Death Battle — A Formula of Infinite Possibilitie

It actually started on the History Channel

Nowadays, everybody gets lost in Netflix (or Prime, or… the other ones), so it’s easy to forget that there was once a thing called “channels”. They still exist, but the way things are progressing, they’ll probably go extinct in a decade or so. Anyway, one of these channels is the History Channel. It is called that because it was about history stuff like Benjamin Franklin and World War I when it came out. But today, it’s mostly reality shows and not just Pawn Stars. Also, it’s apparently “History” now, not “The History Channel”… They changed the name.

But back when the channel still hadn’t completely transitioned to “just reality shows with no relation to history whatsoever”, there was this show called Deadliest Warrior. It was a science show that took two real-life warriors, such as a ninja or a pirate (among other things), and pitted them against one another. The winner is determined using actual knowledge of how these warriors operated when they were alive, taking into account details such as their weapons and martial arts. The show lasted for three seasons. Was it popular? I’m not sure. But another show derived from it lasted three times as much as counting.

Whether this show was directly inspired by Deadliest Warrior or just incidentally copied its formula without noticing is something that is still not entirely known to me. Still, there’s a popular Internet show called Death Battle, which is the same as Deadliest Warrior, but instead of real warriors, you have fictional characters. It also has a narrative where two hosts bicker with each other, although they often put aside their differences (mainly) to deliver a quality episode. So yes, it’s a science show (almost) with a bit of humour in it if that’s the kind of thing you like to see on YouTube.

International versions?

One interesting aspect of Death Battle is that it takes real-world science and applies it to the fictional characters featured on the show. For the most part, this means that the characters’ abilities are measured like you would measure the performance of a bulldozer, such as its speed and strength. Since this is fiction we’re talking about, you’ll be hearing a lot of math stuff such as “87 bajillion tons” and “38 gazillion times the speed of light”. As it turns out, fictional characters are more powerful than one is led to believe (you knew Superman was strong but did you know he could destroy universes?). As a fiction writer, this gives me perspective on the characters I create.

But even more interesting about it is its format, where you can take any two fictional characters (or more depending on the circumstances) and pit them against one another to determine who’s stronger. The possibilities are endless, and even the fandom is dedicated to figuring out how many possible fights there can be. Of course, since a select group of people only does the production, this means that out of all the possible fights in the infinite pool X vs Y, most of them won’t happen before the end of the universe. And this means even more for franchises that are exclusively non-English.

So basically, the problem is there aren’t any international versions to this thing, like how they do with all those reality shows. I suppose that’s too much to demand, but an option just means more pseudoscience to indulge on, even if it is in a different language. Like, think about all those anime that never made it out of Japan, and yes, even today, there are still anime that are entirely unfamiliar in the west.

As usual, I can’t do jack

Well, there’s the issue of how popular this show is. I think it’s quite popular on YouTube though I’m not sure about it entirely since I really meant it by saying that it’s the only thing I follow. But it’s up to the show’s popularity to warrant an international version which seems unlikely.

I mean, it’s a simple cartoon Internet show that appeals to nerds. Sure, it’s unique in concept, but that alone probably won’t get it far. Not that the show wants to… supposedly.

Frankly, there’s nothing to help in the case of creating an international version, seeing as how there’s no actual reason to make one. If anything, the issue should be how to get as many possible battles with as many characters as possible. Even though that’s the real problem, I don’t think there’s a realistic solution either because nobody has the resources to pull off something like that. Oh well… maybe on a different Earth.

Did you watch Deadliest Warrior?

Because that show is forgotten to the point that I’m not sure if Death Battle fans are aware that this show was released before the one they love so much, it doesn’t matter whether you are a fan of historical figures or fictional characters, come and have a say in… one of those things.

In Conclusion…

Death Battle is a show that doesn’t appeal to many people since it’s a franchise set in a nerd subculture. But it does deliver on the pseudoscience-y stuff, so if you like that kind of stuff, then… you probably already know about it, so I don’t have to recommend watching. Alternatively, if you’re an artist of sorts looking for creative inspiration, then you can find that too.

There’s no need for an international version, so forget I even talked about it. Nobody would watch it anyway, so just watch what there is. It’s enough.

But if we’re talking about “X vs Y”, one old show. Since did it, but with celebrities. And with that, I need to remind myself to talk about Celebrity Deathmatch one day because that show was a doozy.