Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Yu VS Aiba (Persona VS Digimon)

    "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
-Arthur Conan Doyle

Yu Narukami, Persona's Midnight Detective

Takumi Aiba, Digimon's Titular Cybersleuth

These two midnight sleuths have gone through hell and highwater to uncover the truth. However today there is only one truth to uncover and that truth is that one of them will rise and one will fall. And I'm here to go over who will be there now to heed the call in a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Begin

I will not be including any mainline Shin Megami Tensei scaling for Yu Narukami, as though I think it's valid, I completely understand that it's validity is debated and will only be using SMT If... and Devil Summoner as they both take place within the universe of Persona. And the main games I'll be using for Yu are Persona 4/Golden, Persona 4 Arena & Ultimax, and Persona Q & Q2, and scaling to other Persona games that make sense to use. I will also be looking at the anime and manga adaptations as they follow the games closely and the only real difference is the naming convention.

For Aiba I will be using mainly Digimon Story: Cybersleuth, Hacker's Memory, and Time Stranger as it's set in the same universe but in an alternate timeline. I will also be using the Cyber Sleuth one shot manga as well as various other Digimon media as it's technically all canon given its cosmology.

Also like as customary now I'll be linking the sources that helped this blog come to life:



Background

Yu Narukami


Yu Narukami was an ordinary teenager living in the Tokyo prefecture of Japan with a seemingly happy life. But there was just one problem with it, since his parents were constantly taking on new jobs throughout his life he never got the chance to make strong bonds. To sum it up, he was incredibly lonely. This cycle would continue over and over again, and by the time we first meet Narukami his parents took another new job but this time overseas. And in order for him to still receive his education his parents shipped him off to live with his uncle Ryutaro Dojima who acted as his guardian for the year he stayed in the city of Inaba as well as his younger cousin Nanako. After arriving in Inaba Yu had his first day as a transfer student as Yasogami High where he would meet his new friends Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi. On the way back to his new house the group ends up finding out about a murder that Yu's uncle and his partner Tohru Adachi were invisting. The next day at school after Yukiko left, Chie told Yu and Yosuke of a rumor about the Midnight Channel, where if you check your TV at midnight when it's turned off you should see your soulmate. And while skeptical at first, Yu decided to check out this Midnight Channel, and was shocked to see that the outline of a woman did in fact appear on the TV. And that wasn't all, he also realized that he could partially enter the TV in his room.

The next day at school Yu, Yosuke and Chie all talk about what they saw on the Midnight Channel and end up learning that they had all seen the same woman. And Narukami even confides in his new friends that he was sucked into his TV but couldn't go all the way through. And while Chie and Yosuke didn't believe him at first, Yosuke got the idea to have Yu see if he could fit through a bigger TV at the shop his dad manages and that he works at. So after a trip to the shop called Junes and venturing into the electronic department Yu tried sticking his body through the TV and was actually successful in sticking his head through it. But due to some unfortunate circumstances, Yosuke ended up pushing Yu through the TV as well as falling through it with Chie. And soon after falling into the TV the trio starts exploring the strange world they find themselves in and find a strange teddy bear like creature who helps them leave back to their world. The next day Yasogami High School held an assembly to honor one of its students who had mysteriously just passed away named Saki Konishi. And Yosuke took this particularly hard since he had a crush on her. And being convinced that the strange TV World had a hand to play in her death and decides to go back into it with Yu's help. After entering the TV world again Yu and Yosuke are met by the teddy bear like creature named Teddie who confirms that a girl was put in her and lost her life and with even more resolve the trio investigates more of the TV world. After investigating for a while they end up in a similar looking area to the shopping district of Inaba and are attacked by monstrous creatures that Teddie called Shadows. And in order to protect his new friends Yu awakened to his Persona, Izanagi.

After dispatching the shadows that were after them Yu and Yosuke encountered Yosuke's Shadow Self, the inner manifestation of his insecurities. Which Yosuke denied being the real him and manifested a monster that Yu had to defeat until Yosuke accepted all the parts of himself that he hated and made into his own Persona. The two then went back to their world where Chie was waiting for them and was worried but they reassured her. And after Yukiko seemingly goes missing and seeing her on the Midnight Channel, Yu decides to go back into the TV world to rescue her with Yosuke and Chie tagging along since Yukiko is her best friend. And while exploring Yu ends up encountering Chie's Shadow self with a similar event to when Yosuke encountered his happening. After battling and defeating it Chie joins the squad officially with her new Persona. With these events being key in finding and saving Yukiko from her own Shadow Self that Yu and his friends had to take down. After the 4 of them exit the TV World with Teddie's help, Yu decides to try and solve the towns new serial murderers since they were committed within the TV World and he and his new friends were the only ones who knew of it besides the killer.

So Yu and his friends formed a ragtag group of mini-detectives calling themselves The Investigation Team. And Yu's team would spend months going into the TV world to rescue the people who would be kidnapped and show up on the Midnight Channel so they wouldn't become victims. And those would be victims would even join the Investigation Team to try and get back at their would be killers. These would include the school delinquent Kanji Tatsumi, the mega pop idol Rise Kujikawa, Teddie after he awakened to his own persona, and the Detective Prince who's ironically a woman, Naoto Shirogane. With his friends and teammates by his side he would rescue one person after another from the TV World. And this would eventually piss off the culprit of the kidnappings and murders enough for them to send a letter to Yu's house warning him to stop saving people or else someone he cared about would be hurt. Unfortunately for Yu, when he got this letter his uncle Dojima saw it and fearing for his safety he took him down to the police station to question him. Yu then told his uncle of the entire story that led to this conversation, including his powers and how he can enter TVs. But Dojima didn't believe him, and he and Adachi decided to leave Yu alone for a bit so they could all gather their emotions. 

But Yu realized that the clock had struck midnight and realized there was a TV and decided to check the Midnight Channel to see if anyone was on it. When he turned the TV what looked like the silhouette of Nanako appeared on it, and to confirm his suspicions he called Naoto who realized the same thing he did and ran to Yu's house to make sure Nanako was safe. Just then Dojima and Adachi return to the room and Yu tells them of Nanako's possible kidnapping to which Naoto confirms after calling Dojima and telling him that Nanako wasn't home but the door to the house was open. So after learning that one of the only people that Nanako would open the door for was a delivery man and noticing the van outside the house, Dojima took Yu and Adachi in order to chase after the van which lead to both cars crashing but the delivery man and Nanako disappearing into a TV that was in the back of the van. And since Dojima got injured in the crash and was forced to go to the hospital, he entrusted Nanako's rescue to Yu and his friends as they were they only ones who could save her. After entering the TV World again Yu would confront the kidnapper of his cousin Taro Namatame. Yu and his friends then witnessed Namatame be possessed by a deity and in order to save both him and Nanako they would fight it off and defeat it. 

After the defeat of the deity within Namatame Yu and his gang took him to the hospital so he and Nanako could recover from their prolonged exposure in the TV World, and so he could get answers about the kidnappings and murders. Yu would also regularly go into Nanako's hospital room to pay her visits and make sure she would end up ok. But it was on one of these visits when Nanako's heart flatlined and she was pronounced dead by the doctor in the room. So charged up with anger Yu went to Namatame's room with the intent to put an end to him, and he nearly did it only backing out at the last second after remembering Nanako's kindness. Yu leaves the room to go outside by himself but Yosuke goes after him and Yu ends up breaking down in tears in his best friends shoulder since he wasn't sure if he made the right decision. But Narukami would be correct in his decision to not end Namatame since a few days later he and his friends would get the chance to talk to him about the kidnappings. And while Namatame did confess to those he would insist he wasn't the murderer and gave them more information on why he started to kidnap the people who would show up on the Midnight Channel. Stating it was because of encouragement from the police force after he called them and he was convinced putting them in the TV World would save them, which he thought worked since everyone he put in the TV's were saved by Narukami and his friends.

So with all this new information that he learned, Yu thought over the case one more time and with focus on who could deliver the letter directly to his house without suspicion. Realizing that the only one who could do that was someone who regularly visited and the only person who fit that category was his uncles partner, Tohru Adachi. So Yu took his friends back to the hospital to confront him and Adachi slips up, saying something only a person who knows about the TV World could know, to which he runs away into a TV in the hospital to escape from the Investigation Team. But while his team wanted to chase after Adachi to finally confront the serial killer, Yu convinced them to wait until they were prepared to take him down. And after preparing for a massive showdown Yu and his friends would take on and defeat Adachi, who then was revealed to be possessed by a god named Ameno-Sagiri that he took on and defeated. So with the case resolved Yu spent the next few months before going back home hanging out with his friends and going on ski trips. Until the day before he was supposed to go home, Yu would say all his goodbyes to his friends that he's made throughout the year. And still having some questions about the case and doing some reminiscing he decided to stop by the group headquarters, Junes. Upon stopping by Junes Yu was surrounded by his teammates since they all had the same idea. 

And thinking back on the entire year, Narukami realized that when he first got to Inaba he shook hands with a gas station attendant and got a strange headache right after. And that was also the day he tried entering the TV for the first time as well. So Yu went back to that gas station to confront that attendant who then revealed themselves as the goddess Izanami. Izanami revealed that all of the events that had transpired within the year were her doing and that she even made the TV World and Midnight Channel to test humanity. And for one last test she made a whole new dungeon in the TV World with her acting as Yu's final boss that he confronted, though at first Izanami was able to defeat Yu and his friends. But after getting a boost from all his bonds Yu Narukami awakened to his Ultimate Persona, Izanagi-no-Okami, and with his new Persona he would defeat Izanami and clear up the fog that plagued the TV World all year. Finally the next day would come and Yu would go on the train back to his hometown and saying his last goodbyes for know to the friends that would change his life forever.

Takumi Aiba


Takumi Aiba was living a seemingly normal life. That would all change when one day a self proclaimed hacker infiltrated the chatroom and told them to come to the server of EDEN to get some sort of gift. And while most of his friends thought it was shady, Aiba and two of his other online friends decided to go anyway. So a few days later he would meet up with his online friends Nokia Shiramine and Arata Sanada in the server and all was going well until the group ended up in the part of the server where most cybercrimes happen known as Kowloon. Once they arrived there, a strange pale looking boy came up to them and gave them the Digimon capturing programs, Shortly after this when exploring more of Kowloon, Aiba and his friends got attacked by a strange creature and during the attack the strange pale boy came back and gave Aiba some Digimon to fight back to give Arata enough time  to hack out an escape route. And even though he was succesful in doing so, while he was leaving the Digital World Aiba's leg got grabbed which corrupted his logout process and when he got back to reality his body had become digital with him barely holding himself together. 

But luckily for him a woman by the name of Kyoko Kuremi came to help him out since she was investigating cases similar to his. And she even offers Takumi a spot at her agency so he could become a Cybersleuth and learn the truth of what happened to him and how to fix it. So Kyoko took the young lad to her detective agency and Aiba learned that due to being half digital now, he had gained the ability to jump inside of TVs and other electronics. He could even use this ability in the Digital World and dubbed it his connect jump. With his new connect jump ability, Takumi would go around the real and Digital Worlds to help out his friends and solve some minor cybercrimes. Then one assignment took him to the hospital where he would learn more of what has been dubbed EDEN syndrome. With most of the patients in this hospital being victims of that same syndrome, and he even stumbled upon his physical body which itself fell victim to the EDEN syndrome. And with this Aiba decided he would find a cure for this syndrome to both get his body back and to help all those unfortunate victims that fell to it as well.

Some time later Aiba learned the main culprits of the chaos plaguing both his world and the Digital World, were beings known as Eaters. And in his first encounter with one of this Eaters he would be allied by a strange man calling himself Akemi Suedou, an employee of the company Kamishiro Enterprises. And he tells Aiba and Arata that the company knew of the Eaters existence and how to take them down, but decided to keep that information hidden since it could damage their brand. But he decided to help the duo out in defeating the Eater that was threatening to completely digitize a subway station. And a few days later he was hired by the pale boy he had encountered in the Digital World, who in reality was a woman named Yuuko Kamishiro that had the digital avatar of her brother to look in to Kamishiro Enterprises since that company had ties to the Eaters. And Aiba would find out the woman currently running the company, Rie Kishibe was in actuality a Digimon known as Crusadermon. And Crusadermons goal was to have the Eaters consume the data of people in the Digital World, in order to merge the Digital and Physical Worlds together to eliminate humanity.

With this revelation, Aiba and his friends resolved to save humanity by preventing the Eaters from consuming any more data from the humans. And in order to achieve this goal, Aiba and his friends got the idea to recruit some of the Royal Knights to their side in the conflict. This would lead to Aiba and his friends confronting Crusadermon, who told them the truth about the Eater infestation was caused by none other than themselves. Since when they went to the EDEN cyberspace they found a whole which contained Digimon and accidentally unleashed them on the world 8 years before. And not willing to accept this and wanting to stop the Eaters from destroying the two worlds. But Aiba at this point was hopelessly outclassed and in had to be saved by Kyoko Kuremi, who in actuality was the original leader of the Royal Knights, Alphamon. Alphamon then tells the gang that her and Rie were originally humans who fell victim to the Eaters and got EDEN Syndrome, and they took their places in order to keep their plans alive. Upon hearing this revelation, Aiba got the idea to go see Suedou again since he was one of the only people with answers about the Eaters beforehand.

After arriving to the Tokyo Metropolitan building, Aiba asked Suedou on how to take down the Eaters for good. And his answer was to venture into the deepest part of the EDEN Cyberspace within the Digital World to take on the host computer of the Digital World called Yggdrasil, and have Aiba use his Connect Jump to travel within them and free its host. And this would have the effect of undoing the fusion of the worlds as well as basically making it so that none of the catastrophic events ever even happened. And armed with his knowledge, Aiba, Arata, Nokia, Yuuko, and Suedou plunged into the depths of the Digital World and found out that King Drasil had been completely taken over by the Mother Eater and with no other choice they had to have the fight of their lives. But after a long and arduous battle Aiba was able to defeat the Mother Eater and Connect Jumped into it in order to free its host, who just so happened to be Yuuko's older brother Yuugo. Though even though Yuugo was grateful to be saved he told Aiba it was a mistake since he was acting as a limiter to the Eaters actions and without a conscience it would go on a rampage of consuming anything in its path. 

Acting quickly Suedou decided to merge with the Mother Eater himself to become its new conscience and recreate the world and make it evolve into one without any misery in it. But Aiba decided to once again Connect Jump into the Mother Eater to save Suedou and to stop him from taking away the free will of humans. But doing this could potentially have catastrophic effects on Aiba's half-digital body, and shocked by Aiba's willingness to potentially sacrifice himself in order to save someone like him, Suedou decided to give humanity a chance to live happy lives on their own. And with him being merged with Yggdrasil and the Mother Eater, he overrode their will in order to send Aiba back and start restoring both the Digital and physical worlds to the state they were in 8 years prior before any contact with Digimon was made. But in order for this to be achieved Aiba and his friends would have to say goodbye to all of their Digimon friends, but they would make a promise to someday meet again. After saying his goodbyes to his Digimon pals he and his friends go through a wormhole back to their world, but on the way back Aiba's digital body dissolved in front of his friends as a result of his Connect Jumps. Though Aiba's friends came back to a world where Digimon and humans had never interacted, being the only ones to remember the old world. But thankfully a few weeks later Aiba's data was found and restored by Alphamon who told Aiba to go and find the real Kyoko once he wakes up. And a few days later when he was eating his lunch on a fountain he would encounter Kyoko Kuremi when she was chasing a criminal, and feeling like she had met him before, she offers Aiba a job as her assistant to become a Cybersleuth. And seemingly remembering the old world himself, he readily accepts the job.

Skill & Experience

Yu Narukami

Yu Narukami is a fairly experienced battler, with him fighting off various Shadows while within the TV World throughout his year in Inaba. He also has some experience with battling other Persona users, like Tohru Adachi and the members of The Shadow Operatives. And speaking of the Shadow Operatives, Yu is skilled enough to keep up with them in battling despite them having significantly more battle experience at that point. Especially in the cases of Akihiko Sanada and Mitsuru Kirijo who had been fighting since they were in middle school. And Mitsuru in particular had been fighting off Shadows for years before that. Yu is also very adept at using his powers as a Wild Card, being able to rapidly change Personas and try different strategies with them on the fly. On top of all that Yu is also practically intelligent, being at the top of his school in grades. And more famously realizing that the only person who could deliver a letter directly to his mailbox would be Tohru Adachi, which would make him the only viable suspect in the serial murders.

Takumi Aiba


While Aiba may not have much traditional experience with commanding his Digimon, he has shown a very impressive ability to rapidly grow in his skill with commanding and evolving them. Going from barely scraping by against the basic hackers of Zaxon at the start of his journey, to taking on the strongest of the Royal Knights and even the Mother Eater. He's also quite intelligent at solving the various mysteries that he's tasked with as a Cybersleuth, with his most notable example of this being solving the case of disappearing people and rescuing them.

Arsenal & Equipment

Yu Narukami
Team Glasses

Katana


Yu's weapon of choice would be his katana. Though he has no actual formal training with it, he's a forced to reckoned with when using it, being able to fight against people with actual combat training like Aigis and Mitsuru with it. And even though getting in close normally isn't a good idea for long swords, Yu is skilled enough to make the position advantageous for him again. He can even make the sword more dangerous by channeling electricity in it.

Orb of Sight


The Orb of Sight is a mysterious looking ball of light given to Yu by Igor. With it he can dispel any illusions to always reveal the truth hidden away. During his fight with Izanami when he realized that none of his attacks had any effect, he used this to reveal her true form which ultimately led to her defeat. 

Takumi Aiba

Digivice

The only piece of equipment that Takumi has are the goggles he wears on his head which is his Digivice. But given that this tool is so versatile it's not like he needs another one. With his Digivice he can communicate with others like with a cell phone, but he also has numerous other programs within it. He can scan and create Digimon with the Digimon Capture program, can bypass firewalls and barriers with the Wall Crack program, can turn himself and his Digimon virtually invisible with the Stealth Hide program, and can analyze the code of encrypted data and can make it possible to browse through it with the Code Scan Program. Aiba can also store various items that he found within his Digivice somehow.

Abilities

Yu
Physical Skills

Thanks to being blessed as a Persona user, Yu doesn't need to just rely on his katana to dish out physical damage. With his Persona's physical skills he can dish out way more damage than what his katana would do without risk of being hit back since he can send out his Persona to attack, and some of the attacks are also long range. Although a drawback to using Physical Skills is that they draw from his HP so Yu needs to be careful not to let his health get too low when using these types of skills.

Magic Spells


In order to save myself some time since I gave myself I deadline to get this out before the end of June since I didn't get my planned blog for May out in time I'm gonna copy and paste this segment from Joker VS Ben 10 again. Thanks for understanding. Another benefit of being a Persona user and especially being one who wields the Wild Card is that a myriad of Personas that he can use have a plethora of different magic attacks that he can cast. Examples of this are being able to summon fire where even the weakest fire spell is described as being thousands of degrees hot, ice so cold it freezes to the point of absolute zero, summoning powerful wind and also summoning powerful lightning. He can also use the very concepts of light and darkness otherwise known as bless and curse, which can erase the existence of non-evil beings, and annihilate the existence of unholy beings with sacred power.  Although none of these are as busted as what is known as Almighty magic. Almighty is basically the ultimate magic and is non elemental, it is also impossible to nullify, resist, absorb or reflect Almighty, even through warping space like with the skill Makarkarn. And Almighty can even bypass the effects of the Omnipotent Orb, which bends the very laws of the universe to nullify every other type of damage. And Yu  has a plethora of these that he can use, the most famous ones being the Megido line of skills, which can transform space into nothingness, and all Almighty magic shares the trait of erasing your existence beyond death if they kill you.

Power Charge


This is a useful skill that amplifies the power of Yu's next physical attack. When this skill is used it applies a multiplier of 2.5 to the next physical skill or normal attack that Yu uses. But this effect dissipates immediately after the physical attack is used, whether the attack lands or not.

Mind Charge


This skill is functionally another version of Power Charge but instead of multiplying the damage of his next physical hit, it applies to his next magic spell instead.

Healing


Thanks to him being a protagonist of a JRPG, Narukami has access to magic spells that can restore his health. These spells are actually incredibly effective since even just a mid level healing spell Diarama can regrow limbs. And that skill doesn't even fully restore the health of him or his allies. He also has access to a plethora of skills that can heal status ailments. And the ultimate healing spell he has, Salvation fully restores the health of him and all his allies and cure any status ailments simultaneously. 

Buff/Debuffs


Another staple of JRPG heroes that Yu adheres to is being able to buff the stats of himself and his allies and debuff the stats of enemies. He has access to skills that increase his speed, strength, and durability. As well as skills that do the inverse to his opponents. He can also amplify all three of those stats on himself with the skill Heat Riser. And he can do the inverse with the skill Debilitate.


Space-Time Manipulation


Velvet Room


Due to being a Persona user blessed with the ability of the Wild Card, Narukami can visit The Velvet Room. The Velvet Room is an extradimensional space that exists outside of normal space-time and even reality itself. This space mainly exists as a hub for Yu to fuse new Personas and could be used like a safe space to reside in, like in Persona 5. But Yu himself has even entered the Velvet Room during a fight before and used it to fuse a new Persona. 

Wild Card


As I've mentioned multiple times in this section, Yu possess the trait of the Wild Card. With this ability he has the power to summon and use a myriad of different Personas in battle. Which is incredible since typically a person can only have one Persona since they're the power of the heart and soul, and a person only has one of those. And while he does have a plethora of different Personas, to meet the deadline I imposed on myself and for the sake of my sanity I'm just gonna go over the main two he has.

Izanagi


Izanagi was the Persona that Narukami initially awakened to in order to protect himself, Yosuke and Teddie from the Shadows. He is the Japanese god of creation who created the entire country and whose offspring are the other gods of Japanese mythology. Izanagi mainly specializes in delivering powerful physical strikes as well as electricity skills. And with Izanagi equipped Yu is immune to Curse/Dark skills, resists Elec skills, but does have a weakness to Wind skills.

Izanagi-no-Okami


This is Yu Narukami's Ultimate Persona. After being empowered by his Social Links he evolved Izanagi into this state. Izanagi-no-Okami is so powerful that immediately after being summoned for the first time, he one-shot Izanami with his special unique skill Myriad Truths. With this Persona equipped Narukami gains a resistance to every affinity aside from Almighty skills. And it even has a unique trait called Country Maker where it's power and durability dramatically increase depending on how much of the Persona Compendium is filled out. And at 100% completion, it's attack power and durability double. Yu can also switch out from using Izanagi to Izanagi-no-Okami during the events of Persona 4 Arena & Ultimax.

Aiba

Half-Digital Body

Due to his data being partially consumed by an Eater when trying to exit the EDEN Cyberspace, Aiba's body functionally exists in a non corporeal state. In this state of being his mental data from EDEN manifested within the real world, without his physical body which ended up with EDEN Syndrome. Although he was able to regain his normal appearance by traveling around EDEN and collecting parts of his Digital Avatar, effectively making his body half-cyber.


Connect Jump

Thanks to his half digital body, Aiba possesses the ability to break himself down into data in order to enter electronics like TV's and other electronics. He can also use this ability to travel between spaces while within EDEN and the Digital World as shown above. Aiba can even use this ability to Connect Jump inside other Digital beings like Eaters to free their host. Although this aspect of the ability runs the risk of dispersing his data throughout the Digital World should he overuse it.

Digimon


What is more than likely Aiba's most notable ability is that to analyze and battle with Digimon. While the one shot manga only shows Aiba with three of them which just so happen to be the three you pick from at the start of the game. In game Aiba can get significantly more. Though Aiba can only have 3 of them on the field at once, he can hold up to 11 of them on hand at once, he can use his Digivice to access the DigiLab program to swap them out if he so desires. And almost each of his Digimon have their own unique skills, but due to my self imposed deadline I'm not going to go over them. Instead I'll be linking Ultraguy's Yu VS Aiba Blog since he covers all of the skills of practically each Digimon Aiba can get. So go read it, it's really good.

Feats

Yu
Overall
  • Leader and one of the three functioning braincells of the Investigation Team
  • Rescued most of his future teammates
  • Solved the Inaba serial murder case
  • Defeated Tohru Adachi, Sho Minazuki, and multiple malovent deities
  • Has a new remake coming out in February which might force me to update this blog

Power


Speed

  • Can dodge the Zio line of skills which are actual bolts of lightning
  • Kept up with the members of S.E.E.S./ Shadow Operatives
  • Can dodge the Kou line of skills which are light (Relativistic to Speed of Light)


Durability


Aiba

Overall
  • Solved multiple cybercrimes and mysteries as a Cybersleuth
  • Has strong bonds with all of his Digimon
  • Defeated Leopardmon and Yggdrasil/The Mother Eater
  • Saved Yuuko, Arata, and Suedou

Power


Durability


Scaling

Yu
The Investigation Team

Given his status as the leader of the leader of The Investigation Team, Yu has shown to be comparable to his teammates. On top of that, he has showings of also just being directly the strongest member of the group due to his Wild Card ability and the fights against Izanami and Hi-No Kagutsuchi. So taking all of this into account he should upscale slightly to any feats performed by his teammates.

S.E.E.S.


During the events of Persona Q & Q2, Narukami has multiple showings of being relative to the members of S.E.E.S. And on top of that he has showings of being around the same level if not outright superior to most of them during the events of the Persona 4 Arena games.

The Phantom Thieves


Yu and The Investigation Team have shown relativity to The Phantom Thieves during the events of Persona Q2. With Yu Narukami himself even having a brief scuffle with the leader of The Phantom Thieves, Joker. Which resulted in a stalemate, so he should scale to this group as well.

Personas/Shadows/Demons


The manifestations of mythological beings, historical figures, and deities across the series are beings that Yu can fight with and against. On top of that it's stated that Personas bestow all their power onto their user when channeled so Yu should scale to the feats they performed.

The various final bosses of the Persona series, often times referred to as Adminstators of the Collective Unconscious are beings that Yu has fought and defeated like Izanami, Ameno-Sagiri, and Hi-No Kagutsuchi, and Enlil. On top of that he scales to other characters like Makoto Yuki and Joker who themselves have also taken out beings from the realm of the collective unconscious. So Yu should scale to these beings as well.

Aiba
Champion Level Digimon

Aiba has a massive amount of Champion rank Digimon that he can command without any of them disobeying him. On top of that his party of Digimon is capable of defeating multiple Champion Level Digimon during the events of Cybersleuth. So Aiba and his party should scale pretty easily.


Like with the Champion Ranked Digimon, Aiba has both command over and battle various Ultimate Level Digimon during his time as a Cybersleuth, so him and his party should scale to feats performed by them.


The Royal Knights

Aiba has directly battled against members of The Royal Knights like Leopardmon who describes himself as the strongest member of the group. Aiba has also fought alongside certain members of the group as well like Omnimon and Alphamon. Due to this, Aiba should scale to the group


The final challenge Aiba underook at the end of his journey. Yggdrasil taken over by the Mother Eater is the final boss of the game that Aiba directly defeated with his party of Digimon. So therefore he should scale.

Weaknesses

Yu

Despite his sheer number of strengths and Personas, The leader of the Investigation Team does have his weaknesses. The most notable one being that if any of his Personas take enough damage, he'll undergo a Persona break and be unable to summon them for a short period of time. He also has the tendency to sometimes charge into situations without thinking them through, like trying to confront Adachi by himself, although he can be really smart when he needs to be.

Aiba


Even though Aiba does posses his strengths, he also possesses a good chunk of weaknesses as well. His half-digital body is as much a curse as it is a blessing, given that should his avatar not respond he could end up in a state of crippling pain. And overusing his Connect Jump ability has the high possibility of his avatar dispersing into data throughout all of the Digital World.


Before My Verdict

Cosmology
Yu
-Image by the G1 Fan Blog Team

In order to truly understand the depths of Yu Narukami's power, we'll need to understand Personas cosmology. Especially since, spoiler alert, this is going to be very important in this debate, especially considering his opponent. Also since I'm trying my hardest to make this deadline, I'm gonna copy and paste this segment from my Joker VS Legionis/Ben 10 Blogs for the most part. It's not plagiarism if you do it to yourself, just ask Hiro Mashima. (That's a joke, I love his manga)

The Physical Reality


To begin to understand Persona's cosmology, let's start with the simplest part of it, the Real or Physical World. There has been multiple statements to Persona's universe being infinite in size, like a fortune teller in Persona 3 that they see "The Void" in Makoto/Kotone's future and that it represents "nothingness" and is "infinite as is the universe." There is also that Yaldabaoth stated to have infinite masses that praise him connected by the Collective Unconscious. This is stated again by Enlil who managed to trap an infinite number of souls within her cinema labyrinths.  There is also the fact that alternate timelines exists within Persona, like the original timeline of mainline SMT, the Persona timeline prior to the end of Innocent Sin/before Eternal Punishment and the timeline of Radiou Kuzunoha XIV. There's also a character who mentions the many worlds theory, and proof that confirms it. There's also mentions of the future diverging into infinite possibilities. 

As the Physical Reality has infinite timelines and universes this should make the Physical Reality Multiversal+ or Infinite 4-D

Another important part within Persona's cosmology is the role that cognition has to play in it and how it makes up the physical reality. In Persona 2 the very concepts of rumors were able to alter reality, because they're incarnations of the Collective Unconscious. And in fact Philemon, Igor's master, stated that all souls have the power that created the universe and those with strong enough wills can create a new reality by envisioning it. There's also Morgana in Persona 5 stating that the world is a product of cognition, and humans can freely remake it if they realize their potential

This should give us a brief idea of how Cognition will impact the cosmology further when I elaborate on it in a future section, so keep that in mind.

The Velvet Room



In conclusion, the Velvet Room being an extradimensional space that exists beyond space-time and is infinite in size, and acts as a point where one can access all alternate worlds and timelines within the multiverse of Persona. As the Velvet Room acts as an access point to infinite worlds and timelines, it needs to be big enough to house all of them, making it an even greater infinity than the Physical Reality, which would make the Velvet Room Infinite 5-D

The Collective Unconscious


And now for the granddaddy of Persona's cosmology, the Collective Unconscious, often called the Sea of Souls or Sea of Hearts, is said to be a sea of nothingness, existing conceptually and lacking a fixed form. The CU is divided into multiple planes of depth, called Mandalas. Which are patterns that are fundamental to the soul which are omnipresent across it. The unconscious also transcends the very concepts of space and time and brings together the past, present and future. It also predates the physical reality, coming into existence before life as a concept had any meaning and is infinite in its depth, and like the Velvet Room it encompasses all infinite timelines. This infinity is also further elaborated on as the Holy Grail has infinite masses praising it, and Enlil managed to utilize the Collective Unconscious itself to create the Akashic records, which records all infinite possibilities and infinite memories in order to trap an infinite amount of souls within her cinema labyrinths,

It is now time to return back to the role that Cognition plays within the cosmology, it is most directly evidenced in the Collective Unconscious. As Dr. Maruki, who was doing research into the very subject of cognitive psience states that there isn't just one world made of one human's cognition, but many worlds based on each individual persons cognition. This is all brought together by the Sea of Souls/Hearts which brings together everyone's cognition. And all these cognitions are all brought together in a shallower plane of the CU called the Kadath Mandala. The Kadath is where the Archetypes of gods and demons dwell within the hearts of man. And there is described to be an infinite amount of these Archetypes. There is also the fact that one cannot reach the Kadath from within the Velvet Room, but one can acces the Velvet Room from within the Kadath, meaning that the Kadath has to be large enough to encompass the Velvet Room. Meaning that by necessity it has to be at least Infinite 6-D. 

But there is also one more realm within the Collective Unconscious that resides even deeper than the Kadath Mandala, called the Monad Mondala, where Philemon and his arch nemesis and counterpart Nyarlathotep reside in the deepest depths of the Sea of Hearts. And as the Monad resides even deeper into the CU than the Kadath, it has to be an even bigger infinity and as such has to be Infinite 7-D. There are also arguments to get the CU even higher, which the G1 Team went over if you want to read them in full here they are. 



Aiba


Like I mentioned in the previous Cosmology section. In order to truly understand the strength of Aiba's party we'll first need to understand Digimon's Cosmology, especially since this debate is mostly a cosmology battle and it's necessary to gauge it.

The first part of understanding the cosmology would be the Human World, also called the Real World. And thankfully for me this is also by far the easiest section to go over. In Cybersleuth there are multiple statements of their being an infinite number parallel universes, supposedly made for every possibility. And on top of that we know that one of these alternate worlds is the setting of Digimon Story Time Stranger.  But there's another statement that there are higher dimensions that extend over the countless parallel universes, so it could be argued even higher. There's also the barrier that separates the Human and Digital Worlds that has 6 layers before even the shallowest part of the Digital World is even reached. And then with the Digital World itself also has multiple layers, with it being said in Cyberlsleuth that there's at least 11 higher dimensions, and items that even imply a possible 24 dimensional reality. Making the cosmology at a whole at least 11-D at a lowball to possibly 24-D if you buy the item scaling.

My Verdict


Abilities
To start of with, both characters possess a fair share of abilities that the other can mostly counter. The spells and skills of Digimon that are stated to destroy souls and the like can be compared to Almighty spells and vice-versa. And both also have areas that the other one doesn't really have a hard counter for. Aiba can have the Royal Knights drag Yu to other dimensions or space-times. And Yu does have multiple ways to drain/reflect/null multiple spells from Aiba's party. So due to these factors I would say the two would overall tie in abilities.

Speed
Next up is to go over would be how Yu's and Aiba's speed stacks up against each other. Comparing their best direct speed feats, Yu is capable of dodging lightning and light spells, which would give him reaction speeds of any from being lightning timer to the speed of light. And Aiba can directly dodge multiple light speed laser blasts from relatively close range, putting him within the relativistic range. But when we start using the best scaling from other characters they're comparable to, that's when it starts to get a little crazy. Yu can scale to multiple Personas given that he can use them and should even be superior to them since in both lore and gameplay, Izanagi-no-Okami is his most powerful persona. And one of the best speed feats comes from Alice, Belial and Nebiros who all traveled throughout time and space which is an immeasurable speed feat. But thankfully for the Cybersleuth, he can also compare due to his battles with the members of the Royal Knights, who are also capable of traversing throughout space and time. Which again is an immeasurable speed feat. So ultimately the two would end up tying in speed.

Versatility

Next up, how much Yu and Aiba can stack up to each other with their Personas and Digimon. Yu would initally be at a disadvantage against Aiba due to the fact that Aiba can have out three Digimon at once. Compared to Yu who can only use one Persona at a time, but he can also fight without his Personas and fight alongside them, which would make the fight a 2v3 since Aiba doesn't directly engage in fisticuffs. On top of that Yu also has way more experience as a fighter and can come of with strategies to mitigate the numbers disadvantage. And while both of them can carry more summons in the reserves, Aiba directly has a limit of 11 Digimon and if he wants to switch them, he has to physically travel to the DigiLab. But Yu doesn't have this problem as he can access the Velvet Room mid combat and while he's within the Velvet Room, the flow of time pretty much just stops. So due to these factors, I believe that versatility should be a tie.



Stats
And now for the most important category in order to break this deadlock, how strong the two are. Both characters are capable of contending with beings who can destroy or reshape the entire cosmology of their verses. Yu can defeat Hi-No Kagutsuch who threatened to destroy the entirety of the Sea of Souls, which would have to be 7-D. But Aiba can defeat Yggdrasil who not only controls the Digital World, but can reshape and delete it, if it so chooses. And on top of that Yggdrasil was taken over by a Mother Eater who exists in an even higher plane than Yggdrasil's realm which would make it at least 11-D. Which would mean Aiba's party is at bare minimum four infinities stronger than Yu. With the 24-D arguments making him and his party 17 layers of infinity stronger. So while both are very impressive, I personally believe that Aiba's party would take strength due to believing Digimon's cosmology scales higher than Persona's.


Conclusion

Yu

Advantages:
  • The more experienced fighter
  • Has better defense options

Equal In:
  • Equal speed
  • Abilities mostly counter each other
  • Practically equal versatility
Disadvantages:
  • Is at a numbers disadvantage
  • Could get BFR'd really easily
  • Significantly weaker

Aiba


Advantages:
  • Has a numbers advantage
  • Royal Knights could BFR
  • His Digimon are significantly stronger
Equal:
  • Matching speed
  • Abilities mostly counter each other
  • Practically equal versatility  
Disadvantages:
  • Significantly less experienced battler
  • Has less ways to defend himself

So in conclusion, due to the numbers advantage, being way more likely to just get rid of Narukami through BFR with the members of the Royal Knights. As well as having a way higher cosmology in my opinion, The Cybersleuth would lay the case of the Midnight Detective to rest. The winner is Takumi Aiba.
at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Yu VS Aiba (Persona VS Digimon)

    "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." -Arthur Conan Doyle Yu Na...