Rock Lee had the true underdog story that everyone accredited to mister second coming of Kurama Jesus Naruto. But for this ranking we’re going to treat Rock Lee as a true shounen protagonist by considering some anime characters that would absolutely wipe the floor with him in a fight. Obviously, I’m avoiding picks like Goku or Saitama, since this is supposed to be entertaining and not “le duh” central. Let’s begin!
10. All for One
Anime: My Hero Academia If you ask me, My Hero Academia did All for One extremely dirty in the show. There are so many interesting ways he could have used his Quirk to defeat any enemy that dared to cross fists with him. So if given enough prep time, this is how he could defeat Lee as well. The most obvious method would be to steal Eri’s Quirk and simply rewind Lee out of existence. Although the Quirk is not an insta-kill, we’ve seen that All for One can bide his time by throwing out those massive shockwave punches and blowing everyone back. Plus, even the initial few seconds of the Quirk would at the very least keep Lee out of his Gates form. So he probably couldn’t out-damage One for All that easily. But a far funnier situation would be to steal Mirio’s Quirk and then forcibly give it to Lee. Since Lee has never used ninjutsu, there’s no way in hell he could figure out this new power. And he would likely keep falling through the ground and phasing through All for One with his punches. Man would that be hilarious.
9. Meruem
Anime: Hunter x Hunter (2011) Thematically, this fight would be quite epic, since Meruem knows about Nen as much as Lee knows about ninjutsu. It would be a good old-fashioned fist fight. However (and I know this might be a bit controversial), I think Lee loses this one. It would be a rather close call, especially if Lee opens the eight gates, but Meruem’s tenacity seems way too high for Lee to get through – even when he’s going all out. Plus, Meruem is a super-computer, and would catch onto Lee’s techniques extremely quickly – rendering any chances of a proper outplay somewhat dim. We all saw that blunt force is basically nothing to Meruem. You basically need to attack him on an anatomical level to finish him off, and that’s just not something Lee is capable of doing.
8. Cioccolata
Anime: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind I’m just going to come out and say it: This fight would be extremely stupid – and that’s precisely why I have to include it. Basically, it all boils down to what Lee would do in the first few seconds of the fight. I’m not a betting man, but Lee seems to really love his air kicks and Death Lotuses – which is exactly why I think he wouldn’t wait long before jumping into the air. And if you know Cioccolata’s Stand, you’ll know why that’s a death sentence in a fight. Green Day makes it so that anyone who’s losing altitude will start growing mold, which can kill you in a second if the descent is drastic enough. In terms of power, Green Day is actually pretty solid – and could probably ward off Lee’s first few attacks. But realistically the outcome completely depends on whether Lee jumps or not.
7. Esdeath
Anime: Akame ga Kill! Ice powers make Lee’s life a bit more difficult in a few ways. Number one: it can severely nerf his mobility, since Esdeath could either put ice spikes everywhere and let him injure himself, or just cover the ground normally and hope that Lee loses his footing. Number two: just like in the fight against Gaara, Esdeath can use the ice to keep her distance and put up defensive shields around herself if he ever does get a bit too close. And number three: this chick can literally freeze time. The other two points were irrelevant. How are you going to out-sprint a time freeze? And at that point, she can just stab him to death like anyone else, since we’ve seen that even Naruto can get skewered by a normal weapon if he’s caught off guard.
6. Ban
Anime: The Seven Deadly Sins Since Lee doesn’t really use ninjutsu, his stamina is all that he has. So wouldn’t it be a shame if someone were to just, oh I don’t know, steal it? Final season Ban has a few things going for him in this fight. One big thing is that he’s an absolute sponge that can take ludicrous damage without slowing down. And both his speed and strength have gone through the roof. However, I don’t think he could keep up with an eight gate Lee. That being said, he doesn’t have to. As long as he can just survive the punishment, Ban can leach Lee’s stamina little by little, as Lee doesn’t have any ranged attacks & would always have to get in Ban’s face to deal any damage. And at some point, Lee would simply get tired – while Ban would still be fresh and full of energy.
5. Dante Zogratis
Anime: Black Clover This fight would be pretty bad. When it comes to base stats, I think Lee is more or less comparable to demonic Asta & serious Yami. So we already know that Dante is somewhat capable of keeping up. He can destroy the terrain to put Lee off balance, use his gravity magic to do a Chibaku Tensei Lite, and use his overall strength to hopefully crush Lee. Yet all of those things wouldn’t be enough… initially. However, just like in the previous fight with Ban, time is against Lee. Although it’s not explicitly stated in the anime, I think we can draw the conclusion that physical damage means absolutely nothing to Dante. You can blow up his entire body and he’ll just heal it back up instantly. So this battle is more like a waiting game.
4. Akame
Anime: Akame ga Kill! Do you know what’s even more hax than freezing time? Being so fast that frozen time doesn’t affect you. I swear I’ll never stop whining about this one feat – it hurts my brain to justify it. And even though we all know Rock Lee is fast, he’s not time-bending fast. So he just loses by default. And usually that wouldn’t be an issue if the other enemy didn’t have enough fire-power to actually land some damage with this advantage, but that’s not the case with Akame. She quite literally has a one-shot ability that only needs a single scratch. Lee doesn’t know any sealing jutsu or anything like that. So there’s no way he’s getting out of the curse. And as we’ve already discussed, tenacity gets shaky when the person is completely caught off guard.
3. Sinbad
Anime: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic This is honestly a fight that I would love to see. Because Sinbad is the type of dude that never actually has to use his fists, while Rock Lee is all about that World Star life. Sinbad has a few advantages going on here. Most notably, his Valefor form can slow down Lee’s reaction and movement speed, which is his only calling card. Also he could use Zepar to (at the very least) induce some brain fog, or at best knock Lee out completely. But even if the debuff tactic fails, Sinbad is far from done. Since he can fly and has enough fire-power to level entire mountains with a swish of his hand, Lee would have a lot of issues actually getting to mister Singularity. It’s not completely hopeless though, Sinbad’s persistence is laughable by comparison. But it would definitely be an uphill battle.
2. Chuuya Nakahara
Anime: Bungo Stray Dogs Although Lee is no stranger to making himself heavier for the purpose of training, I have to imagine that even he has his limits. And perhaps those limits would come in the form of Chuuya. You see, Chuuya’s ability allows him to control the gravity of everything he touches. So he could arguably make Lee so heavy that he simply could not move anymore. And since Chuuya easily reacts to point-blank bullets, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he could tag Lee before he opens his gates. There’s also the option of Chuuya going full Tailed Beast mode and chucking mini black holes everywhere – but god knows how that would end up.
1. Satoru Gojou
Anime: Jujutsu Kaisen “I don’t fear the man who can tank my damage. I fear the man who can avoid my damage altogether” – Rock Lee, probably. Ok jokes aside, Gojou would be like Obito in that Lee’s entire fighting style becomes obsolete very quickly. Gojou’s infinity doesn’t allow for anything to touch him unless he allows it. So even with all eight gates open, Lee would be punching an infinity. And sure, Gojou isn’t exactly a planet destroyer when it comes to damage output. But he definitely packs enough of a punch to put Lee out of commission. And in terms of speed, I’m going to refer to that one time where Gojou basically left mid-fight, had a talk with Itadori, and brought him back before the enemy could even figure out what was happening.
