“Can they beat Goku though?” The internet’s favorite question. And honestly? It’s harder to answer than Goku fans want to admit. By Dragon Ball Super, Goku scales to universal-plus threats, has Ultra Instinct, and constantly breaks his own limits.
But anime has some absolutely broken characters. Reality warpers, omnipotent beings, and entities that exist beyond the concept of power levels. Today we’re analyzing which anime characters could actually defeat Goku in a fight—with honest assessments of how and why.
Rules: We’re using current manga/anime Goku (Ultra Instinct mastered). Characters must be from anime. “Could beat” means more than 50% chance in a serious fight.
The List
20. Giorno Giovanna (Gold Experience Requiem)
- Series: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
- Why he could win: Gold Experience Requiem resets any action against Giorno to zero—including the willpower to act against him. Goku could kill Giorno infinite times, and none of them would ever “happen.”
- The fight: Goku attacks. Nothing happens. He attacks again. Nothing happens. He can never actually land a hit because the causality of his attacks is negated before they connect. Giorno doesn’t need to hurt Goku—just wait until he gives up or dies of old age.
19. Accelerator
- Series: A Certain Magical Index
- Why he could win: Accelerator controls all vectors—the direction of any physical force. Goku’s punches would be reflected. Ki blasts would return to sender multiplied.
- Caveat: Goku’s extreme power might overwhelm Accelerator’s calculation ability. It’s closer than it sounds.
18. Alucard (Hellsing Ultimate)
- Series: Hellsing Ultimate
- Why he could win: After absorbing millions of souls, Alucard is functionally immortal. He needs to be killed millions of times simultaneously. He doesn’t have the offense to hurt Goku, but Goku might not have the hax to permanently kill him.
- The fight: Stalemate. Goku can’t end him; Alucard can’t touch him.
17. Rimuru Tempest (Web Novel)
- Series: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
- Why he could win: End-of-series Rimuru becomes a conceptual god existing across infinite timelines, capable of creating and destroying universes at will.
- The fight: Rimuru exists on a level Goku can’t reach. He could erase Goku’s existence across all possibilities.
16. Anos Voldigoad
- Series: The Misfit of Demon King Academy
- Why he could win: Anos killed a god by glaring at them. He can’t be killed by concepts that “exist”—including death itself. His castle destroys anything that touches it.
- The fight: Goku can’t kill Anos because Anos decided he can’t die. Anos can destroy Goku’s concept of existence if he chooses.
15. The Truth
- Series: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- Why it could win: The Truth isn’t a fighter—it’s a universal constant. It exists as the knowledge of all things and extracts equivalent exchange from anyone who transgresses.
- Caveat: Goku would have to challenge The Truth directly, which he wouldn’t. In a random encounter, The Truth wouldn’t fight.
14. Anti-Spiral
- Series: Gurren Lagann
- Why they could win: The Anti-Spiral controls infinite universes, creates pocket dimensions, and weaponizes probability itself. They chose to use only power equal to opponents—if they went all-out, they’d simply erase everything.
- The fight: If Anti-Spiral doesn’t handicap themselves, they win by existing on a scale Goku can’t comprehend.
13. Simon the Digger (Post-Series)
- Series: Gurren Lagann
- Why he could win: Spiral Power has no limit. Simon piloted a mecha larger than the observable universe and threw galaxies as weapons.
- The fight: Simon’s Spiral Power scales infinitely to whatever threat he faces. If Goku gets stronger, Simon gets stronger faster.
12. Madoka Kaname (Goddess Form)
- Series: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Why she could win: Ultimate Madoka exists across all timelines simultaneously, rewriting the laws of the universe itself. She’s not a fighter—she’s a concept.
- The fight: There is no fight. Madoka exists outside causality. Goku can’t punch a universal law.
11. Saitama
- Series: One Punch Man
- Why he could win: Saitama’s entire character is that he wins with one punch. He exists as a parody—within his narrative, he cannot be defeated.
- Caveat: Cross-universe “who would win” breaks his gimmick. Realistically, current feats put him below Goku. But his potential is theoretically unlimited.
- The fight: If you accept parody rules, Saitama wins because that’s the joke. If you use feats only, Goku wins.
10. Haruhi Suzumiya
- Series: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Why she could win: Haruhi is unconsciously God. She can rewrite reality based on her subconscious desires. If she wished Goku didn’t exist, he wouldn’t.
- Caveat: She doesn’t know she has these powers. In a fight, she’d just be a human girl—until her subconscious intervened.
9. Ainz Ooal Gown
- Series: Overlord
- Why he could win: “The Goal of All Life is Death” bypasses all resistances and defenses, killing anything after a countdown. Time Stop would let him set up.
- Caveat: Goku is so fast he might blitz before any spell completes. Ainz wins if he gets prep; Goku wins in a random encounter.
8. Featherine Augustus Aurora
- Series: Umineko When They Cry
- Why she could win: Featherine is a witch who exists as an author—she writes reality. Characters in her story cannot defeat her because they exist within her narrative.
- The fight: Featherine writes “Goku loses.” Goku loses. She exists on a meta-narrative level above fiction itself.
7. Kami Tenchi
- Series: Tenchi Muyo!
- Why he could win: The supreme being of the Tenchi multiverse, existing above all dimensional hierarchies. He’s beyond concepts like power or existence.
- The fight: There is no fight. Kami Tenchi is everything. Goku is a small part of everything.
6. Zeno
- Series: Dragon Ball Super
- Why he could win: Zeno is the king of Goku’s own universe. He erases universes by raising his hand. There is no defense, no resistance—just cessation of existence.
- The fight: Zeno doesn’t fight. He just erases. If he wanted Goku gone, Goku would be gone. Even Goku knows not to challenge Zeno.
5. The One Above All (Anime Equivalents)
- Various series
- Why they could win: Every series with a true supreme deity—the ultimate author-insert god—automatically beats Goku. They exist to be unbeatable within their cosmology.
4. Lain Iwakura
- Series: Serial Experiments Lain
- Why she could win: Lain rewrites herself into being God of the Wired, capable of altering reality, memories, and existence itself. By series end, she exists everywhere and nowhere.
- The fight: Lain could simply rewrite Goku out of everyone’s memories, including his own. He’d never have existed.
3. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
- Series: Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
- Why he could win: He weaponizes absurdist comedy. His power is making no sense. In a gag manga logic clash, nonsense beats power levels.
- The fight: Goku throws a punch. Bobobo produces a smaller Goku from his afro who defeats the real one with the power of nose hair. Goku accepts this because that’s how the scene goes.
2. Yogiri Takatou
- Series: Instant Death
- Why he could win: Yogiri’s power is “Instant Death”—he can kill anything by willing it. Concepts, gods, ideas, timelines—if it can theoretically end, he ends it.
- The fight: Goku approaches. Yogiri thinks “die.” Goku dies. There’s no speed to dodge it, no defense to block it. It just happens.
1. The Writer
- Series: Any (Meta)
- Why they could win: At the end of all versus debates is this truth: fictional characters are written. The ultimate power is authorship. Any character can defeat any other if someone writes it that way.
Goku could beat everyone on this list in a comic. He could lose to everyone on this list in a different comic. “Who would win” is ultimately a question about which writer is holding the pen.
But if we’re being serious about in-universe power scaling:
The Honest Answer
Within similar narrative frameworks, Goku loses to:
- Reality warpers who exist on conceptual levels (Madoka, Featherine, Lain)
- Existence erasers who bypass durability entirely (Zeno, Yogiri)
- Infinite scalers whose power literally cannot be exceeded (Simon, theoretically Saitama)
- Meta-narrative beings who exist as authors of their realities
Goku beats:
- Almost everyone in straight fights where power levels matter
- Most other shonen protagonists at their peaks
- Reality warpers who can’t react before he blitzes them
- Anyone whose hax has limits he can overcome
The truth is: Goku is absurdly powerful, but anime has characters designed to be unbeatable. Different series operate on different rules. Asking who wins is asking whose rules apply—and that’s always the real debate.
Honorable Mentions
- Altair (Re:Creators) – Military uniform princess with plot armor hax
- Misogi Kumagawa (Medaka Box) – Can “make it so something never happened”
- Ajimu Najimi (Medaka Box) – Quadrillion abilities, most of them broken
- The Presence (DCAU, if we count it) – DC’s God
- Arceus (Pokémon) – Created the Pokémon universe
Why This Debate Never Ends
Dragon Ball intentionally avoids defining Goku’s upper limits. He keeps breaking them. And other anime create characters specifically designed to be beyond power scaling—conceptual beings, meta-fictional entities, and literal gods.
The real answer to “Can they beat Goku?” is always another question: “What rules are we using?”
In most crossover games and stories, Goku wins because he’s more popular. In power-scaling forums, specific hax beats raw power. In actual narrative terms, whoever the author wants to win wins.
But that’s what makes it fun. The debate is the point.