Gohan Vs. Deku: Who Would Win The Battle?
Sports enthusiasts often engage in fantasy leagues, in which they assemble and manage their own fictional teams composed of real-life athletes. Anime fans, on the other hand, have a similar form of fantasy gaming, but instead of focusing on sport, they’re focusing on anime character showdowns. In today’s match-up, we have Gohan from Dragon Ball Z facing off against Izuku Midoriya, aka Deku, from My Hero Academia. We’re certain that Gohan would crush Deku one-one one, but we’re here to explain just why.
Aaaand, FIGHT!
Gohan and Deku are characters from different anime series, which ultimately imply different power systems and power scales. So, it’s important to note that comparing the fighting capabilities of these characters can be subjective and dependent on various factors, including context, abilities, and power scaling within their respective series.
However, for this showdown, we’ll compare them one-on-one using the data from Dragon Ball Z and My Hero Academia—and right off the bat, it’s quite obvious that Gohan has a massive advantage over Deku.
Gohan’s Saiyan Power
Let’s start by examining our first contender, Gohan, before we move on to examining Deku. Gohan is a Saiyan, a race of aggressive warrior aliens that live on a planet that has twenty times Earth’s gravity.
These environments result in Saiyans possessing superhuman strength, speed, and the ability to transform into more powerful forms, e.g., Super Saiyan. While Goku remains among the most powerful characters of the show, Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, explained that Gohan’s power exceeds Goku’s but that the former isn’t all that interested in training to surpass his father.
Just how powerful is Gohan? Well, he was 10 or 11 when he defeated Perfect Cell, who was (at the time) 25 times more powerful than Frieza, the Bane of the Saiyans. Admittedly, he had to transform into Super Saiyan 2 to achieve this.
And that’s actually not Gohan’s peak—he achieved his Mystic during Majin Buu Saga in DBZ. He was 16 years old at the time—or Deku’s age—and it’s suffice to say that he has gotten even more powerful in subsequent Dragon Ball releases.
Deku’s One For All Power
Unlike Gohan, who’s a Saiyan, Deku is a human. Admittedly, he possesses an ability known as One For All, which grants him superhuman strength, speed, and agility. Furthermore, he’s a very skilled and intelligent fighter who has learned to harness and control his powers more effectively, increasing his combat abilities.
A good example of his evolution is his fight against Overhaul during the Pro Hero Arc (Season 4), where he uses his abilities to disrupt Overhaul’s control over his own Quirk.
If Gohan and Deku were to meet in a neutral setting with no prior knowledge of each other’s abilities, Gohan’s sheer power would likely give him a significant advantage over Deku.
Now for the actual showdown. Being a human-Saiyan hybrid, Gohan fought countless non-human and alien foes whose power levels surpass anything seen in My Hero Academia. This gives him a significant advantage over Deku, who is still relatively new to the hero world.
Similar thinking applies to their combat abilities; besides relying on his Saiyan strength, Gohan also has a wide range of energy-based attacks, whereas Deku primarily relies on physical abilities and One For All.
Ultimately, if Gohan and Deku were to meet in a neutral setting with no prior knowledge of each other’s abilities, Gohan’s sheer power would likely give him a significant advantage over Deku. But then again, it’s really important to remember that the outcome of anime characters’ showdowns tend to vary wildly, as they’re based on the interpretation and context. In the end, both characters won our hearts throughout the years, and for anime lovers, that’s all that counts.
