Y'know, I typed up a longform version of this last night and it didn't seem to get posted, so here's the less eloquent version :
I've clicked the forum links from the main page a few times, and I couldn't help but notice that the way Orochimaru re-animated the hokages really suggested that he and Kabuto might be top-tier fighters, but I think they're a little inflated. Or rather, they create inflation, but don't ya just know that inflation has a way of getting corrected.
The assumption is this :
(An edo-tensei user) + (their army) = their... skill level? Toughness? Insert what you will.
Here's the snag for the above equation :
Simply put - exactly how many samples do you think, say, Kabuto, has? Not only does the manga state "you need a specific amount", but they actually use the term "DNA" on page 11, and that means two things -
1. You can only have so many samples, therefore you have a finite number of summonings.
2. In cloning, only certain parts of the body have a sufficient amount of DNA that can be used. The reason we can't clone a dinosaur is that we have bones, but no bone marrow. Unless Kabuto managed to snag and pickle a freshly-dead shinobi (which, as he stated, he doesn't, he's more a "graverobber"), he's probably got only a few summons per source.
On top of that, he'd only have a multiple summons if he was unable to undo a seal, which requires learning a new technique + a lot of detective work.
I could, technically, be wrong, because Kabuto or Oro could always be proven wrong about their assumptions regarding the technique. To be honest, I'd be pretty disappointed if there weren't some hitherto unknown risks/consequences of using it. Finally, I think that more preparation goes into the technique than a lot of the threads I've read here assume. There's probably a very good reason that Kabuto was hiding in a cave when he activated that many summons. (Although, one might counter that he can activate them fairly quickly, as he did when confronting Tobi to show off his collection).
tl;dr : Edo Tensei is a formidable talent, but it does have some limitations. I'm not a fan of hypothetical "X vs Y" scenarios (except for the Epic Rap Battles of History vids), for a simple reason - Characters of stories don't exist in a vacuum. It's meaningless to postulate about a battle between Hashirama as he lived and breathed vs modern-day Kabuto because the assumptions about the latter's abilities rest on plot developments that have happened between the two. Naruto is a story, not a weekly screencast of a starcraft league. When you take characters out of a plot and stick them in a vacuum, you're violating physics for the sake of an, ahem, immature fantasy. That's right, I'm here to stck my tongue out at the raison-d-etre of half of the nb forum
Srsly tl;dr : A lot of assumptions I've read about Edo Tensei users and XvsY premise threads in general violate the laws of physics. You need to ask permission for that, you know.
But there's a silver lining to the thread, I promise!
Let's think about Naruto from a literature analysis perspective. Why do you think the author included Edo Tensei as a plot device at this point in the story (not thinking about the crush the leaf arc here) ? Part of it is practical - give the bad guys a scary weapon that seems insurmountable to create drama. Readers like drama, period.
But if I might wax philosophical, let's think about what was happening in the story immediately prior to the war. Naruto defeats Pain and gets some existential validation. Then, to top it off, he learns he's the son of the 4th and learns to harness the kyuubi - the fancy term is Aristotelian validation, meaning he now knows his place in the world and how he fits into the fabric of his culture/history. The plot was clearly now the Naruto show, he's the main attraction any way you slice it. Moreover, there's all this stuff about his being the child of prophecy who'll unite and change the world.
And then what's his next challenge? Tobi, yes, but first he (and everyone else) have to deal with the Edo Tensei invasion. Does anyone else see the metaphor? The shinobi world is going to be united through collective effort that requires them to set aside differences, and they literally can't succeed without first overcoming their fallen comrades. In other words, their history. There are all sorts of techniques in the Narutoverse that are there just to be cool, but my theory is that Edo Tensei, while it may have been created just for the aformentioned drama factor, is probably the biggest literary plot device in the manga, and probably as ripe with meaning as anything else.
I've clicked the forum links from the main page a few times, and I couldn't help but notice that the way Orochimaru re-animated the hokages really suggested that he and Kabuto might be top-tier fighters, but I think they're a little inflated. Or rather, they create inflation, but don't ya just know that inflation has a way of getting corrected.
The assumption is this :
(An edo-tensei user) + (their army) = their... skill level? Toughness? Insert what you will.
Here's the snag for the above equation :
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Simply put - exactly how many samples do you think, say, Kabuto, has? Not only does the manga state "you need a specific amount", but they actually use the term "DNA" on page 11, and that means two things -
1. You can only have so many samples, therefore you have a finite number of summonings.
2. In cloning, only certain parts of the body have a sufficient amount of DNA that can be used. The reason we can't clone a dinosaur is that we have bones, but no bone marrow. Unless Kabuto managed to snag and pickle a freshly-dead shinobi (which, as he stated, he doesn't, he's more a "graverobber"), he's probably got only a few summons per source.
On top of that, he'd only have a multiple summons if he was unable to undo a seal, which requires learning a new technique + a lot of detective work.
I could, technically, be wrong, because Kabuto or Oro could always be proven wrong about their assumptions regarding the technique. To be honest, I'd be pretty disappointed if there weren't some hitherto unknown risks/consequences of using it. Finally, I think that more preparation goes into the technique than a lot of the threads I've read here assume. There's probably a very good reason that Kabuto was hiding in a cave when he activated that many summons. (Although, one might counter that he can activate them fairly quickly, as he did when confronting Tobi to show off his collection).
tl;dr : Edo Tensei is a formidable talent, but it does have some limitations. I'm not a fan of hypothetical "X vs Y" scenarios (except for the Epic Rap Battles of History vids), for a simple reason - Characters of stories don't exist in a vacuum. It's meaningless to postulate about a battle between Hashirama as he lived and breathed vs modern-day Kabuto because the assumptions about the latter's abilities rest on plot developments that have happened between the two. Naruto is a story, not a weekly screencast of a starcraft league. When you take characters out of a plot and stick them in a vacuum, you're violating physics for the sake of an, ahem, immature fantasy. That's right, I'm here to stck my tongue out at the raison-d-etre of half of the nb forum
Srsly tl;dr : A lot of assumptions I've read about Edo Tensei users and XvsY premise threads in general violate the laws of physics. You need to ask permission for that, you know.
But there's a silver lining to the thread, I promise!
Let's think about Naruto from a literature analysis perspective. Why do you think the author included Edo Tensei as a plot device at this point in the story (not thinking about the crush the leaf arc here) ? Part of it is practical - give the bad guys a scary weapon that seems insurmountable to create drama. Readers like drama, period.
But if I might wax philosophical, let's think about what was happening in the story immediately prior to the war. Naruto defeats Pain and gets some existential validation. Then, to top it off, he learns he's the son of the 4th and learns to harness the kyuubi - the fancy term is Aristotelian validation, meaning he now knows his place in the world and how he fits into the fabric of his culture/history. The plot was clearly now the Naruto show, he's the main attraction any way you slice it. Moreover, there's all this stuff about his being the child of prophecy who'll unite and change the world.
And then what's his next challenge? Tobi, yes, but first he (and everyone else) have to deal with the Edo Tensei invasion. Does anyone else see the metaphor? The shinobi world is going to be united through collective effort that requires them to set aside differences, and they literally can't succeed without first overcoming their fallen comrades. In other words, their history. There are all sorts of techniques in the Narutoverse that are there just to be cool, but my theory is that Edo Tensei, while it may have been created just for the aformentioned drama factor, is probably the biggest literary plot device in the manga, and probably as ripe with meaning as anything else.
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