How To Write An Underdog: Sasaki Kojiro vs Poseidon (Record of Ragnarok)

first of all before getting into this fight and my whole idea on how to present an underdog in the way it was done with this fight i wanted to thank you all so much for the massive amounts of support and success on the other record of ragnarok videos thank you all so much for that also if you are new to this channel make sure you like comment and subscribe and turn on the bell notifications i'm trying to hit 100 000 subscribers before the end of the year that would be a huge achievement but without further

ado cue the intro [Music] now sasaki vs poseidon was a fight that i originally had ranked as the worst fight out of all of the ones we've had so far not including raiden versus shiva now when i say worst not that it's a bad fight but if not that it i just didn't think it was as good as the others now looking back on it this is easily better than thor vs lubu and i'll kind of give my reasonings as to why i think it's better than what i originally had it but why also i

kinda didn't like the fight as much as the others first of all i think the unpredictability within a fight going into it is massive for instance the first fight that we start off with thor versus lubu we really have no idea who's gonna win same with adam versus zeus i mean there comes a certain point in the fight where you kind of get the feeling that adam is gonna lose but even then you still can't really tell and with the jack versus hercules i genuinely had no idea who was going to win um sasaki vs

poseidon was in a little bit of a rough spot and let me explain why first of all when it comes to getting into a fight and analyzing especially when it comes to this tournament format which is record of ragnarok the context really does matter for those of you that have read it so far i think you kind of know where i'm going with this the first fight goes 1-0 to the gods second fight 2-0 to the gods by the third fight we kind of get the feeling okay humanity has to win one at this point

and if it wasn't obvious enough that humanity was going to get a win at this third fight they kind of really gave it away by having sasaki be world's greatest loser like i mean it kind of gave off red flags to me instantly that okay he's the world's greatest loser the irony of it's going to be that he's going to win against poseidon who's this god of perfection who's never lost it kind of gave it away from me instantly when the first two fighters were introduced hence why the unpredictability of the fight for me felt

the least impressive out of all of the others but however with that being said it should have really hit me that despite its unpredictability being the worst out of all of the fights and me kinda knowing the outcome before the fight even started the fact that the fight was still extremely entertaining and captivating despite that is quite impressive you see writing an underdog character and making him compelling in that short amount of a time is very difficult i mean look at other series for instance like naruto that have an entire series to flesh out an

underdog story and make his chime feel great wreckage ragnarok does not have that pleasure they have to present sasaki to you as a relatable and reasonable underdog and then when he does triumph it still feel phenomenal now i see this being done two ways first of all the fight actually starts and well sasaki kinda gets his butt whooped but in an interesting way as sasaki kinda has this ability to predict the outcome of a fight based off of countless failures and experiences so him mentally he sees himself losing to poseidon multiple times before even actually

making the first move then you also have the fact that while his title is the world's greatest loser and he's going up against one of the most ruthless gods being poseidon and then on top of that humanity is down to zero they automatically set up sasaki well to be an underdog and they make that message extremely clear you see because they didn't just give him the title world's greatest loser and then we have to accept that and then the fight happens and he just one shots poseidon now they actually make him an underdog within the

fight and then again with the context of humanity being two-nil down again despite me thinking overall the context takes away from the unpredictability of the fight i think the context adds to the character of sasaki by really making him an overwhelming underdog and that's one of the things that jumped out to me instantly re-reading this fight is i wish this was applied with other characters who were deemed as quote unquote underdog because it's more than just being called an underdog the actual context surrounding the character truly makes them an underdog and the odds that they're

facing as well just confirms well their position as a character now the other thing that truly helps with this fight is poseidon now personally the reason as to why we originally ranked this fight as the worst of all the four is because i personally feel as if poseidon as a character truly didn't he didn't really stand out to me as much like he was cool and that was about it i felt like hercules did a better job of contrasting jack than poseidon contrasts sasaki but nonetheless i think the contrast between poseidon and sasaki is decent

enough thor versus lubu were both outstanding characters to me and well i don't really need to say much about adam versus zeus but i will give credit where credit is due and poseidon does contrast sasaki pretty well again not as good as i think hercules contrasted jack but nonetheless good enough for it to be mentioned poseidon is this brutal god of perfection who is kind of like even though zeus is kind of the ultimate of all the gods in record of ragnarok poseidon is the embodiment of what a god should be like perfect above humans

and his smug arrogant attitude really does give that away and so even though i wish there was more to poseidon's character than just being a contrast for sasaki they wrote that aspect of the fight well enough for it to work now as for the actual fight itself this is where i'm a little bit torn because even though it is unique in its own sense and i love the way it kind of starts out with sasaki kind of looking at his options and whatnot and i love how the fight ends with poseidon slowly losing his composure

i feel like the middle portion of that fight could have been way more dynamic especially with a character like poseidon who has the ability to control water i mean adam versus zeus was a straight out brawler fight which was extremely entertaining from beginning to end thor versus luvu was a powerhouse of a fight extremely entertaining from beginning to end jack versus hercules was a beautiful show of strategy but when it came to this fight the only thing really holding it is sasaki's entire triumph from underdog to winner which is why i titled the atom vs

zeus fight how to write a fight because i genuinely think from beginning to end it is a great demonstration of how you should write combat other than goku vs frieza and i saw a few comments dissing me and calling me a normie for bringing up goku vs frieza but look man you can say whatever you want about dragon ball but you cannot deny when it comes to fights you can't diss dragon ball z especially early dragon ball z the way they wrote their fights and the way that they structured them and layered them out and

gave context to the characters you did come on now but with that being said again when it comes to this fight as sasaki vs poseidon i'm titling this video how to write an underdog because that's truly all this fight really has um up until we really get to see poseidon lose his composure and become a lot more careless and reckless and you can see kind of the insanity within his eyes um this is really just a sasaki carried fight it doesn't necessarily have the thematic strength that i think jack versus hercules has where it's kind

of good versus evil but i still get the overall message and themes that you can see between poseidon and sasaki you have humility versus pride the mentality of a winner versus someone who has never won in their life and so you can kind of see the different approaches and whatnot and the more you go into their backstories again poseidon's seeming cool but it not strong enough to really carry him as a character he just comes off as a jerk and we get that from the beginning and then with sasaki's backstory we get a little more

of the sense of just how much more of an underdog he really is and i know i'm gonna get a little bit annoying keep coming back to this but again when you have such little time to really present a character the context is massive just before this we had adam the first man ever the trump card that was going to be used for humanity he didn't work so now we have to turn to the world's greatest loser we go from arguably the strongest human ever or at least the most powerful because i mean adam was

going wild and ham against zeus the first human ever versus the world's greatest loser i mean talk about going from one option to another but from then on we then go to the final stage of the fight where poseidon becomes a little more brutal and again begins to lose his composure and sasaki starts gaining the upper hand the fight gets pretty close to the end and it becomes a fight of brutal slashes and cuts a sword versus a trident and then we finally reach the conclusion where for the first time humanity has made a god

fall and by the way i will say despite all of the issues i had with poseidon as a character and the fight itself not being extremely dynamic the conclusion of this fight is easily just as good as the jack versus hercules or the atom versus zeus conclusion it left you with a huge emotional impact and a desire for the next fight like i said near the beginning of the video despite the unpredictability of the fight and the outcome kind of being easy to predict from the beginning it was still emotional enough to leave me satisfied

i really did like sasaki as a character after rereading this fight and despite me still thinking that this fight is only now just the third best out of all of the ones we've had sasaki as a character is easily one of the best we've had so far in record of ragnarok and so even though this isn't the sasaki versus a musashi fight that we've been waiting for in vagabond for the past few years this fight was still great and so let me know if you enjoyed this video and if you'd like to see me cover

maybe thor versus lubu or give my opinions on shiva vs raiden at the current moment let me know again in the comment section below and again also if you are new to the channel make sure you like subscribe turn on the bell notifications and as always this has been the masked man hope everyone has a blessed rest of the day and peace