I actually like this video a lot & for some extra evidence around the "Itachi's Timeline Dilemma" part of the video the 2nd databook also confirms Itachi was 13 years old when he ascended to anbu captain.
I think one possibility is itachi tsukuyomi'd orichumaru or whoever the hidden akataski member is and made him experience time different and he actually experienced 7 years in the time people experienced 4 or whatever. It would be interesting if he actively messed with people's perspectives/experience of time more often for plot reasons since he's fully capable of it. It's all absolute pure head cannon obviously.
So the timeline of him joining the Akatsuki at 10, and being an Anbu Captain at 13, doesn't present issues to my perspective if you draw the conclusion he is simply in both factions, nor does the idea "He only becomes an Akatsuki member after leaving present issue." Could it not be argued that he only becomes a member after deserting, thus making him a full-fledged member, and it would only become public knowledge after the fact. And why his actions weren't questioned by other members is because of Obito's interference.
Konoha Village: "Itachi was the hero of the leaf all along" Kakashi: "He violently tortured me for 3 straight days, so brutally that it put me into a freaking coma. Just because he felt like it"
Kakashi has done countless evil shit as an ANBU. 😵💫 Also, the village never said Itachi was a hero. The most damage control for Itachi’s name that was done was simply wiping his name out of history books as the one that killed the clan. The books just say a tragedy occurred. This was shown when Sarada tried to learn about her clan’s history and found no information about the Massacre.
@@Bloooo95 what „evi shit“ has the guy actually done? Tell me, because the most evil thing he could’ve done was kill someone’s from a neighbour village, last time I checked that’s what ninja do.
Itachi held back, even Kakashi noticed it, 3 days in that world, less then a moment, in this one, why not kill me? If he wanted to, he would've.. what Kakashi is saying is.. he knows Itachi held back, but at that time, he doesn't know why, I think by the time they next meet in Shippuden, Kakashi suspects that there is more to Itachi then what was "said" about him, since he didn't go all out on Itachi, despite knowing how dangerous Itachi was
@@samuelhaverghast2442 Even so Itachi could have never predicted Kakshi would be arisen from his coma by Tsunade. For all Itachi knew he spared Kakashi's life but he would forever after remain in a coma; weakening Konoha. For that matter, Itachi always went too far when traumatizing people. If Sasuke was like 99% of people he would have just been traumatized by the massacre, had his spirit broken, and given up on being a shinobi.
Let's not ignore the fact that, had Naruto not intervened in time, Sasuke would have gotten his body stolen by Orochimaru and Itachi would look like the biggest dumbass in the entire world for basically giftwrapping him for the guy. It's pretty obvious that Kishimoto's intentions for his character changed at some point, and he did a pretty good job of covering his tracks to make it seem like this was always his plan from the start.
I’m not sure about this one, the Sound 4 would have probably submitted to Sasuke like Orochimaru did. Orochimaru and Sasuke were one, it was like a symbiotic relationship. Sasuke got nerfed from losing Orchimaru.
@@granddefectus4602 Orochimaru's original plan wasn't actually to train Sasuke, just steal his body the moment he showed up. That's why he waited as long as he did and was reluctant to switch hosts, because it would mean he'd have to wait another 3 years before getting his chance. Naruto delayed him long enough to force Orochimaru to choose another body or die, which Itachi had absolutely nothing to do with.
I assume Itachi had some way of keeping tabs on Saskue, so it seems he should have known Saskue was curse marked and move against Orochi before he could claim Saskue. Or do something ovee those 3 yrs to keep Sasku3 from becoming a meat suit for snake man.
@@granddefectus4602 Yeah, well, except for the fact that Orochimaru's initial plan was to take Sasuke's body since Kimimaro's got that weird disease that all OP Naruto side characters of sorts seem to get xD.
If Itachi was a bad guy, he and Kisame would have stomped Konoha. Kurenai, Asuna, Kakashi, and Gai would be dead. Sasuke would have been dead in the Uchiha Massacre unless he wanted eternal magekyou which he would have set up by genjutsu-ing Sasuke to make a best friend and having him kill them. Jiraiya would have been in a 1vs2 situation and probably die. Naruto would have been taken by them and have Kurama extracted.
@@johnlucas2838 That's not true. Just because he didn't body everyone doesn't mean he wasn't any less written to be a bad guy in the beginning. Itachi was working for the Akatsuki and doing covert operations. He wouldn't just kill everyone just because he can. The Akatsuki aren't supposed to be well known and going on a killing spree would just draw attention. That's why Itachi told Kisame not to fight Guy, because it would draw too much attention
@@johnlucas2838if Orochimaru was really such a bad guy he would have killed every single Genin in the forest. But he didn't so I guess with your logic he's actually a really nice guy!
The true retcon was Itachi always caring about Sasuke. You could argue that he choked Sasuke out in that hallway to keep up the pretense for Kisame, but re-traumatizing him was for who, exactly? Sasuke dropping everything to find Itachi was proof enough that he hadn’t gone soft. Hell, even genjutsu’ing him the first time was overkill. Itachi didn’t think Sasuke watching him murder his parents and finding the bodies of his relatives was enough of a reason for him to seek revenge?
Exactly. If not for Tsunade, Sasuke would never have woken from that Tsukiyomi coma. If we're meant to believe Itachi was good all along, he gambled on bad odds that Sasuke would ever recover.
But...but he was the "best and most caring brother" in the series. He can do no wrong. It was Danzo's fault that he nearly drove his beloved brother to insanity. It's fake news. He actually had calculated to far into the future and had known that it would all lead to Sasuke getting the rinnegan. Yes Itachi orchestrated the sage of six paths, true Kishimoto said it in an interview. I have no link to it but you can trust me. Itachi being a good guy/loving his brother and all that jazz was retcon end of story. It was a good retcon but a retcon nonetheless.
Definately a retcon, no doubt. same with Hashirama and Tobirama scaling in shippuden. I think Kishimoto had a hard time justifying Itachi's motivations for his past behavior.
Yeah when I first heard his reason I was like "this dude is supposed to be like top tier intelligence with a dumb motivation?" He could've just challenged a very powerful Shinobi like one of the Sannin and not kill children to "test his abilities". Kishimoto is just a poor writer when it comes to character development. His best characters when it came to character development always got shoved into irrelevancy for exception of Sasuke who actually changed throughout the show.
@AK-su3tz it's either a retcon or the manga is written by someone who's less than 40 iq. Feel free to try to justify a good guy putting his brother under a genjutsu that only ONE person has the ability to remove and that one person had left the village a decade+ ago lmao.
@@AK-MS27 for example, Itachi's original voice acting had a more sadistic angle when Sasuke first had the flashback of Itachi telling him his hatred wasn't strong enough and even called his existence pathetic. Even when he first attacked the village, he didn't need to put Kakashi under Tsukuyomi. If he was actually a good guy and know this is an extreme form of torture, he'd have empathy for his fellow anbu colleague he spend years with. And when people say he didn't kill Kakashi, well of course not, he had two other Shinobi to worry about and also Guy came in. He also stated his objective wasn't to kill or cause a big commotion but to seize the Kyubi Jinjuriki, which he almost succeeded on if it wasn't for Jiraiya showing up. He knew the leaf's security measures were alerted. He used the Tsukuyomi a SECOND time on his kid brother and breaks his arm. If his sudden "is a good guy all along" doesn't sound like a retcon to you. I don't know what does. He said he was watching the akatsuki but he was doing their bidding in kidnapping and killing people? How come he never warned the other villages or the leaf Naruto was about to be kidnapped? Why try to kidnap Naruto if his job was to spy on the Akatsuki to warn the leaf? The show gives us the impression that he first shows up because the Hokage was dead, thus the village was more vulnerable and the Sannin are gone, so the people who might pose a threat aren't around in his mind.
Itachi's reason for murdering his whole town was always incredibly vague, so I think Kishi wanted to do something with it later on, but I don't for a single moment believe Itachi was intended to be good.
Itachi whole existence was pretty vague at the time. Usually a person doesn't commit genocide without some reason, and we really never got that reason until shippuden. But I do think some of the stuff he did in his first appearance was a bit overkill for the dude we know as of today
It’s likely that he intended for Itachi to be a sympathetic villain who still cared about Sasuke, but Kishimoto made him sympathetic to the point of being a flawed hero instead of a sympathetic villain.
It could have been as simple as trying to trigger the mangekyou sharingan in Sasuke so he could steal Sasukes eyes and get the EMS Boost and not go blind
@@camth7862 They would probably have to change the anime continuity where Fugaku has a Mangekyo. I think the original idea was for Itachi to just want Sasuke’s eyes, but what Kishi ended up doing, turning Itachi into a flawed hero who was actually protecting the village, makes things way more interesting for Sasuke especially. Now instead of just getting revenge against his evil older brother, Sasuke has to grapple with his entire life motivations being a lie and the village actually betraying him.
@@camth7862 Yea I think I would have liked that better even. Real dark horror vibes, which the show kinda gave up on toward the end there. Used to be straight up creepy.
Short answer. Itachi was supposed to be a Villain. When they saw how popular the character got in Naruto, they needed to change it to a good guy for Shippuden.
@@donovan4222 no it was counter productive, he turned sasuke into a murder with PTSD and lead sasuke down the path he ended up at damn near wiping out the leaf and the potentially weakening the leaf by causing sasuke to turn against them, there were too many variables by torturing his own brother. It was a retcon, kishimoto himself said Itachi was meant to be a irredeemable villain at the start but changed it
Look the argument I believe is strongest for why Itachi is a retcon is that it's the only thing that explains Itachi's moment of sheer stupidity in executing his plan. Basically Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him in order to avenge the Uchiha, thereby dying as the villain, and successfully concealing the truth about the coup. And he definitely didn't want Sasuke to turn into a terrorist or anything, as evidenced by the fact that, after Itachi was brought back to life, he was confused as to why Sasuke wanted to join the Akatsuki and destroy the Leaf. So if that was his goal, why would he think giving a six year old PTSD and telling him to dedicate his life to hatred is a good idea? Because he wanted Sasuke to get strong enough to kill him? Itachi literally let him win anyway. There's no reason he needed to do any of that. And if there was, then why was Itachi so surprised when the PTSD and hatred turned Sasuke into a terrorist? He basically did to Sasuke what Obito did to Nagato to turn him into Pain. Only instead I guess Sasuke become Hate? Either way, what did you expect to happen, my guy? This is bigger than your typical uh-oh-spaghetti-o kind of mistake, so it begs the question if there was more than some disconnect between itachi's intentions and executions
He knew photo was a threat and no one besides nagato or itachi even knew of his existence so he had to make a way for assume to get as strong as possible in the shortest time possible to deal with photo as he knew he was after Naruto and would eventually attack the hidden leaf and end up killing or recruiting sasuke anyway and itachi wanted to avoid those possibilities the most
Also he really wouldn’t have known about obitos kamui so he thought he could keep sasuke away from obito and satiate his hatred with his death while also massively powering up sasuke so I do agree it was his plan did have some flaws but for the most part it was understandable especially since most of it worked right up until obitos interference.
Itachi wasn’t a retcon, but his story wasn’t fully planned out either. Basically Kishimoto knew what direction he was going to take the character in part 2 and purposely left Itachi’s motivations and plan mysteriously unsolved in part 1 so he could finish the story later. I think he did a decent job with making Itachi’s motivations and plan make sense with part 1. Itachi wasn’t perfect, by the end of the series he recognizes that getting Sasuke to hate him was his biggest mistake. And Itachi didn’t just do that as part of his plan because it was smart, he was doing it in large part out of guilt for what he did and wanting Sasuke to punish him. As for Itachi letting him win, that isn’t as simple as you make it seem. Sasuke needed to get stronger to believably beat Itachi and be a hero of the leaf. Sasuke needed to believe he had beat Itachi, there needed to be a believable fight, both for Sasuke to believe it, and for Itachi to feel he was truly being punished for the Uchiha massacre.
Kishimoto had his idea for the manga, but the studio had its own idea, and Kishi followed suit. While watching the anime, I felt some conspiracy was going on, which would be revealed later in the story, that Itachi killed the entire clan to stop a coup. When this was first shown, I was not that surprised; what did surprise me was that they tried to recontextualize his actions as heroic rather than cold-hearted and calculated. The only reason he kept Sasuke alive was that despite being cold-hearted, he still loved Sasuke.
@@donovan4222 And what's heroic about killing your entire family and clan save for one person? No culture in history would commend this, it is beyond barbarism.
On the Akatsuki not resembling the Akatsuki we see in Shippudden. I’m pretty sure that Kishimoto’s original idea was to have every other Akatsuki member be an Oni of some sort. And the symbolism that Itachi was so bad that he belonged with a group of Oni which are basically monsters.
I think Kishi retconed him when he saw the popularity of Itachi and it would be obvious in hindsight on why he’s so popular. Edgy design, cool eyes, very strong. Yea people definitely wanted some sort of redemption
Shisui wrote the note. He tells Itachi when we gives him his eye, if he's truly his friend he won't try and stop him, and that he's already left a note and he leaves the rest to Itachi.
Also, remember in the flashback to Itachi beating the police and ranting to his father about how fed up he is, it was *Sasuke* calling out to Itachi that made him snap back to his senses and apologize for the trouble. I think it's safe to say he always loved his little brother. Even if he showed it in ways that make me want to absolutely throttle him.
Itachi directly said that he's not perfect but people, I don't know, ignore this fact. It makes me furious. Itachi made it clear that he's not perfect, he's not a saint but fans like shut their eyes, ignore their idol and keep idolizing him too much
@@Bloooo95 They think Itachi did nothing wrong and its all 100% Danzo's fault. People deny the fact Itachi is a villain/antagonist in the story at all, even though he clearly is.
I'm actually annoyed at the other type of people, who proudly proclaim that Itachi isn't actually perfect as if its something they and no one else has realized or discovered, when it was literally addressed in the series. Even worse when they actually criticise the story for it lol.
@@panthekirb7561 The Uchiha Massacre was Danzo’s fault. Itachi didn’t create the circumstances to make it happen. Itachi did his part to try to prevent it but Danzo set the table to wipe out the clan whether Itachi chose to side with the village or the Uchiha. So, yes, it was Danzo and the village and the Uchiha and Obito that set all that into motion. Did Itachi make a choice? Sure. But it was just to save his brother. Itachi’s biggest mistake is his handling of Sasuke after the Massacre. If you think Itachi, a 12 year old, is the sole person with agency in the very nuanced intrapolitical conflict surrounding the Uchiha massacre, then you’re deluded. The circumstances surround the massacre are so much bigger than Itachi that’s it’s insane to pin it all on him. Did he need to torture Sasuke? Should he have hid the truth from Sasuke and not placed faith/trust in Sasuke’s own strength? Should he have pushed him to pursue hatred? Should he have pushed Sasuke to pursue vengeance out of Itachi’s own greed to want to be killed out of guilt? No. He could have handled Sasuke much better and he’s admitted to that. Most people agree. However, y’all hyper focus on a problem that can’t be blamed on Itachi. The massacre was so much bigger than him and Danzo already had the pieces together to make it happen regardless.
I think that in the Tsunade Arc, Kishimoto had a loose idea of his character and had a few different directions he was thinking of going with but after seeing how popular Itachi was, he decided to put him into the "Tragic Hero" path. From the Sasuke Retrieval Arc onwards, his character is pretty consistent
It was weird how after Sasuke found out the truth he started to idolize itachi and the other characters started talking about itachi like he was some misunderstood hero,I think kishi knew how popular itachi was so he had to retcon how the characters perceived him when he was generally disliked by Sasuke and the others as a traitor to the leaf but when his truth is revealed his actions are suddenly seen as heroic.The only character who still hated itachi and Uchiha was Tobirama.
@@justinarzola4584 It's so weird that a teenager Sasuke was like "Yes my dear brother, who killed everyone I loved, thank you for making me an orphan and making my life complete hell". "You see Sasuke, killing all of those Uchiha babies and mothers was the right to do"
@@joaquincasascortes624 is that really how it seemed? I thought it was more like Sasuke felt bad about how Danzo and Hiruzen forced Itachi into killing his clan not that he saw it as good,
The very first databook has a bit about Itachi where it says something along the lines of "what are this mysterious character's true motives?" or something like that, hinting that there's more to him than what you might originally guess. Not to mention when he used Tsukuyomi on Kakashi, Kakashi said to himself "why not just kill me? If he wanted to, he could.", another sign that Itachi was holding back or showing mercy. The only reason he put Kakashi out of commission was to prevent a large-scale fight from breaking out, he knew if he incapacitated the heaviest hitter the Leaf has outside of the Sannin, the other Jonin would prioritize Kakashi's safety and allow Itachi and Kisame a window to escape.
@@kaiseramadeus233 yes he did. To end the fight right then and there he had to take out their heaviest hitter, even Might Guy would know that prioritizing Kakashi's safety is more important than chasing after them. It was the only path for Itachi to escape without causing a big fight to break out.
@@Borchert97 In the novels, Itachi took out Izumi with a peaceful Tsukoyomi. She lived an entire life of happiness inside an illusion that ended up killing her. So yes, I stand by the fact that 72 hours of torture was unnecessary. Literally anything else could have happened and the results would have been the same
If Itachi retcon is true (most likely is true) then that means that jiraiya was either planned to be way stronger than he is or Itachi and kisame were planned to be alot weaker than they are
Itachi is also sick. He had used his mangekyo sharingan jutsu against Kakashi and Sasuke. Maybe he would be too tired to fight Jiraiya. Also, if he’s a spy he could be lying to Kisame. There is a chance that Jiraiya and Orochimaru are stronger than Kisame and doesn’t know Itachi’s full strength.
I mean, no. Orochimaru was portrayed as being the strongest of the Sanin and Orochimaru plainly says Itachi is much stronger than him a few chapters before the Jiraiya incident. Itachi’s reactions to Jiraiya in contrast to Orochimaru’s plain admission of inferiority to Itachi is…. You guessed it! **Foreshadowing**.
@@Bloooo95 exactly. Itachi running from Jiraiya is further evidence that it wasn’t a retcon but the retcon people act like it’s evidence that kishimoto is a bad writer.
As far as Itachi using Tsukuyomi on Kakashi, I always thought that Itachi did it because Itachi knew Kakashi well due to their time in Anbu and also knew he was Sasuke's sensei. But utterly destroying Kakashi and putting him in a coma, it very easily showed Sasuke that even his own sensei gets bitched by Itachi meaning he's not powerful enough to give Sasuke the power he needs to kill Itachi. It's like Itachi was doubling down on ensuring Sasuke only have raging and pure hatred for Itachi and realized it was not just a desire to kill Itachi but a duty as Itachi could easily take his new family of Kakashi, Naruto & Sakura away from him as he did his original family in the Uchiha Clan. Now Sasuke wasn't just avenging the Uchiha clan, he was saving anyone else from Itachi's perceived sociopathicly inflated ego. So taking out Kakashi would only sharpen Sasuke's resolve so that there could be no doubt in Sasuke's mind that he had to kill Itachi. But in all honesty I did not get the feeling at any point of Naruto part 1 that Itachi was actually a good guy or protecting the leaf.
@@IIIISai It certainly felt like it. But I guess Shipuuden is 2020 Hindsight so it all makes sense why as powerful as he and Kisame were didn't engage Jiraiya or kill Kakashi which they combined could definitely do. Itachi alone actually.
@@Bloooo95 thats only if you accept that reading though. To my mind, the more natural interpretation is: itachi is looking down at the hidden leaf and is angry that HIS birth place is so pathetic.
@@DiddntFindANameLol I'm referring to Kisame joking about Itachi being nostalgic about his former home and betraying him. Kisame is also super loyal to the akatsuki, the opposite of Itachi. Which is like all the akatsuki pairings, who are opposites in some way.
I really don't think "The Truth about Itachi" was ever planned from the beginning. It feels like Sasukes revenge arc reached it's natural conclusion and that Kishimoto didn't know what to do with Sasuske's character once he completed his revenge to keep Naruto and Sasuke not only apart but opposed to the other. One of my points of contention with the storyline also which I find hilarious whenever people wank Itachi in terms of power scaling is that I'm supposed to believe that Obito was fearful of Itachi's strength yet Itachi complied in murdering half of his clan not only for the village but because Madara was supposed to be that great of an external threat he would have to comply. If Itachi was truly so strong why did he not attempt to take Obito(Madara's) life sooner? When he was still healthy and not dying of some unknown illness.
I wish after sasuke killed itachi, he and team hebi just went to a mist village or rain, and lived like that, left the story, then rock lee would take over, sasuke was the best character in my opinion from part 1 up till his fight with itachi, after tobi tells sasuke the truth and itachis horrible retcon, sasuke drops severe quality
@@IIIISai I think the story would have been very interesting with Sasuke and hebi as a wandering antihero instead of making Naruto and Sasuke directly oppose eachother. The Akatsuki storyline could have been resolved in a different way too.
@@NotTheWheel yeah i feel like it would've been interesting if sasuke returned to the village way earlier like if naruto vs sasuke final battle occured way earlier let's say after pain fight for example and naruto won. I feel like having obito or madara as the final boss with naruto and sasuke working together will feel more interesting rather than having them just be these reincarnation of gods that's destined to fight one another
It was not only revealed later Sasuke had supressed the memory of itachi crying. It was mentioned all the way back in chapter 7. Sasuke says to Sakura "There's a man that only I can kill" and she responds with "...Ah... Who do you mean?" and he says "That time... Crying..." and she says "Crying...?" then sasuke says "My..." and she says "What... What do you mean?" then he goes on to say "I'm an avenger. I have to become stronger than him. So I can't jus stay here and do nothing." Later on we also see the shot of Itachi with his headband sideways, except it's not as clear so we don't see the crying. This shot is never shown again, until it's revealed that Itachi was crying in it later on (and Sasuke then confirms he was repressing the memory). This was very clearly thought out from the beginning. Also Itachi could have literally just killed Kakashi with the Tsukiyomi if he wanted to. If he really was evil, there would be no reason for him to hold back. He obviously had to do some bad things to keep up the act. Just seriously harming him instead of killing seems like the perfect way to do that.
if it was really thought out from the the beginning, and Kishimato really did intend for Itachi to be a "good guy" from the very beginning, then Kishimato is a genocide denying piece of shit, and the fanbase is so incredibly morally corrupt or just dumb. He was crying while committing genocide? wow, that changes everything. hes basically a saint for that.
the crying could be a reference to how s a s u k e was crying during it, and also it might not have been thought out that itachi c a n kill people with tsukuyomi yet.
for real, people forget that the akatsuki KILLS anyone who betrays them, itachi did not want to look suspicious to kisame and that's why he attacks kurenai and asuma, he could've killed kakashi with the tsukuyomi if he really wanted to and even kakashi questions it himself why he hadn't killed him yet all the bad things he's done are all to not look suspicious to kisame and trying his best to not kill anyone from the leaf, imagine yourself being itachi's partner in the akatsuki and everytime you two have to fight anyone from his village he chose to flee instead or hesitated to fight everytime, it wouldn't look convincing for kisame and even more obvious to the audience that something else is going on with him, i think the ''evil'' actions that he chose on part 1 aren't the best but they do cover his identity to kisame pretty well in my opinion
@@fakeblast well on other hand if kisame gonna go wild, most of his strong water jutsu are really massive(cover huge area) so once akatsuki duo start serious fight, they would instantly give themselves away. And it would be a huge problem in their naruto hunting
@@n.6847 A genocide that he was forced to commit (if he didn't someone else would have, except Sasuke would have also been killed) so that another world war wouldn't start.
I remember reading somewhere that initially, Sasuke didn't exist in the original draft for Naruto, so in that draft, Itachi probably could have been played straight as a talented genius dude who murdered his family for more singular power, setting him up to be one more foil for Naruto to beat up and prove a failure because friendship is based and all that.
don't believe that shitt💀 naruto has so many misconceptions about it this itachi is actually a goodguy was just inconsistent writing it's not a retcon the idea of itachi making sasuke like that to make him hate itachi more so he doesn't suspect the leaf but kishi forgot about orochimaru taking sasuke's body
The Akatsuki member in the back is clearly Hiruko (Sasori's puppet) and the one on the right is Zetsu. The upside down guy is Deidara because of the hairstyle and the way he speaks. Those characters appeared in the very beginning of Part 2 (Zetsu appeared in Part 1 even) so them being the only final designs makes sense.
Obito> Pain> Itachi doesnt matter If is healthy or Sick ( plus Itachi healthy we Never seen him anyways he doesnt exist in the Verse) Itachi CANT Win against The leaders
Oh Yeah i agreed Itachi is the 3° strongest for sure. I don't know How people think Itachi would beat Them That's some Itachis girls bulshit. He definitely doesnt have stamina and chackra to beat ALL The pains in a fight And to beat Orange mask he would have to beat kamui and izanagi which i don't think he would be able to That's about It
Let me remind y'all that Itachi was the guy who believed killing his entire clan was an acceptable course of action. Genjutsu on a woman to make her hit on Jirayia is a tame action in comparison.
There’s other hints from Part 1 you didn’t touch on. For instance, there’s the comment Asuma made in Kakashi’s room that it made no sense that Itachi hadn’t already captured Naruto since he knows Naruto’s face and the village and is as powerful as he is. That question from Asuma isn’t answered. It’s left open to get the audience thinking. If Orochimaru, the man who almost destroyed the village a day ago, is saying, “Yep, Itachi is much stronger than me.” Then, yeah, why hasn’t Itachi already captured Naruto if that’s his sole goal? Well… you find out why in Part 2. I don’t think Kishimoto had all the details worked out (especially with Danzo, the coup, etc.). He actually has said he didn’t know all the details. But he has said that he knew Itachi had complicated reasons for doing what he did that abdicated him somewhat. Given Kishi’s penchant for having sympathetic villains, I think it’s a bit odd to think that’s an unrealistic thing for Kishimoto to minimally plan about Itachi before his appearance. To me, saying it was a full out retcon is a bit… harsh. It’s easy to see that Itachi having reasons to do what he did was planned from the start, enough for Kishi to drop several hints (Kisame’s statement, Kakashi being shocked Itachi didn’t kill him, Asuma’s statement, Itachi saying he didn’t want to fight or kill Asuma and Kurenai, Orochimaru saying Itachi is much stronger than him and then Itachi agreeing that a Sannin might be too much for him, etc.).
“Evil” Itachi wanted Naruto alive so that Sasuke could kill him and awaken MS. It almost worked too. Not sure if EMS was thought up at the time, but it was clear that Itachi’s eyes were getting worn down and that you can take other people’s Sharingan.
Honestly his first appearance could be explained as him having a bad day and taking out his anger on everyone else. Dude wasn't even an adult at the time wouldn't be too shocking
@@JakoWako I loved that narrative, but, to be honest, i dont think its an asspull that itachi wasnt just mindlessly slaughtering his clan. He knows the secrets of the sharingan, and wanted sasuke to develop his. This is the gray area now, because this is where it can be that he wants the eternal mangekyo because his are failing, but if thats the case, why not just implant shisuis eyes? Or "madara"? Since "madara" knew itachi can kill him with no problem. I think he needed/wanted sasuke to awaken the mangekyo so he can be strong. The entire arc of itachi and kisame showing up in the village is one of my favorites, because he just strolls in and everyone shits their pants and he doesnt kill anyone, traumatizes the shit out of kakashi, and strolls right out when jiraiya shows up. I dont think kishimoto had him as evil, and i dont think it was a retcon to make him "a hero". I think kishi probably didnt know what ultimately caused itachi to slaughter his clan, but i do believe he had it planned that there was a greater purpose to the mindless slaughter, and one that might turn everything on its heads.
so when Kisame was afraid to engage in battle with Jiraiya and was sure that they both were gonna end up defeated, then why did Itachi persuade and forced him to keep on their mission by saying "even the strongest person has a weak point" if you gonna respond that Kisame would get suspicious, not only in that part but for the entire time Kisame has never ever been suspicious of Itachi even a bit and to say that he would get suspicious simply because of Itachi literally agreeing with him is just ridiculous. Also capturing Naruto and sealing tailed beast away as a result of Naruto'a death would cause for Sasuke to awaken MS and even if he was for Konoha, also by capturing Naruto Akatsuki would move their eyes and hands away from Konoha and it would be saved from later invasion and destruction from Pain. Capturing Naruto would be even more safe for Konoha than keeping him in their hands whilst capturing all of the tailed beasts around the world.
@@კრიტიკოსი-შ4ჯ Reread it. Kisame said, “I don’t think I can take him, even though I’m sure you can.” Kisame never wanted to back down and was confident Itachi could take on Jiraiya. Itachi had to give Kisame the impression that Jiraiya might be too much for him as well. After they retreat, Kisame berates Itachi for having to retreat and doubles down that he could have handled Jiraiya. So, my response is to read the manga more carefully.
I think one thing no one brings up is Itachi telling Sasuke if he wanted tod efeat him, he needed eyes like his, and the only way to get eyes like his is to kill someone he loved. Itachi pratically setup up Sasuke's life for perpetual suffering cause keep in mind, if Sasuke did follow through on his advice, he'd would've effectively been a criminal and a wanted man as a result. And given that closest Sasuke has to a friend at the time was Naruto, who was a jinchuuriki. Sasuke could've lost his life if Naruto was so disillusioned with their "bond". And if Sasuke did kill naruto, it would've made him public enemy number 1 in the nation. Itachi is single-handedly responsible for why Sasuke is the way he is and why he's damn near almost died several times through-out the series because of how much emotional manipulation he's had to go through as a result of Itachi. So I never did like how the narrative was bending over backwards to kiss Itachi's butt after the fact.
I think killing naruto would vary in results depending on when sasuke kills him. The village hated and didn't care for naruto for all his early life. I dont think sasuke would have been hated that much aside from most of the main cast. Just not the whole village now if the event happened differently as in if pain attacked the village and naruto becomes the village hero happened BEFORE sasuke fights itachi and if sasuke kills him during that time then i can definitely see him becoming a huge criminal to everyone in the village
@@TheEmeraldTyrantSasuke wasn’t loved either, and killing a leaf shinobi as a leaf genin is an act of treason. So he would be executed aswell, or regarded as a criminal at least. Hiruzen would go crazy if the 4th hokage’s son he was supposed to take care of got killed…
Itachi was absolutely retconned and Danzo appeared out of nowhere as a scapegoat for Itachi. Then after the retcon, Kishimoto’s writing became desperate for us to believe that Itachi really was a saint all along. Itachi was better as a villain, and the reveal that he needed Sasuke’s eyes was a great revelation.
I would go as far to say that Itachi's true nature was subtly foreshadowed ever since Part 1. Around Chapter 7, Sasuke says he remembers Itachi crying at the night of the massacre, which is telling. Sasuke remembers seeing Itachi crying, but he just doesn't understand why and seems to be subliminally suppressing the memory. There's also an instance in Chapter 140 where Itachi leaves a plate of dango behind for Sasuke, as Itachi and Kisame were both sitting there just beforehand. There's also Itachi's specific words towards Sasuke: "If you want to kill me, settle for hating me! Hate me and live like the coward you are! Cling to life without honor!" If I recall correctly, this is in reference to a popular piece of Japanese media that actually did tip off the Japan fanbase about Itachi's true nature. Furthermore, one should recall Itachi's initial design and how it featured his arm slung through the front of his cloak, which can also be taken a clear reference to a ronin; an honorable samurai that lacks a master. People criticize Itachi's handling of Sasuke, but isn't that the literal point? His handling of Sasuke was completely atrocious, with both Naruto and Sasuke calling him out on it; Itachi even admits this himself. That's why he asks Naruto to save Sasuke, because if anyone could it would be him. Itachi is a good shinobi that was able to put his loyalty to the village and his mission above everyone else (Sasuke being the sole exception), but emotionally he's a total dumbass and he admits to both himself and Sasuke that he royally fucked up. Also Kishimoto straight up said in an interview he always had a reason for Itachi's part in the Uchiha massacre as more than it seemed, even if he had yet to decide what that that reason specifically was.
@@shinji136 Wrong on both counts, in the original Japanese manga Sasuke's exact words were "あの時... 泣いてた" which translates to "That time... Was crying." The Japanese text was ambiguous as to who was crying, but some early English translations assumed it was Sasuke and said it was him. This is a classic example of fine details sometimes getting lost in translation.
@@Intrepid_Explorer This might have been correct if Sasuke didn't literally remember things as him passing out before Itachi cried (seen in the part 1 Naruto vs Sasuke battle) and then said to Tobi that it was a suppressed memory that only resurfaced days after Itachi's death.
It’s possible Itachi wanted to motivate Sasuke AND Kakashi to get stronger and assumed the leaf would figure out how to deal with the trauma he put them through. Kakashi is essentially his little brothers guardian and he knows the akatsuki is gunning for Naruto. Kakashis strength at their first encounter was insufficient.
@@banshotenin1178 No, he definitely didn't understand, since what he did only ended up sending Sasuke to Orochimaru, lol. Even on the good guy argument it doesn't work.
@@daviddoesstuffandthingigue966 Not even similar. Killing the Uchiha had a benefit to the village as it stopped the coup, torturing Kakashi and Sasuke had literally zero benefit for anyone or anything.
My mind was blown twice. I remember figuring out that was Obito in that scene when the whole world was trying to figure out who tobi was. I've had too many debates on youtube after that. The only thing is that I thought Madara had inherited Obito's body somehow and it was going to tie Orochi in it some how.
glad you mentioned the fact that itachi could have put kakashi and sasuke that it could have been a way to try and get tsunade back in the village which is always what i had thought after finishing and rewatching the show.
If Itachi wasn’t the “good guy” then he would have taken a Madara-like spot in the series. He would have been someone who would have done anything to gain power… a spot that was later fulfilled by masked Madara and later real Madara.
I think Kishimotos intentions for itachi definitely changed at some point. I remember being as excited to see the final battle between Sasuke and itachi as I was for anything naruto would be doing. I think kishimoto made itachi an undercover good guy because itachi had become so comically evil that it was hard to imagine how someone could just be that way, especially since kishimoto went down the route of having complex and broken villains rather than just having people with bad intentions like in one piece. Even by one piece standards, itachi was basically comic book character levels of evil except he had a much more serious and dark undertone because naruto is a much more serious show than one piece or just standard comics or shonen and we had seen the sasukes family slaughter tsukuyomi flashback so many times. This dude was painted out to be the devil himself basically.
8:17 I kind of really dig this original idea of Itachi being the Human Monster amongst other actual Monsters. That could have had some genuinely interesting story avenues to explore.
A few inconsistencies aside, I love Itachi’s story and I do think the tracks are covered up and explained away just well enough to make it all make sense and be wrapped up in a neat bow.
To be blunt- Kishimoto has, basically never planned very far ahead in Naruto and it shows A LOT with hindsight. I can't recall the specifics, but Sasuke was originally supposed to die and stay dead in the land of waves arc against Haku, and it was simply Kishimoto's own love of the character that made him keep him alive. This also tracks with pilot issues of the original Naruto manga that were sort of meant to test the concept out- Kishimoto has...basically never had time to plan ANYTHING, or never attempted to and it shows with Itachi, Madara, Kaguya, Black Zetsu, the Ten Tails, everything with the Sage of Six Paths, Sasuke, and Kurama. The one thing that Kishimoto was great at was winging it, and you can even tell that he's winging it because there are dramatic tonal shifts in the series that...frankly just don't mesh very well together. Like how the Chuunin Exams feels somewhat similar to the land of waves arc up until the final third of it, then the show takes on a nearly entirely different tone and feel, Shippuden feels nothing like pre-time skip, and by the time we get to the war arc, it sort of feels like DBZ with extra steps with Kishimoto making statements at the time like how he has no idea how to deal with Madara in the story- I have mixed feelings on how a lot of things in Naruto were handled in hindsight, I love the series for what it is- But Kishimoto has NEVER stated that he had everything figured out from the start, if anything it was the opposite and he seemingly made a lot of last minute decisions on a weekly basis, if not for every part of the story, then at least for some of them- I do think that he had very strong ideas, but didn't really have them at the same time or commit to them for very long from a writing standpoint. He sort of had this approach of "adding more" when he hit a key point, rather than fleshing something that already exists out. Like how we go from learning about chakra control, ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu, to summoning jutsu in just a few arcs, and past a certain point, chakra control, genjutsu, and summonings rarely ever play a key part in the story, and most characters only ever know a handful of jutsu that is unique to them and rarely ever learn anything from each other unless it's passed down from teacher to student. Beyond learning the rasengan, Naruto's real biggest training arc doesn't even happen until he learns wind release to make the rasenshuriken all the way in Shippuden, then he supposedly causes permanent damage in his arm because it's imperfect, and that supposed injury never plays any role in the story again except for him learning the perfected version of rasenshuriken...which required sage mode to be used at distance...but then...there are times in the war where he just...uses it without sage mode or tailed beast chakra anyways if I remember right?- I don't know, it's weird, Kishimoto covers his tracks on a lot of things, but there's always suspicious looking dirt everywhere afterwards if you look back at all of it-
Some people say that he motivated sasuke to get him stronger by torturing him but is it really worth it? Trauma in exchange for power. Also he told him to kill his best friend for temporary power mangekeyo sharingan. Also he helped Akatsuki in evil stuff and then all of a sudden he was a spy
Itachi was 12 when he became a anbu captain and massacred the Uchiha. I figured this out before the novel was released because of him and Sasuke's ages. They rectified the inconsistencies with the novel and said Danzo and Hiruzen raised his official age to 13 when he turned 12 which is why Kakashi thought he was 13 when he became anbu captain.
I remember in the first naruto vs Sasuke fight itachi told sasuke i that he 'will always be there for him, even if it's just an obstacle.' Since then I knew itachi was going to have a heel turn and was actually a "good" guy
I think that kishimoto did his best to setup itachi as an ambiguous not just for story purposes, but also because he would have the option to go either way depending on which direction he thought would be better for Sasuke's story at the moment when he had to decide. He probably thought about going one direction or another many times but I think he settled on the good guy route at the end of part 1 when he decided to make obito the bigger villain (I don't think he would've made kakashi gaiden at that time otherwise).
I think this was for sure a retcon, and it was definitely how I felt as it was coming out. Looking back on it now, though, it makes a lot of sense. It seems like the original intention was for Sasuke not to awaken the Mangyekyo (He says he'll "Do it his own way" and even in the fight there's that line of "A Sharingan can be stronger than a Mangyekyo with the right user). The story shifted or he hadn't planned it out, meaning Kishimoto had to come up with a way for Sasuke to unlock it. One retcon later and Itachi is one of the most popular characters in Naruto
I both believe he was intended to be evil and think Itachi would have been better as the cold villain he was portrayed as, but that Akatsuki thing I can't understand. Besides Kisame and Itachi, you can clearly see Zetsu, Pain, and Konan in that group of Akatsuki standing together at 8:35.
Sasuke cant cast genjutsu with a finger or of figured out how to stop kabutos control over edo tensei, or free himself from control of edo tensei. Hes also not as nice with the kunai as itachi still
Wdym better than him? In what? As characters? And honesty, Obito and Madara are straight up braindead, bad villains. Especially Obito, who is just a simp. At least Madara got tired of the shit that comes with humanity and wanted to put them all down into a dream where everyone is happy. That makes a little bit of sense at least. But Obito? Straight up poop. Itachi is a much better character than both of those, Shisui got killed too early, he basically has no character, Sasuke? Ehhh... maybe.
In Part I Itachi is 18-19 years old, assuming he slaughtered his clan, joined the Akatsuki, and became a captain all at age 12, then the 7 years makes perfect sense
Itachi's character was a retcon. You could see he was meant to be a power hungry villain, but Kishimoto decided to redeem him. A shame though. He was so much more interesting as an irredeemable villain. Him killing everyone simply because of power was better than whatever complicated plot the author came up with later on.
@@reiner8373 yeah he felt like some giga chad boss that sasuke had to beat. It made sasuke's journey to kill him so much more satisfying. But then kishi just had to make him this tragic hero and made sasuke look dumb
@@alexp4942 When Kakashi let it spill that he had intel on the Akatsuki, of course Kisame was gonna go apeshit anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Remember y’all, Itachi is a double agent and has to pretend to be a loyal member of the Akatsuki.
@@Bloooo95 Itachi is the worst double agent in the history of double agents. Dude leaked nothing and actively helped the Akatsuki for years. Being a double agent requires you at least sabotage the opposing side.
Great video. I’ve always thought it was questionable that Itachi tortured Kakashi like that if he was never evil. Also huge props for every time you say Shippuden; makes me feel better abt everyone who makes videos and says ShiPooed-en 😭
I've always got the vibes that Itachi was planned out to be a villain early on and the plan changed later to suit the plot once other details got decided on. It feels a lot like once other details got decided on such as the whole Obito thing and whatnot, the Itachi situation didn't really fit anymore and so the plot had to change to accommodate. Part of me kinda really wants to see an alternate version of the story in which Itachi as he was originally presented actually was his character. Perhaps he killed his own clan and family not to protect the village, but to ensure that he remained the most powerful Uchiha? The whole Mangekyo story arc originally seemed to be implying that Itachi spared Sasuke not out of mercy, but for his own selfish goals. The plan was for Sasuke to obtain his own MS, then Itachi would take them from him and obtain EMS from it. Sasuke and Itachi both share the same MS ability: Amaterasu; The black flame that consumes all. However, Sasuke's variant also comes with an additional ability. Flame Control, which allows him to have greater and more precise control over the Amaterasu's flames. What if the original idea was for Itachi to win the fight against Sasuke, taking his eyes and obtaining EMS with Flame Control? If we assume that all he wanted was Sasuke's eyes and otherwise spares him, it could be that this is the point Sasuke would finally return to Konoha, except unable to fight due to blindness. Even if he could get new eyes somehow, they would be normal eyes and not Sharingan. This could be the start of a sort of redemption arc for him, but I don't want to get too sidetracked with Sasuke's potential character arc here. Especially considering Itachi could just as easily decide that Sasuke has no use for him anymore and simply remove him from the story more permanently then and there, giving him even more reason for Naruto to go after him. Itachi at this point would very likely be getting set up as the big bad final villain of the series. He'd be an amped up version of the character in regards to strength, and with all the skill of the original. No Chakra disease to nerf him, and his EMS would likely even come with a complete Susanoo. Perhaps he would even eventually awaken one or both of his eyes into Rinnegan somehow, granting him the powers associated with that. In effect, he'd basically be early Boruto Sasuke, except it's Itachi with his original evil personality portrayal. A man so consumed by a thirst for power that there's no line he won't cross to obtain it. All he cares about is becoming the strongest, whatever that takes.
All of this theory of yours hinges on the assumption that Itachi is that thirsty for power when in reality he does not act remotely like that. He have no ambition, he even allow himself to serve the village and have a caring relationship with his brother, first time i see him even when i was a kid, when he said that he "Just want to test his strength" I already thought It's a load of bull because it doesn't make sense. Remember that Itachi slaughtering his whole clan in the middle of the night, most likely with assassination and ambush tactics, separate them to little fights and execute them one by one (proven by how quiet it all went). He's a walking contradiction, even when he first appeared he do deal serious damage to Kakashi and Sasuke but it's still not outright slaughter when it was pointed that he was capable of just killing them all. But he didn't do that. Does he gloat? No he's calm and calculated. I don't know where you get this "original" Personality idea from.
@@aivreescend7945 It's not a theory, it's an alternative lore "what if" scenario for if the story were written differently. That should have been pretty obvious.
One thing I’ve always wondered about, is itachi telling sasuke to kill his best friend. I mean did he really want sasuke to do that? And also, the fact that we find out that’s not what’s needed for a mangekyo. Makes me wonder why we never got any specification on any of that.
he literally said: "You must kill your best friend to gain MS" and in shippuden Sasuke was going to literally kill Naruto had Orochimaru not hold his hand and persuade not to do that. Also in og Naruto Sasuke literaly put Chidori throug Naruto's heart in the midst of their fight if there hadn't been for Kurama Naruto would end up dead. So yeah Itachi encouraged Sasuke to kill his close friend
I've always seen Itachi as the man with a thousand backup plans. When he saw Sasuke as an adult he was extremely excited, as if he can finally move forwards with his plans. As soon as he realizes Sasuke doesn't have the same eyes as him his deminer changes. He knows he is checkmated and the only plan of action left is to empower Sasuke and make it traumatic to unlock his eyes. I have always through Itachi was a bad guy and it fits his character a lot better.
I mean for a story as big as Naruto, retcons are inevitable. I remember feeling like Sasuke finally getting to actually fight Itachi came a little too fast for some reason (that’s just my hot take). And it made more sense if Itachi was an actual bad guy. It felt like it was kinda cheap to me to all of a sudden say he was a good guy. Though it made the story have more depth and intrigue in the end. It just could have been handled better. But it also disappointed me when Itachi was ranting all crazy to Sasuke about how he was gonna take his eyes during the Uchiha hideout fight. It was like he was just another shallow evil just to be evil bad guy.
itachi story is not retcon people just say it is bcuz why itachi didn't bother to save sasuke when orochi tried to take his own body but we will never know kishi forgot about this or if this happen he will absolutely make itachi put a crow inside sasuke
Before watching the video, I dead ass have always thought he had a character development period from before part 1 through shippuden where he was overwhelmed by all of the hatred and tragedy he was forced to bear. I think he had naively hoped when planning and carrying out the Uchiha massacre that things would work out for Sasuke and that he could push him to be a positive force for the leaf, but that once he was confronted with the inconceivable weight of his actions, he became jaded and sort of lost site of his goals to protect Sasuke and the Leaf. His perception of who he was with all of the deception he had propagated had to have taken a toll on his concept of reality, and likely made it impossible for him to maintain any level of consistency in his actions. I think his confrontations with Naruto and his realization that there were still people that wanted to take on (in a positive manner) the role of Kage and bring peace to the shinobi world brought him back to the person he used to be. He was always just like the Naruto he had met in the beginning of shippuden; a naive young man who would do whatever it takes to create a lasting peace. I think by that point he had realized that if he hadn’t been taken advantage of by forces like Danzo and coaxed into believing he was the only person who could take on the responsibility of peace maker, he wouldn’t have enacted such an unsustainable method of bringing about temporary peace. He would have instead involved Sasuke more, and would have been able to convince the Uchiha to deescalate. This realization of his wrongness by the start of shippuden was what ultimately resolved him to provide his crow to naruto and to facilitate the fated battle with Sasuke.
I appreciate this analysis. It reminded me of the plot holes I overlooked because I was a fanboy. It presents the facts now that I'm older and have refined taste. I'm not embarrassed that I loved such a mid show. I get to enjoy it again as I care less about what others think of my taste. It's joyful.
In part 2 before Itachi pursuit arc, he used illusion on Naruto and mentally abused him and tried to cause him downbreak, only to be saved by Sakura and Chiyo, Itachi held team Kakashi pretty well so he could buy enough time for his fellow Akatsuki to seal Shukaku out of Gaara and he did it succesfully that he even deserved praise from Pain. He also snitched them to Akatsuki that the 9 tails jinchuuriki Naruto was with them when nobody knew about his appearance except Kisame and Zetsu but Kisame didn't even engage with Kakashi's squad for that time and it's been years since Zetsu has seen Naruto last time. He may not actievely help Kisame in capturing 4 tails but we got to see that he had his MS activated, so it's safe to assume that he gave at least some kind of help, we also get to see that Kisame was the one who insisted to go directly for their target all by himself not like Itachi didn't wanted nor try to, also when they assembled together Pain asks why they are late thus Kisame responds: "WE were busy to capture 4 tails jinchuuriki and on top of that WE had to take extra precautions to make sure he doesn't escape" I am sure that Itachi used genjutsu sleep on Roshi(4 tails jinchuuriki) in order to interrupt him from escape, Itachi also said that it was the best idea to capture every tailed beasts up to the 8 tails and then go for their final target 9 tails, it's not like Itachi didn't want to capture tailed beasts at all. Besides he was helping Akatsuki to track down Juubis, collected money and resources for Akatsuki to operate, sealed every tailed beasts whilst he was still alive and never ever hindered them nor sabotaged their plan of capturing juubis, on the contrary - he even helped them as best as he could as I aforementioned its examples just now, during his screentimes he did more good for Akatsuki than he did for anyone else, his good guy reveal was naah...
it was also stated by Kishimoto that he had not made up his mind about itachi until his first appearance. a lot of people in this community push back against this theory but there's loads of evidence to suggest Kishimoto originally intended Itachi to be a villain.
Why does it matter what Kishimoto’s ideas of a character are before that character is introduced? If he has an idea for a character at the time of their introduction and it stays consistent with that, how is that a retcon?
@@Bloooo95 Because the entire story up to that point is using the original idea for the character. So when he shows up and is different to what was originally stated/implied things need to be changed (retconned) to make sense.
I think a lot of stuff in part 1 was still rough or vague like the akatsuki character designs who were supposed to be monsters but changed to humans in shippuden or Hashirama and Tobiramas power level. Even the tailed beasts were a retcon. Kishimoto took the ideas of part 1 and refined them in shippuden. He likely made Itatchi intentionally vague because he wanted to do something with him later but wasnt sure what.
There's a quote from kishimoto in one of the data books (I think on the zetsu character sketch page) that says he originally intended for the akatsuki to be a gang of monsters
The suppressed memory thing is actual foreshadowed when sasuke leaves in part 1, I think its pretty obvious that Kishimoto intended for Itachi be a lot more complex than he initially appeared, he just didn't necessarily know the exact route he would take with the character. My personal head cannon is that before his illness really kicked in Itachi kinda enjoyed being evil, it fuelled his sharingan, and his acts of cruelty were just him taking out his anger and pain on people, and I also think he hated himself for that. Then around the time Sasuke left the village was when he started getting properly sick and he became more focused on Sasuke killing him and returning to the village a hero. That's how I would explain the transition, Itachi's basically just a cool guy with a dark side.
I just never felt like his only option was to kill all the Uchiha. If he could do that single handedly why not tell the hokage and trust him to handle it with the support of all Konoha? Why not just key Uchiha leaders? I can think of more options than this that seem better than the genocide he committed. For plot sake I just accepted he had no options, but I really, really was bothered by this.
Here is my take on it. Was it the only option? No, but the problem was most other options had problems with them. For instance going to the Hokage would have taken time. Time he may not have had with not only Donzo pushing for the death of the Uchiha's, but also the clan starting the coup. If the Hokage took to long to act one of those things could have happened. Killing the key leaders of the Uchiha clan? Now this could possibly work, but it also could ignite the other Uchiha into doing the coup anyway. However even if the other Uchiha wouldn't have decided to get vengeance for their leaders Donzo probably would have killed them anyway. Remember there had been a perfect option to end all of this peacefully in Itachi's friend(forgetting his name) who was going to use his insanely OK sharigan Genjutsu to basically force the Uchiha to no longer start a coup. Yet Donzo stopped that from happening. Unless I am misremembering something.
@@donovan4222 I feel like the story *says* there were no other options, but doesn’t really show that there were no other options. For instance, if Itachi spared kids and babies the story doesn’t explain why that would be an immediate threat. For the sake of enjoying the intentions of the show, I mainly suspend disbelief and accept the “no other option premise.”
A justification for itachi putting kakashi under tsukuyomi is that he wanted to show kakashi what he needed to train sasuke for and to train sasuke sharigian to resist such genjutsu’s
And torturing people in Naruto really isn’t as big of a deal as it is to us in modern times. Like the leaf village literally has a guy who’s job it is to specialize in genjiutsu torture. So it’s not unbelievable to me that a former Anbu black ops agent would torture Kakashi to maintain his cover as a double agent. Itachi could of easily killed him instead (which Kakashi points out)
I agree and I've said it from the start of Shippuden's manga. Kishimoto did not fully map out the timeline (I think the age of the villages and the first couple waves of Kage are good enough proof, let alone how Black Zetsu & Kaguya were hurdled in) INITIALLY.
I think what you're describing is better called plot flexibility or something like that. As everything is consistent, even as a ploy in both ways to any plot. And considering parallel universes coming in which is literally capable of retconning and entire plotline, it seems hyper-consistent actually to keep that flexibility there, and that's why Itachi to me is the perfect anime character in terms of good OP guys who are also extremely useful as plot devices and for moral themes.
The torturing of Sasuke and Kakashi alone throws major, major doubts Kishimoto intended for him to be good from the beginning. Soooo many things could've gone wrong. Itachi is not some 4D chess god with complete control over the actions of others predicting everything.
I over all like this plot twist. My only issue is that if Sasuke had killed Naruto, would the Leaf be able to forgive him? Even those that still fear and loathe him would understand that losing the Nine-Tails would deal a massive blow to the leaf's strength, especially after Konoha Crush. Plus, what if Orochimaru managed to succeed in possessing Sasuke? He would have doomed Sasuke, even with Kotoamatsukami.
Even if the worst happened with Sasuke in that Orochimaru took over his body, Itachi has the totsuka blade to get rid of Orochimaru and free Sasuke, and its very likely that Orochimaru would be going after Itachi once he took Sasuke's body in order to gain the EMS which Itachi also knew and was counting on.
It's almost clear that Itachi suffered a retcon from classic to Shippuden. I guess after Itachi's first appearance and consequent spike in popularity. His alignment was changed to give him more plot relevance and to give Sasuke's saga more unexpected turn of events.
It absolutely was a retcon. I don't believe that Itachi would torture his brother for days if he loved him. He just wouldn't. His retconned justification for it is weak. His original justification, that he wants Sasuke to grow up with hate in his heart so as to become strong, test Itachi's capacity and (later) to steal Sasuke's eyes, is convincing.
You’re joking right? 🤣 Jiraiya has never won a fight on-screen and you think his feats are better than Itachi’s? He lost to Orochimaru and got knocked out by armless Orochimaru, while Itachi one-panels him twice, yet you still think Jiraiya’s feats are better? I have to laugh.
@@Bloooo95 Because Jiraiya cornered both Itachi and Kisame, I don’t care about your stupid retcon. Because Jiraiya facing 4 paths of pain > Itachi vs Orochimaru or Kabuto. Because the Jiraiya you’re comparing to Itachi is one who was drugged by the literal best medical Shinobi in the world. Just say you’re uneducated.
Glad someone caught that, if this is a retcon it implies that Jiraiya could have smoked or at minimum Stalemated Kisame and Itachi. This makes a lot more sense why Jiraiya approached both of them like he had the upper hand despite knowing who they were and what they were capable of.
If they kept Itachi as a villain, he’d be the best in the series. No sob story or talk no jutsu, just a dude who’s so evil he’d kill his whole family to test his strength. Madara’s goal would give everyone their dream life so Madara would be less evil than Itachi.
the timeline ishue along with the uchiha flashback would make me think that itachi met the akatsuki was corrupted by them and joined them secretely which is why he killed the clan
Hes not a good guy at all, he killed his family and clan members. The reason doesnt matter to me, justifying murder is stupid. Also to this day i think one of the most horrible writing decision by Kishimoto was expending on the itachi flashback that his parents "proud of him when he kills them". Surely its fine to have ideals but seems too unrealistic to think that those Uchiha would rather die than just changing there mindset and survive.
dumbass uchiha's are evil we already know that they are very egotistical see madara as an example, they already make a peaceful village but madara ruined it bcuz he can't accept the fact that people didn't vote him to be hokage it's understandable since madara at their first war he still keeps insisting about hashirama's plan
When you look at his backstory, he has gone thru major impacts that kid should not be experiencing. His mind was too advanced which made him think of the meaning of life and death at like the age of 5. To then be under pressure from his clan and village wanting to kill each other basically. We have to look at his experiences at his age, as he gets older he learns more to accept that he could have done things differently.
@@angelrose1597 that literally does not justify killing men women and children in mass numbers. Stop it dude. Horrible people can be complex. It’s not that hard. Itachi is a bad person. That’s it.
It's a blatant retcon. Itachi's actions in Part 1 contradict his supposed intentions. I.E. Putting Kakashi and Sasuke under Tsukuyomi, which could only be reversed by Tsunade, who wasn't in the village at the time and that Itachi didn't know Jiraiya and Naruto were going to get, nor that she would even agree to it.
If Itachi was evil he'd put Kakashi into Tsukuyomi then kill him. Then he and Kisame would mop up Kurenai, Asuma, and Gai, having them killed then kill all the other ninja that'd join in. Put Sasuke into Tsukuyomi and basically put in directives that would have Sasuke kill Naruto by having him unseal Kurama, thus awakening magekyou then Sasuke would chase after Itachi and basically get got so Itachi would have eternal magekyou. Jiraiya would have been taken care of for good measure to even have this kind of plan go through. Akatsuki would have the Nine-Tails in part 1.
@@johnlucas2838if Itachi was actually always the good guy, he would’ve have gotten to Sasuke the moment he deserted the village for Orochimaru and put an end to that. He also had no reason to continue being a spy with Sasuke being an enemy to the village
All solid points! The only thing I wonder is if the tsukuyomi on kakashi was to indirectly tell him that the Mangekyo sharingan exists and how powerful it can be, so Kakashi could use it himself later on if he had it and it didn't know it (which happened). One thing we know for sure is that Itachi can kill with his tsukuyomi, so a case be made he was still in his act, while also trying to helpful since he didn't outright kill Kakashi when he clearly could have (a stretch, I know)
Itachi being evil would have been way better, he doing all he did to gain more power and grooming Sasuke to steal his eyes and have EMS would have been better for Sasuke to be a better character instead of Itachi Instead itachi is the good guy and Sasuke was a psycho in the final part of Shippuden
I don't think Itachi was ever a good guy. He did what benefitted the Leaf, but none of what Itachi actually did was morally good. Raising your sword against your own flesh and blood for strangers who don't like you, your family, your clan, or your brother is pretty evil in and of itself.
@@momotheone9700there’s so many, and things that can’t be explained in the series are just explained away as “Hashirama Cells”, pretty much every single arc has major plot holes
Itachi putting Kakashi into tsukuyomi in their firs encounter in 1 season can be interpreted as Itachi teaching Kakashi how to use Mangekuo - Kakashi has it, but first used it in a chase of Deidara. he never user it before because he didn't know how - there wasn't any Uchiha around that could help him at that time
You can't be serious. How tf would Itachi know Kakashi had the Mangekyo when even Kakashi doesn't know that? Omg Itachi fans will go to any lengths to make the argument work in his favor.
I actually like this video a lot & for some extra evidence around the "Itachi's Timeline Dilemma" part of the video the 2nd databook also confirms Itachi was 13 years old when he ascended to anbu captain.
I’m not a boy, ima man.
I think one possibility is itachi tsukuyomi'd orichumaru or whoever the hidden akataski member is and made him experience time different and he actually experienced 7 years in the time people experienced 4 or whatever. It would be interesting if he actively messed with people's perspectives/experience of time more often for plot reasons since he's fully capable of it.
It's all absolute pure head cannon obviously.
They both killed the clan I think Tobi took the role of killing the kids and children women
So the timeline of him joining the Akatsuki at 10, and being an Anbu Captain at 13, doesn't present issues to my perspective if you draw the conclusion he is simply in both factions, nor does the idea "He only becomes an Akatsuki member after leaving present issue." Could it not be argued that he only becomes a member after deserting, thus making him a full-fledged member, and it would only become public knowledge after the fact. And why his actions weren't questioned by other members is because of Obito's interference.
Sixxxxxxx my boy
Konoha Village: "Itachi was the hero of the leaf all along"
Kakashi: "He violently tortured me for 3 straight days, so brutally that it put me into a freaking coma. Just because he felt like it"
Kakashi has done countless evil shit as an ANBU. 😵💫 Also, the village never said Itachi was a hero. The most damage control for Itachi’s name that was done was simply wiping his name out of history books as the one that killed the clan. The books just say a tragedy occurred. This was shown when Sarada tried to learn about her clan’s history and found no information about the Massacre.
@@Bloooo95 I can imagine one of Sarada's descendants finding the truth about the massacre and reviving the "curse of hatred".
@@Bloooo95 what „evi shit“ has the guy actually done? Tell me, because the most evil thing he could’ve done was kill someone’s from a neighbour village, last time I checked that’s what ninja do.
Itachi held back, even Kakashi noticed it, 3 days in that world, less then a moment, in this one, why not kill me? If he wanted to, he would've.. what Kakashi is saying is.. he knows Itachi held back, but at that time, he doesn't know why, I think by the time they next meet in Shippuden, Kakashi suspects that there is more to Itachi then what was "said" about him, since he didn't go all out on Itachi, despite knowing how dangerous Itachi was
@@samuelhaverghast2442 Even so Itachi could have never predicted Kakshi would be arisen from his coma by Tsunade. For all Itachi knew he spared Kakashi's life but he would forever after remain in a coma; weakening Konoha.
For that matter, Itachi always went too far when traumatizing people. If Sasuke was like 99% of people he would have just been traumatized by the massacre, had his spirit broken, and given up on being a shinobi.
Let's not ignore the fact that, had Naruto not intervened in time, Sasuke would have gotten his body stolen by Orochimaru and Itachi would look like the biggest dumbass in the entire world for basically giftwrapping him for the guy. It's pretty obvious that Kishimoto's intentions for his character changed at some point, and he did a pretty good job of covering his tracks to make it seem like this was always his plan from the start.
I’m not sure about this one, the Sound 4 would have probably submitted to Sasuke like Orochimaru did.
Orochimaru and Sasuke were one, it was like a symbiotic relationship. Sasuke got nerfed from losing Orchimaru.
@@granddefectus4602 Orochimaru's original plan wasn't actually to train Sasuke, just steal his body the moment he showed up. That's why he waited as long as he did and was reluctant to switch hosts, because it would mean he'd have to wait another 3 years before getting his chance. Naruto delayed him long enough to force Orochimaru to choose another body or die, which Itachi had absolutely nothing to do with.
I assume Itachi had some way of keeping tabs on Saskue, so it seems he should have known Saskue was curse marked and move against Orochi before he could claim Saskue. Or do something ovee those 3 yrs to keep Sasku3 from becoming a meat suit for snake man.
@@granddefectus4602 Yeah, well, except for the fact that Orochimaru's initial plan was to take Sasuke's body since Kimimaro's got that weird disease that all OP Naruto side characters of sorts seem to get xD.
@@Sei003 😂😂😂
Itachi was written to be a bad guy but kishimoto changed his mind. He even went as far to change his design to give him less of a antagonistic look.
There’s a scene in the forest of death where it shows itachis face for the first time and watching it now is like who is that lmao.
If Itachi was a bad guy, he and Kisame would have stomped Konoha. Kurenai, Asuna, Kakashi, and Gai would be dead. Sasuke would have been dead in the Uchiha Massacre unless he wanted eternal magekyou which he would have set up by genjutsu-ing Sasuke to make a best friend and having him kill them. Jiraiya would have been in a 1vs2 situation and probably die. Naruto would have been taken by them and have Kurama extracted.
@@johnlucas2838 That's not true. Just because he didn't body everyone doesn't mean he wasn't any less written to be a bad guy in the beginning. Itachi was working for the Akatsuki and doing covert operations. He wouldn't just kill everyone just because he can. The Akatsuki aren't supposed to be well known and going on a killing spree would just draw attention. That's why Itachi told Kisame not to fight Guy, because it would draw too much attention
@@avaliausd.Exactly
@@johnlucas2838if Orochimaru was really such a bad guy he would have killed every single Genin in the forest. But he didn't so I guess with your logic he's actually a really nice guy!
The true retcon was Itachi always caring about Sasuke. You could argue that he choked Sasuke out in that hallway to keep up the pretense for Kisame, but re-traumatizing him was for who, exactly? Sasuke dropping everything to find Itachi was proof enough that he hadn’t gone soft. Hell, even genjutsu’ing him the first time was overkill. Itachi didn’t think Sasuke watching him murder his parents and finding the bodies of his relatives was enough of a reason for him to seek revenge?
Exactly. If not for Tsunade, Sasuke would never have woken from that Tsukiyomi coma. If we're meant to believe Itachi was good all along, he gambled on bad odds that Sasuke would ever recover.
But...but he was the "best and most caring brother" in the series. He can do no wrong. It was Danzo's fault that he nearly drove his beloved brother to insanity. It's fake news. He actually had calculated to far into the future and had known that it would all lead to Sasuke getting the rinnegan. Yes Itachi orchestrated the sage of six paths, true Kishimoto said it in an interview. I have no link to it but you can trust me.
Itachi being a good guy/loving his brother and all that jazz was retcon end of story. It was a good retcon but a retcon nonetheless.
itachi is brain dead
For someone who's supposed to be a genius, kishi made itachi seemed like a moron.
@@lolcall5295 ye
Definately a retcon, no doubt. same with Hashirama and Tobirama scaling in shippuden. I think Kishimoto had a hard time justifying Itachi's motivations for his past behavior.
Yeah when I first heard his reason I was like "this dude is supposed to be like top tier intelligence with a dumb motivation?"
He could've just challenged a very powerful Shinobi like one of the Sannin and not kill children to "test his abilities". Kishimoto is just a poor writer when it comes to character development. His best characters when it came to character development always got shoved into irrelevancy for exception of Sasuke who actually changed throughout the show.
Name some points which prove its a retcon
@AK-su3tz it's either a retcon or the manga is written by someone who's less than 40 iq.
Feel free to try to justify a good guy putting his brother under a genjutsu that only ONE person has the ability to remove and that one person had left the village a decade+ ago lmao.
@@AK-MS27 for example, Itachi's original voice acting had a more sadistic angle when Sasuke first had the flashback of Itachi telling him his hatred wasn't strong enough and even called his existence pathetic.
Even when he first attacked the village, he didn't need to put Kakashi under Tsukuyomi. If he was actually a good guy and know this is an extreme form of torture, he'd have empathy for his fellow anbu colleague he spend years with.
And when people say he didn't kill Kakashi, well of course not, he had two other Shinobi to worry about and also Guy came in. He also stated his objective wasn't to kill or cause a big commotion but to seize the Kyubi Jinjuriki, which he almost succeeded on if it wasn't for Jiraiya showing up.
He knew the leaf's security measures were alerted.
He used the Tsukuyomi a SECOND time on his kid brother and breaks his arm.
If his sudden "is a good guy all along" doesn't sound like a retcon to you. I don't know what does.
He said he was watching the akatsuki but he was doing their bidding in kidnapping and killing people? How come he never warned the other villages or the leaf Naruto was about to be kidnapped? Why try to kidnap Naruto if his job was to spy on the Akatsuki to warn the leaf?
The show gives us the impression that he first shows up because the Hokage was dead, thus the village was more vulnerable and the Sannin are gone, so the people who might pose a threat aren't around in his mind.
@You Are I’d argue both. Lol
Itachi's reason for murdering his whole town was always incredibly vague, so I think Kishi wanted to do something with it later on, but I don't for a single moment believe Itachi was intended to be good.
Itachi whole existence was pretty vague at the time. Usually a person doesn't commit genocide without some reason, and we really never got that reason until shippuden. But I do think some of the stuff he did in his first appearance was a bit overkill for the dude we know as of today
It’s likely that he intended for Itachi to be a sympathetic villain who still cared about Sasuke, but Kishimoto made him sympathetic to the point of being a flawed hero instead of a sympathetic villain.
It could have been as simple as trying to trigger the mangekyou sharingan in Sasuke so he could steal Sasukes eyes and get the EMS Boost and not go blind
@@camth7862 They would probably have to change the anime continuity where Fugaku has a Mangekyo. I think the original idea was for Itachi to just want Sasuke’s eyes, but what Kishi ended up doing, turning Itachi into a flawed hero who was actually protecting the village, makes things way more interesting for Sasuke especially. Now instead of just getting revenge against his evil older brother, Sasuke has to grapple with his entire life motivations being a lie and the village actually betraying him.
@@camth7862 Yea I think I would have liked that better even. Real dark horror vibes, which the show kinda gave up on toward the end there. Used to be straight up creepy.
Short answer. Itachi was supposed to be a Villain. When they saw how popular the character got in Naruto, they needed to change it to a good guy for Shippuden.
Also... mgs3 released during the sasuke retrieval arc and kishimoto loves videogames
He was never supposed to be a villain, his double motivations were foreshadowed very early.
@@donovan4222no bruh 😂 he deadass made his own brother relive his parents dead millions of times. That alone it counter productive to his goals later
@@chipchippington4551 No it’s not, he already explained he was making Sasuke stronger through hatred, which worked a little too well.
@@donovan4222 no it was counter productive, he turned sasuke into a murder with PTSD and lead sasuke down the path he ended up at damn near wiping out the leaf and the potentially weakening the leaf by causing sasuke to turn against them, there were too many variables by torturing his own brother.
It was a retcon, kishimoto himself said Itachi was meant to be a irredeemable villain at the start but changed it
The plothole concerning the timing of itachi joining and orochimaru leaving the akatsuki is easily explained...
Hashirama cells
I forgot about that.
Look the argument I believe is strongest for why Itachi is a retcon is that it's the only thing that explains Itachi's moment of sheer stupidity in executing his plan. Basically Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him in order to avenge the Uchiha, thereby dying as the villain, and successfully concealing the truth about the coup. And he definitely didn't want Sasuke to turn into a terrorist or anything, as evidenced by the fact that, after Itachi was brought back to life, he was confused as to why Sasuke wanted to join the Akatsuki and destroy the Leaf.
So if that was his goal, why would he think giving a six year old PTSD and telling him to dedicate his life to hatred is a good idea?
Because he wanted Sasuke to get strong enough to kill him? Itachi literally let him win anyway. There's no reason he needed to do any of that. And if there was, then why was Itachi so surprised when the PTSD and hatred turned Sasuke into a terrorist? He basically did to Sasuke what Obito did to Nagato to turn him into Pain. Only instead I guess Sasuke become Hate? Either way, what did you expect to happen, my guy?
This is bigger than your typical uh-oh-spaghetti-o kind of mistake, so it begs the question if there was more than some disconnect between itachi's intentions and executions
I agree with you 💯 and I believe Naruto would have been so much better if there were no retcons or at least no awkwardly forced ones
He knew photo was a threat and no one besides nagato or itachi even knew of his existence so he had to make a way for assume to get as strong as possible in the shortest time possible to deal with photo as he knew he was after Naruto and would eventually attack the hidden leaf and end up killing or recruiting sasuke anyway and itachi wanted to avoid those possibilities the most
Obito*
Also he really wouldn’t have known about obitos kamui so he thought he could keep sasuke away from obito and satiate his hatred with his death while also massively powering up sasuke so I do agree it was his plan did have some flaws but for the most part it was understandable especially since most of it worked right up until obitos interference.
Itachi wasn’t a retcon, but his story wasn’t fully planned out either. Basically Kishimoto knew what direction he was going to take the character in part 2 and purposely left Itachi’s motivations and plan mysteriously unsolved in part 1 so he could finish the story later.
I think he did a decent job with making Itachi’s motivations and plan make sense with part 1.
Itachi wasn’t perfect, by the end of the series he recognizes that getting Sasuke to hate him was his biggest mistake. And Itachi didn’t just do that as part of his plan because it was smart, he was doing it in large part out of guilt for what he did and wanting Sasuke to punish him.
As for Itachi letting him win, that isn’t as simple as you make it seem. Sasuke needed to get stronger to believably beat Itachi and be a hero of the leaf. Sasuke needed to believe he had beat Itachi, there needed to be a believable fight, both for Sasuke to believe it, and for Itachi to feel he was truly being punished for the Uchiha massacre.
Kishimoto had his idea for the manga, but the studio had its own idea, and Kishi followed suit. While watching the anime, I felt some conspiracy was going on, which would be revealed later in the story, that Itachi killed the entire clan to stop a coup. When this was first shown, I was not that surprised; what did surprise me was that they tried to recontextualize his actions as heroic rather than cold-hearted and calculated. The only reason he kept Sasuke alive was that despite being cold-hearted, he still loved Sasuke.
Actions can be both heroic, and cold hearted/calculated
@@donovan4222 And what's heroic about killing your entire family and clan save for one person? No culture in history would commend this, it is beyond barbarism.
Narutard stop it was a retcon
@@slyapbgbut he only killed his clan to prevent war that would cause the death of thousands
@@slyapbg It's to save the village and prevent casualties, it was not for one person.
On the Akatsuki not resembling the Akatsuki we see in Shippudden. I’m pretty sure that Kishimoto’s original idea was to have every other Akatsuki member be an Oni of some sort. And the symbolism that Itachi was so bad that he belonged with a group of Oni which are basically monsters.
I think Kishi retconed him when he saw the popularity of Itachi and it would be obvious in hindsight on why he’s so popular. Edgy design, cool eyes, very strong. Yea people definitely wanted some sort of redemption
He clearly always planned for Itachi to at least haves some kind of sympathetic motivations
Redemption arcs are dumb, he should have just remained evil. He could have believed in the Akatsuki's goal and still be a villain.
@@donovan4222 bllsht.
You cant redeem killing your whole family and clan. Makes zero sense. Yall just fkng stpd.
Hmm
Shisui wrote the note. He tells Itachi when we gives him his eye, if he's truly his friend he won't try and stop him, and that he's already left a note and he leaves the rest to Itachi.
Also, remember in the flashback to Itachi beating the police and ranting to his father about how fed up he is, it was *Sasuke* calling out to Itachi that made him snap back to his senses and apologize for the trouble. I think it's safe to say he always loved his little brother. Even if he showed it in ways that make me want to absolutely throttle him.
Itachi directly said that he's not perfect but people, I don't know, ignore this fact. It makes me furious. Itachi made it clear that he's not perfect, he's not a saint but fans like shut their eyes, ignore their idol and keep idolizing him too much
When do people say he’s perfect?
@@Bloooo95 They think Itachi did nothing wrong and its all 100% Danzo's fault. People deny the fact Itachi is a villain/antagonist in the story at all, even though he clearly is.
I'm actually annoyed at the other type of people, who proudly proclaim that Itachi isn't actually perfect as if its something they and no one else has realized or discovered, when it was literally addressed in the series. Even worse when they actually criticise the story for it lol.
@@panthekirb7561
Exactly
@@panthekirb7561 The Uchiha Massacre was Danzo’s fault. Itachi didn’t create the circumstances to make it happen. Itachi did his part to try to prevent it but Danzo set the table to wipe out the clan whether Itachi chose to side with the village or the Uchiha. So, yes, it was Danzo and the village and the Uchiha and Obito that set all that into motion. Did Itachi make a choice? Sure. But it was just to save his brother. Itachi’s biggest mistake is his handling of Sasuke after the Massacre.
If you think Itachi, a 12 year old, is the sole person with agency in the very nuanced intrapolitical conflict surrounding the Uchiha massacre, then you’re deluded. The circumstances surround the massacre are so much bigger than Itachi that’s it’s insane to pin it all on him.
Did he need to torture Sasuke? Should he have hid the truth from Sasuke and not placed faith/trust in Sasuke’s own strength? Should he have pushed him to pursue hatred? Should he have pushed Sasuke to pursue vengeance out of Itachi’s own greed to want to be killed out of guilt? No. He could have handled Sasuke much better and he’s admitted to that. Most people agree. However, y’all hyper focus on a problem that can’t be blamed on Itachi. The massacre was so much bigger than him and Danzo already had the pieces together to make it happen regardless.
I think that in the Tsunade Arc, Kishimoto had a loose idea of his character and had a few different directions he was thinking of going with but after seeing how popular Itachi was, he decided to put him into the "Tragic Hero" path. From the Sasuke Retrieval Arc onwards, his character is pretty consistent
The most likely explanation
It was weird how after Sasuke found out the truth he started to idolize itachi and the other characters started talking about itachi like he was some misunderstood hero,I think kishi knew how popular itachi was so he had to retcon how the characters perceived him when he was generally disliked by Sasuke and the others as a traitor to the leaf but when his truth is revealed his actions are suddenly seen as heroic.The only character who still hated itachi and Uchiha was Tobirama.
@@justinarzola4584 It's so weird that a teenager Sasuke was like "Yes my dear brother, who killed everyone I loved, thank you for making me an orphan and making my life complete hell".
"You see Sasuke, killing all of those Uchiha babies and mothers was the right to do"
Mgs3 came out during that arc... kishimoto likes video games... hmmmmm
@@joaquincasascortes624 is that really how it seemed? I thought it was more like Sasuke felt bad about how Danzo and Hiruzen forced Itachi into killing his clan not that he saw it as good,
The very first databook has a bit about Itachi where it says something along the lines of "what are this mysterious character's true motives?" or something like that, hinting that there's more to him than what you might originally guess. Not to mention when he used Tsukuyomi on Kakashi, Kakashi said to himself "why not just kill me? If he wanted to, he could.", another sign that Itachi was holding back or showing mercy. The only reason he put Kakashi out of commission was to prevent a large-scale fight from breaking out, he knew if he incapacitated the heaviest hitter the Leaf has outside of the Sannin, the other Jonin would prioritize Kakashi's safety and allow Itachi and Kisame a window to escape.
Well yeah, we didn’t know the whole thing about the Akatsuki and the eye of the moon plan
He didn't have to torture Kakashi though. The Tsukuoymi could have been literally anything else
@@kaiseramadeus233that shit was extreme overkill💀
@@kaiseramadeus233 yes he did. To end the fight right then and there he had to take out their heaviest hitter, even Might Guy would know that prioritizing Kakashi's safety is more important than chasing after them. It was the only path for Itachi to escape without causing a big fight to break out.
@@Borchert97 In the novels, Itachi took out Izumi with a peaceful Tsukoyomi. She lived an entire life of happiness inside an illusion that ended up killing her. So yes, I stand by the fact that 72 hours of torture was unnecessary. Literally anything else could have happened and the results would have been the same
I’ve always believed it was a retcon was just done well because of how vague it was before
If Itachi retcon is true (most likely is true) then that means that jiraiya was either planned to be way stronger than he is or Itachi and kisame were planned to be alot weaker than they are
Itachi is also sick. He had used his mangekyo sharingan jutsu against Kakashi and Sasuke. Maybe he would be too tired to fight Jiraiya. Also, if he’s a spy he could be lying to Kisame. There is a chance that Jiraiya and Orochimaru are stronger than Kisame and doesn’t know Itachi’s full strength.
I mean, no. Orochimaru was portrayed as being the strongest of the Sanin and Orochimaru plainly says Itachi is much stronger than him a few chapters before the Jiraiya incident. Itachi’s reactions to Jiraiya in contrast to Orochimaru’s plain admission of inferiority to Itachi is…. You guessed it! **Foreshadowing**.
@@Bloooo95 exactly. Itachi running from Jiraiya is further evidence that it wasn’t a retcon but the retcon people act like it’s evidence that kishimoto is a bad writer.
Likely the latter
@@jourdansarpy4935dude he's a horrible writer
As far as Itachi using Tsukuyomi on Kakashi, I always thought that Itachi did it because Itachi knew Kakashi well due to their time in Anbu and also knew he was Sasuke's sensei. But utterly destroying Kakashi and putting him in a coma, it very easily showed Sasuke that even his own sensei gets bitched by Itachi meaning he's not powerful enough to give Sasuke the power he needs to kill Itachi.
It's like Itachi was doubling down on ensuring Sasuke only have raging and pure hatred for Itachi and realized it was not just a desire to kill Itachi but a duty as Itachi could easily take his new family of Kakashi, Naruto & Sakura away from him as he did his original family in the Uchiha Clan.
Now Sasuke wasn't just avenging the Uchiha clan, he was saving anyone else from Itachi's perceived sociopathicly inflated ego. So taking out Kakashi would only sharpen Sasuke's resolve so that there could be no doubt in Sasuke's mind that he had to kill Itachi. But in all honesty I did not get the feeling at any point of Naruto part 1 that Itachi was actually a good guy or protecting the leaf.
i agree with your take, but i also believe he was a pyschopath
@@IIIISai It certainly felt like it.
But I guess Shipuuden is 2020 Hindsight so it all makes sense why as powerful as he and Kisame were didn't engage Jiraiya or kill Kakashi which they combined could definitely do. Itachi alone actually.
Love that a piece of foreshadowing is done as soon as he's introduced lol
To me, that’s the biggest piece of proof Kishimoto had a rough idea that Itachi wasn’t just a man that slaughtered his clan for shits and giggles.
@@Bloooo95 thats only if you accept that reading though. To my mind, the more natural interpretation is: itachi is looking down at the hidden leaf and is angry that HIS birth place is so pathetic.
@@DiddntFindANameLol I'm referring to Kisame joking about Itachi being nostalgic about his former home and betraying him. Kisame is also super loyal to the akatsuki, the opposite of Itachi. Which is like all the akatsuki pairings, who are opposites in some way.
@@DiddntFindANameLol I mean, sure. That interpretation would make complete sense if it were the only foreshadowing in Part 1. It wasn’t.
@@Bloooo95 It sort of is though. Its one of his three-and-a-half lines of dialogue in part one.
I really don't think "The Truth about Itachi" was ever planned from the beginning. It feels like Sasukes revenge arc reached it's natural conclusion and that Kishimoto didn't know what to do with Sasuske's character once he completed his revenge to keep Naruto and Sasuke not only apart but opposed to the other. One of my points of contention with the storyline also which I find hilarious whenever people wank Itachi in terms of power scaling is that I'm supposed to believe that Obito was fearful of Itachi's strength yet Itachi complied in murdering half of his clan not only for the village but because Madara was supposed to be that great of an external threat he would have to comply. If Itachi was truly so strong why did he not attempt to take Obito(Madara's) life sooner? When he was still healthy and not dying of some unknown illness.
I wish after sasuke killed itachi, he and team hebi just went to a mist village or rain, and lived like that, left the story, then rock lee would take over, sasuke was the best character in my opinion from part 1 up till his fight with itachi, after tobi tells sasuke the truth and itachis horrible retcon, sasuke drops severe quality
@@IIIISai I think the story would have been very interesting with Sasuke and hebi as a wandering antihero instead of making Naruto and Sasuke directly oppose eachother. The Akatsuki storyline could have been resolved in a different way too.
@@NotTheWheel yeah i feel like it would've been interesting if sasuke returned to the village way earlier like if naruto vs sasuke final battle occured way earlier let's say after pain fight for example and naruto won. I feel like having obito or madara as the final boss with naruto and sasuke working together will feel more interesting rather than having them just be these reincarnation of gods that's destined to fight one another
Which is why the show is horribly written
@@NotTheWheel fully agree, lost potential
It was not only revealed later Sasuke had supressed the memory of itachi crying. It was mentioned all the way back in chapter 7. Sasuke says to Sakura "There's a man that only I can kill" and she responds with "...Ah... Who do you mean?" and he says "That time... Crying..." and she says "Crying...?" then sasuke says "My..." and she says "What... What do you mean?" then he goes on to say "I'm an avenger. I have to become stronger than him. So I can't jus stay here and do nothing." Later on we also see the shot of Itachi with his headband sideways, except it's not as clear so we don't see the crying. This shot is never shown again, until it's revealed that Itachi was crying in it later on (and Sasuke then confirms he was repressing the memory). This was very clearly thought out from the beginning.
Also Itachi could have literally just killed Kakashi with the Tsukiyomi if he wanted to. If he really was evil, there would be no reason for him to hold back. He obviously had to do some bad things to keep up the act. Just seriously harming him instead of killing seems like the perfect way to do that.
if it was really thought out from the the beginning, and Kishimato really did intend for Itachi to be a "good guy" from the very beginning, then Kishimato is a genocide denying piece of shit, and the fanbase is so incredibly morally corrupt or just dumb.
He was crying while committing genocide? wow, that changes everything. hes basically a saint for that.
the crying could be a reference to how s a s u k e was crying during it, and also it might not have been thought out that itachi c a n kill people with tsukuyomi yet.
for real, people forget that the akatsuki KILLS anyone who betrays them, itachi did not want to look suspicious to kisame and that's why he attacks kurenai and asuma, he could've killed kakashi with the tsukuyomi if he really wanted to and even kakashi questions it himself why he hadn't killed him yet
all the bad things he's done are all to not look suspicious to kisame and trying his best to not kill anyone from the leaf, imagine yourself being itachi's partner in the akatsuki and everytime you two have to fight anyone from his village he chose to flee instead or hesitated to fight everytime, it wouldn't look convincing for kisame and even more obvious to the audience that something else is going on with him, i think the ''evil'' actions that he chose on part 1 aren't the best but they do cover his identity to kisame pretty well in my opinion
@@fakeblast well on other hand if kisame gonna go wild, most of his strong water jutsu are really massive(cover huge area) so once akatsuki duo start serious fight, they would instantly give themselves away. And it would be a huge problem in their naruto hunting
@@n.6847 A genocide that he was forced to commit (if he didn't someone else would have, except Sasuke would have also been killed) so that another world war wouldn't start.
I remember reading somewhere that initially, Sasuke didn't exist in the original draft for Naruto, so in that draft, Itachi probably could have been played straight as a talented genius dude who murdered his family for more singular power, setting him up to be one more foil for Naruto to beat up and prove a failure because friendship is based and all that.
don't believe that shitt💀 naruto has so many misconceptions about it this itachi is actually a goodguy was just inconsistent writing it's not a retcon the idea of itachi making sasuke like that to make him hate itachi more so he doesn't suspect the leaf but kishi forgot about orochimaru taking sasuke's body
its great to see the gang get back to the grind after the seth bs, good job homie!
The Akatsuki member in the back is clearly Hiruko (Sasori's puppet) and the one on the right is Zetsu. The upside down guy is Deidara because of the hairstyle and the way he speaks. Those characters appeared in the very beginning of Part 2 (Zetsu appeared in Part 1 even) so them being the only final designs makes sense.
You see Konan near Kisane though, and Pain also looks similar with the Rinnegan and all...
Obito> Pain> Itachi doesnt matter If is healthy or Sick ( plus Itachi healthy we Never seen him anyways he doesnt exist in the Verse)
Itachi CANT Win against The leaders
Oh Yeah i agreed
Itachi is the 3° strongest for sure. I don't know How people think Itachi would beat Them That's some Itachis girls bulshit.
He definitely doesnt have stamina and chackra to beat ALL The pains in a fight And to beat Orange mask he would have to beat kamui and izanagi which i don't think he would be able to
That's about It
Itachi shits on Pain especially if healthy. Edo Itachi blitzed Nagato who is stronger than Pain. Wtf are you on about
@@AyeeShaad stop doing DRUGS
Go take your meds RIGHT
Izanami. GG ez clap for Itachi. Not even a contest.
No itachi > pain > obito OM
Let me remind y'all that Itachi was the guy who believed killing his entire clan was an acceptable course of action.
Genjutsu on a woman to make her hit on Jirayia is a tame action in comparison.
True
It was a Retcon 100%😂
@@MasterofTheUniverse1337 yeah it was. So?
@@Fif0l Nothing i Just wanted to Write that.
He tortured the shit out of kakashi, like excessively
There’s other hints from Part 1 you didn’t touch on. For instance, there’s the comment Asuma made in Kakashi’s room that it made no sense that Itachi hadn’t already captured Naruto since he knows Naruto’s face and the village and is as powerful as he is. That question from Asuma isn’t answered. It’s left open to get the audience thinking. If Orochimaru, the man who almost destroyed the village a day ago, is saying, “Yep, Itachi is much stronger than me.” Then, yeah, why hasn’t Itachi already captured Naruto if that’s his sole goal? Well… you find out why in Part 2.
I don’t think Kishimoto had all the details worked out (especially with Danzo, the coup, etc.). He actually has said he didn’t know all the details. But he has said that he knew Itachi had complicated reasons for doing what he did that abdicated him somewhat. Given Kishi’s penchant for having sympathetic villains, I think it’s a bit odd to think that’s an unrealistic thing for Kishimoto to minimally plan about Itachi before his appearance.
To me, saying it was a full out retcon is a bit… harsh. It’s easy to see that Itachi having reasons to do what he did was planned from the start, enough for Kishi to drop several hints (Kisame’s statement, Kakashi being shocked Itachi didn’t kill him, Asuma’s statement, Itachi saying he didn’t want to fight or kill Asuma and Kurenai, Orochimaru saying Itachi is much stronger than him and then Itachi agreeing that a Sannin might be too much for him, etc.).
“Evil” Itachi wanted Naruto alive so that Sasuke could kill him and awaken MS. It almost worked too. Not sure if EMS was thought up at the time, but it was clear that Itachi’s eyes were getting worn down and that you can take other people’s Sharingan.
Honestly his first appearance could be explained as him having a bad day and taking out his anger on everyone else. Dude wasn't even an adult at the time wouldn't be too shocking
@@JakoWako I loved that narrative, but, to be honest, i dont think its an asspull that itachi wasnt just mindlessly slaughtering his clan. He knows the secrets of the sharingan, and wanted sasuke to develop his. This is the gray area now, because this is where it can be that he wants the eternal mangekyo because his are failing, but if thats the case, why not just implant shisuis eyes? Or "madara"? Since "madara" knew itachi can kill him with no problem. I think he needed/wanted sasuke to awaken the mangekyo so he can be strong. The entire arc of itachi and kisame showing up in the village is one of my favorites, because he just strolls in and everyone shits their pants and he doesnt kill anyone, traumatizes the shit out of kakashi, and strolls right out when jiraiya shows up. I dont think kishimoto had him as evil, and i dont think it was a retcon to make him "a hero". I think kishi probably didnt know what ultimately caused itachi to slaughter his clan, but i do believe he had it planned that there was a greater purpose to the mindless slaughter, and one that might turn everything on its heads.
so when Kisame was afraid to engage in battle with Jiraiya and was sure that they both were gonna end up defeated, then why did Itachi persuade and forced him to keep on their mission by saying "even the strongest person has a weak point" if you gonna respond that Kisame would get suspicious, not only in that part but for the entire time Kisame has never ever been suspicious of Itachi even a bit and to say that he would get suspicious simply because of Itachi literally agreeing with him is just ridiculous. Also capturing Naruto and sealing tailed beast away as a result of Naruto'a death would cause for Sasuke to awaken MS and even if he was for Konoha, also by capturing Naruto Akatsuki would move their eyes and hands away from Konoha and it would be saved from later invasion and destruction from Pain. Capturing Naruto would be even more safe for Konoha than keeping him in their hands whilst capturing all of the tailed beasts around the world.
@@კრიტიკოსი-შ4ჯ Reread it. Kisame said, “I don’t think I can take him, even though I’m sure you can.” Kisame never wanted to back down and was confident Itachi could take on Jiraiya. Itachi had to give Kisame the impression that Jiraiya might be too much for him as well. After they retreat, Kisame berates Itachi for having to retreat and doubles down that he could have handled Jiraiya.
So, my response is to read the manga more carefully.
I think one thing no one brings up is Itachi telling Sasuke if he wanted tod efeat him, he needed eyes like his, and the only way to get eyes like his is to kill someone he loved. Itachi pratically setup up Sasuke's life for perpetual suffering cause keep in mind, if Sasuke did follow through on his advice, he'd would've effectively been a criminal and a wanted man as a result. And given that closest Sasuke has to a friend at the time was Naruto, who was a jinchuuriki. Sasuke could've lost his life if Naruto was so disillusioned with their "bond". And if Sasuke did kill naruto, it would've made him public enemy number 1 in the nation. Itachi is single-handedly responsible for why Sasuke is the way he is and why he's damn near almost died several times through-out the series because of how much emotional manipulation he's had to go through as a result of Itachi. So I never did like how the narrative was bending over backwards to kiss Itachi's butt after the fact.
I think killing naruto would vary in results depending on when sasuke kills him. The village hated and didn't care for naruto for all his early life. I dont think sasuke would have been hated that much aside from most of the main cast. Just not the whole village now if the event happened differently as in if pain attacked the village and naruto becomes the village hero happened BEFORE sasuke fights itachi and if sasuke kills him during that time then i can definitely see him becoming a huge criminal to everyone in the village
@@TheEmeraldTyrantSasuke wasn’t loved either, and killing a leaf shinobi as a leaf genin is an act of treason. So he would be executed aswell, or regarded as a criminal at least. Hiruzen would go crazy if the 4th hokage’s son he was supposed to take care of got killed…
Itachi was absolutely retconned and Danzo appeared out of nowhere as a scapegoat for Itachi. Then after the retcon, Kishimoto’s writing became desperate for us to believe that Itachi really was a saint all along. Itachi was better as a villain, and the reveal that he needed Sasuke’s eyes was a great revelation.
I would go as far to say that Itachi's true nature was subtly foreshadowed ever since Part 1. Around Chapter 7, Sasuke says he remembers Itachi crying at the night of the massacre, which is telling. Sasuke remembers seeing Itachi crying, but he just doesn't understand why and seems to be subliminally suppressing the memory. There's also an instance in Chapter 140 where Itachi leaves a plate of dango behind for Sasuke, as Itachi and Kisame were both sitting there just beforehand. There's also Itachi's specific words towards Sasuke:
"If you want to kill me, settle for hating me! Hate me and live like the coward you are! Cling to life without honor!"
If I recall correctly, this is in reference to a popular piece of Japanese media that actually did tip off the Japan fanbase about Itachi's true nature. Furthermore, one should recall Itachi's initial design and how it featured his arm slung through the front of his cloak, which can also be taken a clear reference to a ronin; an honorable samurai that lacks a master.
People criticize Itachi's handling of Sasuke, but isn't that the literal point? His handling of Sasuke was completely atrocious, with both Naruto and Sasuke calling him out on it; Itachi even admits this himself. That's why he asks Naruto to save Sasuke, because if anyone could it would be him. Itachi is a good shinobi that was able to put his loyalty to the village and his mission above everyone else (Sasuke being the sole exception), but emotionally he's a total dumbass and he admits to both himself and Sasuke that he royally fucked up.
Also Kishimoto straight up said in an interview he always had a reason for Itachi's part in the Uchiha massacre as more than it seemed, even if he had yet to decide what that that reason specifically was.
wow that plate of dango... didn't even catch that.
I'm pretty sure that Sasuke referred to himself with the "crying" part.
He didn't say Itachi was the one crying.
Sasuke never said he remembered Itachi crying, he said he himself was crying, lol.
@@shinji136 Wrong on both counts, in the original Japanese manga Sasuke's exact words were "あの時... 泣いてた" which translates to "That time... Was crying." The Japanese text was ambiguous as to who was crying, but some early English translations assumed it was Sasuke and said it was him. This is a classic example of fine details sometimes getting lost in translation.
@@Intrepid_Explorer This might have been correct if Sasuke didn't literally remember things as him passing out before Itachi cried (seen in the part 1 Naruto vs Sasuke battle) and then said to Tobi that it was a suppressed memory that only resurfaced days after Itachi's death.
It’s possible Itachi wanted to motivate Sasuke AND Kakashi to get stronger and assumed the leaf would figure out how to deal with the trauma he put them through. Kakashi is essentially his little brothers guardian and he knows the akatsuki is gunning for Naruto. Kakashis strength at their first encounter was insufficient.
They already had motivation to get stronger. Nothing of what he did was necessary or even useful.
@@shinji136 he didn't need to kill the uchiha either
But he did what he thought he should
@@shinji136 That motivation was great but would've ultimately been insufficient. Itachi seemed to understand that
@@banshotenin1178 No, he definitely didn't understand, since what he did only ended up sending Sasuke to Orochimaru, lol. Even on the good guy argument it doesn't work.
@@daviddoesstuffandthingigue966 Not even similar. Killing the Uchiha had a benefit to the village as it stopped the coup, torturing Kakashi and Sasuke had literally zero benefit for anyone or anything.
The simplest and most likely answer is that kishimoto had already planned this from the jump, but didn’t have all the details ironed out.
I remember reading the twist when I was younger and having my mind blown. I enjoyed his character.
My mind was blown twice. I remember figuring out that was Obito in that scene when the whole world was trying to figure out who tobi was. I've had too many debates on youtube after that. The only thing is that I thought Madara had inherited Obito's body somehow and it was going to tie Orochi in it some how.
glad you mentioned the fact that itachi could have put kakashi and sasuke that it could have been a way to try and get tsunade back in the village which is always what i had thought after finishing and rewatching the show.
If Itachi wasn’t the “good guy” then he would have taken a Madara-like spot in the series.
He would have been someone who would have done anything to gain power… a spot that was later fulfilled by masked Madara and later real Madara.
I think Kishimotos intentions for itachi definitely changed at some point. I remember being as excited to see the final battle between Sasuke and itachi as I was for anything naruto would be doing. I think kishimoto made itachi an undercover good guy because itachi had become so comically evil that it was hard to imagine how someone could just be that way, especially since kishimoto went down the route of having complex and broken villains rather than just having people with bad intentions like in one piece. Even by one piece standards, itachi was basically comic book character levels of evil except he had a much more serious and dark undertone because naruto is a much more serious show than one piece or just standard comics or shonen and we had seen the sasukes family slaughter tsukuyomi flashback so many times. This dude was painted out to be the devil himself basically.
8:17 I kind of really dig this original idea of Itachi being the Human Monster amongst other actual Monsters. That could have had some genuinely interesting story avenues to explore.
Omg glad someone said it. Kind of feels like Kishimoto flipped a bit too much heading into Shippuden. It was all a bit _too_ convenient.
A few inconsistencies aside, I love Itachi’s story and I do think the tracks are covered up and explained away just well enough to make it all make sense and be wrapped up in a neat bow.
it's just inconsistent+we didn't know if itachi will save sasuke after orochimaru takes his body
To be blunt-
Kishimoto has, basically never planned very far ahead in Naruto and it shows A LOT with hindsight.
I can't recall the specifics, but Sasuke was originally supposed to die and stay dead in the land of waves arc against Haku, and it was simply Kishimoto's own love of the character that made him keep him alive.
This also tracks with pilot issues of the original Naruto manga that were sort of meant to test the concept out-
Kishimoto has...basically never had time to plan ANYTHING, or never attempted to and it shows with Itachi, Madara, Kaguya, Black Zetsu, the Ten Tails, everything with the Sage of Six Paths, Sasuke, and Kurama.
The one thing that Kishimoto was great at was winging it, and you can even tell that he's winging it because there are dramatic tonal shifts in the series that...frankly just don't mesh very well together. Like how the Chuunin Exams feels somewhat similar to the land of waves arc up until the final third of it, then the show takes on a nearly entirely different tone and feel, Shippuden feels nothing like pre-time skip, and by the time we get to the war arc, it sort of feels like DBZ with extra steps with Kishimoto making statements at the time like how he has no idea how to deal with Madara in the story-
I have mixed feelings on how a lot of things in Naruto were handled in hindsight, I love the series for what it is-
But Kishimoto has NEVER stated that he had everything figured out from the start, if anything it was the opposite and he seemingly made a lot of last minute decisions on a weekly basis, if not for every part of the story, then at least for some of them-
I do think that he had very strong ideas, but didn't really have them at the same time or commit to them for very long from a writing standpoint.
He sort of had this approach of "adding more" when he hit a key point, rather than fleshing something that already exists out.
Like how we go from learning about chakra control, ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu, to summoning jutsu in just a few arcs, and past a certain point, chakra control, genjutsu, and summonings rarely ever play a key part in the story, and most characters only ever know a handful of jutsu that is unique to them and rarely ever learn anything from each other unless it's passed down from teacher to student.
Beyond learning the rasengan, Naruto's real biggest training arc doesn't even happen until he learns wind release to make the rasenshuriken all the way in Shippuden, then he supposedly causes permanent damage in his arm because it's imperfect, and that supposed injury never plays any role in the story again except for him learning the perfected version of rasenshuriken...which required sage mode to be used at distance...but then...there are times in the war where he just...uses it without sage mode or tailed beast chakra anyways if I remember right?-
I don't know, it's weird, Kishimoto covers his tracks on a lot of things, but there's always suspicious looking dirt everywhere afterwards if you look back at all of it-
Itachi knew without kakashi nobody else could help sasuke with his sharingan.
Some people say that he motivated sasuke to get him stronger by torturing him but is it really worth it? Trauma in exchange for power. Also he told him to kill his best friend for temporary power mangekeyo sharingan. Also he helped Akatsuki in evil stuff and then all of a sudden he was a spy
Itachi was 12 when he became a anbu captain and massacred the Uchiha. I figured this out before the novel was released because of him and Sasuke's ages. They rectified the inconsistencies with the novel and said Danzo and Hiruzen raised his official age to 13 when he turned 12 which is why Kakashi thought he was 13 when he became anbu captain.
I remember in the first naruto vs Sasuke fight itachi told sasuke i that he 'will always be there for him, even if it's just an obstacle.' Since then I knew itachi was going to have a heel turn and was actually a "good" guy
that scene was to show how itachi went crazy basically
he also said sasuke to kill his best friend, would you said that if you want the best for someone you want to protect
Dude Danzo wrote the Suicide note that was left. And when the clan brought it to itachi as if he did it, that set him off. That’s how I saw it
I think that kishimoto did his best to setup itachi as an ambiguous not just for story purposes, but also because he would have the option to go either way depending on which direction he thought would be better for Sasuke's story at the moment when he had to decide. He probably thought about going one direction or another many times but I think he settled on the good guy route at the end of part 1 when he decided to make obito the bigger villain (I don't think he would've made kakashi gaiden at that time otherwise).
I think this was for sure a retcon, and it was definitely how I felt as it was coming out. Looking back on it now, though, it makes a lot of sense. It seems like the original intention was for Sasuke not to awaken the Mangyekyo (He says he'll "Do it his own way" and even in the fight there's that line of "A Sharingan can be stronger than a Mangyekyo with the right user). The story shifted or he hadn't planned it out, meaning Kishimoto had to come up with a way for Sasuke to unlock it. One retcon later and Itachi is one of the most popular characters in Naruto
I both believe he was intended to be evil and think Itachi would have been better as the cold villain he was portrayed as, but that Akatsuki thing I can't understand. Besides Kisame and Itachi, you can clearly see Zetsu, Pain, and Konan in that group of Akatsuki standing together at 8:35.
Sasuke was supposed to be bad from the beginning. Sasuke killed his family in front of Itachi and made him cry. There is no excuse.
Imo Itachi was The worst uchiha by Far,
Even shusui and Sasuke are better than him
Sasuke cant cast genjutsu with a finger or of figured out how to stop kabutos control over edo tensei, or free himself from control of edo tensei. Hes also not as nice with the kunai as itachi still
Wdym better than him? In what? As characters?
And honesty, Obito and Madara are straight up braindead, bad villains. Especially Obito, who is just a simp. At least Madara got tired of the shit that comes with humanity and wanted to put them all down into a dream where everyone is happy. That makes a little bit of sense at least. But Obito? Straight up poop. Itachi is a much better character than both of those, Shisui got killed too early, he basically has no character, Sasuke? Ehhh... maybe.
Shisui isn’t a character. He’s just an idea. Itachi and Sasuke are the best Uchiha characters by far.
In terms of what? In any case you're wrong
In Part I Itachi is 18-19 years old, assuming he slaughtered his clan, joined the Akatsuki, and became a captain all at age 12, then the 7 years makes perfect sense
Itachi's character was a retcon. You could see he was meant to be a power hungry villain, but Kishimoto decided to redeem him. A shame though. He was so much more interesting as an irredeemable villain. Him killing everyone simply because of power was better than whatever complicated plot the author came up with later on.
Yeah true, when Itachi is fighting sasuke and showing off that Uchiha craziness was his best.
yea, pyschopath itachi was peak
@@reiner8373 yeah he felt like some giga chad boss that sasuke had to beat. It made sasuke's journey to kill him so much more satisfying. But then kishi just had to make him this tragic hero and made sasuke look dumb
@@lolcall5295 It took a lot away from Sasuke’s character when you really think about it.
"Why doesnt he kill me? He could easily do so if he wanted to"
-Kakashi
Itachi: "Kisame, go grab Kakashi (so we can interrogate and kill him)"
@@alexp4942💀
@@alexp4942 The only way someone can defend this moment is if Itachi just knew Gai (or anyone) was gonna show up in time😂
@@alexp4942 When Kakashi let it spill that he had intel on the Akatsuki, of course Kisame was gonna go apeshit anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Remember y’all, Itachi is a double agent and has to pretend to be a loyal member of the Akatsuki.
@@Bloooo95 Itachi is the worst double agent in the history of double agents. Dude leaked nothing and actively helped the Akatsuki for years. Being a double agent requires you at least sabotage the opposing side.
Great video. I’ve always thought it was questionable that Itachi tortured Kakashi like that if he was never evil. Also huge props for every time you say Shippuden; makes me feel better abt everyone who makes videos and says ShiPooed-en 😭
I've always got the vibes that Itachi was planned out to be a villain early on and the plan changed later to suit the plot once other details got decided on. It feels a lot like once other details got decided on such as the whole Obito thing and whatnot, the Itachi situation didn't really fit anymore and so the plot had to change to accommodate.
Part of me kinda really wants to see an alternate version of the story in which Itachi as he was originally presented actually was his character. Perhaps he killed his own clan and family not to protect the village, but to ensure that he remained the most powerful Uchiha? The whole Mangekyo story arc originally seemed to be implying that Itachi spared Sasuke not out of mercy, but for his own selfish goals. The plan was for Sasuke to obtain his own MS, then Itachi would take them from him and obtain EMS from it.
Sasuke and Itachi both share the same MS ability: Amaterasu; The black flame that consumes all. However, Sasuke's variant also comes with an additional ability. Flame Control, which allows him to have greater and more precise control over the Amaterasu's flames. What if the original idea was for Itachi to win the fight against Sasuke, taking his eyes and obtaining EMS with Flame Control?
If we assume that all he wanted was Sasuke's eyes and otherwise spares him, it could be that this is the point Sasuke would finally return to Konoha, except unable to fight due to blindness. Even if he could get new eyes somehow, they would be normal eyes and not Sharingan. This could be the start of a sort of redemption arc for him, but I don't want to get too sidetracked with Sasuke's potential character arc here. Especially considering Itachi could just as easily decide that Sasuke has no use for him anymore and simply remove him from the story more permanently then and there, giving him even more reason for Naruto to go after him.
Itachi at this point would very likely be getting set up as the big bad final villain of the series. He'd be an amped up version of the character in regards to strength, and with all the skill of the original. No Chakra disease to nerf him, and his EMS would likely even come with a complete Susanoo. Perhaps he would even eventually awaken one or both of his eyes into Rinnegan somehow, granting him the powers associated with that. In effect, he'd basically be early Boruto Sasuke, except it's Itachi with his original evil personality portrayal. A man so consumed by a thirst for power that there's no line he won't cross to obtain it. All he cares about is becoming the strongest, whatever that takes.
All of this theory of yours hinges on the assumption that Itachi is that thirsty for power when in reality he does not act remotely like that. He have no ambition, he even allow himself to serve the village and have a caring relationship with his brother,
first time i see him even when i was a kid, when he said that he "Just want to test his strength" I already thought It's a load of bull because it doesn't make sense. Remember that Itachi slaughtering his whole clan in the middle of the night, most likely with assassination and ambush tactics, separate them to little fights and execute them one by one (proven by how quiet it all went).
He's a walking contradiction, even when he first appeared he do deal serious damage to Kakashi and Sasuke but it's still not outright slaughter when it was pointed that he was capable of just killing them all. But he didn't do that. Does he gloat? No he's calm and calculated. I don't know where you get this "original" Personality idea from.
@@aivreescend7945 It's not a theory, it's an alternative lore "what if" scenario for if the story were written differently. That should have been pretty obvious.
I feel Kishimoto always planned for Itachi to be more than just a cold blooded psychopath, but didn’t fully layout what he wanted until later on.
One thing I’ve always wondered about, is itachi telling sasuke to kill his best friend. I mean did he really want sasuke to do that? And also, the fact that we find out that’s not what’s needed for a mangekyo. Makes me wonder why we never got any specification on any of that.
Think he jus wanted Sasuke to hate everything he was and stood for so Sasuke would do the opposite imo
he literally said: "You must kill your best friend to gain MS" and in shippuden Sasuke was going to literally kill Naruto had Orochimaru not hold his hand and persuade not to do that. Also in og Naruto Sasuke literaly put Chidori throug Naruto's heart in the midst of their fight if there hadn't been for Kurama Naruto would end up dead. So yeah Itachi encouraged Sasuke to kill his close friend
I've always seen Itachi as the man with a thousand backup plans. When he saw Sasuke as an adult he was extremely excited, as if he can finally move forwards with his plans. As soon as he realizes Sasuke doesn't have the same eyes as him his deminer changes. He knows he is checkmated and the only plan of action left is to empower Sasuke and make it traumatic to unlock his eyes. I have always through Itachi was a bad guy and it fits his character a lot better.
Sasuke was supposed to be bad from the beginning. Sasuke killed his family in front of Itachi and made him cry. There is no excuse.
I mean for a story as big as Naruto, retcons are inevitable. I remember feeling like Sasuke finally getting to actually fight Itachi came a little too fast for some reason (that’s just my hot take). And it made more sense if Itachi was an actual bad guy. It felt like it was kinda cheap to me to all of a sudden say he was a good guy. Though it made the story have more depth and intrigue in the end. It just could have been handled better. But it also disappointed me when Itachi was ranting all crazy to Sasuke about how he was gonna take his eyes during the Uchiha hideout fight. It was like he was just another shallow evil just to be evil bad guy.
itachi story is not retcon people just say it is bcuz why itachi didn't bother to save sasuke when orochi tried to take his own body but we will never know kishi forgot about this or if this happen he will absolutely make itachi put a crow inside sasuke
I'm glad y'all are over that whole Seth drama and back to uploading regular content, I was getting sick of it
Before watching the video, I dead ass have always thought he had a character development period from before part 1 through shippuden where he was overwhelmed by all of the hatred and tragedy he was forced to bear. I think he had naively hoped when planning and carrying out the Uchiha massacre that things would work out for Sasuke and that he could push him to be a positive force for the leaf, but that once he was confronted with the inconceivable weight of his actions, he became jaded and sort of lost site of his goals to protect Sasuke and the Leaf. His perception of who he was with all of the deception he had propagated had to have taken a toll on his concept of reality, and likely made it impossible for him to maintain any level of consistency in his actions. I think his confrontations with Naruto and his realization that there were still people that wanted to take on (in a positive manner) the role of Kage and bring peace to the shinobi world brought him back to the person he used to be. He was always just like the Naruto he had met in the beginning of shippuden; a naive young man who would do whatever it takes to create a lasting peace. I think by that point he had realized that if he hadn’t been taken advantage of by forces like Danzo and coaxed into believing he was the only person who could take on the responsibility of peace maker, he wouldn’t have enacted such an unsustainable method of bringing about temporary peace. He would have instead involved Sasuke more, and would have been able to convince the Uchiha to deescalate. This realization of his wrongness by the start of shippuden was what ultimately resolved him to provide his crow to naruto and to facilitate the fated battle with Sasuke.
I appreciate this analysis. It reminded me of the plot holes I overlooked because I was a fanboy. It presents the facts now that I'm older and have refined taste. I'm not embarrassed that I loved such a mid show. I get to enjoy it again as I care less about what others think of my taste. It's joyful.
In part 2 before Itachi pursuit arc, he used illusion on Naruto and mentally abused him and tried to cause him downbreak, only to be saved by Sakura and Chiyo, Itachi held team Kakashi pretty well so he could buy enough time for his fellow Akatsuki to seal Shukaku out of Gaara and he did it succesfully that he even deserved praise from Pain. He also snitched them to Akatsuki that the 9 tails jinchuuriki Naruto was with them when nobody knew about his appearance except Kisame and Zetsu but Kisame didn't even engage with Kakashi's squad for that time and it's been years since Zetsu has seen Naruto last time. He may not actievely help Kisame in capturing 4 tails but we got to see that he had his MS activated, so it's safe to assume that he gave at least some kind of help, we also get to see that Kisame was the one who insisted to go directly for their target all by himself not like Itachi didn't wanted nor try to, also when they assembled together Pain asks why they are late thus Kisame responds: "WE were busy to capture 4 tails jinchuuriki and on top of that WE had to take extra precautions to make sure he doesn't escape" I am sure that Itachi used genjutsu sleep on Roshi(4 tails jinchuuriki) in order to interrupt him from escape, Itachi also said that it was the best idea to capture every tailed beasts up to the 8 tails and then go for their final target 9 tails, it's not like Itachi didn't want to capture tailed beasts at all. Besides he was helping Akatsuki to track down Juubis, collected money and resources for Akatsuki to operate, sealed every tailed beasts whilst he was still alive and never ever hindered them nor sabotaged their plan of capturing juubis, on the contrary - he even helped them as best as he could as I aforementioned its examples just now, during his screentimes he did more good for Akatsuki than he did for anyone else, his good guy reveal was naah...
He actually refused to give information or gave bullshit info about Naruto during the kazekage rescue arc
@@MILDMONSTER1234 he described Naruto perfectly. The one who walks in and barks first.
W's in the chat for Six!!! Good food for thought video love it.
it was also stated by Kishimoto that he had not made up his mind about itachi until his first appearance. a lot of people in this community push back against this theory but there's loads of evidence to suggest Kishimoto originally intended Itachi to be a villain.
Why does it matter what Kishimoto’s ideas of a character are before that character is introduced? If he has an idea for a character at the time of their introduction and it stays consistent with that, how is that a retcon?
@@Bloooo95 Because the entire story up to that point is using the original idea for the character. So when he shows up and is different to what was originally stated/implied things need to be changed (retconned) to make sense.
I think a lot of stuff in part 1 was still rough or vague like the akatsuki character designs who were supposed to be monsters but changed to humans in shippuden or Hashirama and Tobiramas power level. Even the tailed beasts were a retcon. Kishimoto took the ideas of part 1 and refined them in shippuden. He likely made Itatchi intentionally vague because he wanted to do something with him later but wasnt sure what.
There's a quote from kishimoto in one of the data books (I think on the zetsu character sketch page) that says he originally intended for the akatsuki to be a gang of monsters
Yeah he kind of went over that at 08:25
The suppressed memory thing is actual foreshadowed when sasuke leaves in part 1, I think its pretty obvious that Kishimoto intended for Itachi be a lot more complex than he initially appeared, he just didn't necessarily know the exact route he would take with the character. My personal head cannon is that before his illness really kicked in Itachi kinda enjoyed being evil, it fuelled his sharingan, and his acts of cruelty were just him taking out his anger and pain on people, and I also think he hated himself for that. Then around the time Sasuke left the village was when he started getting properly sick and he became more focused on Sasuke killing him and returning to the village a hero. That's how I would explain the transition, Itachi's basically just a cool guy with a dark side.
I just never felt like his only option was to kill all the Uchiha. If he could do that single handedly why not tell the hokage and trust him to handle it with the support of all Konoha? Why not just key Uchiha leaders? I can think of more options than this that seem better than the genocide he committed. For plot sake I just accepted he had no options, but I really, really was bothered by this.
Same, what bothers me the most is people defending it like the only option
Here is my take on it.
Was it the only option? No, but the problem was most other options had problems with them.
For instance going to the Hokage would have taken time. Time he may not have had with not only Donzo pushing for the death of the Uchiha's, but also the clan starting the coup. If the Hokage took to long to act one of those things could have happened.
Killing the key leaders of the Uchiha clan? Now this could possibly work, but it also could ignite the other Uchiha into doing the coup anyway.
However even if the other Uchiha wouldn't have decided to get vengeance for their leaders Donzo probably would have killed them anyway.
Remember there had been a perfect option to end all of this peacefully in Itachi's friend(forgetting his name) who was going to use his insanely OK sharigan Genjutsu to basically force the Uchiha to no longer start a coup. Yet Donzo stopped that from happening.
Unless I am misremembering something.
@@chaossnowkitsune6377 Thanks for sharing such a rich and well thought out take on it!
The way the story was written, there really was no other options. It was an impossible situation and he chose the lesser of 2 evils.
@@donovan4222 I feel like the story *says* there were no other options, but doesn’t really show that there were no other options. For instance, if Itachi spared kids and babies the story doesn’t explain why that would be an immediate threat. For the sake of enjoying the intentions of the show, I mainly suspend disbelief and accept the “no other option premise.”
Nice job, cool vid. 👍
A justification for itachi putting kakashi under tsukuyomi is that he wanted to show kakashi what he needed to train sasuke for and to train sasuke sharigian to resist such genjutsu’s
And torturing people in Naruto really isn’t as big of a deal as it is to us in modern times. Like the leaf village literally has a guy who’s job it is to specialize in genjiutsu torture. So it’s not unbelievable to me that a former Anbu black ops agent would torture Kakashi to maintain his cover as a double agent. Itachi could of easily killed him instead (which Kakashi points out)
7:28 itachi has never done anything as despicable as this
Wait ppl think kishimoto planned it out? Its shonen, everyone makes it up as they go. I loved it personally
I bet Kishimoto saw the immense reaction itachi got in part 1 and decided he was going to be a hero right in the beginning of part 2
I agree and I've said it from the start of Shippuden's manga. Kishimoto did not fully map out the timeline (I think the age of the villages and the first couple waves of Kage are good enough proof, let alone how Black Zetsu & Kaguya were hurdled in) INITIALLY.
I think what you're describing is better called plot flexibility or something like that. As everything is consistent, even as a ploy in both ways to any plot. And considering parallel universes coming in which is literally capable of retconning and entire plotline, it seems hyper-consistent actually to keep that flexibility there, and that's why Itachi to me is the perfect anime character in terms of good OP guys who are also extremely useful as plot devices and for moral themes.
Itachi was supposed to be like illumi or raditz but the writer saw lolouch from code geass and said that's better ..
The torturing of Sasuke and Kakashi alone throws major, major doubts Kishimoto intended for him to be good from the beginning. Soooo many things could've gone wrong. Itachi is not some 4D chess god with complete control over the actions of others predicting everything.
Itachi was so powerful he put Kishimoto under a genjutsu.
I over all like this plot twist. My only issue is that if Sasuke had killed Naruto, would the Leaf be able to forgive him? Even those that still fear and loathe him would understand that losing the Nine-Tails would deal a massive blow to the leaf's strength, especially after Konoha Crush. Plus, what if Orochimaru managed to succeed in possessing Sasuke? He would have doomed Sasuke, even with Kotoamatsukami.
Even if the worst happened with Sasuke in that Orochimaru took over his body, Itachi has the totsuka blade to get rid of Orochimaru and free Sasuke, and its very likely that Orochimaru would be going after Itachi once he took Sasuke's body in order to gain the EMS which Itachi also knew and was counting on.
It's almost clear that Itachi suffered a retcon from classic to Shippuden. I guess after Itachi's first appearance and consequent spike in popularity. His alignment was changed to give him more plot relevance and to give Sasuke's saga more unexpected turn of events.
It absolutely was a retcon. I don't believe that Itachi would torture his brother for days if he loved him. He just wouldn't. His retconned justification for it is weak. His original justification, that he wants Sasuke to grow up with hate in his heart so as to become strong, test Itachi's capacity and (later) to steal Sasuke's eyes, is convincing.
The Itachi retcon, also known by its other name, the reason Naruto fans scale Jiraiya down despite his feats consistently being better than Itachi’s.
You’re joking right? 🤣 Jiraiya has never won a fight on-screen and you think his feats are better than Itachi’s? He lost to Orochimaru and got knocked out by armless Orochimaru, while Itachi one-panels him twice, yet you still think Jiraiya’s feats are better? I have to laugh.
@@Bloooo95 Because Jiraiya cornered both Itachi and Kisame, I don’t care about your stupid retcon. Because Jiraiya facing 4 paths of pain > Itachi vs Orochimaru or Kabuto. Because the Jiraiya you’re comparing to Itachi is one who was drugged by the literal best medical Shinobi in the world. Just say you’re uneducated.
Kisame and Itachi had to run away from Jiraiya. I will never forget that.
Glad someone caught that, if this is a retcon it implies that Jiraiya could have smoked or at minimum Stalemated Kisame and Itachi. This makes a lot more sense why Jiraiya approached both of them like he had the upper hand despite knowing who they were and what they were capable of.
Doesn't really matter since Itachi was able to one shot Orichimaru and no diff Jiraya.
If they kept Itachi as a villain, he’d be the best in the series. No sob story or talk no jutsu, just a dude who’s so evil he’d kill his whole family to test his strength. Madara’s goal would give everyone their dream life so Madara would be less evil than Itachi.
Big bro casualy broke Sasuke's arm without a reason. Ofc he was bad in chapter 1 and it was retconned in shipuuden
the timeline ishue along with the uchiha flashback would make me think that itachi met the akatsuki was corrupted by them and joined them secretely which is why he killed the clan
Hes not a good guy at all, he killed his family and clan members. The reason doesnt matter to me, justifying murder is stupid. Also to this day i think one of the most horrible writing decision by Kishimoto was expending on the itachi flashback that his parents "proud of him when he kills them". Surely its fine to have ideals but seems too unrealistic to think that those Uchiha would rather die than just changing there mindset and survive.
dumbass uchiha's are evil we already know that they are very egotistical see madara as an example, they already make a peaceful village but madara ruined it bcuz he can't accept the fact that people didn't vote him to be hokage it's understandable since madara at their first war he still keeps insisting about hashirama's plan
man he was 14, and this video clearly displays his character was changed mid way. He’s not a bad guy
When you look at his backstory, he has gone thru major impacts that kid should not be experiencing. His mind was too advanced which made him think of the meaning of life and death at like the age of 5. To then be under pressure from his clan and village wanting to kill each other basically. We have to look at his experiences at his age, as he gets older he learns more to accept that he could have done things differently.
@@odette4059 nah he’s a horrible person. He killed men women and children. Stop it. Is Anakin a good guy to you as well?
@@angelrose1597 that literally does not justify killing men women and children in mass numbers. Stop it dude. Horrible people can be complex. It’s not that hard. Itachi is a bad person. That’s it.
Let’s not forget about the part where he helped murder 5 jinchurikis.
It's a blatant retcon. Itachi's actions in Part 1 contradict his supposed intentions.
I.E. Putting Kakashi and Sasuke under Tsukuyomi, which could only be reversed by Tsunade, who wasn't in the village at the time and that Itachi didn't know Jiraiya and Naruto were going to get, nor that she would even agree to it.
If Itachi was evil he'd put Kakashi into Tsukuyomi then kill him. Then he and Kisame would mop up Kurenai, Asuma, and Gai, having them killed then kill all the other ninja that'd join in. Put Sasuke into Tsukuyomi and basically put in directives that would have Sasuke kill Naruto by having him unseal Kurama, thus awakening magekyou then Sasuke would chase after Itachi and basically get got so Itachi would have eternal magekyou. Jiraiya would have been taken care of for good measure to even have this kind of plan go through. Akatsuki would have the Nine-Tails in part 1.
@@johnlucas2838 He actually was going to kill him and then Guy intervened.
@@johnlucas2838if Itachi was actually always the good guy, he would’ve have gotten to Sasuke the moment he deserted the village for Orochimaru and put an end to that. He also had no reason to continue being a spy with Sasuke being an enemy to the village
All solid points! The only thing I wonder is if the tsukuyomi on kakashi was to indirectly tell him that the Mangekyo sharingan exists and how powerful it can be, so Kakashi could use it himself later on if he had it and it didn't know it (which happened). One thing we know for sure is that Itachi can kill with his tsukuyomi, so a case be made he was still in his act, while also trying to helpful since he didn't outright kill Kakashi when he clearly could have (a stretch, I know)
Itachi being evil would have been way better, he doing all he did to gain more power and grooming Sasuke to steal his eyes and have EMS would have been better for Sasuke to be a better character instead of Itachi
Instead itachi is the good guy and Sasuke was a psycho in the final part of Shippuden
Nah it’s good the way it is. Sasuke had to go through that
@@odysseusdadon1234 the way I see it Itachi became good at the expense of Sasuke's arch
Nice video Six
I don't think Itachi was ever a good guy. He did what benefitted the Leaf, but none of what Itachi actually did was morally good. Raising your sword against your own flesh and blood for strangers who don't like you, your family, your clan, or your brother is pretty evil in and of itself.
I believe it’s called “extreme patriotism”
@@MILDMONSTER1234I would call it utilitarianism. He sacrificed his clan to prevent even more deaths from a Civil War and foreign incursion
14:07 imagine being of the uchiha clan and unable to open your eyes
Naruto has tons of plot holes idk why people try to deny it
I do think naruto has plot holes, but not as much as people thinks
@@momotheone9700 lots of them can be considered retcons rather than plot holes too ig
@@momotheone9700there’s so many, and things that can’t be explained in the series are just explained away as “Hashirama Cells”, pretty much every single arc has major plot holes
Itachi putting Kakashi into tsukuyomi in their firs encounter in 1 season can be interpreted as Itachi teaching Kakashi how to use Mangekuo - Kakashi has it, but first used it in a chase of Deidara. he never user it before because he didn't know how - there wasn't any Uchiha around that could help him at that time
You can't be serious. How tf would Itachi know Kakashi had the Mangekyo when even Kakashi doesn't know that? Omg Itachi fans will go to any lengths to make the argument work in his favor.
Crazy mental gymnastics 😂