Edited for truth.

Nagato > Itachi > Sasori > Konan/Kisame/Kakuzu > Deidara > Hidan.

Hidan was the weakest member, it was only the fact that his technique is fucking waaayyyyy out there that allowed him to beat Asuma. I have no doubt that Asuma could have stood toe to toe with, say, Kakuzu or Deidara.

 

I have to disagree with that. Kakuzu almost killed Kakashi like twice. There's no way Asuma isn't going to get murdered in a straight fight with either Deidara or Kakuzu. He pretty much states that he thinks that Akatsuki is out of his league.

 

Er, no. Kakashi survives vs Kakuzu and Hidan at the same time for awhile. Two immortal members of Akatsuki who obviously have some teamwork skills despite despising eachother. He spends an arseload of Chakra saving Choji and Ino (Two Raikiri at once to suppress the split Gian). In that one moment he blows through a full 1/3rd of his Chakra. Ino + Chouji's help was not worth nearly 1/3rd of Kakashi's Chakra.

1 v 1. Kakashi would have been a much tougher opponent for Kakuzu. Would he have beat him? I dunno. But I'd put good odds on Kakashi winning. Kakashi still had the Mangekyo in his back pocket. It's a hard argument to make. But he would have been able to handle his own. Your argument that Kakuzu almost kills him twice is wrong, honestly.

Hidan + Kakuzu together, pulling off a scary ass combination technique couldn't kill Kakashi, or even significantly harm him, and Kakuzu himself never comes close again after that.

Asuma is supposed to be slightly weaker than Kakashi, but not by much.

Also, according to the databooks:

Itachi: 35.5

Kakashi: 34.5

Sasori: 34.5

Asuma: 32.5

Kakuzu: 32.5

Kisame: 32.5

Deidara: 32.5

Hidan: 31.5

Konan: ??

Nagato: ??

So yeah, Asuma could have held his own vs Kakuzu or Deidara. It was only Hidan's crazy ass technique, and some luck, that was a counter to Asuma (Who is primarily a taijutsu sort with supportive ninjutsu) that allowed him to win.

Furthermore, in Arc 1, Itachi has Kakashi beat by a good two and a half points, and that's enough for Kakashi to be scared of him. That's near the same amount of difference in strength between Kakashi and Kakuzu.

1v1 Kakashi > Kakuzu/Hidan and Asuma = Kakuzu / > Deidara. The databooks state it flat out.

 

I'm pretty sure Kisame would have butchered Asuma in a fight, so those numbers don't tell us all that much.

 

It's not wrong because it happened. Sure Kakashi may have blown through a crapload of chakra babysitting but the fact is that Kakuzu had him dead to rights. He was moments away from ripping Kakashi's heart out when Shika had Hidan kill him again. He was moments away from killing the entire team when Naruto and Yamato saved them.

Kakashi outclassed Asuma before Kamui entered the equation. That was clear when he swooped in like a boss against Itachi and Kisame.

Stats are indicators of how skilled someone is in a certain area not a definitive answer for how strong they are. Look at how they actually use their stats in battle. Deidara is going to rain hell down on Asuma and he can do nothing about it. Kakuzu will tentecle rape him considering his knives are borderline useless in that fight and he outclasses him with his combo ninjutsu.

The only way Kakashi is beating Kakuzu 1v1 is with Kamui. Period.

 

Because your opinion (with no argument to back it up) > the official databooks. Okay, try again when you feel like making any sort of salient point.

But yet, he doesn't get to, because he has to watch Ino and Chouji, and spends an arseload of Chakra saving them.

You can make the argument that Kakuzu had him dead to rights, but I can make the argument that Kakuzu wouldn't have been able to get him dead to rights if Kakashi didn't have babysit Ino and Chouji. He spends a lot of time, energy and focus watching out for those two. While teamwork is a vital part of Konoha's philosophy, in this instance two of the members were dead weight, essentially forcing Kakashi to act in ways he would not during a 1 v 1 fight, and not making up for their massive drag with any sort of real assistance.

Chouji tries a couple times, but it's show that his attacks are all but useless.

Asuma vs Deidara: And Asuma could just avoid it all day, no doubt. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he had some way to reach Deidara. He was a master of the Wind element. Deidara throws a bomb at Asuma... Asuma blows it away. Deidara does the giant bombs-in-the-air thing. Asuma blows them away.

But if a Wind Element would have a tougher time affecting someone who is flying than Sasuke with his super-long Chidori-sword, I will eat one of my shoes.

You saw Temari's Dai Kamatachi level part of a forest, right? What do you think a master of the element could do if he had to?

Honestly, the man had a 35 million Ryo bounty on his head. Was one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, and was the son of Sarutobi Hiruzen. I don't know why you're determined to think he was weak, and that Hidan won through anything except having a weird ass technique + pure luck.

 

Kakashi wasn't even babysitting when he was caught the first time. His jutsu was just outclassed.

Asuma avoiding Deidara's attacks all day is wishful thinking. Do you not recall Deidara's attacks being large enough to threaten an entire village?

Deidara was flying just out of Sasuke's range not as high as he could go. What does Asuma do against C4? He dies. You seem to be using hypothetical abilities for Asuma.

I'll give you that Asuma > Hidan and that Hidan won due to lack of intel but that's it. The rest of Akatsuki is beyond him. Like I said he stated it himself. http://www.mangapanda.com/93-328-8/naruto/chapter-323.html

 

The thing is we don't know much about his abilities, Kishi kills him off before we get to see much of them. I do, however, know that Asuma had a technique that defended him from other techniques or could attack. The Welcoming Approach: Thousand Armed Murder. Which is sort of like the Sharingan's Susano'o. (Shown in episode 73).

He also had at least one long range technique, shown recently during the 4th Shinobi War.

But if you take the databook ratings, which are generally viewed as the authority on a Shinobi's strength, Asuma had both Hidan and Deidara beat. He also matched with Kakuzu and Kisame. It's shown in the anime that only the fact that Hidan's ability's specifically countered Asuma's primary specialty was what allowed him to win so quickly/easily.

 

Filler doesn't count.

Like I said you're misusing the databook stats. They tell you how skilled someone is in a certain area not exactly what level someone is on. Could Neji beat Gaara when they met? No, because Gaara's ninjutsu made his taijutsu worthless. Could Sakura fight evenly with Lee during the retrieval mission or even beat him now? No. Her genjutsu is simply high because she's good at countering them. What you have to realize is that certain stats are maxed out in Akatsuki so they don't get fully represented on the scale. For example Kakuzu and Kisame's ninjutsu is clearly superior to Kakashi's yet they're all rated 5. You can't just use the stats to determine how strong someone is. You use the stats along with feats. Asuma has no feats to put him anywhere near Kakuzu, Kisame, or Deidara.

 

What I was referring to was the first time Asuma met Kisame in the Anime. It seemed like Kisame and Itachi were just toying with Asuma, Kurenai and Kakashi. Only when Gai showed up did Itachi decide that fighting them all would take too long. They didn't seem like they were outmatcted, they just decided that it wasn't wort the effort. And yeah, databook numbers arent really a good way to predict fights.

 

Fights aren't a good way to predict fights. Just look at the end of the chunin exam the fight between Orochimaru + Shodaime + Nidaime vs Sandaime. Naruto as he is now could take both of them so easily it doesn't even rate as effort and yet supposedly they are all stronger than him(well except for Orochimaru though the manga seems to be heading that way so who knows?).

 

You guys need to remember that the manga is suffering from massive power creep. Everything earlier in the series will be a lot weaker since he was still being slightly reasonable in what people can do.

 

I think the problem with Itachi's stats in the databooks is that the cap is 5.

 

Databooks are stupid. Can't this argument go somewhere else?

 

I feel as though I'm to blame for this argument by not stating that I was talking about Akatsuki not being credible threats in most fanfiction rather than the actual manga...

 

Really? They usually come across as quite dangerous in the fanfics I read, though that's not as much as it used to be. The exceptions being one where Sasori and Orochimaru were bitchslapped by Hiruzen because he's a boss and another where Orochimaru was just horrifically nerfed with a side-order of stupid.

 

The problem I have with how Akatsuki is portrayed is that as villains, they tend to be rigid in their skillsets, when conventional logic dictates that as S-Rank shinobi (and thus, horribly brilliant and creative killers by definition), they would probably as good as or better at thinking up on-the-fly strategies, which tend to be the ones that kill them. At the very least, they'd be smart enough to withdraw when things start taking a turn for the worst.

Instead, there's no growth of skill or ninja logic shown. When the Akatsuki are inevitably tracked down and confronted by teams of the Konoha Rookies + an odd jounin or two, instead of breaking off and calmly toddling right on their way (because let's be fair, their goals are usually already complete by the time they catch them. Ex. Gaara, Kakuzu's bounty, MOST OF THE TAILED BEASTS), they up and decide 'No. Wait. I AM going to fight this battle, against all conventional ninja logic.'

The closest thing to high-level ninja tactics I've seen was Zabuza - who, frankly, only failed at chopping Team 7's heads off because of a titanic asspull (I get that they recognize the rabbit as being ninja bred, fine...but in what way does that indicate that they're about to be ambushed? Also, are you telling me elite shinobi like Haku and Zabuza can't keep track of fucking rabbits?). Zabuza, despite this stunning failure, then proceeds to trap Kakashi (the ninjutsu expert) in a Water Prison (a ninjutsu). When Naruto turns this around on him and Kakashi gets the upper hand, he immediately fakes his own death so he can come back on his own terms with the operative he already had ready to assist his retreat.

That shit right there, that's what ninja do. And Zabuza is supposedly only an A-Rank shinobi, a missing-nin, cut off from conventional resources. Meanwhile, Akatsuki is by all appearances a fairly lucrative freelancing ninja company on the side, able to pay for Kakuzu, who I assume doesn't come cheap, and however much it costs to supply 9 other S-Rank shinobi and whatever they do in their spare time (IE: Konan's sea of 1 bajillion explosive tags), not to mention what I assume is the resources of Amegakure. Does the upgrade from A to S-Rank come with a free Idiot Ball or something?

 

To be fair, many of those Akatsuki were shown to have some serious character flaws that prevented them from simply turning and running. The young guys (Deidara and Itachi) and Sasori took their fights personally and weren't really thinking about Akatsuki's goals when they met their end. Kakuzu was face to face with his target, so he wasn't really doing anything he shouldn't have been. Hidan was a moron. Nagato, Konan, and Kisame died for their beliefs.

So quite frankly I disagree with you. I don't think any of them were handed the idiot ball. I think their choices made sense given their personalities.

The rabbit...

Zabuza kept it and used it in that fight to escape getting stuck by Naruto's kunai. He used it for kawarimi, and that was its purpose. It was intentional, not a mistake.

 

I think the mistake Lamora was referring to is that the rabbit's coat wasn't in season and so he gave up the element of surprise or something.

 

It was a trained rabbit that was kept in captivity to be used as a ninja tool, which is also why it's coat was the wrong color.