Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-26005711-20150512133037/@comment-26518343-20150804142420

BakumatsuWarrior wrote: Hiruzen gets glory only in short paragraphs of Naruto databooks. In manga he's pretty much featless and unimpressive. I wonder why Kishi still bothered to mention that Hiruzen was more talented than Tobirama when in reality he completely ignored Hiruzen throughout the 15 years of the run of the manga. Then at the end of those 15 years he resurrects Hiruzen again but gives the spotlight to Hashirama and Tobirama. He then proceeds to publish the 4th Databook and says Hiruzen>Tobirama.

Also, Akatsuki-era Kakuzu should could have easily been one-shotted by Hashirama given his feats. Yet Kakuzu, without his village's secret techniques, survived? That's a big WTF there. I'm going to assume it was Hashi's kindness that saved him, since we know he shares the quality of strong kindness with both Ashura and Naruto. Also Tobirama nearly getting killed by Kinkaku and Ginkaku's attempted coup, and him dying at the hands of 20 guys severely undermine his later hype/feats.

Funny isn't it?

Logic says a new generation of ninja should be better than the previous generation due to the development of new jutsu's, new theories on chakra control, new fighting techniques and the like. Thus a stronger Hokage somewhere along the line makes sense. Yet every single Hokage that came AFTER Hashirama is "worse" than he was, at least through the Kakashi era (and this includes Danzo).

Supposedly the only Hokage that was better than a previous Hokage (before Naruto came along) was Minato who is generally accepted as being stronger than Hiruzen. Tobirama, Hiruzen and Tsunade were all supposedly "weaker" than the Hokage that served immediately before them.

If Hashirama and Tobirama were as strong as we're led to believe, they should have liked to be older than freaking Onoki was, right into their 80's. How come Hiruzen lived so much longer than those two? Wasn't like he wasn't seeing combat, because he was.

Also, if a young Kakuzu was able to hold his own with a prime Hashirama then it begs the question of how the two small groups of ninja who stopped him both times much later on (first killing him then sealing him after his resurrection during the war) would fare against Hashirama in battle.

Because they'd do pretty damn well based on the perception of Hashirama fed to us early in the series or the whole group of them would be ghosted in one hit by the revised "vision" of Hashirama that is introduced when he shows up during the war.