Fuck you for forcing me to visit TV tropes to find out what Flynning means.

You've got to learn to simply ignore people who say such things. Especially 'avert'.

Flynning predates TvTropes I'm pretty sure, not that there's anything wrong with the site. I use it to find new stuff to watch.

You mean the show where guns are broadly useless except twice????

I've never heard of "Flynning" outside of TV Tropes, although I guessed that it was referring to Errol Flynn since I've heard of him and sword-fighting in his movies.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

Except he's assassinated hundreds of vampires and rogue magi and there's a two parter episode that says as much? As well as taking down an 747 with a stinger.

Didn't kill hundreds of dudes in the actual story that mattered :v

What's wrong with avert? It's a perfectly serviceable word. You avert disaster, visits with the in-laws, and the income tax.

And I first heard the word 'flynning' in a fencing class.



In fairness, there have been a lot of needless flashbacks in Naruto. The last filler arc consisted almost entirely of characters flashing back to when they were all twelve.


What I'd like to know is why in Valen's name everyone and his brother has infused themselves with the First Hokage's DNA. IIRC, Yamato was the sole survivor out of 60 test subjects for the original infusion, except that Madara must have have succeeded decades before. Sure, Yamato's done some reasonably impressive things, but nothing to support Madara's claim that even in a world with godlike Kages and Jinchuurki people assume the First's power to be vastly exaggerated. Aside from suppressing Biju chakra, which is certainly valuable to Akatsuki, I just don't see how Mokuton is powerful enough to justify the apparent risks.

Oh, and I suppose Zetsu is an artificial person made using Wood Release. I guess that's sort of impressive, and explains who and what he is far better than a rambling flashback.

Actually, considering that Zetsu is an artificial man, both Obito and Madara have the Sharingan, the Mokuton, and that the Curse Seal apparently runs on clumsily reverse-engineered senjutsu, I'm forced to conclude that Orochimaru has spent the last decade or so playing catch-up to the major players. Which makes me wonder how much he knows and how long he's known it.

I'm not a huge fan of bringing back Orochimaru either. Especially right after disposing of Orhimaru-lite- er, Kabuto.

On topic of the first Hokages DNA:

Its not just about Mokuton. That is impressive enough when Madara produces a forest out of nowhere, apparently without straining himself, but the stuff seems to be approaching sharingan levels in terms of how many different things it does.
-It produces wood techniques.
-It controls tailed beasts.
-It helps recharge Shisuis eye faster. (I think)
-It helps with Izanagi.
-It gives a chakra/endurance/durability boost overall.
-Its related to the sage of six paths, so it presumably helps with whatever other vague powers people try to draw from there.

On top of that Madare claims to be on a level with the first. Given that Madare can take down the five kages all together without really getting serious, the first might have been on a similiar overpowered level, so his DNA having great power might not be so out of place. (Of course that raises questions regarding the backstory, what effect did one so utterly overpowered ninja have and why didnt he take over the world or how did he die?)

I'm not sure what made the Sage of Six Paths so powerful, either, aside from imprisoning the original Tailed Beast inside himself. Was he just the most extreme top end version of the special bloodline abilities that some families have in the series?

The most recent chapters aren't too satisfying. Oh, great, another segue into flashback chapters, this time with . That makes me miss Orochimaru, who had the clear, selfish motivation of immortality so that he could continue to satisfy his hunger for new knowledge and power.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

Trying to determine the power of past individuals based on the statements and abilities of someone who has been resurrected as an immortal, invincible, inexhaustible, and thoroughly upgraded Edo zombie is quite silly.

I dunno, if Madara is like 'if Hashirama was here I bet your maps would get really fucked up' I think that's a pretty clear intent from Kishi about Hashirama. Like it's totally clear that he still considers Hashirama an equal and a considerably more dangerous foe than the five current Kage fighting simutlaneously. Is Madara just not aware of his own capabilities?



Why didn't Senju 'I invented the Will of Fire' Hashirama take over the world?

???????

We have at least two depictions of Hashirama fighting, allegedly Kakuzu was sent to assassinate him and survived, the Third Hokage was allegedly even better than the first two...I don't think any of this really syncs up with Madara's statements. I see no reason to believe that Madara was even physically capable of doing half the stuff he's doing now.

It's also worth pointing out that he's like the only person in the entire setting who actually wanted to be resurrected...and possibly spent decades planning for it. Maybe he spent some time theorycrafting stuff for a future infinite chakra supply.

I like the idea that he was just a guy fiddling around with seals, who happened to have the courage, knowledge and strength of character to seal the Juubi into himself and save the world. At which point he gained the Rinnegan and god-like powers.

Mind,

Next question about the Sage. I get that Kishi would hate to pass up any opportunity to ripoff Journey to the West, but if the Sage could already rip people's souls out with a touch, or seal them into the Pot, what use could he have for the more complicated and time-consuming word-soul binding/sealing process?

Kabuto explicitly stated that he resurrected Madara is such a way as to make him stronger than he was at his best.

As far as I know, Madara never had much interaction with the Third Hokage so it's certainly possible that the Third would have been more than a match for Madara. Of course, this is shonen. My experience with shonen suggests that it generally isn't that great about internal consistency. It's meant to be simple, mindless entertainment, for the most part. Naruto isn't that bad about it, for a shonen series, but I don't take any of it seriously. I just look at it as something to alleviate boredom. It succeeds in that.

As to Madara's current threat level, I heard that Kishimoto has said that as of right now he's unstoppable, thanks to the upgrades Kabuto gave him and the way Edo Tensei works.

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Created by Instant Sunrise.

Oh, I agree that consistency isn't really a strong point of the series. I mostly continue reading it because I like the characters and want to see how it ends.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

So Kazkuzu survived. Big deal. Sarutobi was better than Hashirama and Tobirama. Big deal. Madara was resurrected with all his end of life abilities in a body in its physical prime. Big deal. The substance of what he is saying - that Hashirama is more powerful than all five current Kage - isn't going to be changed regardless of what he can do now. Even if the implication on Madara's part that Hashirama would still be his equal now is false, the other limb remains. And frankly I don't see why anyone should assume that Madara isn't best placed to judge both his own abilities and the abilities of his life-long rival. The rival that was always stronger than Madara anyway. You might say that maybe Madara is inflating the capabilities of the one guy he admired (and loathed), but Kabuto is of the opinion that Hashirama is way stronger than anyone currently alive. It's just a fact. Hashirama was crazy strong.

Well I think that's totally true. Though in most cases I'd call it less "power" and more "skill".

My comments are more directed to the silly "Madara is unstoppable! just how impossibly strong was Hashirama?!" train of thought which disregards all sense.

Look maybe Tsunade was just kind of delirious from Perfect Susanoo or whatever, but just keep in mind that you're assuming that Madara is very substantially more powerful currently than he was when he was alive, and I don't think that really follows. When it comes down to it all Kabuto did was ensure that Madara had all the stuff from the end of his life (Mokuton, Rinnegan) in a body from his physical prime. I mean, sure, that would definitely make him stronger than he was when Hashirama ruled him at the Valley of the End, but exactly how much stronger do you think this would make him? Being an Edo Tensei has all sorts of advantages, but a zombie's actual capabilities as a ninja are substantially the same as when they were alive.

They did show the Madara-First fight (animated), it was pretty close with Madara spamming the second eye ability I think it was just to be able to keep up with the First. On the other hand Madara wasn't using some of the stuff he used in the Kage battle, but I get a clear indication that the First is stronger or at least slightly more skilled.

I think part of the problem is that powercreep entered the series slightly before the mangaka fully figured out his own mythology so we get the situation where the Third, even with the reasoning that he's much older and no longer in his prime; is claimed to be stronger than the First(?) doesn't look like it considering abilities and power of characters around right now.

But at least the powercreep is much better handled here than in most manga's, I get the impression that one wrong step and most of the overpowered characters would go splat.

He needed the 9 tails at the Valley (And Biju are pretty much jokes even without Super Edo Madara for comparison) so I wouldn't expect anything really outlandish there, I'm pretty sure his collection of Senju cells was basically the alpha version before Kabuto kidnapped Yamato to get a properly functional sample and we saw what the beta version did to Danzo so saying he had Mokuton might not be much of a positive, and didn't he only get the Rinnegan literally on his deathbed?

Likewise. All the vastly powerful characters have very different powers and weaknesses. How many times in the series has someone said something like "I'm the worst possible opponent for you" "That'd work on most ninja, but not me" or even the damned smug "all you techniques are useless before my eyes."

Hell, even back in the Wave Arc, Zabuza realized that the Sharingan needed to make eye contact or at least see the opponent to be if much use. Good thing for him he was an expert at sneaking around in a fogbank and killing people. If Kakashi hadn't had a hidden skill (ninja dogs) to fall back on, he would have been easily killed.

The Fourth Hokage seemed the king of speed freaks, and if that were all, A could've taken him. But he increased his mobility further with throwing knives he could teleport to. Yet I have to wonder how he would've fared against the first Three Hokages who, going from their appearance early on, were not shy about spamming wide-area smackdown techniques and in theory could do a lot to constrain him.

Or Obito, who's effectively invincible unless the opponent has detailed knowledge of his limitations and a lot of prep time (Konan) or his other eye (Kakashi.)

All the high-level ninja seem to have their own game of rock-paper-scissors going on, with strengths and weaknesses and personalities rather than elements. And with the added element of understanding. Like Obito pointed out, the Konoha ninja have seen Pain fight, described his techniques, and they've doubtlessly developed plans for dealing with them.



Journey to the West again. After watching the Third Hokage fight it became pretty clear that he's supposed to be an expy of Sun Wukong, which raised my estimate of his threat level a lot higher than hearing he'd been un-ironically called "the God of Ninja."

In rather sharp contrast, Tsunade hasn't done anything remotely badass or Hoakge-like since her introduction arc. I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with Madara on this one.

I actually started to watch the anime again to see some of the cooler fights animated and there's slightly more filler going on than I expected, probably because the Anime somehow managed to put in even more flashbacks.

After watching Fate/Stay Night though I just can't get it out of my head that Sasuke is Shirou since they share the same voice actor.

That's an unfortunate attribute of most of the Naruto fights: lots of breaks for flashbacks. There are only a few episodes where the fighting and action are mostly unbroken, and they tend to be awesome (like Episode 143 of Naruto: Shippuden, and Episode 133 of the pre-time skip series). Both also tend to feature Sasuke getting his ass kicked, so maybe that's another reason for it.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

I think the "one wrong step" bit's better handled, too. A few of the Uchiha escapes have been pushing it, but I can't recall ever feeling like the audience had been robbed like a few recent chapters of Bleach, with