EliteKakashi
Active member
Except you're looking at the panel wrong. You're considering it with part 2 in mind, when Kishi clearly hadn't planned everything out yet. Tailed beasts weren't even really a thing in part 1. They were just considered monsters in part 1. The power scaling was even wonky for them in part 1, Gamabunta was able to stalemate Shukaku for christ sake. The entire point of that panel if you look at the context of part 1 as a whole was to say Itachi was on par with the hokage(also important to remember that being a hokage or kage level in part 1 was considered extremely special..it wasn't power that was just thrown around like it is in part 2). If you look at what occurred afterwards it makes even more sense. He bodies Kakashi who was supposed to be arguably Konoha's 2nd best ninja(not counting Jiraiya with him out of the village) behind the 3rd hokage in part 1. There was a statement in part 1 where Gai might have been above Kakashi but that's not really the point I'm going after here, it's just to say Itachi was trying to be portrayed as simply on another level from the majority. Even Kisame notes later that Itachi could take Jiraiya, who was already established to be tiers above Kakashi as well(again setting up further power scaling by Jiraiya telling Kakashi he couldn't handle the duo that was after Naruto, nor could he train Naruto to reach the level of that duo/Akatsuki either).
Saying he could stalemate the kyuubi is saying he's on the level of the 4th hokage, and it's important to remember what is said on the very first page of the very first chapter.
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It's intent was to set up fear in the readers for Naruto's safety. A guy who one shot Kakashi, a guy who could match the 4th hokage's feat, a guy greater than even one of the legendary sannin is after Naruto, what on earth are they gonna do to keep him safe?
Another good section to read to realize how little of part 2 Kishi had actually planned out is looking at Jiraiya's discussion with Kakashi. He tells Kakashi there is a group that is out to search for new jutsu(among other things), and after Kakashi asks what proof there is for the nine tails being one of the things they're after, Jiraiya says it's a distinct possibility because the nine tails possesses a ton of chakra. None of this "they're searching for all of the bijuu for a certain plan", they're just looking for jutsu and beings with larges amounts of chakra.
One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make in regards to this manga is trying to make sense of part 2 using part 1 statements and vice versa. You can almost look at them as completely different mangas.
The biggest reason Shippuden is such a huge ****ing mess is because Kishi had no clue what he was doing with the story.
This "uchiha can control tailed beasts, Akatsuki is designed to fight tailed beast" stuff wasn't in consideration in part 1, and that's made blatantly obvious if you read through part 1 again.
It'll also make you depressed though because you'll realize how great part 1 was and how shitty part 2 was,
