Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-26998824-20151210004253/@comment-26773508-20151211015324

Uchiahmasters wrote: reasons why Itachi wins:

1) Superior Ninjutsu: Tobirama may have more supposedly but none of them can counter susanoo. The fact that he survived countless years of war fighting against two MS users, and even ended up killing one of them, is ample evidence that Tobirama can counter Susanoo. Inference is a valid form of reasoning in vs. debates, as long as the evidence is strong. And the evidence is indeed strong in this one.

2) superior reflexes: Tobirama may be faster but that's only because of FTG (without it he's nowhere near as fast as Itachi.) and even then Minato does it better and even with Minato's skill with the technique it wouldn't make much of a difference. Baseless assumptions. Nowhere in the manga does it say that Itachi's speed and reflexes are better than Tobirama's base speed. In fact, you'd have to have incredibly fast reflexes to use FTG properly, as FTG is instantaneous and so if you don't have proper reflex, reaction time and base speed then you might just end up disoriented after teleporting from place to place, thus leaving you open to attack.

3) Sharingan: Tobirama may have experience with fighting the Sharingan but I'm speaking more about the ability to read movement which is a huge advantage. Izuna is rolling his eyes in his grave at this statement. He's thinking, "If the sharingan gave me so much advantage as Uchihamasters suggests, then how is it that I got slashed like a bitch by Tobirama? This is not fair!! Boo hoo hoo :'( :'( "

4) superior intelligence: yes Tobirama is smart, but Itachi is much smarter. Again, baseless assumption. Nothing in the manga suggests Itachi is smarter than Tobirama. In the tiny amount of time we saw Tobirama in action against Juubito, he accomplished monstrous intelligence feats, while Sasuke, Naruto and Minato were looking on helplessly getting their asses kicked by Juubito. Itachi's screen time dwarfs Tobirama's, which is why Itachi fans get the illusion that he's the smartest. But that's simply because we've seen detailed fights of Itachi in a relatively wide variety of situations, unlike Tobirama.

Hence it's incorrect to assume that Itachi is smarter than Tobirama. Tobirama's little screen time already puts him on par to Itachi (who had wayyy more screen time) in terms of intelligence and analytical abilities.

Itachi thought like a Hokage at seven years old. Tobirama was also talking realpolitik as a kid, as shown in Hashi's flashback. While kid Madara and kid Hashirama were dreaming about an ideal village where every clan could live in peace, kid Tobirama had already figured out the political mechanisms that would make such a dream come true i.e. the warring clans should negotiate and make peace deals among themselves and honour those deals. So yeah, kid Tobirama thought as a hokage too.

5) superior physical strength: Tobirama hasn't shown the much physical strength, whereas Itachi was able to create a crater in the wall of a building just by kicking Sasuke into it even though he's was terminally ill at the time, his physical strength would be drastically superior without the disease. Another baseless assumption. Tobirama is a Senju who scared the shit out of EMS Sasuke, Zetsu Oro and others with just a raise of his finger. He put an enormous crack on a wall just by touching it. He was so powerful, he could have easily broken Oro's near-perfect Edo Tensei jutsu that was controlling him had Oro not had magic Hashi cells. Itachi, on the other hand, needed the greatest genjutsu ever known to break out of Kabuto's control.

I usually hate to bring databook stats, but Itachi was relatively low in physical strength in at least the first two databooks, if I remember correctly. That may have been due to his illness, but that is still no excuse to say that Itachi is physically stronger than Tobirama. Itachi's main strengths were, as suggested by the manga, his intelligence, genjutsu skills, MS techniques, Susanoo and and the two Ethereal Weapons. That's quite a long and impressive list. Yet nothing in the manga suggests that physical strength was one of Itachi's highlights.

6) Susanoo: Tobirama hasn't shown a single technique that can counter this, and if we include Itachi's perfect Susanoo than Tobirama is screwed. (yes I know it's game only, but we use Shisui's susanoo in versus debates and that was also game only.) You're partially right in this one. Tobirama lacks feats, which is why I think Itachi wins most of the times. However, from the manga lore, we can confidently infer that Tobirama indeed can effectively counter Susanoo. Had that not been the case, he wouldn't have survived years of war against two MS users, not to forget the fact that he killed one of them. That's just an indirect way of saying that Tobirama can deal with Susanoo just fine, as long as it's not like Madara's Perfect Susanoo.

And Itachi's PS is game only. The manga makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't have PS.

7) Genjutsu: Itachi is one of the greatest Genjutsu users in this series, Tobirama has nothing on him. Agreed 100%. Genjutsu, especially Tsukuyomi, is one of the three trump cards Itachi has over Tobirama. As far as we know, Shisui and Itachi were truly unique among the Uchiha in terms of genjutsu. The manga hasn't suggested that Tobirama has faced enemies of Itachi and Shisui's caliber.

in conclusion Tobirama doesn't stand a chance. Tobirama does stand a chance. It's just that the chances are relatively small. If Tobirama can avoid Tsukuyomi, the Yata Mirror and Totsuka Blade for a long time, then he can simply outlast Itachi as Tobirama has vastly superior chakra reserves. And since Itachi doesn't have EMS, Susanoo is going to put incredible strain on Itachi's body. MS Sasuke during the Kage Summit said that the pain caused by Susanoo was nearly unbearable. The same applies to Itachi.

However, as Tobirama and Itachi are more or less evenly matched when it comes to intelligence, and since their speed and reflexes are comparable, then it's reasonable to assume that Itachi has a very good chance to finish off Tobirama, either through Tsukuyomi or any genjutsu enough to stall Tobirama for a few seconds, or through his Ethereal Weapons.