Reflecting on Reflections

 So last year I made a blog series called 2020 Reflections going over all my favorite series reflecting my tastes on fiction. Exactly 1 year series later, I wanted to give some points I had thought in regards to it. 

1: Don't do it

If you were considering doing this type of project yourself, I'd suggest reconsidering. I made the blogs in advance of when they were needed, and I STILL felt a signifigant time pressure doing them, though that may just be my personality. Beyond that despite the fact that I consider myself pretty good at explaining what I like about things, I found myself really struggling to not just repeat myself. Why do I like this series? It has themes I like, it has characters I relate, etc. Maybe I'm just not very multidimensional in my tastes (something I think is true regardless), but I routinely found myself at a loss of what to actually say about my tastes.

2: I was worried about my favorite series popularity for NOTHING

So before I made this blog series I thought my tastes were unpopular. There's a certain type of personality, the stereotypical hipster, that enjoys things specifically because they're not popular. That's like the opposite of me, if I have an irrational bias in the other peoples opinions axis it's definitely that I want people to agree with me/want to fit in far more than I want to be contrarian. So I go over my favorite series one by one and they universally fit into 3 categories:

1: A massive, either national or globally, succesful franchise that is well loved by lots of people. I think of something like Sailor Moon or DC Comics here. Both of those that have people that don't like them, and highbrow types that don't "respect" them, but which are obviously widely succesful. 

2: A relatively obscure series that doesn't have a lot of attention but everyone who has seen it likes it. I think of something like Magicka or Shamanic Princess. Both of those don't have that huge fanbases but hardly anyone ever dislikes them.

3: Rarely something I like will be controversial. A lot of people don't like it, but it will also have a lot of people who do like it and its hardly seen as bizarre or weird to like. I think of something like Yuki Yuna is a Hero which has a lot of people who don't like it, but also a ton of people who do.

None of my favorite series were downright unpopular, the only downright unpopular thing I really loved was the DCEU, or rather the early DCEU, and even that I would say has gotten more popular and now is moreso "Controversial" rather than "Unpopular"

I think my one unpopular like combined with the fact that I often don't love the biggest series that everyone loves made me feel unpopular. But when I think of those series, I don't usually hate them or anything, I usually just feel kinda lukewarm about them. I also found that when I was saying my favorite moment from my favorite series...they were often just the most popular and common part from it. Favorite part from Metroid was climax of Super Metroid. Favorite Part of Madoka was the climax. Favorite Part of DC Comics was All-Star Superman Superman saving the jumper. Wow....so unpopular.

My tastes are a lot vanilla then I was thinking, and ngl that's a reassuring thought. 

That said I do have some particular types:

I find looking at someone's favorites really interesting in particular because I think you can get a generalized sense of what someone likes, and maybe even a sense of what they ARE like (although I'd wanna be cautious with that.)

For me I definitely have a clear type of thing that appeals to me. In fact I think my tastes are relatively clear, it's not that multidimensional. While not everything I like falls in these categories, there's overall 4 genres I usually like I would define as

1: Magical Girl Fiction: A story with a female protagonist who gains magic-like abilities whose magic is somehow associated with her femininity.

2: Superhero Fiction: A story featuring an idealized or archetypal person with superhuman abilities who generally dons an identity and uses their powers to better society

3: Occult Fiction: A type of fantasy with a dark/gothic tone and usually focuses either on real world purported occult phemonema or have a special emphasis on the realms of the afterlife and its inhabitants (angels, demons, ghosts etc.)

4: Mythological Fantasty: A type of fantasy set in a world where a certain real world Myth Tradition is true and tries to recreate the worldview associated with it. 

My favorite series is Sailor Moon and ngl that's just the intersection of all four of those.

There's also a very clear set of themes that I particularly like although listing them all here would be tedious since it's a much longer list of between like 10-20. I might make that a different blog if wanted.

4: I have a set of artistic priorities that are inversely proportional to "immediacy"

I say this not prescriptively, that I think it should be this or that, just descriptively what I feel. When consuming the art, some things are consumed immediatly, and some things take longer to understand. The more immediate the aspect the less it usually connects to me. To rank-order them and illustrate my point

The most immediate part of consuming media is the aesthetic sense, the visual and the auditory, the visual perhaps slightly quicker than even the auditory. These obviously do have an effect on me, but it is almost entirely subcouncious. It is the aspect I think about least, and which have the least effect on me over time. I don't usually care much for how information is presented to me, and that's how I view art. I don't think of it as escapism, I view it as the presentation of a thought or idea or feeling in a more intuitive more emotionally gripping form. There are some aesthetics I like more than others, but it is the least component. This is also why I don't really care much about fight scenes most of the time. Usually the fight scene is meant to cause a rush of adrenaline, to create stunning visuals, to have an aesthetic beauty like a graceful dance. But that doesn't usually align with my artistic priority. I have said, meant self-deprecatingly, that I "read" every work like a book. I think in words and everything I see and hear is converted to words where the excess detail is removed. On one hand this means I'm very good at remembering things like dialogue but it means I may miss something obvious in the immediate.

Less immediate than the aesthetics are the characters. I don't become invested in characters the way most people seem too. The fact that they are fictional, and usually drawings on paper or digital images, is something that never fades from the front of my mind. Even when I love a character, I love them in what they represent, love their effect on the story, love the themes they carry. I don't love them like a close friend the way some people describe. There's a certain sort that will insist that the character is everything, that plot is nigh-meaningless in quality. These are the same sorts who will tell you that should definitely watch their slice of life series because it has such great characters and such great writing and thus you will like it. I know for my own part that is not true. I know this because the Sailor Moon Manga is my favorite series with my favorite cast and I've seen it adapted into anime, with filler eps that are mostly slice of life focusing on the Senshi's mundane lives...and I thought it was boring. Even my favorite cast in the world was not interesting to me in their mundane lives. The mundane world can be made interesting for a time, but it requires exceptional skill and I definitely wouldn't be interested in a series of nothing but. Characters are still less immediate than aesthetic, and are more interesting I would say as abstractions, representations of ideas.

Plot is less immediate than characters and least immediate are themes. This is where my interest truly lies. I am interested in a story for what meaning can be learned from it. The story, the events, these are instances meant to convey deeper pattern, deeper concepts. I am interested beyond characters in what characters do, and further still what this signfies. Stories have a power in them...there are great ideas and emotions beyond councious comprehension, or perhaps even if they can be comprehended that are cold to the heart, that are the theory-speech of academics rather than the ripples in one's soul. With each layer of immediacy the story, if well-done, manifests the deep and profound into plot, into character, into the most immediate of presentation. Each layer of immediacy I recognize the importance off in this noble endeavor translating and communicating from the ethereal realm of human awareness into articulation, but I think if you think of art this way as I do, then it would be most natural to cast for as deep into the ocean of a series that you can.

5: Some other interesting statistics

Just some things I looked at with my favorite series:

Of the 32 series:

-20 are Japanese (Cutie Honey, Saint Seiya, Metroid, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Okami, Axis Powers Hetalia, Bayonetta, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-10 are American (DC Comics, The Powerpuff Girls, Freedom Force, Xiaolin Chronicles, Danny Phantom, God of War, The Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall, Undertale)

-1 is Italian (Commedia)

-1 is Swedish (Magicka)

Given the degree to which I like Commedia and Magicka it's very likely I would like more works from places beyond Japan and America but I don't know anyone from those parts who could suggest a work from there I would like.

Of the 32 series:

-16 have female protagonists (Cutey Honey, Metroid, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, The Powerpuff Girls, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, Pretty Cure, Okami, Bayonetta, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-14 have male protagonists (Commedia, DC Comics, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Freedom Force (I think Man-Bot is the protagonist of FF, if you think Alchemiss is, you can move this to female), Xiaolin Showdown, Danny Phantom, God of War, Axis Powers Hetalia, The Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall)

-2 have gender ambigious protagonists (Magicka, Undertale)

As the protagonists for most series is probably less than half (I would estimate 1/3), this seems notably high. I think this comes from three factors; my general love for magical girls (11 of the 16 Female Protags are Magical Girls), my slightly greater ability to relate to female protagonists, and imo the greater range of emotional expressions women are allowed. Female characters are allowed to range from stoic to emotional and sexless to sexual while male protagonists are generally not particularly sex-ed so as to not distress the straight male audience and are generally most stoic as stoicism for men is viewed as more normal.

Of the 32 Series:

-17 are Anime/Manga (Cutie Honey, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shamanic Princess, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Axis Powers Hetalia, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero)

-8 are Video Games (Metroid, Freedom Force, God of War, Okami, Bayonetta, Magicka, The Stanley Parable, Undertale)

-5 are Western Cartoons (The Powerpuff Girls, Xiaolin Showdown, Danny Phantom, Wander over Yonder, Over the Garden Wall)

-2 are Assorted Literary (Commedia, DC Comics)

Finally just a bunch of connections in a meta context I noticed of the 32, not thematic connections but like meta stuff connecting them. I notice that this kind of meta stuff causes "clusters" that if people tend to like one they also tend to like the other, an idea I find really fascinating that you can sorta tell a person by their clusters they're in...here's the clusters I'm in:

-Obviously the 11 Magical Girl Series on this list all form some kind of cluster of their own, with many of the series internally connecting. This broadly breaks down into the 5 "traditional" magical girl series; Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew, and Pretty Cure, and the 4 "dark" magical girl series; Shamanic Princess, Princess Tutu, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero with the Cutey Honey and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt being a bit harder to classify. Many of these share fandoms as part of the larger "Magical Girl Fandom"

-Cutey Honey was an influence on Sailor Moon who then recurvisely was an influence on Cutie Honey causing the creation of a more Sailor Moon-like Cutie Honey called Cutie Honey Flash. Ryota Yamaguchi who was a writer for both Sailor Moon Stars and Cutie Honey Flash also worked on DokiDoki Pretty Cure and Saint Seiya: Sainta Sho.

-Sailor Moon was an influence on Tokyo Mew Mew, Pretty Cure and Puella Magi Madoka Magicka. Junichi Sato who worked on the Sailor Moon anime co-created Princess Tutu and directed Hugtto Pretty Cure.

-Puella Magi Madoka Magicka was an influence on Yuki Yuna is a Hero

-Princess Tutu and Puella Magi Madoka Magicka have connected fanbases with the former possibly being a predecssor of the latter.

-Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura both obviously have a connection as they were both made by CLAMP along with the series xxxHolic

-Commedia was a direct inspiration for Over the Garden Wall and can broadly said to be the one responsible for the trope of telling the epic about the common person, the universal human experience rather then the transcedent demigod. This is relevant in sometimes DC, Cutie Honey, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Powerpuff Girls, Tokyo Mew Mew, Princess Tutu, Ouran High School Host Club, xxxHolic, Pretty Cure, Danny Phantom, Axis Powers Hetalia, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka, The Stanley Parable, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Over the Garden Wall and Undertale

-DC Comics created the modern superhero idea and as such is directly inspiration for The Powerpuff Girls, Freedom Force, and Danny Phantom although for the latter two Marvel acts more as an intermediate step. It's also likely an inspiration for Sentai, which influenced Cutie Honey (through Warrior of Love Rainbowman), Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tokyo Mew Mew, Pretty Cure, Puella Magi Madoka Magicka and Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

-As 90s Occult Shonen, the fandoms of Yu Yu Hakusho and Yu-Gi-Oh! overlap

-Due to their cosmic imagery, coming out around the same time, and similar plot structures there is an overlap in the fandoms of Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon

-Due to the marriage of their creators, there is an overlap in fans between Yu Yu Hakusho and Sailor Moon. Sukehiro Tomita also worked on both of their animes. 

-Hideki Kamiya created both Okami and Bayonetta

-Craig McCracken created both The Powerpuff Girls and Wander over Yonder

-Emiri Kato played Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magicka and Hyper Blossom in PPGZ as well as assorited roles in Tsubasa and XXXholic animes. 

-Nami Miyahara who played Rolling Bubbles in PPGZ also played Akari Tsukumo in Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

-DC Comics's Wonder Woman inspired some elements of Sailor Moon, in particular Sailor Moon's tiara throw was inspired by the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman

-Both being 2010s metafictional games The Stanley Parable and Undertale fandoms intersect

-Undertale makes reference to Tokyo Mew Mew

-Ouran High School Host Club and xxxHolic have a bit of a fandom overlap, due I think to both being series about main characters that have to be in service to elegant teasing people they don't understand in exchange for paying their side of a deal

-God of War and Bayonetta have some fandom overlap due to being in the same genre of game

-Wander Over Yonder and Undertale have a signifigant fandom overlap due to both have a similar theme of befriending people instead of using violence and a few shared worldbuilding elements

-Cutey Honey and Bayonetta have some fandom overlap due to being sex-positive depictions of femininity with a heroine that is both sexual and has agency

-Tara Strong voice acted as Bubbles in the Powerpuff Girls and Omi in Xiaolin Showdown, and has had various more minor roles in Danny Phantom, Wander over Yonder and several DC productions (including the relatively major role of Raven from Teen Titans)

-Metroid and Cutie Honey have some fandom overlap for being relatively early science-fiction works to have a female protagonist

-Takuya Igarashi worked on the animes of both Sailor Moon and Ouran High School Host Club as well as an episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure. Yoji Enokido also worked on both Sailor Moon and Ouran High School Host Club.

-Shiori Teshirogi wrote both Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas as well as a DC Comics Manga.

Ranking every Magicka Chapter

 Magicka 1 is my favorite game, and I just wanted to make a fun quick blog ranking its 12 chapters, from worst to best. 

12: Chapter 11

Chapter 11 is really the only chapter in the game I don't like. The chapter is hard, but it's hard as the opposite way of the Grimnir fight, where it's the type of hard that just makes it impossible for casual players to get through. Magicka 2 would overcorrect this by a lot, making it so a team of 4 players are almost impossible to TKO if they care even the slightest bit, but this chapter isn't hard in the fun way, it's hard in the insta-kill way. There's monsters that insta-kill you very quickly like Yeti and Beholder, as well as just annoying enemies like the teleporting dwarves, mixed with lava mechanics that are just annoying. You have to get past these long sections of lava that can be instantly turned to fire causing you to drown if a salamander breath hit. All this would be fine for a short difficult section, but this is the entire level and it's one of the longest levels in the game. The other problem is the tricks to get around them are things that serious players would do that just make the challenge trivial, there's no happy difficulty, it's just insta-death or casual win. Fafnir's also not a very good boss. It's also difficult in the "this will absolutely wipe casual players but if you're actually trying it's not very hard." type difficulty. You just put on fire shield and move around and you're basically invulnerable even if it takes awhile. The humor in this is fine, but nothing special for Magicka, and there's not much lore added or anything. The Gram quest is cool but the fact that it requires you to keep a sword in the section where you have to get past a long section of lava that you can lose your sword to anytime is perhaps the most sadistic thing I've seen in any of this series. You get invisibility and summon elemental, two really cool magicka, this level but it's almost the end of the game so you barely get any time to use them.

11: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is the chapter you go back in time. It's also the only level with zero fights in it. As such there's no real reason to re-play it. You can use it to get the achivement for getting through a level without casting basic spells really easily, and it's the chapter you get Teleport, my favorite Magicka, but there's basically no gameplay this level. It's like waiting in an elevator between two levels.

10: Chapter 8

This is another really long level, a lot of it taking place in darkness unless you light it up, over precarious cliffs. While this risks running over a similar trouble as the lava in 11, in practice it's not really an issue since there's barely any knockback, and you can pretty easily light up the darkness, or just teleport through it. This level also has the bridge battle, a battle on a small bridge with goblin army forces approaching from both sides which is a fun challenge predicated on a lack of space to manuever, with spacing being a wizard's best friend. I have kind of a personal vendetta against this level however for its boss. The Goblin Aristocrats are pretty easy to beat, maybe a slight challenge for casual players, but overall one of the easiest bosses in the game, as they can only use basic elements and cast nullify. But in challenge rooms Goblin Aristocrats "nullify" I've found to be one of the most annoying enemies to fight, since they can act as devilishly difficult support for stronger enemies by nullifying your magic.

9: Chapter 1

The first chapter of the game is quite funny with memorable parts like the sword in the stone, the woman with the exclamation mark chasing her and everything in Castle Aldreheim, and gives a pretty good tutorial for the game, which is basically skippable, followed by two easy fights against goblins and spiders, and a boss fight against a troll, a stronger common enemy in the game. Ygg the forest troll is a good tutorial boss, being slow moving and easily avoidable, and with an elemental weakness, but lots of regenerating hp teaching the new player to avoid close fights, and practice using proper elements on corresponding enemies. While a good introduction, not much reason to go back to it as it more serves to ramp the player up to the greater challenges of the game.

8: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is a pretty good chapter to ramp up from Chapter 1. It suffers a little bit from lack of monster variety since while goblins and trolls are different in tactics, both are weak to fire. Goblins do come in impressive variety, and the game really hits its stride with its humor with things like Goblin Hood or the Goblin Aristocrat making a somber chant only for it to be revealing to be gibberish, as well as fun secrets hidden on the map. I'm not a big fan of the boss of the level Jormungandr as hitting his head is kind of an annoying mechanic. There are tricks to get around it with wetting his head and then using lightning to chain to it, but the fact you can only hit his head is unintuitive when most of the game is delightfully intuitive, and you'd think you can damage him normally. Jormundanr is also the least squishy thing in the game, having too much HP but doing barely any damage making the fight feel really grindy. Most of the level is pretty fun, though the game is still kinda going easy, without much real challenge. Any serious player will blaze through Chapter 2 basically without thinking.

7: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 sees you mostly traveling through the city of Havindr. Similar to Chapter 2, I like most of the chapter more than the boss fight. The Machine part is obviously a joke, but the Warlock is kind of annoyingly-anti squishy and while not really hard, he takes a while to fight. That said the Warlock is a lot more of a threat then Jormungandr and so the fight is a lot tenser and more of a challenge. The enemies are more varied and signifignatly stronger in 4 compared to 2 with varieties of orcs and disciples (dark mages), the secrets are as exciting with fun things like just burning the dynamite to get through the door instead of having to wait for the long fuse to go off. 

6: Chapter 9

The Swamp Level. This chapter has the annoying swamp water mechanic which periodically makes it tricky to use lightning for rez or similar effects, but the enemies are great this level. Zombies and the undead really change your thinking having to use life as primary damage dealer, especially when mixed in with alive enemies that heal from life like treants. This level is full of difficult but fair fun enemies like treants and undead knights that are high damage dealers but slow, and so emphasis is put on mobility, something that again would be easier with lightning for haste and teleport. There's the fun jokes of healing the villagers and you also get the Vlad fight, one of the best fights in the game. Not only is it fun from a story perspective (including one of the most shocking twists in video game history. I won't spoil what he actually is but turns out Vlad isn't human!) but Vlad is a fun boss, running around shooting out powerful elemental blasts and trying to life drain.

5: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 involves fighting beastmen, and druids, enemies you don't see most points of the game and are a fun diversion with differnet tactics. Beastmen are more mobile and elemental, and Druids have their nature magic, as opposed to the usual slow heavy hitters the wizards have to face. The airship sequence is tricky for casuals, but a very fair challenge for its place in the story, and a fun dynamic, even if the developers wished it turns out well. Jotunn isn't as good a boss fight as Vlad, but I do like that there's a secondary objective in this fight where you can beat and optimally beat him before any house explodes. If you do you get the M60! Also while they're not as flashy or as practical, this level in general just seems to have the coolest weapons in the game just everywhere. 

4: Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is a struggle up a mountain at the edge of the world with a lot of pit mechanics pre-teleportation that aren't really the fun, frustrating if they work, but usually just being a mildly annoyance to avoid. The daemons are also not that fun enemies since it's a bunch of waiting around for them to materialize although at least they've different elements and attacks. By itself it would be lower...but this chapter also has the first Grimnir fight. The Grimnir fight is by a good margin the best fight in the game. Grimnir is the most developed character in the game followed by Vlad, he has a really cool introduction, is built up since the prologue, and this fight really justifies it. First Grimnir traps you in a mental duel where you have to fight a procession of enemies past and future while a giant ethereal Grimnir watches, showing you a display of his power. Than after you beat that, the fight proper begins. The difficulty of the Grimnir fight is JUST right. Grimnir is a difficult but winnable fight for a single casual player, and a group of serious players. Grimnir wiped the Magicka developers several times, yet he's not a frustrating unwinnable fight for even a casual team. This comes from the fact that he is perhaps the squishiest boss in the game, not much HP, but really strong spells with large area of effect, and can cast numerous at once. Even a casual team can win with teamwork and focus if one nullifies and the others attack or they use overlapping elemental shields and dry themselves out but on the other hand when do wizards ever colloborate ;) Grimnir really feels to fight exactly what he is, the greatest wizard in the world bound up but still just flexing his magical power on you. 

3: Chapter 5

If I just wanted to relax and play some casual Magicka...I'd probably do some of the easier arenas, but if I was going to do one of the campaign levels it'd be level 5. Level 5 is the battlefield level, where you go through a large army of orcs, disciples, and trolls. It's a long level, with lots of enemies, which is difficult to casuals, but to serious players are not really a trouble. They put up enough of a fight that the mind is stimulated, but just little threat that it's a fun relaxing playthrough just tearing through them. This chapter really shows the degree of difference skill at Magicka makes. For casual players the threat of this level and what makes it diffiult is the sheer number of enemies, but when you get good at the game, weak enemies no matter the number don't post any threat so you can feel like a god at the game just by easily destroying the enemy army single-handedly. The 300 references are also funny and Khan is a pretty fair boss fight, his insta-kill bombs kinda annoying but nothing that bad.

2: Chapter 10

Chapter 10 sees the wizards traveling through Niflheim, realm of the dead combining the best aspects of Chapters 3 and Chapters 9. You're fighting elements and shades, undead enemies with elemental attacks, so fighting combines matching opposite elements and using life in a new strategic way. This level also has the Death fight, one of the best in the game. Death is a real tricky enemy, summoning shades, creating illusory copies and insta-killing with his scythe. This level tries for atmosphere in a way most of Magicka doesn't, and it honestly works really well. While still ultimately comical, the shady atmosphere of Death makes for a really cool boss fight and level.

1: Chapter 12

Chapter 12, the final chapter, is a boss rush. Vlad and Grimnir are the first two enemies and not only are they two of the top 3 fights in the game with Death, but the two are a study in contrasts, humorous given they are old friends. Vlad is bombastic and theatrical, running around and attacking with massive elemental blasts. Meanwhile Grimnir is underplayed, precise, and focused while chained up. The two both make for amazing fights leading into Assatur fight. Assatur isn't as good a fight as Grimnir, but he's still pretty good and it just completes the trifecta of chapter 12. 

How they Compare: The Riders of Havoc (Bastard!!)

 

The Evil Wizard Dark Schneider sought to conquer the world using an army of wizards and sorcerers, spreading death and chaos. This army was led by 4, the 4 horsemen of this apocalypse, including Dark Schneider himself, until the day that the messiah of darkness seemingly perished, sending his forces into disarray.

15 years later, in a desperate attempt to protect their kingdom from an invading army, the desperate kingdom of Metallicana unsealed the Dark Wizard who saught again to make the world his. However in that time the Riders of Havoc had come under the leadership of a fourth new Rider. They would confront their own master, until he could prove to them with his strength that he was the same Dark Schneider as their former lord, despite the seeming shift in his position and his soul.

Power-wise, all four of the Riders of Havoc are obviously massively above fodder tiers like MacPain who withstood Dark Schneider casually sending him flying and crashing through a skyscraper crumbling it with a force of 6.5 tons of tnt. Even the physical power of the Magic-based Riders of Havoc should be far above this value in the large building+ to city block range.

For the most part the Riders of Havoc are on the city level range. Ninja Master Gara, the non-magical one of the four, survived the blow of the legendary blade the Raijinken which can cut through mountains. Arshes Nei, Abigail, and Kal Su all can use Spell Bounds, a magical defensive technique capable of blocking a nuclear bomb. Abigail's Mecha Form Omega Abigail casually burst through a Spell Bounds and has the Devilish Hammer which can create city-busting earthquakes, Arshes Nei uses the Legendary Raijinken which can split a mountain with a strike, Gara bust through the Spell Bound of Ede Ee, and Kal Su can use freezing spells whose intense cold can create city-scale snowstorms.

They can also to limited degrees get up to country level or higher . Arshes Nei can use, during certain moon phases, Halloween a spell with more than 50% of Dark Schneider's Black Sabbath, a spell that can endanger the world if misused and who atomized a large quantity of stone calced at country level power. Kal Su the strongest of the Riders of Havoc was able to match Dark Schneider in spellcasting in a magical fire vs ice battle, Kal Su's strongest spell forcing Dark Schneider who scales to his own Black Sabbath to create a dimensional bend to protect himself, and his own cold nature protected from Dark Schneider's heat magic, even the teraton level attacks. Also Omega Abigail is durable enough to tank the power of two Halloweens. 

Speedwise, all 4 of the Riders of Havoc are massively beyond lower tier humans who have their own supersonic feats. Even low tiers use supersonic attacks and can punch hundreds of times a second and the Riders can easily blitz characters of this tier with Gara being able to move so quickly that it appears there's seven of him that look like perfect copies of himself to characters that can block supersonic attacks easily. They're clearly hypersonic to some degree. Gara was also able to catch a lightspeed attack, suggesting he has relativistic reaction speed with the others may scale too. Gara also has a lightspeed ultimate attack but this obviously doesn't scale to his normal speed.

Ninja Master Gara is a master tier ninja, wielding the enchanted blade Murasame. He is considered the weakest of the Riders of Havoc.

He can use ninja tricks like moving fast enough that it appears there's 7 of him, and can disguise himself such as transforming himself to look like an old man. He has an insane endurance as well as regen, to the point that he could easily continue fighting with one arm slashed off and retained councious with a huge gash through his midsection, eventually regenerating from both of these.

Casual swings of the Murasame can create intense sharp winds and shockwaves capable of destroying buildings. He can unlock the full cursed power of Murasame by feeding his own life energy into it to allow it to not only reach likely city+ level, but also can destroy not just the physical body but the soul of his target, for which the blade was known as the cursed blade.

Gara also learned the ability to weapon his ki. He can infuse it into his hands to make them glow with bright light and catch immaterial things like light and throw them back and could infuse it into Murasame to create his strongest attack "Celestial Flash", where Gara strings forward destroying everything at close and midrange at lightspeed.

Gara's weaknesses are that he's not too bright and he lacks magic.

Arshes Nei is the half-dark elf warrior mage, and is a master of wind, fire, and lightning magic. She also contains the legendary lightning blade Raijinken which can slice mountains in half. Her strike with it is called "Lightning Comet" and is easily comparable to her strongest lightning spell "Tesla." For her lightning mastery, she is nicknamed "the Thunder Empress."

Lightning wise, Arshes Nei can use the 2 million volt "Ryott" spell, can use "Lightning of Hell's Wolves" to enhance her fists with lightning, and can summon lightspeed moving Lightning Elements with "Guilbert." Her most powerful lightning spell is "Tesla" which is considered the strongest lightning spell of all, creating lightning hundreds of meters long. Firewise she can use the spell "Exodus" which causes fire from Gehenna the deepest part of Hell to surround the caster, burning away at enemies. This flame is 20,000 degrees, temperatures above those found on white dwarf stars. In terms of wind magic, Arshes can summon a tornado with Dee N' Tear which actively restrains and slices at enemies with razor winds and can use Megadeth to control the opposing forces of Air and Earth. This creates an earthquake and a thunderstorm along with an explosion the size of a large fortress.

In terms of other offense magic she can use "Anselm" to create light arrows that hone in on an opponent's weak points and her strongest attack spell "Halloween." This can only be cast during certain moon phases, but causes a brief energy burst from the caster's hands comparable to the atomizing teraton level power of Black Sabbath. Beyond that she can fly with Rei Von, can create illusions up to and including whole illusory environments, and can use Def Lepard to create a portal to another dimension absorbing all magic used against her making magic attacks impossible. 

In terms of weaknesses, Halloween can only be cast at certain periods, spells take a few seconds to cast due to requiring an invocation, and Arshes is seemingly the most fragile of the Riders without Spell Bound or natural durability, though still obviously above fodder.

Abigail is the Dark Priest and master of dark magic and necromancy.

Abigail is one of the Wisemen who made themselves like the Elves, with an extended lifespan (he himself is over 400), an increase in spiritual power, and a resistance to charming magic. He is also a superintellect who merged his brain with computers. Even if his body is blown up he can regen from backup copies of his brain, though this is a lengthy process. He can also completely restore and regenerate himself with a magical girl henshin.

Fittingly for his intellect and technopathic nature he uses the most pieces of equipment. His tentacle armor makes him impervious to all lightning magic even as strong as Dark Schneider's, he has a magic mallet he can use to make things grow, a magic bat that sends things flying a far distance, and a morningstar that can awaken sleeping people but instantly kill those already awake. He also had, though it's not standard equipment the Three Cursed Items. The Devilish Hammer is a hammer spiritually imbued with the Earth Element capable of creating city-busting earthquakes. Satan's Ring can absorb energy from an entire country to feed into the hammer and open a black hole to another dimension and regenerate the user even if they're reduced to a skeleton. The Demonic Armor grants immunity to all physical and magical attacks up to country level. Those 3 together can create the mecha form Omega Abigail which can tank country level attacks and use a large number of powerful attacks like a flamethrower and a laser.

In terms of magic Abigail is a powerful necromancer able to summon up a legion of the undead. In terms of offense magic he can shoot a light beam shoot from his head with "Thor", can summon tentacles from the ground to bind enemies with "Heretic", can banish demons or erase weak demons outright with "Wasp" and can summon a lot of starving ghosts to consume his foes with "Forbidden." His most powerful offensive attack is the spell "Blind Guardian" which creates a cage of thorns that rip at the opponent and if they do not die, it induces them into sleep. This attack was able to even somewhat hurt the Demon Anthrax.

Outside of direct offense magic Abigail can cast "Accursed" which implants a blue nail in the target. If they do not obey the caster, the nail turns progressively red until it turns completely red where it turns them into a toad. He also has "Regent Gentle Descent" which slows his fall and cushions his impact and "Spell Bound", a general shield against all kinds of magic and physical force that would require a nuke to break, an imitation of the Angels' natural "Dispel Bounds." Similarly he can create a dome of light with "Extrem," a high class cleric spell. 

However Abigail can't fly, and his spellcaster takes a few seconds to speak the invocations. Also in his Omega Abigail Mecha Form, his head is left exposed and is a weak spot.

Kal Su is a master of ice and water magic and half ice dragon. He is considered the strongest of the Riders of Havoc.

Kal is a extremly skilled ice mage so intimiately connected with ice magic from his heritage that merely an emotional outburst from him can cause it to snow. He obviously can freeze things being able to freeze entire castles with "Biskaya" or "Final Cold," and can encase even elder giants in blocks of ice with "Thanatos", an ice that is immune to conventional melting. He can create ice bolts with "Tankad" and while he can use "Spell Bounds," he can also use "Danjig" to create a magical ice shield that can reflect magical attacks back at the caster. With "Access" he can summon draconic constructs of water that can crush entire batallions under the weight of millions of tons of pressure, an attack particularly good against large quantifies of enemies. He can also summon frost wolves and snow serpents with "Wy Anti" and  "Ice Snake" respectively. His most powerful spell "Testament" traps an enemy in a Spell Bound and lowers the temperature within to Absolute Zero, annihilating the atoms within. This attack even threatened the great wizard Dark Schneider and could do damage to Anthrax. Kal Su later learned the ability to spam "Testament."

Outside of ice magic, he can fly with "Rei Bon", can teleport and can cast illusions at least on par with Arshes Nei. Just from releasing his magical energy he can cause people to explode. He also from heritage has a natural resistance to heat to the point even Dark Schneider's country level fire magic was resisted and he has such a good natural stamina, endurance, and regeneration that when his mother tried to kill him as a young child, literally in the middle of cleaving his head in two, he was able to react instinctively and kill her with ice magic, saving himself.

Kal Su also has a blade called the Ice Falchion that can match the Raijinken in power, and is obviously ice themed, can freeze giant quantities of water. Kal Su is also known for his extremely strong tactical sense, presiding as the leader of the Riders after Dark Schneider's demise.

Kal Su lacks many weaknesses being able to cast his strongest spell without invocation. That said, he's not that great a hand to hand fighter.

Beyond this, all four of the Riders of Havoc are occasionally depicted with the ability to break the fourth wall, as Bastard!! is partly a comedic manga, and have a strongly developed ability to support each other in combat on the instances they're actually on the same side. 

Name: Riders of Havoc, the Four Divine Kings

Origin: Bastard!!

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Stats, High Degree of Combat Skill, Occasional Fourth-Wall Breaking | Masterful Ninja, Disguise Power, Afterimage Creation, Ki/Light Manipulation, Regen (Low-Mid), Wind Attacks, Anti-Intangibility, Can destroy the soul | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Mastery of Lightning, Fire, and Wind Magic, Can open up portals to other dimensions/anti-magic shields, Light Manipulation, Energy Projection, Illusion Creation | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Master of Necromancy and Black Magic, Technopathy, Magical Items, Summoning (Undead Legions and Starving Ghosts), Regen (at least High-Mid over time), Binding, Light Manipulation, Sleep Inducement, Plant Manipulation, Transmutation (can turn people into frogs with Accursed), Forcefield Creation, Impervious to Lightning and Resistance to Charming | Longevity (Over 100 years old), Mastery of Water and Ice Magic, Freezing, Absolute Zero Cold, Atomic Annihilation, Summoning (Wolfs and Serpents of Ice, Dragons of Water), Superhuman stamina, endurance, and regeneration, Flight, Teleportation, Illusion Creation, can make people explode with his magic, Resistance to Heat

Weaknesses: Not very smart, no magic | Somewhat fragile, can't usually cast Halloween, spells require invocation | Can't fly, some items aren't standard equipment, Omega Abigail leaves his head exposed, spells require invocation | Not a great hand-to-hand fighter

Destructive Capacity: All reach at least City Level, Arshes Nei's Halloween and Kal Su's Testament reach Country Level

Range: Several Kilometers | Likely Several Kilometers | Several Kilometers | Several Kilometers

Speed: Hypersonic, Likely Relativistic Reactions, Lightspeed Attack Speed with Celestial Flash and Guilbert as well as likely with Anselm and Thor

Durability: Arshes Nei, Abigail, and Kal Su are Large Building+ to City Block Level physically. Gara as well as Spell Bound Abigai and Kal Su are City Level. Omega Abigail is Country Level and Kal Su is Country Level against heat attacks.

Stamina: Gara is at least peak human, possibly superhuman (recovered from "fatal" injures in a day. The others are superhuman from their Elvish and Draconic heritages.

Standard Equipment: Murasame | Raijinken | Varies | Ice Falchion

Intelligence: Masterful Ninja, but not very smart otherwise | High (mastered magic at a young age from Dark Schneider) | Likely superhuman (Is one of the Wisemen and has melded his brain with a computer) | Extremely skilled tactician and learned magic from Dark Schneider at the age of 12.

Key: All | Gara | Arshes | Abigail | Kal Su

So how would the Riders of Havoc do in other verses?

In the DC Universe the Riders of Havoc are in a strange place power-wise. There's not many city level characters in DC and for the most part they'd either one-shot or be one-shot, although they would be in roughly the right speed tier for the lower tiers. I think they'd have pretty good fights with some of the most broken DC "street tiers." Particularly some of the Justice League Dark Members I think could have interesting one on one battles with them like Nightmare Nurse and Andrew Bennet. 

I think Kal Su and Arshes Nei illusion abilities might prove especially wrong as while super senses are fairly common in DC, pretty much anyone without super senses and some with won't resist that save characters obviously way out of their tier. I think Abigail's technopathy may also help if he can hack into some of DC's advanced tech although he might be a bit out of his depth with technopaths like Cyborg running around. 

In the Marvel Comics, the Riders of Havoc would be roughly on the tier of really powerful street-levelers physically like Spider-Man who scale to various megaton feats. They even have a few specialized country level techniques much like say Spider-Man's Mark of Kaine. While they're on the slower side for raw movement speed, Gara's light-catching feat suggests they may have reaction time to be able to fight them.

Overall I think the Riders of Havoc would fit much better in the Marvel Universe due to the far larger number of "mid tiers" in the Marvel Universe. They'd be roughly a team of low metas individually, each roughly able to match one for one one of the upper end of street tiers, and together plausibly able to take down a mid meta especially given their teamwork. Of particular note I would think would be Gara's soul destruction technique, Abigail's blind Guardian and Demonic Armor if he has it, and Kal Su's freezing in general. Working together I think they might be able to defeat someone like a weaker armor Iron Man or Human Torch (Kal Su in particular could probably withstand Johnny's normal attacks, though not his supernova.)

The Riders of Havoc, or three of them, would be fairly strong magic-users in the Marvel universe and be be a fairly powerful team working together, on par with the likes of something like the Sinister Six in terms of raw power, if not somewhat stronger, but with even stronger hax abilities and better coordination, teamwork, and skill.

In the Dungeons and Dragons-verse, a verse that inspired a good amount of Dungeons and Dragons, the Riders of Havoc would fit in very well as a high level PC team, given that they would be around the level of adult dragons who can create blizzards and storms for miles around and PCs can dodge spells moving at lightspeed. They must find the verse a bit difficult at first, depending on the setting they're dropped in as some have rather plentiful powerful magic artifacts and large arsenals of spells, that said while they don't have perhaps as large an arsenal, their arsenal is not just as strong but arguably more strong then most in the verse would be.

They also hypothetically have the ability to gain equipment and magical abilities in the verse at an accelerated rate much like an adventuring party of similar level. They also have some abilities that would be considered particularly strong with Halloween and Testament being more like epic level spells comparable to Mordenkainen's Ice Age magic. The only thing they might particularly struggle with is any enemy with anti-magical ability as only Kal Su really focuses on non-magical abilities, although Arshes can somewhat help in melee. A Dragon with intelligence for Gara, Breath attack for Arshes and anti-magic for Abigail and Kal Su could be a real danger though if Abigail gets all equipment I'm pretty sure Omega Abigail could win.

A verse Bastard!! was compared to a lot as classic overpowered verses, in the Saint Seiya-verse, the Riders of Havoc would mostly be compared with the low tiers of the verse. Compared to Bronze Saints they're at a general large power disadvantage with even basic Cosmo Wielders able to reach gigaton level power with atomizing cosmo requiring basically Halloween or ... fittingly enough the atomic destroying Testament to kill with raw force. However the Riders of Havoc would be at a speed advantage for most of the time as Bronze Saints typically move around the speed of sound, although with cosmo amps can reach at least hypersonic speeds to compete. This means against the Bronze Saints the Riders would have to focus on avoiding attacks and finding a way around the Saints durability and general resistance.

Gara doesn't have super much he can do other then distract against them as while he can go seventh sense speed against them, they can resist Celestial Flash and have basic astral resistance as Ikki's soul destroying fists don't kill Bronze Saints with each strike. However Arshes can use illusion magic, Abigail has several things he can do in particular use Sleep Inducement, and Kal Su I think would be particularly strong here given he has freezing abilities that likely would act like Hyoga's were in the first arc, he has other good hax, and he can spam Testament that can actually one-shot. Overall they'd be a formidable team, that would be difficult for most Bronze Saints to fight.

As a team they're probably collectively Silver Saint Tier. Testament probably can't one-shot a Silver Saint given they scale to teraton level+ (although given only the Seventh Sense can reach absolute zero, maybe it can), and a Silver Saint compares more favorably in speed against them, able to amp up to lightning speed. A lot of their abilities should work similarly however, and as a team they could plausibly beat a Silver Saint, especially a more arrogant one like Lizard Misty.

In another of the quintessential dark fantasy manga, Berserk, the Riders of Havoc would actually function VERY similarly to how they do in their own verse. They would be leagues above most of the verse's fantastical monsters, and be seen as basically demigod-type entities although nothing compared to the cosmic entities functioning in the background like the Idea of Evil. Where it would be interesting is compared to the Godhand.

The 5 Godhand are apostles of the Idea of Evil, former humans who denounced their humanity to enter their transformed state. The Godhand are comparable to Griffith who simply created the city of Falconia and Ganishka's passive storm caused by his existence. They're also much superior to Guts who scales to a ~Mach 6.44 feat. As such the Riders are actually roughly on the same level of stats as the Godhand. 

However the Godhand have much stronger hax abilities than the Riders with things like probability manipulation, causality manipulation, reality-warping and so on. In this way the Riders could be seen as sort of an anti-thesis to the Godhands, demonic-chaotic  and rebellious compared to emissaries of falsely divine order. Especially given their ability to coordinate, I could see the Riders of Havoc killing one of the Godhands together, and possibly being able to incite rebellion against them. 

Sailor Uranus vs Kurama (Stats Equalized)

The mangaka behind Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho are a married couple with a story that goes around that they were introduced by voice actress Megumi Ogata who voice acted for both their most famous series, Naoko calling her the "cupid" of their relationship. Megumi Ogata is known for voicing relatively androgynous characters both male and female including Sailor Uranus and Kurama. Unfortunately Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho are on relatively different power scales making it difficult to do most vs content with them, but if stats were equalized and Haruka and Kurama were to come to conflict, who would win?

This is going to be both characters end of series, Haruka in her Eternal Sailor Uranus form without the lambda power, Kurama in base but can go Yoko at will. Because Haruka can access a greater degree of power using her talisman which overflows with a greater power

A power that made Sailor Uranus go from weaker than Kaorinite to being relevant to the daimons god-leader Pharaoh 90

and Kurama can access a greater level of power from his Yoko transformation, going from a power level of 1,902 to 152,000, an increase of about 80 times. 

I'm going to be assuming for this equalization that Base Kurama is equalized to Sailor Uranus' power and that Yoko Kurama's power is equalized to the Talisman's power.

So while both characters strength and speed is equalized, their secondary stats aren't. So I'm going to compare the two in other regards.

Skill:

In terms of skill, the Outer Senshi are more skilled than the Guardian Senshi in general as their role as to guard the outer solar system from primary threats, while the Guardians' role was to protect Princess Serenity.

Due to her vast lifespan, Sailor Uranus has undoubtably gathered much combat experience, as is suggested numerous times. She is also a black belt in judo, and was able to easily defeat Makoto, another black belt, via turning her own force against her with a throw.

As mentioned in prior blogs, I categorize skill broadly into F Tier (Superhumanly Unskilled), D Tier (Unskilled), C Tier (Proficient), B Tier (Master), A Tier (Superhumanly Skilled), and S Tier (Transcendently Skilled.) As a black belt who can easily defeat other black belts, and a character who has a likely superhuman amount of combat experience, Haruka naturally qualifies for a B Tier fighter.

Kurama is a demon who has lived over 1,000 years, spending the vast majority as the demon fox bandit

He's regularly defeated other demon fighters of similarly superhuman ages of centuries, and performed superhumanly well at several points such as when his body was paralyzed and he fought a similarly powerful warrior using just his hair to control his whip

He's also used martial arts moves that the demon tournament announcter Koto claims have "never been seen before" and was able to help train a group of humans to S-Class power, an unprecented feat given that a single S-Class was beyond Spirit World's power.

Kurama pretty easily qualifies as an A Tier, a superhumanly skilled fighter and has the clear advantage here.

Intelligence:

Intelligence might seem an obvious one given that Kurama is known for his craftiness and Sailor Uranus has a reputation for her impulsiveness direct plans. That said it's not quite that simple. 

Sailor Uranus, particularly, manga-wise is actually very intelligent, the Outer Senshi being viewed as mentor-like figures towards the Guardian Senshi and with greater knowledge in general due to their higher positions. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were able to inflitrate Mugen Academy, stated to be a school for geniuses and Haruka herself is referred to as a genius personally

In doing so, Haruka had to decieve the Witches V, perfect daimon, that disguised themselves as the teachers of Mugen Academy and which are stated to have the intelligence of a hundred humans

Viluy one of the Witches V was even able to create nanobot technology that dissolved a person's body

The Outer Senshi also act as teachers to Hotaru who herself attended Mugen and has an intellect vastly more advanced then her age would suggest, able to quote Einstein and Yeats despite being physically 5 years old at the time.

With that said Kurama himself is incredibly intelligent, gaining knowledge over his 1,000 year lifespan. He was able to easily defeat the genius intellect Yu Kaito twice, once in doing better in exams then him

and later defeating Yu Kaito in his own game when Yu Kaito used his psychic territory to create a death game, showing rapid adaptation, quick thinking and cunning despite the odds being stacked against him.

Kurama constantly defeats his opponents often stronger than him via outwitting them and manipulating them and is smart enough that arguably the smartest character in the series Yomi respects Kurama's intelligence and wanted him specifically for his wit.

While I would probably say Kurama has the advantage in intelligence if only due to his patience and cunning, it's a lot closer than I think people realize. If I had to guess I would guess Kurama is maybe around the intelligence level of Sailor Pluto in Sailor Moon, slightly smarter than Sailor Uranus. Conversely if you think Haruka is "just" general genius tier she'd be around the level of Yu Kaito who is also a genius, and Kurama is notably smarter than. Personally I think Haruka is smarter then Yu, but not quite as smart as Kurama. 

Stamina:

In terms of stamina, neither really has any issues with stamina. Even early in the Three Kings Saga, Yusuke was able to run 5 days without effort

and end of series Yusuke was able to fight Yomi for 60 hours straight

and while Kurama isn't as strong as Yusuke, he's probably roughly similar in terms of stamina at least.

Sailor Uranus doesn't really have any notable stamina feats but doesn't have the anti-feats the Guardian Senshi have. She and the Outer Senshi were fine after the Guardian Senshi collapsed from exhaustion despite them going through much more

And as mentioned before, they would have to patrol by themselves the outer rim of the Solar System.

Kurama has way better stamina feats and probably much larger stamina, that said it's not a particularly huge advantage as its unlikely he just wear out Haruka, though if the fight goes long enough his greater endurance and stamina may allow him to outlast.

Range:

This one unsurprisingly goes to Uranus pretty easily.

Kurama only ever fights at melee range or the range of his rose whip. His options at ranged are pretty limited. It's possible his Reiki could extend into an aura or alter the environment at a much longer range like how when Sensui fought Yusuke, both weaker then Kurama by End of Series, they were creating giant cyclones with their reiki

However this would be mostly out of Kurama's control, and not something he can control like that. His sensory range is also basically normal human range normally. He does have a mildly enhanced sense of smell and all people with Reiki can sense the energy of others

Conversely the planet power of the Senshi can destroy, even at the beginning of the series, entire dimensions

The Talismans themselves extended over a large area, holding in Pharaoh 90 to prevent him from assimilating the planet.

Sailor Senshi also consistently have cosmic awareness and enhanced senses on the cosmic scale, Sailor Uranus for instance being able to see the Silver Millennium on Earth's Moon from her outpost at Uranus

Sailor Uranus obviously has the advantage in range.

So with that out of the way I'm going to go into the character's abilities and how well if at all I think the other character could counter, starting with Haruka.

Sailor Uranus' abilities:

Sailor Uranus like all Sailor Senshi can manipulate her own stellar energy, and she in particular uses it to create wind based attacks, her most famous being "World Shaking"

She also has flight as all the Sailor Senshi do

There's not much suggesting Sailor Uranus can't just fly above the battlefield and bombard Kurama with wind attacks. Kurama would be immediatly reminded of Jin who uses very similar tactics.

Kurama actually does have plants that can temporarily give him flight meaning he can hypothetically pursue Haruka

There are vulnerabilities to this counter, relying on plant wings increases his size and if his wings are destroyed he would just fall from the sky, becoming temporarily vulnerable. Also the two flying at similar speeds still gives Haruka the advantage due to massive range advantage like a dogfight between two fighter planes where one actually has guns to fire with and the other relies on basically a long advanced melee weapon. Also it's unlikely Kurama has much aerial combat experience while Haruka is the soldier of the skies basically reversing the skill difference.

Given that Kurama has seen Yusuke defeat Jin and also trained him for the Demon World tournament, it's likely he has some understanding of the strategy's strengths and weaknesses however. While he doesn't have the spirit wave like Yusuke did, Jin due to his light-hearted "airy" personality repeatedly flew down to engage in melee with with Yusuke and if Kurama tried to manipulate Haruka into doing the same, it actually would likely be similar. Haruka also has an "airy" light-hearted personality, prone to impulsive behavior, which would give Kurama something of a counter to Haruka's flight and ranged attack strategy.

Sailor Uranus can do more things with her energy. Even a basic attack from Sailor Venus seemed to turn Danburite to dust rapidly but not from sheer energy.

Sailor Uranus may or may not have this ability as it may be a Venus-exclusive ability or a general property of stellar energy.

If she does have this and her energy comes into contact with Kurama than he would absolutely die from this. That said Kurama's aura formed of his reiki can hypothetically keep basic energy blasts from touching his skin directly, similar to when Younger Toguro's presence casually destroyed evil spirits headed for him

Stellar Energy to erase like that would probably only come up thus if Kurama was drained of energy, which as mentioned earlier is unlikely to happen during this battle.

Haruka can hold back her energy for basically "stealth mode"

Moving around at extremely quick speeds this might prove helpful against Kurama since he would need to rely on his senses to keep track of her. That said Reiki provides mild psychic abilities like being able to sense danger and being able to beat a rock paper scissors machine 2/3rds of the time that might help him keep track of her position

Also if Sailor Uranus stops moving even if in a place Kurama couldn't see, his powerful sense of smell would likely be able to detect her

Sailor Uranus can use the power of "Henshin," the holy power of transformation which changes a Sailor to her Senshi state. She can use this to teleport, with other Senshi far less skilled showing teleportation through dimensions even taking other people with them

Hypothetically if Uranus used this on Kurama it would BFR him, as he does not have dimensional travel.

Her eternal attack is Space Turbulence which creates an electrical field in an area

This might prove a difficult combined offense and defense for Kurama to get past as his plants, including his whip would presumably be zapped back by lightning trying to get to her.

Sailor Senshi can enchant numerious objects with their energy giving them magical properties and new attacks

The effectiveness of this kind of depends where they're fighting.

Finally Sailor Uranus has her Talisman which obviously amps her power vastly. The Space Sword is a sword talisman that can be used like a normal sword or shoot sword blasts from it

Kurama can counter the increase with his Yoko form and also might be able to disarm Haruka of the Space Sword although she can seemingly summon it to her, so that may not work.

So those are all of Sailor Uranus particularly relevant abilities. Things like anti-magic aren't particularly notable here as Kurama doesn't use magic-based abilities. Now for Kurama's abilities

Kurama's Abilities:

Kurama is mostly known for his plant based abilities. He is most known for his rose whip infused with his energy

He can also kill people via throwing roses through them or creating a "petal whirlwind" around him

Sailor Uranus could probably protect from this with her barrier. Sailor Senshi regularly make barriers to protect them when they fight

Kurama would basically need to wear down Haruka to get any of his plants to touch her skin. This is a trouble for him as most of his plants need to come into physical contact with the opponent to hurt them.

Kurama has a lot of really broken forms of offense, but Sailor Uranus has the light of stellar protection, the metaphysical light that gives Sailor Senshi resistance numerous abilities. So the real question is does Kurama have a type of hax that can get around that?

He can use the Vetch plant which paralyzes and tears someone from the inside out 

Not only would the seed need to get past Haruka's barrier, but Sailor Senshi have both resistance to paralysis and their Henshin energy can restore their body.

Kurama's plants can create a poison that can knock people out

However Sailor Senshi can tank being within a city bombed with a far stronger poison

and were unaffected by Nehelenia's darkness barrier inducing sleep across the world.

Kurama can also use the Tree of Wicked Thoughts to trap his opponent in a series of illusions until it's drained all their lifeforce out

Technically only Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon have shown particular resistance to illusions and both as special abilities suggesting that illusions may actually work, similar to when Nehelenia trapped the Senshi, Uranus included, in their worst nightmares. That said Kurama once again needs to get the seed to Haruka's skin for it to sprout.

Kurama is also just noted to have illusion powers

This might work on Haruka although there's very few details, in fact it may just be the above Tree of Wicked Thoughts. Assuming he can make illusions more conventionally this may able to temporarily distract Haruka, though with her enhanced senses I can't see it working too long.

Kurama uses Reiki, spiritual energy which is capable of erasing an enemy's soul.

However Sailor Senshi can resist soul manipulation, even Mimete manipulating the souls of an entire concert hall which an untransformed Minako only felt sleepy at

Sailor Senshi can also regularly see and interact with astral and spiritual entities

Kurama can also use demon yoki to infuse mundane objects with greater force, as he usually does with his whip. This, similar to Sailor Uranus' enchantment ability depends on what's around.

Reiki also allows a very limited ability to manipulate elements. Kurama can create a smokescreen 

and can easily hide his energy

however Sailor Senshi have a degree of cosmic awareness, able to sense danger and suffering of even their allies and even across time

Kurama can rise in power with his emotional state, as emotions can control one's spirit energy. The ultimate expression of this is his Yoko Kurama form. 

Haruka could hypothetically counter this with her Space Sword since the two are equalized although it's never shown that the Space Sword can increase speed as well the same way as the Yoko form obviously does. Now this may not apply since it's stats equalized if you think that means their increases should also be equalized, so it's not something to rely on.

Kurama also has one more ability I don't see people comment on a lot, despite how important it is to his personal story. In his backstory he was injured and to avoid capture by spirit world police fused his soul with a human fetus'

I'm unsure if this would work on Sailor Uranus. Super Sailor Moon was engulfed in Pharaoh 90 and resisted it, Pharaoh 90 being he who planned to "vesselize" the Earth, fusing with it's planetary soul

However while Uranus grows much stronger than this form of Sailor Moon, I don't know if this is a general resistance of the Senshi, or a special resistance given by the Silver Crystal. It's plausible this could work if Haruka mortally injured Kurama.

Weaknesses:

Just quickly going over their weaknesses. Sailor Uranus is characteristically impulsive and stubborn, being hard to dissuade from her chosen path. She's also a notorious flirt towards pretty girls. She's somewhat reluctant to use her talisman as the power is easy to detect and the three talismans together are herald of the end. 

Kurama has a legendarily cool head but he can on rare instances lose his cool when ones close to him are threatened or seeing horrible cruelty. Also, he's reluctant to use his Yoko form as he associates it to a time when he was a cruel demon bandit.

The soldier of the skies comes down to Earth searching for an interstellar criminal from a fox-human world she hears is a threat. In her investigation she accidentally walks into a Psychic's territory that dimishers her power to coincedentially Kurama's level. She sees him from behind and mistaking him comes onto him thinking he's a pretty girl, agitating Kurama and embarrasing Haruka, setting a bad tone for their conversation. Due to Haruka speaking somewhat ambigiously towards her mission, Kurama mistakes her for one of spirit world's enforcers coming for him and the demon fox prepares to fight for his life, a mental shift the Sailor Senshi notices and prepares to answer in kind.

Who wins?

So going over their biggest advantages, for Sailor Uranus its her ability to maintain a longer range with Space Turbulence, flight and teleportation and just blast Kurama over and over, her ability to BFR him at a close range, and to a lesser degree her ability to use stealth and less reluctance to pull out her Talisman compared to Kurama's reluctance to use his Yoko form.

For Kurama his biggest advantages are his advantages in intelligence and skill which are notable but not immense, his potential ability to outlast Sailor Uranus with greater stamina and endurance, and possibly his illusions and soul fusions.

This may immediatly seem to favor Sailor Uranus as her advantages seem a lot more dramatic and to be fair...they are. But it's not quite that simple for the simple fact that almost all Haruka's advantages are things she wouldn't use normally in-character. Haruka is a flashy personality that doesn't use stealth after she's been found out, she usually fights several meters from her opponent and doesn't just blast them from far away, and she has never used her teleportation to BFR someone before. While all these MAY come up, it would at the very least not be things she would immediatly try. Even her less reluctance to use her talisman still would give Kurama some time. 

Conversely using intelligence to trick up an arrogant opponent? Using martial arts skill to get in close to an opponent? This is Kurama's bread and butter. 

That said this is still not going to be any kind of piece of cake for Kurama. His ways of getting around Uranus shield basically amounts to "wear it down" which is likely going to take a bit, giving Haruka the time to try her other type of abilities. Kurama if he wants to win this would do best to try and win quickly.

Haruka pretty clearly has the advantage in abilities here. A lot of Uranus' abilities Kurama can only partially counter or not at all while almost everything Kurama has Uranus just tanks. Kurama's advantages are basically just he's a better all around fighter than Sailor Uranus, but Uranus has a way more tricky arsenal of abilities. 

The comparison I really wanted to make for this fight and I think it holds pretty true is that it's very similar to the hypothetical fight of how Kurama vs Jin would have gone if they were matched up in the Dark Tournament. Jin pretty similarly to Haruka is a confident wind-based fighter that is really good at spacing an opponent out and could just keep at range, but wanted to use his super cool close range seem to favor Haruka.

Yusuke struggled massively against Jin and he was a fighter much better suited to fighting Jin, using large scale area attacks like Spirit Shotgun to catch him off guard. Kurama's almost entirely physical arsenal made up of plants wouldn't be nearly as effective as quickly catching him off guard. He'd have to get one of his seeds on Jin, but easier said then done on someone with so much manueverability. And Haruka supplements this with actual teleportation and intellect superior to Jin's.

Kurama could maybe catch her off guard by suddenly going into his Yoko form the way he did to Shachi but that's not really in-character. Haruka is way more likely to just pull out her talisman the minute Kurama seems like he might be a difficult fight. And while Kurama is very likely to be able to react in time to go into his Yoko Form, that no longer gives him an advantage, and if anything the colder more ruthless Yoko Kurama is far more likely to make Haruka take the fight dead seriously. 

Kurama's only two real win conditions are just to outlast until Haruka runs out of stellar energy, something that would likely happen far before he runs out of reiki, or to overwhelm her near the start of the matchup. However Kurama's main style of fighting involves analyzing how an enemy fights and coming up with a strategy to counter their powers. He is not like Hiei who will often try to win instantly. Outlasting Haruka is maybe a viable strategy, she doesn't really have any notable feats or anti-feats of stamina to give an idea how long she could go, but given Kurama's high level of endurance I think may be able to outwit her into taking too long and then surprising her with how much damage he can take.

That said while that's a plausible scenario I don't think it's at all the most likely scenario. if Haruka finds the battle is getting close, even despite her talisman, its not really known what she would do as basically everytime she's used her talisman she's either won or been so hopelessly outmatched that it was clear there was nothing she could do. That said given her intelligence and skill, even if not on Kurama's level, it's fair to think that in an even fight for her life Haruka would try to use different strategies like a range strategy, a stealth strategy, maybe taking the battle into space (and only one of them can survive in space.) Even if Kurama's energy starts to run a bit low and he tries to rely on his natural endurance, generic stellar energy could just disintegrate him. This is basically a fight where one side is a better fight but has no win conditions while the other side is close enough to be competitive and has actual win conditions. As such I think it's pretty reasonable I think that Sailor Uranus probably wins in the majority of scenarios.

Naoko Takeuchi's strengths as a writer is to capture the majesty and elegance of the great and huge, capturing the wonders of the cosmos and the concepts within. Yoshiro Togashi on the other hand is a master of evoking the earthly, the often painful and confused reality of human psychology, and the fullness of emotion it brings with it. She wrote a manga about cosmic guardians, avatars of the gods. He wrote a manga about demons and men, of the triumphs and fragilities they bear in their battles. As such you would expect that a character like Uranus, a cosmic guardian would have a more broken ability set than Kurama who is basically a reformed demon bandit, if famously cunning.