Itachi is sorely overrated, especially from the comments I'm seeing from OP.
There is a percentage of people that say that Itachi is smarter than Shikamaru, a better fighter than Gai, is faster than Ei, is a better clone user than Naruto, a better genjutsu user than Trollkage, and his MS abilities are more hax than any other characters' jutsus.
Going by those perspectives, he is the most overrated character. The truth is that he is very powerful, but his strength is relative to the other characters in Naruto. He said himself that he's weaker than Tobi, he said he'd draw with Jiraiya, and he is unquestionably weaker than Hashirama or EMS Madara whom have been put in a league of their own no matter how much people think Itachi would blitz gg/genjutsu gg/Amaterasu gg/Totsuka gg them.
If Itachi were truly as powerful as people hype him to be, why didn't he take out Akatsuki himself and save the world?
Itachi needed help against the Uchiha clan, Old Hiruzen and Danzo w/o mods were capable of doing that themselves. Characters like EMS Madara are so powerful that the entire world felt the need to unite against him, Itachi cannot be compared to him.
What are Itachi's greatest feats anyway? Beating kids and cripples, and needing help against anyone else or running away.
1. Beat a dying Orochimaru whom was trying to take Itachi's body, Orochimaru wasn't as powerful then as he was at the start of the series. Normal Sasuke has the same feat, and Sasuke said that he couldn't had won if Orochimaru were healthy, and both he and Karin suggested that Armless Orochimaru was stronger than Hebi Sasuke.
2. Beat a 9 year old Deidara whom he had intel on and cornered, Deidara didn't know anything about Itachi or the Sharingan. Itachi's genjutsu trick didn't make sense either.
3. Beat Kakashi whom didn't take his own advice and thought he could have a Sharingan staring contest with Itachi's MS. Kakashi is also the measuring stick in Narutoverse, ninjas take their turns showing off against him. The two also fought evenly in their next encounter.
4. His second encounter with Orochimaru, in this instance Orochimaru was armless and was a disembodied spirit stuck to Sasuke's neck. Itachi needed to remove Orochimaru from Sasuke without killing Sasuke, so he magically had Totsuka in his possession.
5. Edo Itachi vs. a weakened KCM Naruto whom has a 3.5 in taijutsu and speed and Itachi still couldn't beat him in taijutsu. And I say he was weakened because Bijuu chakra = power, and Naruto divided Kurama's chakra 12 ways.
Itachi also couldn't beat Base Bee in taijutsu and was pressured back.
6. Itachi kept hid from Nagato and ambushed him while Naruto and Bee kept him busy, then needed Naruto's and Bee's help.
7. Even though he was the most powerful he had ever been, he was getting dominated by Kabuto even with EMS Sasuke's help, Kabuto was also immune to visual genjutsu so Itachi magically had a genjutsu that was feeling-based (and had tremendous luck/plot hax to pull it off).
Itachi's genjutsu is also overrated. He put Orochimaru in a paralyzing genjutsu which Orochimaru resisted and was about to break, Naruto was also a novice against genjutsu users and still had poor chakra control and he was able to resist Itachi's sleeping genjutsu.
Kurenai also put him in a genjutsu, Sasuke put him in a genjutsu, and Kabuto put him in a genjutsu.
Amaterasu is also overrated. First of all, Sasuke has Amaterasu and we all know that Naruto > Sasuke in the end, so how is Amaterasu "gg"?
Aside from animals, there are many other instances of characters reacting to it and not doing significant damage over the course of some minutes. Sasuke and Ei dodged it, Gyuuki stopped it from hitting his head with his arm, and Kabuto avoided it. It also didn't burn very quickly in any of the instances where it actually hit a person:
1. Sasuke was able to use two jutsus while Amaterasu was burning his torso. If Amaterasu burned half as fast as Itachi's fans say it does, it would had burned his spine and paralyzed him, and then fatally damaged his internal organs which results in death.
2. In the same battle it caught all of those trees on fire, and they were still largely intact by the time Naruto and co. arrived an hour or so later.
3. Tobi was scrambled around the cave while it was burning his torso and it didn't kill him before he used whatever he did to expel it.
4. It didn't burn Gyuuki very quickly at all, and to make matters worse is that it only made minor burns on Bee's tentacle clone which didn't even make it poof.
5. Karin was burning about as long as Gyuuki and only suffered minor burns.
6. It couldn't burn through that samurai's armor before it was removed, which took a few minutes.
7. It didn't do significant damage to Ei's hand, nor did it spread.
8. It burned Nagato the entire time Naruto, Bee, and Itachi were talking, and all it did was burn away his elbow.
Am I forgetting anything?
There is also a start-up time where Itachi has to concentrate, his eye starts to bleed and it gives off a high chakra pressure; these are all early warnings for use of Amaterasu. Edo Itachi used this to his benegit against Naruto, he started to use Amaterasu and his crow popped out and mind blasted him before he could use it, Nagato was also able to feel the chakra pressure and warn Naruto.
