Pinkie Pie VS Gold Ship Q&A

Pinkie Pie Questions

(Images created by Garf and Flip)

Wouldn’t Chaos Magic Insanity Make Pinkie Lose?

No. While it is true that Chaos Magic can enhance Pinkie’s madness to a notable degree, there are contexts around both instances, and the weakness is dramatically overestimated. Pinkie Pie has acquired full access to Chaos Magic on two different occasions. The first time was in IDW Friendship is Magic #57, while the second was in Season 9’s 25th episode of the main show, notably the penultimate episode of the entire series. There are a few things to note about these instances, perhaps most important being how she acquires it in each instance.

In the first run with Chaos Magic, Pinkie gets it due to binding with the Chaos Realm, Discord’s dimension if you prefer. She becomes a legitimate threat that Discord has to handle, and is outright confirmed to be “mad with power.” However, Discord does not say it is the Chaos Magic doing it. Rather, it’s the Chaos Realm binding itself to her and becoming the ruler of the realm. Mastery of the Chaos Realm is what drove her crazier, not Discord’s magic specifically.

In Pinkie’s second go, she instead gets the magic via Grogar’s Bewitching Bell. This doesn’t come with the Chaos Realm binding to her, and it’s quite clear that she performs far better here. Pinkie makes no notion of causing mass chaos in the world, nor does she attempt to harm her friends in any manner. If anything, she outright helps them, being the one that confines Tirek, Cozy, and Chrysalis long enough for the Royal Sisters and Discord to deal with them. The magic clearly still has some effect on her, but wanting to turn the cosmos into icing and desserts is frankly not a supervillain threat like her previous round was (and is a lot more natural for Pinkie to immediately think of), and she still clearly knows friend from foe, actively shutting down Chrysalis in the midst of her threatening Twilight Sparkle. She even takes the time to cheerfully respond to Twilight’s questions before beginning to transform things. Given these factors, it’s clear that Pinkie can get caught in the rush of the Chaos Magic and it likely does amplify her looniness some, but she still knows friend from foe and is able to handle threats appropriately.

This is further consistent in other instances. While Cozy Glow was entirely unable to control Chaos Magic during her attempts to use it, she did maintain her sanity overall, further backing the idea that the Bell does not have this drawback to nearly the same degree as binding with the Chaos Realm. And in both of Pinkie’s rounds of using Chaos Magic, she’s still fine as a fighter. She goes blow for blow for blow with Discord in their duel while she’s bound to the Chaos Realm, and her showings with the Bell against Chrysalis are an outright win.

In short, using the Bell to acquire Chaos Magic will only increase her craziness a little bit at worst. Total insanity is exclusive to binding with the Chaos Realm, which is not directly combat applicable, while using the Bell enables Pinkie to still have full awareness of friend from adversary, and keep her focus on her objectives. And in both scenarios, she was still a good fighter. Overall, using the Bell to get Chaos Magic will not cause Pinkie any drawbacks against Gold Ship. Worst case scenario, she adds some chocolate rain and turns the skies to icing while she works to survive the battle. And who doesn’t love chocolate rain?

How In-Character are Pinkie’s Win-Conditions?

Since Bill Cipher vs. Discord, it’s generally more frequent to question how likely an MLP character is to actually utilize their winning moves. And in fairness, it might seem a little strange to suggest that Pinkie would do some of the things that could help her win. Tons of clones, Panacea, or using Harmony Magic? Are these things actually likely for her?

The simplest answer, of course, is yes. Pinkie is rather likely to think of or use the various tools at her disposal that the verdict specifically highlights as leading to her victory. But for more detail, we’ll take the time to discuss Pinkie’s likelihood of using important abilities. Bear in mind so that we aren’t here all day, this will only cover especially important things that have a major role in bringing down Gold and Golsilius.

Harmony Magic: Extremely likely. This is Pinkie’s go-to in any major fight. She used it on Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek, Chrysalis, Cozy, the Pony of Shadows, and even the Knights of Order. It’s alarmingly consistent that any situation that is particularly serious where she has access to Harmony Magic, she uses it. And given the Element of Laughter now indwells her, the availability issue is no longer a problem like it used to be. Harmony Magic, if anything, will be one of the first things Pinkie goes for. This is useful, as Pinkie’s best win-con in killing Gold Ship (soul destruction) and one of only two things that can take down Golsilius with power absorb.

Alarm Clock Targeting: The blog covered this rather thoroughly already, but just to hammer it home, Pinkie is immediately obliterating the Alarm Clocks the second she learns of them. She loathes being tossed back in time and will go to extreme lengths to stop that from happening. From there, with that matter resolved, Pinkie will obviously be smart enough to fire off a second Rainbow of Light or other such move and end the battle.

Grogar’s Bell: Extremely likely. While Pinkie has only had access to the Bell once, she immediately used it the first chance she got and gave herself the Chaos Magic. Given the severity of this battle and Gold’s powers, Pinkie would think to try the Bell if she’s having trouble. And given she knows the Bell works on Discord of all things, she’d absolutely put two and two together and see if it could do the same to Golsilius, which would immediately end the fight.

Dimension Travel, Locking, and Non-Reality Camping: Also quite likely. Pinkie loves traveling the realities, and exploring every chance she gets. She’s usually the first to jump at any opportunity for multidimensional adventure of her friends, and she was having the time of her life in the first and third mangas on her multidimensional mirror voyage and the Element scavenger hunt. With Chaos Magic, she’d gladly take the opportunity if the need arose. As for locking, Pinkie is quite literally the direct feat holder. There is no reason to question if she’d do this when it was basically one of the first things she did when she got Discord’s abilities. Non-Reality Camping is the hardest to prove, but given Pinkie’s journeys through Limbo and her love of exploring these bizarre places, she’d certainly be willing to give it a go, and the advantages that come with it would immediately become apparent as neither of her opponents follow her in.

Clones and Panacea: The clones are almost definite. While Pinkie learned her lesson with the Mirror Pool, she still loves messing about with herself in safer ways. She’s shown having a blast talking to herself on her journey through time in the manga, and outright incorporates clones just for a musical number in Hello Pinkie Pie. And in her battle with Discord in the Chaos Realm, she actively utilizes a small army of random minions she conjured up, so it’s an in-character tactic for Pinkie to go for strength in numbers. Combined with the fun she has with herself, she’ll definitely use the clones. Panacea is harder given its role as a tabletop game spell, but Pinkie is already infamous for her use of regeneration properties and healing. It’s highly in-character that Pinkie would want to use a spell that can heal her back to normal immediately, and she’d be smart enough to try it. And seriously, very few characters would look at an auto-heal spell with no drawbacks and go “naw.”

These are generally the biggest tools that lead to Pinkie’s victory, and the ones that are most in-character. Everything heavily argued in the verdict is something Pinkie would realistically think of and willingly go for in very little time, and they all are very successful in their roles to play. There’s no need to be concerned about if she’d actually use them, as they are all fitting her usual tactics and personality.

Luck Shenanigans

In general, luck and fortune is a factor that is less likely to be important in this debate, but on rare occasions, it could perhaps be a player. Gold Ship doesn’t necessarily have bad luck, but saying that she’s blessed with particularly notable fortune wouldn’t really be true either. A lot of her pranks can have a history of blowing up in her face, and it’s not uncommon for her to get just desserts to the eyes when she’s trying to bother her friends. Not a big deal and Gold certainly wouldn’t have it where she just immediately fumbles in the middle of the fight.

The problem is less Gold having neutral luck, and more that ponies have really good luck, Pinkie included. Worse still, they have ways to just outright tamper with fortune. Notably, in the Nightmare Knights arc, Princess Luna outwits and defeats Eris, Discord’s cousin and the Lord of Luck, with the odds always massively skewed in her favor. A pony beating such tilted odds is an extremely good showing, and it’s consistent with other displays of luck in the franchise. Cases in past generations also exist, such as Clover in My Little Pony Tales or Lucky, a pony that was blessed with supremely good luck by Queen Majesty.

It’s pretty clear that ponies have numerous cases of such things or beating rigged odds, but that wouldn’t matter too much if Pinkie didn’t have ways to use it. But fortunately for her, she does. Luck spells do exist in Generation 4, and thanks to Chaos Magic, Pinkie would be able to use them. Likely the best option would be Eclipse’s Curse, a spell that finds the worst possible thing that could logically happen to a target, and makes it happen. Over, and over, and over again. Gold’s luck naturally isn’t bad, but she has no answer to cursed luck ruining everything she attempts, and this is a solid win-condition for Pinkie if she were to use it, helped only by the fact that the latter’s natural luck is just simply better. There’s really nothing Gold can do at this point, as literally the worst possible thing that could feasibly happen to her will.

The only real issue with this (and the reason it was reserved for here and not the main document) is just Pinkie is highly unlikely to use this. Unlike the spells above, Pinkie has never really been shown to mess about with luck magic before, and certainly not cursing somebody. As such, it’s far less likely to be something she’d realistically do, and while she does certainly have better fortune, it’s not to the point that fate is going to bend around her to guarantee her victory. Of course, it’s not impossible, if Pinkie wants to be especially cautious or realizes Gold doesn’t have a real defense to this, she’s plenty smart enough to do it. It’s not something that will happen often, but in those rare instances where Pinkie starts pulling luck spells, she’s pretty much guaranteed to win, so for those wondering for the sake of completion, there you go.

Obligatory Dream Realm Rambling

Perhaps one of the most infamous subjects of MLP scaling, arguments for and against the Dream Realm have come in many shapes and forms. Given the wide array of different arguments that now exist around it, properly understanding how the argument works and the varying factors has become alarmingly complicated, so this will aim to present a much simpler and easier to process explanation of Luna’s feat, while also addressing some of the most prominent “counters” known to exist.

The Dream Realm’s workings fortunately aren’t too difficult. The realm is the domain that Princess Luna (and occasionally Celestia) traverses to watch and protect the dreams of Equestra’s denizens, which can be used to navigate from dream to dream. Luna has tools in place to help her detect nightmares so she can destroy or otherwise eliminate them, and we’ve seen on numerous occasions that the Royal Sisters can go from dream to dream through the realm. Within each individual dream exists a phenomenon known as the Infinite Hallway, which contains other dreams, memories, or thoughts that might be part of the dreamer’s mind, with infinite doors that contain these infinite realms. As the leading authority on the realm and given she is not one to lie or exaggerate in any circumstance, we can safely trust Luna’s authority on the hallway being infinite in size, and given each door contains its own realm and existence, it is generally considered a Multi+ area. In the Season 5 episode, “Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?” Luna creates a massive shared dream for the denizens of Ponyville, so that they can battle and contain the Tantabus. This notably takes heavy strain on her until the Tantabus is defeated, which is something that will be addressed shortly. Given Luna is handling and maintaining a shared dream that should contain the hallway, it would be arguable to be a Multi+ feat. And put bluntly, that’s all there really is that needs to be known, there’s not too much more to explain there.

However, we will go ahead and address the common counters to the feat. Perhaps most prominent is the argument that nothing in the Dream Realm should be applicable for physicals. Given the Tantabus is a threat in the Dream Realm attempting to break into the “real” or “physical” world and Celestia and Luna occasionally seem to “immerse” themselves into the realm, one could argue that nothing here is viable for physical scaling. However, we have pretty solid evidence that Luna’s magic here is very real, and applicable to her AP. The sisters have outright dragged nightmares into the physical realm directly, showcasing that their magic there is very real, and very tangible, given they brought something that was in the Dream Realm and forced it into the physical world with them. If Luna’s abilities here weren’t “real,” or she was immersed entirely, she obviously should not be able to do this. There’s also the matter that Luna keeps a nocturnal schedule of life due to her duties, staying in the Dream Realm keeps her up all night so she infamously sleeps during the day the majority of the time, further backed by Celestia’s exhaustion the one time in the show she handles the Dream Realm for the night. This is also objectively confirmed by the comics, stating that Celestia is staying up to assist Luna on one occasion. This is definitive proof that Luna is not actually sleeping herself during her trips and outright has to be exerting magic to operate inside the Dream Realm, which would mean the feats she performs within are applicable to her magical AP and energy exertion. This is further proven by Luna’s heavy strain in maintaining the shared dream, a feat that took all her effort to sustain. If the feats didn’t actually take any energy to perform or they were fully immersed, there’s no reason they would have these physical drawbacks upon returning from the Dream Realm, and they are definitively using their actual magic to perform their tasks. This means Luna’s dream feats are unquestionably viable to scale to her magical AP and energy exertion, and given characters like Celestia have survived killshots from her as Nightmare Moon, that means it is scalable to physicals for higher tiers.

Speaking of Luna’s exhaustion, some might argue that Luna’s struggle to maintain the dream would mean it shouldn’t be used as an applicable AP for characters. This makes sense at a glance, Luna very nearly breaks and loses control over it, but the context is important. At the time of this event, Luna has been actively torturing herself for an extensive period of time, and is heavily weakened and wracked with guilt for her crimes as Nightmare Moon by this point. The Tantabus is the embodiment of that guilt as her torturer, and dealing with it is essentially putting Luna through the mental wringer with years of stored up agony. The very second Luna finally forgives herself and chooses to move on from her past in peace, the Tantabus is dealt with and Luna gains full control over the dream with no further struggling. The struggle is not a viable anti-feat, as it relies upon taking Luna at her absolute weakest with heavy situational context and applying that to her peaks. Luna at her best handled the dream just fine, making the feat viable for scaling.

Of course, there’s the argument that the dreams do not actually contain the Infinite Hall. This relies upon arguing that the Hallway is outside of the dream of any given character, and also upon arguing that dreams are conjured up by the Nyx, meaning that commanding the hall would not be applicable, as dreams are just conjured by these beings with no actual feat being performed. At a glance, this actually makes a lot of sense. The Nyx without question do have the ability to create dreams for others, and the Hallway’s location could be a bit dubious. However, the solution comes in the form of Discord. In IDW Friends Forever #20, Luna confirms that Discord is able to lock others out of his dreams, including herself, and instead tends to just have his dream world all to himself. This unquestionably means that Discord locks out the Nyx, given Luna’s abilities are superior to their own, and his dreams are absurdly chaotic, something the Nyx would not make. He even outright takes the credit for his dreams being so bizarre, further proving the Nyx are uninvolved in his dreams. Despite that, we actively see that Discord’s dream contains, you guessed it, an Infinite Hallway. This is pretty objective proof that the Nyx are entirely detached from the Hall’s existence, as Discord’s dreams are entirely removed from their powers but still have the Hallway. As for the Hallway maybe not being part of each dream, this is pretty simple. We know that Celestia and Luna traverse the Dream Realm to go from dream to dream, as shown by Luna crossing dreams in For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, or Celestia monitoring multiple dreams at once and even alternating around them in A Royal Problem. In her conversation with Discord, Luna tells him that there is “always a Hallway,” meaning that each dream she visits always has one of the Infinite Hallways. This is decisive proof that each dream always has one, meaning that Luna’s feat, given she is creating a shared dream, would absolutely have to include it.

Finally, the last major counter is just that Luna fused or combined the already existing dreams of Ponyville’s denizens, rather than making a new shared dream entirely. This really isn’t an issue at all. Combining or fusing that many dreams together would still require the power to manipulate and control the dreams to make them do that to begin with, let alone sustaining their combination for as long as she did. Regardless of if Luna created it from scratch or merged them all, Luna is still maintaining the entire thing, Hallway included. The feat is viable either way and this is a non-issue entirely.

Overall, the Dream Realm has amassed a number of diverse points and counters over the years, so it’s understandable that one might not understand it fully given how much there is to go through these days. However, the counters to the feat tend to not actually mean anything in context, and Luna sustaining the shared dream is in all likelihood a viable Multi+ feat.

The Infinity Drive

Of all the feats discussed in the blog, at least on the pony side of things, perhaps the most unexpected (and most important) would be the Infinity Drive. While arguments like the Pony of Shadows, Cosmo, or dream feats have all been discussed a great deal before, the Infinity Drive has not, so it stands to reason that there are going to likely be far more questions on the feat. As such, let’s take a bit to elaborate on what exactly is going on here, and why it got such a high figure.

The feat hails from the second volume of the manga, same one as where Pinkie becomes a Time Pony. Professor What has an Infinity Drive, a superweapon that is illegal in “countless realities” for its absurd power. Using his technology, What plans to create a time loop on the day of a festival in Ponyville to collect sustainable “frenetic energy” to power his machine and dominate the entire multiverse. What outright confirms that his device can subjugate the entire multiverse at a proper charge, and every character involved in the arc treats this as a legitimate statement or threat, including Doctor Hooves and Star Dancer, both of which are also experts on the field, so we can take this claim as accurate.

Of course, subjugation and power are not entirely the same. But the way the Infinity Drive works makes it viable. In order to subjugate everything, What plans to use the Drive to restitch realities together in whatever format he sees fit. This is how he bribes Pinkie Pie with an infinite party, by restitching timelines together into an endless loop with her at the center as its star. Notably, we see from What’s explanation that ponies from Reality #1792 are also included in the potential party, meaning What would not just be hitting one Equestria with this, but can use the Drive to rewrite multiple realities together like a bizarre Frankenstein mish-mash. It’s not one at a time, and given the Drive can affect all the multiverse like this as What sees fit, we can safely say the Drive possesses the ability to reshape the entire multiverse. A really solid Multiversal+ feat.

But the Drive goes beyond that, because it also possesses the power to impact Limbo. Remember, My Little Pony possesses infinite realities and timelines, and Limbo encompasses all of them, with one inside Limbo drifting through all of the existences to and fro. It is not just a passageway, realities flow throughout Limbo inside, so it safely qualifies as a 5D bulkspace. And the Drive is powerful enough to launch numerous characters straight into this area, a blast that would have to be potent enough to impact Limbo to some degree given the end result is Limbo being reached. As such, while more of a higher end, the Drive has displayed the ability to tamper with Limbo and could be argued to have a solid 5D potency.

Of course, there’s the matter of scaling. The Infinity Drive is consistently stated to be beyond any technology in Equestria, and Doctor Hooves in the first manga says magic in his world is beyond the magic in Twilight’s world as well. The first point is an obvious non-factor. It doesn’t take a huge fan of MLP to know Equestria’s technology is relatively basic, barring any shenanigans Discord might pull. They possess such luxuries as electric lighting, ovens, and arcade games, but these are all relatively everyday items, certainly not on the level of a multiversal superweapon. Nobody would argue scaling off of that to begin with, so we won’t entertain the idea here, and it doesn’t debunk anything given that. Magic is the more important factor here.

When Doctor Hooves is discussing the magic, it is specifically after fixing the Magic Mirror in Twilight’s home. He never once interacts with the Elements of Harmony, tools that are so far beyond any other magic in Equestria it is absurd. This is proven by the battle with Tirek, where Rainbow Power one-shots him despite possessing all magic in Equestria by that point. Doctor Hooves’s statement as such cannot disqualify the Elements. From there, the matter is how the Drive is powered.

Professor What establishes the time loop targeting a festival in Ponyville, hoping to lock the time loop to that day so he can collect the resulting frivolity to power his machine. The Drive winds up taking far longer to charge specifically because Doctor Hooves overrides the lock and sets it to the day before the festival, which due to the Ouroboros Equation, Pinkie Pie becomes aware of and becomes entangled in the situation. We know for a fact that the loop repeated for at least a month given Pinkie Pie takes a bare minimum of 28 attempts to kidnap Princess Celestia in order to get her advice on the situation. She takes several more loops before and after this sequence to confirm her hypothesis on the time loop and reach ideas on how to stop the loop, so it likely goes a decent bit longer than this. The Drive needs quite a bit of energy from the emotions and frivolity of Ponyville to reach a viable charge, but Doctor Hooves confirms that it will get there, even if much slower. It takes at least a month of looping, but the Drive was operational by that point, and just that energy combined with Professor What’s electric net is enough to make it go into a complete overload.

Even if the festival was hit, the Drive still would have needed at least a few loops to charge. This is all important to note that the Drive is powered by these emotional forces and energy, and about a month of that basic energy combined with the right spark sent it into a complete overload. Conversely, the Elements of Harmony also embody powerful emotional forces and energies that represent the absolute best of Equestria, far beyond what Professor What would get out of a one-off festival in Ponyville. Comparing the Elements to Tirek again, it’s clear that they should be far stronger than the energy gathered that overloaded the Infinity Drive, even if it took a few months. Of course, one could argue raw magical power wouldn’t compare to frivolous energy for some reason, but given how far beyond the Elements are compared to Ponyville and that they also represent emotional traits, the comparison should absolutely be fine, especially given it was Pinkie in base that survived the blast, and she’s obviously far greater with Harmony Magic active. If anything, the fact the Drive overloaded so easily would suggest that the Elements are far stronger than it. All it took was a month or two of looping a single town in Equestria for the Drive, while the Harmony Magic took the combined power of all Equestria, the 4 Alicorns, and Discord to the face, and won. The scaling chain is surprisingly easy.

As such, any and all wielders of Harmony Magic should upscale off of the Infinity Drive and its feats. This would include all of the Mane 6, and also the Royal Sisters, Celestia and Luna, who have also been shown to be capable of wielding the Elements even after the Mane 6 take on the mantle. The Pillars of Equestria, Student 6, and Spike have also fired a Rainbow of Light in the Season 9 finale, so if one feels they should have Harmony Magic as well, they would also scale.

Discord and Lord Tirek are a bit trickier, but still arguable. Discord is a multidimensional being, so the statement by Doctor Hooves outright does not disqualify him. And as Accord, he took a shot from the Elements to the face and was perfectly fine, so an argument can be made, though this is more dubious. Discord is also far beyond even the cumulative power of Ponyville’s denizens dozens of times over, so it’s not out of the question to say his magic could compare to what fueled the Drive. If one feels this is viable, Discord would also scale, and given he possesses Discord’s magic at his peak, Lord Tirek would too.

Of course, you can make arguments for or against various other characters, but in general, it will be dramatically harder to justify a chain for lower tiers. Harmony and Chaos Magic wielders are just unquestionably the top of the scaling chain that nobody else really compares to, so for now at least, it’s likely best to just keep things about here. That’s not to say arguments cannot be made for others, just that the ones above are the easiest and most definitive, and even some of them can have a bit of dubiousness to them. But to conclude, the Infinity Drive should safely qualify as a Multi+ force, with decent arguments for a 5D higher end as well. Wielders of Harmony Magic should easily upscale, and an argument can be made that Discord and Lord Tirek would as well.

Gold Ship Questions 

“Golshi golshi golshi! Golshi golshi golshi! Golshi! Golshi! Gol-shi-shiiiiii!”

How Likely Is It for Gold Ship to Lock In Against Pinkie?

A pretty notable point brought up from the blog’s verdict was that Pinkie is simply more likely to take the fight seriously and use her winning options first before Gold Ship can. That conclusion still holds up for those who worked on the blog and its research, but we figured that it might be worth delving more into the nitty gritty of both characters and how they perceive threats to hammer in the points we made a bit further.

Firstly is their general experience when it comes to facing threats on their level, and frankly, outside of Golsilius herself, Gold Ship simply can’t compete with the numerous cosmic level threats Pinkie has faced, including the likes of people like Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek, among others. Coming from a series all about magic forces rising up and saving the day against those kinds of threats, it’s not really a surprise that Pinkie simply has more experience facing off against, well…actual threats. While Golshi is going to be coming into this fight essentially blind, Pinkie has more than her fair share of experience facing off against powerful threats like Golshi herself, and especially Golsilius.

It also doesn’t help that Golshi herself has just…consistently been shown not to take threats and dangers seriously. Sure, she certainly can be serious when it’s needed. The anime for Pretty Derby shows this best, as, despite her goofy demeanor, her races, especially in Season 3 leading up to her retirement, are the one things she takes very seriously. But outside of that, it’s just more consistently shown that she simply does not register threats to her well-being as immediately dangerous until it’s too late. Things like willingly playing chicken with massive weights, not taking the presumed threat of being in a death game seriously, standing by while a laser trap made its way towards her and willingly dangling herself hundreds of feet in the air are just some examples of Gold Ship not taking threats to her safety as seriously as she should be.

You could certainly make justifications for a lot of these. Given a lot of these examples take place in Golshi’s spinoff manga where she’s a kindergartener, you could simply argue her being less mature than her older self. You could also simply just chalk it up to simple gag manga shenanigans, or the fact that as a physically tougher Umamusume, she likely just didn’t presume herself to be in any real danger when compared to an ordinary person. But even then, it’s not entirely inconsistent with her more typical showings in more mainline Umamusume media as someone who simply doesn’t take things seriously, especially in comparison to her fellow peers. After all, a big focal point of her career within the main Pretty Derby mobile game is that Akikawa essentially had to goad her into taking on the Twinkle Series by making up a convoluted mystery about Eden (funny how that works out) in order to keep her motivated. The point being, at best, Gold Ship simply has inconsistent showings when it comes to how seriously she takes things, and at worst, it’s more consistent and in-line with her character that she simply doesn’t take things as seriously as she should. Regardless, it’s simply far more likely that Gold Ship is less likely to go for her game-winning options first when compared to Pinkie, who not only has plenty more experience fighting against dangerous threats, but also has been more consistently shown to have the ability to lock in and get serious against threats when the situation calls for it.

Why certain feats (in-game ultimate stuff, umaquest stuff)?

For those reading the blog who are more knowledgeable about Umamusume’s various media, you may have noticed the inclusion of feats that may come across as a bit questionable. Most notably, feats and abilities from both Umamusume’s UmaQuest event and from Party Dash’s “Golshi’s Grand Adventure 2” minigame, as well as feats from Pretty Derby’s in-game skill animations. All of these have certain caveats surrounding them that may result in people questioning their inclusion in this blog, so we’ll go over all of them.

Firstly, we’ll lump together Umaquest and GGA2 as they both have similar reasonings behind their questionable inclusions. Simply put, both are video games within the games they’re in. The entire UmaQuest event takes place in a VR simulated world created by Tracen Academy’s VR “Umalator” technology (yes, this school is weirdly advanced), whereas Golshi’s Grand Adventure 2 is implied to be a video game being played by Golshi and her fellow Tracen Academy peers during the events of Party Dash. As such, the inclusion of both the feats and abilities they grant Golshi may be considered questionable for the purposes of this blog.

In the case of many other characters, this would certainly be a fair concern to have, but in the case of this blog specifically? Well, it is Gold Ship we’re talking about. This is the same character who can transcend mediums entirely, forcibly enter games, turn into alternative versions of herself, travel across dimensions, and more. Hell, we see her physically enter Party Dash itself just so she can participate in one of the ongoing minigames. For the purposes of this blog, and for a character who simply disregards “canon” as much as Gold Ship does, we wanted to be as thorough as possible in giving her all the things she had access to, which ultimately included things from both UmaQuest and GGA2. Of course, you’re free to disagree with this decision, but ultimately, for a matchup like this regarding two characters who can essentially do whatever they want, we wanted to go all in with the things they had access to. Even if you choose to disregard them, it ultimately doesn’t change the verdict anyways. (Golshi’s universe busting feat from PakaTube would still be infinite speed, and she would still also have the ridiculously fast Neo Universe speed feat).

On the topic of Neo Universe, let’s hop over to Pretty Derby’s skill animations, as these are certainly a bit more tricky to pin down. For those unaware, Pretty Derby’s in-game skill animations are the brief animations that play when a character’s signature skill activates. What the character does within them varies from character to character, but from a versus standpoint, there are quite a number of impressive feats to be found here, such as Copano Rickey blowing away an entire dust storm or Gentildonna splitting an entire mountain apart with her aura. It should be pretty obvious that these characters aren’t literally doing these things in the midst of races. Gentildonna isn’t summoning an entire mountain on the track just to split it in half, Copano Rickey isn’t blowing away dust storms mid race, things like that. For the most part, Umamusume are essentially just superhumans. They aren’t pulling off crazy stunts like this on the regular.

…Kind of. If you read through the various Umamusume feats listed on Golshi’s scaling section, you might’ve noticed a good handful that aren’t from Pretty Derby, while also being just as, if not more ridiculous. Characters like Gentildonna can casually just split the Earth in half with a single punch, Special Week can somehow tank Earth exploding alongside Golshi, Winning Ticket can create constellations, hell, Spica’s other members were also all able to compete with and contend against Golsilius herself in the Granblue Fantasy crossover. Oddly enough, there’s a weirdly consistent precedent for Umas bordering less on superhuman and more on straight up comical levels of strength within Umamusume’s various forms of extended media.

Even within the mainline Pretty Derby gacha game, the idea of Umamusume just being “superhuman” is called into question when you have characters like Neo Universe having multiversal knowledge and being able to straight up warp space, Manhattan Cafe being able to see and interact with spirits, and Marvelous Sunday straight up having her own dedicated dimension where she can manipulate people’s minds and infect them with “marvelousness.” Point being, while not every Umamusume is doing things like blowing apart mountains and tanking planet busting attacks, there at least is a precedent for both their physical capabilities and general weird, mystical abilities extending beyond just being simple superhumans.

One might argue this wouldn’t be enough to justify utilizing the skill animations as actual feats Gold Ship can scale to, as they’re ultimately still mostly implied to be non-canon, which is fine. Ultimately, even if you disregard all of them, it actually doesn’t affect her scaling all that much. Her best feats still come from media outside of Pretty Derby, and her arguments for higher tier scaling involve scaling her to Umamusume’s overarching cosmology (don’t worry, we’ll get there), which is entirely unrelated to the skill animations. Even most of the higher-tier feats that come from other Umamusume all come directly from other Uma media. And as for Neo Universe’s warping feat, that’s a feat that comes directly from her in-game career story, so not only is it something that isn’t tied to her in-game skill animation, it’s also something that she can just…straight up do.

A Deep Dive into the Uma Cosmology (yes, really)

Yes, not only does Umamusume actually have a cosmology, but it’s actually quite an extensive one at that. In the blog’s verdict, we briefly touched upon Gold Ship’s arguments for higher tier scaling, mentioning the Umamusume universe being comprised of a multiverse, and there also being arguments for higher dimensions within the multiverse itself. We didn’t want to fill the entire stats section with cosmology yap, but considering its importance to Gold Ship’s higher arguments, we figured it would make sense to have a more detailed breakdown of it. Ultimately, whether or not you agree with Gold Ship scaling to the full scope of Umamusume’s cosmology is up to you, but this section is just meant to be a more thorough breakdown of Umamusume’s oddly complex cosmology. With that out of the way, let’s begin!

The (Neo) Universe

Firstly, we have the standard universe. Nothing special about it. We know it exists (obviously), and it’s implied to be infinite in size. This is supported by both GGA2, in which Golshi “runs” to the edge of the universe, which is implied to be an infinite distance, and by statements from Neo Universe, who suggests that Umamusume’s universe is infinitely sized in scope. Neo Universe is going to get brought up a lot as we delve deeper into the higher cosmology arguments, so feel free to familiarize yourself with her, as we’ll be referring to her a lot.

Parallel Universes

Not only are there multiple instances of parallel universes being mentioned and shown within the mainline Pretty Derby game, but there are also multiple instances of characters just straight up meeting alternate versions of themselves. A big focal point of Neo Universe’s career story is that she has knowledge of an alternative version of herself from a different universe, that being our own, real world universe (yes, this game gets surprisingly meta). During Marvelous Sunday’s career, we see her, alongside both Mayano Top Gun and her trainer get trapped in an alternate universe, which they manage to escape using Marvelous Sunday’s Marvelous Dimension (we’ll get to that more later). At the end of her career, she straight up meets an alternate version of herself from a different universe, and together, they combine forces in order to spread “marvelousness” across the entire universe.

Dreams

Dreams are a bit of a weird phenomenon within Umamusume. Throughout every Umamusume’s career, there are rest events where your trainee sleeps in the infirmary to recover from an illness/injury. With these events come dream sequences where your trainee dreams of something specific towards their character, and then depending on how the dream pans out, they either wake up rejuvenated or still fatigued. While these dreams don’t have an explicit size to them, nor do they seem to be overly important to the overall cosmology of the franchise (don’t worry, we’re not delving into Mario dream arguments here), not only are they depicted as having stars within them, but a lot of these dream segments also involve characters communicating with and receiving guidance from presumed higher entities, those being the Three Goddesses.

Miscellaneous Realms

Outside of the parallel universes and the higher multiverse shenanigans, there are also a couple of less important, but still notable realms/worlds found within both Pretty Derby and Umamusume’s other spinoff media. Some notable ones include “Umadegard,” which seems to be an Umamusume heaven of sorts that El Condor Pasa gets sent to after Gold Ship kills her during the events of the UmaQuest story, and the unnamed “Demon Realm” that Stay Gold and the rest of the Gold family ventures to during the events of Golshi’s spinoff manga. Once again, not necessarily super important to the overall cosmology, but still at least worth a mention.

The Multiverse

Delving into the big stuff now, this is where we rely on our good friend Neo Universe for a lot of the information regarding Umamusume’s overarching multiverse. As previously established, we already know multiple parallel universes exist within the world of Umamusume, and with Neo Universe describing the universe as “multidimensional”, it seems to implicate the idea that the universe isn’t just a sole concept, but rather a larger, overarching multiverse with multiple branches. As a matter of fact, the Umamusume universe in and of itself seems to follow the Many Worlds Interpretation. This concept is once again supported by Neo Uni, who’s entire career revolves around looking into parallel universes where she made different choices, or where she won or lost certain races.

Now, this aspect of Neo Uni’s supporting evidence and the MWI takes on a bit more of a meta interpretation, so you certainly could take this segment with a grain of salt, but given Neo Universe’s very existence as a sort of “meta character” herself, it isn’t entirely without merit. The idea of branching universes with differing choices is, in a way, supported by the very structure of Pretty Derby in and of itself. With every individual Umamusume’s career, there are scenarios in which you might win or lose certain races, scenarios where you might not take on certain races altogether, scenarios where different events may appear during your career that can affect your performance, and scenarios where you outright fail a career entirely. For every individual Umamusume you start a career with, others may or may not appear throughout the career as rivals, and different scenarios and branches can occur depending on whether or not you beat said rivals in important races. For example, taking on Special Week’s career, the other members of Umamusume’s Golden Generation appear as prominent rivals you compete against throughout your career. If you were to take on a career with another Golden Generation member, on the other hand, then Special Week would appear as a prominent rival for you to face off against instead.

To summarize, evidence from within Neo Universe’s career and event stories imply the existence of a multiverse within the world of Umamusume, which is an idea supported by the various parallel and alternate realities that exist and have been shown. Words from Neo Uni also imply that Umamusume’s multiverse follows the Many Worlds Interpretation, where different possibilities and outcomes act as branches to a larger, overarching multiverse. This concept can further be supported by how in-game career stories work for individual trainees, but regardless if you want to go down the meta route or not, there’s sufficient evidence that implies the existence of a multiverse following the MWI thanks to Neo Universe.

Different Continuities

As we’ve mentioned in the blog, Umamusume is a series that is not strictly tied to a definitive “canon.” Multiple continuities exist in various mediums, including anime, manga, and games, and all of them could, in a sense, be considered their own distinct universes. Multiple examples of these different continuity changes exist, but some notable examples include Gold Ship being part of two different teams within both the Pretty Derby anime and games (Team Spica and Team Sirius), numerous characters being retired racers in certain continuities whilst continuing to be active in others (Symboli Rudolf being a retired racer in Cinderella Gray, but being active in Pretty Derby’s anime, for example), and the entire existence of Gold Ship’s spinoff manga contradicting a multitude of things seen throughout Umamusume’s various other media. We have seen these different continuities cross over before (Cinderella Gray’s Oguri Cap showing up in the aforementioned Golshi Spinoff manga and briefly exchanging words with that series’ version of herself), so there does seem to be an implication that these various different continuities could be treated as their own separate universes. This is, admittedly, going into speculative territory, but it is an idea that does at least have evidence backing it from Neo Universe’s aforementioned words about an Umamusume multiverse.

Higher Dimensions

The cosmology doesn’t just stop at a vast multiverse, as there exist implications of dimensions that exist on a higher plane of existence entirely. After all, Neo Universe does mention the universe being “multidimensional.” While that implicates a vast multiverse, those words could also implicate the idea of there being multiple dimensions that exist within the Umaverse.

Truth be told, the actual information we have on these “higher dimensions” is a bit…vague. There’s flavor text littered throughout the main game that seem to implicate the idea of higher dimensions existing, as well as Neo Universe mentioning “multi-dimensional” organisms existing in the universe, but outside of that, there isn’t a whole lot of tangible evidence that shows us the existence of these supposed higher dimensions. We know that they might exist. And it seems like they do. But there isn’t much to show for it. While most of our knowledge on Uma’s higher dimensions is, for the most part, vague, we do have two notable realms that have strong implications for being higher dimensions.

Manhattan Cafe’s Friends

The first of these implied higher dimensions that we know exist is Manhattan Cafe’s “mindscape realm,” where her spiritual “friends” reside. From Agnes Tachyon’s words regarding Manhattan Cafe’s mindscape realm, it seems to implicate that her friends exist on a plane of existence above the third dimension, and we also know that Manhattan Cafe’s realm is capable of altering both time and space, which further supports the idea of this realm being on a higher plane of existence. Taking Tachyon’s “third dimension” statement at face value, this would imply that this mindscape realm would have to be at least 4D, though it certainly is possible that it exists beyond that.

The Marvelous Dimension

The second of these implied higher dimensions is Marvelous Sunday’s signature “Marvelous Dimension.” As previously mentioned, this dimension seems to abide by its own rules, as Marvelous Sunday is able to trap thousands of people within it, shift its background environment, use it as a bridge between universes, and, most notably, merge it with Manhattan Cafe’s higher-dimensional mindscape realm. Marvelous Sunday being able to merge these two realms together would imply the two being at least on comparable levels of dimensionality, which would make it also at least 4D, though the Marvelous Dimension being able to completely engulf and merge with Manhattan Cafe’s mindscape realm could also be interpreted as it being higher in dimensionality, which would make it at least 5D instead. You certainly could choose to interpret it either way, as the entire scene is admittedly a bit weird, but at the very least, Manhattan Cafe’s mindscape realm should likely be 4D, with Marvelous Sunday’s Marvelous Dimension being either comparable to it or a dimensional tier above it.

Real Life?

Believe it or not, our real world, the ones we inhabit, have some…very strange connections with Umamusume as a series. For starters, it’s well established that Umamusume are reincarnations of real life horses. Gold Ship is based off the real world racehorse, Haru Urara is based off the real world racehorse, so on and so forth. There are a handful of Umas who have active awareness of their real world counterparts’ existence, with the two most notable examples being the well-established Neo Universe and Stay Gold. We also have Gold Ship’s various PakaTube shenanigans, in which she does things like hop into our real world for a stroll around France, and where she hops into our world to beat the CyGames’ director’s ass at Shadowverse.

Just to set the record straight, we aren’t going to be arguing any R>F, outer Gold Ship shenanigans or anything like that. Our “real world” within Pretty Derby is more consistently treated as just another parallel universe, rather than a higher tier of existence entirely. So while Gold Ship isn’t gonna be boxing with Marvel heralds anytime soon, our real world is simply just another parallel universe that exists as a part of Umamusume’s expansive cosmology.

Summary

That was certainly a lot. Especially for a silly game about horse girls racing. But to briefly summarize the important details into brief bullet points :

• Umamusume’s universe is implied to be infinite in size

• Umamusume has an expansive multiverse with various existing parallel universes, and it also is heavily implied to follow the Many Worlds Interpretation

• Higher dimensions are implied to exist within Umamusume’s universe, though it is admittedly vague

• The two clearest examples we have of higher dimensions existing within the Umaverse are Manhattan Cafe’s Mindscape Realm, which should be at least 4D, and Marvelous Sunday’s Marvelous Dimension, which can be interpreted as being either also 4D, or 5D

• The real world exists and has a direct connection with Umamusume’s universe, but it is more so implied to be treated as a parallel universe rather than an entirely separate plane of existence

As far as Gold Ship’s scaling to all this goes, she of course has her own very blatant Universal feats, and being comparable to Marvelous Sunday, who’s capable of creating and maintaining the Marvelous Dimension, should put her in the 4D - 5D ranges, depending on how you interpret the dimension merging. Golsilius, being the strongest Umamusume, would heavily upscale this.

Where do other Uma characters scale?

"Would you comp other Uma characters?"

You probably could. Though it'd feel weirder. Part of the main reason why we comped Gold Ship for this blog was because Umamusume doesn't have a definitive "canon," but another reason was because Golshi herself is sort of just an anomaly amongst her fellow Umas. She can do stuff like change into alternate versions of herself and travel between dimensions, she regularly breaks the 4th wall across her various incarnations, and Edem is a weapon that can communicate with her between dimensions and can also just transport her to said dimension, or vice versa. Suffice to say, Golshi is a character who's antics kind of just justify her being composited. You can't really say the same about most other Umamusume characters. Although again, given the fact that Umamusume doesn’t have a definitive “canon,” you certainly could go the compositing route for her fellow Tracen Academy students.

As the blog showcased, plenty of Umas have pretty notable feats of their own. Gentildonna can casually bust planets in half, Winning Ticket can create entire constellations, Neo Universe can traverse the cosmos really quickly, things like that. For the most part, there aren’t super clear distinctions of specific Uma characters being way stronger than others (with the exception of physical freaks like Kawakami Princess and Gentildonna), so I don’t think it’s super unreasonable to say that most Umamusume characters could just scale to one another.

With that being said though, we don’t really think any other Umamusume characters offer nearly as much in a versus setting as Gold Ship does. Because Gold Ship is essentially the mascot/face of the entire franchise, she’s appeared in pretty much every piece of Uma media officially released, as well as being involved in Uma’s various crossovers, having her own dedicated spinoff manga, and even having her own dedicated YouTube series in the form of PakaTube. No other Umamusume character really compares to being in that much media. Sure, certain Umas have their own wacky abilities (Neo Uni’s warping, Marvelous Sunday’s domain expansion, etc etc.), but that’s kind of…it? The most you could give other Umamusume characters as far as abilities/arsenal go would just be stuff from the main mobile game, and Party Dash. Personally, we just don’t find that to be particularly interesting in a versus setting, but hey, I mean, you could hypothetically make it work if you really wanted to.

Dude what if we like, had an army fight with Tracen Academy vs. all of Ponyville

Son 😭😭😭😭😭

To briefly humor this, if you want to be funny and scale every single Tracen Academy student to Marvelous Sunday, then Tracen Academy would likely have a larger pool of stronger combatants. But Ponyville also has plenty of residents that can match those stats, and on top of that, practically every Tracen Academy student bar Gold Ship and oddballs like Marvelous Sunday are getting severely outhaxed. And if you consider Discord to be a Ponyville resident, well…that’s just unfortunate.

TL;DR : Gold Ship is getting horrifically jumped by all of Ponyville.

Other Matches We Like

(MLP TNs by Garf)

Pinkie Pie vs. Unikitty (My Little Pony vs. LEGO)

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This is hands down one of the best Pinkie Pie matchups on the market. Pinkie and Unikitty probably work better for a dynamic arguably more so than any other match Pinkie has, though Gold Ship definitely has more powers and ability comparisons to use in turn, I’ll still always have a soft spot for this match too. I appreciate that both have the same overly cheerful and sweet demeanors that are legitimately sincere, but you can still have a fight get decently serious as forms like Rainbow Power and Unikitty’s rage state obviously come out into the mix. Plus with Unikitty’s creativity as a Master Builder, she can produce pretty much anything imaginable and toss it into the fray, making it where really no two fights would ever be identical, and I think that’s a neat perk. Excellent character combination, a lot of room for imagination, great vibes, and it’s just plain fun. What’s not to like?

In terms of debate, Pinkie’s got this. While I wouldn’t give her certain things like I think you should against Gold, Harmony Magic at the very least is fine, and that alone is enough to win. While I’m aware of higher arguments for The LEGO Movie, MLP’s own higher ends would match at worst, and from there Unikitty doesn’t really have an answer for Harmony Magic’s hax. Nothing too crazy, but nothing wrong with a simpler debate either.

Princess Luna vs. Darkrai (My Little Pony vs. Pokemon)

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This is generally one of the two “big ones” right now. This matchup already got covered quite nicely on Red vs. Tai (which you should read if you haven’t!) so I won’t go over the potential too much this time. Everything I said there remains true, Luna and Darkrai just have unmatched potential for a dream fight that no other dream idea can really tap into at present, and things like Mega Darkrai and the Elements of Harmony only add to the absolute insane possibilities. There’s just about nothing you can’t do here given their abilities. Helps that Darkrai is such a popular Mythical Pokemon and Luna is arguably the single most popular character in the MLP community. Who doesn’t love these two?

But hey, we can actually talk about the debate this time! Suffice it to say, this match is absurdly close and has a lot of debate potential. But when all is said and done, at the current time I would personally side rather confidently with Luna. She has dramatically more experience and skill in controlling dreams than Darkrai has ever displayed, and being able to at least somewhat compare to Twilight Sparkle means she’s likely the smarter of the two. MLP is able to match any higher end you might argue for Darkrai off of the Creation Trio in full, and if you’re hesitant on Pokemon’s higher speed ends in particular, then it becomes a very easy Luna blitz. Even if you equalized them, Luna’s able to counter a lot more of Darkrai’s stuff than vice versa. Danger Bell can wake Luna up automatically if Darkrai puts her to sleep, nullifying Dark Void, while if Darkrai gets put to sleep, it’s game over. Luna can learn Panacea thanks to Self-Improvement, and that far outclasses any healing Darkrai has access to, and also enables her to even survive Darkrai’s spatial cutting attacks. Conversely, Darkrai canonically dies via getting disintegrated by Palkia and Dialga, something the Elements can replicate, so it stands to reason he cannot survive a clean shot from them. Luna has a pretty tidy and efficient way to end the battle, while even Mega Darkrai tends to need to put in more work to put Luna down for good, especially with her healing. Still, the two are evenly matched in a lot of ways. This is a battle I would love to explore in-depth in the future, and getting the chance to cover these two franchises again would be nothing short of a joy.

Garf

MKF4 is one of my best friends in this whole community. MKF4 is also a fat greedy hog of a man who constantly hungers for more. Anyways, this has always seemed like a lot of fun from an outside perspective and now that I’ve actually gotten into MLP, I can totally get why it’s been one of the series’s big matches for years. I’m fairly certain that the show has not covered a proper dream match as of now, and this would be a very fun one to start things off with as it could seamlessly tip toe between everything associated with dreams; from the slightly nightmarish to the lighthearted and whimsical. Speaking of contrasts, the natural role clash that the two have is a great one to have with how natural it would be to have Luna fight a generator of the nightmares that she’s supposed to destroy. Darkrai and Luna both overcoming the overtly beliefs that people had about them is a pretty neat connection as well, and maybe you could even have a moment in the fight where they learn to appreciate or understand the other’s role. Additionally, Mega Darkrai has a kick ass design and putting an MLP character against an RPG boss is just plain cool with how much the series references those across it’s history.

Lord Tirek vs. Moro (My Little Pony vs. Dragon Ball)

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This is the other “big one.” With the Moro arc on the way to becoming animated, it stands to reason this is on the radar of a lot more people right now, with Tirek generally standing out as the best option Moro has… by a lot. The two are similar in a lot of ways, and it’s a pretty easy to understand comparison with very similar powers. There’s not a ton to say for the dynamic personally, but Tirek is my favorite of the long-term villains in MLP, so if there’s one I’d want to see on, it’s definitely him.

The debate for this one can be a little tricky. In general both sides have their obvious advantages, though it probably gets written off as an easy stomp by either side a little too quickly. Taking their more normal ends, Tirek probably has it. No amount of volume multipliers are getting Moro ahead of the Chaos Realm feat, which boasts its infinite value, so if one just stuck with those figures, Tirek just wins. On their higher ends they’d likely cancel out to some degree, and from there the conversation gets weird. Magical artifacts in MLP resist being power drained (the EEA Medallion took 3 days to lose its charge from Cozy Glow’s Equestria-wide magic draining vortex and still had enough to sustain another portal), so Moro cannot deal with the Bell in a reasonable timeframe, but his power absorb does have better range. He has his backup as well, though in turn of the two only Tirek can’t overload on too much energy, making a sustained fight safer for him. Planet Moro is really hard to avoid, but in turn is a free shot for the Bell. You get the picture. There’s a lot of variables to it and one could argue either way, so you’d have to figure out which advantages matter more to you.

Princess Celestia vs. Palutena (My Little Pony vs. Kid Icarus)

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I think this is a seriously underrated matchup, and by far the best for both characters. Usually the pitch for them is just “they’re both frauds rofl” which I think undersells both the characters and the match. Their statuses as these higher powers watching over the land, the mentor roles they have to the main character (though Palutena tends to lend more direct assistance while Celestia takes more of a guiding approach), and even their pasts in sealing away their darker fellow ruler. Granted there’s some contrast there as well, Medusa more or less stays evil (even if she is opposed to Hades), while Celestia and Luna very early on in the series make full amends, it’s still a surprisingly good list of connections for the two. And the dynamic and banter potential is through the roof, the two are extremely playful and happy to have some fun with their roles, while still being amongst the wisest in their franchises, which gives a lot of variety and a good mesh of comedy and more serious combat. Add in the massive abundance of abilities and power comparisons, and the match just has an incredible amount of good things going for it, to the point that it is easily one of my favorite matchups in general.

That said, in terms of debate, there is no debate. Celestia wins. I really don’t need to go into very much detail, it’s just a really clear-cut stomp of a match in the Princess of the Sun’s favor. If anything, of the matches here for MLP I think this is the easiest one to “solve” without question. That doesn’t stop me from loving it, though.

Assorted Rarity Matches

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Rarity was likely one of the more prominent characters to benefit from the updated MLP research. Turns out she has a lot more than was initially presumed, from portals, to being able to create shields big enough to cover Cybertronians, and she has also learned and mastered the ways of Pinkie Pie’s toon-force and plot manipulation. Add onto that the Harmony Magic, and Rarity is suddenly surprisingly viable for matchups, so now we find ourselves in a spot where some relatively new matchups are in conversation.

Being frank, nothing has really come to the front as “the one” just yet, but currently the ones I see the most are Miss Piggy from The Muppets and Mimi from Digimon. I can’t really say I’ve locked to either as an absolute pick yet, but they both have their notable supporters now, and given Rarity has become dramatically more viable, I’m definitely not opposed to the conversation. There’s definitely a lot you could do with her, likely with Piggy leaning more into the comical and sillier side of Rarity’s powers and abilities (likely lots of plot and 4th wall shenanigans) while Mimi can present a more dramatic fight as Rainbow Power takes on a giant kaiju cactus. There’s something I never thought I’d say. In terms of connections it seems to be similar, Piggy seems to lean more into Rarity’s behaviors and more dramatic flair as a focus, while Mimi instead focuses more on Rarity’s role as the Element of Generosity and the care she shows to others around her.

Debate-wise, Rarity probably wins both. The Muppets is frankly very under-researched, but nothing really stands out to me that would suggest Miss Piggy could overcome Rarity’s absurd power, and any meta shenanigans she could maybe pull are pretty solidly countered by Rarity’s own abilities. We’ve already covered Digimon in-depth here on OFF (like I said before, check out Red vs. Tai if you haven’t!) and going off of the stats Tai and Pinkie Pie got, Rarity should likely out-stat Mimi, and even in equal stats she’d likely very easily win the hax battle. Either way you want to go, it’s just really nice to see Rarity getting some increased attention now, and she definitely has the potential to have some fun conversations in the future.

Garf

Rarity is probably my personal favourite MLP character and I had always wanted a good match for her. As one might expect, I was ecstatic to learn that she has a lot more to her than someone might expect vs wise; but what’s the point of being usable if you don’t have any good opponents? Luckily for our favourite diva, she has two pretty interesting options at the moment in Miss Piggy from The Muppets and Mimi from Digimon. While I am admittedly far more of a Muppet expert than a Digimon one, I can definitely see why one would like Mimi as it does a solid job at covering both’s arcs and roles within their groups. The fight seems like it could have some fun stuff as well with Rarity going blow for blow with the giant cactus-like Togemon, who could provide a very funny reaction shot where Rarity gets pricked, and using Rainbow Power to fight the mega-level Rosemon.

Now as for the other side of the coin, Piggy is also extremely fun in my opinion. On the surface level, they have a lot of similar traits and tendencies but there are actually more story parallels than one would expect as they both proved themselves and rose to the tops of their fields even though they faced non stop challenges along the way but they then realized that they felt more comfortable with their rag tag group of friends than at the top of their worlds. Additionally, the comedy and banter potential would be perfect here as both play off of each other’s personalities and quirks extremely well. You could have a lot of fun with them trying to upstage the other and grab the attention. Not a ton of MLP matches I see pushed are ones where the musical aspect of the series could be easily incorporated but this is the one where I think it would make sense for both to start bursting into song mid-fight. Speaking of said fight, there are a lot of fun things you can do with it even if not all of Piggy’s capabilities are known at the moment. Both are fairly capable when it comes to martial arts with Rarity being a wrestling champ and Piggy being a master of Karate so you could have some fun H2H bits, Piggy actually has a fair few magical abilities such as meteor summoning and energy beams that could play off of Rarity’s, and both love to mess with and break the fourth wall. I think it could turn out to be one of the best matchups the series has to offer and would love to give it a proper look one day.

Rainbow Dash vs. Starscream (My Little Pony vs. Transformers)

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The original debate! Rainbow Dash vs. Starscream obviously has a lot of legacy to it given Death Battle’s episode over a decade ago, and it remains a debate that still comes up every so often. With that legacy there isn’t really much I need to say to sell it, it has literally already been done before after all, but it still is a fun comparison. Dash and Scream canonically know each other to some degree thanks to the crossover, and Dash was even Starscream’s weapon during the final battle against King Sombra. Funny how that works out. The contrast of Rainbow’s loyalty and Starscream’s consistently treacherous behavior is also a really neat detail you can have some fun with.

The debate for this one is pretty weird, and I could see it going either way. At the time of the episode, Dash definitely should have lost. Her abilities and powers hadn’t really been fleshed out at the time compared to Starscream, but I’m not really going to be hard on it given it is Season 1 after all. Nowadays Rainbow’s much stronger, and I have no issue in giving her the Element of Loyalty, so you could argue Dash can obliterate Starscream’s Spark as well. Still, I think Starscream is definitely under-researched, and he definitely annihilates Dash in tertiary factors and could maybe have some potential stats to keep up. This one would definitely need an in-depth look to be sure for either side, so I can’t really say for certain who I think would win, but it would be nice to research Transformers someday.

Gold Ship vs Tow Mater (Cars)

Amphloo

Gold Ship certainly has a rather…interesting matchup spread, but out of all of her matchups, (outside of Pinkie), this one’s my favorite. I just think it’s really funny. They serve similar roles as being the goofy, but ultimately good-natured friends, it’s a horse vs. a car, and you even have the “McQueen” connection with Mejiro McQueen and Lightning McQueen. You can’t get much better than that.

Mater, in similar vein to Golshi, has also been in a lot of media, so that gives him a lot to work with against her. He has his own method of time travel, he has various weapons and items at his disposal from Cars 2 and subsequent racing games, and of course, there’s his signature ability to simply make shit happen just by saying, “you was there too.”

As far as debate goes, Golshi should just dominate even without resorting to Umamusume’s higher end stuff. Should take stats no matter what, has way more abilities and items at her disposal, straight up just has a better version of Mater’s subjective reality with her plot manipulation, and that’s all without even mentioning the elephant shaped Golsilius in the room.

Special Week vs. Jovial Merryment (Horse Race Tests)

Amphloo

I admittedly never got into the whole Horse Race Test stuff back when it was popular, but yeah, I get it. Iconic mascot of 2020’s horse-based media vs. iconic mascot of 2020’s horse-based media. There isn’t really much to say about this one, but I think it’s funny.

Debate wise, Jovial Merryment apparently has an infinite speed feat? (this horse race test shit gets serious) But if you scale Special Week to Golshi’s own speed, then she should just be able to match that. And regardless, Special Week should just be AP stomping even with the most conservative scaling to Umamusume feats. So she probably wins.

Haru Urara vs. Glass Joe (Punch-Out!)

Amphloo

Iconic loser vs. iconic loser. This one’s cute, I get the vibes for it, although the idea of Urara getting hurt in any possible circumstance (even against someone like Glass Joe) does make me a little upset. Regardless though, I get why this one got a bit of traction when Umamusume first released. Very simple theme, not much else to say about it, but you can’t help but wanna root for both of these characters.

Debate wise, Glass Joe is gonna need all the scaling he can get here man. Maybe if you chainscale him to DK from being able to fight Little Mac he might stand a chance. Otherwise Urara is genuinely giving him the work (the funny thing is you might unironically be able to argue she’s a more skilled fighter, too 💀)

Assorted Oguri Cap Matches

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Being the protagonist of the most recent and successful anime, Oguri Cap has gotten many, many matchups. We’ve narrowed them down to four that feel the most interesting to look at.

Shoma/Kamen Rider Gavv. Big eaters in brand new worlds, because every character in fiction has to have a Kamen Rider matchup. This one, ironically enough, I feel could lean into the more grounded style since Gavv itself isn’t one of the higher scaling Riders. Also I put Kamen Rider here to torture Anfang.

Ruby Rose from RWBY with the whole thing about speed and entering prestigious academies after excelling from their more humble one.

Amuro Ray from Gundam probably sounds the most ridiculous, but there is genuine precedent for this idea. Would you believe me if I told you that Oguri Cap’s journey is very much similar to Amuro’s. With them both blazing the path forward for future generations, while becoming legends in their own right back when things were simpler. The way Oguri indirectly passes the torch to Special Week in the game and Cinderella Gray continuities isn’t too different from Amuro passing the torch to Gundam protags of the future.

The actual Japan Racing Association has had many, many collaborations with Gundam. Another fun fact is that the White Devil title Amuro/the RX-78-2 Gundam had was also one of irl Gold Ship’s titles. Mobile Fighter G Gundam also has Fuunsaiki, a horse that pilots a Gundam.

Does this sound ridiculous as an idea? Yes. But considering Umamusume in VS already is pretty silly, I feel that you can go absolutely crazy by giving Oguri Cap everything and Amuro all the stuff from supplementary Gundam material, and even stuff like Super Robot Wars. In a way, a bit more of a “grounded” (I use the term loosely) version of Gold Ship vs Pinkie Pie.

Goku.

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Country bumpkins raised by sole parental figures, having a strong drive for the very thing that defines both them and their species, very big gluttons, have prominent rivals that are short and feisty. On a more meta scope, both are also extremely popular and iconic Japanese icons. Oguri Cap (the real horse) was called the “Idol Horse” for his immense popularity, and he became one of the most famous racehorses not just in Japan, but arguably of all time period. And well, Goku is Goku. I don’t think we need to talk about how popular he is.

Unironically, I actually think this matchup is really strong thematically. I really like how it delves into the humbler origins of Goku as a character and covering his journey from the start to where he is now. It also places a heavy emphasis on how Goku as a person impacts and heavily affects the people he meets, the same of which can be said for Oguri Cap throughout Cinderella Gray. It’s fun, it’s cute, and if Goku were a trainer in the world of Umamusume, I 100% think Oguri Cap would be his trainee.

The main thing holding it back is, well…the nonexistent fight dynamic. Which, admittedly, could be said about a lot of these other Umamusume matchups that don’t involve Gold Ship, but still. It’s a fun idea conceptually, though. As for who wins, yeah whoop his ahh OGURI 😭😭😭