How Strong Is Itachi?

so I've been making a bunch of videos recently examining the strength of various Naruto characters and I figured it'd be fun to make a new video about somebody who's way more popular and also way more powerful than anyone I've spoken about so far today we're taking a look at a chi chi ha and I know everybody knows he's supposed to be like really really strong but I think where everyone struggles to agree is on exactly how strong I've spoken to some people who think Itachi could be moderate I've spoken to others who think he'd struggle to fight Uriah and there are a whole bunch of opinions spread throughout in between I of course have my own opinion and to back it up are going to be examining a variety of different sources including the fights Itachi participates in statements about him throughout the series flashback scenes where he does anything noteworthy and the two light novels covering the events of his life before he deserts the leaf village I think I'm gonna start with the light novels because I know a lot of you haven't read them and they do give you quite a bit of insight into how talented Itachi is and the sort of crazy stuff he's been capable of even since his early childhood I want to focus specifically on the first of the two books because you learn a lot more about what he thought you can do in it than you do in the second one not to say that you don't get to see attaching an action in the book of midnight but it covers Itachi's time in the ANBU and the assassination of the Uchiha clan which we already sort of know about whereas the book of daylight covers Itachi's early childhood we get to see him enroll in the academy start life as a Kenny and take the Chunin exams and other things you may expect from a kid in the Naruto world now for those of you who haven't read the light novels yet prepare to have your freaking socks knocked off because he taught she's no joke even as a little kid one example of some of the ridiculous things that he has done can be seen on page 28 when the ninetails is attacking Konoha Itachi's with his mother makoto and his younger brother sasuke who was an infant at the time everybody's just sitting around all scared not sure what to do because they're worried the ninetails is gonna eat everyone when all of a sudden a big chunk of debris falls out of the sky and threatens to crush Makoto and Sasuke without a moment's hesitation he thought she jumps into the air and breaks the debris apart with his bare fists the way the book describes it it sounds like he's amping his strength with chakra control the same way that Sakura and Tsunade do obviously not to the same extent but still the fact that he's able to do this at all at five years old before even enrolling in the Ninja Academy is crazy I find this particularly interesting because we don't really see a lot of people especially not Guinea and double especially not Academy students and to triple especially people who haven't even rolled in the academy yet make use of the ability to use chakra to reinforce their strikes two of the only people we ever really see do it at all are Sakura and Tsunade and you can argue that towards the end of the series everyone is using chakra to make their attacks more powerful but as it's described in the book Itachi is doing specifically what Sakura and Tsunade do and that's explained to require really precise chakra control now I don't want to give him more credit than he deserves so that might not be exactly what he's doing and even if it is it might not be nearly as impressive as I think it is but I did want to mention it just because of how much it stuck out to me anyway his joaneen mother is shocked to see this happen in front of her in the exact words of the book unable to conceal her surprise his mother stared at Itachi with saucer-like eyes his mother was a joaneen which was precisely why she was amazed at his instantaneous action I think the implication here is supposed to be that she's stunned by the fact that even though she was a joaneen she wasn't able to do anything whereas her five-year-old son who completely lacked a ninja training was able to deal with the situation without trouble at all now to be fair she had her back turned to the debris when it started falling towards her but I think that's a much less severe handicap than being five years old and lacking ninja training moving on on page 38 we learned that a six-year-old Itachi on his first day at the academy blows everybody away with his performance and a training exercise held as a part of class that day so the exercise has the students run around the schoolyard and see how quickly they can throw kunai at the 20 targets scattered throughout it it takes most of the students about 5 minutes to do this but it's not she pulls it off in 30 seconds what makes that even better is he thought she got really mad at himself after completing the course because he thought he could have done way better like as soon as the person scheduled to go after and begins the course he takes another look at it and he goes oh man I could have shaped 5 seconds off of my time I suck and when he already clearly outperformed everybody else the fact that he expected himself to do better is ridiculous and it also means he probably could have even this teacher after watching this happen is so shocked that he initially forgets to call the name of the next student apparently stuff like this continued to happen during Itachi's enrollment at the academy because on page 45 we learned that just four months after he began classes there Itachi was given the graduation exam surprise surprise he passes it and he's allowed to graduate the following year later in the book after Itachi becomes again enduring an encounter with Obito on page 81 we see him resist the effects of Obito's genjutsu now this is only important because with him were two members of the Guardian shinobi 12 a joaneen and two gamine one of whom was again jutsu specialist the Guardian shinobi 12 the joning and one of the gaining are all caught in this genjutsu and the only people who are able to resist its effects are Itachi and his genjutsu specialist teammate and for those of you who are prepared to say ah man that's not a surprise Itachi's always been really good again jutsu at this point in the book it's not really implied that he tachi can use genjutsu that well as a matter of fact when this fight happened Itachi hadn't even awaken the Sharingan yet it's actually the death of his teammate that happens during this fight that prompts Itachi's Sharingan to manifest for the first time the only reason I'm clarifying is because that means an eight year old Itachi without the aid of the Sharingan was able to resist the effects of a genjutsu that caught two of the Guardian shinobi 12 and a joaneen no matter how you slice it I think that sounds pretty impressive but maybe that's just me now the next thing I'm gonna talk about is without question the most ridiculous thing that he accomplishes in the entire book so the book informs us that Itachi continues to do really really well in missions and is basically backpacking his team but despite that his joning just keeps refusing to recommend him for the Chunin exams the reason appears to be that he's confident in Itachi's abilities but not in the abilities of his two teammates so to circumvent this Danzo yes as in the leader of root and the foundation Danzo personally requests that the then nine year old Itachi be allowed to take the Chunin exams by himself Itachi's father Fuu gaku agrees with the suggestion so Itachi goes on to ace the written exam he actually gets the second highest scorer of all time next only two mean a toast before setting a record for the time taken to get to the tower in the center of the forest of death with both a heaven and earth scroll in his possession now the interesting thing about this of course is that the previous record had been set by a team of three people and all of Itachi's enemies in the forest of death were working as part of three-man teams yet Itachi entered the Chunin exams by himself at nine years old and still set this record anyway as you'd expect to this of course means that he had to fight a team of three people beat them and take their scroll which is exactly what he did on his way to the tower he gets jumped by a team of three mist ninja and deal with them absolutely no problem then after clearing the forest of death Itachi performs so well in the first round of the Chunin exam tournament that he's a to skip the rest of the bracket and is immediately promoted to chuni it goes without saying that this is really dumb like it sounds like I'm thinking making it up but I promise you this is actually what happens in the book Itachi's just ridiculous and what makes this even better is the book says that only five months after his promotion to chunin due to his incredible performance during his time as a Chunin he was then promoted again to a member of the ANBU black ops some other notable things that he taught she accomplishes before his debut impart one include being handpicked for the extermination of the Uchiha clan overpowering Orochimaru when the latter tries to steal his body and basically toying with data row while recruiting him to join the Akatsuki he does all of this during his early to mid teens at the latest since when he leaves the leaf village to join the Akatsuki he's only 13 years old another thing worth mentioning is that both Orochimaru ant dater over either shown or stated to be cog a level at some point Orochimaru was a candidate to become the fourth Hokage and later went on to kill the Third Hokage and dater has successfully defeated and captured the fifth Kazakh Agha Gaara of course deidara was probably way stronger when he fought Gaara than when he fought Itachi but Orochimaru had been nominated to become Hokage long before he lost to Itachi now I think that covers all of his off-screen background so let's move on to the stuff that we actually get to see him do the first major fight that he participates in is against a team of Kakashi Kurenai and Asuma and it gives us a surface level glimpse into his arsenal and the skill that he possesses in various areas of combat we learned that he's at least a little proficient with genjutsu given how he completely resists the effects of the one that Kurenai tries to cast on him and that he subsequently turns the tables on her and traps her and again jutsu instead we also get to see him use a couple different ninjutsu including a water style jutsu that never receives a name and a variant of the shadow clone jutsu where the clone created by the user detonates on command the most iconic scene from the fight of course is the debut of tsukuyomi again jutsu so powerful that despite the fact that it was first shown near the beginning of the series it's still considered one of the strongest genjutsu ever after the series conclusion now all that said the fights pretty short and it's hard to infer from it what Itachi's full power is but considering his opponents his performance and the apparent lack of effort on his part make it very clear that he's far beyond joning level he's hot she's next fight isn't really important at all it's just him beating the out of Sasuke but we do get our first glimpse at a moderate here unfortunately we don't learn anything about how it works but we can see that it's enough to impress Jiraiya and that it eats through the insides of the toad that he summons something that gets brought up frequently is that Jiraiya allegedly forced both Itachi and Kisame to retreat here but after taking one look at this manga page it becomes clear that they didn't really have to go anywhere Kisame is pretty confused as to why Itachi chose to leave and furthermore it's very likely that he just didn't want to engage Jiraiya because he was working undercover for the leaf village the idea that base Jiraiya is too strong for both Itachi and Kisame to handle is a bit ridiculous too especially considering some of the stuff we see them do later and ship it in speaking of shipping and after this fight we don't get to see you touching an action until its first art to hold Team Kakashi at bay while the Akatsuki seals shukaku inside of the ghetto statue Itachi challenges the members of Team seven with a clone containing 30% of his chakra even though the clone is obviously substantially weaker than Itachi it takes the combined forces of Naruto and Kakashi to land a clean hit on it more importantly though during this fight we learned that Itachi can trap people in genjutsu simply with a point of his finger he doesn't even need to establish eye contact the last fight Itachi partakes in before his death is against Sasuke and this is one of the most popular fights in the series I'm pretty sure many of you have seen it a bunch of times so I don't think I need to spend too much time going over it but what's noteworthy about this fight is as many of you know Itachi was basically blind and was also near death due to his sickness and according to Obito he still could have easily killed Sasuke had he been trying his hardest this is the same Sasuke who defeated a door without much trouble at least not much trouble if we're not counting his suicide bomb at the end so considering the gigantic strength disparity between Itachi and data that this indicates it means that he's obviously way beyond cog a level and pains him is one of the strongest members of the Akatsuki during this fight we also get to see him use the Susanoo for the first time and we learned that his Susanoo possesses the yata mirror which can reflect all forms of physical attacks and to the Totsuka blade which can indefinitely seal anything it Pierce's now when Itachi is revived by Kabuto during the fourth shinobi World War that's when we actually get to see him put in some effort it's brief because it only happens during the fight against Naruto and P and then subsequently during the fight against Nagato but it's still really cool that we get to see him cut loose for once he doesn't do too much in this fight or these fights are not really sure if this counts as one or two since he changes teams but anyway what he does do is pretty major at the beginning of the fight he swaps hands with QB cloak Naruto which is a really big deal because right before this fight we find out that this Naruto is faster than the right cog a of course it's possible that Naruto wasn't moving at full speed when this happened in fact it's very likely but keeping up at all with someone who was at that point one of the fastest characters in the series is definitely worthy of praise later in the fight when he switches sides and helps Naruto and bee fight against Nagato he basically carries both of them the two are seconds away from death when he taught she swoops in and saves them with his Susanoo and he's the one who ends up dealing the finishing blow to Nagato by sealing him with the Totsuka blade Itachi's last fight is against Kabuto with Sasuke at his side but it's difficult to gauge his strength from this because both he and Kabuto were holding back Kabuto had to hold back because he didn't want to kill Sasuke and Itachi had to hold back because he couldn't afford to kill or steal Kabuto as that would leave no one to release the arrow Tensei to be fair of course there's not much that Itachi could have done to beat Kabuto but a single poke from the Totsuka blade would have gotten him the win and whether or not he actually could have touched Kabuto with the Totsuka blade is arguable but like I said given the circumstances it's difficult to tell still even though both he and Kabuto were holding back he managed to catch Kabuto with Izanami allowing him to release the arrow Tensei and nearly ends the war so now that everything's on the table it's time to answer the question posed in the title of the video how strong do I think Itachi is to be blunt I think he's one of the strongest characters in the series but that's not super precise so let me be more clear Itachi is one of the most skilled users of both ninjutsu and genjutsu and he has incredible skill with taijutsu as seen in his brief clash with QB Naruto his arsenal is made up of some of the most overpowered broken Jade in the Naruto versus including exploding shadow clones genjutsu that can be cast with the point of a finger tsukuyomi Amaterasu the strongest fire style jutsu of all time and a Susanoo that wields an indestructible shield and a sword that can seal anything it touches he has so many methods of dealing with potential threats that it's really unlikely that he'll ever find himself in a situation he can't get himself out of but he's the definition of a glass cannon his main weakness is his complete lack of stamina so while he's easily able to deal with most of the opponents that might cross his path if he's unable to do it quickly he runs the risk of draining himself of chakra and tiring himself out it's not a huge weakness though since he's shown he's more than capable of taking opponents out quickly and if we're talking about Edo Tensei Itachi it's not even present in the first place if I had to explain how strong I think he is by comparing him to other characters I'd say he's the third strongest member in the Akatsuki and if he were to become Hokage I think he'd be the fourth most powerful behind Naruto of course hoshi rama and Minato I think he's weaker than Obito just because combo is broken and he's definitely weaker than Nagato and Abbie you could maybe argue that he might be able to beat the six pads of pain in his prime in my personal opinion I think that the six pads would overwhelm him because someone with low stamina like Itachi just isn't built to take someone like that on but that's a can of worms I don't really feel like opening I don't feel like going super into detail about the topic but I did want to put my position out there I definitely don't think he's anywhere close to a strongest Madara he has an insane amount of versatility and the Totsuka blade got a mirror a combination is very powerful but matter is a completely different beast and maybe I'll make a video covering him at some point in the future speaking of that if you guys want me to make this into a more recurring series where I discuss the strengths of other characters let me know in the comments because I had a lot of fun making this video as well as the other make sure you also let me know who else you want to see a video on and if I see enough support for any given character I'll definitely make sure to cover them anyway thanks as always for watching the video all the way to the end if you're new here consider subscribing to get updates when I post new videos make sure you have a great rest of the day and until my next video I'll talk to you later your swag hug a out bye [Music]

Channel: Swagkage

Views: 3,881,549

Keywords: naruto, naruto shippuden, naruto explained, naruto shippuden explained, swagkage, swagkage naruto, swagkage naruto shippuden, top 5 naruto fights, rinnegan explained, eight gates explained, top 5 broken naruto abilities, top 5 naruto hax, obito vs itachi, shadow clones explained, mangekyo sharingan explained, naruto uchiha clan, naruto kage level, itachi naruto, itachi uchiha, how strong is itachi, how strong is itachi uchiha, naruto how strong is itachi

Id: YVtzjaf-N_A

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018