RELATED: Naruto: Every Character’s Age, Height, And Birthday
That being said, many characters in Naruto either never lived up to their full potential or were weakened to the point where many people would consider them to be a shadow of their former selves. This is especially true with the following characters, who were nerfed despite showing immense strength when the situation called for it.
10 Rock Lee
Rock Lee’s story in the first half of Naruto was genuinely a blast to witness. His battle against Gaara is arguably the best fight in the Chunin Exams arc, with his drunken boxing style being another source of entertainment.
However, when Shippuden rolled out, Rock Lee barely contributed to any major event in the story. All taijutsu displays were reserved for Might Guy instead, with Rock Lee taking on a more passive role and barely showing his development as a fighter after the time skip.
9 Neji Hyuga
Neji’s death is one of the saddest moments during the War arc, and also shows just how poorly he was written after the time skip. The man was hailed as a genin genius who had quickly ascended the ranks to become a jonin in record time!
However, his abilities remained fairly stagnant after the time skip barring a few impressive displays. All of this culminated in a meaningless sacrifice that was barely worth discussing as well, which is a shame.
8 Kaguya Otsutsuki
The mother of all shinobi is a title that shouldn’t be taken lightly, and Kaguya definitely placed herself as a massive threat despite appearing out of nowhere. However, given her immense stature as the first shinobi, it’s surprising to see just how poorly her strength was displayed in the anime.
RELATED: Naruto: Strongest Mangekyo Sharingan Abilities, Ranked
Naruto one-upped her several times during their battle, with Team 7 being able to seal her within a few hours through the magic of teamwork. It’s a slap in the face to the history of the shinobi and made her inclusion in the story pretty pointless.
7 Obito Uchiha
Obito Uchiha is a great villain with pretty believable motivations, even if the whole idea of being hung up on his crush might be perceived as weak by many fans. Regardless, his powers were amazing, and it seemed that the advent of the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki form would spell doom for the shinobi world.
Instead, not only was Obito unable to use his Kamui powers in this state (something that Madara was able to accomplish with a stolen Sharingan) but he wasn’t even able to fight off a Black Zetsu who should’ve paled in comparison to his heightened powers. Perhaps its fitting that Naruto’s Talk-no-Jutsu was what stopped this shinobi since his weaknesses would’ve been lain bare in an all-out battle.
6 Kankuro
Early on, the trio of Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari seemed extremely powerful and pretty intimidating to boot. However, over time, only one of these three actually managed to reach their full potential.
Meanwhile, Kankuro was just used as a tool to hype up Sasori as the strongest puppet user. He got some minor moments to shine during the war, but even these moments weren’t enough to redeem Kankuro’s strength in the eyes of many.
5 Temari
While people might slate Kankuro for being effectively useless during Naruto Shippuden, at least he bothered to try and fight one of the members of the Akatsuki. Meanwhile, Temari barely did anything across the series that justified her presence as being one of Gaara’s powerful bodyguards.
That being said, her slow-budding romance with Shikamaru was still pretty great to witness in the series as a bit of nice fanservice. This slightly made up for the lack of any strength she should’ve displayed during the second half of Naruto.
4 Deidara
For what it’s worth, Deidara was a pretty powerful antagonist who managed to capture Gaara and even gave Sasuke a tough time. However, after being reanimated, he was a shell of his former self… both figuratively and literally.
RELATED: Naruto: All Akatsuki Members Ranked By Strength
He never really showed the full potential of his explosive power, which is a puzzling thing to do given that his undead body regenerated anyway. This should’ve given him full impunity to just use his strongest blasts from the get-go without having to worry about his own self being caught in the crossfire.
3 Minato Namikaze
The Fourth Hokage’s immense strength was on full display during Naruto Shippuden, with his reveal as Naruto’s father being quite engaging. However, the issues with Minato’s power level come from the fact that the majority of his techniques weren’t revealed until later on during the war.
The inclusion of Sage Mode is a huge topic of contention here since Minato should’ve ideally used this power to take out the Nine-Tails and Obito instead of sticking to his base form and getting both himself and his wife killed. The true answer here is that Kishimoto gave Sage Mode to Minato during the War so that he could justify his presence during such a high-stakes fight… but this last-minute power-up raised more questions than answers in the long run.
2 Sasuke Uchiha
For what it’s worth, both Sasuke and Naruto were pretty powerful throughout the series and always escalated in power over time. The nerfs came where Boruto came out, with the younger generation needing to be prioritized instead.
As a result, Sasuke turned from the most powerful dojutsu user around to a shinobi whose chakra ran out after just a few techniques. Sure, he might not have the same chakra reserves as Naruto… but that’s still not an excuse for how many times he’s mentioned this excuse in the new series.
1 Naruto Uzumaki
After becoming the Seventh Hokage, most people assumed that Naruto would simply elevate his power level even more to protect Konoha. Instead, barring the introduction of Baryon Mode, Hokage Naruto’s displays in battle have been nowhere near as dominant as most people would expect.
With the death of Kurama, it seems that events are poised perfectly to lead up to his death, which has been hinted at from the very beginning. Losing the Nine-Tails is definitely a huge nerf for Naruto, but it’s far from the only one that plagued Naruto throughout Boruto’s run.
MORE: Naruto: The Oldest Characters
