squirrel Girl, or even a toonforce character like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny? Would the same concept apply, or would he be subjected to the rules of their universe where they always win?
Questions like this are the very reason VS debates exist. As such, to answer questions like this, we must subject him to the same rules of every other character familiar to the VS scene, or else we're just stuck in a perpetual No-Limits Fallacy stalemate.
Yes, it is very possible that in the future OPM could evolve into a more serious series (pun not intended) where Saitama must eventually overcome an enemy that he actually struggles against and his feats far exceed what we know now, after all Dragonball did start out as a Journey to the West parody, and look where it is now, so who knows. After all years back I analyzed Dante who was also styling on enemies effortlesly, then recently we got DMC5 after over ten years where we finally got a big bad who gave him a lot of trouble, and it bumped him up from around city-island to continent level.
As it is now though, the original OPM web comic is stagnant and it'll
take a while for the Manga and anime to catch up with the story, so we
may not get that for years, assuming the series even goes on for that
long. If Saitama gets an upgrade, I'll just have to update my analysis of him and probably write a new blog on what changed.
So with all that out of the way...
Backstory
Krillin
For a kid who joined Roshi's school to meet and impress girls (which, funnily enough, inadvertently allowed him to meet 18), he's certainly come a long way.
He grew up with and trained along Goku at an early age in Kame-Sennin Ryu, or the Art of the Turtle Hermit which would teach them to manipulate Ki and push their bodies past their physical barriers to become superhuman. Well, super-saiyan in Goku's case. But not Super Saiyan-ah, you know what I mean...
At first, Goku is portrayed as a prodigy, becoming strong faster and catching on quickly to Ki techniques like the Kamehameha that took Roshi twenty years to master. However, this is retconned in a flashback in DBZ where it's established that Goku had trouble matching Krillin's power, being the stronger of Roshi's students, or at least at the time.
He also participated in the Tenkaichi Budokai World Tournament, where he performed well against Chiaotzu, who may look innocent and childlike, but was actually a dangerous opponent with assassination techniques.
But things really started to get serious when King Piccolo showed up, whose minion Tambourine caused the first tragic death of Krillin. Which was a bigger deal at the time, because Shenron was limited by the conditions under which he could revive people, not to mention King Piccolo himself killed Shenron, rendering the balls inert (*snicker*).
Everything turned out okay in the end though, as Kami was able to revive Shenron after Goku killed the original Piccolo, resulting in the birth of Piccolo Junior who would become a critical teammate in the battles to come.
The alien invader known as Raditz had arrived, along with the plot twist that Goku had been an alien known as a Saiyan the whole time, who had been sent here to wipe out humanity. Krillin got KOd from a single tail attack from Raditz, leaving Goku, Gohan, and Piccolo to take him out. But unfortunately the tables had turned for the two friends and this time Goku had died in the battle.
The remaining fighters then had to prepare for the arrival of two more Saiyans in one year without the aid of Goku. Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien and Chioatzu did well to fend off the saiyan Nappa and his Saibamen before Goku's return. This left Goku and Vegeta to fight each other alone, where Goku had come out on top in their initial fight, but Goku's body was tremendously weakened by straining his body with the Kaioken Times Four, and was left immobilized after Vegeta crushed him as a Great Ape. Yajirobe then cut off his tail with his sword in a surprise attack, reverting him back to his base form, but still a threat. Krillin also took the Spirit Bomb made by Goku and threw it at Vegeta, which he dodged but Gohan bounced back. Everyone remaining including Krillin then dogpiled on him and did surpirisingly well surviving against a bloodlusted Vegeta, though it was Gohan who dealt the final blow as a Great Ape.
Krillin then took Yajirobe's sword and balls-ily threatened to kill Vegeta with it, but was convinced to spare him. Good thing too, as it'd be unlikely that they would survive in the future without his help.
He traveled to Namek along with Gohan and Bulma to retrieve the Namekian Dragonballs, where they came across Freeza and his army, including the feared Ginyu force. He teamed up with Vegeta to defeat them, and fought the Captian himself after he swapped bodies with Goku. It is to note that Ginyu was inexperienced with using Goku's body and could not access his full power or techniques like the Kaioken, however. Actually, come to think of it, why in the hell did Goku never teach Krillin, Gohan, or anyone else the Kaioken or Instant Transmission? That would have come in as a life-saver on multiple occasions! Freaking Goku hogging all the best moves...
Anyhow, Krillin also aided in the battle against Freeza and allowed Vegeta a Zenkai boost with a ki blast canon through the chest followed by a heal. But Freeza, due to being a sore loser after getting hit by Goku's Sprit Bomb, dealt Krillin his second death. This inadvertently saved the universe, as the discovery of the Super Saiyan transformation allowed the Saiyan characters to reach new heights. Though, somebody could have just tickled Goku and Vegeta's backs, it would have saved a lot of time and nobody would have to die
Since then, he started a new life with Android
(Cyborg?)18 and had a child named Marron (NOT Maron, the blue-haired chick
Krillin was with for a short while, best not to get them confused around 18 if
you value your life).
He's also recently made a name for himself as a cop, so
for a guy who's generally perceived as a loser and a weakling, this couldn't be
further from the truth.
Saitama
The man known as Saitama is registered as "Caped Baldy", B-Class Hero, rank 7 (Later A in the web comic). But because of his overwhelming power that is unbeknownst to his coworkers, he ends his fights (if you can even call them that) so quickly that nobody ever seems to witness his true strength, not to mention he is not popular amongst the fans of the other superheroes in his world, hence his slightly above average ranking and the general "meh" crowd perception. But under the guise of his unremarkable appearance and popularity, he is the Saikyo Hero, the One Punch Man himself.
But even before all that, he was just an ordinary man who hit rock bottom. He barely scraped by in the slums of City Z, and was just rejected from his last job interview. Just after, he came across a crab monster who had spared his life due to him having that same lifeless look in his eyes that he had. But when that monster threatened the life of a child, Saitama sprang into action and rescued his life. It was at this moment that he decided he wanted to be a hero. He had nowhere to go but up.
So he started training like his life depended on it, preparing for the day the he would become the strongest hero, and he succeeded.
By...doing a bunch of pushups, situps, and jogging.Yes, this is the actual origin story.
This is a direct callout to the anime Shonen trope of characters getting inexplicably stronger with training, a trope that Dragonball helped perpetuate, and makes this matchup even more fitting due Krillin achieving his superhuman abilities in a similar way, and the meta-joke being all the more relevant with DB Super, only there it's not a joke. Looking at you, Golden Freeza. Six months...SIX MONTHS!
If we were to actually attempt to analyze this from an in-universe perspective though, Dr. Genus describes the secret to Saitama's overwhelming power as "breaking his limiter". This is in reference to a real biological phenomenon known as the Plateau Effect, where every living being has a cap to their physical capabilites and growth. But Saitama had somehow found a way to soar past his own "limiter" Plateau, either by becoming something beyond human, or acheiving the absolute apex of what a human being is capable of in his universe.
If we were to actually attempt to analyze this from an in-universe perspective though, Dr. Genus describes the secret to Saitama's overwhelming power as "breaking his limiter". This is in reference to a real biological phenomenon known as the Plateau Effect, where every living being has a cap to their physical capabilites and growth. But Saitama had somehow found a way to soar past his own "limiter" Plateau, either by becoming something beyond human, or acheiving the absolute apex of what a human being is capable of in his universe.
He then faced every villain and monster he came across, swiftly annihilating them with
a single punch. Eventually he came across the Cyborg Genos, who had requested
to become his disciple after he witnessed his devastating power.
They both enlisted in the Hero Association when income was
low, with Genos impressively making S rank in the entry exams, but ironically
Saitama only placed in C class due to doing poorly on the written exam and destroying most of their equipment in the physical portion. Due to
appearing on the scene with A and S class heroes and dealing with catastrophic
events, he's been bumped up a couple levels since then.
His seniors Snek (yes, I spelled that right) and Blizzard of
Hell Fubuki attempted to bully him into staying in the lower ranks, though he
taught them both a lesson in humility and she decided it was a better idea to
join him instead.
I
totally wouldn't mind her joining me and hanging around at my house
He
also befriended the S-class hero King and the two play video games together.
Feats
Dispersed rain and storm clouds over a city when punching
Sea King
Broke all records in the Hero Association's fitness exam and
destroyed most of their equipment. Keep in mind this is in comparison to
S-class heroes, the strongest of which are at least multi-city level and
hypersonic. Reminder that he isn't even trying.
Is able to KO the hypersonic… Speed-O-Sound Sonic (it gets
brought up how stupid and redundant his name is in the series) before he can
react on multiple occasions.
In his sparring match with Genos, Genos was essentially
fighting his afterimage the whole time. Genos demands him to quit fooling
around and get serious, Saitama obliges him and delivers a heavy punch that
scares him, but he pulls his punch at the last second so as not to hurt him.
Even though he did this and it didn't make contact, it still created a massive
trench in the ground behind him from the sheer air pressure.
Got knocked to the moon by Boros, then jumped back to Earth
in seconds (doing so pulverized about 40% of the moon's surface). A
sub-relativistic feat. Also showcases at least multicontinental DC and dura.
Image uploaded by Gwynbleidd on VBW
When Saitama decides to put more effort into his
punch, he counters Boros's final attack and creates an air vacuum so powerful
it splits clouds around the planet. Some calcs put this at multi-continental,
though this only accounts for the atmosphere split. If we factor in the fact
that this punch countered the Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon as well as had the
effect of splitting the clouds, this punch is estimated to be about twice the
GBE of the Earth as a high end (see the Imaginary Axis video above).
This same punch vaporizes Centi-Choro, or Elder
Centipede for you non-weebs. This monster was a city sized bug monster that
gave the S-class heroes Bang, Metal Bat, and Blast trouble, it had an extremely
hard exoskeleton they had difficulty piercing through, and even if they managed
to do so it would regenerate with an even harder carapace.
This is pretty much a bit feat compared to the
effect his Serious Punch had above, but it's still noteworthy as it shows a
sense of scale.
One-shot Monster King Orochi, who was more
powerful than any other monster in the series (besides maybe Boros and Garou).
Defeats God Garou with relative ease.
For context, the Hero Association assigns Threat
Levels to monsters and potential natural disasters to decide which heroes to
send out to deal with them. They are as follows:
Wolf- any potential threat that may disturb the
peace or day-to-day living, also a placeholder for threats of unknown degree
Tiger- a threat endangering a large number of
people
Demon- a threat to the existence and well-being
of a city and its inhabitants
Dragon- a danger to multiple cities
God- a threat that endangers the planet and/or
human civilization as a whole
Now, Garou is essentially the anti-Saitama. He
views the world as unfair and sees heroes as bigots squandering in popularity
as he was bullied for sympathizing with the monsters. He wishes to become the
monster that will make a statement for the meek and ugly, by becoming the
strongest monster that will finally defeat the heroes. And for the most part,
he succeeds. All up until he met… well, guess.
Before Garou, no threat had reached the level of
God before, even Orochi was considered a high Dragon level threat at best. You
could argue Boros was God level as no matter whether you accept him as
multicontinental or planet level, either one is capable of wiping out human
civilization, and it's possible that the Hero Association would have assigned
him that level had they known about him.
Regardless, Garou takes out the entire S-class
Hero Association (minus Blast because he's a prick and never shows up)
single-handedly, until Saitama comes along and toys with him a bit, shows him
what he can do when he gets serious, and essentially breaks his spirit causing
him to give up. If nothing else, this adds a bit of credence to the idea that
Boros was a planet-buster.
Krillin
Endured Roshi's intense training regimen as a
child for eight months
Scales to Kid Goku who countered Roshi's
Kamehameha
https://imgur.com/a/EZA21
Scales to King Piccolo who destroyed cities
Kid Goku swims to the other side of the planet
in a short time frame, also surpassed the speed of the mach 4 Kinto-un
Kills four Saibamen at once, who were all about
the strength of Raditz.
His Kienzan/ Destrcto Disk was able to hurt
Nappa and cut through a large Plateau
Able to outpace and hurt Dodoria and dodge his
attacks, who should be around multicontinental (if not planet level, funnily
enough his Gallick Gun falls in the same vein as Boros's attack) and hypersonic
with scaling from Saiyan Saga Vegeta.
Piccolo's moonbust. The ki blast should also be
on par with Saitama's moon jump in terms of speed.
Cuts off 2nd Form Freeza's tail
Scales to Yamcha and Tien who defeated the Ginyu
Force
Scales to a relativistic feat from Goku in anime
filler (I think it's fine since I'm using the web series, manga and anime for
Saitama)
Performs well in the Tournament of Power, a
multiverse-wide free-for-all. (Though he doesn't do anything crazy like fight
Jiren)
Abilities
Saitama
Normal Punch
Pretty self-explanatory. His average attack he
dishes out casually with minimal effort. It causes shockwaves that spread
through cities and can disperse clouds or create large craters or trenches from
the immense air pressure caused by Saitama moving his arm. He of course has
other physical strikes like kicks, chops, slaps, throws, etc but this is his
usual bread and butter (just in case you couldn't tell already from the name of
the show).
Consecutive Normal Punch
Again, pretty much what you'd expect. A flurry
of his normal punches done in rapid succession. He usually uses this for
opponents that need to be attacked at multiple sections of their body, like
monsters with regeneration. He also has a two-handed variant for enemies
rushing at him from multiple angles or removing rocks or debris.
Serious Series
A series of special moves
Saitama can use for opponents that can withstand more than one of his normal
punches, or otherwise monsters that need to be taken out quickly with no traces
left behind. Contrary to his normal moves, he's actually putting a bit of
effort into these.
Serious Headbutt
Completely
obliterated half of God Garou's body, along with his fist while he was
attempting to punch him and he used this as a counter.
Serious Sideways Jumps
When Speed-o-Sound Sonic attempted to ambush him
with his after image attack Tenfold Funeral, Saitama responded with this move,
overwhelming him with countless after images he was unable to track, in
addition to creating a shockwave that knocked him out.
Serious Table Flip
Saitama pulls out a large portion of the Earth's
crust and hurls it into the sky. This disorients the enemy by knocking them off
their center of balance and removing their footing, in addition to crushing
them with a delayed attack when the ground falls back to earth.
Serious Punch
The most powerful attack we've seen from Saitama
to date, though still not quite his full power.
Krillin
Ki Manipulation
Essentially the source of all of Krillin’s
power. It allows most of the abilities in DBZ such as flight, super strength,
durability, speed, energy projection, etc.
But these are the signature moves Krillin uses
with his Ki:
Kamehameha
The move that Dragonball is famous for. Simply
put, it’s a wave of destructive energy. It can be redirected, moved, expanded,
or focused into a ball. It also has variants that can be fired from the feet or
fingers, though Krillin mainly uses the standard one.
Kienzan
Kienzan, or Destructo Disc if you prefer the
English Dub, is a move where Krillin condenses his Ki into a thin, bladed disc
that can cut through opponents more durable than him. Can fire off multiple at
once or rapid-fire them in quick succession.
Solar Flare
A blinding light that obstructs the opponent's
eyesight. Also has a more powerful variant called Solar Flare X100 that he
developed in DB Super.
Continuous Kamehameha/Scattering Bullet
An attack utilizing misdirection. Shoots an
energy beam forward, then raises it up towards the sky, then bombards the
opponent with a rain of Ki blasts from above.
Weaknesses
Saitama
Saitama’s strength is also his greatest
weakness. Because nothing can challenge him, he lives in a state of depression
and mental sensory deprivation. This leads to loss of interest and huge lapses
in attention. He often zones out during exposition dumps and monologues and is
prone to losing his patience if anyone speaks for long periods.
Due to being exponentially stronger than
everyone else, there was never a necessity for him to develop any additional
technique or skills than the average person would have. This is especially
evident in his gaming sessions with King, where he just throws out overpowered
moves because that's what works for him in real life, but on a level playing
field like in a fighting game, those moves are easily read by a much more
experienced player, which is also true in real life, we've just never seen that
in the series, which is exactly his problem. Nobody has ever challenged him
enough to force him to develop new strategies, techniques, abilities, etc like
you see with other Shonen protags and superheroes. Which isn't to say he can't
think of new ways to fight of course, it's just not a necessity for him.
In fact, he once participated in a martial arts
competition to try and learn about fighting on a more precise and technical
level, but his fights were all over too fast for him to learn anything. He's
simply too strong for his own good, which ironically would be a game-changer if
he was fighting someone on an equal level to him or higher.
Krillin
Krillin doesn't have any outstanding weaknesses
per say, it's just that he's living in a world with overpowered Saiyans and
actual GODS that make him seem weak in comparison.
He appeared to have some sort of trauma due to
his deaths, though he overcame this in Super.
Verdict
Remember when I said I love shattering
preconceived notions? Yeah, the funniest thing about this match is that the
jobber beats the Mary Sue. While that may sound weird on paper, as I said
before, the concept of Saitama only really works in his own series, and if
Krillin and Saitama were to swap places, their fights would pretty much end the
same.
Now, I do like to be fair, and some may think I
wasn't since I didn't showcase Saitama's full power. Well… since we've never
really seen that, that's kinda difficult.
But let's give Saitama the benefit of the doubt.
The only real way we can determine Saitama's full strength (based on what we
already know) is to look at the difference between his casual punches and his
Serious Punch, and use that as a baseline to try and determine a grade beyond
that (knowing the series he probably has something like "Super Serious" and another level beyond even that, but let's not make too many assumptions here). It's not an exact science, but let's play what-if.
We know that his normal punches are city level.
The middle grade for city level is 200 MT of TNT equivalent, according to the
OBD's Comprehensive Energy Scale.
The high end for his Serious Punch is about 115
Zettatons of TNT (about twice the GBE of Earth) or 115000000000000000 MT.
This is so much of a difference that subtracting
to find the exact difference and adding would basically just be slightly less
than doubling it. So let's multiply just to see how far we can take it.
115000000000000000×200=23000000000000000
23 quadrillion MT is A LOT, but it's still
planet level. Now, let's compare it to Krillin.
Cutting off Second Form Freeza's tail was a big
deal, especially considering busting planet Vegeta in his First Form is calc'd at
Star Level. Even if we consider
this an outlier, the lowest stellar feat that Krillin scales to is Piccolo's
moonbust, which yielded 37.4607
Zettatons, which is in the
ballpark of Saitama's Serious Punch, and this is a massive lowball considering
this is Piccolo before he absorbs Nail, and Krillin fights characters even
stronger than that.
But let's assume that Krillin and Saitama are
completely equal. If you recall, I mentioned how Saitama doesn't really know
any fighting techniques beyond what an average human would know since he never
really received any formal training. And with how he is now, there's nobody
that can really teach him or challenge him to draw out any more of his
potential, even if he tried he wouldn't really gain anything from it, as we've
seen in the tournament arc. That's kind of how One Punch Man works on a meta level.
That's another reason this match is interesting
to me. Where tertiary things like fighting skill normally take a backseat to
stats, here it actually makes a difference. Krillin is an expert martial
artist, whereas Saitama is an amateur when it comes to fighting, but in his
universe it doesn't matter because he outstats everyone. But here, it would
most definitely come into play.
Next Time...
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Well, I guess that just about does it for this time. I am Hero's Shade, and I'll se you all next time!
