Best Fighter: Gon Freecss vs. Izuku Midoriya

Gon and Izuku have quite a lot in common if you think about it: both are primarily green characters who are far more child-like and innocent than others in their respective environments, both with primarily physically based powers, and goals related to a father-figure in the way of finding and living up to respectively. That said, if these two were to duke it out, who would come out on top?

Before I begin I want to state something. Neither of these characters are going to be used in their versions at the most up to date point in their respective manga. For Izuku it's because I've not read the entirety of the manga and only know some basics about the percentages of his power. For Gon, it's because, at this current point in the manga, he no longer has any of the abilities that I'll be citing due to the events following the Chimera Ant arc.

Here I will be using Gon at the end of Greed Island as that's where calculating his feats becomes the least complicated, though I will be using his battles against Knuckle as references. As for Izuku, I will be using him at the projected end of Season 2, after the events dealing with the Hero Killer Stain, with stats from later in the series.

Also, I want to apologize as this will not be my most accurate Best Fighter post and I want to stress that some things may be inaccurate due to how I'm combining information I know about each respective series. Just want to lay out my biases.

History

Gon Freecss was raised on Whale Island by his Aunt Mito where time moves slowly and Gon had an ever present wonder with everything he came across. His goal was to become what is known as a Hunter so that he can find his dad and figure out why being a Hunter is so great that he'd abandon his family in order to become one.

Following this, he takes the Hunter Exam, alongside his three companions Leorio, Kurapika, and Killua. Gon passes the Hunter Exam on his first try, as do Leorio and Kurapika but Killua ends up failing because he kills one of the other participants, which renders him disqualified. The events that caused this lead Gon, Leorio and Kurapika over to Killua's home of the Zoldyck estate to get him out. Once they do, Gon and Killua go on a number of adventures together that are so varied from one to another that recapping the entire thing feels difficult.

Izuku Midoriya, on the other hand, lives in a society of superhumans with powers that are known as Quirks. He himself had no quirk but still had aspirations of becoming a hero. Against the expectations of the other students and against the wishes of his current antagonist Katsuki Bakugo, he desires to go to U.A. High, the school most renowned for being the best Hero School in the country.

Before applying, he runs into the Number 1 Hero All-Might, real name Toshinori Yagi, and finds out that his ability One For All can be passed from one person to the next. With this in mind, he acquired One For All and entered U.A. and from here, the anime and manga are ongoing.

Stats

Gon and Izuku both thrive on their physical abilities. Despite being in a supernatural environment and possessing Supernatural powers, they both are more physically oriented than other characters in their respective series.

Gon is a Nen user of the Enhancement Category which means his abilities will be focused on primarily dealing physical damage and using his physical capabilities. Whereas characters like Killua or Feitan would use elemental power to deal damage, Shalnark would manipulate opponents outright, and Knuckle and Kurapika have abilities intended to negate opponent's aura, Gon is much more about straight physical fighting due to his category. While you could argue he's not among the strongest, he is quite capable for his age.

That said, due to the way Nen works, it's primarily focused on using different techniques to amplify your overall ability, even for Enhancers, so Gon's physical stats will be pretty low on this portion despite having devastating power outside of it.

Izuku has a similar limitation. Izuku's base power is low for 1-A Students which means, even without quirks, he's not as physically strong as Bakugo, Todoroki, or Kirishima. However, the playing field becomes a lot more even when Quirks are introduced.

In Season 1 of My Hero Academia, Izuku shows that he cannot control his power completely and can only fire it off at full strength and, because it's a quirk that gives him all the physical power of all the previous users, it's a lot more power than his body is currently capable of handling so he would often harm himself when he'd try to fight. That said, he could still minimize damage by focusing power into individual fingers, allowing him to minimize damage while still exerting great amounts of power.

During this season, it's safe to say that Izuku could've easily killed Bakugo with a single punch if winning a death match were the point of the battle. The same could be said for Kirishima even with his hardening quirk. And the Season 2 tournament proved that Izuku could go toe-to-toe with Todoroki despite damaging himself immensely. Though Izuku took far more damage from that battle than Todoroki did, it was purely self-inflicted and if Izuku had punched Todoroki directly with a full power punch, he probably would've punched straight through him.

That said, all of this is while his quirk is active and only at full power. Following the tournament he gains a new technique known as One For All Full Cowl, where he uses the 5% of One For All he can withstand, courses it through his body and maintains it during the entirety of the fight, reducing his damage output by roughly 20 times but greatly increasing his speed and mobility, even allowing him to move like Bakugo and start to keep up with Gran Torino.

With this in mind, all of the stats these two have will be relatively low due to the reliance on their supernatural abilities.

Stats	Gon Freecs	Edge	Izuku Midoriya
Vitality	100	=	100
Mana	110	?	N/A
Strength	4000	>	250
Dexterity	926	>	694
Durability	N/A	?	N/A
Sorcery	25	?	N/A

So before we go any further, let me explain where I'm coming from with these numbers. Izuku and Gon are both human so they will have the same Vitality as everyone else so far. Gon's Mana is due to the number of AAP cited by Knuckle, which is roughly 11,000, divided by 100 gives him 110. Izuku's is unknown because Quirks don't have a clear way of measuring how much energy is being emitted, and likely never will since quirks are physical abilities.

As for strength, Izuku is quite athletic for his age, due to his training from All-Might, which means, going off the Marvel rankings for a moment, it is likely he could press lift double his own weight, which would be around 250 lbs given his stature and physique all things considered.

That said, Gon is far stronger due to the events of the Zoldyck family arc, showing that he's capable of pushing the 2 ton testing gates during that arc. While it is true that, as of Greed Island, Gon and Killua are equal, we don't know how much of that is with or without Nen. Without Nen Killua could push to the first three testing gates, putting his strength around 32 tons so we don't know if Gon can do that by the time they meet up with Kite. With Nen, Gon can probably match Killua physically blow for blow but without it is less clear since Gon is an Enhancer while Killua is a Transmuter, making Gon better at augmenting his physical power.

That said, without Nen and Quirks, Gon is significantly stronger than Izuku, so much so that he would need Full Cowl to dodge just to stay in the fight. Dexterity looks high but, since it's designed to evenly match strength, 1 dexterity point roughly equals 114 feet per hour, which would put them at 20 miles per hour and 15 miles per hour respectively, which is not all that high.

Durability is tough to calculate because Izuku never stops hurting himself and we don't see how much Gon can take at maximum without Nen since Nen strikes are hard to calculate as well. Finally, Gon's Sorcery is the average of all 3 of his most mastered Hatsu Categories, with 50% in Enhancement, and 12.5 in each of Transmutation and Emission, making 25% his average. Izuku's is untouched for largely the same reason as his Mana.

So now we get to Techniques.

Abilities

Gon first. Gon at the end of Greed Island is capable of the basic principles, 5 of the 7 advanced techniques, and has three Hatsu techniques. That said, his actual usage of these techniques is a bit sporadic.

First and foremost, Gon does not known In or En, meaning he can't detect things in any radius around him and he can't hide his aura while it's in use. He knows Gyo but that ability will have little usefulness against Izuku. He knows Ryu but he primarily uses it on his right side where his ability to block is lowest, meaning that its effectiveness is diminished a bit. He knows Shu but since he does not wield weapons for the most part, that will be largely inconsequential. He knows Ken but, to my understanding, he never actually uses it in an actual fight despite the fact that using it would be quite helpful against raw power. Ko is the only advanced technique he uses and he overuses it.

His three Hatsu Techniques are combined in a system known as Jajanken, where he prepares the attacks like in the game Janken, known as Rock-Paper-Scissors in the West, then uses the technique he'll choose, making a small amount of unpredictability.

The three techniques are Rock, Paper, and Scissors. Rock is Ko and does the most raw damage out of the three due to its Enhancement qualities. Paper is an Emission skill and is the weakest of the three but goes the farthest. Scissors is a blade, which is mid-ranged and deals cutting damage.

The problem with Gon's system, as we see time and time again, is that it charges too long and makes it too obvious what direction he's going so the only way his ability is effective is if you're unable to dodge or interrupt, choose to block, or you let him use it. While these attacks may have a lot of raw power they'll struggle if they can't hit anything, especially since Gon will tire out faster than Izuku due to using his maximum power in all of his strikes.

Izuku on the other hand has One For All, which he doesn't use at full power anymore but is still an option if he can get Gon at a distance while he's charging Ko. Since a single flick at 100% can destroy massive amounts of Todoroki's ice, it's safe to say that Gon's body without Nen would struggle to stand up to it.

As for Full Cowl, that gives him less strength but more mobility due to his ability to use it constantly and throughout his body. Here, we can actually make a few guesses about overall strength and speed as a result.

Due to the effect of Izuku's attacks on Todoroki's Ice, and Ice's Tensile Strength of 3.1 Megapascals, we can say that Izuku's full power is at least 10,000 psi. During Full Cowl, it would be 8% of that, bringing his strength up to 800 PSI during Full Cowl. This would also bring his speed up to 64 miles per hour or 28 meters per second.

What this means is that, while using their respective powers, Gon has a clear strength advantage but Izuku is faster.

The issue then lies in how they use their respective techniques. If Izuku can charge a full power punch and land it on Gon as he's charging Ko that would be the end of it, but if he gets hit by Jajanken Rock he'll go down easily, especially since Gon doesn't suffer knockback from his own attacks the way Izuku does.

Conclusion

Let's set up this fight. Let's say it's taking place at the Arena for the U.A. Sports Festival, how would the fight go down. The following is a hypothetical of what I think would happen.

Early Fight: In the early fight, I see Gon throwing the first strike and Izuku simply trying to stay in the fight while collecting data. That said, Izuku will likely resort to Full Cowl so he can dodge Gon's attacks. Izuku won't attack much but Gon will likely press his advantage while he can, thus I give Gon a 2-1 advantage.

Mid Fight: In the mid fight, I see these two starting to use more of their tools. By this point, Gon will use Jajanken Rock and Izuku will likely dodge it since he's pretty good with his reflexes. In fact, if he's quick enough, he may even pull his throw that he used on Bakugo and Shinso. Either way, he'll find out that Gon has a lot of power but is vulnerable during the charge up. If he uses the throw, he may even cause harm to Gon, disrupting the Rock. Thus, I give Izuku a 1-2 advantage, making the total 3-3.

Late Fight: At this point, it is likely that Gon will figure out his regular tactics aren't working and try something different. Most likely, he will fire Paper at Izuku only to go around him while he's distracted to try to hit him with Rock from behind. The thing is though that while Knuckle blocked the attack, Izuku is more likely to dodge it with Full Cowl on, meaning that if Gon is too fast, he'll get hit by his own Paper and leave himself vulnerable to a finishing blow by Izuku. Thus, I give Izuku a 1-3 Advantage, bringing the totals to 4-6.

I see this battle ending in the mid to late fight, where Izuku survives long enough to figure out Gon's weaknesses while Gon is left struggling on the limited usefulness of his attacks. Gon may have more raw power, which is why he gets an advantage in the early fight, but Izuku will gain more advantages the more he learns about Gon, making him more likely to win the longer it drags out. He's also not likely to be taken out by a single Jajanken Rock given how much pain and damage he can sustain without faltering. And that one will give him enough knowledge to know to dodge instead of being hit.

Thus, if I were a betting man, I would wager that Izuku would be the victor. Of course this is my opinion, feel free to leave a comment telling me where I fucked up. And, as always, have a wonderful day.