Top 5 Battles of 2013

Written  by: Shiggins and Micha.

What’s a brilliant shonen manga without a good ole’ heat-radiating, adrenaline-rushing, pants-wetting, lust-inducing battle? Our number two priority has always been shonen on this blog, the first being porn, and considering that battles are one of the main aspects of a good action manga, this has made its way to the three articles we’re publishing for the end of 2013. 

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5th - Battle of Magnostadt (Magi)

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You’d think it’ll be too early for this developing manga to introduce huge plot points like introducing great wars and killing canon characters, yet here it is. It’s one of the things I love about Magi; the plot moves in god speed and doesn't hesitate to go bold with developments and themes. For instance, the Chancellor Mogamett who can be accurately described in one sentence; he’s a frickin’ douche.
  

Here's him casually punching a kid.

Scheherazade had proposed Magnostadt be a province of Reim Empire, saying that Magnostadt had two choices; 1. surrender to Reim Empire or 2. become vassal state of Kou Empire and be involved in the war with Reim Empire. The city of Magnostadt really would not stand a chance since they were just a country of magicians without special defenses. Of course, Mogamett wouldn't have any of this shit and war began.

Mogamett unleashed highly skilled Guardian Deities to fight the ordinary soldiers of Reim Empire, whose biggest achievement was inventing gun powder. But lucky for them, Reim Empire had brought the Finalis Corps with them, who looked as blood thirsty as Hillary Clinton on the Elections. They were literally like hungry dogs on loose on the battle field as they kept thrashing the soldiers of Magnostadt.

As you can see, I wasn't exaggerating.

Aladdin couldn't take the genocide anymore and revealed himself as a Magi before washing the Reim soldiers to the shore, buying time to restore Magnostadt's barrier and verbally crushing their fighting spirit. The war didn't stop there, however. As luck would have it, Kou Empire made their move on Magnostadt that night as they clearly wanted to conquer Magnostadt before Reim could. Chancellor Mogamett then revealed his secret creation: Huge weapons he had been building by sucking the black rukh from criminals, war prisoners and people of 5th Level district they had forced to fall in to depravity.

The result was an army of constantly regenerating and dividing black djinn which destroys tons of Kou Empire troops, sends Prince Kouha near-crazy, and pissed off a lot of people. Ren Kouen and his spawns surprised everyone with their unexpected entrance and defeating all of the black djinn eventually. During all this, we had Titus working behind the scenes to battle Mogamett, who has controlling the black djinn while going crazy in the process.

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4th - Eren vs The Armoured Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)

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Yes, we’ve finally started reading Shingeki No Kyojin (also known as Attack on Titan) and although the art isn’t great, it doesn’t keep the battles from being truly epic when it needs to be. This was a battle we’d all been expecting ever since the first attack of the titans, when a huge armoured titan appeared out of nowhere to destroy the wall and let an entire army of titans flow in. Years later, after intense training and lots of other drama, we finally find out who the Armoured Titan really is, and it’s quite shocking.

The most badass Titan of them all!

Yes, Reiner Braun is the Armoured Titan and his best friend Bertolt Hoover is the monstrous Colossal Titan. Personally, finding out one of my favourite characters was the A-Titan both excited me greatly and broke my heart because I’m scared for his future now. This of course, instantly leads to some epic battling between Eren’s Titan form and Reiner’s Titan form. You expect a battle like this to be nothing but rage but if it was, it wouldn’t be on this list. It has Eren keeping control, getting upset over fighting a man he once deeply admired and looked up, remembering tactics that Reiner himself taught him over the years and more.

Season 2 better hurry the fuck up!

The Colossal Titan just makes this battle even worse, using some strange steam power to keep the entire army from helping Eren in this amazing battle. Of course, Eren can’t possibly win against the two most powerful and hated Titans in the entire series, one of whom is the badass Reiner, and soon he is captured, which just causes a huge chase scene to free Eren from Reiner’s grasp.

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3rd - Natsu vs Future Rogue (Fairy Tail)

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Nobody saw this fight coming. We all thought the Grand Games Arc would end with a final battle against Sabretooth, and Sting and Rogue being defeated easily. Then suddenly, that changed and time travel invaded this arc. If it wasn’t enough that a version of Rogue from the future appeared, he brought seven dragons with him and was vastly more powerful than his past self, making this battle all the more intense. A reason this battle is so memorable is because this is the first time we’d ever seen every Dragon Slayer together in one big scene, fighting against those they were born or trained to fight. Sadly, we never actually saw all the Slayers fight the Dragons but the ones we did see were great fun.

And people think Sasuke looks emo...

So how do you make a battle like this even more memorable? By having Natsu tame one of the Dragons themselves and have the two work together to battle it out in the sky, of course. Atlas Flame, the Fire Dragon, happily helps Natsu out against Future Rogue and his own personal Dragon, Motherglare. Our only complaint with this battle is just how quickly it ended, but we had fun watching Natsu not actually win easily and get smashed up for ages.

There is even some sexy fanservice during this fight

And don’t worry because although this battle is won, the war will still go on as we are filled to the brim with lingering questions about Rogue, the future and the Dragons. Even the Dragon Slayers have questions, due to being too weak to actually make a dent in all their battles. It leaves many possibilities and shows just how far ahead Hiro Mashima is currently thinking. Fairy Tail lives on thanks to all these questions we have.

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2nd - Kenpachi vs Unohana (Bleach)

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This is a fight I thought I’d never see coming, then I realised I’d always wanted to see this happen. Bleach’s final arc has been filled with great plot twists, resolutions and more, redeeming itself after the mistakes of the Fullbring Arc. Mass murder in tons of chapters, flashbacks of great interest, new villains almost every month, and reveals we never thought we’d see. One of the most major reveals came from Unohana, Captain of Squad 4 and the master healer of the entire Soul Society. It turns out she was once known as Yachiru Unohana, the Kenpachi of her generation. That’s right, Unohana was once a mass murderer and unstoppable in almost every single way!

I'm just going to back away and come back when there is less scary shit going on.

As soon as we found out her past, we were almost drooling at the mouth for Kenpachi to fight Unohana. It turns out, they had fought before and Kenpachi was only a kid back then. Unohana’s scar on her neck is only covered by that weird hairstyle but all that doesn’t matter when these two insane freaks battle it out in the basement, swords flinging all over the place. Kenpachi going full power instantly, Unohana showing her true and creepy nature, and then finally we see Unohana’s bankai. A blade that is made of blood and able to make us all shiver, we see the two of them literally have their skin melt from their bones, grow back again and remove again. It’s horrifying but all of it is necessary in order to give Kenpachi what he finally needs: A bankai.

This was back when 10 year olds only cried over things like not getting to commit mass murder, instead of losing their boyfriends.

What makes this battle truly memorable is just how much we see Kenpachi respect and admire Unohana, of all people. We see Kenpachi shedding an actual tear, wanting Unohana to live, feeling true emotion for once and showing that even the sickest and most horrible character can still be human. Some of you may call that a negative reason towards this fight, but you’d be wrong because we all need to see a true side to a character sometimes.

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1st - Obito Uchiha vs Shinobi Army (Naruto)

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And here it is.

We have been waiting to know the outcome of this battle ever since we’ve been anticipating the downfall of Obito Uchiha, one of the biggest and awesomely written villains we’ve seen in Naruto. Surely we all have our own opinions about this character- most of which are certainly not pleasant- however, there is no denying that Obito Vs the Allied Shinobi Army was kind of remarkable.

The many forms of Obito Uchiha.

 This battle opened doors to all kinds of possibilities in Narutoverse regarding forbidden jutsu and kekkei genkai. We found out more about the Sharingan, Rinnegan and Kamui; bridging gaps and filling holes of previously unanswered questions, concepts and mysteries. Also, the reason why Obito Uchiha was converted to join Madara and cause a war was finally revealed (as stupid and facepalm-inducing the reason may be); it was something we’d all been dying to know. 

And I've been using this excuse all the time ever since.
My mom: Mich, why didn't you take out the trash?
Me:  ...you let Rin die.

One of the reasons why this battle is notable is because we got to see the impressive and strategically executed teamwork of the Shinobi Alliance and the previous Hokages (plus Sasuke), which is something we don’t see every day.

While Hashirama was occupied with dealing Madara through half of the battle, Tobirama, Minato, Naruto and Sasuke fought with the Juubi Jinchuriki as Sarutobi and everybody else stayed irrelevant. Some of the highlights of this battle include Sasuke’s subtle jealousy and realization of Naruto’s strength, Minato and Naruto’s combined attacks, Naruto’s typical Talk No Jutsu, and ultimately the extraction of all the Tailed Beasts by the efforts of everyone.

Other highlights include Minato's unnatural obsession with "Sasuke-kun"

 Personally, I believe the best thing about Obito’s much inevitable end was that Naruto did not use just the Talk No Jutsu on him, but actually viciously smacked some sense in to Obito; which was something I believe that we all wanted to do.

This concludes the Top 5 battles of 2013. What is your list? Let us know in the comments. Happy New Year, folks.

Shiggins:[Admin]
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Shiggins enjoys many strange forms of communication, especially those including cosplayers or presents or videos. However, until that wonderful day comes when people care enough to give him things for being him, you can contact him on his Skype; shigginsishere. He can also respond to you if you contact him through GMails at shigginsishere@gmail.com, and you can find out about him or ask him stuff on ask.fm/shigginsishere.

Micha: [Co-founder]












Micha likes to broadcast her terrible drawing skills to the world on her DeviantArt account and talks about her life long ambition of making Yakushi Kabuto a woman, on her Skype; michasucks. Yes, with the dot. She will also respond to e-mails on her michamichamicha@live.com because Amber forces her to.

 Also, she now has an ask.fm. Here's your chance to harass her.