Blue Igneous 2024-25 G1 Blog Retrospective

 

With Ichigo VS Yusuke being confirmed for Death Battle’s 2026 premiere, the book is closed on the 24/25 era of the show. Technically it was two different seasons, though everyone basically universally agrees they intersect anyways including Death Battle themselves. So with this “era” of the show over, I think it’d be nice to take a look back at what was by far my most prominent period in the Death Battle community. I had a lot to do and have a lot to say, so let’s get to it.

Omni-Man VS Bardock

The fact that the Dragon Ball episode of all things was the weirdest experience of the batch for me of all people says a lot about just how weird this blog experience actually was. 

Random Thursday afternoon and the DB Cast announces that this match is the premiere episode. An hour later and I’m in the blog server for the first fight of the Kickstarter Era, the roster is a bit small but hey the blog begins anyways. Overall it wasn't too hard of a blog to work through, which makes sense. Nolan and Bardock are pretty clearly the simplest characters arsenal wise of the entire 2024/2025 season after all. So even though we had less than two weeks to finish the project because of needing to finish before the live premiere in Texas, we finished a day before the due date.

I will say I did more on this than I thought I’d be doing. I did roughly 80% of Bardock’s sections I’d say, but given his limited content and my huge Dragon Ball brainrot that’s natural. However I do feel things got crazy when I started doing full Nolan sections too. This isn’t a dig against Nolan’s side necessarily for the record, they had time so I understand taking things slow, but it did feel that they could’ve gone a little faster considering how little content they actually had to write up.

I also did all the Before The Verdicts, guided the Stat section of the Verdict, and did the rest of the Verdict from there. That was me having a big vision for a lot of things rather than anyone else slacking to be clear. I’m a Yappatron 4000. 

Big final thing to comment on is the calculations for Omni-Man’s big argued feats though. I will not name It Which Shall Not Be Named, you know what it is. What I do want to say is that I wish people didn’t negatively react to either side of the calculations; those who got super low, and super high numbers. At the end of the day circumstances were tense for everyone and it was hard to finish the calculation specifically on time, especially given the multiple checks that were done to try and figure things out. No bad blood to anyone in the situation and I wish it was less stressful than it was for all the people correlated to the calculation drama.

Speaking of stress and drama-

Bowser VS Eggman

Now to be clear, I didn’t really have many negative feelings myself for this blog actually. Kind of sums up my Bowsegg experience in general, where I just kind of went with the flow and avoided the supposed toxic waste dumps littering the Death Battle fandom war zone. Mario as a series is one of my favorite series ever, and Sonic… so I just wanted to focus on- ok being serious. I don't hate Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s a cool series I just don’t have much investment in it. Going into the blog though, I’d say what’s interesting is me not being super VS invested in Mario as a series beforehand. 

In general because of how I’ve interacted with VS I don’t really talk about Mario in this sphere too much. In the earlier Bowser VS Eggman Discord Death Battle debate in the summer I participated pretty significantly, but I was second in participation to someone like UltraGuy and didn’t go super in-depth on some topics. But for a blog where Ultra was more so being an outsider viewer (he’s super chill btw no slander to him is allowed), I had to lock in. So, how did the debate go?

Really, really extensive. I do feel that a lot of topics got far more discussion than they normally would’ve or should’ve if I’m being frank, though I guess that can be tied to the nature of the matchup. I do think some topics like translation discourse got really awkward and that some people on both sides had very clear biases, but again, the nature of the matchup. Overall I’m satisfied with my personal experience with the debate, I feel I understood a lot of what was discussed and it never felt like I was out of the loop or being a detriment to the pace of the discussion. I unfortunately cannot say the same felt true for everyone on the project, and in this case I can’t just amount it to the nature of the matchup. But every big undertaking has its rough patches.

On the note of the undertaking itself, I do feel the workload was harder than it needed to be. Of course this is arguably if not definitively the most dense and lengthy matchup of the kickstarter era (funny it was my follow up project after Omni-Man VS Bardock), but I’d say the one notable case where I did feel negative was how some people weren’t super helpful with the workload. A couple excuses here and there both didn’t cut it nor did they feel legitimate. Some excuses were legitimate though, I should clarify I don’t have a negative opinion of every single person who had something come up. Though the abundant mixture didn’t help, especially since I wasn’t the only person on the project having mountains of work shoved onto them. Though for those who were great contributors, I do appreciate that they were also able to do as much as they did. Shoutouts to MK, Ishi, Maddie, and anyone else I may be forgetting (you know who you are, thanks for the support).

I should also mention that I don’t exactly hate heavy workloads as long as I’m prepared for them and properly rested. Like, oh no, I had to go through tons of awesome Mario content! Ruh roh Raggy! With that in mind and what else I’ve thought about I can’t say that Bowser VS Eggman’s G1 Blog wasn’t a good experience. I got to talk with friends about things I like, look into things I like that I don’t look into enough, and the downs were only so diminishing in the end. Looking back at this project, my main wish is just that my sentiment could be shared with more people who have more negative viewpoints of the period to the point of it feeling like a self-imposed restriction and weight.

Kratos VS Asura

Forget what I said at the start of Omnidock, this was the weirdest blog experience of the batch.

Overall this and an upcoming one are definitely the experiences I have the least to say about despite the gap in enjoyment, for the same reason of the intention with me joining these projects. That being, wanting to enjoy something I’m more casually invested in, and be a lesser but still useful presence on the project instead of this massive MVP contender. Especially after Omnidock and Bowsegg where my back had experienced the weight of a solar system by December. And I wouldn’t exactly say I was forced into some sort of MVP-like slot here, but I definitely felt like I was doing more than I both wanted to and had to. Keep this phrase in mind I’ll be using it in a bit.

There’s a lot of rumors about behind the scenes drama with this blog from what I’ve seen. I’m not going to go in-depth with anything in order to keep those rumors as such, but I don’t feel it’s a secret to say there was some drama. I don’t regret anything I did during this project, I feel I had been very reasonable in my behavior and work ethic. But I do wish the project, much like the energy around Kratos VS Asura in the community as a whole, hadn’t felt so awkward. I think the match is legitimately pretty good if handled well and I really specifically enjoyed getting another look into God of War with Norse restrictions and post-Ragnarok experience after I had only played GoW 2018 before 2023’s Kratosura G1 Blog.

Overall not the best experience and one I do wish I could look back upon more fondly. Shame, but it is what it is.

Shigaraki VS Mahito

Shigaraki VS Mahito is without question the most excited I got over a matchup announcement in years. If I had made a top 10 most wanted list in July before its announcement, the match absolutely would’ve placed highly. So when it came to working on its blog, I was super stoked both because I got to talk about two great characters, and I got to have a good leadup to the episode proper. I’d say though that overall, I somewhat preferred the 2023 version’s experience. That period had gotten me interested in the match to begin with and felt far more… casual?

I’d say 95% of the 2025 Shigahito blog experience was pretty fun, a lot of interesting talks about both MHA and JJK in regards to multiple aspects of each. It was good to get a better idea of a lot of non-top tier JJK arguments given the series had gone through a hype train in 2024 that made it hard to keep track of. Where I’d say things got soured a little was the debate for a good couple reasons. Starting with myself, I said earlier for other blogs that I didn’t regret anything I myself did, but I can’t say the same here. I think there’s a lot of arguments surrounding stuff like Decay having a set speed or Mahito’s measures to undo Decay that I could’ve easily handled better.

I think the simple point was that I was thinking about giving the debate a “fair perspective” rather than just treating it normally. There was a lot of Shigaraki stomp pushing with the match beforehand, and while I do think Shigaraki takes this 101 out of 100 times, a lot of said stomp pushing felt somewhat blind to me considering how complex the power sets of both were. I thought Shigaraki stomped, but I wanted to give Mahito a fair shake, and as a result I don’t think I was blunt enough about arguments in the debate itself. I especially regret this given the Mahito arguments in the end were somewhat weak, and the super weird 7-4 outcome caused a lot of discourse (especially with future blogs).

I want to make clear here that no, I do not think someone is stupid or whatever for siding Mahito. The 4 people that sided him in the blog are people I’d consider friends if anything. But I think this “widely believed to be a stomp” matchup, that really should just be a stomp, getting quite awkward siding has left a sour taste in my mouth in regards to this blog’s development. Especially considering the consequences. Not a sour taste that undoes the good sweet tastes I also had though, so I can’t call the blog experience anything less than a good one. But it was awkward, I cannot deny that either.

Oh also Speedy made a joke about me being interested in the next non revealed KS matchup, wonder what was up with that.

Simon VS Kyle Rayner

This is the upcoming match I referred to when I was talking about Kratosura, and the one with the whole “more than I both wanted to and had to” point. I initially wasn’t even going to join this blog, Gurren Lagann is a series I enjoyed but had not resonated with that much, and said enjoyment was over 3 years prior to this episode’s Spring announcement. However I got poked into the project due to a good friend, and in the end I’d say I came out of the project having a far greater appreciation of the matchup and characters (mainly Simon, I joined the blog for him after all).

I had a lot of fun learning the power sets and higher stat arguments for both sides, discussing them, figuring out advantages, making comparisons, etc. It was like a debate as complicated as Bowser VS Eggman, except there wasn’t some tension sharper than the end of Simon’s drill. I love when there’s a lot to go over and intersect and compare in debates, and the lack of that poking point at my back made it really enjoyable. Notably this is also the first comic book blog I’ve had involved where I actually helped with stuff for the comic character. Not much to be clear, but I did read some of Kyle’s issues and link some scans, which is important for later.

Now to be clear here, this project did admittedly have an issue of work rate on Kyle’s side. Mixture of slacking off and some people just getting super busy at the wrong time unfortunately. This led to more work for me to do, like Kratosura, but I’d say there was a super notable difference. With Kratosura, I said “more than I both wanted to and had to”. But here, I’d chalk it up to just “had to”. I WANTED to do more than I had to, not also more than I wanted to. This connects to just how much fun I was having with the project, and with awesome people. I got to hang out with good friends like Yerm, Luz, and Ishi, but I feel I also managed to make new connections with people like Bang, Jello, and Maddie (hi Maddie, you inspired this retrospective being made btw). Overall a great blog experience, and I’m glad I got to share it with the people I did. Not perfect, but who the hell do you think I am to need something to be perfect to feel great?

Yeah that doesn’t make much sense but I needed to fit the reference somewhere.

Spider-Man VS Deku

Ok so that’s what was up with that.

If you watched RedRunner’s Wile E. VS Tom reaction video you’ll know I was stun locked for a good couple minutes after this was revealed. A few minutes after that reaction I was on the blog roster, funny how that works out. Not a matchup I was super fond of going in, but I liked it enough to where I was interested in Midoriya’s return despite it both feeling early and being so close to Shigarki’s showing.

That latter point made Midoriya’s side of the blog a breeze to go through. We basically had all the stat arguments figured out and most stuff from the big fights like the final Shigarak fight were fresh in the mind of both myself and the other Deku volunteers. Genuinely, he was 90% done in like three days. The hard part of the blog was Spidey’s side. I’ve made comments in this retrospective before about unnamed people slacking, but in this case Miles’ volunteers were genuinely infected with the O’Hara/Stacy/Porker Luck / Parker Fortune. Luckily, I had a training run with comic work thanks to Kyle, and Twilty had the time to pitch in and knock out tons of books as well. With Maddie’s forced lock in (condolences, again), we were able to handle Miles’ roughly 600 issues at a good pace.

The actual hard part was linking all the necessary scans. Maddie was on cooldown, or at least deserved to be in my opinion, so I took it upon myself to handle what was probably a thousand or so comic links. This is the part where I’d wanna call out slackers, though maybe the issue was less that and more me wanting links done at a far faster pace than what was required. Thanks to those who pitched in with links to lessen the burden.

Overall it was a pretty good experience even if my comments on the standout moments may not make it seem like much. The match grew on me, Miles did as well as a character, and the working period and episode reinforced my appreciation for Izuku Midoriya and MHA as a whole after Shigaraki Mahito helped with that first. Glad I could spend it with people like Maddie, Twilty, and so on.

Ruby Rose VS Maka Alburn

You know I think Maddie made her own retrospective us sharing 3 projects in a row might make some of this stuff sound repetitive-

This was never a matchup I had too much investment in in prior years even if I could respect and recognize its obvious importance as an idea for the show. After reading Soul Eater the Summer prior to the episode though, the idea grew on me a ton, especially after the work period itself. It really baffles me how little RWBY and Soul Eater are actually compared, especially with Ruby and Maka. Lots of fairy tail (not that one like the actual genre) inspiration, big school focus, all the weapon customization, etc. The simpler debate and small amount of content made work both flow well and gave us a lot of time to talk about both series and just chill, and I’d say this really made the blog feel that much more fun.

There’s not too much to say here. I guess I can say I maintained MVP status like I have for a couple other projects, but I’ll save that for the closing notes. I got bullied day one for not having understood Maka X Crona and X Soul during my reading, that was funny. Screw you Trashy by the way, I blame you.

Overall a nice simpler project without much to say. But after Kratosura and Shigahito’s range of sour notes, the cosmic debate for Kylmon, and the giant stack of paper work that was Spidey VS Deku, that’s probably for the best. Overall a really great time, and definitely one of my more fondly remembered blog experiences.

Episode 201 Waiting Period

Quick intermission before Buffy VS Blade because this G1 filler arc was too important to skip over. Ruby Maka finished early, but a good couple of its volunteers (me included) didn’t leave the G1 server. Speedy kept us in the server, and spent the remaining chunk of the waiting period handing out invites every now and then to more and more community members who he considered to be S Tier blog contributors. The G1 Avengers if you will. But why? What match could require this elite roster? 

We had a couple teases that led to a couple guesses. Han Solo VS Captain Kirk? Alucard VS D (that one was my main guess)? Daleks VS Sentinels? Shredder VS Ra’s Al Ghul (as a Foot VS League army fight)? Lots of solid guesses but nothing stuck. We had guessed Blade VS Buffy a couple times, but threw it aside. This was because both character teams had an even split, and it wasn’t like the plan was to blitz Blade before having a whole team jump to Buffy's novels…

I will say the main reason I’m bringing this up extensively is because, one as I said it’s important but actually nah it was super funny, two it was a lot of fun throwing guesses around in chat with a lot of big community members, and three because I wanted to talk about when I was originally picked for this, or at least told I was. It was early in Ruby VS Maka where I joked about one day planning to get on a blog with characters I didn’t know and perform like crazy regardless. Speedy proceeded to “Funny you should say that” me, which was a pretty big boost to my confidence. I joke about my Blog MVP Status on a lot of projects a lot, but it always feels a little too good to be true when that glaze is actually agreed on, if that makes sense. So a big official Death Battle researcher wanting me on a project I would know nothing about for my prowess alone made me feel happy. If you’re reading this, thanks for that Speedy.

Blade VS Buffy

…the plan was to blitz Blade before having a whole team jump to Buffy's novels. Now granted the Buffy workload was reduced thanks to some pointless books being crossed off for us in advance, but the blog was a huge undertaking regardless. Easily the most content a blog would have to examine during the kickstarter era by far, and in only three weeks at that due to Ruby VS Maka’s episode delay. Regardless we pushed through, and overall I’d say it was a good time. Overall I can’t say I got too much of an impression from working on the material itself though.

I enjoyed most of the books I went through for sure, though I’d say some of them were rather mid, and getting the two worst Angel seasons definitely didn’t help. My season 4 suffering was iconic. That being said I wouldn’t subject my worst enemy to Season 4 Episode 7 timestamp 36:40 and what followed it. I will say that Big Bad slapped though and I wouldn’t mind a reread. Moving on, the project was definitely pretty standard procedure. Go through content, take notes, link important notes, write sections, easier to say than do but it was done regardless. While her franchise didn’t leave much of an impression on me, I did like Buffy herself as a character a good amount. Match has definitely gotten the short end of the community’s stick in the past I’d say, the blog definitely convinced me on the match being best for both and doing everything you’d want in an idea for each.

I haven’t mentioned who I sided in each of these blogs up until now, since either it was something I wanted to avoid (Omni-Man VS Bardock) or my guess for the winner was right every time. Here though, my vote for Blade ended up being wrong, and discussions after the episode have changed my mind and made me agree with Buffy taking the win more than not. Close match though and a debate I definitely enjoyed, especially thanks to the great blog roster. Shout outs to Door, Bang, Maddie, Luz, Ninja, Cabbage, Jello, Twilty, Yerm, Ishi, and Rae for being fun to hang out with. And shout out to everyone else on the project for helping in this massive effort too. Also Maddie this makes four in a row what the fu-

That wraps up my thoughts on the blog itself, but there’s one last thing I need to comment on. As announced in the blog’s release, I would be promoted to a G1 Moderator following this project, rather than staying as a really weirdly prominent volunteer as I’d been the past year. Apply all the stuff about me being happy about being put onto Blade VS Buffy’s blog times fifty. A lot of work led to this point, and I’m happy to know that there’s so much faith in me that the decision was both unanimous by the team, and was something that felt overdue to a lot of community members. Since my promotion I feel I’ve done a good job with the position (or I hope at least ha ha), and I’m glad I’ve improved to the point where I’m trusted with this compared to my more childish behavior back in the days of 2022. Glad to be here, can’t say anything more than that really. Well I can but, it’d just be exaggerations of that same statement hahaha!

Dante VS Clive

First blog as a G1 Mod and a blog my good friend Rina Antiqua had kidna- I mean let me on, it was a weird follow up to Blade Buffy in the sense that I was once again out of my element. I had never played a DMC game before the match’s announcement, nor had I ever touched Final Fantasy 16 whatsoever. That being said I played Devil May Cry 4 through the week following the episode’s announcement (great game I recommend), so it didn’t take me long to get invested. Match was sold on me since day 1 of the project, and I was especially happy getting to see my good friend Twilty pop off basically 24/7. I’ll touch on this more later, but this is a project where I very much didn’t feel like I was in some sort of MVP contention, and I’m happy with that. Being able to slow the gears every now and then is absolutely a good thing (and god I needed to do that considering next time).

Overall, not too much to say here besides I had a good time. Fun debate, fun match, fun time with friends, you get it at this point. Maybe after nine sections before this one, I’m just running out of things to say. I guess I should highlight though that, like with Blade VS Buffy, I voted for the losing character. Dante VS Clive is an absurdly close idea and definitely the closest fight of the Kickstarter era, so I don’t feel bad having voted Dante by any means. As of now I’d still say I’m split on the winner, but regardless I do wish I got my vote right. Especially because now I officially had a small yet present losing streak.

Ash Ketchum VS Yugi Muto

Had quite the interesting history with this matchup. I kind of hated it for a few years until it dawned on me that “dude just like go balling” and I liked it instead. Getting back more into Pokemon over the years definitely helped as well, as I grew excited to have Ash back on the show. The workload for this one was definitely pretty significant, and luckily the team was really strong. I’d say this was the first blog where I really committed to mod duties, and I’d say I did pretty well personally. We did have to do some schedule- leg pulling, but in the end we managed to get most of what needed to be done by the time we wanted it done. As a plus I got to rewatch Diamond and Pearl, which was both nostalgic and surprising due to the series being better than I remembered. Also Paul is the rival goat and Tobias can go choke on a slowpoke tail. Though in the end, I’d say this experience was somewhat of a mixed bag.

I’d say it was more good than bad to be clear (similar to say, Shigaraki Mahito rather than Kratos Asura), but I did feel demoralized at a lot of points for different reasons. There were multiple points where it felt like some sort of debate could be had for a category or two that’d lead to interesting discussion, then a big thing for Yugi would be brought up, and then I’d feel like I had been shot in the leg. This being right after consecutive incorrect bets with Blade and Dante didn’t help either, especially with this match having some negative attitudes surrounding its debate, AND coming after a lot of previous G1 mega workloads. I don’t regret taking any of those workloads, nor do I regret taking this one and helping handle things how much of a childhood icon Ash is for me. But I do wish that my final 2025 blog didn’t feel so… dissatisfying.

I want to really, really stress this: most of these negative points are personal issues. The blog itself featured good behavior and work ethic, a lot of people pitching in and having a good time. Please don’t take the wrong idea and assume there was any sort of toxicity behind the scenes. I swear it was sunshines and rainbows and good times had by nearly all. My point here isn’t that the blog was messy, it was that I wish I had been able to feel better about it myself. Big first world problem aside, I did enjoy my time though. Things were just a little sour is all.

Closing Notes

And with that, I’ve yapped enough about all the big episode blogs I was part of in what was basically Death Battle’s first true independent season. Lots of smiles and laughs, and I’d say I’m more than happy with the work I put in. Especially considering the results of said work.

I’d say that the blogs I helped the most with were Omni-Man VS Bardock, Bowser VS Eggman, Shigaraki VS Mahito, Spider-Man VS Deku, Ruby VS Maka, Blade VS Buffy, and Ash VS Yugi. I think it’s fair to say I was the “MVP” of all of those besides Blade VS Buffy and Ash VS Yugi, where I’d say mostly everyone felt like an MVP due to the workload and spread out discussions. At least when I say I was like an MVP for a blog, I’m saying that because I’ve been called MVP for those projects by other people. Both friends and more neutral people alike I’ve seen praise my efforts on these projects, and the same applies to ones like Simon VS Kyle but to a lesser extent. In cases like that, or say Kratos VS Asura or Dante VS Clive, I went in with a more casual mindset and a desire to be a really strong but more standard contributor. At least, I thought so, compared to some of my more eventful showings.

I don’t exactly rush to call myself “MVP” of projects. Being honest I probably have self-confidence issues haha. But regardless of that I don’t like the idea of just thinking I’m the best or whatever, the last thing I want is to develop some sort of ego (death). But I can’t deny that the MVP claim feels somewhat earned when so many people are calling me one for so many projects. I’ll try to not let it get to my head, but I cannot deny: damn these glazed donuts feels good no cap.

I guess if I had a notable complaint to mention with this era of Death Battle prediction blogs, it’s that the ending chunk didn’t feel as fulfilling as I’d have liked. The double wrong guess with Blade and Dante back to back, followed by Ash getting melted into nothingness when I really wanted to see if he could take some sort of satisfactory advantage (again, first world problem) made what had been my best year as a Death Battle fan ever feel… muddy, at the finish line. But, it is what it is. Ash VS Yugi was the season finale, there weren’t going to be more episode blogs to work on. No chance to end the year on a truly positive note I guess…

Hey, why's there so much space over here?

Note that I specifically said episode blogs, NOT blogs in general.

Percy Jackson VS Zagreus

December 31st release, barely counts but we ball.

Context time. G1 had a lot of bonus blogs lined up, but a lot of late releases due to several miscellaneous conflicts, scheduling and otherwise. So by the time I became a G1 Moderator, Percy VS Zag wasn’t done quite yet. Therefore, I got the opportunity to work on this project to help further it along and get it out of the way, along with Rina Antiqua and Speedy. I had originally been stoked to see the match locked in in 2024, but was blocked off since it was a private project. But things had gone full circle. Hades is one of my favorite games of all time, and the Percy Jackson series was a great read as a kid. So, how was it? 

Going through Hades again was awesome, fantastic game that’s only 25 dollars and on Steam and Switch 1 and Playstation 4 and 5 and XBox and you should buy it it goes on sales often do it do it buy it play it buy it give SuperGiant Games your mone- ahem. But yeah, great time, loved talking with Rina about it and seeing Speedy’s questions about the game. I didn’t touch on Percy Jackson as much since most of Percy’s work was set before I had joined the project, but I helped with some note conversion so I’d say I got a good experience with it too. Hades was the highlight though given I reexperienced more of that then PJ, but hey cake and bigger cake.

Work continued. Great time working with Rina on Zagreus’ Character Sheet, fun as hell debate call with interesting discussion that really interested us, and I got to write a script that sold countless people on the idea’s potential and helped the blog really do well. Said script was a joy to write, just like it was a joy talking with Rina and Speedy daily about the characters and match. I guess I might not have too much to say as some other blogs I’ve discussed here, but when writing through different sections I made a realization. With all those other projects, there was always some sort of issue. Sometimes major, usually minor, but always something that bugged me in some way at some point. I made a comment earlier.

“Not perfect, but who the hell do you think I am to need something to be perfect to feel great?”

Cheesyness aside, I realized that with Percy Jackson VS Zagreus? NOTHING went wrong whatsoever. I got to go back to look at characters I loved, researched a game I adored, talked with friends and had a really, really special time. I could always change something about every other blog experience to make it better, but, here? Nothing. It was fantastic.

Rina, Speedy, if you’re reading this, thank you for what I can solidly say was the best blog experience I’ve ever had. I really appreciate you, my new place on the G1 team, and so on. I think I’ll cut things here before I say private information on accidents somehow via manifesting my inner Zagreus. Thanks for reading, and onto a great 2026- is that a teleporting hellhound running at me at mach ten thousand BLOOD AND DARKNESS-