Phoenix's arguments for top 3-5 in Metal Fusion
I just wanted to outline my own take on the title here! Let me know your thoughts below.
Phoenix seems to be respected a bit here, but does anyone not think he's absolutely busted in metal fusion?? Let me outline a few concepts below.
Phoenix's scaling to Tsubasa
Right before Phoenix fights Gingka, he fights Tsubasa...and he one-shots him (episode 39). This Tsubasa used "Counter Smash" as his special move.
Side note: According to the Wiki (I don’t recall any actual arguments in the series for this being the case), it's an alternate name for his "Counter Stance" move. Please let me know any other information about this, if you have any.
Now, you *could* diminish this feat by saying Tsubasa is fatigued from fighting Gingka's gang. Admittedly, his is a thing in the series. Later in the series when Hyoma fights some Dark Nebula folk, Doji comments on the fact that he must have used up a lot of strength. Although, in my opinion, Tsubasa should be fine, given the fact that he showed no signs of fatigue after his fights before Phoenix. The fighte were also all relatively low-mid diff IMO.
The generally consistent power levels of the members of Gingka's gang through the Battle Bladers period
This is kind of insane because GENERALLY, the versions of characters here are at around the same level as their Battle Bladers versions, given that the tournament is a very short period after. Between tournament rounds, besides warming up, there doesn't seem to be any indication of any serious training (someone can check me on this).
Tsubasa's scaling to Ryuga (Episode 45)
This is kind of crazy because Tsubasa *did* show some sort of (low-mid relativity to Ryuga IMO). He knew he couldn't take him in repeated head-on clashes so he was more strategic but throughout first clash showed him putting up a fight and Counter Stance beat the Dragon Emperor Soaring Bite Strike. I believe Ryuga, given his reactions, WAS pushed a bit this fight, and this is with Hikaru's power absorbed by the way.
So if there is that big of a strength gap between Tsubasa and Phoenix, there's a conversation to be had about how well Phoenix does against round 1 and round 2 Ryuga, but that's a different discussion.
Yes, Phoenix lost to Gingka before Battle Bladers but this Gingka is kind of a monster... (Episodes 39-50)
You *could* argue Gingka gets stronger between Battle Bladers rounds, but I think it is more likely that Gingka just holds back less and less. When Gingka fights Reiji, he seems to be significantly on the ropes (he does admit Poison Serpant's attack mode was a bit dicey or hard to deal with), but while overcomes Reiji, he states that Pegasus isn't even using his full strength. This makes sense! Against Yu, he seems to be going exteeme diff, but he could also just be holding back a bit. And when pushed against Ryuga, you could argue that before Ryuga gets taken over by the dark power in episode 50, Gingka is actually just beating him with his own strength, and doesn't get power from Hikaru, Tsubasa, Kyoya and everyone until later. Under these assumptions, Pegasus' raw attack power stops the Dragon Emperor Soaring Bite Strike (episode 50), and does the same this to Serpent's Venom Strike (episode 47).
And with all of this, Phoenix had Gingka on the ropes, especially in raw power.
To summarize, I'm playing with the idea that Gingka is at mostly his full power (outside of friendship amps) when he fights Phoenix and merely reveals more and more of his power throughout Battle Bladers.
So Phoenix is to surpass a Tsubasa and "match" a Gingka that scale to higher-tier characters, only being surpassed by Gingka, Kyoya, and arguable Doji (he's a monster on his own).
I think I've brought up some points to think about, so please let me know everything from you agreements to your hard disagreements, but I'd like to make some concluding statements.
Scaling problems and concluding statements
If you believe that characters (mainly Tsubasa and Gingka) all grow significantly stronger during Battle Bladers or that they got stronger between the Tsubasa fight and Battle Bladers, then the Phoenix scaling becomes a little less impressive.
Of you believe Gingka is constantly getting blader spirit amps and constantly fighting above his usual capacity, this scaling also becomes less impressive.
If you, however, believe this scaling then you might be able to even assert that Phoenix's scaling to Gingka makes him more impressive than Kyoya, who, for the most part, fought and went extreme diff with a Ryuga that didn't really use the Dark Power to the end. If you believe this scaling, Phoenix scales to a Gingka who scales to a stronger Ryuga, who IS using borrowed power.
Oh, and Doji was giving this Phoenix a run for his money. I don’t agree with using Ryuga one-shotting Doji as an anti-feat or means to break the chain considering the fact that Dark Wolf had taken a significant amount of damage from the previous fight (it was cracked) and Doji was in very poor shape, something that is represented as connected to a blader's power (fatigue used to represent blader's reduced power or damage being correlated to a blader's stamina, etc).
As for Doji...I wonder if he trains. He was seemingly defeated by a much weaker, episode 12 Gingka, but is able to scale to a Phoenix that beat a much stronger Gingka (episode 33)... Maybe he was holding back during the first interaction.
In conclusion I think you could argue a top 5 like this.
1 and 2. Gingka and Ryuga.
Doji - is probably >= Phoenix
Phoenix via relativity to Gingka (not amped by everyone) and gapping Tsubasa.
Potentially, gap....
- Kyoya.
You might be able to get Phoenix to 3 if you don't value Kenta's contribution to his fight against Doji, but I think given what I've outlined, 4 is safe.
This all depends on certain interpretations of character scaling, but do you guys think?
Let me know if this is an okay flair, lol.