Few Dragon Ball antagonists have been as threatening as Jiren. No doubt, there’s plenty who’ve done some pretty terrifying things, like how Nappa tore through the Z Fighters or how Freiza blew up Namek. But Jiren faced down Goku going Super Saiyan and shrugged it off. He shut down Kale after she went into her Legendary Super Saiyan mode. Beating him took the combined efforts of Goku, Frieza, and Android 17.
But just because he’s that powerful, doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of getting laid out. This list takes a look at five anime characters who could take Jiren down without a second thought, and five who would get beaten without Jiren even putting in effort.
10 DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE: ICHIGO
Ichigo is the truth. He not only has the power of a Shinigami, but also that of a Hollow and Quincy as well. With all these different elements inside of him, his spiritual pressure is off the charts. He can fire off his signature move, Getsuga Tensho, with ease, that can obliterate entire city blocks with ease. But as impressive as this is, it’s bush league to someone like Jiren. As someone fighting with people who can destroy planets, he’d just shrug off the Getsuga Tensho, and knock Ichigo somewhere without another thought.
9 COULD BEAT JIREN: HARUHI SUZUMIYA
Plenty of people are wondering what this character is doing here. And that's fair since her series is largely supposed to be a slice of life series. But Haruhi's power allows her to subtly re-shape reality around her according to her unconscious will. She exists in a world that has aliens and ESPers because that's what she wants to exist. Jiren could try to beat her in a fight but what would likely happen is he would be altered in some way that made it impossible for him to fight back.
8 DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE: SAITAMA
We've never seen the upper limits of Saitama's power. He's never had to actually try to defeat anyone he's fought, which is the point of the show. But that could make him legitimately a powerful opponent, or just the strongest person amidst a bunch of scrubs.
For certain, we know that Jiren wouldn’t really have any problems beating the people Saitama’s obliterated, as Goku’s faced tougher than anyone on One Punch Man before and without Ultra Instinct Goku couldn’t even mildly irritate Jiren.
7 COULD BEAT JIREN: CHOUSHIN
Tenchi isn't supposed to have such high-level characters, but the upper-level ones get pretty ridiculous. Everything about Jiren comes down to what he can do to someone in a physical confrontation. He's faster, he's stronger. But ultimately, there's nothing Jiren can do if he has to fight one of the Choushin--they were responsible for creating an entire universe. They've got control over space and time itself, Jiren would be so far out of his league the fight would be over before it began.
6 DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE: JOTARO KUJO
It’s easy to get caught up in some of the incredible feats that Jotaro is capable of in the original series. His Stand is incredibly powerful, and it gets him out of some situations he should’ve easily lost in. They even grant him the ability to stop time later on in the series, which comes in handy in his fight against the vampire Dio. But all of this places him firmly outside the realm of keeping up with Jiren. Their strength levels aren’t equal, and JoJo can’t stop time long enough to deal damage to Jiren.
5 COULD BEAT JIREN: ARCEUS
Presumably the god of all Pokemon, Arceus has power over multiple different dimensions. This places him in a league along the level of Zeno, which puts him way above Jiren. We’ve seen Arceus boast complete mastery of time. And while Jiren has side-stepped around a person with similar powers, he’s never faced someone who could completely ignore the meaning of time.
4 DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE: MADARA
For sure, Madara’s got a long collection of techniques with even longer names. He’s the master of the Sharingan, so he can steal techniques and copy an opponent’s movements. He can hypnotize every thing on the planet with the Rinnegan.
And he’s carried the Ten-Tails in his body to make himself near unstoppable. But Jiren doesn’t rely on chakra. And the Sharingan can’t copy movements when it can’t process what the opponent is doing. Jiren knocks Madara out in seconds flat.
3 COULD BEAT JIREN: KAMI TENCHI
This feels so ridiculous, but it’s true. Kami Tenchi is one of the most powerful anime characters ever introduced. The three goddesses within the Tenchi OVA universe used their powers to create that multiverse and all its dimensions. But they did so only to find the being that surpassed them in power. Kami Tenchi is that being, able to exist in multiple points in time. He can hop around space-time as he wills, and he’s defeated beings that are have incredible power beyond what we’ve seen in Dragon Ball. Strength can’t get this job done.
2 DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE: ALL MIGHT
All Might is like a Golden Age Superman. And while it’s true we’ve never seen the upper limits of his strength, we can guesstimate off what we’ve seen from him and his protege. We know it would’ve only taken him a single punch to take out the first Noumu, but even that would’ve required full power. Jiren can take out people with much higher durability without actually hitting them with a proper punch.
1 COULD BEAT JIREN: PEGASUS SEIYA
Saint Seiya operates at exactly the level necessary to beat Jiren. By the time he dons his Gold Cloth, the character moves at the speed of light itself. But that isn't the limit of Seiya's power--eventually he masters powers beyond even the Gold Cloth. With this energy, he's able to fire off energies equivalent to the Big Bang, and possesses senses that make miracles possible. The Seiya heroes simply operate at a higher level than Dragon Ball.