Ragna VS Sol Badguy

Ragna VS Sol Badguy is the 41st episode of Death Battle. It stars Ragna the Bloodedge from BlazBlue and Sol Badguy from Guilty Gear, the heroes of Arc System Works fighting games.

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''BlazBlue vs Guilty Gear! Two of the most popular anime fighting game icons settle the score! Will Ragna's bounty finally be cashed in?''

Interlude
(*Cues: Invader - Jim Johnston*)

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
(*Cues: BlazBlue Calamity Trigger - Imperial Code*)

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.

(*Cues: BlazBlue Calamity Trigger - Rebellion*)

'''Boomstick: Baggy pants, giant sword, brooding personality. Ragna has tragic back-story 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 Yuki 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, cuz it's not stopping anytime soon.

(*Cues: BlazBlue Calamity Trigger - Queen of Roses*)

'''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, magiced 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...

(*Cues: Black And White - BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma*)

'''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.

(*Cues: Nemesis Horizon - BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma*)

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 as 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 its 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 timeloop 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
(*Cues: Guilty Gear XX - Existence*)

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...

(*Cues: Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus - Launch Out*)

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 when 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 f u to poor Sol by That Man.

Boomstick: Which man?

(*Cues: Guilty Gear 2: Overture - The 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 gray as Boomstick slams the door off-screen.

(*Cues: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Windmill Hut*)

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.'''

(*Cues: Guilty Gear - Death and Republic*)

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 punches are flame-enhanced strikes while his riot stamp 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 useable. 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!'''

(*Cues: Guilty Gear 2: Overture - The Re-Coming*)

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.

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!''

(*Cues: Blood Pain II - BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma*)

Sol: (I'll burn you to a crisp.)

FIGHT!

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 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 by Sol, 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.

(*Cues: Ride The Fire - Guilty Gear Xrd*)

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 Blood-Scythe 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,

(*Cues: Howling Moon II - BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma*)

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.

K.O.!

Sol jumps down into the rubble, comes across a book titled "BlazBlue Story Script", knocks it upward, punches it away with a fiery strike, and then walks off.

Results
(*Cues: Guilty Gear Xrd Sign - Give Me a Break*)

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.'''

Wiz: The winner is Sol Badguy.

Trivia

 * The connection between Ragna and Sol is that both are fighting game protagonists created by Arc System Works, traditionally wear red, and wield giant swords as their main weapons.
 * This is the first episode to be released in 2015.
 * This is also the last Death Battle to be released on a Friday. As all the future episodes will be moved to Wednesdays, due to the new year.
 * Sol Badguy is the second of two characters to speak a different language, the other is Mai Shiranui.
 * This is the Tenth Death Battle episode to not be sponsored by any web ad; the first nine were Eggman VS Wily, Ivy VS Orchid, Terminator VS RoboCop, Luigi VS Tails, Pokémon Battle Royale, Godzilla VS Gamera, Batman VS Captain America, Tigerzord VS Gundam Epyon, and Ryu VS Scorpion.
 * Earlier in February 2015, this Death Battle was removed due to a copyright violation claim made by Na-insoo.
 * The episode was restored on April 15th, 2015.
 * This is the seventh Death Battle episode to have 2 or more characters of the same respective company of any sort to be pitted against each other; the first six were Goomba VS Koopa, Haggar VS Zangief, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale, Starscream VS Rainbow Dash, Zelda VS Peach, and Pokémon Battle Royale and is followed by Beast VS Goliath, Darth Vader VS Doctor Doom, Bowser VS Ganon, Ratchet & Clank VS Jak & Daxter, Meta VS Carolina and Naruto VS Ichigo.
 * Both Sol Badguy's preview and the episode showcased one of the few times Wiz and Boomstick were frustrated with the other when it came to That Man's name.
 * This is the second Death Battle to be blocked on YouTube, the first being the TMNT Battle Royale. This is due to a copyright claim by Nainsoo, who didn't feel properly credited for his artwork being featured in the video.
 * This is the twelfth Death Battle where the opponents are rivals. The last eleven were Haggar VS Zangief, Zitz VS Leonardo, Mario VS Sonic, Chun-Li VS Mai Shiranui, Link VS Cloud, Goku VS Superman, Terminator VS RoboCop, Luigi VS Tails, Godzilla VS Gamera, Ryu VS Scorpion and Deadpool VS Deathstroke and followed by Solid Snake VS Sam Fisher, Donkey Kong VS Knuckles, Mega Man VS Astro Boy, Green Arrow VS Hawkeye, and Pokémon VS Digimon.
 * This does not include Goku VS Superman 2 since that was a rematch between Goku and Superman.
 * This episode was likely done to commemorate the release of Guilty Gear Xrd.
 * This was the seventh Death Battle to be done for commemoration. The last six were Luke Skywalker VS Harry Potter, Thor VS Raiden, Terminator VS RoboCop, Luigi VS Tails, Godzilla VS Gamera and Kirby VS Majin Buu.
 * This fight is currently the least viewed episode of Death Battle, likely due to the copyright strike and the lack of popularity from BlazBlue and Guilty Gear has outside of the fighting game community.
 * The animator, Zack, has a version of the fight on the channel in 60 FPS.