Death Battle Match Ideas: Black Lion Rio

"As purely fierce as a lion, as powerful as a lion. The one destined to rule the world, I am the Black Lion Rio!"

"As purely fierce as a lion, as powerful as a lion. The one who will obliterate the Evil Dragon, I am the Black Lion Rio!"

Seeing as Power Rangers has gotten use in Death Battle, I figured it's fair game to use something from Super Sentai. For anybody whose kept with Power Rangers seasons, you'll probably recognize Rio as the Sentai counterpart to Jarrod in Power Rangers Jungle Fury. He has a similar role to his American counterpart, but also some major differences to set him apart. For starters, despite what those quotes might imply, Rio is actually very stoic and restrained, even when doing his introduction.

The biggest difference, Rio was a badguy of his own choice. As a child his family was killed by a monster, and he took the supernatural martial art style called Gekijyuken so he could be strong enough that he'd never have to suffer that pain again. When the power he got didn't satisfy him, he abandoned it for its dark splinter faction Rinjyuken, and by the start of the series has adopted Rinjyuken's brutal social Darwinist attitude of only respecting power, seeing weakness as the only evil int he world.

Despite his talk about taking over the world he's more interested in getting stronger fighting worthy opponents. His main goal for first a quarter is reviving Rinjyuken's founders the Kenma and learning their techniques, but when he revives the leader Maku, whom even the other two didn't want around, he gets his ass kicked and reduced to little more than a flunky. As Maku is perceived to impossible for him or the Gekirangers to defeat, he tries to gain new strength from the secret village jyuken originated from. The powerup ends up helping him, his perky female minion/morality pet Mele, and the Gekirangers grow even stronger than Maku.

After Maku's defeat he's asked by a mystery man whose been following his progress named Long to join his school of Genjyuken, and eventually does after some convincing, but later it turns out that whole thing was a scheme by Long to turn Rio into a mindless killing machine, Rio only snapping back thanks to his attachment to Mele. Long had in fact been manipulating Rio's whole life, including killing his parents, and finding he had been a pawn sends Rio into despair until he's snapped back and helps the Gekirangers defeat Long, sorta.

Long brought his motive was that he can't die and is looking for amusement, and when he said he couldn't die, he wasn't exaggerating, returning after getting blown up to take revenge on the Gekirangers for foiling his plans. Mele dies saving three of them from Long's giant dragon form, Rio and her planning to die to atone for their past mistakes anyways. Rio tries to kill Long in kamikaze attack, but blowing Long up a second time proved even less effective and he returned seconds later. He did however, leave the Gekirangers with the means to master Rinjyuken, which allowed them defeat Long by sealing him into the form of a ball.

Now a couple earlier Death Battles involving Tommy Oliver might make it seem like that can be scaled to get Rio's level, but that wouldn't actually do him justice thanks to a scene Jungle Fury cut out. First, before Maku's final fight, we see him bring down several skyscrapers without even turning into a giant, and this was after Rio matched him without even going into his fighting form. Even though his Genjyoken fighting form was made out to be stronger than his regular one, due to Sentai plot convenience he actually appeared stronger when fighting alongside the Gekirangers than against them, though the series did earlier establish him learning to develop power from anger and he hated Long more than anybody.

As Rio is pretty close to an evil Sentai ranger, I'm pitting him against the evil Kamen Rider Ouja from Kamen Rider Ryuki, whom like Rio was also a popular villain. I don't know if this journal will actually have Rio get a lot of usage, especially since complete Super Sentai series are fairly difficult to find online (dammit Toei), but I'll go ahead anyways since these are fun to make.


Tommy Oliver: Pretty obvious Lion vs Tiger motif.


Jago: Same as above.


Darth Vader: Stoic (or largely stoic in Rio's case) badass who manages to redeem himself in death, with help from the only being who still cares about him.


Irori Yagami (King of Fighters): Hostile rival to the hero whom, becomes less hostile as the series goes on.


Sagat (Street Fighter): Continuing the lion vs tiger theme, plus they both took a lose that severely wounded their pride that made them do some stupid stuff. Sagat losing to Ryu making him join the crimelord whose grins can give nightmares and dresses like an SS officer, and Rio reviving the Maku when even the other two Kenma said that's a bad idea.


Sesshomaru (Inuyasha): Similar to the above idea. Rio for much of the series behaves like Sesshomura in his early appearances, though not quite as smug (the jury's out if he was as a big a jerk), but mellowed out by the end. And both really lose there cool when they lose a fight and get nearly broken by a world changing revalation.


Guts (Berserk): Badass who nearly falls to the darkside and saved by his attachment to others, or well at least that looks like where Guts is going.


Nosferatu Zodd: Another villain with a lion motive who loves fighting.


Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy VIII): Another character with a lion motive, and Squall like Rio has a perky girl he falls in love with after trying to ignore her feelings.

Any takers?