Well, it's clear that he was bamf. Probably on par with the Sannin individually at the time if not stronger. He killed Sasori's pappy as well.

 

I have forgotten how he actually died. But I believe he may be individually stronger than the Sanin. Except maybe Orochimaru.

 

He killed himself.

I'd say he was better than them individually during his lifetime. But the Sannin have made improvements since then (e.g. Tsunade completed her Creation Rebirth after leaving Konoha, IIRC) so they probably ended up on his level or better after he was gone.

 

Eh. Jiraiya was stronger than Orochimaru. Orochimaru's great equalizer was the Impure World ressurection.

 

Don't forget his bullshit self restoration tech where pulls a new body out of his ass... er mouth.

 

That's gotta have a toll though. And presumably enough body remaining to grow another. He cant pull a new body if he's blown to tiny pieces or somesuch.

I see fics that have Orochimaru go up against the likes of Minato and NOT get roflstomped simply because he keeps spamming bodies again and again. A technique like that must have a cost, and certainly limited number of uses.

 

It does. We're not given a hard limit but Itachi told us that it had a heavy chakra cost. Against Naruto, Orochimaru was struggling to move and retreated after three uses, IIRC. Though his weakening body may have been partly to blame for that.

 

Also, using the Technique drained Sasuke majorly in his fight with Itachi. There is the fact that he had never used it before and had been fighting a good bit previously, but it still left him with practically no chakra. He only had strength to do two techniques afterwards. And one of those techniques requires practically no chakra.

 

We've never seen Orochimaru cut loose at full strength. He was trolling for the most part against Hiruzen. If he can use sage mode and Kabuto just didn't know it then I can easily see him being stronger than Jiraiya.

 

No reason to think that Kabuto's wrong or that we were misinformed about it. Sounds like wishful thinking.

It's true we've never seen him at full strength. Though I think he was genuinely limited in what he could personally do against Hiruzen from controlling the Hokages rather than standing back for the sake of it. Then he spent the rest of the manga crippled in one way or another.

The closest thing we've got to a measuring stick is Itachi. Orochimaru acknowledges that he's stronger and got spanked like a naughty toddler years back. Whereas Itachi believes that if he fought Jiraiya, they might end up killing each other or at least badly wound one another, even if he had backup. And Jiraiya was quite happy to throw down with both him and Kisame, despite Itachi's best area (genjutsu) being his weakest unlike Orochimaru.

 

Jiraiya in Sage Mode had one of the most powerful genjutsu in the manga. And we don't know that he was ever really bad at it even without senjutsu. Jiraiya was good at everything. Fuuinjutsu, sensing chakra, barrier ninjutsu, multiple elements, summoning, senjutsu, taijutsu, etc.

Itachi was able to deal with Orochimaru so easily because Orochimaru had poor intel about Mangekyou jutsu, or didn't expect Itachi to have the Mangekyou. Itachi defeated him by surprising him, essentially.

There are a few reasons why Itachi might not have wanted to tangle with Jiraiya. The main one, though, is that he didn't want Akatsuki to get their hands on the Kyuubi. By hyping Jiraiya to be some really powerful threat even for him, Itachi could convince Kisame to back off without looking suspicious.

 

Wasn't the circle between Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Tsunade that Oro was stronger than Jiraiya but weak against Tsunade who was weaker than Jiraiya? The kind of rock paper scissors thing?

Yet we know that Jiraiya > Itachi and Itachi > Orochimaru, but Orochimaru > Jiraiya.

 

That's the symbolism behind them but I dunno if it ever comes up in the manga. There's also the difference in how different people match up with each other. Orochimaru could lose against Itachi but win against Jiraiya who could win against Itachi for example.

Ma and Pa Toad did anyway. IIRC, Jiraiya says that he's poor at genjutsu (comparatively) when he was talking about it with Naruto and/or right before the toads used that genjutsu. Which is part of what caught Pain by surprise. It's also his weakest stat.

Itachi didn't use the MS, only standard Sharingan Genjutsu from what we saw. Jiraiya appears ignorant of the Mangekyou too anyway.

True but, to be fair, Kisame didn't need much convincing. Kisame didn't believe he could beat Jiraiya and said that "with him as our enemy, even the titles Konoha's Uchiha Clan and Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist pale in comparison."

I'd lean towards him exaggerating but not actually being dishonest either, personally.

(By the by, I'm referring to the official translation of this horribly bad online scan with that quote. Not making it up, I promise. )

 

Hrm, I must have confused Itachi's takedown of Orochimaru with a fanfic or something. But as for Jiraiya's ignorance of the MS, I disagree. He knew enough to quickly and decisively counter Amaterasu by sealing it with fuuinjutsu. If he had been ignorant of MS jutsu, he might have tried to douse the black flames with water or earth or something. Instead, he immediately knew they couldn't be extinguished.

 

Was he not surprised that the flames were able to burn the throat of the toad he summoned? Then again, that might simply be surprise at the strength of Amaterasu, rather than its existence.

And in truth, I would say that we should take into account the fact that this happened in the first series. Everyone seems to know what MS is these days. And it makes sense. If Itachis words are true and the Uchiha used to spam Izanagi, then MS must have been a common pair of eyes in the pre-village days, and all current villages would know of it even if its not something that comes up in normal conversation.

So really, we should realistically assume that both Jiraiya and Orochimaru know about MS, as would most other people who are decently informed.

 

I would have loved to see an Itachi vs Fourth. I dont know which way I would call on that.

 

He didn't know what they were. He didn't try to extinguish them because he'd just seen it burn through the toad's normally flameproof stomach, also making them the first to escape that jutsu.

Viz translation: "How did they get out? And what are these black flames? The rock toad normally spews fire himself so for his naturally flameproof innards to get charred..."

Izanagi's got nothing to do with MS.

Though it's true that some other people know of the Mangekyou by Part 2. Kumo's C was comparing to Sasuke's Amaterasu to Itachi's during the Kage Summit, IIRC. So that's at least one random guy.

 

I have no idea where you draw this from. Yes, we are lead to believe that as they grew Orochimaru was stronger, but that was because there needed to be a straight parallel between the Sannin and team 7. That in no way means the same strength rules still aply, the same way that Sasuke is no longer stronger than Naruto.

I sincerely doubt that Orochimaru could go 10 rounds with Nagato. Orochimaru's strengths have always been evasion and tricks, not outright combat. Jiraiya would tear Orochimaru apart in a straight fight where escape is not an option.


Edit: But even Orochimaru would destroy Tsunade.

 

Well there's this. http://www.mangapanda.com/naruto/593/8 Orochimaru states that he puts his sage chakra into the cursed seals. That implies that he's been able to use sage chakra to some degree since Anko got her seal. He also released Kabuto sage mode like it was nothing to him. http://www.mangapanda.com/naruto/593/15

Itachi's statement was iffy because of his true priorities. We have to make a judgement ourselves based on what we know of them. We've seen Kisame, Itachi, and Jiraiya at full strength. With what we know and assuming that Jiraiya doesn't know that much about MS jutsu it's pretty clear that Jiraiya would get absolutely spanked by Kisame and Itachi. He was right in Itachi's kill range.

 

"kakashi you're the same a sakura now, shut up..."

hahahahaha

Gaaras dream was probably the saddest, HOKAGE FUCKING KIBA

surprisingly good twist at the end.