(Original artist unknown)
Before the Verdicts
Bayonetta
Three Bayonettas
To keep things simple, Bayonetta 3 implies all three mainline Bayos are different. It is noted the three experienced similar events, and the game director chose to leave the situation ambiguous when asked in Game Informer. Regardless, they merge at the end of the game, so using abilities for the three for blog purposes is fine.
Bayonetta Cosmology
(Bayonetta: Into the Bayo-Verse)
Bayonetta’s cosmology is three different realities, which were split from the original universe by a cosmic event called the First Armageddon. After the split, Paradiso, Inferno, and the World of Chaos/Human Realm came to be. The World of Chaos further split, becoming a stacked multiverse of infinite parallel universes. In Bayonetta 2 it is also revealed that time itself reflects infinitely, being in reference to the infinite timelines/universes Aesir would oversee from his dimension that existed above them, to which Luka mentions that there are endless possibilities. At minimum the multiverse has 2,043 universes, and going by the numbering system showing the universes in Bayonetta 3, at least 4,886 of them. The World of Chaos also has multiple layers.
The multiverse is supported upon a dimensional bulk called Ginnungagap, the void that encompasses all worlds, like how Earth is enveloped by the universe. The worlds themselves are like grains of sand inside of which form into the platforms dimensional travelers cross on, as shown here.
The three realities are layered on each other and they all have different Spiritual Energy running through them. Paradiso is noted to be thousands of times larger than the Human Realm/World of Chaos. Paradiso has its own cosmos. Inferno is comparable to Paradiso and is possibly Queen Sheba herself.
Higher Dimensional Bayonetta
Bayonetta has two arguments for higher dimensionality. This section will cover both.
The Bayonetta 3 artbook gives more on the realm Ginnungagap:
GINNUNGAGAP
YUKI SUDA (Artist): I imagined the bottom of the sea as a space encompassing multiple parallel worlds; like the universe around the Earth. Bits and pieces of the worlds' memories pile up like sand, until they crystallize into floating islands. The magic drifts, gathers, and wanders like sea creatures. This is basically like the loading screens of the Bayonetta games.
YUSUKE MIYATA (Director): In fact, Ginnungagap is the full realization of the world in the loading screens, where players practice their moves! You could say that the loading screens are traveling the multiverse through Ginnungagap.
Ginnungagap is basically a dimensional bulk supporting the infinite multiverse and is far larger than it. Ginnungagap encompasses all infinite parallel worlds, in a similar vein to how our universe encompasses the earth, and the universes are like small islands in it. Since there's an infinite multiverse embedded in that space, the argument would be that the only way to be bigger than infinity is for it to be a greater set of infinity, in which case it be considered a higher dimensional bulk. Singularity is shown destroying Ginnungagap when it destroys the multiverse.
The notion of it being a higher dimensional bulk is at least somewhat explored, though the game never flat out says this. It is at least a bit more viable than the following argument.
In Bayonetta 2 we are told that the universe/World of Chaos has layers to it. Aesir’s temple, the ground of Fimbulventr, and even the mechanisms that are powered by Loki all depict diamonds that represent these layers.
The issue here saying these are dimensions is the keyword “matrix”. They are all components of the same dimension/reality, they are not depicted or stated to be higher dimensional. It's also likely a mistranslation:
There is a mark that symbolizes it. Its crest is carved all over the city.
It's shaped like a combination of rhombuses, and it seems that each overlapping rhombus represents the origin of each era and the universe.
Some of Aesir's crests are made of metal that emits a mysterious glow, and it is said that they have some deep meaning, but it seems that it will take a little more time to solve the mystery.
In the end Ginnungagap holds some possibility, but the diamonds do not.
Bayonetta’s “Weaknesses”
Bayonetta is assumed by some to be a glass cannon, and that her demons are her only power. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Bayonetta actively is shown further empowering her own demons, and going toe to toe with powerful angels and demons by herself. She’s taken powerful attacks from Loptr, which oneshotted her own demons. Bayonetta also can only have her soul ripped when her energy is drained and her Umbran Watch is damaged. Jeanne was only soul ripped when caught off guard in Bayonetta 2, and Bayo shows in that very game she can fight off attempts at attacking her soul.
Devil May Cry
What’s canon for Devil May Cry?
To keep things simple, Itsuno (Current DMC director) has gone on record to canonize nearly all of Devil May Cry, as part of the restructuring of the Devil May Cry timeline. This includes the novels for the games, and the two manga that exist as well. Matt Walker has acknowledged elements of the DMC4 novel are canon, which makes sense since it's meant to be an “extended version” of the fourth game.
The DMC1 novel slightly contradicts the events of the series, but it is stated to be canon, and the DMC5 prequel novel retconned the events to have been caused by “lesser demons”. Dante's alias as "Tony Redgrave" is also mentioned in Devil May Cry: The Animated Series (Episode 8), and DMC5 itself, alongside the fact the novel provides the only explanation as to where engraving ".45 Art Warks" comes from. It is in reference to Nell Goldstein (who first appears in this novel), the grandmother of Nico from DMC5. She designed Ebony and Ivory for Dante, which is shown in the novel and confirmed by Capcom. Nell herself is mentioned to have created Ebony and Ivory by Nico in cutscene, and in the gallery. This same entry makes mention of Bobby’s Cellar, a location also from the Vol. 1 novel, and said Cellar reappears in both Before the Nightmare, alongside being renamed after a key character in the novel, Grue. The Cellar also reappears in Visions of V.
As for guidebooks:
The “3,1,4,2” artbook is viable to use, as it has the most given information by staff working on DMC, including Itsuno. Devil May Cry 1 Kaitai Shinsho is a Japan exclusive complete edition of the DMC1 Guide, which includes exclusive lore told from the perspective of Dante, some of which would be used by the Visions of V manga. Precious Tears is an artbook for the first game that gives further details on the story.
The DMC English game guides are officially licensed by Capcom, and have developer input, including from the directors. The guides also provide lore that does not contradict established lore in the games.
The timeline goes: Light Novel 1, DMC3 manga, DMC3, Peak of Combat, DMC1, DMC anime, DMC1 CD stories, (both Volumes), DMC2 novel, DMC2, Deadly Fortune (starts slightly before the events of DMC4) and DMC4, Before the Nightmare (starts slightly before DMC5) and Visions of V (starts slightly before DMC5, after BtN and ends in the midst of DMC5) and DMC5.
Why is Peak of Combat being used? Is it canon?
Peak of Combat is a Devil May Cry Chinese mobile game. The game underwent its beta phase in 2021, which concluded in 2022. The game itself takes place between DMC3 and DMC1.
The actual game has been noted to be canon (Link here, Use settings to translate).
正统
In this context it would mean "authentic, official, real". Noted below will be every reference to the game’s canonicity:
Supervised by Capcom: https://www.thegamer.com/devil-may-cry-pinnacle-of-combat-everything-we-know-so-far/
"Devil May Cry - Peak Battle" official website - produced by Yunchang Games
'The storyline of "Devil May Cry-Battle at the Pinnacle" is interspersed between "Devil May Cry 3" and "Devil May Cry 1".'
https://dmc.nebulajoy.com/news_307.html
"Therefore, as the orthodox sequel to the "Devil May Cry" series, "Devil May Cry-Battle at the Pinnacle" once again carries forward these precious qualities"
https://dmc.nebulajoy.com/news_291.html
"The mobile game plot will continue on around the battle of the classic popular character Dante, and will take the story to new heights through "Devil May Cry-Battle of the Peak ''. CAPCOM is the full supervisor of the whole process
http://dmc.yunchanggame.com/news_297.html
Itsuno supervising it:
https://www.famitsu.com/news/202111/03239135.html
The story takes place between Devil May Cry 3 and Devil May Cry 1:
https://www.facebook.com/gaming/DevilMayCryPeakofCombat
The game also directly references the manga for DMC3, alongside the third game as well.
Since Capcom is supervising the story, this means they themselves are giving the orders to the Chinese developers and producers not in the Japanese Capcom branch, and there’s also the fact the entirety of the Asian Languages don’t fully translate based on the words being used, so Orthodox being the closest possible thing to the word canon for them means that, for our purposes and accuracy’s sake, (the example here is Japanese, but the same principles apply to Chinese as well, to an extent), and as such it is the word canon for us too.
As for the usage of Peak of Combat, while the game is not officially translated, there are plans for an international release in the future. The game has fan translations available on youtube and official English voice acting for sections of the game. Footage for the several in-game save screens (which provide lore on enemies and more) is available (Some examples here) and has been thoroughly translated. To demonstrate, all of the weapons for Dante, Lady, and Vergil (who has a mini campaign showing what happened to him in the Demon World right before he confronts Mundus at the end DMC3) have been compiled and translated. Dante has 100+ weapons, Vergil has over 50, Lady has over 40. Likewise here is a collection of all Book of Demon entries.
For the purposes of the blog, statements and footage will be provided, with translations given as well. As for the game being fan translated, fan translations are used by the VS Community all the time. Death Battle, VSB, Spacebattles and others have all used fan translations of material locked to other parts of the world. Guidebooks such as the Naruto Databooks have entries that have not been released (a good example is the fourth databook, of which was used recently in Madara vs Aizen). This also applies to games in general, such as Nintendo keeping Mother 3 locked to Japan and thus forcing the creation of a fan translation of the entire game.
Gacha/Mobile games have been used for scaling purposes before, such as the popular Fate Grand Order. The beta phase for Peak of Combat 1.0 has concluded, and has started to release to other territories in Asia, such as Singapore. The game should be completely viable to use for this blog.
The game’s international release in English has been greenlit, alongside the confirmation it is releasing on PC and that the English game build will be 1-to-1 with the Chinese build in all its material. The English version is set to release soon. (Further confirmation)
Here is a full player guide for the game, full credit to RK. All game cutscenes. Full playlist with all missions, with english voice acting.
Refer here to clarification for any possible contradictions
DMC Cosmology
The cosmology of Devil May Cry is fairly simple. In the beginning of creation, there was a singular universe called the Original/Primordial Chaos. In this era, Demonkind and Humankind lived in a constant era of chaos, which eventually came to a close when the universe was split in two by the “first light” (refer to the Pluto section below to learn more). The actual power from the Original Chaos is nearly gone and a small portion remains in the two halves.
What came out of the split was the Demon World and Human World (Which are referred to as being “the Upper and Lower realm” in the DMC1 Manual). Both together still make up a universe in size, which is affirmed by Mundus’ lore entry in the DMC1 game guide. Both the Demon World and Human World are described as being dimensions in the novels and DMC2 Game Guide, alongside an example of alternate world that has both fused being called an “parallel universe”.
Both realms are shown to have celestial bodies and stars. While the Human World is sometimes used to refer to Earth, it is also used to refer to the Human Universe, with there being an observatory showing the cosmos in reference to both in Peak of Combat. We also see a full cosmos in the Demon World in Peak of Combat.
Both realms are also cut off dimensionally by a barrier that prevents high ranking demons from crossing over, and demons generally need to possess vessels to manifest in the Human World. Refer here for the DMC multiverse.
Infinite-Sized Demon World
The Demon World has a few statements of being endless. Endless is defined as being or seeming to be without end. Several of the statements describe the Demon World as a place of endless darkness, where the stars can’t even be seen. The “never-ending” statement regarding Samsara is most likely in regards to the endless loop of Nirvanas its meant to break. The endless seas scan mentions there being an edge between it and the rest of the Underworld. The manga scan, however, was also translated as follows:
Specifically though, it says "endless" or "boundless" or "eternal". Based on wording, it could mean that literally the perception of darkness is infinite and not the actual volume. The page before this says the world was born from darkness, referring to the Primordial Chaos mentioned in the cosmology section. Thus, it could potentially be argued either way. Each section will give their take in the verdicts below.
Universal DMC
(Refer here for an explanation on “anti feats”)
Nightmare
Nightmare has three statements that it can destroy the Demon World. In the past it was made by Mundus as a weapon, and it proved so powerful he had to bind it. Interestingly, the first statement was in the DMC1 Japanese game guide over 20 years ago, which then was mentioned again in the DMC5 manga and later in Peak of Combat.
The statements in order of release:
DMC1 Japanese Game Guide (From Dante’s commentary):
"To be honest, I'm at a loss in judging whether I should consider this sticky dark monster as a kind of demon.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://jisho.org/search/%E7%84%A1%E5%88%B6%E9%99%90
unlimited; unrestricted; limitless.
While an alternative translation describes the Demon World’s destruction as occurring if the Nightmare were to release its power “indefinitely”, this is a mistranslation. The above term simply means “unlimited” or “unrestricted”, and is actually being used to describe the Nightmare's power itself as opposed to giving a timeframe for its destruction. In context, the “without restriction” part is likely referencing the harness placed on Nightmare that shackles its power.
Visions of V manga
Its power could destroy the Demon World.
So much so he bounded and restrained the very power he sought.
It was created as a weapon without a will.
Peak of Combat
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consistently it is framed that Nightmare has the power to destroy the Demon World, with Peak of Combat showing that Nightmare could do it without much effort. Any questions about time-frame are resolved by the statement about “lifting the entire structure” of the Demon World, which would be universal regardless of time-frame.
One might ask, if Nightmare is this powerful, why doesn't it nuke the Human World or Demon World in DMC1? The answer is that it has no free will. It's explicitly under Mundus' orders for the entire game, and he has no intent to destroy either universe. Likewise, V has no intent to destroy either realm in DMC5, and its output is limited by V directly.
It is also narratively consistent for Nightmare to be this potent, as when first acquired by V, he was convinced Nightmare could challenge Urizen (Urizen before he got blood amps). Also Nightmare even when weakened is still powerful enough that Mundus used it directly as a weapon. Final point, when referring to Mundus’ kingdom, this would be at least half of the entire demon world, as Mundus and Argosax each ruled half of the entire realm (Stated in Before the Nightmare, the DMC5 novel).
Mundus
By far the most contentious topic in regards to scaling/vs-centric discussion related to DMC. Most back and forth between this revolves around twitter statements regarding Hideki Kamiya answering questions about if Mundus makes a universe in this scene in DMC1. Kamiya himself is controversial to use for validation, as he no longer has authority on the series and WoG for this scene is solely from twitter, and not an interview/commentary. Luckily other material such as the Precious Tears guide answer what is occurring in this scene.
The guide states:
When Mundus flaps his wings, The temple lost its existence in an instant, The world was surrounded by a sea of stars. Only both of them face the vast universe.
Furthermore the same guide says the following:
Right off the bat, we know this space is real and not an illusion, based on the descriptions. The space is called Demon Emperor’s Space (Translation Below, From the Japanese DMC 1 Guide and English Guide)
Given the way the feat is presented, it can be argued equally as either creation or BFR.
Creation
It's said the temple "ceased to exist", which can imply physical alteration of the environment. The counter would be that it's referring to literally what's perceived, the temple no longer existing in the game state, but the text is a narrative description and not a gameplay one. Likewise, the specific japanese is " 包む " for the stars. "包む" means stuff like "to pack" or "to wrap" or "to cover" or "to envelop". Notably it implies an active action and addition to what's there, as opposed to removing what's there in the first place. Furthermore, Mundus uses sigils to transport himself across dimensions, which does not occur in the space scene.
BFR
The sigils point is not objective, as the description for the Rippers (who can cover every inch of the Underworld in less than a day via raw speed alone) shows its possible to venture out into the other parts of the demon world without need of the dimensional travel method Mundus invokes to reach the Human World. Furthermore the japanese guide mentions Dante was transported to this place. The wording to “cover” or “pack” is flowery no matter what interpretation you go with, as their location would not be “enveloped” or “wrapped” with stars in a literal sense, even if it was a creation feat. The wording thus does not disprove BFR, as the notable effect does do that visually.
Either option is viable, and at most it works as support for the other arguments. You readers are open to go with whichever of the views you feel is supported.
Demon World Collapse
It is stated in the Precious Tears guide and in two English guides that Mundus’ death would have collapsed the Underworld/Demon World.
English guides here.
"Underworld collapsing" and "Beginning in the hall of Mundus, Dante has exactly 5 minutes to reach the entrance of the underworld before it collapses, or he dies’ and "Dante defeats Mundus and prepares to escape from the collapsing underworld."
The Last Roar of the Demon Emperor Mundus. The death of Trish.
This is how the long battle came to an end.
Various thoughts and feelings come and go in his chest.
Dante returns to the old world.
The old realm, too, was approaching its final moments.
Dante, who took care of Trish's last breath
He left an amulet and a magic sword for her.
He began to run without looking back.
The old castle rumbled violently. The collapse was accumulating.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the page says “Dante returns to the old world” (this old world clearly being the Demon World), “the old realm, too, was approaching its final moments” and this part is just pure confirmation the Demon World was collapsing with Mundus dying.
Finally the last part: “The old castle rumbled violently”, of course and you can see this in game, everything is shaking, last but not least important “the collapse was accumulating” the final nail in the coffin, the world was ending.
We know from the game itself the collapse goes far beyond a castle, as the collapse even affects the mirror world, which is a dimension separate from the castle. If you have played DMC1 you will know that Dante opens a portal to the demon world in the castle, he enters a mirror dimension and in that mirror dimension he "breaks" the seal Sparda placed to get into the demon world.
Mission 23 specifically shows the effects of the collapse extending into the Upside Down Cathedral, which is part of the Mirror World (here is Dante entering it earlier). Dante goes from the Demon World, into the Mirror World, and out into the Human World, specifically Mallet Island.
Mirror World is meant to be a Mirror of the Human World:
The mirror that reflects this world is the entrance to the demon world! This Demon's cave, where he cannot even breathe, distorts Dante's consciousness with its powerful demonic sea air and robs him of his vision. "The Stone of the Bridge is in Dante's hand, and the demons surround him in a frenzy.
it's basically a copied version of the Human World, and yet it's only a small fraction of the demon realm serving only as an entrance to it in Mallet Island. This mirror realm represents evil in humanity's hearts, it's also a space-time as implied here. Portraits to enter it show a moon for example. The Mirror World also has its own mirror to the Sun, in reverse as the dimension itself is. So the collapse is indeed more than just the castle, and more so the Demon World.
The reason the collapse does not finish is that Mundus recovers from his apparent death and is then sealed by Dante. “Mundus. It was undoubtedly the demon emperor who should have been destroyed”.
Considering the Demon World is at the very least half a universe, this has the potential to be a cosmic feat. Demon Kings having power over the Demon World is something that's shown more than once, as will be shown below in when discussing Argosax.
Void Mundus
Void Mundus is an alternate universion of Mundus who prevailed over Sparda and accomplished his goal to merge both realms. In doing so, he became a “void” and acts as the centerpoint of all energy of the fused realm. Dante defeats him with ease, despite an implication Void Mundus is stronger than his main counterpart.
The worlds are merged in this alternate universe. What occurred is that Mundus succeeded in his plan to merge both realms. The worlds having merged is proven by the following:
"Yet he doubted he and Beryl were in the Underworld. There was no sense of magic underpining the geography. In fact, magic was rather conspicuous in its absence. Dante suspected he was in a HALFWAY PLACE, a REALM neither HUMAN nor DEMON."
Dante notes the alternate world he is in a halfway place between both. This makes sense as he references this as similar to what Gilver did in the DMC1 novel. For context, in that novel Gilver (A demon sent by Mundus) creates a nexus in which the surroundings would begin transforming into another demon world and spread out to consume the entire human world. Something that is loosely echoed in the novel.
This is relevant because Void Mundus is described as both the Heart of the Demon World and the Nexus of its energies. The usage of heart is pretty obvious, it means that Mundus is the center, the source of the demon world, that’s why as the demons get close to him their power starts replenishing to the point where it oversaturated their bodies with power and all of them start falling down. Being this nexus turned Mundus into a literal void, and Dante survives the void exploding on him point blank when he kills it.
Void Mundus’s death is implied to collapse the merged world (an obvious call back to DMC1’s ending).
Argosax
Throughout the events of DMC2, we are told and shown the Demon World is coming closer to the human World, and is consuming it.
On Mission 14 of Dante's disk, the stage level takes place on the city of Vidu Mali, with said city having been distorted by the approach of the Demon World. This is once again confirmed to be the case by the guidebook:
The descriptions of Lucia's disc only continue further:
Furthermore, the effects of merging the realms extends to affecting space-time as well. In mission 14, time is being warped, with the past and future being affected. Phantom appears in the present even though it perished in Mallet island, something that doesn’t exist anymore since it exploded in DMC1, an island that was far away from anything else as it changes positions all the time. The cause is stated to be a temporal paradox caused by the realm merging. Mission 14 also notes the movement of the Demon World’s movement is accelerating, which is noted to Dante when he uses Four Lights to create a gateway out of the warped area he was in.
The cause of this is implied to be Argosax:
Once Arius attempts to gain Argosax's power (since it was sealed off in the past by Sparda), distortions happen across the sky and beyond. When Argosax is killed by Dante, all the distortions it caused and the Realm Merging ceases and is undone, and this makes sense, as even after Arius is defeated the distortions continue.
Now, the eclipse might have some degree of contribution, as stated here: “Warped by the Eclipse''. However, Lucia says the ritual is activated before the eclipse completes, they have until the eclipse finishes. The ritual completes itself as the ritual ends.
Argosax is also directly associated with the Demon World itself:
19:09-20:10 - Timestamps for the meaning of Argosax’s name. “One of his names in Japanese, is kantan no hao translated as dominator of chaos, but it’s once again an ancient chinese mythological reference. Hunden or kantan as he’s known in Japanese is a name of a mythological creature with no face and the term referring to the primordial chaos of creation”
Argosax’s japanese files give it more affiliation.
"Overlord of chaos that one time held in his hands most of the Demon World and subdued many demons but, defeated by Sparda, was waiting for the time of resurrection. Possesses both forms and abilities of every demon.”
"At one point, he was the king of chaos who surrendered many demons with most of the makai in his hands, but he was defeated by Spada and waited for the time of resurrection. It has the appearance and ability of all demons."
Argosax is Mundus’ rival for the throne of the Demon World. Argosax is described as embodying the chaos of the Demon World, and having power over the realm. This helps support the notion that Argosax was indeed the one moving the Demon World, as the ritual began and its demonic energy was freed by Arius.
Most damning is:
This is clearly referring to Argosax, who Sparda and Matier’s clan sealed away ages ago. Argosax attempts to merge the realms to rule them, as all Demon Kings do (like Mundus and his counterpart).
Note: One final note to make is that the Demon World itself does not auto merge with the Human World when both are connected, power is required to initiate it. Not only does nothing happen to the human world once the portal to the demon world opens in DMC3; further proven in the end of the game that everything is still the same shortly after the demon world closes at the end of the game, the Hell Gates, which are stated and shown to be literal gates to the Demon World, not cause any form of merging/consuming whatsoever in any part of Fortuna compared to how it was originally.
The Qliphoth tree, which is stated to have broken the dimensional barrier in DMC5, and has been growing for the span of a month, hasn't done anything in the Human World in terms of actually merging the realms together. The only times the merging was ever done was when Argosax and Mundus were actively trying to do it, so the entire argument of the Demon World automatically merging with the human world makes no sense.
Pluto
Pluto is a rather odd case of a fan theory potentially becoming something… more. Back when the first DMC came out, we were given this excerpt:
Now back then this most likely was in reference to Mundus and Sparda, though notably Pluto’s is in opposition to Mundus wanting to merge both realms. We are also told Mundus slew the prior demon king, “the god of evil”.
Years later the DMC3 manga would have a section regarding the backstory of the universe, though a lot was lost in localization.
The translators note that "Heaven" referred to in the page is just another word for the Demon World. Furthermore, it reveals lore regarding an unknown demon god, usually mistaken as being Sparda due to mistranslations.
Now, the scan states that there was a lot of pandemonium and chaos spilling between the border of the Human World and the Demon World, and that the Earth was torn apart with great rents whenever "the wrath of heaven poured down on them", resulting in many lives being lost. Many DMC fans believe that this page is talking about Mundus's invasion on the Human World. But is it?
Notice the fact that the scan specifies those events took place during the birth of Heaven and Earth. Let's revisit the prologue/introduction for the DMC3 manga.
"The world was born from darkness. Unending darkness. A crucible of chaos. But even to that primordial existence there came a ray of light. The universe was eventually split in two. The darkness became the realm of demons... and the light became the domain of mortals."
And thus we arrive on the conclusion that it's not talking about the invasion by Mundus's armies
- this tale is in fact expanding on what was stated by the narrator in the prologue of the manga, narrating what happened at the birth of both worlds ("earth and heavens"), before the Human World and the Demon World were separated.
The official take has Arkham narrate that '[the Demon God] struck the earth with a giant spear so that heaven and earth would never again be split apart', but this is actually supposed to read "so that heaven and earth would never again be torn apart."
¹ lit. "turned upside down" ². the worlds.
In other words, it is merely a way of saying that he separated the worlds so that they would never again be devastated by how chaotic their contrast was. One was a world of light, the other was a world of darkness -- these two wildly different realms existing within the same dimension/universe led to pandemonium on both sides, so the demon god separated them to bring order to both realms.
This led to fan theories that this demon god was in fact the Pluto name mentioned in DMC1, and the very same god of evil that Mundus killed. You can read more details about the original theory here.
Flash forward a few years later. Peak of Combat launches and Pluto is revealed as a demon king within the game. Pluto in Peak of Combat is hyped as being “Born in the abyss of evil, underneath the cover of the mask is the source of human decay.” Pluto, the one born out of the abominable abyss. Pluto is an ancient Demon King who wields the Abyssal Spear, which controls space and time. His goal in-game is to free demon kings that Sparda sealed away, and pretend to be a human to manipulate Dante to get his blood.
Pluto’s design seems to have taken inspiration from the design of the demon god shown on the page mentioned in Arkham’s tale.
Now in regards to the actual split he is often credited for by fans, the sequence of events are left a bit vague but are akin to something like this:
"The world was born from darkness. Unending darkness. A crucible of chaos. But even to that primordial existence there came a ray of light. The universe was eventually split in two. The darkness became the realm of demons... and the light became the domain of mortals."
1- Primordial Chaos gave birth to the Demon World; a realm of darkness.
2- A ray of light was birthed from the Demon World, and became the Human World.
3- The existence of both the Human World and the Demon World merged together caused instability, and pandemonium/chaos spilled between their borders.
4- A Black-Horned Demon God (implied to be Pluto, who was prophesied to separate heaven and earth before being betrayed) created a seal that separates the Demon World and the Human World.
5- Mundus killed his Demon King, took power, and decided to invade the Human World to merge it with the Demon World, and the darkness started consuming the light.
6- Sparda sided with humanity and defeated Mundus, and then sealed the Demon World to stabilize the Human World and prevent further invasions.
According to more recent lore introduced by Peak of Combat, we learn that the light had split the world in half:
The legendary material needed to forge Dante's weapons
So while Pluto might have contributed to the separation, the most credit is given to the ray of light/first light. Some current unknowns are the fact that Pluto is alive, and the prior demon king was noted to have been killed. In general the argument is very theory heavy, which makes sense regarding Pluto’s origin. No particular view regarding the matter is objective, and in time Peak of Combat 2.0 may reveal more regarding Pluto's history and motivations.
Chen/Beastheads
In the second novel, a human called Chen is revealed to have cloned Sparda from a DNA sample, and grafted that flesh onto himself. Furthermore, he acquires a demonic statue called the Beastheads, which grants access to DMC’s vast multiverse of timelines.
Chen, when connected to the Beastheads, was able to perceive the beginning and end of Dante’s universe and then see beyond that, viewing beyond all dimensions and time itself.
When this occurs, Chen becomes empowered, releasing a powerful energy that emits his want for power and knowledge. As Chen makes his wish, he is notably flooded with energy, and states he is becoming a god. The narration stated he has become Dante’s superior, and Chen claims he now has infinite knowledge. He uses this power for energy attacks and the knowledge to make weapons such as a true copy of the Sword of Sparda.
The argument here is to say Chen gained multiversal power via this process. The issue lies in the above having mistranslations.
Chen does not actually emit a want for power, he views knowledge as power. He even notes that strength is overrated. While he does become empowered after eating the statue, there is no provable quantification beyond becoming Dante's equal, and it’s never stated this power boost is drawn from alternate universes in the correct translation. Even if he did draw on the universes, there's a difference between drawing power from many universes and drawing the power "of'' those universes. There's just no way to quantify that or say it's equal to the energy to affect all those universes.
Summary
Nightmare is consistently stated to be able to destroy the Demon World, which is a universe.
Mundus either made a universe / sent Dante to another space in the Demon World, and his defeat destabilized and threatened to destroy the Demon World, including the alternate dimension of the Mirror World
Void Mundus is the center of all demonic energy of the Fused Demon-Human parallel universe, and Dante survives his detonation after killing him. His death is implied to erase the alternate universe.
Argosax in a sealed state having his energy leak via a ritual merges the Demon World with the Human World and affects space-time, connecting the past and future together. The eclipse might have some vague degree of connection.
Pluto is a theoretical entity that was seemingly canonized by Peak of Combat. There is some level of debate on how much this entity contributed to the original universe split, given Peak of Combat’s statement on the “First Light”
Chen wished for all knowledge in the multiverse, not the power of it
Kamiya
For the purposes of the blog, tweets from Kamiya aren't being used to scale Dante, and we will be sticking to that rule for all cases.
That said, it would be prudent to address two specific tweets. Kamiya was once asked if the Demon World collapsed from Mundus being defeated in DMC 1. In the tweet, he replied that it didn't collapse, which is contradicted by the game, the DMC 1 english game guide (which he also gave input on), the Japanese game guide “Precious Tears”, and the DMC 4 game guide years later. Kamiya himself has no more authority on the games and has even said in the past his word on twitter no longer applies as he no longer works on DMC. The DMC 4 guide statement came out well after Kamiya left the DMC staff, which shows consistency on the narrative intent of the other statements and the game itself.
If Kamiya’s tweet is taken to be valid, this would also make the second valid, the responses affirming that Mundus’s space was creation. Since all of these are twitter responses, neither will be used for the blog itself.
Ray of Light Argument
This one is kinda weird. An argument currently out there for DMC characters having “higher dimensional power” is that the Human World/Light is infinitesimal in comparison to the Demon World (argued as infinite for this specific argument), to the point of the Demon World being dimensionally transcendental to it (basically the Ginnungagap argument from Bayo 3).
Beyond the statement of the first light cutting the original universe in half, and the DW being infinite being open to interpretation, there lies a simpler issue with this. There is no statement for the size of the ray of light, and we know that 1) it was “large” enough to bisect the original universe, and 2) the light then became the HW, which is half of the original universe. From this, there is no reason to believe it is infinitesimal in size compared to the DW.
Higher Dimensional DMC
It is noted in Peak of Combat that there is a higher dimension from which souls originate from.
The Soul
It continues to hide mysteries that humans and demons don't understand, mysteries but every human has such. A basic nine-dimensional form, generally speaking, it originates from and returns to a higher dimension beyond the Eightfold Path. It not only contains the mind and memory, but also contains all the information of the body and its ancestors since ancient times.
“Dimension" in the sense of "geometric dimension" and "dimension" in the sense of "alternate world" are actually different words in chinese.
次元 means dimension in the way it's commonly used in fiction, while 維度 very specifically means spatial dimension.
灵魂
它继续隐藏着人类和恶魔都不了解的奥秘，但所有人都拥有这些奥秘。
一种基本的九维形式，一般来说，它起源于并返回到八正道之外的更高维度。
它不仅包含心灵和记忆，还包含自古以来本体及其祖先的所有信息。
The actual character used here refers to geometrical dimensions.
In Peak of Combat, we are told that the souls of all beings are both “nine dimensional forms” and that they originate from higher dimensions beyond the “eightfold path”. The eightfold path is a reference to a path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara.
“Eightfold Path”, according to Buddhism, is the key for a person to ascend from the state of dukha which is the cycle of life and death (Samsara) to a state of Nirvana. The Demon World has multiple realms known as Nirvana, which repeat in a cycle that is broken with items called samsara, allowing one to reach forbidden Nirvana. The mention of the eightfold path is very intentional here, as the Demon World with DMC3 (which Peak of Combat relies heavily on) is built upon buddhistic concepts. Specifically, the Nirvanas are actually “Hells” and the circle they represent is a metaphor for Samsara, going back to the Eightfold Path.
We are told that Demons originate from the Primordial Chaos that existed before creation was split, and that names are part of the souls and they precede the Demon World.
From the moment of their birth, names are one of the most sacred things to demons. They represent not only power, but also the concept of their own existence, the basic principles of which predate even the creation of the demon world itself.
It manifests itself as part of the soul that forms them, and their dark hearts.
Now the word used to refer to the primordial chaos itself '原始混沌 ' Yuánshǐ hùndùn which refers to the primordial chaos in chinese myth, the world before heaven and earth were separated.
This is similar to what the Demon World and the Human World are described as in the beginning of creation:
Now, the Demon World does have some statements of souls going there after death:
Despite this, it is stated that the Chaos itself is essentially gone/nearly gone:
Chaos Boundary Stone
The legendary material needed to forge Dante's weapons
Until the first light split the world in half, such stones were nowhere to be found. They are full of the power of the original chaos, but now they are becoming increasingly rare.
Regardless of if the Higher Dimension from where souls originate is the Chaos or Demon World, it’s debatable if many of the feats regarding the Demon World directly affect all spatial dimensions present in DMC, or if they’re only affecting the lower-dimensional portions. Nightmare’s feat, for example, seems to suggest “lifting” in the sense of 3D space, which could suggest it’s only lifting the 3D structure. However, 结构, the word used for structure, can also mean something like general composition, implying Nightmare is lifting the thing that fundamentally makes up the Demon World, which could include any possible higher dimensions.
The overall story of Peak of Combat never really touches upon the dimensional statement, with it being mainly given via the game’s many lore dumps via menu screen. Pluto’s argument of splitting the Chaos, as mentioned earlier, is incomplete due to the theoretical origin of it and potential conflicting information from Peak of Combat.
To close out, while the Dimensional Statement is not simply a one-off reference, the implementation of scaling for the information it provides is unclear in its objectivity, and different members have differing opinions on it. Views on it will be addressed in team verdicts.
What about Yamato’s Anti-Feats?
It has been argued in the past Yamato cannot negate Durability because it failed to cut the Kalina Ann. What needs to be kept in mind is this was back in DMC3, where its spatial cutting wasn't fully explored in lore. In 3, it is only said to “cut through anything” without much additional context. By DMC4, Yamato is stated to cut space-time, and be a “sniper of dimension/space, not material”. Its move descriptions describe it as a cutting through dimensions, and DMC5/Peak of Combat show this in action, likely inspired by reboot Vergil. When Dante uses the blade on the Savior in the DMC4, it flat out ignores the Savior’s durability by attacking the space it occupies.
It also needs to be kept in mind Vergil was both weakened at that moment in DMC3, and was not actively trying to kill Lady in that fight. On a closing note, Kalina Ann might have special properties.
Dante’s “Weaknesses”
While Dante does have weaknesses, a few are misunderstood or taken out of context, so this section will be used to explain some weaknesses that simply don’t exist.
Dante’s blunt-force durability versus his piercing damage durability. Simply put, it’s believed that due to scenes where he allows himself to be impaled, such as the intro of DMC3, gaining Alastor in DMC1, being impaled by Rebellion in 4 thanks to Nero, and the like that he simply can take punches but not blades. This is untrue. As stated by Dante himself, he makes a sport of taking attacks because they can’t do lasting damage and to essentially have fun. This is the same reason why he can take a strike from Urizen but be stabbed seven ways to sunday by fodder.
In regard to the supposed heart weakness, it is gone as early DMC1, as Dante confirms in the Japanese guide of that game that Trish impaled him through the heart, and that it cannot kill him. Additionally, back when Gilver made the comment about heart removal being enough to kill Dante, he was using a "rip-off Yamato" that was enchanted with the power of decay. Also, Vol.1 is the weakest variation of Dante, who barely took back his name and power, which means for all intents and purposes he can’t be used as an anti-feat because this is him barely starting to use his power.
The Haywire Neo Generator from DMC3 is used to say Dante doesn’t resist soul-based attacks, but the issue is most Demons can affect Souls, and he simply walks off their attacks, if it even incurs damage to begin with. However, we know for a fact the Temen-ni-gru held some of the smartest individuals, as it has texts that are more like concepts that can’t be explained in words alone, with intimate knowledge of the Demon World and its materials.
This same tower also held the Book of Demons, as well, so it’s vastly more likely that the Haywire Neo Generator is made of these same materials, especially considering it’s outright stated in Peak of Combat that this is how humans killed Demons in ancient times, which is the time period the Demonic Tower originates from. It is also the second weakest iteration of Dante (DMC3), and can’t be compared to his older self as he is only shortly after Vol.1, with little access to his power, a major plot point in the game as this he barely attains his basic Devil Trigger halfway through it.
Lastly, the only relevant “weakness” Dante is misconstrued to have is mind control, but this is a vast misinterpretation of what happens in Episode 9 of the Animated Series. He specifically explains he had to let himself fall under mind control to gain the luck to stay in the game, as it alters one’s luck to allow them to win games whilst it takes over their mind. This was a plot to reveal the Demon, and this directly contradicts the multiple times it’s emphasized Dante has great will or can use items that require immense willpower, or his scaling to Vergil, who resisted mind control for 9 years.
Verdicts
Note: In regard to Pluto, closing thoughts are the following. Given the retcon/narrative change about the context for Pluto's prophecy in the Mallet Island library, and the revised manga translations, Pluto likely did have some input to splitting the realms. The Peak of Combat statement regarding the first light throws a wrench in how much it can be claimed he was the sole party responsible. Furthermore, Peak of Combat itself has yet to add any further context besides canonizing Pluto. The barrier dividing the realms he is responsible for though is likely Universal or higher, but the actual split needs more context. As such, it's in limbo at the moment, but likely will be clarified in the future.
Some blog members are fine attributing the entire feat to Pluto. Consensus wise, both verdicts are taking a neutral approach as stated above.
Team Dante
Stats
Stats is definitely a big factor in determining this match up and both DMC and Bayonetta have gone through some revisions. Both Dante and Bayonetta have relatively impressive direct feats, however, the real high-tier feats come from scaling, specifically feats Universal and above.
Starting with Dante, he’s defeated Pluto, Nightmare, Argosax, Mundus, Void Mundus, and many more. Defeating Mundus is impressive, considering he can create an entirely new alternate universe in an instant. This feat has a bit of contention to it, due to the inherently vague nature, however additional clarification from secondary sources should make it usable. Specifically, the DMC1 art book states that when Mundus flaps his wings, the temple lost its existence, and the specific Japanese establishes that there was enveloping happening, meaning it’s unlikely it was traditional BFR, or anything of the sort. The realm is also called “Demon Emperor's Space”, and implies it came from his power. There’s more to this however, as the realm is also stated to be infinitely expanding, meaning an infinite-sized universe was made. This being literal would make sense, considering it’s also said to be a realm beyond human comprehension.
Mundus can also be argued to be sustaining the underworld. In DMC1, after Mundus is defeated, a collapse occurs which would’ve taken down both the Demon World and Mirror World (which is a realm that contains cosmological objects such as a moon, star, and is likely a mirror of the real world). As thus this argument is also Universal - Low Multiversal.
Lastly, Nightmare has a feat (or more specifically, a statement within Peak of Combat), that establishes him as capable of destroying the entire Underworld, with ease, as well as being able to lift it. The feats involving the demon world could be this strong due to the consistent statements establishing the realm as endless, infinite, or containing unending darkness. It should also be noted that the “edge” argued to be present in DMC3’s final level is actually nothing more than a portal to the Demon World, something Vergil verbatim says in that Mission. Thus he is falling from the “edge” of the Human World because the worlds are connected via this portal. As such, it’s likely the statements about the Demon World containing an endless darkness are consistent and literal, as opposed to being exaggerated.
For high-end arguments, there’s some pretty solid dimensional tiering basis for DMC. A description within Peak of Combat reveals that there’s a higher dimensional soul form (specifically nine-dimensional), that originates from beyond the Eightfold Path. The raw Japanese text even suggests it’s using literal geometric dimensions, as opposed to anything regarding alternate worlds or realms. The mention of the Eightfold Path is likely intentional and supported given the Demon World heavily borrows from Buddhism and concepts such as the samsara. The nine-dimensional statement could be referring to the souls returning to the Demon World, which would suggest that there exists nine spatial or geometric dimensions within the Demon World.
This could affect the feats mentioned in very big ways, such as Nightmare destroying or lifting the Demon World in its entirety or the Demon World collapsing in its entirety alongside the mirror realm. The issue however with this argument is that it’s not as concrete as the other tier placements for Dante. There isn’t any context on whether higher dimensions are actually being affected, other than the specification that the “entirety” of the Underworld is being affected by Nightmare. There is also some debate as to whether or not the dimensions are qualitatively superior to the prior, which DMC never elaborates much on. So while the argument does overall have a precedent, it’s not entirely reliable to label Dante as 9D or higher-dimensional based on the evidence that we currently have.
Dante therefore, ranges from Universal to Low Multiversal, with potential to be higher should the statements of the Demon World being infinite be taken literally.
For speed, Dante has causally dodged several different lasers, which can meet many of the qualifications for real lasers, reacted to Mundus’ energy attacks, who is capable of creating a universe within seconds, and scales above Pluto and the Rippers, who can cover every single inch of the underworld via raw speed alone, with Pluto even being fast enough to traverse and bypass the time stream with his speed, giving the illusion of instant teleportation. This would mean Dante ranges from FTL or MFTL+, to infinite/immeasurable speed at his best.
Bayonetta’s stats are a bit more clear-cut, she scales to Jubileus and Singularity via defeating them both. Jubileus can create an entire universe from scratch, while Singularity was going to destroy the entire multiverse, which holds infinite universes, and was also threatening Ginnungagap, the void above the cosmology/multiverse which is much larger than it in its entirety. It’s possible it could be argued to be a greater level of infinity, however, that’s about as much context as we’re given for the realm’s size. Similarly to higher-dimensional Dante, it doesn’t have the best foundation or evidence to form an argument around.
As such, Bayonetta is similar to Dante when talking about Universal levels of power, but likely gets higher than Dante due to her Multiversal+ scaling (aka an infinite level due to scaling to beings who can threaten infinite universes).
For speed feats, Bayo can fight Irenic, a car that has a very similar feat to the Rippers, in that it can cross all of Paradiso in a day, a feat that gets quadrillions to quintillions c but is more likely than not infinite speed, due to Paradiso’s infinite size. She can also run through time with her speed. This means she ranges from at least MFTL+ to infinite/immeasurable speed at her peak.
Strength-wise, Bayonetta has solid scaling to Multiversal+ threats, which Dante lacks, only getting Universal/Low Multiversal level, with his feats having an added layer of complexity should the Demon World be interpreted as being infinite/endless. However, if dimensional tiering is used for both, Dante gets higher than Bayonetta, as there’s no evidence to suggest Bayo can scale to a cosmology with nine dimensions, which would be the amount Dante scales to. This is using the absolute highest ends for both characters though, and should probably be opted out. It’s safer to say Bayonetta is stronger than Dante, due to the aforementioned issues with using dimensional tiering.
Speed-wise, the calc for the Ripper feat gets far higher than the calc for the Irenic feat (Unvigintillion c vs Quintillions c). However, both could be argued to simply be infinite speed due to Pluto’s time axis statement, and Paradiso being larger than an infinite structure. As such with finite ends, Dante is faster, but with infinite ends, they’re completely equal.
Summary
Dante and Bayonetta have solid Universal and Multiversal feats respectively. The realms that Dante’s opponents affect could be argued to be infinite in volume, but are open to scrutiny due to the nature of said statements, and he still lacks the Multiversal+ scaling that Bayonetta has. This makes Bayo stronger overall.
Dante is faster than Bayonetta when strictly looking at finite ends, but both of their infinite speed ends cancel out, making them more likely than not equal in speed.
Arsenal & Abilities
There is a lot to unpack with this one, but we will try to keep it condensed. Both have several abilities and resistances that counter each other.
That Damn Book
No surprise, the Book of Demons changes what was once a more simple match and flips it on its head. It can suck the souls of Demons that naturally resist their souls being targeted by the Beastheads. Demons are resistant to the Beasthead's assimilation process, which assimilates human mass and soul by deconstructing them into basic magical energy, and in the process they also transmute human matter and soul to stone. Despite this, no Demon can fight off the Book’s ability to rip out souls or even pieces of them, and create full pages off their data. Each page gives the Book all the abilities of the captured soul, which is a verse rule as old as the DMC anime. The book also arguably gives Dante the Demonic Energy of the Soul, which is at least implied by Lady.
Bayonetta’s demons have no resistance to the Book, existing only to be food for it. Likewise, Bayonetta being “rewritten to her core” to be more demonic by the Demon Masquerade opens her to the Soul rip, even a partial piece would make the book her Kryptonite. This leads to the question, can the book be destroyed?
It is true the Book does manifest to break seals, and is shown in an animation to suck out Minotaur’s soul from underneath it. However, this animation is only shown then for purposes of showing the viewer. Not once again does the Book manifest, even when it would be ideal for Pluto and Faye to destroy it (Pluto implies at one point he wants to take it, most likely to break more of Sparda’s seals). The Book successfully makes pages of both from mere Soul pieces (as both escape). Devil weapons like Pluto’s Spear are shown to simply manifest mid-combat in-game without the book showing up.
The Book is a Devil Arm, which are stated to be able to regenerate and use their resources to fix themselves (in this case the archived souls). The passage says there are two kinds of Devil Arms (see the "either" in the last sentence). Those two categories are "made out of Demon Souls" and "not". The Book is made of the soul of a powerful demon king and a priestess, which gave it a mind of its own. It is shown being able to act to defend its master, and to select out said master. Given we are told Devil Arms can restore themselves using their resources, the Book should be able to use Demon Souls to heal from damage, on the same level as a Demon or use its abilities to heal, like Mourning Banshee (more on that way down).
To address a few “anti-feats'' for Devil Arms not healing, Yamato is noted in the very passage above to be an exception to the rule (it needs a descendant of Sparda present to restore itself), which should also apply to Rebellion, given they both come from Sparda. As for Cerberus being destroyed by Balrog, it was from contending with a Yamato shard, and as noted by the text Cerberus felt its job was done, it had no need to return. The Book of Demons is far more complex in design and function than Cerberus, and has healing abilities archived within itself. Any damage Bayonetta does to it will very likely be repaired.
Names and Souls
Let's start with the big one. Names in DMC are fundamental aspects of Demons:
From the moment of their birth, names are one of the most sacred things to demons. They represent not only power, but also the concept of their own existence, the basic principles of which predate even the creation of the demon world itself. It manifests itself as part of the soul that forms them, and their dark hearts.
However this also applies to humans, as the primordial chaos formed the Souls of Demons and humans. The description for Souls specifically notes that it applies to all people, humans and Demons alike
它继续隐藏着人类和恶魔都不了解的奥秘，但所有人都拥有这些奥秘
It continues to hide mysteries that neither humans nor Demons understand, but that all people possess
Names themselves are abstract, manipulating Names for either would be “conceptual”. Hybrids like Dante and Vergil (who are also part human) have had their Names removed (Dante to himself, Mundus to Vergil), which in turn has affected them.
We also know the Fallen Priest "erases" every aspect of the being, including their soul, so it would be erasing their concepts as well (see next section). In DMC, we know Souls have shapes via the Soul statement:
Names have no shapes and are stated to be non-corporeal, so if they are the most fundamental aspect of the being and there's nothing more fundamental, then affecting them would just be conceptual manipulation. This would apply outside of verse as affecting someone's concept or abstract essence. Removing a Name power nulls the target, decking them drastically in power and can even cause them to lose form to an extent (Sparda removing the Sin’s names, Vergil coming back in a near-dead state due to Mundus tampering with his name).
With that out of the way, the Book of Demons takes Demon Souls and Names. It would basically nullify all of Bayo’s demons, and her when she merges with them via Demon Masquerade. Furthermore, Dante can affect Names in general, so he could affect Bayonetta. While he hasn't used this ability in a long time, it isn't out of the ordinary given the power difference and his sensing abilities, which can discern someone's power. The gap would push Dante to use more esoteric abilities, and the Book itself can target humans and Demons with Fallen Priest (and can do so without Dante’s inputs, as it has a desire to protect its chosen user). Overall Bayonetta cannot resist this ability, as she has not been shown to resist conceptual abilities.
One final note, the Left Eye of the World by itself likely cannot create concepts. The Eyes together with Loki’s sovereign power can, which gives control over the eyes, as Aesir did in the past. Bayonetta does not seem to have access to any of the benefits of having both eyes. Even if she could make concepts, it would be far different than restoring a removed concept. She would have to do that after her concept is altered already, which would drastically weaken or kill her.
Existence Erasure and Spatial Cutting
The Fallen Priest gives Dante energy-based EE (see Book abilities) that erases a being on a more fundamental level than Bayo has shown to resist. Her main counter to this is the Pulley Accessory (switches the target of attacks from Bayo to a limited number of Butterflies), which has a limited use before it has to be replaced. The Climax Brace would not remove the need to restock the Pulley, and multiple Butterflies can be targeted at once to lessen its defense. The Fallen Priest’s energy attacks can be shot out in multiple directions at once and it can teleport. The existence erasure is also worded in a way that does suggest its an actual ability, with a sense of immediacy.
It uses the exact word for "erasure", says again that it will reduce it to "nothingness" which re-affirms it, and specifies that it includes all aspects of the target, including non-physical stuff like Souls and (in this case) Names, which don't really have a durability.
Moreso, Dante can simply bypass the Butterflies all together with the spatial cutting abilities of the Pluto’s Spear or the Yamato Shard, which has the same durability-negating abilities as the full blade. There is an argument that Balrog (a Demon who gets another shard in the DMC5 novel) using it for close-range combat means the shard’s range is limited. This isn't true in the slightest, as Balrog did not know how to use the shard functions besides powering himself up and is mainly a brawler. Dante is noted to have mastered Yamato within the few minutes he had it in DMC4, and still owns one of its shards, which he used to cut himself out of the Demon World.
Yamato can negate durability by attacking the targets’ “dimension/space”, rather than its actual body/material. Cutting space would cut through everything occupying the space, altering the space in their body to be split aka durability doesn't really apply (which is exactly how Yamato is described as working on the Savior). Since the shard can be used at long distance, Bayo wouldn’t get much of a chance to break it, and Dante has a back up:
Pluto’s spear can divide space all the way to the Demon World, bypassing the dimensional barrier separating it from the Human World, which puts it on the same level as Yamato. The Spear also can be summoned mid combat without the book. It instantly teleports away after an attack and thousands can be created at once for an attack. In case Bayonetta tries to destroy it, it can simply dodge and return to its wielder or teleport. Bayo being able to affect it with Witch Time is debatable, as it controls space and time and its temporal effects outright bypass Dante’s layered time resistance. At worst she would destroy some of its spawned copies, but even one attack from a spear would bypass her defenses.
Bayonetta has no resistance to either ability. The Priest's EE is described to erase down to the most fundamental aspect, which in this context would be their conceptual/abstract essence, which is far more potent than the EE clouds Bayonetta has survived. It will eventually overwhelm her Butterfly substitutes and hit her directly before new ones can manifest. Even then, Dante can spatially bypass them. Yamato and Pluto can bypass the defenses of the Pulley, and outright wound her despite her durability advantage. The only argument Bayonetta has for surviving Yamato is her regen (see next section) and possibly being able to deflect Valiance’s blade, which seems to cut space. This same cut however seems to leave debris as a normal cut would, and if Bayonetta herself is hit by it she dies in the QTE (Bayonetta 2 has several non-fatal QTEs, this is meant to be a fatal one).
Bayonetta simply falls short against these abilities, with her best option being evasion. Given all the abilities have a long range, it's only a matter of time before she gets tagged. What about Witch Time? We will get there soon.
Time Hax
Here is a rather tricky one to decide. Bayonetta has a few stacks of Witch Time, an additional from Umbran Clock Tower, and a few modifiers to make activation faster and last longer. It also doubles as a boost to her reflexes and reaction time. Affecting Aesir is impressive, but he only has a baseline resistance that is shown in game.
Dante has Quicksilver, which also increases reflex alongside slowing time. More notably, the way it slows time is by sending out a dimensional rift, similar to the Realm Shift Kratos has in GOW Ragnarok. QS and every other temporal ability Dante has can slow down Demons, who resist the Demon World’s temporal effects, which cause temporal paradoxes and lock the hands of time, creating infinite loops. His Bangle is a complete time stop, not just a slow down. The Chronoheart can be used alongside other abilities, as can Quicksilver since it is a style. Pluto’s spear controls space and time, and can slow down Dante, who resists Geryon’s time slow (which is literally Quicksilver). He also scales to Vergil, who has shown the ability to adapt and evolve to being able to move in the Bangle’s time stop (supported by guides noting Vergil was evolving each fight). Dante is also to resist Urizen’s temporal abilities, being able to move in it.
While Dante has not been shown to stack his abilities (mainly because he got them from different points in timeline), it should be possible for the equipment composite he's getting here. Bayonetta also does not typically open with full stacks, having been caught more than once in Balder’s “Light Speed”. Dante would at least resist her initial stack, even if its activation has been extended. The Book of Demons makes the Umbran Clock Tower unreliable (Dante would just gain its temporal abilities). Likewise if Bayonetta makes the mistake of fusing with her demons, the Book would just take her abilities in general, as she becomes open to its functions.
Dante has sufficient resistance to deal with a good deal of WT stacks, The Book prevents the additional Tower stack from coming into play, and Bayonetta does not open with a full stack right off the bat. Dante also scales to Vergil who can move in an actual time stop, not just a time slow.
One important thing to mention is that the speed boost given by WT is never specified. In contrast, Quick Heart multiplies Dante’s speed by 10 times, and he gets an additional large speed boost from activating Devil Trigger. Since both start at equal speed, Dante is getting a chance to increase his speed right off the bat to match WT by resisting its initial stacks, and Quicksilver further equals this out by further boosting his speed. Dante’s resistances, speed boost options, and the Book of Demons ultimately allows Dante to fight off Witch Time.
Banshee
This one is pretty quick. Both sides agree Bayonetta has no way to break the Banshee’s link with her, which gives Dante indefinite revives so long as Bayonetta remains in existence or her the link is severed. It should be noted that Banshee revives with stamina restored. Banshee is shown to return after Dante kills it the first time, reappearing about 1 minute after death, with its health restored. As stated by Vergil, having health restored means your stamina has been restored:
Bayonetta’s only option to stop these revives is to destroy the book, which as mentioned earlier is not viable.
Regeneration and Stamina
Bayo can regenerate from her soul. Without an Umbran Heart, this regen only lasts for a while, as shown with Jeanne and all the alternative Bayos dissipating. The destruction of said “Heart” would lead to the regen being impaired. Dante can already negate potent demonic regen to a decent extent, leaving wounds that refuse to heal even years later.
Bayonetta can negate an Angel's ability to heal from their body being broken apart, but it is child's play for the full potency of Dante’s healing prowess. As shown by Nero, Hybrids can heal from the melting down of the body and soul, and mid tier demons can heal from their very concept. Nero healing himself did not lower his stamina, rather he had enough power to fight through a boss rush in the Savior before fighting Sanctus, this done without any rest.
Dante himself had a long fight with Urizen before he tired out, which potentially lasted hours given Nero’s arrival time. The DMC5 novel stated Dante started this fight going all out, in Devil Trigger. While Dante does tire out fighting equals or stronger foes, his ability to keep his stamina up has improved over the years. Dante and Vergil fought for nearly 20 minutes before Nero interrupted, with notable drops for Dante only happening after the fight concluded.
In regards to the Mallet Island argument, Dante was indeed weakened by his fight with Mundus, this is true. However, he has improved since then. Mundus is also the same entity who can perma-kill his Demonic generals, despite their regen. Hybrid Regen still works when they are tired, like Vergil healing being split in half despite a long fight with Dante. Lastly, Banshee will take care of any stamina drops for Dante from any damage Bayonetta inflicts.
Precog
While Bayo can likely block out Dante’s precog, he can still sense her. She is also not shown to have the Left Eye’s ability to see time, this being only an ability shown by Aesir.
Sealing
Keeping this simple, while Demons can break Singularity’s seals, they do not power null the target like Dante/Sparda’s seals. Bayo’s demons have not been shown to negate power null of this kind, and even the Jeanne resistance isn't full immunity, as her ability to summon was impaired by Singularity’s anti-magic.
Bayo breaking angel/demon seals also doesn’t equate to this, as those are just obstructions to prevent her from moving forward. DMC has a similar type of barrier that breaks when Dante or others kill all demons on stage. Bayo can try to break it via power, but doing so would greatly weaken her, besides the power null.
Demon Army
Besides the Book, Dante can summon his own Demonic swarm to distract and hold off Bayo’s demons. Dante can bring back dead demons via Necromancy from Pluto, summon Demons with the Fallen Priest, and can use the powers of Nevan and Phantom for tiny electro bats and fire spiders. Bayo can fight off Faye’s control of her own demons, but still has to deal with Demons the Book itself could summon or bring back to life against her.
BFR
Dante can escape any BFR attempt Bayo with the Yamato Shard and Pluto’s spear. The Book could also gain the power of any Demon in Inferno if Dante is sent there, in order to escape. The Perfect Amulet is also said to give the ability to travel between the world of men and hell.
Weapons
Quick comparison to close out. Dante can resist Bayo’s molecular breakdown from Bazillions via his shown resistance to the similar effect from the Beastheads, and resist her energy drain via showings against the Fault in DMC4. Her attempts to harm his soul or rip it out will prove fruitless, he can resist her absolute zero, can resist her poisons and curses, and can sense and tag her in Purgatorio.
Likewise, she resists nearly all his weapons, though his heat-based weaponry might be above her pay grade. Ifrit can melt Frosts, who are below Absolute Zero (if that even makes any sense), which is above any shown heat resistance in Bayonetta. Likewise, the Book of Demons gives access to Frosts, who deal with better “cold manipulation” than angels or demons in Bayo. One thing Bayo has going for her is angelic weapons given by Rodin, which can harm most demons the book could summon. These would not work on Dante himself, as he resists holy weapons like Alans Tear. He also would be unaffected by Rodin’s despair hax or Queen Butterfly’s madness.
Summary
It is very unlikely Bayonetta can permanently destroy the Book of Demons, or fully deal with Dante’s sealing. She is vulnerable to having the Name ability used on her by the Book, and her fusions makes this worse. The Book keeps her demons at bay, and Dante resists practically all her weaponry. She cannot kill him given his regeneration and stamina recovery from Banshee, and the Book can kill her indefinitely with Fallen Priest. Bayo’s best bet is pushing Witch Time to its full potential, but Dante has the necessary amount of resistance to fight it. The Book prevents Bayo from adding the Clock, and if she did bring it out, Dante would defeat WT entirely by absorbing its Soul.
Dante has just the right tools to make the Umbran Witch cry (Do witches cry?)
Tertiary Factors
While the main deciding factors may lie in the stats and abilities departments, there's no denying that neither of these two would've made it as far as they have without their skills and the experience they've accrued along the way. In terms of training, Bayonetta has 20 or so years of emulating what was taught by Umbran Witches despite never being formally trained herself, and Dante is mostly self-taught, taking what he learned from his father and mixing it with the things he'd learn over the years. When it comes to experience, both have a rough 40 or so years of active combat under their belts, but Dante has done a lot more in that time than Cereza has.
Though she awoke 20 years before the events of the first game, the majority of that time was spent on the run without a proper understanding of who she was due to her amnesia. And the time between the start of the first game to the end of Bayonetta 3 isn't nearly as long as the time Dante's adventures have spanned across. Hell, Bayonetta 2 takes place within the span of 24 hours, and not that it isn't impressive, but Dante has simply done a lot more.
From being on the run at 8 years old in the DMC3 manga, to toppling the Temen-ni-gru at 19, and the many adventures within Peak of Combat during the gap between DMC3 and 1, we're shown Dante's improvement over the years. Like with him slaying Mundus and surpassing his father entirely during the events of DMC1 at 28, slaying Abigail during the DMC anime at 29, as well as Argosax in his early 30's during DMC2 and taking on the Order of the Sword, his own nephew, and the Saviour at 38. Even during his mid forties in DMC5, Dante fought foes like Urizen and Vergil, dueling with the latter for 40 days straight while in hell. Bayonetta's fights against Jeanne, Balder, Aesir and Singularity are absolutely impressive, but are ultimately less notable when compared to Dante's wider list of foes across the years.
Both command a vast array of weaponry, and are able to master each one within moments of obtaining them, so it's reasonable to say they'd counter each other in this regard, but overall combat skill is a factor we can definitively lock down. And the edge would go to Dante. Bayonetta has faced foes who are hundreds of years old, but demons like Mundus and Argosax have lived for millennia, and Dante has frequently defeated foes like the Black Knights, who were made from his, Vergil's and Sparda's combat data, as well as Sparda's personally trained disciples.
Furthermore, even while crippled, Dante was able to defeat Chen with the Beastheads, who had absorbed all knowledge from countless timelines in the past, present and future, and was actively using it in combat against him alongside his precognition. Not to mention that Chen's foresight capacity surpasses the Conundrum, who can see into the past, the present, countless futures that were considered impossible and even all dimensions across the entirety of time, as well as the destiny of anyone in the Demon World, Human World, and beyond. This doesn't work on Demon Kings or those on the same level, like Pluto, Mundus, Sparda and Dante, but Chen’s version was able to, and Dante still emerged victorious.
While Bayonetta's fight against Singularity, who was given all the data of the multiverse and the memories of the Bayonettas within, could even this out, Dante's more consistent track record against far older and more experienced warlords, as well as Chen actively using this knowledge in combat against Dante is ultimately more impressive.
Although not frequently shown as much as their sheer physical might, both Dante and Bayonetta are extremely intelligent people, and especially so in terms of combat. It is precisely because they understand their limits that their playful sides in battle shine through, and when the situation calls for them to be serious, they absolutely can and will be. Though Dante has shown to be comparatively more cocky and laidback in battle, it's because the fodder enemies he faces pose so little of a challenge that he purposefully toys with them, while Bayonetta is a bit more direct and doesn't care as much for the fun that battle can bring.
When the stakes are high and their lives are on the line, they'll be willing to use any and all options to achieve victory, so the argument that Dante wouldn't use some of his more potent abilities due to his attitude doesn't hold weight given his seriousness against foes like Mundus, Argosax and Urizen. While Bayonetta may be more likely to start digging into her more powerful abilities sooner, Dante is more than capable of surviving through almost anything she can dish out, and would stop holding back once the seriousness of the battle was made apparent.
In conclusion, whilst both Dante and Bayonetta are supremely skilled combatants with decades worth of experience hunting all kinds of supernatural demons and monsters, the youngest Son of Sparta ultimately has more to work with. He's frequently faced foes with far more experience than himself and the opponents Bayonetta has gone up against, and was able to defeat someone who wielded knowledge across all of time from beginning to end and the countless possible timelines that exist, and possessed precognitive abilities that let him predict Dante's moves, despite normally being exempt from this, all while the red-coated demon hunter was crippled.
There's likewise no reason to believe that either's playful and cocky nature would hamper them in a fight like this, as they've shown plenty of times their focus and seriousness during battle, but even if Bayonetta were to start using some of her more powerful abilities first, it's nothing Dante can't survive and hit back against just as hard. Although an extremely close comparison between the two, Dante just has more overall advantages to work with that will see him through to victory.
Conclusion
"It's not about loss... Strength is a choice. Fighting like hell to protect what's important."
Advantages:
Book of Demons locks Bayo’s summons out of the fight/can take their souls, and restore itself from damage
Yamato Shard and Abyssal Spear can wound Bayo despite her durability advantage
Fallen Priest can one shot Bayonetta
Banshee makes it impossible for Bayonetta to kill Dante
Name hax can power null Bayonetta and her demons, which the Book will opt to do
Bayo does not fully resist Dante’s sealing options
Resists several Witch Time stacks and fight equally with it
Can counter Bayonetta’s BFR
Heat based weapons surpass Bayo’s resistance
= Hot
Is a Pizza Lover (based)
Disadvantages:
Weaker and less durable
Likely does not resist all WT stacks + Umbran Clock Tower
Loses the edge if the book is somehow removed
Was merely a Mii Costume
Sells his Devil Arms because he is poor (can't even afford good plumbing… bruh)
So now, here we are, and while there is a lot to cover, Dante should ultimately come out with a win more times than not. Firstly, yes, Dante is likely weaker than Bayonetta and requires scaling to higher dimensions in order to surpass her. He can also be quite cocky in combat, meaning Bayonetta may be able to take advantage of this at first, but wouldn’t be able to capitalize on this in a meaningful way before Dante can retaliate with his own lethal abilities. And this is where Dante starts turning the tables on the Umbra Witch. In terms of speed, both are at infinite/immeasurable, with Dante scaling to Demon Kings like Pluto and Argosax, and with Bayonetta scaling to foes like Aesir with Climax Tag. With speed being even, both will have plenty of opportunities to enact their best moves on the other, such as Dante bypassing Bayonetta’s durability and regeneration, sealing her, or power nulling her via changing her and her demons’ names, which she has no means to counteract.
The Book of Demons gives Dante a lot to pull from and limits many of Bayonetta’s options. The Book can keep her demons at bay due to them not having any resistance to it, and Dante can use his own Demon summons to match. There is also the fact that Witch Time isn’t as helpful as you’d think, given that Dante can resist several of its stacks and Bayonetta doesn’t start off a fight with every stack possible. The Book also removes the Umbran Clock Tower from the equation, and can put Bayonetta down for good via its existence erasure, which erases foes at a conceptual level. Sure, Bayonetta has some resistance to existence erasure in general, but the Book’s variation is on a whole different level. If Bayonetta tries to dodge it, she’s going to have a very hard time doing so with its massive range and teleportation options, alongside Yamato and Pluto’s spear keeping her on her toes.
Though what if Bayonetta targets the book? Well, that’s not reliable given that the book can regenerate with the souls it has, making any effort Bayo puts into that in vain. Dante also has options against Bayonetta’s wincons. BFR? The Yamato Shard and the Book of Demons can get Dante out of Inferno and right back in the fight, either by cutting a portal or the Book gaining the powers of a Demon there. Dante running out of stamina? The Banshee can help in that department with reviving Dante's health and stamina, with Bayonetta not having a way to break the link. Dante also resists most, if not all of Bayonetta’s weaponry, though the same can’t be entirely said for Cereza. She would have difficulty with his heat-based weaponry, and spatial weapons, just to name a few.
There’s a lot to consider with this fight, and plenty of directions it could go, but when it comes to a definitive winner, Dante just has the more consistent and superior means to put Bayonetta down for good. No matter witch way you look at it, it’s the devil in the details which puts the Son of Sparda on top.
Team Bayonetta
Stats
Focusing on direct feats for now, both Dante and Bayonetta are packing impressive physicality. For speed, Dante can destroy hundreds of thousands of raindrops alongside his brother Vergil in less than a second, clocking in to about over 1000 times the speed of sound for each, and on the high end can travel interstellar distances in his battle with Mundus, a feat worth many times the speed of light. Bayonetta herself, with Queen Sheba, can punch Jubileus to the sun in a short timeframe, similarly in the massively faster than light speeds. As for raw strength. Bayonetta herself is capable of throwing large satellites with just her damn legs, and Dante can block punches from the skyscraper sized Savior, which hits harder than any weapon on the planet.
While all these feats are impressive, their max potential lies in scaling and the cosmology of their verses. Dante/DMC is up first.
The Demon World is established in lore to have been half of the original universe, alongside the Human World, before it was split apart, meaning it’s size is at least half of the universe. However, it is currently shown to be comparable in size to the Human World, which is really just portrayed as the observable universe, meaning it’s more than likely the Demon World is just outright universe-sized.
This is noteworthy as Dante defeats Nightmare in DMC2, who is stated to be capable of destroying the Demon World’s very existence, alongside being capable of lifting it’s structure, both fairly cut and dry statements. Similarly, Dante ends up beating Mundus in the first game, whose defeat was collapsing both the Demon World and the Mirror World, a parallel universe. All three feats/statements are pretty solid, and additional support in the form of Argosax and Void Mundus make Dante solidly in the Universal - Low Multiversal range.
To address some stuff, while there are statements of the Demon World being infinite in size, a lot of these statements aren’t reliable. Endless/unending when referring to a location (or in general really) is usually a figure of speech that just means that it's seemingly without end, as in it extends too far to see the limit (i.e. the endless sea, the day felt endless). Extrapolating a much bigger size for the Demon World based on such vague/flowery language is very dubious.
Similarly, while the terminology used for the Soul statement mentions geometric dimensions in regard to "9D”, Peak of Combat never goes to any length to explain how these dimensions work, nor are they ever shown or stated to be qualitatively superior to the prior. Further context is needed for this.
Speed wise, Dante fights Ripper, who is capable of traversing every inch of the Demon World in less than a day (worth over 60 goddamn zeros), and more impressively, defeats Pluto, who can bypass the time axis through raw speed, which would qualify for infinite speed. Pretty simple.
With these insane cosmic stats, you might ask how Bayonetta can stack up. The answer is simple: very well.
In Bayonetta 1, Cereza was capable of defeating Jubileus, who, even while weakened, planned to override the Trinity of Realities. Bayonetta herself has gotten much stronger since then, and in Bayonetta 3, fought and defeated Singularity, who threatened to destabilize the entire cosmology, including Ginnungagap. How impressive are these? Well, a brief explanation on Bayonetta’s cosmology would be needed
One of Bayonetta’s main settings is the World of Chaos/Human World, which is basically a large macrocosm, housing at least thousands of parallel universes/worlds, but more than likely an infinite amount considering statements from Bayonetta 2 and checking the original Japanese raw from Bayonetta 3. Alongside this is Paradiso, a realm stated to be thousands of times bigger than an already large multiverse, and its counterpart, Inferno, should be similarly big. These three realms make up the Trinity of Realities, which is then housed below Ginnungagap, a realm who’s size compared to the Trinity is like that of the universe compared to Earth. Bayonetta is strong enough to battle villains capable of affecting a large majority, if not the entirety of this vast cosmology, putting her at Multiversal, but more than likely Multiversal+.
As far as speed goes, Bayonetta can keep up with the car Irenic, which can cross all of Paradiso in a single day. Given Paradiso is stated to be thousands of times larger than the World of Chaos, this clocks in at around quadrillions to quintillions of times faster than light. However, given the World of Chaos more than likely houses infinite realities via other statements, Paradiso being bigger than it would likewise put its size at infinite, and thus Irenic’s highest (and more likely) end being infinite speed.
Comparing the two, speed is rather interesting. While Ripper’s quantifiable feats far outclass Irenic’s (over 2 Quattuordecillion times specifically), Pluto bypassing the time axis and Irenic’s high-end speed are fairly solid. Given Dante and Bayonetta respectively can react to both, this means they scale to beings capable of reaching speeds beyond numbers, and have gotten stronger since then. While one can argue how much they currently upscale from said feats and who has the greater scaling chain, it’s likely both are going to be relative in this field.
However, the strength and durability comparison is anything but similar. Comparing their cosmic scaling, Bayonetta at minimum is thousands of times stronger than Dante using the minimum size of the Trinity of Realities, and is likely stronger to an infinite degree that Dante can’t hope to keep up with. While the overall scope of DMC’s cosmology may be grander due to housing 9 spatial dimensions, Dante scaling to that is rather dubious and unfounded. Bayonetta comfortably scales to the entirety of her own cosmology, which is above what Dante can reliably be comparable to as far as his own cosmology is concerned.
Ultimately, in a raw stat contest, while the demon hunter may have the speed to keep up, he ultimately comes short in raw power and durability when put up against the Umbran Witch, with any arguments for matching or surpassing her not holding much water.
Arsenal & Abilities
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It would be an understatement to say this part is complicated. How hax stacks for both goes back and forth. What once was a far more simple comparison has evolved with the introduction of Bayonetta 3’s demonic overhauling, and DMC’s introduction of the Book of Demons. Below will be a breakdown to the best of our ability.
Bayonetta and Demons VS Book of Demons
The Book’s effects of taking demon souls is an issue regarding Bayonetta’s demons. Demonic souls in DMC are more “complex” than how souls are defined in Bayonetta. The book can take pieces of souls mid-combat, and make pages for ability use. Bayonetta using her demons for a numbers advantage would be a boon for Dante. Can she counter this?
Surprisingly, the book seems to physically manifest itself to use its primary functions (soul removal) and breaking seals. The Book brings out spectral hands to consume souls, and Dante has to hold the Book to break seals. This opens the opportunity for Bayonetta to target and destroy the book. The moment Bayo notices the book soul-stealing one of her Demons, she would know the threat it poses. The Book also specifically only targets Demon souls, leaving Bayo herself unaffected by it. Dante fought a human named Frank in Peak of Combat, while having the Book, yet the Book has no page for him. Every statement for the Book specifies it only targets Demon Souls, as such all Bayonetta needs to do is limit her summoning of them until she destroys the book.
The Book also has statements that can potentially imply that it could give Dante the level of power of the Demon soul it acquires. This is never actually shown in-game, and as shown in the stats section above, Bayonetta (and her Demons) are far too high in power to justify such a jump. It would be more energy than Dante has ever experienced in his entire life, and borders on a no-limits fallacy to imply the Book can do this.
As for the Book’s possible regeneration, it is never fully explored in the series. We are told some Devil Arms can regenerate/use their materials to restore themselves, but the Book itself is never stated to be one of these. We also do not know if the regeneration it would have is 1-to-1 with Dante. As an example of possible limits, Cerberus (as a Devil Arm) was destroyed in Before the Nightmare (DMC5 novel) and never regenerated. It is also never shown if the Book can use its own abilities on itself to restore itself.
The Book is limited in that several of its functions are open to interpretation and not set in stone. Bayonetta has the intelligence and power to destroy it and can prevent it from feeding off her demons by not summoning them.
Bayonetta VS Banshee
Dante has a rather resourceful ability from a demon called Mourning Banshee. This allows him to place a link of sorts between himself and Bayonetta, one she cannot sever. This link will revive Dante roughly 1 minute after he is killed, without a known limit, so long as the link is kept in place. While Bayonetta cannot sever the actual link, she can counter by destroying the Book as mentioned in the prior section. The loss of the Book would also mean the loss of the Banshee page and its resurrection ability.
Another factor is it is unknown if Banshee restores Dante’s stamina (more on this later) when it brings him back. It is shown to at least restore health, but we have no evidence for it restoring Magic/Demonic Energy. The book being open to interpretation will be an occurring theme as we go forward.
Dante’s Existence Erasure vs Bayo’s Resistance
Bayonetta has potent resistance to being erased, having survived exposure to both Singularity’s erasure clouds and surviving the erasure of an entire universe. Why is this relevant? Dante arguably has a rather broken type of erasure from the Fallen Priest, which erases the target down to their most important aspects, soul included (wtf did they do to a series about pizzas and demons).
However, Fallen Priest never shows this ability in the game, not once. We do not know how it actually functions or is applied. At most we know the Priest’s entire moveset uses red energy, including summoning other Demons. The way the erasure is worded can also be read to mean it's attacking the target, like an attack to destroy them. To be fair, the actual symbol used for the Priest means to erase or wipe away. Outside of debating the semantics of the statement, Bayonetta should partially be resistant to its effects given her resistance shown above. While “aspects” may refer to names (more on this soon) and/or the soul, the method it is applied is most likely energy based given the Priest’s moveset.
Bayonetta can counter energy-based attacks with Pulley’s Butterfly, which switches the target from Bayo to five butterflies. Combined with the Climax Brace, this gives Bayo several escapes from the EE, and time to disable the Book it originates from.
Regeneration and Stamina
Dante’s main method of overcoming the AP gap is his broken regeneration, which can restore a hybrid like him from the loss of body and soul, as shown by Nero and Vergil. Bayo’s showings of negating angel healing does not stack up to regeneration this potent. That said, there is evidence Dante only has a limited number of these full restores.
DMC1 shows that the collapse of the Demon World would be fatal to Dante despite his regen, who was weakened from his fight with Mundus. When Dante or other hybrids have extended fights with someone equal (Dante vs Vergil) or someone stronger (Urizen), their stamina can take a toll, which drops all their stats until they regain it over time. Dante also notes in the DMC4 novel that he would rather avoid being turned to ash, which further reinforces the idea that regening from such a thing would drain a lot of energy/stamina. Given the massive power gap, Bayonetta would splatter Dante with each attack, which would eventually lead to him being too tired to heal immediately and lock in a win for Bayo.
As for Bayo herself, she can heal from full body destruction so long as her soul remains, and her soul will remain so long as it has a Umbran Heart. Dante’s regen negation isn’t fully explored in how it would affect the Umbran Heart, but the bigger issue is he lacks the AP to even physically harm Bayo in the first place.
Time Hax Clash
One of the big ones. Who has the better temporal abilities?
Bayonetta: Bayo has Witch Time, which increases her reflexes and also slows time. She can stack the ability a few times, and extend its duration with the Earring of Time and Selene’s Light. Furthermore, the Bracelet of Time allows her to activate WT without any build up and the Umbran Clock Tower gives another time slow on top of this. At its full potency, WT can even work on Aesir, the god of chaos who controls time and space.
Likewise, Bayonetta can resist the effects of WT from other users like Jeanne, and move in stacked Witch Time. She can also move in Aesir’s time slow/stop.
Dante: Dante has four different options of temporal hax. He has Quicksilver/QS which is a time slow, the Chronoheart which is the same thing, and the Bangle of Time which is a proper time stop. The Book of Demons also grants him Pluto’s Abyssal Spear, which controls space and time and can slow down in a localized field. Dante’s Chronoheart (technically all his temporal options) are shown to work on demons who can move through the Demon World’s temporal distortions with no issue, which may make them more potent than regular time hax.
Dante can move in Geryon’s time slow (which is the same as his Quicksilver) and can partially move in Urizen’s time slow as well. He is shown to be affected by Pluto's spear, though this may just speak to its potency.
Comparison: This one is a bit of a toss-up, but does have an answer. Bayonetta can resist time hax on par with Dante’s, even from Aesir whose power is described as transcending space and time and can connect multiple points in time together. Dante can resist several layers of Witch Time, but falls flat from being free of them all. The extensions and semi automatic nature of WT (via Bracelet) means it will outpace Dante’s potential attempt at stacking his own options. More importantly, Bayonetta’s entire fighting style is formed around abundant stacking and usage of WT. Dante has a single style based around temporal control, and is not shown to stack his options. Overall, Bayo’s time hax barely edges out.
Names
DMC has an in-verse mechanic of Demons having a Name, which is a conceptual/fundamental part of what defines them. While Bayonetta as a verse does not have this, verse equalization prompts a discussion regarding it for Bayo and her demons. It should be noted that Dante affecting Names in this manner is out of character, having only done once in his life to himself under Rebellion’s mental suggestion. The Book and Fallen Priest involve affecting Names though, so how does Bayo fare?
Bayonetta 2 features a demon called Malicious, which is noted to steal Names from beings. Bayonetta can fight this demon and retains her name. To be fair, “names” in Bayonetta are not explored and do not have the same fundamental nature as they do in DMC. What does, however, is Bayonetta’s Left Eye of the World, which can make concepts from nothing. While Bayo using the Eye in this manner is out of character, so is the possibility of Dante removing Names.
Perhaps the biggest question is should this even apply cross-verse wise? Peak of Combat makes heavy note of Demons being the ones with Names as a fundamental part of their being. Humans are never brought up in this context, at most having a statement that human and Demon souls are both complex. However it is the profiles related to Demons that specifies they have names as part of that soul, not humanity. As such, it's questionable if this would even work on Bayo, who is a human. At worst Bayonetta would only be affected when using Demon Masquerade, which makes her far more of a demon. However she does not need to use this to beat Dante, as will be discussed below.
Dante’s Fear Aura VS Bayonetta’s Resistance
This one does not need that much coverage. When sufficiently enraged (usually related to family or the loss of a loved one), Dante will release an aura which induces fear into humans or demons he fights. This is potent enough to bypass Demons’ inability to feel fear. Dante has only had this occur three times in lifetime (Death of Niel Goldstein, Chen mocking his family and father, and V bringing up Vergil who Dante thought was dead at the time). As such, it's quite unlikely Dante would trigger this aura when fighting Bayo, as she has no knowledge of Dante or connection to his family. Furthermore, she can resist similar effects from the Fury, Loptr, and Rodin.
Soul Hax Comparison
Dante has several weapons from Peak of Combat and even just direct showings of being able to affect the soul. Bayonetta has shown that she can resist soul rips from Resentment and Alraune, and will generally resist so long as she has energy left. She also scales to characters who can resist attacks on their souls from weapons like Shuraba and Chernobog. While Jeanne has her soul removed by Gomorrah, this was a surprise attack and oddly she seemed to lack a Umbran Heart, which she was later given.
Demon Control and Mind Hax
The Book of Demons has two pages that can control demons, Fallen Priest and Faye. Bayonetta can counter attempts to control her demons with Demon Slave. She can also resist Faye’s mind control and ability to insert false memories with her Umbran Clock crystal, which was shown to remove the effects of both (refer to Bayonetta’s resistance section).
Precog Discussion
The Book of Demons grants Dante access to a Demon that can view the countless possibilities of the multiverse, similar to the Beastheads from the DMC2 novel. While a very potent ability. Bayonetta actually can negate this. Bayo was able to act outside of Aesir’s view, who views all possibilities of the infinite multiverse, and was also able to outpace and overturn Singularity’s multiverse controlling Phenomena Affirmation (see resistances for Bayo). As such she would also be out of the Book’s view.
Sealing
Dante is noted to be better at sealing than his father, who sealed off the entire Demon World, and also sealed Mundus, power nulling him in the process. Sparda also sealed Argosax in a space without “exit”.
On the flip side, Bayonetta is shown to be able to casually angelic and demonic seals, and is noted by the Bayonetta 1 Artbook to be able to break one million at once. Bayo also scales to Jeanne, who can resist the power null of the anti-magic fields Singularity made. Most impressively, Bayo’s demons can break Singularity's seal on Inferno, which is larger than the Demon World in DMC. It should also be noted that the seal on Argosax was potentially assisted by the ancient Protectors clan, who helped Sparda beat Argosax, and thus not something Dante can do by himself.
Yamato/Spatial Hax
Dante owns a shard of Yamato, which can cut space and likely carries the durability-negating abilities of the full sword. When Balrog acquires a similar shard in the DMC5 novel, he uses it for close-range attacks, which may imply the range of a shard is limited. Balrog aso showed its possible for shards to be broken, which Bayonetta has the strength to do. Basically trying to attack with the shard opens the chance for Bayo to destroy it. It's also unlikely Dante would risk the destruction of his main method out of BFR.
Weapons
Lastly, a quick weapons comparison. Bayonetta resists Dante’s elemental weapons and will also resist his soul-attacking weapons so long as she has energy, Dante likewise resists her soul-attacking weapons. Dante can resist Bayo’ molecular destroying weapon Bazillion, but she likewise resists his anti-magic bullets given Jeanne resisting similar effects. Bayo might be able to partially energy drain Dante, and she can fight off his draining weapons with the Climax Earring. Both have healing and resurrection items that cancel out, and temporary invulnerability as well. Dante’s holy water working on her demons is unlikely given they fight off holy attacks from angels all the time. All in all, it's their abilities that will decide the fight, alongside power.
Summary
Dante himself resists several of Bayonetta’s best abilities but is ultimately outgunned and his best options are either limited or far too vague matter in the long run. Bayo having the option to destroy the Book of Demons is ultimately what seals the devil’s fate.
Tertiary Factors
When it comes to this battle, a factor not many seem to consider are the skills, experience and personality of these two combatants. There is a reason as to why the first two aren’t as important overall however. Both Bayonetta and Dante have displayed incredible skill feats and both have years of experience under their belts. Both have fought beings on the level of or considered gods as well as entities who have had the data of each of their entire multiverses. Both have displayed mastery over an extremely vast amount of weaponry and the capability to combat multiple varied enemies at the same time. So in terms of skill and experience, both can be argued to be completely equal in this category.
However, the last factor to consider is the personality of both. While both are not afraid to get serious and use their deadlier abilities, Dante has shown himself to be far more cocky in battle against his opponents and less likely to use his more dangerous abilities off the bat. Compare this to Bayonetta who while appearing to be just as cocky at first, has shown herself to take her fights far more seriously off the bat when faced with a deadly opponent. This is shown when even against her weaker adversaries, she is far more willing to spam and stack Witch Times to overwhelm them. While both show that they love to play with their adversaries, Bayonetta has consistently shown to be more willing to get serious off the bat compared to her devil hunting counterpart.
Overall, in terms of skill and experience, Dante and Bayonetta match each other. In terms of personality and in terms of using their more dangerous abilities off the bat, Bayo has a very slight edge in this department.
Conclusion
Advantages:
More solid arguments for being massively stronger and more durable
Resists or can evade Dante’s Sealing, Fear Aura, Soul Hax, Precognition, and other abilities
Can destroy the Book of Demons, which limits Dante more powerful abilities
Abilities are less open to interpretation
Can destroy the Yamato Shard, preventing spatial cutting and opening up Dante to BFR
Superior Temporal abilities, which makes her “faster”
Can outlast Dante’s healing and stamina
Resists Anti Magic
Less cocky in combat
= Hot
Got into Super Smash Bros. above her opponent, and Sakurai even stated she could have potentially evaded Galeem's multiversal genocide…
Disadvantages:
Forced to limit her summoning of Demons, at least until the book is destroyed
Demon Masquerade is a death sentence so long as the book is intact
Does not resist spatial cutting
…But was so complex to play that Sakurai decided to have her get nuked in favor of Kirby, a simpler character
As you can tell there is a LOT going on with many different ways to interpret one statement or another. Both are essentially equal in regards to skill and experience, with Dante’s historically cocky attitude being a slight detriment in how he approaches fights. Unfortunately for the Devil Hunter, anyone even close to the strength level of Bayonetta, and his methods of working around that gap are extremely unlikely to work in the end.
Being much weaker and less durable means Dante is going to be notably reliant on his regen to stay in the game. This regen is not unlimited however, and is notably dependent on his stamina, which has been shown plenty of times to affect the speed at which he regenerates damage. With such a gap in strength Bayonetta can destroy Dante far beyond what he’s had to heal consistently, wearing him down more and more as the fight goes on. While speeds may start off even at first, Bayonetta’s usage of Witch Time can give her the edge, especially given her frequent usage of the ability compared to Dante’s time options which are nowhere near as consistently used by him. Effectively, Bayonetta can destroy Dante many many many times over, wearing him down with each regeneration until he is unable to properly heal.
With his healing not making the cut, this leaves Dante to depend on his many other weapons and abilities to make up for it. Despite having many abilities (read: the Book of Demons), Bayonetta has either a counter for said ability or can resist said ability. While the same can be said about Dante when it comes to Bayo’s skills, this would return the fight back to square one where he’s struggling to keep up with the massive AP and durability difference. Even the few abilities that debatably could work such as the Banshee resurrection or “Name” existence erasure can be countered by Bayonetta simply destroying the Book beyond repair, which given her technical speed advantage can be pulled off without much issue. Without any options to reliably quell the stat gap, Dante is back to relying solely on his regen, which as covered can only do so much against someone who can quite literally vaporize you in many different ways.
Many things about this fight didn’t turn out the way we expected, but ultimately the tried and true method of “hit him really hard” works too well for Bayonetta, with the Son of Sparda having no means of ultimately getting past that issue. In the end, Bayonetta just had the means to dominate this fight, leaving this devil crying for the last time.
Final Tally
Team Dante (7) - KL, Soma, Tsar, Momo, Hi Hi, Behemoth, Cyber
Team Bayonetta (7) - Dragon, BluBlader, Shulk, Speedy, Rina, KK, also Cyber
Before We Go…
With that, we wrap up this round of bonus blogs! Big thanks to everyone who contributed to each of them, can’t wait to see you all in two weeks for the season premie-
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What’s that? It’s not happening yet? We got done ahead of schedule and the season is coming later than normal?
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Well, this is awkward.
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Should we… should we just keep going?
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Alrighty then. Cue the music.
