His voice, love for theatrics, and unparalleled ego all combine perfectly to make quite a memorable character. So we’re going to do a bit of a thought experiment here – we’re looking to see which characters from other anime could probably end Dio’s career. And just to make it fun, no obvious picks, and only one character per series.
10. Vanessa Enoteca
Anime: Black Clover Let’s start with Vanessa – as her battle requires the most headcanon. As you all know, Dio’s most dangerous ability is The World. However, I’m pretty sure Vanessa could avoid it completely. After all, her Red Thread of Fate seems to be completely immune to any counterplay. Even anti-magic doesn’t affect it! Plus, its power is fairly similar to Golden Experience Requiem – which we saw is resistant to time manipulation. But believe it or not – that’s not the part that needs headcanon. The real issue is the fact that Vanessa never really attacks anyone! But I still think she could pull it off if she had to. Her reaction speed is easily comparable to lightspeed (as we’ve seen her dodge lightning attacks many times), and her threads should be extremely durable (as they hardly ever get destroyed in battle). So, theoretically, Vanessa could use her Red Thread to dodge any incoming attacks, wrap some string around Dio’s neck and just fly in the opposite direction at top speed. It wouldn’t be pretty – but it’d be effective!
9. Atsushi Nakajima
Anime: Bungo Stray Dogs You already know that Dio would be so confident in his victory against Atsushi. And it’d probably look like he was right at first. They’d exchange blows at a pretty similar level. Dio would stop time and then pummel Atsushi with a flurry of attacks. Or a road roller – if one happens to be nearby. However, he’d then be quite surprised to learn that Atsushi heals like crazy and generally gets stronger the longer he fights. Once his tiger form starts coming out – Dio would be in trouble. From his fight with Fitzgerald, we know that Atsushi’s attacks are more potent than a city-wide explosion. And even though he was buffed during that fight by his emo bf – he also became a lot stronger later on in the series. And I honestly don’t think Dio could keep up with the raw strength of a late-game Atsushi. He could buy himself some time with The World – but Atsushi has shaken off being completely impaled so he’s unlikely to stay down.
8. Ira Gamagori
Anime: Kill la Kill This fight would honestly just be hilarious. To be clear – here I’m talking about Gamagori’s Three Star uniform (AKA the one he initially used against Ryuko). Because here’s how I see it going down. Gamagori has his kink uniform on, and Dio starts punching the hell out of him. Little does he know that he’s just powering him up. The second he finishes his barrage, Gamagori unleashes the whips in a wide area and does some serious damage. Rinse and repeat. I’m pretty sure that it’d play out like that even during The World. And since Dio can’t get close enough while the whips are active, he can’t land any serious damage while time is frozen. Not only would this fight spark the biggest fanfiction wave you’ve ever seen, but it’d also be comedy gold.
7. Eren Yeager
Anime: Attack on Titan Dio simply cannot deal with enemies that are ten times his size. His punches are powerful, but they wouldn’t be able to cause enough damage to Eren’s Titan to actually win. After all, if a road roller was the ultimate weapon – imagine having a 15m Titan step on you. And this isn’t even mentioning the fact that Dio wouldn’t know where to attack and that Eren can just use hardening to protect himself. Meanwhile, Eren actually has a decent chance of figuring Dio out. After all, he has time manipulation abilities of his own – so it isn’t something unheard of in his world. And if you really want to highball Dio, I can just switch to talking about late-game Eren. Because there’s no way anyone in the JoJo universe would survive the Rumbling.
6. Garo
Anime: One Punch Man Okay, this one would be close – but it would also be hype as hell. That’s because Garo is like an unofficial Joestar. His ora ora technique is truly splendid and his hair is appropriately whacky. And seeing how he was able to deflect an entire swarm of bullets (while also being wounded), I’m pretty confident that he could keep up with Dio. But how does he deal with The World? That’s the best part – he doesn’t. I honestly think that he could just tank the entire barrage and then keep fighting once he gets out. After all, he did survive a Saitama punch. And it’s not like he wouldn’t take any damage – but he seems to only get faster and stronger the more wounded he is. I guess he’s also part Saiyan. Plus, he can pick up entire fighting techniques extremely quickly – so he’d get used to how Dio fights and would find a way to counter him.
5. Twice
Anime: My Hero Academia Twice would simply overwhelm Dio in a matter of seconds. Ever since he got over his trauma, this dude has just been an absolute powerhouse. With the ability to create dozens of clones at once (and then have those clones do the exact same thing), he’s literally a one-man army. And what can Dio actually do against that? The odds of him keeping track of the original Twice are quite low and he can create clones quicker than Dio can eliminate them. Even if he were to activate The World – what changes? And this isn’t even mentioning the fact that if Twice really wanted to, he could also create clones of his buddies. So now Dio would also have to worry about being set on fire or turned into ash upon touch. No matter how you look at it, Twice is getting the W in this fight.
4. Megumi Fushiguro
Anime: Jujutsu Kaisen Another easy way to really mess with Dio is to simply have summons. After all, they can keep Dio at a distance – so you wouldn’t be as vulnerable when he uses The World. It’s also worth pointing out that Megumi is no pushover when it comes to tenacity. My dude got punched through a building without any major injuries. And then there’s his Domain Expansion. It basically guarantees that things will go Megumi’s way – as even if Dio freezes time, he’d probably just attack a clone by accident. All of these factors mixed in with the fact that he can one-shot special grade curses make me think that Megumi would stand a fairly decent chance. He only loses if Dio gets serious about the fight while Megumi’s still toying around.
3. Isaac Netero
Anime: Hunter x Hunter (2011) Since Netero basically has a Stand of his own, this battle makes a lot of sense. However, Netero’s Stand is about ten times bigger and a lot more dangerous. First off, we have to talk about speed – because Netero’s strikes are extremely quick. And even if Dio could match them in terms of speed, he’d probably get blown away by the sheer force. And since Netero can keep this barrage up for quite a bit – he could ideally stop Dio from ever even going on the offensive (as it still takes him a moment to prep The World). But even if he did manage to stop time – the best-case scenario is a tie! After all, Netero has a bomb in his chest that would explode upon impact. And since Dio would have to use The World in order to get that final hit in – he wouldn’t be able to use it in order to escape.
2. Danzo Shimura
Anime: Naruto: Shippuden This one would probably make Dio the angriest. Even though stopping time is a really good hax ability – being able to reverse death is even better. At first, they’d probably be evenly matched. Just by scaling to Sasuke, we already know that Danzo has lightning-fast reflexes – so he could dodge most regular attacks. And Dio probably has enough punching force to deflect most fireballs and/or wind blasts. However, the battle would end after Dio uses The World. While time is frozen, Dio would just walk up to Danzo and give him a thrashing of a lifetime. He’d then laugh as time went back to normal. This would make him lower his guard and a newly alive Danzo would just stab him in the back. You hate to see it – but that’s the most logical outcome if you ask me.
1. Esdeath
Anime: Akame ga Kill! It only makes sense that the final battle is against someone who can also freeze time. And seeing how The World interacted with Star Platinum – let’s just say that both of them can move in frozen time. This severely nerfs Dio, but barely even phases Esdeath. When it comes to hand-to-hand combat, she’s a pro. But even if she couldn’t handle Dio’s upfront power – she can just use her ice blasts from afar. And I honestly don’t think Dio could ever land a hit on Esdeath without some form of cheating. After all, she scales to Akame – who we’ve seen react to lightning attacks. Best case scenario for Dio – he just keeps Esdeath at bay with his superior punching power and she loses interest. Worst case scenario – any other scenario.
