Knives vs Jin: Verdict

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First Relius dies to Kira, now Jin dies to Knives. Man, Blazblue's blond guys don't seem to have that much luck in the ring, huh?

Anyway, deciding the winner for this fight was honestly pretty hard, but not for the reasons you might think. While I was writing this, Blazblue's stats kept getting upgrades, downgrades, debunks, it was a mess. Every time these updates came out, the verdict would change. First I was going to have Jin win, then Knives, then Jin again, then Knives again. At one point I felt the match was close enough to warrant it ending in a draw, but then another update came out for Blazblue's stats that caused me to reconsider. So, with that bit of trivia out of the way, let's get into why I ultimately picked Knives as the winner.

When it came to strength, Knives ultimately had the edge. While he doesn't have as many concrete feats in this department, being able to damage Vash, who survived being blasted by a fully-powered Angel Arm, would put Knives at Planet Level. Jin, on the other hand, has shown that he can trade blows with the likes of Ragna, Hakumen, and the Black Susanoo; the latter of whom wields the full power of the Susanoo Unit, which would grant Susanoo the ability to fight the planet-destroying Black Beast and puts him on par with the likes of Hades Izanami. Izanami could output the same energy as the Corpus Sepulcro: Requiem. which she herself says is 10^31 joules, or Small Planet Level. Given that Jin was shown to fight Susanoo, albeit briefly, he should scale to this.

Speed was another aspect that Knives took. He's shown the ability to blitz Vash, who could react to blasts from an Angel Arm, which can reach the Moon in seconds, putting both Vash and Knives himself at Relativistic speeds. By contrast, Jin would be Sub-Relativistic at minimum due to being superior to the likes of Iron Tager, who can fly to the exosphere and back in seconds. At maximum, he would be Sub-Relativistic+ due to dodging Take-Mikazuchi's beam, which can move at 6% the speed of light, though it should be noted that this is with the use of assumptions and highballing. And in case you're wondering, no, the calc that put this beam at Faster Than Light speeds wasn't legit. It relied too heavily on assumptions, such as Take-Mikazuchi's height above the atmosphere and the timeframe only considered the speed the beam traveled until it was close to Earth.

So, in short, Knives takes the stat trinity pretty hard. What about the non-physical stats?

In terms of intelligence, both have shown some impressive feats in this regard, and they could both use them under certain circumstances. Knives mainly uses his intellect to manipulate people, which he could also do here by taking advantage of Jin’s arrogance and prideful attitude. Jin, on the other hand, has shown that he’s been able to use his swordsmanship and martial arts abilities during a fight.

Similarly, experience was another hard one to decide. Sure, you could say Knives should take this since he’s been alive for much longer. The problem is that he spent that time scheming, leading the Gung-Ho Guns from the shadows, or absorbing Gunsmoke’s Plants to further his plans. The amount of actual fights he’s been in can be counted on one hand, and they were all against his brother, Vash. By contrast, Jin had better combat experience due to participating in more one-on-one fights in his series, and his service in the NOL’s military further solidifies this.

When it came to arsenal, Yukianesa granted Jin some impressive abilities. Its ice, ability to attack the soul, and the ability to negate healing factors meant that he could theoretically bypass Knives’ durability and healing factor. Its ability to automatically defend the user would also make it harder for Knives throughout the fight, though this is assuming it could react in time.

Knives' Angel Arm was more than strong enough to kill Jin, on top of being too fast for Jin to react to. The Angel Wings give him better offense, defense, and mobility; all of which are furthered by their ability to grow in size. His black holes let him bypass Jin’s durability, in addition to being faster than Jin could react to. His barriers also gave him another way to negate Jin’s attacks, and his Angel body gave him an edge in unpredictability due to how it lets him spawn Angel Wings from anywhere.

In terms of powers, Jin easily had the edge in variety. His enhanced senses could possibly let him sense Knives’ weapons before they hit him, he could summon freezing winds, he has a healing factor (albeit one that's inferior to Knives' own), and then there’s his hax resistance. Admittedly, from the massive list of what he can resist, the only thing that’s relevant here would be his ability to resist mental manipulation. Thanks to remaining unaffected by the Boundary, which floods the minds of those who enter it with infinite amounts of information, it’s safe to say that he could easily resist Knives’ telepathy. Admittedly, this doesn't even matter since Knives never really uses his telepathy, but it’s still worth noting. Finally, there’s the Power of Order, which is arguably one of Jin’s strongest abilities. There’s just the unfortunate problem that it likely wouldn’t come into effect. The Power of Order exists to combat threats to the world, and while Knives outclasses Jin in the stat trinity, that doesn’t automatically make him a threat to the world. If you wanted to, you could make the argument that Knives' Angel Arm would register as a threat to the world due to its planet-destroying capabilities, but there's a slight problem. Even if it did see Knives as a threat, the massive gap in stats means that Jin would most likely be dead before the Power of Order could affect him.

Not even Jin’s Unlimited Mode would be able to save him. While it increases his durability and applies Frost End by default, it does nothing for his strength and speed. This means Knives could still blitz or one-shot him with his superior stats and weapons. Admittedly, Knives’ sadistic nature would prevent him from using the black holes or Angel Arm right off the bat, but it’s likely he wouldn’t even need them. As I stated above for the Power of Order, Knives’ already superior power ensures that he’d have already killed Jin before it could even take effect.

It was knife knowing you, Jin. Maybe next time you won't be fighting an opponent who's better "armed."

The winner is Knives Millions.