Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-142748-20150410212019/@comment-26127155-20150413021214

Black Zetsu is the most legitimate source of information in the whole series as he is the only one who has seen everyone in the manga through out their whole lifetime. Zetsu was not limited by being from a certain generation and having bias towards a certain era, this is a being who goes around the land RECORDING the battles throughout history. He won't just simply forget how powerful previous ninjas were, and yet he confidently stated that Itachi was invincible (not probably, or maybe but straight out INVINCIBLE).

The scenarios I stated do not paint out Hashirama to be a moron, but he is restricted because his limited knowledge of Itachi Uchiha and him having to play catch up during the fight. I pointed out logical moves for Hashirama as there is no way for him to know that Itachi carries an OHKO move (totsuka blade) with him, because he never had to face someone with an OHKO in his lifetime. Hashirama's most impressive abilities rely on his stamina and healing prowess but Itachi can bypass both with one strike of the Totsuka blade. It is just an unfortunate case of 'paper beating rock' for Hashirama in this case.

We have yet to even consider the fact that using Itachi's sharingan genjutsu, he could cause Hashirama to use his strongest techniques against himself. During the era of Hashirama, we barely were able to see any in-combat feats of genjutsu and we can't just assume that Hashirama will be able to simply dispel any genjutsu that Itachi throws at him.

Naruto (even right before Itachi's death) was caught in genjutsu every time he started a confrontation with Itachi, even when avoiding eye contact with Itachi. These instances give Itachi more than enough time to seal someone with the totsuka blade before they are able to release themselves from the genjutsu (if they even can at all).