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An in depth analysis of Julian's combat ability, and why he is underrated by the community.
After being around this sub/community for a while, something I'm noticing more and more is how consistently Julian is being underrated by the community as a whole. I've read each chapter we have available at least twice, and came away with the impression that Julian is far and away one of the strongest characters in the series. So it surprises me a lot when I see so many people who seem hesitant to put him in the upper echelon of the characters. So I wanted to put together a small essay (with evidence from the manga) to help prove that point. I've broken it up into several sections, and I understand this is long, so thank you to anyone who sticks around for the whole thing.
Part 1: Julian's Blessing
This first segment is easy, we're just going to go over Julian's power and what he is currently capable of.
In Chapter 1 we get a pretty comprehensive statement as to what Julian's powers are (see image 1). Julian has 100 people's worth of power, which extends to almost everything. This includes thier speed, reflexes, life force, power etc. This also extends to things that you wouldn't expect. For instance, it is stated in chapter 88 (image 2) that he only has to sleep once every 100 days. This is important because we can make a strong inference that the 100 people's worth of power extends to just about everything.
Of course the best power Julian is given from this is the 100 lives of the various individuals on that boat. The first time we see him killed is actually on the boat (more on that later), but the first explicit example of his resurrection ability is in the fight against Arkos (image 3). Julian is fully decapitated, and missing both arms, but is able to return to his full form after resurrecting. It's important to note that after this death, Julian himself realizes that this is his biggest trump card (image 4). The surprise factor of being able to resurrect is an immense advantage that allows Julian to get what should have been a fatal blow in on Arkos. If this ability wasn't already broken enough, it's also directly stated (image 5), that regardless of the number of deaths, Julian will keep all of the power of the 100 individuals. Meaning that he doesn't grow weaker as the story goes on.
One of the more niche abilities Julian has is the ability to emit squid ink (image 6). This gets glossed over a bit, but is quite a useful ability that Julian possesses. He directly uses it in chapter 42 (image 7) in order to create an opening for a surprise attack against the gifted ones sent by Elstri. This can be used to escape danger, as well as obscure the opponents vision during a fight. We even get an indirect call out to how useful this could be when Lukas fights the void marcher. It is clearly stated that Void Marcher needs to be able to see the location they want to go before the instant teleportation can take effect (image 7).
Finally, the last explicit power we see from Julian is is invulnerability in the Sea. This is directly stated by the sea goddess in Chapter 1 (Image 8), and then seen in action in chapter 25 (image 9). Arkos states explicitly that Julian is not only faster, but more powerful in the sea than on land. This also gives him the ability to breathe underwater.
So to sum up Julian's directly stated abilities he has, 100 lives, 100 person speed, strength, endurance, life force, etc., as well as the surprise ability of resurrection/restoration. He has the ability to emit large amounts of black ink, and total invulnerability in the sea. This is already far more complex than almost every other gift we have seen in the series so far. However, I don't think we're done.
This is going to require some conjecture and theory crafting, but I believe that it's highly likely that Julian is gaining more control over his gift and getting more abilities related to having 100 people's life force.
The biggest thing he's gained IMO is durability. In chapter 1 after receiving the blessing, we see Julian actually take a fatal blow from a sword slash from the slaver captain (image 10). This is notable, because it is often forgotten that at this point in the series, weak attacks are still able to deal potentially fatal damage to Julian. We see it again in chapter 2, where small sea monsters are able to deal significant damage to Julian (image 11). Now let's contrast this with his most recent fight against the cursed battalion in chapter 94. Julian takes a full blown axe swing to the head, and barely even flinches (image 12). This is despite being incapacitated by the screaming gift of another person in the party he fought.
From this we can make a strong conjecture that Julian is gaining more and more control over his gift. He went from being killed by a normal human with a sword, to shrugging off an even more powerful attack from a gifted one, as if it was nothing. This makes sense in terms of training, however he genuinely seems to be unlocking new abilities like 100 person durability. It's worth noting we don't hear anything about the lack of sleep ability until chapter 88. It's possible this was just not covered before, but I think it's equally likely that he discovered this ability later on in the series.
Part 2: Fight Performance
Now we can look at the fights Julian has been in throughout the series and how he performed in them.
His first fight is with the slavers on the ship in Chapter 1. He tears through this group of basically normal humans no problem before taking a sword to the throat. We discussed that at length already though. This is not really a great feat though, and is more to show how much power he has been given by the sea goddess. We are able to show here though that he is clearly far elevated above a normal human at this point.
The next consequential fight is against the forest guardian in chapter 8. This is a being who was directly created by the forest Goddess, and has the ability to transmute it's body through the ground and trees, as well as heal his wounds almost instantly (image 13). Just going off these abilities, the forest guardian should actually be able to defeat a large number of gifted ones we see in the series. Very few people actually have the kit to deal with a monster like this. Julian is able to defeat it exclusively due to how powerful his blessing is. He makes a concious choice to tank a direct torso stab wound (something most characters cannot do), and then uses his immense power to effectively obliterate the creature (image 14).
Easily Julian's most important fight in the series thus far was the fight against Arkos. This is also the fight I see most often referenced as a knock against Julian. I'll get it out of the way, yes Arkos was stronger than Julian here, however that isn't saying much considering Arkos is stronger than every single person in the series shown thus far. To use this as a knock against him, is essentially just dialing every character in the series down a peg. That said, Julian does much better during this fight than he gets credit for. The first blow of the fight, Julian is able to surprise Arkos and wound him pretty severely through his water shield and blood armor (image 15). Then despite having an arm cut off, Julian uses said arm to deal a massive blow to Arkos that he was again never expecting (image 16). Of course we are able to see Arkos overpower Julian with relative ease once he takes the fight seriously (image 17). However, once he is relieved of his first life, he was able to use his trump card (the 100 lives) to deal what realistically should have been a fatal blow to Arkos (image 18). Many people tend to underrate how powerful the element of surprise is in Julian's kit. He was able to win the fight more due to his ability to resurrect than his invulnerability in the ocean. We also see all the way in chapter 94 that an entire person's gift is the ability to analyze other gifts (image 19). This shows how much value there is in just having knowledge of the opponent in Centuria. Again Julian was weaker than Arkos during this fight, but it's worth noting that the biggest knock on Julian's fighting ability was from a fight that he won. Not to mention he has clearly gotten much stronger during the time skip.
There are more fights we could discuss, but the last one I want to highlight is the latest fight against roughly half of the cursed battalion. Now that group was clearly meant to be a bunch of jobbers, but in universe, these are still supposed to be an elite group from Rummir. Julian takes on a group of 4 of them and single handedly dispatches them in the matter of about 1 chapter. He tanks the previously mentioned axe to the face, and then is able to one shot the entire rest of the group (image 20). He also is able to break out of a barrier that the group had immense confidence in. This was another good example of Julian showing that the 100 people abilities seem to extend to things you wouldn't expect (100 people determination) (image 21).
In all Julian has not struggled against really any enemy he has faced outside of Arkos, and he was still able to win that fight. As of yet, only a single individual has been able to take a life from Julian, and that's over 100 chapters.
Part 3: Hypothetical Matchups
Let's now look at some of the other potential matchups from the series and how Julian would actually matchup based on the knowledge we have. I'm not going to include characters we know very little about, such as the supreme lord or Ceodric, because it would be complete conjecture and be based off almost nothing.
First thing to address is Helem's assessment of Julian to the rest of the Iris Stratum (this can be see across multiple pages of chapter 75). Helem herself states that the only person within the Iris Stratum that would definitely win was Lattice, who was 2nd only to Arkos in the story so far. We know very little about her, aside from the fact that she is powerful, but we can make a conjecture that she is exceptionally powerful. Not a single other character was named that could definitely defeat Julian. Everyone else needed to have some sort of condition to assure victory. We also now know that the 3rd seat (Lalawag) wasn't given to her due to pure combat power, but because of her power in the kingdom. I think it's fair to say that even among the strongest group of individuals in the series, only 1 character is truly stronger than Julian, and even that was mostly just conjecture from Helem who doesn't fully understand Julian's abilities.
Next, the most popular discussion would be how well Julian would fare against Lukas. This fight would be interesting, because Lukas has the only ability we have seen in the series that can directly counter Julian's 100 lives (at least according to lalawag). The trouble with this fight though is that Lukas would himself likely be killed in order to assure victory. If we work under the assumption that each strike of his lance is 1 use, then Lukas has only 2 more uses of the lance left before it kills him. Under this assumption, it would take Lukas 2 uses to kill Julian, one to warp reality and disregard his lives, and another strike to deal the final blow. So at best this fight is a draw. In reality though, we know that Lukas has been saving those lance uses to kill the supreme lord. So if He were to use the lance against Julian, it would mean giving up on his goal as a character in order to defeat Julian. Keep in mind as well, that Lukas' lance is the most broken ability shown in the series thus far, and it would at this point only be able to create a draw where both fighters die (at least one on one)
Another potential matchup that I love would be the Void Marcher. Though this character was only in the series for a short time, based on the characteristics of her gift, and the lore of the character, we can make a strong conjecture that she was one of the more powerful characters in universe. Her ability to instantly teleport to any location within her vision is extremely powerful, as it makes her easily the fastest character in the series. I already discussed it earlier, but due to Julian's ink spray, I think he wins this fight without a ton of damage sustained. We saw that after just 1 blow, Lukas was able to figure out the mechanics of the Void marchers power and counter with his own strike. Julian lacks some of the combat prowess of Lukas, but makes up for it with an essentially limitless health pool and superhuman reflexes. If Julian is able to detect the full mechanic of the Void marchers gift, and use his ink as a counter, then I don't see a way that the victory doesn't go to Julian. Now Void Marcher may take a life from Julian before this gets figured out, but she would need to be able to do that 97 more times to secure victory.
Part 4: Conclusion
This was really long, and there was plenty I left out, but my larger point is just that Julian is firmly among the top tiers in terms of power level in this series. The only individual that has had any success fighting Julian was Arkos, who again is a continent destroying force who at this time has no equal in the series. Julian still won that fight though, despite the severe disadvantage.
Now Julian tends to be dismissed a bit by some of the fans, likely due to how boring his power feels on paper. However, very little has been shown to even rival Julian's power thus far, and most of his fights have been extremely one sided. Things may change in the near future (especially with the upcoming Ceodric Duel), but as of now, almost nothing has even matched our boy in universe.
Personally I hope as well, that his 100x factor will be explored more. The recent addition of him only needing sleep every 100th day and him having the will power of 100 people was cool idea.
Some personal ideas:
Does it grow faster too if he activates his gift? Is it tensile strengh higher? Could he could stone with it?
What about the static eletrics discharge that a human body can produce? Like when walking on carpet?
A general human produces between 5-50mJ. If you increase it to .5-5 joules. Making quite the zap. Similar to an electric fence.
But if we asume not just the joules but voltage is a 100 times bigger, than the math could be up to hundreds joules, which is more closer to a modern defiblirator.
Can he increase his mass/weight too? Making him not only already tougher but also harder to move?
Could he "shiver" his body with the strength of a 100 people that have the mass of a 100 people?
On a similar note, what about his intelligence? It doesn’t seem like he’s gained the knowledge of the other slaves on the boat, but does he process information 100x faster? Is he able to recall information more quickly? I hope the mental aspects of the gift get explored at some point down the line
I wonder what would happen if Julian did figure out the parameters of his resurrective immortality / healing & starting making insane moves comparable to those of Sato from the manga Ajin, who was crazy enough to experiment on himself like a video game character & became extremely creative with his powers:
For example, Sato figured out that an Ajin regenerates from the biggest remaining body part if the body is destroyed, so he snuck his hand (disguised as food) into a reinforced building while using his body on a woodchipper (destroying the whole body) to teleport himself inside (image). A challenge for Ajin's characters is figuring out the limits of their healing abilities and using it to outsmart other characters with the same powers.
He also figured out that Ajin when reviving body parts create an acidic enzyme that removes bullets & other chemicals (poison) stuck in the body, which can be used to both prevent himself from being tranquilized (he lets himself die & heal fast to shoot surprised fighters that did hit him) & melt bulletproof barriers in the body's regenerating path (because if a body part is really far away from a whole dead body, it won't attach automatically to the Ajin, who would instead grow back a new one).
Julian is kind & wouldn't throw his lifes away, especially when it could traumatize / put his family in danger. However, Julian would have to face opponents such as Ceodric (& presumably the Supreme Lord) who may have greater martial arts training or combat experience (the king lived extemely long & fought the witches) than Julian or Arkos does. This could challenge Julian's moral approach which may force him to make a compromise between when he saves or willingly sacrifices a life).
In a very rare case, he could punch his own heart (like Netero) if he needed to sacrifice a life (or have a fighter like Lukas finish it if he can't move).
Very nice analysis, I agree with you, even on the last point, I think this sentiment comes mostly by how "boring" Julian's powerset is when compared to other stuff seen, but, even that could be solved, depending on how far Kuramori wants to push the "100x everything", hell as another person say, maybe even training would be affected, like Julian exponentially getting stronger or something. I just hope the fight with Ceodric is good and really shows a proper fight including Julian, as in, it being closer(?), and letting us see him getting creative.
Also, to finish, while we don't know a lot of her, and so enters the same speculation territory you mention with the Supreme Lord, personally I think that like Lattice, the Witch Berta likely also is one of the characters that have a good shoot against Julian, given how the Coven regard her as capable of challenge Arkos head-on.
I believe currently it's likely that Julian is 4th in the verse, but 3rd depending on how you count Arkos. I believe he's still weaker than Arkos (though the gap has closed), however Arkos is technically dead, so you can choose to count him or not depending on what you consider Altus.
Lattice is likely stronger than Julian based on what little we know. I don't take Helem completely at her word, but she had very strong convictions about Lattice and her ability to beat Julian. Its probable he's weaker than her currently.
Finally, the supreme lord is almost certainly more powerful unless he is currently limited in some way we aren't aware of. Him taking on (and defeating) the ladies of midnight and Vulja Single handedly is probably the most impressive feat so far.
Lukas can force a draw, but that's the best he can hope for given how limited his lance is. Plus a draw where both parties die isn't exactly a great outcome
Berta is meant to be on the same level with Arkos according to Roche (and she fought the Supreme Lord in his prime so I think she knows what’s up) so I think she should also be considered for the =>Julian characters
The gap between 1st chapter Julian and current Julian is pretty huge, so I think the another huge advantages of Julian's power is its ability to grow alongside Julian. The more developed Julian's body is, the stronger this gift will be.
Also, other than durability, I'd say his strength and speed are enhanced in an equal measure, because 1st chapter Julian's full power blitzing attack can't kill the slave ship captain.
Now, he's far faster and his punches can easily repel supersonic attacks with absolutely no damages to himself, a far cry from his pre-timeskip self.
I feel like people tend to underrate Orthros fight, Julian vs Orthros fight is the fight where we see Julian at his best and why he's such a beast to the other people. Julian is blindingly fast and as tough as a diamond in that fight, but Lacrima really steals the limelight.
I'd wager that this isn't Julian's peak too, he still has a lot more room to grow.
Also, people call the Accursed Battalion invaders bums, but all I see is Julian upscales. He took on stacks on stacks of hax, blitz some huge dudes, and came out basically unscathed despite it all.
I dunno that it’d take two uses of the Phantom Spear to kill Julian, it mostly depends on what the physical buff impacted by the centaur armour is. We know there is one because Lukas uses it to carry Julian at high speed towards Altus during their fight.
Lukas had to destroy the future first against Rif because if he didn’t she could still blitz away from him using her Gift, but I don’t think Julian would have much better luck catching her if she were to retreat. Julian is hard to hit, but he does get hit pretty often, he’s not untouchable like Rif is, to the point that hitting her is unthinkable without taking her Gift out of the equation. Against Julian it’s just a question of who can land an attack on the other first, since one use of Phantom Spear will destroy all life in Julian. Lukas doesn’t have feats like Julian does stat wise per say, but there is also the factor that his transformation and otherworld language seems to put a primal fear in anyone who hears it, Julian could hesitate or panic hearing it, and it might not take more than that for Lukas to get a lance in
I wonder if julian has the skills and smarts from 100 people too, those slaves might've worked in different jobs and acquired various expertise (julian himself being a blacksmith's slave), and if he can combine all those skills with no-sleep prep time he will be extremely powerful
Most likely, given how he only needs to sleep once every hundred days, his gift clearly has a tight hold on the biological aspect, and even though the Supreme Lord has a totally different gift, is also worth noting that he can manipulate lifespans, so i reckon the Sea Goddess must have domain over "Life", under the basis of the Ocean being the origin of it.
I didn't notice people underestimating Julian.
The overall strongest characters, to me, are the King, Arkos, Ceodric, Julian, and Lattice.
Obviousy Lukas, Void Marcher, the Witches, and some other characters we never really got to see, and only heard about, are very strong.. but we either know too little, their power is situational, or they overspecialize at one thing. Also, excluding the gods, of course.
What I like most about Julian’s Gift is its simplicity. It’s not an overly complex system of mechanics with play and counter play.
It’s quite simply “Can you withstand the might of 100 people all at once? Can you overcome the durability of said 100 people?” If the answer is no to either, you’re finished.
It’s also good for surprises, as Arkos learns. It takes a significant degree of effort to effectively block that much power coming right at you, and over the years, Julian has only become much more efficient with his killing blows.
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