Hello my dear island guests. It is time for yet another new series on my blog. It’s all based around a simple question. A question anime fan ask all the time! Who would win? Now of course Pinkie’s Paradise is a haven of peace and joy! Gladiatorial combat will not be part of it. Ram would have to much cleaning to do! That’s right she stayed! So instead for each face down we let our combatants duke it out in more mundane situations. This time the Gum Gum Pirate and the Nine Tailed Ninja duke it out…. in my game-room!
<This post features some atmospheric music suggestions found below each segment title viewing this post on the actual site is recommended for the full experience>
The Challenge
Of course the challenge will vary every installment of this. Combatants are allowed to use their abilities and we take into account how their mindset works. By placing them in a much more humble situation we do not need to do some math to find out that Luffy punches with the power of one octillion ton of tnt or having to go to weird science to show that Naruto’s beast bomb can blow up the moon.. which is more than Luffy can handle or something! No! These fights would cause planetary devastation and that’s not nice! We would pick something you and I could compete in and feasibly win against them, why? Because that is how we make friends with them! Also I think it’s a bit more of an original idea than just analyzing their abilities or letting people vote who would win! This is more on brand for me.
So how do we place a flexible man and a duplicating man on equal level? Well it is very simple! We call in the help of Nintendo! In februari 1999 a game of theirs released that could test how flexible your hand was, how fast you could tab buttons and how strategical one can be! It forces people to work together..as well as against one another. Today we will find out who of these two will be our Superstar. That is right! We are playing Mario Party. Now there are a lot of Mario Parties to choose from and the winner may depend on our choice. Obviously the ones with the car would bore both to death.. as those are proper mario party games. To keep things a bit simple.. I decided to go with the first game. This way there can always be a rematch, should there need be one!
The Set-Up
Luffy and Naruto would meet in an epic staredown, but smiling, both be handed their N64 controllers for the first time. Immediately we see a difference between our two contestants. Naruto like any normal human being has difficulty holding this weird spaceship shaped controller, while Luffy wraps his hand around it with ease! The Rubber-Devil-Fruit Powers are coming in clutch already! Now since Naruto is Japanese he will hold the controller by the middle prong, tiny hands and all that, as the N64 controllers were designed that you could hold it depending on our hand size or what stuff you needed. Since the D-pad is barely needed in this game Naruto is not to disadvantaged but Luffy struggles less when needing to switch positions and has an advantage in minigames.
Now it’s onto selecting their characters, this doesn’t give them a advantage… or does it? Luffy would as mentioned before have less trouble with the controller and would be able to select his character first. Choosing Yoshi.Why? Because I believe Luffy would get excited of having a dinosaur as a Nakama. Naruto who saw the frog like features of Yoshi would have most likely picked him as well but now decides to choose Peach. A choice which will come into play later. Donkey Kong and Wario would be selected as the computer controlled opponents, as both tend to fight villains and these two are the closest to that..even if they are thinking of the wrong Donkey Kong.
Now for a board they will select DK’s Jungle Adventure. Luffy would be to distracted by the cake .. in Princess Peach level and Luffy would not want to give Luffy the advantage of duking it out on a tropical island, as a pirate, islands like that would be Luffy’s favored terrain. They would consider the Wario Stage for a bit but both have had their fair share of war and are not to keen on reliving it. Which brings me to what versions of both characters we use. We use both their “young adult” post time skip forms with most of their abilities intact. However transformation states are not allowed. So no foxfire Naruto and no Geared up Luffy.
The First Half
Immediately after the turn order is decided, Luffy tries to activate his conquers Haki to knock Naruto out or gage his inner strength, which obviously would not knock out Naruto but would knock out just about everyone else on the island… maybe if Irina is visiting she would have already been knocked out by the cocktails beforehand. This action does come back to bite Luffy in the posterior though. Now that there is no one to tell them how to play the actual game.
Naruto is much more likely to pick up video games more natural than Luffy. His world is a lot more contemporary than Luffies. Just less for ninja’s .. however there are computers and technology in his world. Additionally Naruto is less obsessed with his goal. While in his free time Luffy would eat, train or think of what new Nakama he wants to at, Naruto would actually spend his free time more “normally” making it much more likely he can slip into the right mindset. As a result in the first five rounds of mini games or so, Naruto would most likely come out on top, though perhaps still losing to the A.I. ..at least in the first two games.
In the second quarter of the game however we will see a much more balanced and equal game. Luffy would use his gum gum arms to completely dominate the stick spin minigames, (these are mini games where you rapidly spin your analog stick around to win a minigame) and Naruto would use his shadow clones to win the rapid button presses minigames, however since Luffy is cute used to his Gum Gum Gatling Gun.. he develops a finger technique based on it called the Gum Gum Mini gun as he gains ground on Naruto. Having two clones aid with button presses is less effective than a flurry of rubbery fingers, so it looks like the most minigame award would go to Luffy.
There is a reason that Naruto chose Peach. He readies his ultimate distraction technique as he asks Luffy. “Can you see my character” he uses his Sexy-No-Jutsu to transform into a bikini Peach. This distraction would work, for about two minigames. Not because Luffy got a nosebleed.. but because he is super excited that he now might be able to add a Genderfluid-Ninja Nakama to his team and become Pirate King for sure. Naruto would tease Luffy for long enough to win a couple of games and take some momentum back.
The Second Half
In the second half of the game Luffy would recover, Sanji would somehow burst in and begin to swoon over Naruto causing him to turn back and yell at the chef. Where he came from nobody knows.. but when there is a half naked girl he just would show up. Luffy is gaining more and more advantages in minigames. In games like Bumper Balls, where you try to bounce each other of a small island using big rubber balls for example would be akin to physics Luffy is very familiar with, there are a few similar games like swimming around a rubber hammer and other things.
However in the water based games Luffy is a bit overly careful and ends up losing more than once. For some reason in the bonus game you can dive up treasures he manages to get his character down under water.. but he can’t get it back up, not because he really can’t but because he believes he can’t . As a result Luffy is not very good at the bonus games that allow you to earn more than 10 coins.. as a large part of them include water. Around turn 15, Luffy has won about 8 minigames, Naruto won 5 and the NPC’s have won two. However since Naruto wins the bonus games.. he would most likely still have the most coins…it doesn’t really help that Luffy likes to land on red spaces as that is is defining colour.
Team games are alway won by Luffy.. if Naruto is in his team or not.. he is very good at working with other people, while Naruto technically should he is much more a I need to do this guy. Something that really developed more after his time skip. Luffy is having more fun than Naruto, he lands on more question mark spaces and would luck out more having three stars where Naruto only has one. He is enjoying himself so much he loses sight of the tactical aspect of the match, as Luffy is prone to be distracted.
This will end up costing him dearly in the final five turns, coins are ample except with Luffy who keeps spending them. Still seeing Naruto as a potential Nakama he shows him kindness and doesn’t steal from him using Boo. The Water 7 arc shows how easy to forgive Luffy can be and in general he really treats his friends well. Now Naruto is not a bad person but he had Sakura tell she had feelings for him even if she did not and his best friend betrayed the village.He also wants to knock sense into said friend…destroy his goals and motivations and drag him back to the village. He also has more drive to win. Naruto has been in way more petty competitions than the stretchy pirate and he wants to win them all, while Luffy is more prone to see non essential competitions as “fun”
This will result in Naruto tactically allowing an NPC to steal a star first, as Luffy has the most he would always be the target of the NPC.Naruto holds off until this has happened to snipe a star of Luffy as well, planning it out as close to the final turn as possible, just to end up using his coin lead to buy himself an additional star as well. Luffy who is just having fun would tactically not be prepared for this being considerably less intelligent compared to Naruto. While both are tactically about equal in combat, Naruto’s time with Shikamaru makes him much more likely to pick up some of the strategic skills needed here. He has also displayed them more in finding enemy bases and plans where Luffy usually shouts enemies out of hiding or creates other ruckus.
The betrayal would anger Luffy and cause him to go all out in the last phase. Activating his armament Haki for more rigid button presses and even faster spinning. Most of the future pirate king’s big fights end with an enraged Luffy giving it his all. This can result in either two things of which the latter is more likely to me! Luffy completely dominates the last two minigames crushing all former records OR he accidentally breaks the analogue stick or buttons during a flurry of matches and in actuality losing the last two matches due to controller failure. Since normal people already break N64 controllers when Mario Partying to zealously, this would be the scenario I’d think would unfold with angry Luffy as well.
The Super Star
Now that the match is over it is time for the bonus stars. First of is the minigame star, a bonus star that has been present since game one. This would be very close since Luffy won more mini games but really struggled with bonus games..because his fear of water. Naruto would have won less but he is more money aware than Luffy and would have bested him in the bonus mini games, partially due to more natural gamer instincts part due to a lack of fear. Wether or not the controller broke for Luffy during the end phase will decide whoever wins this bonus star. Which in fairness would be more likely to be Luffy so we will give this star to him.
The Happening Star is a bonus star that would be awarded to those who landed on the most green event spaces. This would definitely go to Luffy, he is much more prone to experiment on a games board and just see what happens if he goes on that square. Naruto oftenly being short on cash would prioritise blue spaces and getting cash..because he also is put on the backhand of minigames.
The Coin Star would be close again but I feel like this would end up going to Naruto, even though he spend more money than Luffy. Here is my “math” for that. During an average math on DK Jungle you can buy about 5 ish stars. Due to him dominating in the Minigames I gave Luffy 3 and Naruto 2. However Naruto spend 50 coins to steal a star of Luffy as well. So Naruto spends 90 coins and Luffy 60. From minigames Luffy wins somewhere close to the 150 mark the Ninja boy not being that far behind due to the bonus minigames paying out a lot more. However where Luffy would explore a board and see what stuff does, plus he likes his icon being red I feel on the board Naruto would easily make double of what Luffy makes. Easily compensating for the 30 coins he spend more. Luffy would want to try out a bowser square just to see what it would do and from that alone losing that amount of coins is fairly easy. The fact that Bowser is on this board and sells you fake golden banana figures for 10 coins is something I feel Luffy would also fall for more than once thus Naruto ends up with the most coins.
Now depending on how RNG went four likely scenarios can unfold.
–Naruto did not manage to buy a second star after stealing Luffies, because he needs to time it close to the end if the game, in which both players would end up with three stars.
–The NPC blundered and did not steal a star, in which case both the heroes would end up with four stars.
–Naruto’s strategy worked completely, in which case he would end up on 4 stars and Luffy on Three.
–The NPC would fail to steal a star, and Naruto would have bad rolls on the final dice and not make it to his third star. In which case Naruto would end up with 3 stars and Luffy would take 4.
Now it would seem that we have two ties and and one victory for both, but in Mario Party in case of a tie the victory goes to he who holds the most coins. So in most of our simulations ..victory would go to the blond boy! Naruto is the super star!
Now I hope you all enjoyed this first edition of Who Would Win! How do you think should win?! What type of match up would you like to see you next? I had a blast making this post so there will be a lot more of these!
I shall all wish you an amazing day and will leave you with the teaser for the next one.
Pinkie's Paradise 