10 Best Pacific Rim Kaiju vs. Jaeger Battles, Ranked

Pacific Rim is a franchise known for its epic fight scenes with gargantuan opponents, pitting the monstrous Kaiju against the awe-inspiring giant robots, the Jaegers. Pacific Rim knew what it wanted to deliver audiences — Unsubtle skyscraper-scale robot-on-monster action. The first film certainly made good on this promise, and even if the second film was a stumbling point for the franchise, as Pacific Rim: Uprising wasn’t directed by Guillermo del Toro, it still offered some decent colossal spectacle on par with the first movie.

The recent two-season anime series, Pacific Rim: The Black, also enjoyed modest success with a few standout monster battles, the anime format being a no-brainer for the giant Kaiju-fighting mecha. While human on human squabbles are also prominent in the universe, particularly the Jaeger vs. Jaeger fights in Pacific Rim: Uprising, the Kaiju battles are consistently the most entertaining scenes in the franchise. Even if the Pacific Rim series has an uncertain future, it’s already provided audiences with a plethora of engaging and re-watchable fight scenes that will stand the test of time.

10 Gipsy Avenger And Scrapper Vs The MegaKaiju

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

An incredible organic Voltron of multiple Kaiju joining together to create one truly massive beast, the MegaKaiju of Pacific Rim: Uprising is immediately built up as one of the most dire threats the Earth had ever seen. This makes it all the more disappointing that Gipsy Avenger and Scrapper’s final fight against the beast was so one note, essentially ending the monster with a single decisive blow. Barely a fight, the two Jaegers spend most of the battle wildly riding a rocket into the atmosphere only to come crashing down with a meteor strike that disables the MegaKaiju in one hit.

Pacific Rim: Uprising

A sequel to Pacific Rim (2013), Pacific Rim: Uprising is set ten years after the events of the first film and follows Jake Pentecost, the son of Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) who was killed in the final battle the finally rid Earth of the Kaiju. When the Kaiju threat is reignited, Jake must work together with a team including his adopted sister Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) to stop the aliens from finally realizing their plan of taking over Earth. 

Director

Steven S. DeKnight

Cast

Charlie Day , Scott Eastwood , John Boyega , Burn Gorman , Rinko Kikuchi , Max Martini , Tian Jing

9 Atlas Destroyer And Apex Vs Acidquill

Pacific Rim: The Black (2021)

A brief, but tense battle in the Pacific Rim: The Black anime, siblings Hayley and Taylor Travis quickly get in over their heads when they encounter the Category III Kaiju, Acidquill. As their Jaeger, Atlas Destroyer, is a training mech with no weapon systems, it is quickly overwhelmed by the creature, only to be miraculously saved at the last minute by Apex, the Jaeger-Kaiju hybrid. This fight may be brief and scaled-back in terms of spectacle, but the reveal of Apex and the brutality of its kill makes this fight a little more memorable.

8 The MegaTokyo Battle

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Pacific Rim: Uprising features a crowded battle for the metropolis of MegaTokyo that pits the Kaiju Shrikethorn, Raijin, and Hakuja against Gipsy Avenger, Guardian Bravo, Saber Athena and Bracer Phoenix. While the hectic battle has plenty of creative monster powers, from Raijin’s kinetic-energy absorbing armored head to Hakuja’s burrowing, it has an unmistakable weightlessness to the action that drags down the excitement. Not only that, but the new Jaeger pilots seem to completely disregard collateral damage, Saber Athena at one point dragging its swords through buildings just because it looks cool — They may as well have just bombarded the city.

7 Atlas Destroyer Vs Breacher

Pacific Rim: The Black (2021)

Breaking the pre-established lore of the Serizawa scale, Pacific Rim: The Black introduces the first Category 6 Kaiju with Breacher, a massive bipedal creature with powerful armored strikes. Its fight against Atlas Destroyer is a clear mismatch, the helpless training Jaeger being pummeled into submission until its onboard A.I., Loa, sacrifices herself in order to save the Travis siblings, ejecting them with an escape pod before taking itself and Breacher out with a massive explosion. Even if this fight is mostly a one-sided beatdown, the emotional impact of Loa’s heroic act hits as hard as Breacher does.

Pacific Rim: The Black

Pacific Rim: The Black is an anime series set in the same universe as the Pacific Rim movie franchise. The show follows two siblings, Taylor and Hayley Travis, who pilot an abandoned Jaeger to find their parents and uncover the secrets of a catastrophic Kaiju invasion in a post-apocalyptic Australia.

Cast

Calum Worthy , Cole Keriazakos , Gideon Adlon , Camryn Jones , Erica Lindbeck

6 Gipsy Danger And Striker Eureka Vs Scunner, Raiju And Slattern

Pacific Rim (2013)

An entirely underwater battle, this fight scene got to show off two of the humans’ most powerful Jaegers, Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka, working side-by-side to meet the Kaiju head-on. Despite the hammerhead Category 5 Kaiju Slattern being one of the strongest humanity has ever seen, it still struggles against Striker Eureka’s swift blades, calling for Scunner and Raiju to assist. This battle also ends in a tragic sacrifice, with Eureka’s pilots immolating themselves in a huge fireball that temporarily displaces the ocean in order to give Gipsy Danger the chance to land the killing blow on Slattern.

Pacific Rim

In a post-apocalyptic future, Earth battles a deadly race of alien monsters called the Kaiju, who have begun arriving on the planet through an interdimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean. In an attempt to combat the Kaiju, humanity has created Jaegers, giant robot suits powered by at least two pilots that can match their enemy for size and strength. When the Kaiju begin to become too strong, however, a washed-up Jaeger pilot must return to the program to participate in one final mission to save Earth for good.

Director

Guillermo del Toro

Cast

Charlie Hunnam , Idris Elba , Charlie Day , Ron Perlman , Rinko Kikuchi , Clifton Collins Jr.

5 Cherno Alpha, Striker Eureka And Crimson Typhoon Vs Otachi And Leatherback

Pacific Rim (2013)

The monster fights in Pacific Rim often end poorly for the humans, keeping the tension high as audiences guess at the Jaeger pilots’ odds of survival. The crews of China’s Crimson Typhoon and Russia’s Cherno Alpha meet grisly deaths at the hands of Otachi and Leatherback, being crushed and pulled from their Jaegers, as Striker Eureka is ordered to focus on payload delivery. As dynamic and tense as this high-seas battle is, it’s a shame Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha aren’t given more time to shine despite having some of the most unique Jaeger designs and weaponry.

4 Atlas Destroyer And Copperhead’s Final Battle

Pacific Rim: The Black (2021)

Atlas Destroyer and Copperhead have a few close encounters over the course of Pacific Rim: The Black, but their triumphant final confrontation shows just how far the Travis siblings have come. In this spiteful re-match, Atlas Destroyer gets to utilize its newfound Saber Chain arm, replacing the original the Copperhead tore off in an earlier fight, to full effect, with a brutal piercing attack that nearly rends the Kaiju in two. The siblings then outsmart the beast, leading it right into the flight path of a nuclear missile launched by Hayley that obliterates their recurring foe for good.

3 Gipsy Danger Vs Knifehead

Pacific Rim (2013)

One of the most recognizable Kaiju in the Pacific Rim franchise, Knifehead is a testament to the danger of Jeager pilots getting too cocky and comfortable with their skills. Its battle with Gipsy Danger’s original pilots has some of the weightiest action in the series, with each blow dealt truly conveying the staggering scale of the fight. Knifehead knows how to use its unique biology to utmost effect, surprising Danger’s pilots with its unprecedented cunning, decimating Raleigh with the heartbreaking death of his brother Yancy. From the action to the emotional stakes, this fight is a cut above the rest.

2 Gipsy Danger Vs Leatherback

Pacific Rim (2013)

Gipsy Danger gets to avenge its fallen comrades in one of the series’ single best fights. From the moment the battle begins with a bone-shaking warhorn, Raleigh proves he learned from his experiences, ripping out the beast’s EMP organ first and being sure to “check for a pulse” to not repeat the mistakes of the Knifehead fight, eviscerating Leatherback with a barrage of plasma shots. The sense of scale of the action is on full display here, with Gipsy and Leatherback exchanging slow, but powerful blows and utilizing the surrounding environment to perform some creatively vicious attacks.

1 Gipsy Danger Vs Otachi

Pacific Rim (2013)

As great as the other fights have been, Gipsy Danger’s battle with Otachi trumps them all in terms of spectacle. From Danger’s infamous use of a cargo ship as a melee weapon to Otachi’s insidious hit-and-run tactics in the dense city environment, this fight sees both combatants summoning the most of their battle IQ. The reveal of Otachi’s wings and Gipsy Danger’s sword are two of the greatest moments in the Pacific Rim series, and they happen back-to-back in this standout battle that ranks among some of the best Kaiju fight scenes in cinema history.