# Concerning Jiraiya(And hype in general)



## Lawrence777 (Feb 3, 2013)

I'd thought I'd post this here since its more pertinent to here than to the library. This is concerning Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya and it serving as a measure in Jiraiya's "powerlevel". ​
*If Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya is correct*, we can deduce that they(Itachi and Jiraiya) are around equal, and work backwards to rationalize how that is the case(unseen feats or what have you) if you deem that necessary.​

Let us take Jiraiya for instance and assume his on-panel feats were not up to par, but we were assuming Itachi's statement was correct. This hypothetical Jiraiya *would* possess additional feats and counters *that we have not seen* that appropriately put him on that tier of strength( if you do not believe he has demonstrated that level of strength already). Think reverse algebra. You know what the answer is and have to get there somehow.

Again, this is based on *that* statement of hype and is invalid if you interpret things differently.
​

Itachi lying and actually being well above the sannin
Itachi > Orochimaru=Jiraiya
Kisame asking Itachi why he is retreating.

All interpretations are valid imo and NOT asinine. *If* we are to view things objectively, then we have to take _every_ possibility into consideration. 

This isn't a pro-Jiraiya thread. Jiraiya can be = to Itachi. On the _exact same coin_ Itachi could of been lying and a fight between them would end up like Itachi vs Orochimaru. 


Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya can be true, and if that is the case then we have to(If you believe it is necessary) power scale whomever to _at least_ that level of strength.


That's not to say that Itachi's statement in regard to Jiraiya is the only interpretation we should go with. If you believe Itachi was lying anyway then this write up doesn't make much difference. 

Itachi not lying can't be ruled out objectively speaking though and in that case Jiraiya will be definitely as strong if not stronger than Itachi; that is what the author is telling us.

And on the same token, Jiraiya can walk up to Itachi and wind up losing a hand immediately ala Orochimaru and revealing a size able gap.

Dismissing any particular route as an impossibility right off and ridiculing someone for suggesting it is misplaced though imo.​


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## Kai (Feb 3, 2013)

You elaborated on the consequences following the validity of Itachi's statement concerning Jiraiya, which everyone knows will naturally occur.

Everyone is (was) disputing on the actual statement, although Itachi > Jiraiya is a majority opinion on NF. That does not mean Jiraiya can't beat Itachi if given favorable circumstances.


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## Octavian (Feb 3, 2013)

tell us something we don't already know


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## Rocky (Feb 3, 2013)

This thread basically defines the counter-argument people have used and continue to use to refute Itachi's words. When we venture into the realm of feats, only under the most special of circumstances can Jiraiya defeat Itachi.


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## Nikushimi (Feb 3, 2013)

I think the problem is that people take Itachi's statement for granted as a power comparison.

It isn't.

Itachi spoke of the outcome of a particular encounter, that's all. He said "we'd probably end up killing eachother" rather than "we are equals" and/or "the same level." It doesn't seem like there's much of a difference, but there is actually a pretty important difference.

It's like if you were out doing yard work and there was this really sketchy-looking pile of lumber or old construction material or something, and you knew it was full of poisonous spiders, you might think "I could die if I stick my hand in there." By the same token, there's really nothing stopping you from just stepping on a spider if you get the opportunity. It would be a whole other story if you believed that the spider could take you in a straight-up fight.

Itachi acknowledged that Jiraiya was a serious threat to him. That's all. Given that Itachi's poor stamina and health predispose him to suffering complications in a protracted fight, and given that Jiraiya's detection abilities and huge stamina reserves make him ideal for prosecuting such a conflict, it isn't hard to understand why Itachi seriously considered the possibility of mutual destruction.

For the record, I do firmly believe that Orochimaru and Jiraiya are equals while Itachi is a good measure above the both of them. However, while Orochimaru lacked the tools to exploit Itachi's only weakness (his endurance), Jiraiya is well-equipped to do that. It would be contingent on fighting Itachi in the right type of environment, though; without adequate concealment, Jiraiya's just a spider out in the open, waiting to get stepped on.


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## Turrin (Feb 3, 2013)

Kishi portrays Itachi as a superior shinobi to J-man over the course of the manga, which begs the question how to we reconcile this with the statement Itachi made in Part I. People like to fall back on the excuse that the statement was lie. However the author is not going to expect readers (especially younger readers) to be able to differentiate between what is and isn't a lie from Itachi on their own, that's why he tells readers in all other instances when Itachi is lying. This never occurs with the J-man statement, in-fact he has Kisame back up Itachi's assessment by coming to a similar one himself.

What the author does tell us however which explains things is that Itachi had a terminal illness that was impacting his performance. In doing this the author writes off any previous assessments Itachi made as being ones that account for this illness handicap. This allows Kishi to portray Healthy (or Edo) Itachi however strong he wants, because all other assessments are in accordance to a terminally ill Itachi.

Therefore the most logical thing to conclude is that while Itachi maybe be a superior shinobi to J-man, if he attempted to fight the guy to the death with a terminal illness inflicting him things probably wouldn't go so well for the guy. He'd could end up injured very badly or he could even end up dying, if for no other reason than the strain of fighting a Sannin to death caused his illness to claim his life when all is said and done. This is why Itachi would want to avoid any prolonged battle with J-man, because he had other things he wished to accomplish (fighting Sasuke & placing crow in Naruto), which wouldn't be possible if such a battle caused his illness to run out of control.

An equally applicable example would be Kimmimaro vs Gaara. Kimi is a better shinobi and was about to finish off Gaara when his illness took hold of him causing him to die before striking the final blow and ultimately costing him the duel. Another example being Orochimaru vs Hebi Sasuke. Orochimaru is a better shinobi than Hebi Sasuke, but the illness caused him from the loss of his arms via Shiki Fuujin (body failure too perhaps) prevented him from weakening Sasuke that much before he attempted Fuushi Tensei, which ultimately allowed Sasuke to take the initiative and take over Orochimaru instead.

Itachi with illness ≈ J-man. Itachi w/o illness probably > J-man. Just like
Kimi with illness ≈ Gaara, while Kimi w/o illness probably > Gaara. Just like Orochimaru with illness ≈ Hebi Sasuke, while Orochimaru w/o illness > Hebi Sasuke

Illness simply causes opening to appear in these fighters that otherwise wouldn't and when faced with a competent fighter these openings can cause them to be killed or end up vastly more injured than they otherwise would be. 

For example in Itachi's case, the guy's illness caused him to be hit by Sasuke's shuriken trick and a fireball not really even aimed at him. It also cause him to fall dead after only using Susano'o for a brief instance. These are things that could easily cost him his life against a more skilled ninja than Hebi Sasuke like J-man.

If Itachi failed to evade properly against J-man he'd get hit by something like a Rasengan or a physical strike that packs 4.5 power behind the blow. His arm wouldn't be simply burned and his leg wouldn't simply have a cut, he'd have his bones broken by J-man's strike or his entire arm ripped off. And if J-man's in SM things will only be exponentially worse for Itachi.


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## crisler (Feb 4, 2013)

Itachi saying 'it would end as a draw or we would both die'

Ok, this might be true. If someone of Jiraiyas' calibre was to fight someone for death than even if you're stronger than him it's likely that he'd give you wounds that would end your life. This isn't just about Jiraiya, anyone of that calibre (oro, for example) would be the same.

What I don't understand is some people take the statement literally, thus accepting the absurd statement that even with back up the difference would not change. Really? when the obvious 'backup' would be the one standing besides Itachi, kisame who gets stronger as the enemy has larger chakra?

Not only has Itachis' performances in the manga given us clues that he's stronger, the fact that he said kisames' interference would make no difference is just utter bullshit. Especially when MS has been known to only few, and Jiraiya is likely not the one included in it.


Take the other perspective and start with a likely theory that Itachi lied as he usually does, for reasons such as 'protecting konoha' and 'avoid killing konohas' powerful shinobis' and connect it to kakashis' "He can easily kill me if he wanted...why does he...". Then everything just fits pretty well.

If you actually believe Jiraiya can kill both Itachi and Kisame at the same time while protecting Naruto, wow go ahead, I'm not gonna waste time trying to persuade a fool. But if you're not, then I don't think it's too difficult to understand kishis' portrayal of Itachi. 

Trolling Oro that easily is just bonus hint, really...


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## Ghost (Feb 4, 2013)

oh look, it's this thread again.


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## Veo (Feb 4, 2013)

NothingMeansAnything said:


> I'd thought I'd post this here since its more pertinent to here than to the library. This is concerning Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya and it serving as a measure in Jiraiya's "powerlevel". ​
> *If Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya is correct*, we can deduce that they(Itachi and Jiraiya) are around equal, and work backwards to rationalize how that is the case(unseen feats or what have you) if you deem that necessary.​
> 
> Let us take Jiraiya for instance and assume his on-panel feats were not up to par, but we were assuming Itachi's statement was correct. This hypothetical Jiraiya *would* possess additional feats and counters *that we have not seen* that appropriately put him on that tier of strength( if you do not believe he has demonstrated that level of strength already). Think reverse algebra. You know what the answer is and have to get there somehow.
> ...



They still ran away from Jiraya


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## Meruem (Feb 4, 2013)

I don't think that Jiraiya is equal to Itachi.  He stated that Jiraiya and him would tie in that situation.  Kisame said that Itachi solos.  We also have a reason to believe he's lying.  Itachi also has feats that put him above Jiraiya.  Just seems like too many things to ignore just for one statement in the early part of the manga.



Veo said:


> They still ran away from Jiraya



Itachi was on the side of the Leaf Village and Kisame was against running away.  So that pretty much means nothing.


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## Jagger (Feb 4, 2013)

Veo said:


> They still ran away from Jiraya


If they had stayed there, more and more Konoha-nins would had come and make the mission and their escape much more harder, besides, we all know Itachi tried his best to protect the village in secret and keep Naruto away from Akatsuki's hands.


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## Jυstin (Feb 4, 2013)

The OP is missing Itachi's second statement, however, which discredits everything he said. We could take to heart that Itachi meant he and Jiraiya are equal, but when we take Itachi's next statement that, even with backup (Kisame and possibly the rest of their reinforcements AKA the Akatsuki, if needed), the result would be the same, it gets thrown out of the water. At the VERY LEAST, if they were equal in a 1v1 match, then adding Kisame, with what we know of his power, would definitely change something. There is no way Jiraiya can be equal to Itachi and also equal to Itachi + Kisame, unless Kisame were the name of Itachi's favorite plastic bag, but even that he could use to suffocate someone.

That would be exactly like me saying Itachi to not only equal with himself, but also equal with himself plus Kisame. That sounds utterly retarded.


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## Akitō (Feb 4, 2013)

Jυstin said:


> That would be exactly like me saying Itachi to not only equal with himself, but also equal with himself plus Kisame. That sounds utterly retarded.



Well, even if you stipulate that Itachi was lying in order to fool Kisame, it wouldn't make sense for him to use the "even with backup" line if it didn't have merit because then he wouldn't be fooling Kisame. And the fact that Itachi _did_ think it an intelligent enough excuse speaks volumes of its value: clearly Itachi thought it to be a believable claim or he wouldn't have said it to divert Kisame's attention. So either Itachi is an idiot because he tried to fool Kisame with an awful excuse or his statement is believable enough for it to hold some merit in a discussion about Jiraiya and Itachi. Now I'm not saying it'd have to be absolutely accurate for Itachi to have used it to supplement his lie, but it would've had to have been somewhat realistic or there would have been no point in him saying it.


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## Eliyua23 (Feb 4, 2013)

Turrin said:


> Kishi portrays Itachi as a superior shinobi to J-man over the course of the manga, which begs the question how to we reconcile this with the statement Itachi made in Part I. People like to fall back on the excuse that the statement was lie. However the author is not going to expect readers (especially younger readers) to be able to differentiate between what is and isn't a lie from Itachi on their own, that's why he tells readers in all other instances when Itachi is lying. This never occurs with the J-man statement, in-fact he has Kisame back up Itachi's assessment by coming to a similar one himself.
> 
> What the author does tell us however which explains things is that Itachi had a terminal illness that was impacting his performance. In doing this the author writes off any previous assessments Itachi made as being ones that account for this illness handicap. This allows Kishi to portray Healthy (or Edo) Itachi however strong he wants, because all other assessments are in accordance to a terminally ill Itachi.
> 
> ...




I dont think Itachi has been displayed as a superior shinobi the more I think about it I would give Jiriyia the slight edge mostly because Sage Mode is a superior power up that MS if ever so slightly, Jiriyia w knowledge was said to be able to defeat a superior enemy than Itachi, Itachi said himself that he would die at the hands of Jiriyia, you can say illness plays a huge part which is something that could obviously play a part, only problem is that he said he + Kisame would draw which implies he though of "himself" as below Jiriyia, and Itachi when non Edo best feat is defeating a sick Orochomari with no arms, and I guess defeating Orochomari with no Edo-Tensei, I believe Jiriyia with his greates technique would defeat Orochomari , only thing it wouldn't cost him his life, at the end of the day 3 pain bodies >Sick Oroochomaru or at least their the same level to where Jiriyia performance was more Impressive, to me overall it's just a bad matchup we saw what frog genjutsu does to Susanoo and we don't know when Itachi became I'll, how do we know Itachi was sick in pt 1.


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## Mercurial (Feb 4, 2013)

but why Orochomari and Jiriya!?


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## Rage of Hate (Feb 4, 2013)

Why wont people realise that J-man > itachi

Until the the day itachi can beat jiraiya by them looking into his eye's 

or by using an instant fire jutsu that jiraiya can't put out and all itachi has to do is look at you.

Or if itachi has some super and unbreakable mind controlling jutsu.

Until that day J-man > itachi


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## Rage of Hate (Feb 4, 2013)

Sick oro would babyshake 3 of the weakess paths who were not serious.

Animal path summons were being held on by the toads and Snakes > toads so manda and Co. wouldn't have too much of a problem fighting whilst oro takes down animal path.

Sword of Kusanagi would take down petra path quite easily. 

And asura path is made short work of really.

As for the surprise attack oro has snake sensing so he likely wouldn't be attack and if he does he uses oral rebirth to replace his lost hand. 

Jiraiya feats overrated and oro is underrated. At the end of the day they were both beaten easily by people above and beyond their tier. (oro is debatable now)


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## Samehadaman (Feb 4, 2013)

In my interpretation, regardless of which one would win, Itachi said that to avoid the fight. We now know without doubt Itachi not only didn't want to capture Naruto, he sabotaged Akatsuki's efforts, and because Kisame and Zetsu were monitoring him he couldn't just sit and play videogames. Both in the Konoha incursion in part I and the Jiraya encounter in part II Itachi was deliberatly looking for excuses not to fight, hence why it was always him to call the retreat. While as example Deidara, weaker than Itachi, casually attacked Sunagakure by himself.

It was completely out of character for Itachi to think he couldn't take on Jiraya with Kisame on his side if he was serious... I don't say this because Itachi is invincible or anything but because he has consistently shown he is never intimidated. Itachi fought Orochimaru, Nagato, Deidara, Kabuto, all of whom he knew from little to nothing about except them being Kage levels and was confident he'd win, right or wrong. Not to mention his own clan.
Notably, Itachi only knew Jiraya from reputation as was clear from their encounter (never saw him fight) and when he met him he had already beaten Orochimaru, who had similar reputation (legendary sennin). 
And let's not forget he had Kisame on his side, who has ridiculous stamina and endurance (compensating Itachi's weakness). I get that Kisame is supposed to be less formidable than Jiraya or Itachi but don't tell me he is irrelevant with his water dome, giant watershark, and ridiculous chakra.

Kisame was certain the two together could beat Jiraya. Itachi disagreed. But Kisame was a loyal Akatsuki while Itachi was pretty serious on Naruto not being captured... In this context Kisame's opinion holds far more sway to me. And keep in mind Kisame was never portrayed as arrogant or delusional, since he admited he thought he'd lose to Jiraya and Itachi and later the group of shinobi in turtle island, so he wasn't just talking.


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## ueharakk (Feb 4, 2013)

I always thought that they were roughly equals.

Jiraiya gets the hype from part 1 which can be interpreted in different ways, but he also gets the hype from nagato about being able to defeat him (the strongest akatsuki member) if he had knowledge.

Then we get parallels of both jiraiya and itachi's deaths in the sense that they both used the same powerup that Sasuke and Naruto were to achieve (SM and MS).

Then there's the whole part about edo itachi crapping himself when he finds out Kabuto is a sage mode user.

And then we go to feats where, although jiraiya doesn't have anything to bust susanoo, he still has counters to all of itachi's techniques like dust cloud/clones for amaterasu/tsukuyomi, yomi numa/frog song for susanoo, partner method for any other genjutsu, and the fact that his powerup actually restores stamina while alive itachi (2.5) at best should get the same stamina as MS Sasuke (3.5) who gets hit with all kinds of repercussions as a result of using the MS.  On the other hand, itachi probably has a counter to everything jiraiya has as well.


Because of this, I think how they fair against each other is really up for interpretation on both sides, and thus I'd say "rough equals."


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## Vice (Feb 4, 2013)

Meruem said:


> Itachi was on the side of the Leaf Village and Kisame was against running away.



Itachi was on the side of the Leaf Village and still ordered the death of its jonin, put his brother in the hospital and was almost successful in kidnapping its jinchuuriki sans legs.

That literally means almost nothing here.


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## Mercurial (Feb 4, 2013)

ueharakk said:


> I always thought that they were roughly equals.
> 
> Jiraiya gets the hype from part 1 which can be interpreted in different ways, but he also gets the hype from nagato about being able to defeat him (the strongest akatsuki member) if he had knowledge.
> 
> ...



you are forgetting for many things you've listed Jiraiya has to enter SM before,and you didn't mention at all the fact Itachi could speedblitz Jiraiya under proper circumstances,and could take advantage of his godlu fast handseals making speed,which is hard to follow even for Sharingan


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## Turrin (Feb 4, 2013)

Eliyua23 said:


> I dont think Itachi has been displayed as a superior shinobi the more I think about it I would give Jiriyia the slight edge mostly because Sage Mode is a superior power up that MS if ever so slightly, .


Lol so I'm defending Itachi now in a J-man vs Itachi discussion. Well there is a first time for everything.

MS is clearly suppose to be seen as an equal power up to SM. Hence the MS Sasuke & SM Naruto comparison. J-man mastered Senjutsu to a high level, but he mastery was incomplete & he's far from the best Sage in the manga. Itachi fully mastered MS & is perhaps thee most skilled MS user in the entire manga. Other Dojutsu users are better than the guy, but it's because they have better Dojutsu (EMS/Rinnegan) or have augmented themselves with Senju DNA. 

So essentially we have thee perfect MS user vs an imperfect SM user. 



> Jiriyia w knowledge was said to be able to defeat a superior enemy than Itachi


True, but J-man required an ideal battlefield and major knowledge of Nagato to pull that one off. J-man has good amount of knowledge on Itachi, but nothing as major as Pain's secret and the battlefield isn't specified here. 



> Itachi said himself that he would die at the hands of Jiriyia, you can say illness plays a huge part which is something that could obviously play a part,


Itachi said one possible conclusion was him and J-man kill each other. So essentially Itachi was saying with illness the battle could end in a draw. That speaks volumes towards how a Itachi w/o illness would perform, I.E. if the battle is that close with illness the natural assumption is that without illness Itachi's chances of victory would increase exponentially.



> only problem is that he said he + Kisame would draw which implies he though of "himself" as below Jiriyia


No he didn't say that. He said him and J-man could kill each other. Basically he considering Kisame a non-factor. Kind of like how Team Gai & the other Konoha  survivors were considered non-factors in Deva Realms duel with Naruto. Doesn't make much sense, but I think it's just the way of Kishi showing these shinobi are inferior to others (I.E. Kisame inferior to Itachi & J-man, & Team Gai inferior to Deva & Naruto).



> nd Itachi when non Edo best feat is defeating a sick Orochomari with no arms, and I guess defeating Orochomari with no Edo-Tensei, I believe Jiriyia with his greates technique would defeat Orochomari , only thing it wouldn't cost him his life


I think one of Itachi's best accomplishment (which you didn't list) is how he handled himself in the Naruto, B, Nagato fight. He took on B & KCM Naruto in CQC, I believe this feat is often over inflated by Itachi-fans, but nevertheless its still a very impressive feat. Itachi than proceed to analyze Nagato's duel vision and counter it in a very brief period of time, a much briefer period of time than J-man (& Ma/Pa) required when up against Pain. He also analyzed CT and very quickly developed a counter to that as well. Finally he quickly thought off using the dust cloud of CT to take Nagato out with Totsuka Sword. 

He didn't do it alone, nor do I agree with people who claim he could have done it alone, but he was still the MVP off that battle and I believe showed superior skills to J-man. 

Though of course he was Edo in that battle, but I fully believe that Itachi w/o illness could pull off the same shit that Edo Itachi did in that battle, albeit he'd of course be worse for the wear than Edo.



> at the end of the day 3 pain bodies >Sick Oroochomaru or at least their the same level to where Jiriyia performance was more Impressive


Well I'm not sure I agree here. Could J-man fight Hebi Sasuke w/o killer intent until Yamata no Orochi came out and than defeat Yamata no Orochi after that. Perhaps he could. Could J-man's feat against Pain Rikudo be considered a bit more impressive than that or equally impressive, perhaps. But again that just places J-man around the level of terminally ill Itachi, not Itachi w/o illness.

So I'd personally consider Itachi's accomplishment against Hebi Sasuke/Yamata no Orochi more impressive than what J-man has done, because Itachi did it when terminally ill & i'm not sure I could see a J-man pulling that stuff off witha  terminal illness.

Also I have to say that while I think looking at accomplishments is a good way to evaluate characters, it's too narrow of a view to look at just accomplishments by themselves. Character statements & views should also be consider and in that sense Itachi w/o illness possess greater hype and just general aura of skill as a character.



> to me overall it's just a bad matchup we saw what frog genjutsu does to Susanoo and we don't know when Itachi became I'll, how do we know Itachi was sick in pt 1.


I think it's pretty obvious that Itachi was sick in Part I, but that's just me. There may be some poor match up stuff at play here, but again I just think it's as simply as Itachi with a terminal illness shouldn't try stepping to a full strength Sannin. However when healthy Itachi is a better shinobi overall.

And i'm not just talking about in terms of strength, i'm talking about in terms of knowledge, intelligence, & potential.


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## ueharakk (Feb 4, 2013)

Raikiri19 said:


> you are forgetting for many things you've listed Jiraiya has to enter SM before,and you didn't mention at all the fact Itachi could speedblitz Jiraiya under proper circumstances,and could take advantage of his godlu fast handseals making speed,which is hard to follow even for Sharingan



Jiraiya can enter SM against itachi as long as the later is not blood lusted.  Considering he was able to enter it against Pein, if this happens in the manga he will also be successful.

I don't see how itachi is speedblitzing jiraiya and just stating itachi having super-fast handseal speed is basically a resume post.


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## Mercurial (Feb 4, 2013)

it wasn't Pain at all

it was one Pain who used summons,against a great summoner,Itachi would use speed,Karasu Bunshin,Kage Bunshin and fast ninjutsu in combo with genjutsu to pressure him,the only chances for Ero Sennin are Doton:Yomi Numa or Gamaguchi Shibari,but if he doesn't put them fast he will be done for it

Itachi speedblitzed Sasuke and pressured Killer Bee,base Jiraiya is far slower then them,and his handseals speed was a great issue for pt. 1 Sharingan Kakashi and Sharingan Hebi Sasuke,both with far better speed and reflexes than Jiraiya


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## ueharakk (Feb 4, 2013)

Raikiri19 said:


> it wasn't Pain at all
> 
> it was one Pain who used summons,against a great summoner,Itachi would use speed,Karasu Bunshin,Kage Bunshin and fast ninjutsu in combo with genjutsu to pressure him,the only chances for Ero Sennin are Doton:Yomi Numa or Gamaguchi Shibari,but if he doesn't put them fast he will be done for it


Or jiraiya can summon one of the bosses and a kagebunshin and have them run away and stall while he fending itachi off with his hair attacks

or he can escape to his toad dimension, a trick that he pulled off while fighting all 6 paths of pein.

And itachi can't use karasu bunshins while using kage bunshins, and he needs a distraction in order to get jiraiya into a genjutsu.




Raikiri19 said:


> Itachi speedblitzed Sasuke


show me him speedblitzing sasuke.  Do you mean using his karasu bunshin as a distraction in order to get Sasuke in tsukuyomi?



Raikiri19 said:


> and pressured Killer Bee,


when?  Getting behind bee while bee was distracted by nagato's 2 bosses?



Raikiri19 said:


> base Jiraiya is far slower then them,and his handseals speed was a great issue for pt. 1 Sharingan Kakashi and Sharingan Hebi Sasuke,both with far better speed and reflexes than Jiraiya


how is jiraiya far slower than any of them? 

and you can't use A>B>C logic unless you are making a direct comparison between abilities/stats.  The handseal speed argument is just a resume post, it's just hype unless you can say how it would directly come into play or aid itachi in the fight.


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## UltimateDeadpool (Feb 4, 2013)

Kisame said that Jiraiya is on a completely different level than  himself... we've seen what Kisame is capable of, he held his own against  Base Bee and dominated him with the Shark Dance. 
We've seen what  Bee is capable of, he is able to keep up with Ei and overpower him with  the latiat, we've also seen him keep up with Minato and pressure Itachi.
We've seen what Ei is capable of doing, manhandle MS Sasuke and hold off 5 Susanoos with just one arm. 

There's  also Pein's statement, saying that he couldn't had defeated Jiraiya  without his secret. What's that secret? Nagato, whom has more powerful  versions of all of Pein's abilities, capable of using all 5 elements,  and can command the power of Gedo Mazo and it's Bijuu chakra. Nagato was able to give SM  Naruto a hard time with his summons alone, dominate him and Bee at the  same time, and was going to beat them with Chibaku Tensei. Despite  Nagato's immense power, Jiraiya was capable of winning. 

Jiraiya  fought and defeated KN4 in Base, without killing intent, and won. KN4  is Naruto with the power of Kurama, whom is more powerful than all of  the other Bijuu. KN4 might be close in power to Bee's V2 given the  difference in power between Kurama and Gyuuki. So if Base Jiraiya is that powerful, how powerful is Sage Jiraiya?

Then there's his  rivalry with Orochimaru. Hiruzen, whom even old was still stronger than  Ei, Onoki, Yagura, and Gaara Sr., didn't think he was strong enough to  defeat Orochimaru... and that was before he learned of Orochimaru's  possession of Edo Tensei. Orochimaru is so feared that Kakashi nearly  shat himself and it's said that only another Sannin can defeat him.  Orochimaru's 5 in genjutsu wasn't even enough to gain a decisive  advantage in their rivalry. Now that Orochimaru has his hands and all of  his jutsus back he's considered a threat to EMS Sasuke, Jiraiya may get more hype due to his rivalry with  Orochimaru.

As for Itachi, I don't see how his hype or feats warrants the pedestal some people have come to place him on. He defeated Kakashi whom, until lately, seemed to be everyone's punching bag: Kakuzu, Pein, etc. He defeated a 9 year old Deidara whom not only wasn't as powerful as he was when he fought Sasuke (no genjutsu resistance, no Garuda, etc.) but he's implied to not even be as powerful as armless Orochimaru. Edo Deidara even showed fear while fighting Onoki. 
Itachi forced Orochimaru to retreat when he was trying to take his body 10 years ago. Orochimaru was weakened and had no killing intent, he walked up to Itachi and tried to take his body, but since Orochimaru can't use snake sensing during the switch he left himself vulnerable to genjutsu which Itachi, like Sasuke, used to counter the transfer. Itachi literally had the same feat as Sasuke whom admitted to being weaker than Orochimaru. 
Edo Itachi could not gain the upper hand in melee combat with either Base Bee or a weakened SM Naruto, he also needed their help against Nagato. Itachi also needed Sasuke's help against Kabuto, a Sage. 
Itachi's most impressive display was against Hebi Sasuke, more impressive due to the fact that Itachi was holding back, but Hebi Sasuke was still weaker than an armless Orochimaru. We can't use Hebi Sasuke as a comparison of Itachi to other more powerful characters. 



Kai said:


> You elaborated on the consequences following the validity of Itachi's statement concerning Jiraiya, which everyone knows will naturally occur.
> 
> Everyone is (was) disputing on the actual statement, although Itachi > Jiraiya is a majority opinion on NF. That does not mean Jiraiya can't beat Itachi if given favorable circumstances.



Itachi > Jiraiya is _not_ a majority opinion. That's one of the reasons Itachi vs. Jiraiya is such a heated debate even today.



Raikiri19 said:


> you are forgetting for many things you've  listed Jiraiya has to enter SM before,and you didn't mention at all the  fact Itachi could speedblitz Jiraiya under proper circumstances,and  could take advantage of his godlu fast handseals making speed,which is  hard to follow even for Sharingan



Shouldn't be too high  of a challenge to enter Sage Mode. He can go into a barrier, get reverse  summoned, use Shadow Clones and/or summons for support, etc. He can  also just summon the Ni Dai Sennin and allow them to fuse themselves to  his shoulders, which would be vastly faster that trying to summon them  directly into his body like he did against Pein. The Ni Dai Sennin could also use combo genjutsu against Itachi to give Jiraiya the time needed for Sage Mode, if that's what he chose to use the time for. 

I don't see what those circumstance could possibly be, the speed gap  between Itachi and base Jiraiya are not significant enough. Kisame,  whom has a 4 in speed, proved capable of defending against faster  opponents such as Gai and Bee. 

Having "godly fast" handseals  aren't such an advantage when many don't seem to require handseals (such  as Jiraiya's Rasengan or Hair Needle Barrage), or many others seem to  only require 1-3. Zabuza also possesses blindingly fast handseal speed,  capable of using 43 in what Sasuke said was mere seconds... I doubt even  Itachi could had truly done them any faster,


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## Jizznificent (Feb 4, 2013)

it's possible that even itachi w/ illness could defeat j-man. but the intensity of such a  battle (as well as the injuries that itachi may suffer  from such a battle) would aggravate itachi's illness and the illness  would ultimately kill him soon after.

that is also possibility as to what itachi meant when he said that both he and jiraiya could kill each other if they were fought each other at the time.


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## Jυstin (Feb 4, 2013)

Akitō said:


> Well, even if you stipulate that Itachi was lying in order to fool Kisame, it wouldn't make sense for him to use the "even with backup" line if it didn't have merit because then he wouldn't be fooling Kisame. And the fact that Itachi _did_ think it an intelligent enough excuse speaks volumes of its value: clearly Itachi thought it to be a believable claim or he wouldn't have said it to divert Kisame's attention. So either Itachi is an idiot because he tried to fool Kisame with an awful excuse or his statement is believable enough for it to hold some merit in a discussion about Jiraiya and Itachi. Now I'm not saying it'd have to be absolutely accurate for Itachi to have used it to supplement his lie, but it would've had to have been somewhat realistic or there would have been no point in him saying it.



I still stand by my statement that his claim makes no logical sense, which it really doesn't. If one value is equal to another, adding another value will upset that equilibrium unless the added value is zero, and we've seen Kisame is far from zero. Arguably, he alone could give Jiraiya a run for his money.

But, I feel that Kisame HIGHLY respects Itachi's judgment (considering it's not the only time Itachi's said things to hold Kisame off), and Itachi knew this. Kisame even questions why a retreat is necessary (for Itachi) AFTER their encounter with Jiraiya. After the encounter, Kisame was less convinced than before. He was simply trusting Itachi's words, though shakily.

There's just no way that a battle between Itachi and Jiraiya wouldn't have a shift in power balance if a behemoth like Kisame is added into the fray. It's just common sense.


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## UltimateDeadpool (Feb 4, 2013)

Jυstin said:


> I still stand by my statement that his claim makes no logical sense, which it really doesn't. If one value is equal to another, adding another value will upset that equilibrium unless the added value is zero, and we've seen Kisame is far from zero. Arguably, he alone could give Jiraiya a run for his money.
> 
> But, I feel that Kisame HIGHLY respects Itachi's judgment (considering it's not the only time Itachi's said things to hold Kisame off), and Itachi knew this. Kisame even questions why a retreat is necessary (for Itachi) AFTER their encounter with Jiraiya. After the encounter, Kisame was less convinced than before. He was simply trusting Itachi's words, though shakily.
> 
> There's just no way that a battle between Itachi and Jiraiya wouldn't have a shift in power balance if a behemoth like Kisame is added into the fray. It's just common sense.



Remember when Pein invaded Konoha? The other villagers, such as Gai, didn't come to Naruto's aid because Naruto and Pein were so powerful that they'd only get in the way. I do believe that it's B.S. in both cases, but Kishimoto was trying to tell us something about relative power of the participants. 

Why was retreat necessary? Surely Itachi could had kept Jiraiya busy while Kisame grabbed Naruto and accomplished their mission.


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## Eliyua23 (Feb 4, 2013)

Turrin said:


> Lol so I'm defending Itachi now in a J-man vs Itachi discussion. Well there is a first time for everything.
> 
> MS is clearly suppose to be seen as an equal power up to SM. Hence the MS Sasuke & SM Naruto comparison. J-man mastered Senjutsu to a high level, but he mastery was incomplete & he's far from the best Sage in the manga. Itachi fully mastered MS & is perhaps thee most skilled MS user in the entire manga. Other Dojutsu users are better than the guy, but it's because they have better Dojutsu (EMS/Rinnegan) or have augmented themselves with Senju DNA.
> 
> ...




1. The problem when comparing MS to SM is that with SM there are no drawbacks while with MS while trying to master it the eyes deteriorate and the user becomes blind, there's a reason why most Sharingan users and Orochomaru are trying to get their hands on some Senju DNA, even those Ms abilites are enhanced by Senju DNA, so the MS in itself has powerful abilites which rival Sage Mode, the drawbacks from just using MS without Senju keep it from being a worse power up, once Sasuke mastered his MS he was going blind, while a Sage Mode user keeps his power, and being an imperfect sage just meant Jiriyia couldn't use SM without Ma/Pa like Naruto but once he hits SM he gets in infinitely.


2.i would say being a villager of Konoha he probably would have knowledge on MS with the exception of Susanoo, even Killer Bee had knowldge on Shisui, and Knowedge is just required Becuase Pain is a far stronger enemy than Itachi, so we don't know how much Knowldge he would need to defeat Itachi, but I'm certain he wouldn't need as favorable Conditons to insure his victory.


3. I saw it like Itachi AT BEST would draw , meaning he thought a more viable outcome would be that he would have died that day against Jiriyia, we also don't know Itachi's conditon at that current time , and we have confirmation when Itachi even as an Edo Tensei had trouble again with an SM User.


4. He also said With additional backup meaning even with the number advantage he would lose, and we actually saw Deva was much stronger than Gai, shit Deva was stronger Naruto as we saw them in combat.


5. I was mainly talking about Human Itachi's best feats and ignoring those as an Edo Tensei, well Itachi is probably a greater genius shit Kakashi is a greater genius than Jiriyia , hes a greater genius than Pain doesn't mean he would defeat him in combat, his Taijutsu was impressive but I got the impression Naruto was sparring and trying to talk to Itachi.

I for one don't think he coud pull it off that effectively from the standpoint in life he just doesnt have the stamina , it'll be like Kakashi spamming Kamui ! Itachi has shown he has a recoil effect when using MS he can use it without it effecting him and that had nothing to do with illness just having low stamina.


6. I think another reason was that Itachi had much more knowledge on Sasuke and Orochomari than Jiriyia had on Pain, I mean this is his little brother who he knows all about and an Orochomaru who he knows all of his techniques , that's the difference we can say Jiriyia had the advantage being in better health, but Itachi had much more Knowedge , and Itachi defeated those enemies at the cost of his life, Jiryia only died against the 6 bodies at once.

7.Currently we have no proof when he was sick but I'm leaning more towards him getting sick over the time skip simply Becuase we know they were going on missions hunting Jinchurki and other things and I doubt he could fight a terminal illness for that long being apart of Atakuski , Zetsu was also shocked when he saw his sickness , if Itachi had been sick all of that time Zetsu would've certainly not expect him to fight at that level.

As far as who the better shinobi I think everything depicts them on the same level from their datascore , to their role within the story, I think they both were wandererss Jiriyia on his travels, and Itachi on his missions with Atakuski , both failed in surpassing (Madara, Kage), both protected the village from the outskirts without much fan fare, neither knew the secrets of Obito being Madara,

Now to say Itachi had greater potential could be true , but for Itachi to become stronger would take enhancements through gaining Senju power or taking Sasuke's eyes, I mean he mastered his MS so he did reach his full natural potential.


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## Turrin (Feb 4, 2013)

Eliyua23 said:


> 1. The problem when comparing MS to SM is that with SM there are no drawbacks while with MS while trying to master it the eyes deteriorate and the user becomes blind, there's a reason why most Sharingan users and Orochomaru are trying to get their hands on some Senju DNA, even those Ms abilites are enhanced by Senju DNA, so the MS in itself has powerful abilites which rival Sage Mode, the drawbacks from just using MS without Senju keep it from being a worse power up, once Sasuke mastered his MS he was going blind, while a Sage Mode user keeps his power,


Dude if MS didn't have it's drawbacks it would be a better power up than SM. Look how strong Obito is when Senju DNA mitigates his MS drawbacks and he only has a single Sharingan and a single MS jutsu.

MS having drawbacks is what makes it equal to SM, not inferior.



> and being an imperfect sage just meant Jiriyia couldn't use SM without Ma/Pa like Naruto but once he hits SM he gets in infinitely.


No J-man also had partial toad like features which shows his SM is inherently weaker than the perfected one. By how much who knows, but Kishi wouldn't make a point of Naruto possessing no Toad features if it didn't impact SM's performance. 

Also the point i'm making is that Itachi is portrayed as thee best MS users, while J-man is not portrayed as thee best Senjutsu user. 



> .i would say being a villager of Konoha he probably would have knowledge on MS with the exception of Susanoo, even Killer Bee had knowldge on Shisui, and Knowedge is just required Becuase Pain is a far stronger enemy than Itachi, so we don't know how much Knowldge he would need to defeat Itachi, but I'm certain he wouldn't need as favorable Conditons to insure his victory.


I'm not sure what this proves. Yes J-man had knowledge on Itachi. No he probably doesn't need as favorable conditions to beat Itachi than he does Nagato. But like I said the conditions aren't given in this thread, so how do I speak to them?



> I saw it like Itachi AT BEST would draw , meaning he thought a more viable outcome would be that he would have died that day against Jiriyia, we also don't know Itachi's conditon at that current time


That's not the way the sentence is structured. The way the sentence reads is that the worst conclusion would be them killing each other, a lesser conclusion would be them just hurting each other badly. 



> and we have confirmation when Itachi even as an Edo Tensei had trouble again with an SM User.


Kabuto had far more knowledge of Itachi than J-man and Kabuto is just outright stronger than J-man. On top of that Itachi had to fight w/o killer intent.



> He also said With additional backup meaning even with the number advantage he would lose, and we actually saw Deva was much stronger than Gai, shit Deva was stronger Naruto as we saw them in combat.


Itachi never mentions losing once. J-man & Itachi are much stronger than Kisame.



> I was mainly talking about Human Itachi's best feats and ignoring those as an Edo Tensei, well Itachi is probably a greater genius shit Kakashi is a greater genius than Jiriyia , hes a greater genius than Pain doesn't mean he would defeat him in combat, his Taijutsu was impressive but I got the impression Naruto was sparring and trying to talk to Itachi.
> 
> I for one don't think he coud pull it off that effectively from the standpoint in life he just doesnt have the stamina , it'll be like Kakashi spamming Kamui ! Itachi has shown he has a recoil effect when using MS he can use it without it effecting him and that had nothing to do with illness just having low stamina.


Yeah and Kakashi would loose because he's inferior in strength. But if he was even equal in strength he'd probably win due to superior intelligence.

Itachi uses MS more than he did in the Nagato battle even with illness, so I don't see why he couldn't do it w/o illness. 



> I think another reason was that Itachi had much more knowledge on Sasuke and Orochomari than Jiriyia had on Pain, I mean this is his little brother who he knows all about and an Orochomaru who he knows all of his techniques , that's the difference we can say Jiriyia had the advantage being in better health, but Itachi had much more Knowedge , and Itachi defeated those enemies at the cost of his life, Jiryia only died against the 6 bodies at once.


Itachi just has more knowledge than J-man in general. Itachi seems to always know shit about every opponent he face's abilities and if he doesn't already know he figures shit out almost instantly. 

J-man was the only one in the entire world who possessed the knowledge to figure out Pain's secret, so I don't see any knowledge advantage here.



> Currently we have no proof when he was sick but I'm leaning more towards him getting sick over the time skip simply Becuase we know they were going on missions hunting Jinchurki and other things and I doubt he could fight a terminal illness for that long being apart of Atakuski , Zetsu was also shocked when he saw his sickness , if Itachi had been sick all of that time Zetsu would've certainly not expect him to fight at that level.


The way Obito talked about Itachi being sick makes it sound like he was for a very long time, longer than the time-skip. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.



> As far as who the better shinobi I think everything depicts them on the same level from their datascore , to their role within the story, I think they both were wandererss Jiriyia on his travels, and Itachi on his missions with Atakuski , both failed in surpassing (Madara, Kage), both protected the village from the outskirts without much fan fare, neither knew the secrets of Obito being Madara,


But again a-lot of this is within context of Itachi being sick


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## eyeknockout (Feb 4, 2013)

so an itachi who was tired from fighting 3 jounins and using tsukiyomi said he would tie with a completely fresh jiraiya. i personally believe it was a lie, but that still sounds good for itachi anyway.


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## Eliyua23 (Feb 4, 2013)

> Dude if MS didn't have it's drawbacks it would be a better power up than SM. Look how strong Obito is when Senju DNA mitigates his MS drawbacks and he only has a single Sharingan and a single MS jutsu.
> 
> MS having drawbacks is what makes it equal to SM, not inferior.



How can MS be a better power up when your strength deteriorates and relies on the power of the body to enhance , SM has 0 drawbacks, and besides Power of the Body has been indicated to be stronger than the power of the eyes, Younger Son>Elder, Hashirama>Madara, Sage Mode enhances all of ones abilites while MS deteriorates.



> No J-man also had partial toad like features which shows his SM is inherently weaker than the perfected one. By how much who knows, but Kishi wouldn't make a point of Naruto possessing no Toad features if it didn't impact SM's performance.



 My point was that Jiriyia can use SM For as long as he wants, and MS Sasuke, Madara, Izuna, Shisui all had Perfected MS on the level or higher than Itachi had.




> That's not the way the sentence is structured. The way the sentence reads is that the worst conclusion would be them killing each other, a lesser conclusion would be them just hurting each other badly.



I haven't seen it in a long time , but from what it read the best they could do was draw, that's the best Itachi and Kisame or even back up could do with Jiriyia there, that's why many believed he was talking about the 9 tailofstir stead of Jiriyia, I doubt he would scare Kisame off with just a draw with the possibility of killing him, that statement was meant to hype Jiriyia.



> Kabuto had far more knowledge of Itachi than J-man and Kabuto is just outright stronger than J-man. On top of that Itachi had to fight w/o killer intent.



Yeah but Itachi had backup in EMS Sasuke and had the advantage of Edo body Kabuto also was fucking him up with sound genjutsu and Jiriyia has Frog Sing one of the best sound genjutsu in the manga.





> Yeah and Kakashi would loose because he's inferior in strength. But if he was even equal in strength he'd probably win due to superior intelligence.



Sasuke and Naruto are the same or near equal in strength yet Naruto will more than likely defeat Sasuke, Orochomari and Jiriyia are close in strength yet Orochimaru Coukd lose to Jiriyia , Deidara was smarter than Sasuke yet was defeated and they were about the same level off strength, being more intelligent doesn't always determine the outcome like you said it mostly comes down to strength and matchup.



> Itachi uses MS more than he did in the Nagato battle even with illness, so I don't see why he couldn't do it w/o illness.



Illness wouldn't have an impact on how much he can use the MS



> Itachi just has more knowledge than J-man in general. Itachi seems to always know shit about every opponent he face's abilities and if he doesn't already know he figures shit out almost instantly.



How , he had no knowledge on Pain, got fooled into thinking Obito was Madara, was a tool for Danzo when he obviously could've found another solution, I mean the only people he had knowledge on was Orochimaru and Sasuke , his brother and a guy he has encountered in the past, Jiriyia has more knowledge of the world, really other than Madara and the Kages , Jiiryia is probably the most knowledgeable shinobi , to me Jiriyia is just the better ninja overall now Edo Itachi that leaned from his mistakes in life sure, but that's not what we're discussing of that's the case it's obvious Edo Itachi>Jiryia but we're discsussing the Human Itachi. Itachi is probably more intelligent than Jiriyia while Jiriyia has more knowledge.



> J-man was the only one in the entire world who possessed the knowledge to figure out Pain's secret, so I don't see any knowledge advantage here.



Itachi has more knowledge in Orochomari and Sasuke than Jiriyia had on PainNd he was talking about the real one not being among him not Knowedge on their abilites.




> The way Obito talked about Itachi being sick makes it sound like he was for a very long time, longer than the time-skip. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.




I just don't see it for the simple fact, The longer he was sick kind of negates the point of "healthy Itachi" in the first place, if he was sick all those yrs then we can come t the conclusion that a healthy MS Itachi didn't exist and that he has always been sick, I mean the time skip was 2.5-3 yrs that's a very long time to be sick especially terminally ill.



> But again a-lot of this is within context of Itachi being sick



This is discussing their characterazation beyond their power levels , in actuality it seems Jiriyia gets better treatment, he gets better fights, has  better showings, didn't get Edo tenseied, as far as sick Itachi until the databook comes out and gives us more info, I'm going to say pt 1 was Healthy Itachi , while pt 2 was sick Itachi , there's no evidence to state there was an Itachi that was >>>>Sannin just that Itachi when healthy would perform better than in his fight against Hebi Sasuke but he didn't perform all that great and I don't consider Hebi Sasuke  great of an Enemy


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## Turrin (Feb 4, 2013)

Eliyua23 said:


> How can MS be a better power up when your strength deteriorates and relies on the power of the body to enhance , SM has 0 drawbacks, and besides Power of the Body has been indicated to be stronger than the power of the eyes, Younger Son>Elder, Hashirama>Madara, Sage Mode enhances all of ones abilites while MS deteriorates.


It's not a better power up it's an equal one. I said if it didn't have those drawbacks it would be a better power up.

The body isn't stronger than the eyes, WOF > WOH.



> My point was that Jiriyia can use SM For as long as he wants,


I already addressed that point 



> and MS Sasuke, Madara, Izuna, Shisui all had Perfected MS on the level or higher than Itachi had.


What is your basis for these claims? 



> I haven't seen it in a long time , but from what it read the best they could do was draw, that's the best Itachi and Kisame or even back up could do with Jiriyia there, that's why many believed he was talking about the 9 tailofstir stead of Jiriyia, I doubt he would scare Kisame off with just a draw with the possibility of killing him, that statement was meant to hype Jiriyia.


And again that's not how the statement reads.



> Yeah but Itachi had backup in EMS Sasuke and had the advantage of Edo body Kabuto also was fucking him up with sound genjutsu and Jiriyia has Frog Sing one of the best sound genjutsu in the manga.


Okay, but again it's not a comparable situation. At best you can say Senjutsu allows one to contend with MS something I already agree with. 



> Sasuke and Naruto are the same or near equal in strength yet Naruto will more than likely defeat Sasuke, Orochomari and Jiriyia are close in strength yet Orochimaru Coukd lose to Jiriyia , Deidara was smarter than Sasuke yet was defeated and they were about the same level off strength, being more intelligent doesn't always determine the outcome like you said it mostly comes down to strength and matchup.


Strength matters more, but when you have close fighters intelligence/potential can be deciding factors. It really comes down to how the author wishes to portray these things. In most case the author doesn't care, but he plays them up when it comes to Itachi. Again this has to do with Itachi's general aura.



> Illness wouldn't have an impact on how much he can use the MS



1) That's a pretty bold statement to make, when it's very plausible that illness could effect someones stamina.

2) Again Itachi used MS more times before than he did in the Nagato battle anyway.



> How , he had no knowledge on Pain


Itachi read the secret tablet so he most likely knows a great deal about Rinnegan. He also worked under Pain, so he should have some knowledge from that as well. 



> got fooled into thinking Obito was Madara


J-man also thought Obito was Madara



> was a tool for Danzo when he obviously could've found another solution


What does this have to do with knowledge?



> I mean the only people he had knowledge on was Orochimaru and Sasuke , his brother and a guy he has encountered in the past, Jiriyia has more knowledge of the world, really other than Madara and the Kages , Jiiryia is probably the most knowledgeable shinobi , to me Jiriyia is just the better ninja overall now Edo Itachi that leaned from his mistakes in life sure, but that's not what we're discussing of that's the case it's obvious Edo Itachi>Jiryia but we're discsussing the Human Itachi. Itachi is probably more intelligent than Jiriyia while Jiriyia has more knowledge.


The better question is when hasn't Itachi had knowledge?. Every opponent he's been up against he's shown knowledge off or mere seconds gain knowledge on their abilities

Itachi's shown knowledge of Senjutsu, detailed knowledge of Uchiha Clan & Dojutsu in general, knowledge of Orochimaru's Kinjutsu, Knowledge of Minato, Knowledge of Kakashi, knowledge of Senju, knowledge of Danzo, and figured out Nagato's jutsu in a split instance.

Kabuto even said Itachi had knowledge of many important secrets. 



> Itachi has more knowledge in Orochomari and Sasuke than Jiriyia had on PainNd he was talking about the real one not being among him not Knowedge on their abilites.


How did J-man arrive at that conclusion though. Because he had detailed knowledge of Nagato, Rinnegan, & all the corpses that make up Pain Rikudo. 

Plus I don't see knowledge as an advantage anyway as I see it as part of that shinobi's skill set.



> I just don't see it for the simple fact, The longer he was sick kind of negates the point of "healthy Itachi" in the first place, if he was sick all those yrs then we can come t the conclusion that a healthy MS Itachi didn't exist and that he has always been sick, I mean the time skip was 2.5-3 yrs that's a very long time to be sick especially terminally ill.


Itachi got MS very young, so there could be a time when Itachi was healthy and had MS. It all depends on what the author wants to do.

That's not my point anyway. I'm not trying to pin down a specific incarnation of Itachi. I'm just saying the dude had a terminal illness and if he didn't have that illness he could very well have been stronger than J-man.



> there's no evidence to state there was an Itachi that was >>>>Sannin


When was I saying Itachi is that much greater than the Sannin lol. I'm not arguing that at all. I just think if Itachi didn't have his illness he'd be better than them, by how much, well to know that we really need more info on the amount of difference illness made. It could be something huge, but it could also be something that is not as huge. We just don't know.


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## Jυstin (Feb 4, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> Remember when Pein invaded Konoha? The other villagers, such as Gai, didn't come to Naruto's aid because Naruto and Pein were so powerful that they'd only get in the way. I do believe that it's B.S. in both cases, but Kishimoto was trying to tell us something about relative power of the participants.
> 
> Why was retreat necessary? Surely Itachi could had kept Jiraiya busy while Kisame grabbed Naruto and accomplished their mission.



Yes I've learned to stop blaming characters and blame Kishi's writing skills, since he's the one who writes them. His inconsistency (like with Amaterasu) has led to "character A vs character B" debates where, both sides can have claims for their character, both entirely true, but have them contradict each other. It causes arguments to be more drawn out and less solid than they should be.

I don't think Itachi's an idiot, but also I know it's Kishi who's penning it. I'd hazard to guess that in the case with Naruto, it's because everyone was pretty worn out and Naruto was up against 6 opponents, and not just one. It could also be due to the nature of his attacks and how he didn't know the others' fighting styles well. With Itachi and Kisame, the two go pretty far back. They've been partners in Akatsuki for who knows how long and know each other, and their fighting methods, very well, so I doubt it'd be the same case for them. The two have good synergy. I don't think they'd act in pairs if they were worried about getting in each other's way.

I'm not exactly sure what Kishi was going for here, but it's made clearer once we learned of Itachi's reasons for being in Knonha in the first place. I could see him trying to give Kisame reason to doubt wanting to fight Jiraiya, while at the same time, couldn't fathom why Itachi would even want to fight Jiraiya, given his purpose for being in the village in the first place. Had he... I'd almost be tempted to consider him an idiot. It'd be completely counterproductive and accomplish nothing but sabotage any intentions he'd had. Were I Itachi, I'd probably do the same thing. I will feign inability or act like something's too troublesome in order to avoid it being done. Pride be damned.


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## Grimmjowsensei (Feb 5, 2013)

Even if you think that statement is true, that Itachi thought under those circumstances, Jiraiya would be able to force a mutual K.O or hurt him badly, there is still Kisame's last remark of questioning Itachi's retreat.

Which means, Kisame believes that Itachi should be able to take out Jiraiya, and is not convinced of Itachi's excuses.

The circumstances are also crucial here. While Itachi had no trouble with dancing around the Jounins, and having fun, the same could not be applied to Jiraiya for a few reasons.

First and foremost, Jiraiya is alot stronger than the Jounins, so you can't fuck around him and Jiraiya would protect Naruto with his life, which means he'd use all his power to kill his opponents. It is a situation of kill or be killed.

Second off, Itachi used some chakra during the initial skirmish in Konoha. For someone who is having chakra issues, that is a great deal.

Third off, Itachi, given his true alligence, would either try to throw the fight to run away or just try to incapacitate Jiraiya which would prove to be alot harder than just killing him. 

And the latter consequence would end up with Naruto being captured which was against Itachi's goals and ideals. And it would be pretty hard for Itachi to find an excuse to let Naruto go after taking Jiraiya out of the picture. Even Kisame wouldn't buy that which would jeopardize Itachi's cover.

So when all the circumstances are considered, yeah, while that statement may hold some merit, it is in no fucking way a direct strength comparison. It is just a specific scenario under specific circumstances.

Itachi was portrayed to be a more dangerous and a superior individual than the Sannin, even before we learned that he was sick and holding back during his whole panel time. 

So my personal opinion is, Itachi even when sick & blind was stronger than Jiraiya and Jiraiya'd need favorable circumstances to be able to put up a fight. Itachi simply acknowledged that Jiraiya was a lethal threat. Pain acknowledged that too, but keep in mind that it didn't prevent him from mopping the floor with Jiraiya.




Vice said:


> Itachi was on the side of the Leaf Village and still ordered the death of its jonin, put his brother in the hospital and was almost successful in kidnapping its jinchuuriki sans legs.
> 
> That literally means almost nothing here.



None of which happened except for the Sasuke bit. 
And the Sasuke thing was a part of his plan to make him stronger and it worked.


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## Bkprince33 (Feb 5, 2013)

I believe this is a misconception that stems from sm naruto, being stronger then heibi sasuke but people forget to factor circumstance in.



Sasuke received no training for his new found powers in absorbing orochimaru, and he also didn't receive access to orochimaru strongest jutsu which is edo tensei.




Naruto actually mastered the technique and had better rasengon variants, I don't see why people hype jiraiya just because of naruto's success with sm, that's like me hyping oro because of kabuto's latest feats.





Jiraiya isn't itachi's equal, he's about a tier below him.


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## Cyphon (Feb 5, 2013)

I am not going to get into all of this for the thousandth time but I do just want to point out for people adding Oro into the equation.

It doesn't have to be a straight line such as Itachi > Oro > Jiraiya or Jiraiya > Itachi > Oro or whatever. It can very well be a circle. Jiraiya > Itachi > Oro > Jiraiya. Add in equal signs if you must. 

As some others have pointed out, certain people are built better for fighting others. In the case of Oro and Jiraiya there is the emotional connection as well as knowledge of each other on a level not seen in many other fights. And to be more specific, Oro has the emotional edge on Jiraiya by a long shot. 

As for Jiraiya and Itachi, one major key to fighting the Sharingan is said to be a partner. There is not a person in the manga who more commonly has a partner than Jiraiya. 

So it is just things like that people should think about as opposed to many of the same old points about who could be lying and what it could mean. None of it really has to mean much of anything as the "tiers" have never been stationary. They are fluid and hardly any person belongs in one specific spot.


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## blk (Feb 5, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> Kisame said that Jiraiya is on a completely different level than  himself... we've seen what Kisame is capable of, he held his own against  Base Bee and dominated him with the Shark Dance.
> We've seen what  Bee is capable of, he is able to keep up with Ei and overpower him with  the latiat, we've also seen him keep up with Minato and pressure Itachi.
> We've seen what Ei is capable of doing, manhandle MS Sasuke and hold off 5 Susanoos with just one arm.



Kisame's skill set is perfect to fight a Jinchuuriki, but this doesn't mean that it would have the same efficency against a Sage.
You can't use his perfomance against Bee and say that, because of that statement, Jiraya is automatically more powerful than the latter.
The rest of the chain makes even less sense and falls down just by the very fact that Bee's arsenal interact with Kisame's arsenal in a completely different way from how Jiraya's one would.

In short, A>B>C logic is not valid.



> There's  also Pein's statement, saying that he couldn't had defeated Jiraiya  without his secret. What's that secret? Nagato, whom has more powerful  versions of all of Pein's abilities, capable of using all 5 elements,  and can command the power of Gedo Mazo and it's Bijuu chakra. Nagato was able to give SM  Naruto a hard time with his summons alone, dominate him and Bee at the  same time, and was going to beat them with Chibaku Tensei. Despite  Nagato's immense power, Jiraiya was capable of winning.



That statement suggest that if Jiraya knew the truth, he could have simply avoided the Pain Rikudo and kill the one who controlled them, Nagato, who was a defenseless cripple blocked in a machine.

Therefore, your comparison is invalid since that Nagato wasn't the Edo version that Bee and Naruto fought.



> Jiraiya  fought and defeated KN4 in Base, without killing intent, and won. KN4  is Naruto with the power of Kurama, whom is more powerful than all of  the other Bijuu. KN4 might be close in power to Bee's V2 given the  difference in power between Kurama and Gyuuki. So if Base Jiraiya is that powerful, how powerful is Sage Jiraiya?



For all we know, Jiraya could have been injured and then attach a seal to Kn4 just because of luck.
You can't use events with uncertain circumstances for drawn precise conclusions regarding power.



> Then there's his  rivalry with Orochimaru. Hiruzen, whom even old was still stronger than  Ei, Onoki, Yagura, and Gaara Sr., didn't think he was strong enough to  defeat Orochimaru... and that was before he learned of Orochimaru's  possession of Edo Tensei. Orochimaru is so feared that Kakashi nearly  shat himself and it's said that only another Sannin can defeat him.  Orochimaru's 5 in genjutsu wasn't even enough to gain a decisive  advantage in their rivalry. Now that Orochimaru has his hands and all of  his jutsus back he's considered a threat to EMS Sasuke, Jiraiya may get more hype due to his rivalry with  Orochimaru.



Old Hiruzen stronger than these guys? That's just plain false.

How do you know that Orochimaru's genjutsu wasn't a decisive advantage? More importantly, it's an irrelevant fact regarding the Itachi vs Jiraya topic, since the Uchiha is still tiers above Orochimaru in the genjutsu departement.

Orochimaru admited inferiority to EMS Sasuke, exactly as he did (or how the manga implied countless of times) about Itachi.



> As for Itachi, I don't see how his hype or feats warrants the pedestal some people have come to place him on. He defeated Kakashi whom, until lately, seemed to be everyone's punching bag: Kakuzu, Pein, etc. He defeated a 9 year old Deidara whom not only wasn't as powerful as he was when he fought Sasuke (no genjutsu resistance, no Garuda, etc.) but he's implied to not even be as powerful as armless Orochimaru. Edo Deidara even showed fear while fighting Onoki.



When was Deidara implied to be less powerful than armless Orochimaru?



> Itachi forced Orochimaru to retreat when he was trying to take his body 10 years ago. Orochimaru was weakened and had no killing intent, he walked up to Itachi and tried to take his body, but since Orochimaru can't use snake sensing during the switch he left himself vulnerable to genjutsu which Itachi, like Sasuke, used to counter the transfer. Itachi literally had the same feat as Sasuke whom admitted to being weaker than Orochimaru.



Orochimaru wasn't weakened.



> Edo Itachi could not gain the upper hand in melee combat with either Base Bee or a weakened SM Naruto, he also needed their help against Nagato. Itachi also needed Sasuke's help against Kabuto, a Sage.



Itachi fought Bee and Naruto practically on par.
Itachi didn't had killing intent against Kabuto.

By the way, i don't see how these facts are relevant.



> Itachi's most impressive display was against Hebi Sasuke, more impressive due to the fact that Itachi was holding back, but Hebi Sasuke was still weaker than an armless Orochimaru. We can't use Hebi Sasuke as a comparison of Itachi to other more powerful characters.



We can't use Hebi Sasuke as a comparison because of particular circumstances, yet we can use Kisame and ambigous events (all of which have their own particular circumstances) as comparisons....... this is self-contradictory.

What about that we compare Itachi and Jiraya through their _own_ feats? Instead of fallacious and unnecessary comparisons.


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## Akitō (Feb 5, 2013)

What I don't understand is how certain people can admit that Itachi's statement regarding Jiraiya has _some_ merit (whether it be Itachi being equal to Jiraiya or Jiraiya being strong enough that he can pose a threat to Itachi), and then go on to say that Itachi can defeat Jiraiya with 'low-difficulty'. Of course, circumstances and conditions should be factored into the equation, but there's only so much that a favorable location or anything like that can do; for Jiraiya to ever have a chance at defeating Itachi, he'd have to be near his level of strength. 

I've seen people say that Jiraiya can defeat Itachi in the Forest of Death but lose to Itachi in a few seconds in any other location: that's ridiculous, because if Itachi was so much stronger and smarter than Jiraiya, a location change wouldn't have an impact on the outcome. 

At this point, it's fine to believe that Itachi is quite a bit stronger than Jiraiya. I still believe they're equals, mainly because I don't think it was Kishimoto's intention for Itachi to have lied back when he compared himself with Jiraiya, but I acknowledge that there's also a good deal of evidence that supports Itachi being superior. I just can't get around the blatant overplaying of Itachi's abilities when the conditions are even. I'm okay with 'Itachi wins with mid-diff.', but how can anyone seriously entertain the thought of Jiraiya easily losing to Itachi when they freely admit Jiraiya's danger to Itachi in the situation in the hotel?


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## Mr.Blonde (Feb 5, 2013)

Many of these contradictions arise because we judge power strictly from a battledome perspective. I would have thought that, given the obvious disregard Kishi has for consistency and continuity both in and out of combat, this would no longer be the case, but there you go...

It's stands to reason that, judging from Kisame's 'feats', if we add him in the Itachi vs Jiraiya mix, things will go south fast for Jiraiya. So Itachi fans are correct, in a sense, to doubt his statement. But even with inconsistency issues aside, 'feats' only count for so much. I would argue that statements that offer insight into the author's conception about who is more powerful, the 'word of god' as it were, should matter more. Why? Because the author can create feats at his leisure to justify the statements. In fact it's far easier to solve disparity in 'feats' than it is to reconcile contradicting statements. Contradicting statements ruin the manga. Take the latest "God of shinobi" mess. 
But that's neither here nor there...

Regardless, when one looks at how easily Jiraiya disabled Konan with a single jutsu, or how he had Kisame at his mercy also with a single jutsu, both Kisame and Itachi's statements become easier to swallow.


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## Jυstin (Feb 5, 2013)

Considering what we now know Kisame to be capable of, I doubt he was powerless. Regardless, even after all that happened and they left, Kisame's opinion, which by what you said, should have regarded what Itachi said as true, instead shifted to believing a retreat wasn't necessary, meaning from what he saw, it wasn't anything they couldn't deal with. He was even _less_ convinced of Itachi's excuse after the encounter.

Itachi doesn't even disagree. He gives an entirely different reason to why they were leaving, stating it wasn't the right time to capture Naruto (since he probably figured the Jiraiya excuse would not longer hold water with Kisame, if you pardon the pun).

In short, the dialog still suggests more/otherwise contrary to Itachi's initial statement. It just doesn't fit with everything that was said past that point. I'm only talking about the point of view/outlook of the characters. Not an actual fight. I'm not getting into that mess again. Canon doesn't work in such a realm.


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## Baroxio (Feb 5, 2013)

As of this chapter it is canon that Itachi worked as a spy while in Akatsuki.

I don't really know what more needs to be said in order to convince people that Itachi's statement was a load of bull.

I mean, Itachi had the perfect opportunity to genjutsu Naruto and leave long before either Sasuke or Jiraiya showed up when Naruto opened the door and looked right into his Sharingan eyes. 

When Jiraiya comes over, he calmly turns his back on him and wails on his already completely beaten brother, who isn't even fighting back anymore, and wastes a good portion of his chakra on Tsukyomi for extra measure--again, while Jiraiya is a few feet behind him.

These are not the actions of a man who expresses genuine doubt at being beaten. And now we finally have a *canon *explanation as to why.

The discussion is over. Itachi is stronger than Jiraiya. That's not to say that Jiraiya can never beat Itachi in some circumstances that favor him, but for all intents and purposes, Itachi is the stronger ninja.


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## Cyphon (Feb 5, 2013)

Jυstin said:


> Considering what we now know Kisame to be capable of, I doubt he was powerless.



He seemed pretty powerless against the Frog Stomach 

But seriously, if Kishi's aim is consistency than Kisame likely was fairly powerless at that time. The same as Gai was said to be vs Pain.

As I said and will say again, the tiers stay in motion and Kishi makes characters as strong as they need to be. Gai was powerless vs Pain but now all of the sudden he is fighting amongst Bijuu and all kinds of shit.

However, that has to be put into context as well. Just as he is making characters as strong as they need to be, he would continue to make the old ones as strong as they need to be as well. Prime example would be Hashirama and Tobirama's initial showings. I bet you if they fight soon they will look nothing like they did back then.

And the same would apply to a character like Jiraiya. 

So Kishi likely meant what he said and even with new feats that really doesn't change because the statement is stronger than the feats. 



> Regardless, even after all that happened and they left, Kisame's opinion, which by what you said, should have regarded what Itachi said as true, instead shifted to believing a retreat wasn't necessary, meaning from what he saw, it wasn't anything they couldn't deal with.



The thing people seem to gloss over is that the goal was always supposed to be Naruto, not fighting Jiraiya. So everything surrounding these conversations that doesn't directly mention a fight is about that goal. So when Kisame says retreat wasn't neccessary it is because he thinks they could have gotten Naruto and that is also why Itachi says Naruto wasn't ready. 

Remember the thing was "if we fight". Key word is "if". You don't neccessarily have to fight to get Naruto. 

So everything can still hold true and make complete sense if we don't dig for reasons for it not to.


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## UltimateDeadpool (Feb 5, 2013)

Jυstin said:


> Yes I've learned to stop blaming characters and blame Kishi's writing skills, since he's the one who writes them. His inconsistency (like with Amaterasu) has led to "character A vs character B" debates where, both sides can have claims for their character, both entirely true, but have them contradict each other. It causes arguments to be more drawn out and less solid than they should be.
> 
> I don't think Itachi's an idiot, but also I know it's Kishi who's penning it. I'd hazard to guess that in the case with Naruto, it's because everyone was pretty worn out and Naruto was up against 6 opponents, and not just one. It could also be due to the nature of his attacks and how he didn't know the others' fighting styles well. With Itachi and Kisame, the two go pretty far back. They've been partners in Akatsuki for who knows how long and know each other, and their fighting methods, very well, so I doubt it'd be the same case for them. The two have good synergy. I don't think they'd act in pairs if they were worried about getting in each other's way.
> 
> I'm not exactly sure what Kishi was going for here, but it's made clearer once we learned of Itachi's reasons for being in Knonha in the first place. I could see him trying to give Kisame reason to doubt wanting to fight Jiraiya, while at the same time, couldn't fathom why Itachi would even want to fight Jiraiya, given his purpose for being in the village in the first place. Had he... I'd almost be tempted to consider him an idiot. It'd be completely counterproductive and accomplish nothing but sabotage any intentions he'd had. Were I Itachi, I'd probably do the same thing. I will feign inability or act like something's too troublesome in order to avoid it being done. Pride be damned.



Itachi's and Kisame were tasked with capturing Gaara, but by the time they got there he was already gone; they decided to go after Naruto instead. 

Tobi said Itachi's true intention was to let Danzo know that he was still alive so as to leave Sasuke alone, although it was revealed that it was Danzo's idea to leave Sasuke alive when before we were led to believe that Itachi rebelled a little by letting Sasuke live. 

Also, if Itachi's true goal was truly just to warn Danzo, then his encounter with Kakashi and the others accomplished that... why go after Naruto? More importantly, Kisame was hesitant to go after Naruto with him being protected by Jiraiya, yet Itachi insisted on going after Naruto anyway. Why didn't Itachi just agree with Kisame and take that opportunity to leave? He accomplished his goal and Gaara wasn't there, they could had left and Kisame would had been blissfully unaware of anything. 



Grimmjowsensei said:


> Even if you think that statement is true, that Itachi thought under those circumstances, Jiraiya would be able to force a mutual K.O or hurt him badly, there is still Kisame's last remark of questioning Itachi's retreat.
> 
> Which means, Kisame believes that Itachi should be able to take out Jiraiya, and is not convinced of Itachi's excuses.
> 
> ...



Kisame's last remark wasn't any indicator of Itachi's superiority, Kisame would had to be retarded too to think that Itachi is Jiraiya's superior when just a little while earlier he doubted if Itachi could handle Jiraiya and thought it would be best not to try to capture Naruto. Are you calling Kisame retarded?

Itachi, being Jiraiya's equal, could had held Jiraiya off while Kisame grabbed Naruto... yet Itachi insisted on leaving... why abandon their mission? 

It's funny how skewed your perspective is. Who did Itachi hold back against? Kakashi and Sasuke... two characters  that get bitch slapped by everyone? Wow, Itachi it so superior to the  Sannin because he held back against them. /sarcasm

Or you saying Pein mopped the floor with Jiraiya despite him believing Jiraiya to be a threat, yet ignore the part where Jiraiya would had mopped the floor with Pein if had he known the secret.

Even now, Orochimaru is more powerful than the Gokage, he's even a threat to _EMS_ Sasuke, and he has demigods as his immortal servants... yet you perceive Itachi to be superior for some reason. 

Itachi said he wanted an Uchiha, Sasuke, to punish him for what he did... no comment about wanting to make Sasuke stronger. Tobi the liar said that.



Bkprince33 said:


> I believe this is a misconception that stems from sm naruto, being stronger then heibi sasuke but people forget to factor circumstance in.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The manga explicitly makes it clear that SM = MS. 

You also should hype Orochimaru because of some of Kabuto's feats, he used everything that Orochimaru had.


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## UltimateDeadpool (Feb 5, 2013)

Cont.



blk said:


> Kisame's skill set is perfect to fight a  Jinchuuriki, but this doesn't mean that it would have the same efficency  against a Sage.
> You can't use his perfomance against Bee and say that, because of that  statement, Jiraya is automatically more powerful than the latter.
> The rest of the chain makes even less sense and falls down just by the  very fact that Bee's arsenal interact with Kisame's arsenal in a  completely different way from how Jiraya's one would.
> 
> ...



Does Jiraiya have chakra and breathe oxygen? If yes then Jiraiya would  have similar problems as Bee, yet Kisame said that Jiraiya is a league  above him.

Nagato was FAR from helpless. Nagato had more powerful versions of all  of Pein's abilities and could command Gedo Mazo and draw upon it's  power, not to mention that he could use all 5 elements. Nagato could had  also summoned Pein to his side.
Edo Nagato didn't do anything living Nagato couldn't had done, except use Gedo Mazo and Pein. 

Kabuto said that Hiruzen was the strongest Gokage. Thus it's true. 

If Orochimaru's genjutsu were a decisive advantage, why couldn't he kill  Jiraiya? You also need proof of your claim of the Uchihas' superiority.  

No, an armless Orochimaru said he wasn't strong enough to take Sasuke  body yet... Orochimaru has his arms back now. Orochimaru only ever said  that he couldn't take Itachi's body.

Karin said that Sasuke's performance against Deidara was sub-par for  someone strong enough to defeat Orochimaru, to which Sasuke said that  Orochimaru was weakened. So Karin suggested that Deidara was weaker and  by extension Sasuke was weaker, and Sasuke didn't deny it. 

Orochimaru was weakened. Orochimaru can only trade bodies once every  couple years when his body starts to reject him, at which point he's  dying; he had to leave his fight against KN4 because his body just  started rejecting him. 

I was replying to Raikiri19. And as I said, Itachi didn't gain any advantages over them in melee combat,  Naruto also didn't use his super strength/super body flicker and Bee  forced Itachi to retreat from his sword dance. This was also a version  of Itachi that's far superior to his living counterpart. 
Didn't matter that Itachi didn't have killing intent, he couldn't kill  Kabuto; he quite literally had counters to 99% of Itachi's abilities. 

It's not contradictory. Itachi fought Sasuke and held back, Sasuke was  also weaker than characters that are in Kisame's league. Kisame's  statement about relative power is hype for Jiraiya, him being one of the  strongest Akatsuki and yet pales in comparison to Jiraiya. 

We have to use comparisons. Take Itachi for example, what are his real  feats? Beating up kids and cripples, and doing fairly well against the  resident punching bags.



Baroxio said:


> As of this chapter it is canon that Itachi worked as a spy while in Akatsuki.
> 
> I don't really know what more needs to be said in order to convince people that Itachi's statement was a load of bull.
> 
> ...



That all actually proves literally nothing other than you're bias.

I can play that game too: Jiraiya confronted both Kisame and Itachi by himself, in Base Mode, that shows that he is the superior shinobi.


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## Baroxio (Feb 5, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> That all actually proves literally nothing other than you're bias.
> 
> I can play that game too: Jiraiya confronted both Kisame and Itachi by himself, in Base Mode, that shows that he is the superior shinobi.



It proves Itachi was indeed a Konoha spy while within Akatsuki. 

In other words, he has a reason to lie. Is it possible that he told the truth, sure. But in order to prove that the words of a spy playing for the same team as Jiraiya, you'll need to use a little something called *feats*.

Unfortunately, the feats do not support Jiraiya beating Itachi. Especially not when he desummons a possible genjutsu-breaking partner, looks him straight in the eyes and shows surprise about Amaterasu. Even if Itachi based his statement off of Sanin Hype, this proves nothing because he already beat a Sanin 7 years prior. Easily and decisively for that matter. So Jiraiya being confident about killing Itachi when he legitimately has shown he does not even know Itachi's strengths means nothing.

And if Itachi was really scared of losing against Jiraiya, he wouldn't have turned his back on him and wasted a Tskyuomi on a Sasuke who was near comatose anyway.

Featwise, it makes no sense for Itachi to say that Jiraiya is stronger than him, only to waste chakra leisurely in his presence with his back turned no less. To turn your back on an opponent is to give them an advantage, especially in a world of ninja.

And Statement wise, even Kisame says that retreat shouldn't have been necessary for him. 

Jiraiya himself even follows up the confrontation with a "it took everything I had just to distance you from them Naruto."

So featwise, you've got no leg to stand on, Hypewise, you're beaten, and even statements suggest Itachi was stronger. What possible argument could you make that puts Jiraiya ahead of Itachi in a fair and balanced scenario?


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## Vice (Feb 5, 2013)

Grimmjowsensei said:


> None of which happened except for the Sasuke bit.



Thanks to the efforts of Jiraiya and Guy, not Itachi.



> And the Sasuke thing was a part of his plan to make him stronger and it worked.



Yes it worked. By driving him through torture into the arms of a lunatic hell bent on taking his body it worked.


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## Joker J (Feb 6, 2013)

blk said:


> Kisame's skill set is perfect to fight a Jinchuuriki, but this doesn't mean that it would have the same efficency against a Sage.
> You can't use his perfomance against Bee and say that, because of that statement, Jiraya is automatically more powerful than the latter.
> The rest of the chain makes even less sense and falls down just by the very fact that Bee's arsenal interact with Kisame's arsenal in a completely different way from how Jiraya's one would.
> 
> In short, A>B>C logic is not valid.



People can tell other people why this character can defeat that certain character because of the feats/abilities the character used in their past battles to be used against other characters... This is the *battleDome* it happens pretty much everyday.

The feats/abilities Kisame used in all his fights shows that people are able to use that information to tell why he's able to take on all of Jiraiya feats/abilities he has done in all his fights, probably except frog song, unless Samehada does something about it.


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## blk (Feb 6, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> Does Jiraiya have chakra and breathe oxygen? If yes then Jiraiya would  have similar problems as Bee, yet Kisame said that Jiraiya is a league  above him.



While it's true that Jiraya breathes oxygen and has chakra and therefore would have certain problems against Kisame, this says nothing about the fundamental differences between Bee's and Jiraya's arsenal and therefore which problems would have _Kisame_ in a fight with the latter.

For example, Jiraya's summons, or tecniques such as the frog stomach, would give to Kisame a completely different challenge than Bee's abilities (which he is a lot more suited to fight), which he may be, or may be not, able to deal.

Basically, that statement proves, at best, that _Kisame_ is weaker than Jiraya, not Bee or any other enemy that Kisame fought and beat.

For example, while i can see Jiraya taking out Kisame, i don't think that he has any chances against an opponent like Bee.



> Nagato was FAR from helpless. Nagato had more powerful versions of all  of Pein's abilities and could command Gedo Mazo and draw upon it's  power, not to mention that he could use all 5 elements. Nagato could had  also summoned Pein to his side.
> Edo Nagato didn't do anything living Nagato couldn't had done, except use Gedo Mazo and Pein.



_That_ living Nagato was helpless, for all we know.
He was blocked in a machine, had horrible health conditions and probably wasn't even able to use his powers (because he was using these through the Pain Rikudo, and a suggestion of this is that he couldn't fight back, if not through the utilization of his machine, when Naruto found his hiding place).

On the other hand, Edo Nagato, aside from the mobility, had zero problems regarding his chakra quantity and his general physical conditions, by virtue of being immortal.
He didn't had to control the Pain Rikudo, also.



> Kabuto said that Hiruzen was the strongest Gokage. Thus it's true.



I don't remember this statement.
Are you sure that he was referring to Old Hiruzen and not to Prime Hiruzen?



> If Orochimaru's genjutsu were a decisive advantage, why couldn't he kill  Jiraiya? You also need proof of your claim of the Uchihas' superiority.



A decisive factor in the sense that genjutsu could have been one of the major threat that Orochimaru could present to Jiraya.

Itachi is tiers above Orochimaru in the genjutsu departement; the fact that he easily beat Orochimaru with a genjutsu is proof of this. 
Or if you prefer, genjutsu like Tsukuyomi and Izanami put him in a completely different level than Orochimaru.

So, either way, this is a moot point since Itachi is far more skilled than Orochimaru regarding genjutsu.



> No, an armless Orochimaru said he wasn't strong enough to take Sasuke  body yet... Orochimaru has his arms back now. Orochimaru only ever said  that he couldn't take Itachi's body.



Orochimaru didn't stated that with arms he would be a threat to Sasuke, but only that he was/is weaker.

Infact, considering that, even with arms, he couldn't take Itachi's body and that EMS Sasuke is a more powerful version of Itachi, i don't really see how Orochimaru is supposed to be a threat to the latter even with his arms back (granted that he doesn't utilize the Hokages, or doesn't show some unknow ability that render him able to fight with an EMS user).



> Karin said that Sasuke's performance against Deidara was sub-par for  someone strong enough to defeat Orochimaru, to which Sasuke said that  Orochimaru was weakened. So Karin suggested that Deidara was weaker and  by extension Sasuke was weaker, and Sasuke didn't deny it.



This is the same problem as before: Deidara is a completely different challenge than Orochimaru.

Perhaps, Sasuke was more suited to fight Deidara than a full-power Orochimaru.



> Orochimaru was weakened. Orochimaru can only trade bodies once every  couple years when his body starts to reject him, at which point he's  dying; he had to leave his fight against KN4 because his body just  started rejecting him.



Didn't that event happened before that Orochimaru had his arms sealed?
Because as far as i remember, Orochimaru needed to switch bodies only because of that.



> I was replying to Raikiri19. And as I said, Itachi didn't gain any advantages over them in melee combat,  Naruto also didn't use his super strength/super body flicker and Bee  forced Itachi to retreat from his sword dance. This was also a version  of Itachi that's far superior to his living counterpart.
> Didn't matter that Itachi didn't have killing intent, he couldn't kill  Kabuto; he quite literally had counters to 99% of Itachi's abilities.



As long as Itachi is healthy, his perfomance in melee combat wouldn't change because of his Edo status. Basically, what he shown against Bee and Naruto is something that he should be able to replicate even as a living being.
It's true that Itachi didn't gain any particular advantage, but the same is true for Bee and Naruto; none of them had put to the other a truly difficult challenge.

The fact that Naruto didn't use his strength and speed is not a valid reason for diminish Itachi's CQC feats, because even Itachi didn't went all out and didn't smashed Naruto with a flashy Susano'o activation.

I don't know, with killing intent the Totsuka and the Amaterasu spam would become difficult for Kabuto to deal with.
There is also to consider that Kabuto had knowledge about Itachi, so he had all the time to prepare counter-measures against one of Itachi's strongest abilities: genjutsu.
Without knowledge, Kabuto would have been beat with Tsukuyomi.



> It's not contradictory. Itachi fought Sasuke and held back, Sasuke was  also weaker than characters that are in Kisame's league. Kisame's  statement about relative power is hype for Jiraiya, him being one of the  strongest Akatsuki and yet pales in comparison to Jiraiya.



In which sense Sasuke is weaker than characters in Kisame's league? This still presume that the power levels are linear, and are not affected by the particular abilities of the characters.
For example, Sasuke beat Deidara and Kisame beat Bee; yet, Deidara would probably beat Kisame and lose to Bee.

There are characters that are more suited for fight other particular characters because of their kind of skill-set.
If not for obvious superiority in destructive capability, durability, speed or hax, we can't establish a precise power level.



> We have to use comparisons. Take Itachi for example, what are his real  feats? Beating up kids and cripples, and doing fairly well against the  resident punching bags.



Who Itachi beat is irrelevant when we know how powerful and skillful he is.

We know Jiraya's abilities and we know Itachi's abilities, and that's what we should compare in order to properly determine who is stronger than who.



Joker J said:


> People can tell other people why this character can defeat that certain character because of the feats/abilities the character used in their past battles to be used against other characters... This is the *battleDome* it happens pretty much everyday.
> 
> The feats/abilities Kisame used in all his fights shows that people are able to use that information to tell why he's able to take on all of Jiraiya feats/abilities he has done in all his fights, probably except frog song, unless Samehada does something about it.



Do i ever said that Kisame is unable to counter Jiraya's arsenal, or that we can't determine if he can through his feats? No.
I just said that A> B> C logic does not apply in a context in which every character has an arsenal of a different nature than the other characters.
So, i don't really see how your reply is inherent to the point that i was making.


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## UltimateDeadpool (Feb 6, 2013)

blk said:


> ...



My point was that, while Kisame's abilities makes him ideal for dealing with Bijuus, it doesn't make those methods less ideal against any other character. 
I wasn't trying to make a Jiraiya > Bee argument either, rather that we can use Kisame's feats against other opponents as a proxy to Jiraiya's potential. We do it for any other character, so why not Jiraiya?
I also don't see any reason why Jiraiya couldn't handle Bee. 

Yes. It was after Orochimaru lost his arms, he was sulking in his lair and Kabuto tried to cheer him up by saying that he succeeded in killing the most powerful of the Gokage, to which point Orochimaru told him stop patronizing him. 

If genjutsu could so easily defeat Jiraiya as you and others believe, why didn't it allow Orochimaru to kill him in their encounters? 

Orochimaru resisted Itachi's genjutsu and was about to break it, Itachi also didn't "beat" Orochimaru at all... unless you think losing a hand means anything to a guy that giggles at getting chopped to pieces:
dust
dust
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forgot about
forgot about
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dust
forgot about
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Seriously, how does losing a hand equal defeating this guy? There are two points that need to be made about Itachi's confrontation with Orochimaru: 
1. Itachi has the same feat as Sasuke.
2. Orochimaru was dying. 

Also, Tsukiyomi and Izanami are super genjutsus that Itachi doesn't have access to without Sharingan/MS. What if Orochimaru had Itachi's eyes? 

Orochimaru said that he wasn't strong enough "yet." He must had been talking about his arms, unless he was planning on using the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from DBZ to train. And why say "yet" if he's not strong enough at all? 
Orochimaru thinks he is, and he saw Sasuke fight Kabuto. Orochimaru does possess a counter to all of Sasuke's abilities, and 99% of Itachi's abilities for that matter. 

Karin suggested that Deidara was weaker. 

No, Orochimaru needs to trade bodies periodically, he also said that the female body he was in against Hiruzen wasn't his first. It's unexplained how, but Reaper Death Seal seemed to have accelerated the process. After Orochimaru took Genyuumaru's body, Kabuto said that Orochimaru is stuck in that body for a few years. Then a few years later, Genyuumaru's body started rejecting Orochimaru and he was waiting for Sasuke to fulfill his end of their agreement. 

That's the problem, healthy Itachi is fanfiction. Well, actually, the "Healthy Itachi" that you're referring to is fanfiction. Mastery of MS is physical deterioration. We saw the process through Sasuke, by the time he unlocked Kagutsuchi he was getting double vision and by the time he mastered Susanoo he needed glasses. Susanoo also slowly kills it's user, damaging the user's cells and eating away at their life-force, undoubtedly being the cause behind Itachi's terminal condition (we also saw Sasuke falling over and coughing up blood like Itachi). At best I'd give "healthy Itachi" Tsukiyomi since that seemed to be the first ability he mastered, like Sasuke's Kagutsuchi, and would still be in relatively good overall condition. 

Itachi performed about as well against Bee as I had imagined, and it didn't live up to the godly pedestal that his fanbase has put him on. 
Itachi was in a sense going all-out, he was forced to fight to win despite not wanting to. I didn't forget about Itachi's jutsus, which is why I didn't mention how both Naruto and Bee refrained from using any of their jutsus as well. Between the three of them, Itachi used the most jutsus. 

Kabuto was faster than Susanoo's arrows, Susanoo itself is NOT as fast. Danzo even avoided a few hits from Susanoo and the Kages fought against 5 Susanoos each for a prolonged amount of time. Kabuto also had speed and Oral Rebirth to deal with Amaterasu. 
Kabuto needed no preparation, he had Orochimaru's snake sensing abilities; an acute sense of smell and infra-red. These allows Kabuto to see just fine without needing eyes. 
That's a humorous comment to me "without knowledge, x would had worked 100%." I can make similar claims about any character against any other character. You also realize though that being a ninja, especially a powerful ninja, is being able to deal with the unknown right? So it's hard to make such claims. 

I agree with the point you're trying to make, and I actually fully agree... to an extent. While I do believe that circumstances and match-ups play huge roles in this manga, I do believe in leagues and I don't personally see Hebi Sasuke as being in the same league as most Kage-level shinobi. That's why he needed the Mangekyou Sharingan, which was his power-UP. EMS Sasuke > MS Sasuke > Hebi Sasuke > CS Sasuke > Sasuke. 

But how are we supposed to establish a precise power-level if a win/lose entirely depends on circumstances and match-ups? Take the present case, Jiraiya. He his greatest strength is his lack of any real weaknesses. He has  near perfect stats, the exception being his skill at using genjutsu. He is however a ninja swiss army knife, having jutsus for almost any situation and he can vastly improve all of his physical abilities as well as the power/effectiveness of his jutsus via Sage Mode. In Base Mode he can beat KN4, in Sage Mode he can throw boss summons and blitz football fields. Yet, despite his overall superiority to most opponents regardless of terrain or match-ups, he's consistently underrated. Like my comment about him being a ninja swiss army knife? People tend to forget about his access to about 30 jutsus and commonly think he can only use _5_ jutsus (Rasengan, Summoning, Underworld Swamp, Sage Mode, Frog Song). They also act like he only has a 4.5 in strength and speed if he's _in_ Sage Mode. 

That's the problem, we don't actually know how powerful or skillful Itachi is without comparing him to who he has fought. That's one of the reasons Jiraiya's looked down upon so much, he lost to Pein (his only real fight in the series) despite being stated as having the sufficient power to win, so people "see" him as weaker since they saw him lose. On the other side of the coin, people perceive Itachi as being so powerful for his success rates against various characters that were significantly weaker than Pein. If you pay attention, you'll see how common of a trend that way of thinking is in debates.


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## Trojan (Feb 6, 2013)

Yes, jman IS stronger than Itachi. What make Itachi look stronger to some people because they use the famous stupid logic, like saying Itachi WILL use Ama, Tsu or Susanoo from the start and he will kill Jman from the beginning. 

Of course, there is no need to explain why is that stupid. It's exactly like how some people for some time (maybe still) think Kakashi almost stronger than all the characters via Kamui'd them, or using it from the start and cut their nick! 

Itachi's fans or other will say what Jman can do to this and what he can do to that! and how he's not fast to deal with Ama, and how he can't deal with Gen-jutsu. Which is stupid again. Actually Kishi was sporting that statement and he didn't show anything against that. Explanation. 

1- Kishi make both of them die in the same arc.

Why he would do that? Because their strongest ability (MS & SM) will pass down to Sasuke & Naruto. Do you think Kish will make Sasuke stronger than Naruto? No. 

2- Kishi made it clear again by saying SM Naruto > MS Sasuke. Now a lot of people are O.K with this, but they are NOT when it comes to Itachi and it's just because of their biases.  

3- Does Naruto have speed in SM to avoid Ama? Or anti Genjutsu? No he does not.  so what make it believable for Naruto and not for Jman? More like the fanbase for Itachi, they wont accept this fact and they want him to be higher than his level. 

by those clearly SM > MS or at the VERY LEAST equal to it. We saw Itachi fought against a sage user and he get defeated twice from the TWO sage's jutsu easily if not for Sasuke to save him, and for the fact him being an edo. Other than that Even the Databook gave them 35,5 even though it's Jman's state WITHOUT SM. 

Jman is not only stronger than Itachi, but even pain (who's stronger than Itachi) said if only Jman had some info, he'd have won the battle. So it's something like this

Pain > Jman > Itachi. 

4- The last thing, Oro losing to Itachi has nothing to do with Jman, each of them has his ability and his way of fighting. (Even though Oro only needs Itachi's body and he wont harm it.) So we can't take Oro loses against Itachi, as something against Jman.

At least Oro losing against Itachi is better than Itachi losing against Tayuya, and we can't say Temari is stronger than Itachi and she'll destroy him in second just because she defeated Tayuya in CS2 while Itachi get defeated without Tayuya using even CS1.


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## Joker J (Feb 6, 2013)

blk said:


> Do i ever said that Kisame is unable to counter Jiraya's arsenal, or that we can't determine if he can through his feats? No.
> I just said that A> B> C logic does not apply in a context in which every character has an arsenal of a different nature than the other characters.
> So, i don't really see how your reply is inherent to the point that i was making.



You said *"Kisame's skill set is perfect to fight a Jinchuuriki, but this doesn't mean that it would have the same efficency against a Sage."*
Then you went on to say...​*"You can't use his perfomance against Bee and say that,  because of that statement, Jiraya is automatically more powerful than the latter."*

After you read those parts of your post, read your whole post again and the one im typing to you right now... after you did that, read my first response to you again.


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## Jυstin (Feb 6, 2013)

> The thing people seem to gloss over is that the goal was always supposed to be Naruto, not fighting Jiraiya. So everything surrounding these conversations that doesn't directly mention a fight is about that goal. So when Kisame says retreat wasn't neccessary it is because he thinks they could have gotten Naruto and that is also why Itachi says Naruto wasn't ready.
> 
> Remember the thing was "if we fight". Key word is "if". You don't neccessarily have to fight to get Naruto.
> 
> So everything can still hold true and make complete sense if we don't dig for reasons for it not to.



This is true. Personally, though, I doubt a fight was avoidable. Either way, Kisame didn't believe a retreat was necessary, despite Jiraiya's presence. I think Itachi might have regarded Jiraiya a bit more seriously than Orochimaru (though could be because he wasn't a true enemy), but he still did disregard him somewhat by disregarding his presence to play with Sasuke. I just mean, despite what he said, he didn't treat him as the threat he made him out to be. It's just something I thought I'd point out. I take into account behaviors as well, since they often betray one's true thoughts 



UltimateDeadpool said:


> Itachi's and Kisame were tasked with capturing Gaara, but by the time they got there he was already gone; they decided to go after Naruto instead.



I don't remember this. I remember the 9 Tails being explicitly stated to be Itachi's beast and the 4 Tails being Kisame's. This is the first I've heard of them initially being after Garaa (especially since Itachi should have been the one invading Suna to go for Gaara if he was his target rather than... Deidara, and then Sasori apologizing over wanting to take the 9 Tails from Itachi). It wouldn't even make sense to go to KONOHA to go for Gaara, considering it was some decent amount of time after the Chuunin exams. They were after Naruto. Itachi stated this to Kakashi pretty shortly after being in the village, with no implications that they'd been chasing Gaara or that they'd discovered he wasn't there before telling Kakashi they were after Naruto.



> Tobi said Itachi's true intention was to let Danzo know that he was still alive so as to leave Sasuke alone, although it was revealed that it was Danzo's idea to leave Sasuke alive when before we were led to believe that Itachi rebelled a little by letting Sasuke live.



I find this hard to believe when Danzou himself said Itachi's mistake was letting Sasuke live and him questioning why Itachi let him live. Sounds like a question Danzou should have been asking himself. I don't remember a revelation stating Danzou intentionally spared Sasuke, who at that time didn't possess any noteworthy significance.



> Also, if Itachi's true goal was truly just to warn Danzo, then his encounter with Kakashi and the others accomplished that... why go after Naruto? More importantly, Kisame was hesitant to go after Naruto with him being protected by Jiraiya, yet Itachi insisted on going after Naruto anyway. Why didn't Itachi just agree with Kisame and take that opportunity to leave? He accomplished his goal and Gaara wasn't there, they could had left and Kisame would had been blissfully unaware of anything.



Because to Kisame and the rest of Akatsuki, their goal was to go after Naruto, for the 9 Tails. The task of letting Danzou know he was alive was Itachi's and Itachi's alone. Kisame made comments on Jiraiya based on his title alone, which lead to the conversation the OP was talking about, however, after the encounter, Kisame's opinion changed.


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## Cyphon (Feb 7, 2013)

Jυstin said:


> This is true. Personally, though, I doubt a fight was avoidable. Either way, Kisame didn't believe a retreat was necessary, despite Jiraiya's presence.



True, a fight may not have been avoidable but it didn't strictly have to be a straight up fight either. Hit and run tactics while grabbing Naruto may have sufficed. Ultimately that is what they did anyway (besides grabbing Naruto). A few jutsu, nobody got hurt and those 2 escaped. 



> I think Itachi might have regarded Jiraiya a bit more seriously than Orochimaru (though could be because he wasn't a true enemy), but he still did disregard him somewhat by disregarding his presence to play with Sasuke. I just mean, despite what he said, he didn't treat him as the threat he made him out to be. It's just something I thought I'd point out. I take into account behaviors as well, since they often betray one's true thoughts



Remember though that most ninja have a "code" and that most fights start with a lot of talking. Itachi knew 2 things in this situation.

1. Kisame had his back. Yes, he thought Kisame would lose and Kisame was still an obstacle no matter how quickly Jiraiya could dispatch him. Which would give Itachi warning should Jiraiya attack.

More importantly.....

2. Itachi knows who Jiraiya is. He is an honorable hero type dude. Jiraiya isn't the type to just jump someone from behind in the situation. How do we know this? Because he never attacked in that situation. He let Itachi beat the shit out of Sasuke. He let the bros handle their business. The only time he used a jutsu was to stop them from getting to Naruto as opposed to staight up attacking either one of them directly.


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## Jυstin (Feb 7, 2013)

I'm not too sure about such a code in a series that's (initially) about stealth, surprise, and assassination. Might be because I just reread the Sasuke Retrieval arc, but they didn't do much talking before ambushing. Anyway, I see what you mean by Kisame having Itachi's back. We know Itachi was also in possession of Susano'o and has fast reflexes, so he probably also didn't fear having his back turned too much. We did see Jiraiya use that moment to his advantage, however. Kisame's ability to deal with it depends on if Kishi had Kisame planned out back then. If not, then he was establishing right there that Itachi was needed for their escape. It would give him reason to doubt himself against the Sannin, while believing Itachi was capable. I think Part 2 blew that out of the water (there's that pun again...), but then Part 2 undid a lot of things Part 1 established lol.


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## Jad (Feb 7, 2013)

Oh yuck, who are the people posting that Team Gai are soo below a battered Deva and Base Naruto because Katsyu told them not to go? God, people really? Is this what it has come down to. Yeah Gai who has has saved Naruto in RM Mode against stronger opponents far beyond a battered Deva and Base Naruto is all of a sudden so far below them...Does that even make sense? Yuck. I mean did no one read properly what Gai has been doing in the war and against who. No? Maybe you should. If you read the Pain Arc completely, you can see WHY Team Gai had no BUSINESS in helping Naruto, not that they couldn't. They HAD NO BUSINESS. 

1. Naruto had set up a plan, he had everything strategically mapped out for his victory. Yes Gai would get in the way of Naruto, that's because Gai would beat the living snot out of Deva in front of Naruto and stuff up HIS plan, and HIS way of beating him. Using HIS own ability.
2. This was a fight between two students of Jiraiya. [That's probably one of the main points]
3. Naruto connects with the people he fights pretty much.

Maybe you should think outside of this "Who Kishimoto was portraying as stronger than who" type statements in such scenarios, when Kishimoto wasn't trying to send that message, because it is obvious Team Gai and Naruto would waffle stomp Deva at that moment. He had Team Gai out of the loop because this was a *PERSONAL* battle between two former students of the same teacher. This is a guy who KILLED Naruto's precious teacher. I mean no one helped Shikamaru because he wanted to defeat the guy who KILLED his precious teacher by himself, his own vendetta. Same deal here. It had nothing to do with *portraying Gai and his team way below a battered Deva and Naruto* because they didn't join in the fight. It is MUCH more than that. Not everything is about portraying who is stronger. I mean is Hinata stronger than Team Gai because she jumped in to help Naruto. Seriously people.

Once again, Gai underestimation.


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## Bkprince33 (Feb 7, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> The manga explicitly makes it clear that SM = MS.
> 
> You also should hype Orochimaru because of some of Kabuto's feats, he used everything that Orochimaru had.



I don't see how you can be so open minded and question itachi's actions, when kishi explained the reason behind all of itachi actions and then be so close minded to a single statement made by itachi when kishi clearly stated he was a konoha spy.

Seems a little hypocritical if you ask me.


The mangas actually doesn't make that clear at all.


The mangas shows naruto with perfect mastery over nature and his sagemode is stronger.then hiebi sasuke with cs2 ( incomplete version of sage mode) 


Jiraiya had a INCOMPLETE version of sage mode , saying jiraiya is equal to itachi because of naruto success and hype with sm is baseless.


Oro doesn't get any of kabuto feats because oro is not a sage, he's a incomplete version , similar to jiraiya in a sense.

Reread the uchiha bros vs kabuto, they explain all of this pretty clearly.


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## blk (Feb 7, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> I wasn't trying to make a Jiraiya > Bee argument either, rather that we can use Kisame's feats against other opponents as a proxy to Jiraiya's potential.



Which potential? We know what Jiraya is capable of.



> We do it for any other character, so why not Jiraiya?
> I also don't see any reason why Jiraiya couldn't handle Bee.



Maybe you do it, but i don't, since it's not a good method for measure one's power.
For say the reasons for why i think Jiraya would be incapable of handle Bee would, a specific thread would be needed for not go too much OT.



> Yes. It was after Orochimaru lost his arms, he was sulking in his lair and Kabuto tried to cheer him up by saying that he succeeded in killing the most powerful of the Gokage, to which point Orochimaru told him stop patronizing him.



Ok.



> If genjutsu could so easily defeat Jiraiya as you and others believe, why didn't it allow Orochimaru to kill him in their encounters?



I didn't said that genjutsu would easily defeat Jiraya, but that could be a major threat in a possible confrontation between the two.



> Orochimaru resisted Itachi's genjutsu and was about to break it, Itachi also didn't "beat" Orochimaru at all... unless you think losing a hand means anything to a guy that giggles at getting chopped to pieces.
> Seriously, how does losing a hand equal defeating this guy? There are two points that need to be made about Itachi's confrontation with Orochimaru:
> 1. Itachi has the same feat as Sasuke.
> 2. Orochimaru was dying.



Being able to break a genjutsu is useless if the victim takes too much time to do it, since the caster would have the needed opening for strike.
In short, Orochimaru wasn't skilled enough.

It's true that Orochimaru lost only an hand, but that's because Itachi didn't choose to kill him cutting, say, the head.

Yes, Itachi's feat is similar to Sasuke's...... then? This doesn't delegitimize it.



> Also, Tsukiyomi and Izanami are super genjutsus that Itachi doesn't have access to without Sharingan/MS. What if Orochimaru had Itachi's eyes?



Perhaps Orochimaru would be able to use those genjutsu.
But this is irrelevant to the topic, because Orochimaru's doesn't have Itachi's eyes, so Itachi remains more powerful than the former regarding genjutsu, remaining a greater threat to Jiraya than what could be Orochimaru.



> Orochimaru said that he wasn't strong enough "yet." He must had been talking about his arms, unless he was planning on using the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from DBZ to train. And why say "yet" if he's not strong enough at all?
> Orochimaru thinks he is, and he saw Sasuke fight Kabuto. Orochimaru does possess a counter to all of Sasuke's abilities, and 99% of Itachi's abilities for that matter.



Who knows what he referred to? Maybe he referred to a secret plan/power-up through some transplant.
Anything similar to the above could work as explanation.



> No, Orochimaru needs to trade bodies periodically, he also said that the female body he was in against Hiruzen wasn't his first. It's unexplained how, but Reaper Death Seal seemed to have accelerated the process. After Orochimaru took Genyuumaru's body, Kabuto said that Orochimaru is stuck in that body for a few years. Then a few years later, Genyuumaru's body started rejecting Orochimaru and he was waiting for Sasuke to fulfill his end of their agreement.



Orochimaru needed to switch because of the seal, it wasn't stated anywhere that he needed to do it before his encounter with Hiruzen.



> That's the problem, healthy Itachi is fanfiction. Well, actually, the "Healthy Itachi" that you're referring to is fanfiction. Mastery of MS is physical deterioration. We saw the process through Sasuke, by the time he unlocked Kagutsuchi he was getting double vision and by the time he mastered Susanoo he needed glasses. Susanoo also slowly kills it's user, damaging the user's cells and eating away at their life-force, undoubtedly being the cause behind Itachi's terminal condition (we also saw Sasuke falling over and coughing up blood like Itachi). At best I'd give "healthy Itachi" Tsukiyomi since that seemed to be the first ability he mastered, like Sasuke's Kagutsuchi, and would still be in relatively good overall condition.



With "healthy" i meant any form of Itachi, that had a loss of power not so strong as to affect its performance in close combat.



> Itachi performed about as well against Bee as I had imagined, and it didn't live up to the godly pedestal that his fanbase has put him on.
> Itachi was in a sense going all-out, he was forced to fight to win despite not wanting to. I didn't forget about Itachi's jutsus, which is why I didn't mention how both Naruto and Bee refrained from using any of their jutsus as well. Between the three of them, Itachi used the most jutsus.



We were talking about the CQC exchange between him and Naruto, and the fact is that neither side used anything else than punches and kicks.



> Kabuto was faster than Susanoo's arrows, Susanoo itself is NOT as fast. Danzo even avoided a few hits from Susanoo and the Kages fought against 5 Susanoos each for a prolonged amount of time. Kabuto also had speed and Oral Rebirth to deal with Amaterasu.
> Kabuto needed no preparation, he had Orochimaru's snake sensing abilities; an acute sense of smell and infra-red. These allows Kabuto to see just fine without needing eyes.



Being able to dodge something doesn't mean being faster.
Also, Kabuto isn't fast enough for dodge Amaterasu, since Sasuke was able to make a complete ring of it while Kabuto only stopped his run in the same time.



> That's a humorous comment to me "without knowledge, x would had worked 100%." I can make similar claims about any character against any other character. You also realize though that being a ninja, especially a powerful ninja, is being able to deal with the unknown right? So it's hard to make such claims.



We know Kabuto's abilities, and his counter to Itachi's genjutsu was the fact that he could fight basically without using his eyes.
Though, without knowledge it's not likely that someone would cover his eyes against an enemy.



> I agree with the point you're trying to make, and I actually fully agree... to an extent. While I do believe that circumstances and match-ups play huge roles in this manga, I do believe in leagues and I don't personally see Hebi Sasuke as being in the same league as most Kage-level shinobi. That's why he needed the Mangekyou Sharingan, which was his power-UP. EMS Sasuke > MS Sasuke > Hebi Sasuke > CS Sasuke > Sasuke.



I agree with the fact that Hebi Sasuke is not capable to compete, in general, with Kage-level opponents.



> But how are we supposed to establish a precise power-level if a win/lose entirely depends on circumstances and match-ups?



It depends both on the circumstances and on the powers.
The circumstances and the fundamental differences between the arsenal of the characters are what invalidates the A>B>C logic, which is my point.

Therefore, that's why i think that, in general, the most correct way to establish a relation of superiority between the characters is to take into account their feats, and only in limited cases hype and other stuff.

In regard to this thread, for say Itachi > Jiraya (or the contrary), one should compare them through their shown abilities.



> Take the present case, Jiraiya. He his greatest strength is his lack of any real weaknesses. He has  near perfect stats, the exception being his skill at using genjutsu. He is however a ninja swiss army knife, having jutsus for almost any situation and he can vastly improve all of his physical abilities as well as the power/effectiveness of his jutsus via Sage Mode. In Base Mode he can beat KN4, in Sage Mode he can throw boss summons and blitz football fields. Yet, despite his overall superiority to most opponents regardless of terrain or match-ups, he's consistently underrated. Like my comment about him being a ninja swiss army knife? People tend to forget about his access to about 30 jutsus and commonly think he can only use _5_ jutsus (Rasengan, Summoning, Underworld Swamp, Sage Mode, Frog Song). They also act like he only has a 4.5 in strength and speed if he's _in_ Sage Mode.



I don't know if the majority of people underrate Jiraya, though that's not the topic.



> That's the problem, we don't actually know how powerful or skillful Itachi is without comparing him to who he has fought. That's one of the reasons Jiraiya's looked down upon so much, he lost to Pein (his only real fight in the series) despite being stated as having the sufficient power to win, so people "see" him as weaker since they saw him lose. On the other side of the coin, people perceive Itachi as being so powerful for his success rates against various characters that were significantly weaker than Pein. If you pay attention, you'll see how common of a trend that way of thinking is in debates.



Why not? We precisely know how Itachi's abilities work, so i don't see the problem in comparing them with the abilities of other characters for establish who would win against him and who would lose.
Who he beat doesn't tell anything about the strength of his abilities: for example, if Madara used Perfect Susano'o only against fodders but with the exact precise showings that there were against the Gokage, would the fact that he beat fodders with it render its power any less? Obviously not.

Also, i for one don't think that Itachi is stronger than Jiraya because he lost against Pain, but because i don't think that (in most of the scenarios) he would be capable of handle the power of the MS.



Joker J said:


> You said *"Kisame's skill set is perfect to fight a Jinchuuriki, but this doesn't mean that it would have the same efficency against a Sage."*
> Then you went on to say...​*"You can't use his perfomance against Bee and say that,  because of that statement, Jiraya is automatically more powerful than the latter."*
> 
> After you read those parts of your post, read your whole post again and the one im typing to you right now... after you did that, read my first response to you again.



Still doesn't relate to my point.

The "latter" (which i think is the reason of your misinterpretation) was referred to _Bee_, and i said that just because Kisame stated that Jiraya is stronger than him this doesn't make Bee weaker than Jiraya.


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## Joker J (Feb 7, 2013)

blk said:


> Still doesn't relate to my point.
> 
> The "latter" (which i think is the reason of your misinterpretation) was referred to _Bee_, and i said that just because Kisame stated that Jiraya is stronger than him this doesn't make Bee weaker than Jiraya.



... Read what you said again and read what I said. My first response to you  was telling you that your statements were wrong... I even bolded them.


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## Kai (Feb 7, 2013)

UltimateDeadpool said:


> Itachi > Jiraiya is _not_ a majority opinion. That's one of the reasons Itachi vs. Jiraiya is such a heated debate even today.


You can't deny the debate is much less prevalent today than it used to be just because your opinion on the matter hasn't waned.

Itachi > Jiraiya _is_ a majority opinion.


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## Cyphon (Feb 7, 2013)

@UDP - Kai is right about the majority opinion going Itachi's way and IIRC quite comfortably. However, what everyone needs to keep in mind is the major difference in popularity between the 2 characters. Itachi is far and away more popular than Jiraiya and with more fans you will gain more supporters. I am not saying that to undermine the legitimacy of arguments for Itachi winning, but when 2 characters strength is this close the character you like is going to get your support 99% of the time. 

For example, if someone were say....A Sakura fan, they still wouldn't support her victory over Jiraiya. But since this is a close fight, it typically is going to come down to the character you like more. Itachi has more fans, so Itachi wins the majority vote. Simple as that.

And while I haven't seen polls recently, Itachi is used far more in the story now than Jiraiya so the gap probably continues to widen when it comes to popularity. So the vote margin is likely only going to get wider and wider regardless of new things we are seeing.


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## Remsengan (Feb 8, 2013)

Baroxio said:


> As of this chapter it is canon that Itachi worked as a spy while in Akatsuki.
> 
> I don't really know what more needs to be said in order to convince people that Itachi's statement was a load of bull.
> 
> ...



Whether Itachi was a spy or not ultimately makes little difference.  We practically already assumed he was working as a double agent from Tobi's telling of events.

The reason for telling Kisame that an engagement could mean death or draw isn't so much important as the validity of the statement itself.  What Itachi said had to be at least plausible for Kisame to have even believed it.  

Kisame never doubted Itachi's statement...the only concern he ever mentioned was their retreat at the end.  This in itself speaks more to Kisame's straight forward personality rather than his doubt over Itachi's intentions.  After all, he just got out of a jutsu that he hinted at not being able to escape from.  Kisame isn't a tactical fighter like Itachi...he was likely more disappointed over not having the chance to fight a Sannin rather than the actual probability they would win.


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## blk (Feb 8, 2013)

Joker J said:


> ... Read what you said again and read what I said. My first response to you  was telling you that your statements were wrong... I even bolded them.



Maybe i'm overlooking something, but i think that the misconception is yours.

The meaning of my statements: 

- Kisame said that he would lose to Jiraya (which is assumed to be true for the sake of the argument).

- Kisame beat Bee.

- Despite the above, Bee isn't necessarily weaker than Jiraya.

You replied to this, saying that we can use Kisame's feats for tell why he can take on Jiraya, something that i never contradicted.

Now, i don't see how what you said relates to the point that i made.


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## Joker J (Feb 8, 2013)

My first post to you already shows what I wanted to say about your post that I replied to.


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## Baroxio (Feb 8, 2013)

Remsengan said:


> Whether Itachi was a spy or not ultimately makes little difference.  We practically already assumed he was working as a double agent from Tobi's telling of events.
> 
> The reason for telling Kisame that an engagement could mean death or draw isn't so much important as the validity of the statement itself.  What Itachi said had to be at least plausible for Kisame to have even believed it.
> 
> Kisame never doubted Itachi's statement...the only concern he ever mentioned was their retreat at the end.  This in itself speaks more to Kisame's straight forward personality rather than his doubt over Itachi's intentions.  After all, he just got out of a jutsu that he hinted at not being able to escape from.  Kisame isn't a tactical fighter like Itachi...he was likely more disappointed over not having the chance to fight a Sannin rather than the actual probability they would win.


You greatly underestimate Kisame if you think he isn't a tactical fighter. I would say his match with Killer Bee, as well as his actions at his death, prove exactly how much of a tactical fighter he is. 

Furthermore, the statement that "Retreat shouldn't be necessary for you" from Kisame came after the "If we were to fight, we'd draw" line from Itachi, so you can't say that Kisame believed him unequivocally in that scenario. 

Even then, what greater plausibility does Itachi need considering the fact that the opponent is one of the Sannin?

However, considering that Itachi mentions that the problem is Naruto's lack of growth, rather than the strength of his bodyguard Jiraiya, it supports the idea that they could indeed defeat Jiraiya and capture Naruto--they just don't have to yet. Jiraiya himself then solidifies that with a statement on how "It took everything I had to distance them from you, Naruto" 

Orochimaru himself adds that Itachi was flat out stronger than him, another of the Sanin, proving that Sanin hype doesn't mean shit to Itachi.

So hypewise, Itachi has Jiraiya beat. Featwise, I think we can agree that Itachi and his never-ending bag of OHKOs is stronger than Jiraiya. 

Even portrayal wise, Itachi is presented as still being stronger than Sasuke, the foil to main character Naruto, who has long since surpassed Jiraiya when he mastered Sage Mode to a greater degree than Jiraiya ever did.

I honestly don't see what leg the Jiraiya fans have to stand on anymore. Sure he's a great character and all, and sure Itachi can sometimes be frustratingly Sue-ish, but the author has almost made it a point to say that Itachi is indeed stronger than Jiraiya.


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## Remsengan (Feb 9, 2013)

Baroxio said:


> You greatly underestimate Kisame if you think he isn't a tactical fighter. I would say his match with Killer Bee, as well as his actions at his death, prove exactly how much of a tactical fighter he is.



He survived that fight because of regen and his skillset is suited to fight Jinchuriki.  The spare few tactics shown in that fight were from Bee's perspective.  



Baroxio said:


> Furthermore, the statement that "Retreat shouldn't be necessary for you" from Kisame came after the "If we were to fight, we'd draw" line from Itachi, so you can't say that Kisame believed him unequivocally in that scenario.



My point was that the statement came from Kisame's straight-forward mentality.  I don't deny the order of statements, but I don't think Kisame's remark had anything to to with the actual probability they would win.  After all, Kisame was the first to mention Jiraiya's strength.



Baroxio said:


> Even then, what greater plausibility does Itachi need considering the fact that the opponent is one of the Sannin?



If Itachi is so much stronger as many would imply, the title would be meaningless. 



Baroxio said:


> However, considering that Itachi mentions that the problem is Naruto's lack of growth, rather than the strength of his bodyguard Jiraiya, it supports the idea that they could indeed defeat Jiraiya and capture Naruto--they just don't have to yet. Jiraiya himself then solidifies that with a statement on how "It took everything I had to distance them from you, Naruto"



I don't get your point.  If Itachi was trying to dissuade Kisame, what good would it do to tell him that their target was weak?  Their mission as Akatsuki members is to capture Jinchuriki...somehow I think the excuse "we don't have to yet" is pretty silly considering the circumstances. 



Baroxio said:


> Orochimaru himself adds that Itachi was flat out stronger than him, another of the Sanin, proving that Sanin hype doesn't mean shit to Itachi.



Orochimaru is arrogant.  And he basically went against his own statement.  He says Itachi is stronger but decided to charge him, again, in their next encounter.  



Baroxio said:


> So hypewise, Itachi has Jiraiya beat. Featwise, I think we can agree that Itachi and his never-ending bag of OHKOs is stronger than Jiraiya.



You said...

Baroxio said:


> Even then, what greater plausibility does Itachi need considering the fact that the opponent is one of the Sannin?



So who has bigger hype?



Baroxio said:


> Even portrayal wise, Itachi is presented as still being stronger than Sasuke, the foil to main character Naruto, who has long since surpassed Jiraiya when he mastered Sage Mode to a greater degree than Jiraiya ever did.
> 
> I honestly don't see what leg the Jiraiya fans have to stand on anymore. Sure he's a great character and all, and sure Itachi can sometimes be frustratingly Sue-ish, but the author has almost made it a point to say that Itachi is indeed stronger than Jiraiya.



People still buy the A>B>C, A>C logic eh?  Itachi, at most, was presented as being smarter that Sasuke.  But more powerful is a bit of a stretch.  Sasuke had nearly the same abilities as Itachi without any of the drawbacks.  How is that "stronger"?


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