Ragna VS Sol Badguy

Ragna VS Sol Badguy is the 41st episode of Death Battle, featuring Ragna the Bloodedge from the BlazBlue series and Sol Badguy from the Guilty Gear series in a battle between Arc System Works' fighting game protagonists.
==Interlude==
Wiz: No anime tough guy trope is complete unless he has outrageous spiky hair, a sword that's clearly compensating for something...
Boomstick: And belts. Lots and lots of belts.
Wiz: Ragna, the Bloodedge.
Boomstick: And Sol Badguy, the Flame of Corruption. He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.
==Ragna the Bloodedge==
Wiz: Nearly a century ago, humanity was hunted to near-extinction by the fearsome Black Beast. Fortunately, six brave heroes slayed the monster and saved mankind. The remains of humanity was reorganized under an oppressive government until one man decided to rise up: Ragna the Bloodedge.
Boomstick: Baggy pants, giant sword, brooding personality. Ragna has tragic backstory written all over him.
Wiz: I'd actually go with gruesome. As a young child, he and his siblings were confined in an experimental facility as lab rats.
Boomstick: Bummer. What were they trying to do?
Wiz: No one knows. The important thing here is they were rescued by a talking cat named Jubei, who also happened to be the most feared warrior on the planet. However, things took a darker turn when Ragna's sister Saya grew very sick.
Boomstick: With what?
Wiz: Sickness? No one knows. Ragna took Saya under his wing, but their younger brother Jin was irritated that Ragna was not spending more time with him. Being a reasonable guy, he decided the only solution was to murder his brother.
Boomstick: Oh yeah! That makes a ton of sense! "I'm lonely. I'll kill one of the people I care about." Great plan. So then a maniacal hipster villain named Yūki Terumi showed up out of nowhere, helped Jin impale Ragna through the chest, and then cut off his arm for good measure.
Wiz: Why? How? No one knows. Have you familiarized yourself with that phrase yet? Good, 'cause it's not stopping anytime soon.
Boomstick: Moving on for sanity's sake, Ragna would've been done for until an omniscient time-traveling pig-tailed vampire descended from the heavens, snapped her fingers, magicked him a new arm, and left. No, no. Don't think. Just accept.
Wiz: Surprisingly still conscious and apparently an expert of things that never happened before, Ragna instantly recognized his new appendage as a Azure Grimoire, a piece of the Black Beast which Ragna can use to manipulate Seithr. Seithr is a radioactive energy left behind by the Black Beast all over the world.
Boomstick: Like magic.
Wiz: Well no, Magic is totally different.
Boomstick: But it lets him do magic-type stuff...
Wiz: Yes...
Boomstick: Ooo... kay! Well after missing out on the maiming and resurrection of Ragna, Jubei the cat ninja returned and decided to teach him the ways of combat.
Wiz: Where the hell was he before? No one knows.
Boomstick: Probably destroying someone's furniture or pissing in their shoes.
Wiz: Through his training, Ragna's control over Seithr became practically unmatched. He can form various parts of the Black Beast in combat, transform his own arm into razor-sharp claws, or drain the soul of his foe through his strikes.
Boomstick: But if he needs more power, more defense, and more... soul-sucking, he can crank these up to 11 with his Blood Kain form.
Wiz: Upon completing his training, Jubei bestowed upon him a red cloak and a deadly blade called Blood Scythe.
Boomstick: This baby can extend for stabbing strikes and like the Azure Grimoire, slowly drains the souls of its victims upon contact. And before you point out that it's clearly a sword and not a scythe, it can do this.
----
Ragna use his Astral Heat on Arakune, which causes Blood Scythe to transform into a Scythe.
----
Boomstick: Ragna's angsty rage took him on a world tour of single-handed government smashing, earning him the nickname the Grim Reaper.
Wiz: And racking up an unprecedented bounty of 90 billion... whatever their currency is. No one knows. And despite being the largest bounty of all time, he still freely walks the world on foot and in public with no attempt to disguise himself whatsoever.
Boomstick: Probably because nobody wants to piss him off. We're talkin' about a guy who treats getting knocked though solid concrete as an inconvenience, has survived multiple impalings through the chest, took out hundreds of armed officers without breaking a sweat, and obliterated an entire street with a single one-hand sword strike.
Wiz: Ragna is referred to by some as the most powerful man in the world, but he's also known as a risk-taker with a short temper.
Boomstick: And despite being trained by the most dangerous kitty cat in the world, Ragna's obviously nowhere near Jubei's level of skill, who terrifies even the deadliest villains of the series.
Wiz: But after all's said and done, Jubei left Ragna with a dire warning: never think of the Azure Grimoire as your own.
Boomstick: Which is kind of bullshit. I mean it's attached to him, so I'm pretty sure he's got dibs.
Wiz: Well he does, but if he loses control over it, it can transform him into the Black Beast itself. In fact, Ragna was the original Black Beast, sent back in time after falling into a magic cauldron. The two were somehow separated and did battle in the past. These events would repeat themselves in a 100 year time loop until this chick saved Ragna from falling into that cauldron, stopping the Black Beast from appearing in the past in the first place.
Boomstick: But if the Black Beast never went back in time, then it never would've created Seithr, and everything in BlazBlue shouldn't exist as we know it. So how—
Wiz: NO ONE KNOWS!!!
Boomstick: ...You wanna just make this guy fight someone now?
----
Ragna: I'm the main character, and yet again, I get left in the dark! It's really starting to piss me off!
----
==Sol Badguy==
Wiz: Way back in the year 2010, the discovery of magic forever changed the course of human history. Traditional technology was eliminated for newer and environmentally friendly methods, and after improving the planet, a certain world superpower sought to improve mankind itself.
Boomstick: Oh hey, another super soldier project. Lemme guess, they injected this guy with some serum and it didn't really work out the way they wanted, but now he's a badass.
Wiz: Replace serum with magic and... close enough. This man would emerge as the feared bounty hunter, Sol Badguy.
Boomstick: So he's clearly the bad guy.
Wiz: Actually he's the main hero of the story.
Boomstick: Well then, why would they...
Wiz: Before Sol's transformation, he was known as Frederick, a scientist tasked with leading the super solider project alongside with his love interest, Aria, but whether he intended to or not, Frederick would become the prototype of this new super race, the Gears.
Boomstick: But is he... guilty?
Wiz: Oh hell yeah! He was responsible for Aria's death. And then her next death when she was resurrected into this... thing.
Boomstick: Oh. Wasn't expecting her to look like that, but not as much as I wasn't expecting the BLUE ROBO PENIS! Who even does that?!
Wiz: She was likely created as a "Eff You!" to poor Sol by That Man.
Boomstick: Which man?
Wiz: That Man.
Boomstick: I only see Sol Badguy.
Wiz: No, no it's That Man.
Boomstick: It's just me and you here, Wiz.
Wiz: Listen. The villain is That Man.
Boomstick: Sol Badguy's the hero and the villain?
Wiz: No, no, he's another character- just pretend Sol Badguy's not there.
Boomstick: YOU MEAN HE'S INVISIBLE?!
Wiz: When this person was born into the world, his parents looked at this child and decided they would name him "That Man"!
Boomstick: Who were they looking at, Wiz?!
Wiz: HIS NAME IS T-H-A-T, SPACE, M-A-N!
Boomstick: WELL F-U-C-K, SPACE, Y-O-U! I'M OUT!
The screen pauses and goes monochromatic as Boomstick slams an off-screen door close and leaves.
SOME TIME LATER...
Boomstick: So... I looked at the Internet and discovered that his actual name is... "That Man". I apologize for earlier. Let's move on.
Wiz: Sol had to maintain a human appearance to disguise his true Gear form. So he developed a special limiter headpiece to keep his own power at bay.
Boomstick: If that thing comes off, say goodbye to whoever recently pissed him off.
Wiz: As a Gear, Sol's aging was slowed to a near halt, allowing him more than enough time to develop his own fighting style.
Boomstick: Well, whatever fighting style lets you punch fire, that's the one I wanna learn! Sol's Volcanic Viper and Fafnir Punches are flame-enhanced strikes, while his Riot Stomp flies in with a fearsome kick. And because this is anime, Sol can trigger his second form: the Dragon Install.
Wiz: The Dragon Install allows Sol to safely tap into a fraction of his full Gear power, boosting his strength, speed, and healing ability. The drawback: he can only sustain this power for so long and afterward, he's left vulnerable.
Boomstick: As Sol wandered the Earth, That Man began a plan for world domination using an army of Gears. In response, Sol put together a Gear-obliterating superweapon called Outrage.
Wiz: Which looks like the world's most complicated can opener... or next-gen Bop It.
Boomstick: Turns out it was so powerful, nobody could wield it... not even Sol. So he had to split it apart into eight pieces just to make it usable. Naturally, he took the best piece for himself: the flame-enhanced Fireseal. I wanna fire seal, that'd be fuckin' sweet. Try and eat me now, orca whale. Fire seal!
Wiz: Using Fireseal to its full potential, Sol defeated That Man's forces twice over. 
Boomstick: And then he decided to upgrade the shit out of it with the Junkyard Dog Mark 3 casing.
Wiz: But this is hardly the full extent of Sol's power. He once survived the Backyard, an alternate dimension which would annihilate the soul of a normal man. And by removing his headband, he can access his full unrestrained potential.
Boomstick: Like when he shot a laser out of his sword to incinerate an inhuman Gear the size of Mount Everest!
Wiz: And once, he went back in time and witnessed his past self get murdered, which should've erased him from the present ala Marty McFly, but he didn't like that idea very much, so he just... didn't.
Boomstick: After BlazBlue, nothing is too bizarre for me anymore.
Wiz: Sol is powerful, but fears his full potential. He's also pretty lazy. His favorite strategy is always whatever's the least strenuous. This lack of extra effort can sometimes leave him underestimating his opponent.
Boomstick: But the second he starts trying, few can stand in his way.
==Prelude==
Wiz: Alright, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all!
Boomstick: IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLEEE!!!
==Death Battle==
Note: Sol speaks in Japanese, so all his dialogue will be in parenthesis.
The fight takes place in BlazBlue's Kagutsuchi at nighttime during a rainstorm. In a large garden, Sol is looking over at a wanted poster for Ragna. Ragna walks right past Sol, who then runs past him and stops him in his tracks.
Sol: (You're an eyesore!)
Ragna: Who are you? Out of my way, or you're dead.
Sol: (Tsk. Gun Flame!)
Sol releases Gun Flame at Ragna, which Ragna steps back and avoids.
Ragna: You gotta be kidding me. Let's get this over with!
Sol: (I'll burn you to a crisp.)
Sol charges at Ragna, whom is about to slam Blood Scythe down, and stops it with Fireseal. The two knock each other back and Sol tries using Gun Flame again. Ragna avoids this and lunges at Sol, whom jumps back before slamming Fireseal. The two clash weapons once again, then swing their swords at each other. As Ragna goes for a strike, Sol jumps upward and kicks Ragna, who goes flying toward a wall. Ragna bounces upward to attack, but Sol kicks him multiple times before using Volcanic Viper and finishes it with Bandit Revolver before sending him slamming to the ground.
Ragna lands on his knees and breathes heavily before preparing the Azure Grimoire.
Ragna: Bitch! Restriction Number 6...
Before Ragna can finish, he is kicked to the face by Sol's Bandit Revolver once more, knocking him back.
Ragna: You're gonna pay!
Ragna punches the ground, then raises Azure Grimoire. Suddenly, Sol is trapped by Dead Spike.
Ragna: Restriction 666 released, Dimensional Interruption Imaginary Number Formed! BlazBlue, activate!
Ragna charges at Sol for a punch. The Dead Spike holding Sol disappears, but before he can react, Ragna punches him, sending him flying into the next area, where he bounces off a wall. Before he can hit the ground, Ragna uses the Azure Grimoire to stab him, then proceeds to unleash a combo with Blood Scythe.
Ragna: It's my turn now!
The combo concludes with Sol hitting the ground. Ragna picks him up, but the grapple is reversed and Sol throws Ragna into the wall.
Ragna: Idea Engine, linked! This'll sting!
Suddenly, the Azure Grimoire glows with a white light and Sol is suddenly knocked right into the wall. He then falls down with his next comment muffled by the ground.
Sol gets up and unleashes Dragon Install to tap into his power, to which Ragna retaliates with Blood Kain.
Ragna: Blood Kain!
The two charge at each other and strike, with both hitting the other's sword. Sol is on the offensive and overpowers Ragna, then knocks him into the air. During his assault, Ragna reverses it and slams Sol back to the ground. He flies downward and swings Bloodscythe as Sol jumps out of the way, then the two trade swings and punches. Then Ragna grabs ahold of Sol by his head and tosses him into the air before punching him and striking him with Blood Scythe multiple times.
Ragna: Inferno Divider!
Ragna lands and exits Blood Kain while Sol falls to the ground. Sol lies down and is about to get up, but then he exits Dragon Install and is momentarily stunned. Ragna uses this to his advantage and grabs him.
Ragna: Tappin' out?
Ragna places Blood Scythe in front of him, then extends it, penetrating through Sol, who screams out in pain. Ragna then tears it out of Sol, whom falls to the ground.
Ragna: I'm not gonna waste anymore time on you, asshole!
Suddenly, Ragna is stabbed.
Ragna: Shit!
Sol had stabbed Ragna above the groin with Fireseal. Ragna steps back and begins to bleed from his wound. This pushes Ragna too far and after dark clouds of smoke cover him,
Ragna transforms into the multi-headed Black Beast. Sol looks over at the eight-headed beast and as smoke covers him, he takes off his headband and transforms into his true Gear form. As the heads of the Black Beast charge towards Sol, Sol swings Fireseal, firing a powerful blast. The Black Beast's heads are overwhelmed and the blast continues to fire upward into the sky.
After a bright flash of light, Sol is seen standing on a small piece of land after the attack in his regular form, with Ragna nowhere to be seen. Sol then cracks his neck and chuckles.
Sol jumps down into the rubble, comes across a book titled "BlazBlue Story Script", uses Tyrant Rave on it to knock it away, and then walks off.
==Results==
Boomstick: Bullseye!
Wiz: Ragna put up a tough fight, but Sol had him outclassed.
Boomstick: Likely due to the fact that while Ragna had on four belts, Sol had 18.
Wiz: Sol's centuries worth of fighting experience trumped Ragna's training and he has consistently shaken off wounds more easily.
Boomstick: Even Sol's... soul is tough enough to withstand Ragna's Azure Grimoire, just like when it survived the Backyard.
Wiz: The Black Beast was impressive, but Sol's Gear form is leagues above. Recall when Sol turned that Gear the size of Mount Everest into dust. By comparing the size of the Gear to the clouds, we can determine its volume to be around 140 billion cubic meters. Destroying something this size would require more than 85 gigatons of TNT. That's nearly 200 times more powerful than the 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan in 2011.
Boomstick: More than enough to take Ragna down... and that was only a fraction of Sol's real power. Ragna just burned out in the end.
We cut to the "Winner" card.
Wiz: The winner is Sol Badguy.
==Trivia==
===Production===
*The core connections between Ragna and Sol are that they are both fighting game protagonists created by Arc System Works who traditionally wear red, wield giant swords as their main weapons (Blood Scythe and Fireseal, respectively), and contain incredibly destructive power inhibited within them (Ragna's Azure Grimoire can transform him into the Black Beast, while Sol wears a headband to restrain his full Gear form). In addition:
**They also wear many belts in areas that aren't necessary.
**Both had a long standing rivalry with a blue-clad, blonde swordsman with elemental powers (Jin Kisaragi and Ky Kiske, respectively).
*This is the last episode to be released on a Friday, as future episodes were released on Wednesdays until Season 7, where all future episodes since then were moved to being released on Mondays until Death Battle '24, where the release day was moved to Sundays.
*The animator, Zack Watkins, has a version of the fight on the channel in 60 FPS. However, the video has since been made private.
===Easter Eggs===
*After kicking Ragna into a wall, Sol performs a "Dust Loop" on Ragna, which is a fandom term for an aerial combo in the Guilty Gear series in which a character uses their jumping Dust Attack on their opponent multiple times.
===Errors===
*All six instances of the infamous "No one knows." running gag in Ragna's analysis (where Wiz implies that the questions asked before the phrase have no answers whatsoever) have actual explanations within BlazBlue itself.
**The purpose of Ragna, Jin, and Saya being "confined in an experimental facility as lab rats" was to both find a vessel for Terumi and conduct experiments on artificial humans, the latter of which led to the discovery of traces of the Black Beast within Ragna.
**Saya was sick with a fever, with a manga panel depicting her saying as much being shown on-screen as Wiz says "Sickness? No one knows."
**The reason Terumi helped Jin impale Ragna through the chest and sliced off his arm was ultimately not caused by Jin's jealousy over Ragna and Saya's relationship, but instead a combination of Terumi and the Yukianesa's Power of Order convincing Jin to kill Ragna because he was the Black Beast, telling him that he was destined to do so because he was supposed to be the hero.
**Jubei, being one of the Six Heroes, had various affairs and missions to deal with before he could return to Ragna and train him.
**The currency of the BlazBlue series is not a mysterious one, but instead Platinum Dollars, making Ragna's bounty on his wanted poster 90 billion Platinum Dollars.
***Wiz saying "No one knows." for this is likely because the clip of Ragna's wanted poster that is shown on-screen during this scene was from BlazBlue: Alter Memory, where neither of the currency's two symbols ("P$" and "pd") appear on the poster itself. However, the original wanted poster seen in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift has the "pd" symbol on it.
**Boomstick's question at the end of the analysis about why everything in BlazBlue still exists in spite of Noel saving Ragna from falling into the Kiln can be properly answered with how alternate timelines play a big part in the BlazBlue series, such as with the existence of Hakumen, the version of Jin from the original timeline who was thrown into the current one.
*The cropped footage of Ragna activating BlazBlue has very obvious bits of the background not cropped out.
===Other===
*This is the third Anti-Heroes-themed episode, after Kratos VS Spawn and Vegeta VS Shadow, and with the next 15 being Wolverine VS Raiden, Dante VS Bayonetta, Mewtwo VS Shadow, Wario VS King Dedede, Ghost Rider VS Lobo, Sasuke VS Hiei, Deadpool VS Mask, Winter Soldier VS Red Hood, Venom VS Crona, Hulk VS Broly, Shadow VS Ryuko, Guts VS Dimitri, Omni-Man VS Bardock, Kratos VS Asura, and Hulk VS Godzilla.
*This is the eighth Fighting Game-themed episode, after Akuma VS Shang Tsung, Felicia VS Taokaka, Chun-Li VS Mai Shiranui, Shao Kahn VS M. Bison, Ivy VS Orchid, Fulgore VS Sektor, and Ryu VS Scorpion, and with the next eight being Cammy VS Sonya, Ken VS Terry, Sub-Zero VS Glacius, Balrog VS TJ Combo, Ryu VS Jin, Sabrewulf VS Jon Talbain, Heihachi Mishima VS Geese Howard, and Akuma VS Shao Kahn.
*This is the second episode to be taken down due to a copyright strike on YouTube, after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale, with the next five being Ultron VS Sigma, Aang VS Edward Elric, Beerus VS Sailor Galaxia, Sabrewulf VS Jon Talbain, and Chuck Norris VS Segata Sanshiro.
**This was due to a copyright claim by Nainsoo, who didn't feel properly credited for his artwork being featured in the video.
**This is the first episode to be restored (as it was restored on April 15th, 2015), with the next four being Ultron VS Sigma, Aang VS Edward Elric, Chuck Norris VS Segata Sanshiro, and Sabrewulf VS Jon Talbain.
*This is the second episode in which a character speaks in a different language (Japanese), after Chun-Li VS Mai Shiranui, with the next five being Chuck Norris VS Segata Sanshiro, Jotaro VS Kenshiro, Dragonzord VS Mechagodzilla, Red VS Blue, and Heihachi Mishima VS Geese Howard.
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