Ash Ketchum VS Yugi Muto, previously titled Ash VS Yugi, is the upcoming 203rd episode and '25 finale of Death Battle, featuring Ash Ketchum and Pikachu from the Pokémon series and Yugi Muto and Yami Yugi from the Yu-Gi-Oh! series in a battle between young monster-summoning anime champions. Ash will be voiced by Elsie Lovelock, Yugi and Yami will be voiced by Tom Schalk.
Interlude
Ringmaster shouts...
The screen then statics into playing the Death Battle intro.
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Wiz & Boomstick by Brandon Yates  
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Boomstick: 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.
Ash Ketchum
Wiz: Hello there! Welcome to the world of Pokémon.
Boomstick: All the kids get their first one at age 10... if you don't sleep in like Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town.
Wiz: Ash wanted to be a Pokémon Master, though he didn't really know what that meant yet.
Boomstick: How about taking down your rivals to be the very best, like no one ever was?! Better than Gary and his dumb groupies...
Wiz: Well, Ash knew he'd find his answers at the Pokémon League tournament.
Boomstick: So, Oak hooked him up with the electric mouse, Pikachu, and went, "He's your problem now, stupid!"
Wiz: Pikachu was... a lot. The new duo had a rocky start, but after an intense first day together, the rest, as they say, is history.
Boomstick: 25 seasons, over 1,200 episodes, and the cornerstone of 2000s culture; Ash spent decades as a 10-year-old on the great Poké Maniac journey.
Wiz: We should note, we are prioritizing the anime that Ash is from, which often differs from the original games that inspired it.
Boomstick: Ash is equipped with tons of Poké Balls, and an all-knowing Pokédex... that's... also a Pokémon. But in a fight, Ash usually chooses Pikachu. Give the yellow rat enough voltage, and you'll regret it. Even Ground types that would be immune to electric attacks in the games can't stop what this Pikachu dishes out.
Wiz: Yet somehow, Ash is just fine after repeatedly getting zapped by this same electricity. Over time, Pikachu learned Volt Tackle, Electroweb, Electro Ball, and...
Boomstick: "Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!" The perfect attack for OKO-ing flamboyant thieves in air balloons. Looks like they're blasting off again.
Wiz: So clearly, the anime doesn't follow the game rules, like when Pikachu shot himself with his own Thunder while on Swellow, who, you know, is vulnerable to lightning.
Boomstick: But... somehow, they used Thunder as a super-armor! He even learned how to deflect attacks by just... spinning really fast. Wheeeee!
Wiz: Speaking of "fast", Pikachu has intercepted lightning, but Quick Attack increases that speed even more.
Boomstick: And his Iron Tail really pairs well with Ash's offensive style. The guy plays crazy, opting for big damage over stalling.
Wiz: Ash's style is so unusual, that when a robot scanned his tactics... it exploded!
Boomstick: As the great philosophers put it, "If it works... is it still stupid?"
Wiz: Ash and Pikachu's bond is magnetic, and brought them new allies: Misty, Brock, Serena, just to name a few. Underneath the stubbornness and crispy bikes, they are loyal friends.
Boomstick: Just like Ash's Pokémon. They're not just collecting dust in a shiny hunting box. Ash's League ID won't let him carry more than six at a time, but if he needs them, they'll all come running.
Wiz: Water types like Squirtle and Lapras are key in seafaring fights, and Ash can combine their water attacks with Glalie's Ice Beam.
Boomstick: One time, his Buizel got frozen while using Aqua Jet, which is... fine. Now he's using Ice Aqua Battering Ram!
Wiz: Grass types like Bulbasaur and Torterra induce status effects and heal with Synthesis.
Boomstick: But Sceptile's a menace. "Yeah, yeah, so you got a big, scary Darkrai. Eat this Leaf Blade, Smeargle victim!" ...Or, that's what I would say if Tobias didn't Action Replay a fricking Latios! Give my man a win, 4Kids!
Yugi Muto
Wiz: Many a theorist have tried to solve the mystery of ancient Egypt. What was the secret to such a glorious civilization?
Boomstick: Time travel? The divine hand? Aliens?! Nah, they were gamers!
Wiz: Egyptians played games... with sorcery! These magical ceremonies punished dark hearts with swift death: the Shadow Game.
Boomstick: No, no, Wiz; they were banished to the "Shadow Realm". (Wink!)
Wiz: Sadly, the way of the Shadow Games was lost across time, and the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle. It's said the one who solves the Puzzle would pass judgment on evil, and in the modern day, Yugi Muto reassembled it and wished for a friend.
Boomstick: YU-GI-OOOHH!! Turn that jam up! Yugi was a shy kid that helped run his grandpop's game shop.
Wiz: But little did he know that completing the Puzzle would link his spirit to an ancient pharaoh.
Boomstick: Yami, always willing to lend Yugi a hand... and always on demon time while doing so. He's... anime Jigsaw. "Yami wants to play... a Shadow Game."
Wiz: Whether it's griddle air hockey, Mario Party with chloroform, or the game that would take his world -- and ours -- by storm: Duel Monsters.
Boomstick: It's a summoner's war. Time to send monsters to the Graveyard and take your foe down to zero Life Points!
Wiz: When Yugi's grandpa was kidnapped by the deranged CEO Seto Kaiba, Yugi knew it was time to knock him down the only way he knows how: playing a children's card game!
Boomstick: And for his "L", Kaiba was given a Penalty Game. Lose or cheat against Yami at your own peril. With the Puzzle, Yami can punish you in some seriously messed-up ways: illusions of being set on fire, swapping your soul, or the infamous Mind Crush.
Wiz: The Millennium Puzzle does far more than force hallucinations. It brings monsters to reality, forms barriers, manipulates probability, and seals away spirits.
Boomstick: You can't buy this. It and six other Millennium Items are juiced up by ghooooosts!
Wiz: Despite Yami's retribution, Yugi wasn't aware of this darker half. Yami had amnesia, so he didn't know himself either. But after a run-in with enemy Millennium Ring user Dark Bakura (and some seriously hardcore LARPing), Yugi and Yami learned each other's shtick and made the dynamic duo.
Boomstick: With friends Téa, Tristan, and their left leg Joey, Yugi and Yami were ready for anything.
Wiz: Because Yugi had a great early deck: monsters for offense, spells for effects, and traps for setups. Oh, and Exodi--
Weevil Underwood is shown throwing Yugi's Exodia cards into the ocean.
Wiz: Oh... There they go.
Boomstick: OK, if Yugi's deck is so good, why isn't it the meta? Put me in, Coach! Face my 2,000-card deck!
Wiz: Don't be too quick to judge. Yugi's a very clever strategist. His style works best at maximizing the use of so-called "terrible" cards.
Boomstick: Yeah, cool story, Wiz. But what's he going to do about the three Blue-Eyes Kaiba's got aiming at his dome?
Wiz: Simple: summon the Monster Card Kuriboh and have him multiply. With a 1,000-strong meat shield, a dragon's breath is a gentle breeze.
Boomstick: Well... OK. Didn't know... Yugi had that dog in him. But I'm about brute force. Buster Blader and Celtic Guardian are sicknasty swordsmen, Summoned Skull shoots bolts of lightning, and the Giant Soldier of Stone can destroy moons!
Wiz: Eh, Time Wizard's better. It's a living clock that fast-forwards or rewinds a local area of time, turning monsters to infants or wizards into wise sages.
Boomstick: Speaking of wizardry, you can't have a Yugi deck without his right hand, Dark Magician, and his apprentice, Dark Magician Girl.
Wiz: Both are masters of dark magic, and Yugi often pairs them with the damage-redirecting Magic Cylinder. Now, that's thinking with portals.
Boomstick: There's support monsters, too. Catapult Turtle is a bot with a cannon that literally launches other monsters, and when Yugi comboed it with Gaia and Swords of Revealing Light -- which immobilizes monsters -- they brought down an entire fortress!
Prelude
Wiz: Alright, the combatants are set. We've run the data through all possibilities.
Boomstick: IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLEEE!!!
Death Battle
Results
We cut to the "Winner" card.
Wiz: The winner is...
Original Track
Composition
The track for this fight is "Millennial Monsters" by Brandon Yates and Therewolf Media, featuring Jason Paige.
Title
The title references the Millennium Puzzle and Pocket Monsters.
Cover Art
The cover art depicts a hand holding a Poké Ball with the eye from the Millennium Items on the button and the Indigo League Emblem on the top half. The electricity from 10,000,000-Volt Thunderbolt is in the background, and the symbols for Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Wind, Fire, and Divine Attributes around it, with the symbol for Water Attribute being partially visible towards the bottom.
Lyrics
Let's duel, you know that it's time to...
I can sense that power inside you Always seems to come down to us two Cataclysms we both survived through Let's Battle, you know that I choose you I can sense that power flow through you |
Trivia
Production
- The core connections between Ash Ketchum and Yugi Muto are that they are both young anime heroes who are masters of monsters (Pokémon and Monsters, respectively), which they summon to fight against other summoners' monsters in globally-played sports (Pokémon battles and Duel Monsters, respectively), having won major tournaments (Ash won the Orange League, the Manalo Conference, and the World Coronation Series, while Yugi won Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, the KaibaCorp Grand Prix, and Battle City V2) and achieved royalty-themed champion titles denoting them as the best in their worlds (the Pokémon Monarch and the King of Games, respectively) in the process. In addition:
- Both have met their primary battle partners through unusual, if not unwitting, circumstances which involves an elderly mentor figure (Ash received Pikachu from Professor Oak after accidentally waking up late to choose a starter Pokémon, while Yugi merged with Yami Yugi's spirit after solving the Millennium Puzzle and acquiring the latter's card from his grandfather, Solomon Muto), but would nonetheless form an everlasting bond with them and travel together in the hopes of achieving a journey-wide goal (Ash and Pikachu traveled through numerous regions to achieve Ash's dream of becoming a Pokémon Master, while Yugi worked alongside Yami to collect the Millennium Items and recover the latter's memories).
- Throughout their adventures, both have met and traveled with numerous friends and companions, including that of former bullies turned best friends (Gary Oak and Joey Wheeler, respectively), close female peers from childhood (Serena and Téa Gardner, respectively), and intense rivals of rudely arrogant demeanor (Paul and Seto Kaiba, respectively) whom they have teamed up with on several occasions.
- Both have frequently came into conflict with and defeated several villainous organizations (Giovanni's Team Rocket and Marik Ishtar's Rare Hunters being more common and respective examples) who misuse the power of their monsters and often sought to obtain the powers of legendary creatures for their own gain (numerous Legendary and Mythical Pokémon and the Egyptian God monsters, respectively).
- This is also a battle of opposites, as the two have contrasting reputations within their respective fanbases (Ash was usually looked down upon and seen as incompetent by fans due to losing multiple notable Pokémon battles and League Conferences before he won the Manalo Conference and World Coronation Series, while Yugi is highly respected among fans due to his numerous victories in and out of tournaments and a better win-loss ratio compared to Ash).
- Yugi and Yami's English voice actor, Dan Green, has also done multiple voice roles for the Pokémon anime, most notably as Ash's Treecko and Mewtwo, the latter of whom Ash has encountered on several occasions.
- Both of their series were adapted into extremely popular real-world children's card games (the Pokémon Trading Card Game and both the Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Card Game and Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, respectively).
- Both got their series dubbed by 4Kids Entertainment, which led to them becoming iconic anime of the early 2000s in the West, as well as both characters appearing together in 4Kids' various channel adverts (including one that technically results in Ash attacking Yugi and one where Yugi bests Ash in a duel). Additionally, both were affected by 4Kids' censorship practices, which would become subject to scrutiny and numerous memes years later.
- Both have blood relatives (Delia Ketchum and Solomon Muto, respectively) who run their family businesses (Pallet House and Kame Game, respectively).
- This episode was confirmed during the Save Death Battle Kickstarter, having been the $375,000 stretch goal reward alongside another unrevealed episode.
- While it was initially announced as the 200th episode, the stretch goal image on the Kickstarter was edited to remove any reference to it being a milestone episode. It would later be confirmed that Ruby Rose VS Maka Albarn would be episode 200 instead while Ash VS Yugi was turned into the finale.
- OriginTheHero has previously made several fan-made projects for the matchup prior to its confirmation. These include:
- Custom sprites for Ash and Yami.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
- An animated scene of Yami using Brain Control on Ash's Rotom Dex and inadvertently causing it to release his 30 Tauros to celebrate the DEATH BATTLE! YouTube channel hitting five million subscribers.[7]
- A short collaboration scene with community member Electrik that depicts Ash summoning Gengar to fight Dark Magician Girl.[8]
- A short animated bit of Pikachu using Volt Tackle to scale the body of Slifer the Sky Dragon.[9]
- Fan-made storyboards depicting the setup of the fight as an exhibition match between the two and ends with the first half of his aforementioned collab with Electrik showing him summoning Gengar.[10]
Easter Eggs
Other
- This is the 21st Anime-themed episode, after Zoro VS Erza, Natsu VS Ace, Lucario VS Renamon, Naruto VS Ichigo, Jotaro VS Kenshiro, Roshi VS Jiraiya, Sasuke VS Hiei, Mob VS Tatsumaki, All Might VS Might Guy, Gray VS Esdeath, Beerus VS Sailor Galaxia, Sanji VS Rock Lee, DIO VS Alucard, Madara VS Aizen, Tanjiro VS Jonathan Joestar, Deku VS Asta, Gogeta VS Vegito, Killua VS Misaka, Gojo VS Makima, and Shigaraki VS Mahito.
- This is the third Nintendo VS Hitotsubashi-themed episode, after Kirby VS Majin Buu and Guts VS Dimitri.
- This is the 42nd episode to feature a returning combatant, after Zitz VS Leonardo, Batman VS Captain America, Boba Fett VS Samus Aran (2015), Goku VS Superman 2, Pokémon VS Digimon, Mewtwo VS Shadow, Deadpool VS Pinkie Pie, Metal Sonic VS Zero, Thor VS Wonder Woman, Black Panther VS Batman, Ryu VS Jin, Mario VS Sonic (2018), Mega Man Battle Royale, Captain Marvel VS Shazam, Dragonzord VS Mechagodzilla, Ganondorf VS Dracula, Deadpool VS Mask, Leonardo VS Red Ranger Jason, She-Ra VS Wonder Woman, Venom VS Crona, Hulk VS Broly, Shadow VS Ryuko, Lex Luthor VS Doctor Doom, Link VS Cloud (2021), Batman VS Iron Man, Akuma VS Shao Kahn, Thor VS Vegeta, Boba Fett VS Predator, Excalibur VS Raiden, Darth Vader VS Obito Uchiha, Phoenix VS Raven, Guts VS Dimitri, Goku VS Superman (2023), Omni-Man VS Bardock, Bowser VS Eggman, Kratos VS Asura, Ghost Rider VS Spawn, Master Chief VS Doom Slayer, Spider-Man VS Deku, Hulk VS Godzilla, and Aang VS Traveler.
- This is the 29th episode to feature a returning loser, after Batman VS Captain America, Boba Fett VS Samus Aran (2015), Goku VS Superman 2, Pokémon VS Digimon, Mewtwo VS Shadow, Thor VS Wonder Woman, Black Panther VS Batman, Ryu VS Jin, Mario VS Sonic (2018), Mega Man Battle Royale, Captain Marvel VS Shazam, Dragonzord VS Mechagodzilla, Leonardo VS Red Ranger Jason, She-Ra VS Wonder Woman, Hulk VS Broly, Shadow VS Ryuko, Lex Luthor VS Doctor Doom, Link VS Cloud (2021), Batman VS Iron Man, Thor VS Vegeta, Boba Fett VS Predator, Darth Vader VS Obito Uchiha, Goku VS Superman (2023), Bowser VS Eggman, Kratos VS Asura, Master Chief VS Doom Slayer, and Spider-Man VS Deku, and Hulk VS Godzilla.
- This is the third episode to feature a previous combatant working under another combatant (in this case, Ash's Pikachu fighting with his trainer after battling solo in Pikachu VS Blanka), after Pokémon VS Digimon and Bowser VS Eggman.
- Prior to the episode's announcement, Brandon Yates made a track for this matchup called "Masters of Monsters" as part of his "What If?" commission tracks.
- This makes it the 16th episode that received its own commission track before its release, after Blake VS Mikasa, Goku Black VS Reverse-Flash, Jason Voorhees VS Michael Myers, Guts VS Dimitri, Bill Cipher VS Discord, Frieza VS Megatron, Gojo VS Makima, Galactus VS Unicron, Joker VS Giorno, Bowser VS Eggman, Kratos VS Asura, Master Chief VS Doom Slayer, Simon the Digger VS Kyle Rayner, Spider-Man VS Deku, and Ruby Rose VS Maka Albarn.
- This is the 15th one to be done by Brandon Yates, after Blake VS Mikasa, Goku Black VS Reverse-Flash, Jason Voorhees VS Michael Myers, Guts VS Dimitri, Bill Cipher VS Discord, Frieza VS Megatron, Galactus VS Unicron, Joker VS Giorno, Bowser VS Eggman, Kratos VS Asura, Master Chief VS Doom Slayer, Simon the Digger VS Kyle Rayner, Spider-Man VS Deku, and Ruby Rose VS Maka Albarn.
- This makes it the 16th episode that received its own commission track before its release, after Blake VS Mikasa, Goku Black VS Reverse-Flash, Jason Voorhees VS Michael Myers, Guts VS Dimitri, Bill Cipher VS Discord, Frieza VS Megatron, Gojo VS Makima, Galactus VS Unicron, Joker VS Giorno, Bowser VS Eggman, Kratos VS Asura, Master Chief VS Doom Slayer, Simon the Digger VS Kyle Rayner, Spider-Man VS Deku, and Ruby Rose VS Maka Albarn.
References
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1592731088996425728
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1592735005779836930
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1595270866438438912
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1670963343031427075
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1671350223858200580
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1715918239367114890
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1531506259610025984
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1642714304364392448
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1648888464882933761
- ↑ https://x.com/OriginTheHero/status/1720998525859721699