Well reacting with a weapon isn't as impressive as physically reacting. Also didn't Mine keep up with Esdeath's speed? Pretty impressive considering Esdeath is faster than every single character barring powered up Akame.
Weapon or not, she still reacted, and what I was going for is that it wasn't just Akame reacting to the feathers. And again, Akame didn't have to use her full speed to dodge them, so it means that they aren't "only top tiers can dodge them" fast. And most likely slower that what Konan fired since I'm fairly sure Jiraiya's speed should be high-tier.
We see Ran's back open because he never had to cover it in the manga IIRC though I might be wrong about this.
He got his back slashed as a zombie. So I'd say he had to guard it, but couldn't. Champ catching him in a tornado is of course different since his wings got torn to shreds. I was thinking of him guarding with one of Mastema's
disks, but it's also my headcanon and definitely what never happened in the manga.
As for kunai inflicting enough damage, not enough to kill him immediately, of course, but Fuu can jump to him to get closer (that of course provided Ran stays high enough so that Fuu can't just reach him with a jump).
Yeah Fu might confuse him with a clone and Ran might think he has him cornered when it is just a clone. I never thought of Ran as someone who can be fooled easily. He did figure out Akame's facade. Also Akame praised Ran for being a calm man. Later on she implied that if Ran wasn't a dead puppet,
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. I think you're underrating your own favourite's intelligence. Ran taunting Akame could simply be trying to rouse her emotions to make it easier to find an opening.
I know Ran is smart. However, I feel like he can't be as "battle smart" as someone who's been trained to be a killing machine from childhood. Ran's intelligence shines the most when he has time to investigate things (like he did with Wild Hunt, leading to its disbandment). Perhaps, he could have outsmarted Fuu given enough time, but Fuu is more adept at strategizing on the spot. I know his performance in the manga is far from stellar, but he did show the ability to come up with new, elaborate plans pretty quickly and adapt to the situation at hand.
It might be just the way the fight plays out in my head. It's hard to tell who would outsmart who if they were forced into stalemate (Fuu lacks feats in that department, although the databook calls him "a master of deceit who plays with the mind", so there's that; and we never see Ran coming up with battle plans either). However, consider this: Fuu definitely had a wider arsenal of abilities and tools, while Ran is limited - he can only shoot feathers, attack with wings and block with his Trump Card. We never see Ran doing anything particularly
strategic with what he has. Which is a shame, to be honest, because seeing him in a strategy-heavy battle would be
awesome.
And what Akame said there is that Yatsufusa's puppets can't get stronger due to being dead. So basically, as I understand that, she meant that while she was training and improving after her encounters with Ran, he stayed on the same level because he was dead. We don't know how much stronger Ran could become given time, so we can only judge by what we've seen, really.
But the AgK section is dead, NDS is dying but there is still activity. Who do you like better?
It's a tough question. I like both, but for different reasons. Fuu has much less to him canonically but he
represents the type of character I like the most (human being trained to be almost machine-like; there's something dystopian about it and I always liked dystopias). Ran, on the other hand, was actually written quite well in my opinion, and I think he had legitimately badass moments. I didn't even begin to like him before he got up to use Divine Wings despite being fatally injured. But they do both fall under my "type" (collected and analytical characters who don't have tons of power but are specialized in something).
It's definitely unnatural for me to pit them against each other though. I'd rather see them cooperate.
Could I maybe post not on the forums but elsewhere and let you read? Or maybe in a group/blog?
Come to think of it,
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compared to Tenten's hundreds. How do you think the fight would have gone if Shikamaru VS Temari happened in the prelims. What about Tenten VS Temari in the finals? What allowed Shikamaru to not get defeated so swiftly are the trees to use as cover which Tenten didn't have.
Since the Tenten fight was mostly off-panel, it's hard to judge. In fact, Tenten had very little feats if we go by manga alone. So maybe her attacks were just too straightforward and easy for Temari to read. As for Shikamaru, he'd definitely be more pressured in the prelims, and while I think he'd still put up a fight thanks to his intelligence, he might have actually lost. After all, Temari's intellect was almost on par with his and she does have the advantage in firepower.
On the other hand, there's the fact that the prelims area has spectators standing much closer. So Temari would be limited in her attacks, and that could have been something for Shikamaru to use to his advantage.
