Series Comparison: The Best of the Worst and the Worst of the Worst

 So this is just a fun little blog I felt like making. I wanted to make a comparison between basically the worst tier series I know to find the worst of the worst and the best of the worst.

I say "basically" because technically the very worst series I know, the series I rated it as "1/10" are things I don't really wanna talk about a lot, they're a trio of disgusting MG Rape series that I saw when I was trying to watch all Magical Girl Series, and I stopped purely to not have to watch more series like them. So these series are the 2/10 series that are "basically" the worst series I've seen, they're the worst that people were actually expected to take on some level, seriously.

I wanted to do this in part because I noticed that I had 8 series I had given a 2/10, which happens to make for a very convenient bracket. While some of the things I like are controversial, none of my dislikes I imagine are very controversial. First I'm gonna give the actual list of the series, explaining basically what they are and why they're bad, then actually comparing them

The Bottom 8:

1: 50 Shades of Grey (Film): Easily the most popular of the series on this list which I saw years ago to see what the fuss was about. 50 Shades is a film about a submissive woman forming a sadomasochistic relationship with a wealthy businessman, coming to find out he is more troubled then he seems. It has a worrying depiction of dominance and submission and is rather uncomfortable to watch in that regard.

2: Chick Tracts: Chick Tracts are a series of comics written by a Christian Fundamentalist in the US until his death, promoting a very extreme worldview centered around the Christian Faith. It is poorly produced and evenmore poorly researched about anything but the author's very particular view of Christianity, often insensitive to real world issues. I know a lot of people, myself included, get some enjoyment from Chick Tracts due to the "so bad, it's good" factor, but this is specifically a ranking of sincere enjoyment, not ironic enjoyment.

3: FATAL: FATAL is an RPG system which purports to create a historical/mythologically accurate view of Middle Ages Europe. It is infamous for it's fixation on rape, it's inclusion of sexist game mechanics, and in generally being very poorly made with lots of ridiculous tedious design. 

4: JLA: Created Equal: Created Equal is my most disliked DC Series. It is an Elseworld story where all men (or nigh-all) men suddenly die from cosmic plague in the DC Universe, and how the Heroines and Villainesses of the DC Universe adapt to this problem. It has a rather sexist view of men and women, bad political philosophy, and a rather unpleasent atmosphere.

5: Marville: Marville is my most disliked Marvel Series. It's a series about a kid from the future returning to the past to find how to stop World War Three. It starts as a pretty unfunny parody of the Comics Industry then goes on to being an inane philisophical diatribe all the way maintaining a mean-spirited air towards anyone the writer didn't personally like.

6: Moetan: Moetan is a lolicon fanservice series that purports to teach the viewer English. It also is a Magical Girl "Parody." The Lolicon Fanservice stuff I find pretty gross, and whenever it's not doing that it is just the most mediocre comedy you can imagine, with half-hearted "parody" jabs at the magical girl genre that sound like the person has never actually seen one.

7: Naria Girls: Naria Girls is a CGI Magical Girl Anime with an extremely repetitive plot structure that is my sort of go-to example for 2/10 due to having a little bit wrong in every area. Awful "animation", bad characters, the fact that there literally isn't a script for large parts of the episodes so it's just the voice actresses doing bad improv every single episode.

8: Zettai Junpaku Mahou Shojo: Zettai Junpaku is a 5 minute ecchi anime OVA connected to a much longer doujin series. It's an ecchi fanservice series, but despite that it has some of the most ugly art I've ever seen. It's plot is the most cliche ecchi/hentai plot you can possibly imagine (Girls transform into skimpy Angelic MG and fight tentacle monsters) and it's characterization is downright nonexistent. 

So these are the 8. You're probably noticing some repeated themes of things I don't like. Comparing them is going to be figuring out whose sins or more egregious and who has even the slightest bit I can enjoy. 

So the randomized bracket:

I have not planned what's going to happen. I'm going to go through each matchup one by one, give my thoughts on comparing the series before deciding.

Comparison:

FATAL vs. 50 Shades: FATAL is easily worse. 50 Shades' characterization is pretty bad, and it's messages regarding dominance/submission are troublesome but there's no way it was going to match FATAL in sheer tediousness, being a 900 paged guidebook that's far more demeaning by comparison and with far worse messaging. 

Moetan vs. Zettai Junpaku: So this is the battle between the two fanservice Magical Girl Series. It's sort of the difference between active and passive annoyance. Moetan's fanservice is lolicon which automatically makes it more unpleasent to me but particularly if you're comparing to Zettai Junpaku's doujin, it's fanservice is less often (Moetan is 40-50% fanservice scenes I'd estimate compared to Zettai's 70-80%) But what I hate about Zettai isn't even really the fanservice, it's how boring and ugly it is. Moetan can tell a halfway decent joke on occasion, even if often could be much better but also tells jokes that are actively annoying like when it thinks it has anything of note to joke about with the MG "har har, isn't it weird how Magical Girls look the same after transformation?") Would you rather hangout with a dull sadsack or someone constantly trying to get you to laugh at their lame jokes, including ones that are inapporpriate for situation. I'd put Moetan as worse, because I think Moetan also has that element of boring-ness in it and its fanservice is just way more painful.

Chick Tracts vs. JLA: Created Equal: So once again, this is one that's hard to compare just due to sheer length. Chick Tracts can vary signifigantly in quality, with some actually having an alright message like "The Outcast" which is about how God loves and would forgive everyone, even prostitutes. On the other hand it also has things like a nurse telling people with AIDS that it's their fault for being gay and being treated as right or saying people with mental problems don't need a therapist or a psyciatrist, they just need to pray to Jesus. Created Equal doesn't reach the same depths of insanity in it's two extended issues, only ever sinking to the level of bad gender politics like seeming to think male=capitalism female=socialism. But it never rises to anything either. And it really disappoints me because I usually really like the plots where it's just the female characters for a bit; a DC story where all men suddenly disappear and the Heroines have to maintain order on Earth while figuring out what happened is something I'd love to read. I think Created Equal is closer to some semblance of reality, and also has better artwork by a wide margin, but at the same time it's a lot more personally disappointing to me. This is actually kind of a hard one as it's hard to fully remove all degrees of so bad it's good enjoyment for Chick Tracts. For instance, the Grim Reaper is one of the few mildly good characters in Chick Tracts for his goofy introduction "Hi There!" but is my mild enjoyment of him sincere? Chick Tracts could easily be top of the 2/10 or bottom of the 2/10, which I imagine anyone who's read them probably understands. It has easily in this list the biggest casual detachment from reality, but also sometimes actual moments of sweetness. On the other hand Created Equal is...a lot of people give it a really middling review, I get the feeling some would be shocked I'd put it below something like Countdown. It just is a combination of personal annoyanced mixed with a sexism I think it's strange people don't bring up. Most people seem to view it as pretty unassuming. If I had to read one right now it'd be Created Equal because it's so much shorter but if I had to pick one of the two as the only thing I could read from then on, it'd be Chick Tracts for what little good I can extract from it. If I had to pick though I'd probably put Created Equal as better just because...I know that there are a lot of obvious problems with Chick Tracts but there's also subtler artistic problems people don't talk about. Even in the "good" strips like "Unloved", it's really slow, it just repeats over and over that the main character is unloved by his family and just pound this point home. Chick Tracts obviously lack subtlety with their message, but it just generally lacks subtlety. Created Equal for all its faults isn't THAT on the nose with everything and it definitely isn't slow, it's only 2 issues and covers a fair deal. 

Naria Girls vs. Marville: These are both pretty solidly down there. They're both really inept on a technical level. Marville has one issue where they just flat out forgot the speech bubbles and the art is consistently bad. Naria Girls on the other hand has absolutely awful 3D animation, and relatively long unscripted bits that are just tedious. On Marville's side I can say it does try to express a positive message, although its execution is often flawed, it can't construct a good argument for the message of peace it wants to convey, and it's VERY sanctimonous about it. On the other hand Naria Girls is insubstantial to the Nth degree. Marville will infuriate the reasoning human for its absolute nonsense, but Naria Girls will mostly bore, and occassionally annoy. On the other hand while Marville undoubtably has a more positive "message", Naria Girls is undoubtably more positive in its execution. In spite of its own nonsensical decisions, Naria Girls has the artificial air of a product made by company and comittee including ironically the improv sections, while Marville is a spoiled creator's personal diatribe. But while the latter is more personal, it is also mean-spirited, attacking everyone the creator doesn't like including many who very much don't deserve it. Naria Girls in contrast, if only to avoid risk of offending, has a slightly pleasent atmosphere. It also rips off the ending of the first season of Sailor Moon's anime from the 90s. Between the two I would easily say Marville is worse, Naria Girls is mostly painfully unfunny comedy and terrible animation. Marville's ambitions far beyond the creator's aim makes it more painful, especially with the final issue of the narrative, which is the author bitterly lamenting self-righteously that no one bought his comics despite his "important message." In contrast Naria Girls' ending is the best part as it again it basically just ripped off a far superior series.

Best of the Worst Semi-Finals:

50 Shades vs. Zettai Junpaku: This is an interesting comparison because it's essentially a comparison between a core concept I disdain vs an execution I disdain. 50 Shades has a reprehensible message, but the presentation at least of the film I saw was perfectly fine, things like acting and cinematography were perfectly fine. The characters have clear personalities, the pacing moves at a reasonable rate. What I disliked was primarily the romanticized depiction of abuse masquerading as dominance/submission. In contrast Zettai Junpaku doesn't have any central concept, it doesn't have any ideas or messages it wants to give. It's purely fanservice, and ugly fanservice with characters ranging from boring to mostly boring, mildly annoying. 50 Shades is by far the superior in terms of technical quality, it's not even a question. However does the message taken from it overwhelm that? That said the film version of 50 Shades to my knowledge is much better than the novel, and I can see it. I'd probably say it's actually better if only because take out the bad part of both, 50 Shades' unintentional messaging and Zetta Junpaku's terrible execution and Zetta Junpaku's absolute nothing of a memorable plot, characters, or themes while the film 50 Shades at least has some alright cinematography, the characters feel at least somewhat memorable, there are actual lines of dialogue I can recall. 

JLA: Created Equal vs. Naria Girls: This one is relatively easy. Both are series that parasitically take their best parts from two of my favorie series; DC Comics and Sailor Moon, but Created Equal is immersed in that world while Naria Girls for the most part only barely takes from SM and is worse for it. It's also a million times less technically competent and just generally lacks any sense of scope or importance like Created Equal does, even if semi-incompetently. I can pretty easily tell Naria Girls is somewhere around the mid level for my 2/10s while Created Equal is relatively high for one. Created Equal is definitely better. It's funny because on some ways Created Equal parallels Marville in the comparison with Naria Girls, but Created Equal is more technically competent, less mean-spirited, and a BIT less sanctimonous which is why I would put it above Naria Girls while I wouldn't for Marville. 

Worst of the Worst Semi-Finals:

FATAL vs. Moetan: This is...a painful one. Both of these are truly vile works to me. FATAL seems worse on a lot of levels, its detachment of reality only mirrored in this list by Chick Tracts, its fixation on sexual assault, sheer technical incompetence that may be the highest in this entire list of works etc. Its humor is juvenile to the extreme, when not outright insulting and racist. Compared to what? Moetans humor which is generally tepid to a fault (It's funny she's tripped) and maybe mildly insulting at worst? Not even a comparison. It's an adult that wants to kill armed with a gun fighting a child who wants to kill armed with a toy knife. It's not a fair fight. And I use that comparison for a reason. Moetan has one argument for worse, and to be fair, it's a powerful argument: it's lolicon fanservice. FATAL in all its debauchery discourages sexualization of children, although it does rather grossly still give them an attractiveness score, just with a massive "penalty" for prepubescence. Moetan is about the exaggeration of the childlike qualifies for the benefit of the presumed lolicon audience. Is that worse than anything about FATAL? That's hard to say, but I probably would think FATAL is worse, as it does include at least something of an element in that direction as well as all it's other huge problems over Moetan, including just the fact that it's far longer and more tedious, comparing a 13 episode anime with a 900 page book.

Chick Tracts vs. Marville: This is an amusing contrast as both works are sometimes hateful tracts of individual mens' broken worldviews that invoke religion, the two would hate each other. Marville's desire that we should all give up all conflict so we have sex and make world peace would be Jack Chick's personal nightmare where all have given into the demonic conspiracy to promote lust and keep people from resisting the new world order of the Antichrist along with making a false god their odl. On the other hand Chick Tract's paranoia would be seen by Marville's as an extension of humanity's lower self, not realizing we are all part of the same human "family." Both series are hopelessly deluded though for it's relative insanity like talking Jewish dinosaurs, Marville is actually signifigantly closer to reality than Chick Tracts. But I kind of hate it more for that reason. Chick Tracts clearly came from the mind of a deluded and propogandized mind, while Marville seems to come from the mind of someone ignorant and lazy, who just didn't bother to look up the information. Chick Tracts for its insanity is nothing but consistent in its presentation, it's goal, it's atmosphere. God wants you, this world is a dark conspiracy of demons that manifest in things Jack Chick thought were "evil" like Halloween and Dungeons and Dragons. Marville is internally inconsistent, starting as unfunny parody, and then trying to philosophize, going back and forth on character motives, what it's trying to teach, it's atmosphere. For all the professional production values Marville has, not only is it less technically competent, it's clear its writer put way less thought into what he was writing than the writer of Chick Tracts put into his. Plus Marville feels so mean throughout, while for all the unintentional bleakness of Chick Tracts and the dark atmosphere, it actually is trying to give a message of hope, and it feels it with every issue ending with talking about Salvation. Regardless of how misguided it is, I prefer Chick Tracts. 

Best of the Worst Finals:

50 Shades vs. JLA: Created Equal: Both works that I don't like the message they try to convey, both generally fine in execution. I kinda feel like I should give it to 50 Shades at first, just because its execution is signifigantly better being shot by competent directors, but on the other hand I feel like Created Equal is a lot more ambitious and actually hits some of its ambitions. Maybe just because I like the genre more, but I definitely feel I would prefer to reread Created Equal to rewatching 50 Shades. Created Equal is more overt with its poor messaging than 50 Shades, with at one point the villian telling a bunch of boys born to the new female world that womens' upbrining have removed their competitive drive which is the basis of the greatness of capitalism but that makes it more laughable. 50 Shades isn't that realistic, but its depiction of emotional abuse, toned down as it is from the book, still makes me uncomfortable in a way that the depiction in Created Equal, even insulting as that was, didn't. I would probably say JLA: Created Equal is my favorite of the worst series.

Worst of the Worst Finals:

FATAL vs. Marville: I will say if you don't count author statements, there's nothing in FATAL that is as morally self-righteous as Marville's final issue. Marville's final issue has an element of pissiniess that FATAL never reaches as much as FATAL irreverently wants its perverted audience to like it, and join in its horrendous misogynist world. FATAL is also definitely nowhere near as naval-gazing as Marville, it never tries its hand at philosophy, much as it's convinced of its own "scientific and history accuracy" said with the biggest air quotes you can imagine. However Marville for all its faults, is optimistic about people, even to a comical fault, acting like everyone can easily just get along if they wanted. FATAL suggested that 50% of young males in a setting supposed to be accurate to the Middle Ages had participated in at least one gang rape. It is a setting that seems to detest humanity, women especially. Its far longer and more tedious than Marville, its humor is just as infantile and nonsensical but contains racist and sexist elements unknown to Marville. I would say FATAL is the worst of the worst here. And to be honest, now typing it I am surprised it wasn't clearer earlier. There seems to be three things that  really provoke a negative emotion from me:

1: Poorly Implemented Sexual Themes, particulally Sexual Assault

2: Sexism

3: Moral messages I view as immoral or detached from reality

and FATAL is the only work here that has all three, and moreover has all 3 in spades. It's the most nuanced in terms of badness, being bad in myriad ways, encompassing most of the serious faults of all the other works here outside the moral pretentiousness of the three comic series and the lolicon element of Moetan. 

So after thinking about all these works and comparing them so much I'd probably rank them in the following order:

JLA: Created Equal

50 Shades of Gray

Zetta Junpaku

Naria Girls (Dead Center of the 2/10s)

Chick Tracts (Position varies, could be as high as the top, and possibly as low as the bottom, though I think FATAL may be worse than Chick Tracts even at its worst)

Marville

Moetan

FATAL

With the one position that I'm still not certain being Marville vs Moetan. I hesistate to put anything below the grossness of Lolicon Fanservice, but Marville certainly is bad in myriad more ways.

I can't make these for most ratings. 1/10 I have only listed 3 pieces of media overall and 10/10 I have only listed 4 pieces of media plus the ranking is already pretty clear to me for both. For anything between 3/10 and 8/10, there's probably too many pieces of media I have ranked to do something like this, though maybe 3/10 and 8/10 would be possible. I could definitely see doing this for 9/10s, where there's enough to do this but not to many (about a dozen). If you liked this blog feel free to tell me and I can do 9/10. 

My Favorite Genres

 I wanted to make a short blog talking about my favorite genres of fiction, how I define them, why I like them, and what their overlap is. For me there's 4 genres I really like more than any other including:

1: Magical Girls

Magical Girls is a genre that can be kinda hard to define. I see people try and use the common elements like transformation sequences and cute animal mascots but for every "rule" like that I feel I can easily find 3 counterexamples that are still clearly magical girls. My definition is admittingly a little broad but I think it captures all works that should be in the genre and crucially explains what the genre is about.

A "Magical Girl" is a character archetype where:

1: The character has magic or magiclike powers

2: The character is a girl, at least when using aforementioned powers

3: The prior two points are connected, either explicitly (like using a magic power that can only be used by girls) or implicitly (through use of feminine iconography)

and a Magical Girl series is just a series where the main character is a magical girl. To account for the broadness I can understand saying it's a bit of a gradient. There are series that are you could say "accidentally" magical girl series because they fit this pattern but aren't trying to be a magical girl series and then there are "purposeful" magical girl series which are deliberately trying to evoke the magical girl idea.

Magical Girls are my favorite genre and I could write for a much longer period why I like them, though I'll try and keep it reasonable in length. Magical Girls are a reflection of society's feminine virtues, what ideals they ask young women to aspire too and as such are both intellectually fascinating and emotionally for me. The Magical Girl is an idealized figure, a representation of the power of the feminine. Without being too political I have seen those on both the hard left and hard right like Magical Girls and there is something progressive and traditional about them, it's the statement that traditional feminity matters, has power, has importance and is no lesser than masculinity. It is not just the Hero's Journey but genderswapped, it is in all respects the Heroine's Journey. The genre's very existence brings me an indescribable joy. 

2: Superhero Fiction

Superhero Fiction is a genre focused around individuals with unusual, usually metahuman abilities, that take on a different identity to better society. Once again people often try to define the genre by the elements but I don't like doing that because it's easy to find counterexamples. Hulk does not have a particular superhero costume and Green Lanterns don't have secret identities. 

My definition is still kind of broad, so again I see it as kind of a gradient where some things are more so accidentally superhero series vs intentional superhero series.

I enjoy Superheroes for some of the same reason as I enjoy Magical Girls, they are a representation of society's ideals and virtues. Superheroes are described as the "Modern Mythology" and I absolutely agree. Superheroes are representations of society's collective dreams, wishes, and ideals. I find it constantly compelling to see how our modern mythos reflects us.

3: Mythological Fantasy/Mythic Fiction

Mythic Fiction is a type of genre that taken from wikipedia is "rooted in, inspired by, or in some way draws from the tropes, themes and symbolism of myth, legend, folklore and fairy tales." What I like it slightly stronger and I call it "Mythological Fantasy" which I think is basically what I and I'm guessing most people thought when they read the title "Mythic Fiction", which is a series set in a world  where myth, legend, folklore or fairy tales are true and important rather then just taking some inspiration or elements from it. To give a more clear example, a series set in the world of Greek Mythology, rather then a series where a Centaur shows up once and that's the extent of the Grecian influence.

I said Superheroes are the Modern Mythology, and likewise I find the study of myth and religions to be fascinating, it's maybe my favorite thing to study. I love to see how different value sets and worldviews are depicted in different cosmologies, and the weird conceptual conflicts that emerge from putting them together. I don't like when people make Mythological Fantasy but make it entirely suited to modern views on things, that to me just seems to be missing the fun part. I really like mythological fantasy that is trying to recreate the eccentricities and sometimes alien-ness of what people believed. 

4: Occult Fiction

So this is another genre pretty hard for me to define because Occult is deliberately a nebulous concept meaning depending on context the supernatural, all things mysterious and unknown, both, or something else entirely. Broadly speaking I think Occult Fiction is a type of Fantasy (work with supernatural elements) somewhere between Urban Fantasy and Horror Fantasy that has 2 defining elements:

1: An inordinate focus on death, the afterlife, or the denziens of (such as ghosts, angels and demons) Somethings other purported real world mystical phenomena are included but this seems to be the central feature

2: An element of secrecy, the fantastical elements are hidden from ordinary persons

These two things together seem to form the basis of "Occult" in Occult Fiction as the mysterious dark underbelly of human experience.

Occult Fiction is the hardest for me to explain my feelings towards it, but I find it uniquely evocative and demonstrative of the human condition as fragile and temporary. In doing so I think despite it's fantastical nature it feels like one of the real-est genres to me, the say Cosmic Horror feels very real to some because it feels like a way of exploring the hardest parts of reality to deal with; the inevitability of death and the disconnect for those of still living from those who are gone. 

How do these Genres interact

Magical Girls and Superhero Fiction:

Japan has it's own history of superhero fiction most well known through the Sentai/Toku series. The most well known Magical Girl series Sailor Moon took inspiration from Sentai and since then every Magical Girl Warrior series has been a superhero/magical girl combination and the default idea of what a magical girl is to the point that a lot of people don't actually know there are magical girls that don't fight villains. Cutie Honey, predating Sailor Moon, was probably the first hybrid of the two genres. The two genres fit together pretty naturally as both are about society's virtues and ideals. The large superhero universes have characters that could rightfully be considered magical girls such as DC Comic's Amethyst, Princess and Gemworld and many Magical Girl Warrior series often have male heroes that function very much like superheroes such as Tuxedo Kamen and the Blue Knight.

Superhero Fiction and Mythological Fantasy:

 The Modern Mythology meets the Classical Mythology. This is fairly common meeting in superhero universes with two of the most famous superheroes of all time being the Olympian-powered amazon Wonder Woman and the Norse God Thor. Likewise Superheroes sometimes meet the Heroes of Myth as representation of the class of ideals across history; I think for instance of Superman arm-wrestling Hercules in All-Star Superman. This speaks to the potential of this clash to be a representation of the change in the ideal across time. 

Mythological Fantasy and Occult Fiction:

Occult Fiction as I have defined is close enough to Mythological Fantasy that it could be seen as a subset, as pretty much all views of the afterlife draw from classical sources at least in part, however to me Mythological Fantasy is about worldview and setting and Occult Fiction is about atmosphere and tone, and some Occult Fiction is about death as a force rather then the afterlife particularly. Nonetheless Occult Fiction is prone to taking inspirations from religions. This is true especially of Christian-inspired work with focus on angels and demons, or on Mythological Fantasy based on the ancient Egyptian Religion due to its extremely high focus on life, death and rebirth. I think for instance of the final arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! about the restoration of the spirit of the Pharaoh's identity and laying him to rest using lots of Egyptian iconography and placing the events in a fantastical version of ancient Egypt. I think often this overlap emphasizes the alien-ness of both genres, combining the strange otherworldlyness of other cultures from across time with the strange otherworldlyness of the afterlife. 

Occult Fiction and Magical Girls:

People who have no experience with the Magical Girl genre expect the genre to be extremely light and carefree, which is why it might shock them to learn that Magical Girls as a genre can get extremely dark, to the same degree as Occult Fiction. Despite this, there isn't that dramatic an overlap between the two genres. There are some Magical Girl series that deal with angels and demons like Wedding Peach or especially Panty and Stocking which have both and ghosts besides. Witches are often enemies in the genre, with occult-themed dark magic. That said the occult tone and atmosphere isn't striven for often in the Magical Girl genre, with one of the most prominent examples to come to my mind being Shamanic Princess. Women in history have been historically associated with mystery and magic being more often suspected of witchcraft. Symbolically then this combination is the exaltation of that traditionally prejudice against women. 

Magical Girls and Mythological Fantasy:

There's a little bit of overlap, though most Magical Girls are set in the modern day. Usually if there's any mythological references it's to Greek Mythology, especially to the Goddess of Love Aphrodite, given how often love comes up as a force in these settings. If you include fairy tales as I would, then the overlap grows dramatically. Many Magical Girls reference and incorporate fairy tales and try to create their feel such as Princess Tutu. I feel this combination tries to unlock the archetypal power of the feminine, evoking the goddesses of antiquity to refer to the ideals of stereotypical "feminine" virtues like love and compassion. 

Superhero Fiction and Occult Fiction:

This is an odd combination in my opinion because they are both about the same thing but from inverse positions. Both are about the relation between the finite world of the human persona and the infinite world of the inhuman. But while the Superhero Fiction seeks to clothe the persona with the conceptual world of virtue, to demonstrate the human uplifted into the world of the transcendent and eternal, Occult Fiction instead juxtaposes the temporality of human with the eternal of the undying inhuman world. DC's magician heroes like Zatanna, Constantine, and Deadman exist in the space between them. This genre intersection I think offers the possibility of giving a broader perspective of how the temporal fits into the eternal, how humanity bleeds out into eternity.

Strongest character in each of my favorite series

 I wanted to make a quick reference blog of who is the strongest character in each of my favorite series to my knowledge. If it's not clear imo I'll say the general arguments for each. Also this is taking everyone at their peak.

Axis Powers Hetalia:

The character that would probably win in a fight against everyone else is the Roman Empire. All the characters are these conceptual entities but Roman Empire is an astral-conceptual, being the ghost of a concept. Nobody else in the verse can hit him while he can still physically effect them and kill them. He also has the most hype in the series of all the nations, and is said to have been the strongest nation although whether that means in general or just of his time is unclear. Even without that he should be pretty strong in raw power being a militaristic empire that was 5 million kilometers squared. While modern day America and Russia are probably the physical strongest he's probably at least in the same tier and they can't really effect him. Canada is in the same tier, since he is said to have power equal to his brother America but is too gentle to use it. 

Bayonetta:

So the strongest character as of Bayonetta 2 is Omne since the three god tiers Jubileus ruling Heaven, Queen Sheba ruling Hell, and Aesir ruling Chaos in between seem to be relative and Omne is formed of Heaven and Hell combined and overpowered Aesir. Fairly straightforward.

Cardcaptor Sakura:

This one is also pretty clear, by the end of the series Sakura is the strongest. Eriol who has Clow Reed power specifically says she's stronger than him, and because the anime and movies are canon because they are written by Clamp Sakura converted the Nothing into the Hope meaning she overpowered an entity equal to all 52 of Clow Reed's cards which the manga says he put all his power into. You could maybe argue Eriol/Clow Reed could still beat Sakura just from being smarter but the problem with that is A: Sakura is no slouch when it comes to intelligence herself and B: Clamp mages have magic resistance so Sakura being higher in magic means Clow Reed wouldn't be able to magically affect her. As a magician this means he basically has nothing he could do to her. It's also just narratively implied by the fact that Clow Reed couldn't do anything to the Nothing except seal it away while Sakura actually did beat it that she has surpassed him as a magician.

Commedia:

Obviously this is just God. No one else in the story is even vaguely kinda close to God and all the High Tier characters get their power from closeness to God.

Cutie Honey:

Witch Zora is without a doubt the top tier of the verse, at least of the original Go Nagai continuity. While everyone else is messing around at wall to building level, Zora can turn into a giant living island, create giant whirlpool around her and had to be bombarded with nukes to be killed...only for her to resurrect later. She created all the villains who worship her as a god and the heroine struggles with.

Danny Phantom:

So the obvious answer is Reality Gauntlet Freakshow as he has essentially godlike power compared to most of the verse. There's a little contention with peak Pariah Dark as the ring of rage and the crown of fire are kind of hyped up to be the strongest objects in the ghost zone, not in a way where Pariah has more raw power than Freakshow, but perhaps reality-warping resistance as he's obviously contextually stronger than the plot manipulating reality-warping the Ghostwriter. That said considering Danny with a 100 amp was able to be somewhat relative to Peak Pariah Dark, I'm pretty sure Freakshow is the god tier.

DC Comics:

So DC Comics gets kind of esoteric near the top. Before everything there was a boundless existence, the metafictional concept of the White Page, the Overmonitor. It divided itself which was primordial creation. It came to awareness of itself, this awareness being God or the Presence as said by Synnar's origin. It's uncounciosness the sleep of Brahman is Pralaya and the imagination of the people viewing it imprinted onto it being the Source, the first world, formless and forming all. So the god tier is something like "the undivided boundless God that all things derived from."

Freedom Force:

Energy X is a conceptual entity that granted all the powers in the verse including the strongest characters Time Master and Entropy so him.

God of War:

God of War 5 will likely change things, but the strongest character as of GOW 4 is Power of Hope Kratos since PoH Kratos seems to be stronger than Old Kratos, if only by a bit and the strongest characters appearing in GOW4 are only relative to Old Kratos. Thor and Odin are hyped up and may provew to be signifigantly stronger than Baldur but didn't fully appear in GOW4, though we know Thor and Jormungandr's battle splintered Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil arguably is even stronger but that's not really a character.

Magic Knight Rayearth:

Mokona seems like the obvious god tier of the verse being the literal creator of the verse, that said the individual Rune Gods were relative to him so when the three combined together I'd think Combined Rayearth is stronger, especially as they brought Eagle Vision back to Cephiro against Mokona's rules. 

Magicka:

Wizilur the Wise with the Staff of Imbalance, a staff made from part of Yggdrasil should be the strongest. Azimuth, Grimnir, and Wizilur all had the Staff of Imbalance temporarily with the ability to reality-warp the multiverse and all its concepts/laws but Azimuth and Grimnir needed the cosmic alignment while Wizilur didn't seem to need too. Assuming it's the cosmic alignment the three should be relatively even but while all three have good feats of spellcasting, Grimnir is the constantly hyped up villain of the first game known for skill and intelligence and should beat Azimuth, that said Wizilur is the founder of all magic who made the Staff in the first place and is probably stronger than Grimnir.

You can make a pretty funny argument if you accept everyone in the verse being multiversal that the scaling works entirely different as Fafnir says Assatur even weakened will be the strongest being Midgard will have ever known yet was there for the fight with Azimuth along with Grimnir. If you go or you just ignore the cosmic alignment I'd imagine the strongest would be either Cthulhu or Lok. Cthulhu has the best hype though technically the player wizards beat Cthulhu when out of practice in an extremely difficult fight and they still needed deflector to fight Lok.

Metroid:

In the games it's clearly PED Samus who beat Dark Samus after it fused with a planet of phazon. None of the other characters really compare. I'm like 90% sure Samus and Joey isn't canon but obviously for those that think it is the universal deity Animus would be the strongest character by a wide margin.

Okami:

Full Power Amaterasu is clearly strongest. The next strongest is Yami and she stomped him. Pretty cut and dry.

Ouran High School Host Club:

Honey-senpai has the best feats in the series and the best hype. Technically Mori-senpai is supposed to be his equal in combat ability, however due to his devotion to Honey-Senpai Mori-senpai would never use his full ability against him so Honey is the strongest character in the series.

Over the Garden Wall:

Pretty clearly the Beast is the strongest character in the series at least by abilities, he's the character all other characters are afraid off.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt:

Judgement is God and she is clearly the strongest. The closest rival is the "Other Gods" who tried to take over Heaven and Hell from her and well...she just stepped on them crushing them.

Pretty Cure:

It's gonna be one of the All-Stars villains, I imagine either Fusion or Miden. I think Miden probably has more broken abilities and would win a fight between them.

Princess Tutu:

Drosselmeyer is clearly the top tier being the source of everyone's powers, the one who controls all the events and who has the best abilities. It's implied Fakir could reach his level of plot hax, but Drosselmeyer clearly has far more control atm.

Puella Magi:

Madoka and Homura are canonically equal in terms of power so a fight between them I imagine comes down to abilities and mindset. Homura was quite intimidated by the prospect of Madoka reascending, so I imagine Madoka is overall stronger. I imagine Movie 4 when it comes out will change things substantially.

Sailor Moon:

So the God tiers are Sailor Cosmos and Sailor Chaos, with neither being able to kill each other. Personally I like to put Sailor Cosmos as stronger because Sailor Chaos failed to do what she set out to do; Sailor Cosmos' spirit was broken but her younger self's courage revitalized her spirit to fight but you could put either as Sailor Chaos was able to cause destruction against Sailor Cosmos' will. So little is known about the two that little conclusive can be said.

Saint Seiya:

So at the top of the Saint Seiya hierarchy are the primordial deities and the line of royal deities Uranus, Cronos, and Zeus. The primordial Chronos, representing space-time seems arguable for the god tier by hype but is not neccesarily. Zeus and Cronos stalemated for a while until the Titan Mnemosyne betrayed Cronos and gave Zeus the thunderbolt which probably makes him the strongest character at the moment outside maybe Chronos. The other primordials Gaia, Tartarus, Typhon etc. are up there somewhere.

Shamanic Princess:

The Throne of Yord is the obvious god tier. Tiara also temporarily becomes one with it so she is also the god tier techically.

The Powerpuff Girls:

So there was two characters I really considered; Bad Future HIM and The Gnome with all powers absorbed. It's not explictly stated HIM got stronger in the bad timeline, but if he didn't it would be incongruent with feats and you can't scale a version of HIM to a version that could be weaker without justification. There's no direct comparison but while The Gnome absorbed the powers of all the superheroes/supervillains in Townsville, the Girls after regaining their powers were still somewhat relative to him able to take his attack and do damage to him with their strikes. Conversely Bad Future HIM was able to tank the girls' strikes and was seemingly unstoppable so I think HIM is probably stronger. I'd honestly probably put them in different tiers.

I also briefly considered Dynamo whose another Top Tier but Dynamo isn't so much a character as it is a weapon being a giant robot. So it's more like the Girls with Dynamo. While Dynamo is definitely stronger than the girls made to protect them, it didn't stomp the Giant Fish Balloon Monster who the Girls were able to contain temporarily so I'd probably put it closer to the Gnome in power level than Bad Future HIM. 

The Stanley Parable:

So there's not a lot of characters in general here. The two characters stronger than the Narrator is the Female Narrator who seems to be the Narrator to the Narrator and the Essence of Divine Art. The Narrator has at least mild knowledge of the latter while seemingly no knowledge of the former, so that maybe implies the Female Narrator is stronger that said the Essence of Divine Art has more feats and hype so I'd probably think it's the strongest character atm, though the Ultra Deluxe version may change things.

Tokyo Mew Mew:

Deep Blue is obviously the strongest character in the series. Even as the Blue Knight he has a solid argument for being the strongest character in the highest non-Deep Blue tier but as Deep Blue himself he has planetary feats while the rest of the verse only gets up to city level as well as the best abilities in the series.

Undertale:

Clearly the Annoying Dog is the God Tier. It barked into a speech-to-text device and created the verse.

Wander over Yonder:

The two strongest characters seem to be the celestial being from the beginning of the series and the god turtle herself Miss Myrtle. The two don't have any direct comparison but Myrtle definitely has more hype and Wander doesn't care much about the former but does everything in his power to pacify the latter suggesting she's a bigger deal. That was an argument made by ThorGundersen and I thought it was quite smart.

Xiaolin Showdown:

Dashi is probably the strongest. He and Unsealed Wuya are treated like the god tiers of the verse and he beat Wuya, arguably twice. There's sort of an argument alternate timeline Raimundo is even stronger as he beat Wuya along with other villains with seemingly more ease than Dashi did and Wuya is implied to be at full power in the alternate timeline. Personally I don't think enough is seen of Wuya vs Dashi and Wuya's fight with Raimundo in the alternate timeline is too short to really come to apples to apples like that and am more comfortable putting Alternate Timeline Raimundo directly below Dashi and Wuya.

xxxHolic:

So this is tricky not because the power hierarchy at the top is unclear but because what counts is unclear. Clow Reed appears and is plausibly the strongest. Clone Sakura and Princess Sakura both appear but these are not the same as Sakura Kinomoto, and probably aren't as strong. Sakura Kinomoto is at least referenced in xxxHolic so she'd be strongest for same reasons as in the Cardcaptor Sakura section if you count her. Otherwise Clow Reed was greatest magician whose single accidental thought made the main antagonist of the series.

Yu Yu Hakusho:

Prime Raizen pretty clearly was the strongest. Even starving to death he was relative to the other two kings, and it's implied he was 50-100x stronger at his peak so he'd be easily the strongest character seen in the series.

Yu-Gi-Oh: 

So there's a large difference between manga canonicity and anime canonicity. In the original manga it's Horakhty who easily beat Zorc the main villain who was stronger than everyone else. I haven't watched the later series so I can't really comment on anything past Dark Side of Dimensions. I think the strongest character in the anime canon is the Numeron Dragon but can't comment beyond that.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero:

Divine Mankai Yuna is clearly the strongest. The Heavenly Gods and Shinju stalemated for a while though the Heavenly Gods would have eventually won, but Divine Mankai Yuna was able to defeat the Heavenly Gods with one all-out strike