Before The Verdict

Akatsuki

Size of the Naruto Planet
(& Related Calcs)

There are a few calculations that we have linked below that have the size of the Naruto planet at sizes much larger than Earth; about 278.2 thousand kilometers.

To explain the calculation method, there’s a giant crater left by the Bijuu clash during the War arc, which can be measured to be around two dozen kilometers by comparing it to the Eight-Tails, a giant creature consistently around hundreds of meters tall. From measuring the crater and miscellaneous other scaling figures like the island and Juubi crater, one can find the size of the God Tree’s roots, reaching nearly 158 kilometers in width. And through this root, we can determine the size of the Frost Country (where the God Tree is located within) to be 7.3 thousand kilometers at its thinnest, and use that to compare it to the full size of the planet.

In addition to the size of the planet, there’s a map of the world’s various countries shown during the War Arc, in which Turtle Island is visible and of significant size in comparison to the Frost Country. Measuring said island’s size off of this map would result in a ridiculously large size of nearly 4 thousand kilometers. For reference, that’s about as wide as Australia.

Naturally, these are pretty large sizes for even relatively small countries and landmarks within the Naruto world, which ends up affecting the impressiveness of plenty of feats. Tailed Beast Bombs end up reaching multi-continental power, Tsunade destroying a country actually has energy comparable to blowing up a continent, Kurama’s Tailed Beast Bombs can reach up to planet level, etc. However, only the first one comfortably scales to the Akatsuki. The most important feats that would apply involve the Akatsuki themselves largely involve Turtle Island.

First off is Deidara’s direct feat of flipping the Turtle Island with a C1 bomb. Given the “?!!” speech bubble, it indicates to us that the observing characters (like the animals and characters on the island, and even the living Turtle Island itself), are reacting in the time the feat takes to complete. In that span, Turtle Island flips by approximately 45 degrees. With the island’s Australia level mass being flipped at sub-relativistic speeds, the feat comes down to 7 yottatons of TNT for just one C1 bomb. What’s noteworthy is that C1 is considered Deidara’s weakest bomb, making all of his stronger explosions, and superior Akatsuki like Sasori or Pain, scale above that.

The other feat related to Turtle Island is Might Guy’s Daytime Tiger, which pushed up a large amount of water surrounding the island. Same as Deidara, the “?!!” and “What?!” speech bubbles occur right after the Hirudora and water are launched, implying that the onlookers of Naruto and Killer B and others only reacted in time after the shockwave had expanded to the size we see on panel. Given the size of the blast, thickness of water, and the speed it was raised, the feat can range from 22 to 140 yottatons of TNT. Kisame was able to survive the attack point blank, and while he was defeated, his body was still intact enough for him to be conscious and even attempt a counter, forcing Guy to attack him once more to put him down. Similarly enough, that’s a direct feat for the Akatsuki, and one that would scale to members like Itachi and the like.

These are certainly higher-end calculations that are debatable. Turtle Island being that big, while blatant on the map, isn’t 100% iron clad and is never portrayed as large as that anywhere other than on said map. If you were to measure its size through any other method, you would get results much lower. It’s likely drawn just for visualization instead of being a complete 1-to-1 comparison, and Kishimoto certainly didn’t intend for it to be that big whenever he focused on it. With that in mind, when discussing these high-end calculations, it is important to only do so in the context of comparing them to other, similar arguments on the opposing side. What we mean by this is, if you are debating a Naruto character against an opponent who also has feats that are reliant on areas of inconsistent size (like Onigashima in the case of One Piece, and the Wandenreich or Seireitei in the case of Bleach), these high-end map calculations would be equally valid (or invalid) as high-end map calculations on the opposing sides.

Setting Turtle Island aside, however, the overall size calculated for the planet itself should be fine and is more consistent. The Kakashi Retsuden novel states that an average Shinobi would take 30 days to travel from the Redaku Country to the Hidden Leaf Village. We also know from the Gaara Hiden novel that Shinobi are faster than horses and more tenacious than camels, capable of traveling a thousand miles without a single break, and can run even faster than blimps or trains. Blimps in Naruto have a stated value of about 70 kilometers per hour. Using that speed for how fast Shinobi can run on average and assuming the Shinobi travel 16 hours a day and use the other 8 for rest, it means the distance between the two locations is 33600 kilometers, with half of Earth’s circumference being 20037.5 kilometers. Meaning, even if the Redaku Country and Hidden Leaf Village are on the complete other side of the planet, the Naruto world would still have a size larger than Earth.

Higher Naruto Metas
(& Why the Akatsuki Don’t Scale)

While the Warlords scale to nearly all of the feats in One Piece, and the strongest Espada like Grimmjow should at least downscale most of the feats in Bleach by the time of the War Arc and Can’t Fear Your Own World, the Akatsuki are notably different in that none of them scale to the strongest characters in Naruto. While top tier Naruto feats will be listed in the calc list below, a lot of them don’t apply to the Akatsuki, so it’s important to define where we’re capping them.

During Shippuden, the strongest member of the Akatsuki was Obito, who after implanting his Rinnegan was able to contend to an extent against KCM2 Naruto. Basically the second version of Naruto’s Kurama Chakra Mode that he attained after befriending Kurama. White Mask Obito is also portrayed as on par with Edo Madara, who was notably not as strong as a full-fledged alive Madara. At best, this would potentially put him around the level of a hostless Kurama, who is not as strong without a host as he is with one.

After this point, Obito absorbs the Ten-Tails and gets a power boost, after which point Naruto and Sasuke get more power boosts to take him on. He’s defeated, and then Madara absorbs the Ten-Tails and is even stronger than Ten-Tails Obito, and the power escalates from there with Naruto and Sasuke’s Six Paths powers and the arrival of Kaguya, the final boss. All of which is to say that since the Ten-Tails is restricted here, a “normal” Obito stops scaling to anything from the point where he absorbs the Ten-Tails onward, since the characters have well surpassed his normal state at that point. This goes for the rest of the Akatsuki as well, who are practically all dead by this time.

Orochimaru scales a little higher since he’s still around in Boruto, but the most you could give him is a bunch of nameless shinobi charging a chakra cannon that caused massive explosions in space. The only notable character he fights in Boruto, Victor, is a Kara Inner and thus should hypothetically be pretty strong, but doesn’t fight anyone notable other than Orochimaru and Konohamaru (who himself scales nowhere at the time) so there are no great scaling chains to be found through him. Orochimaru’s son, Mitsuki, has some good feats and statements with Sage Mode, but he also blitzed Orochimaru even the very first time he used Sage Mode as a child, so scaling Orochimaru to him doesn’t really work out either.

So, what top-tier feats are we not scaling the Akatsuki to? Well, the Ten-Tails can create continent-spanning natural disasters and planet level explosions, as well as serve as the gravity core that created the literal moon. Ten-Tails Obito and Madara can both manipulate the God Tree, a massive tree encircling the planet. Characters on par with Kaguya, like Toneri, can split the moon in half and launch it toward the planet with enough force to destroy the world. Rinnegan Sasuke can TK massive planetoids at absurd speeds, requiring energy well into planet level. Adult Naruto can create explosions that eclipse part of the planet. Naruto and Sasuke can also create an entire moon and launch it into orbit, as could Hagoromo and Hamura in the past. Keep in mind that all of these feats pertain to a much larger planet than ours and would thus accordingly be well beyond “baseline” planetary.

There are also a handful of feats that you could argue if you wanted to make the case that top tier Naruto characters are “cosmic” in scale. Most famously, Kaguya was able to destroy her dimension on an atomic level with her Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb, with her dimension at minimum containing a star and potentially being a full space-time, depending on how you take a few statements from the manga and novels. Less famously, Kaguya is actually able to move her multiple dimensions around using an ability called Amenominaka, transporting the dimensions to her instead of herself to them. Lastly, in the Road to Ninja movie, the Gedou Mazou (the husk of the Ten-Tails) is used to create an alternate reality that at minimum contains a moon, planet, sun, and numerous stars, and was described as an exact copy of the main reality.

It’s important to be aware that these feats exist and that top tier Naruto characters are a lot stronger than the stats that we’re going to be giving the Akatsuki in this blog, but that the Akatsuki do not benefit from these feats in any way. We didn’t forget about this stuff, the Akatsuki just aren’t like that.

Espada

Reiatsu Crush

So let’s get the big question with any Bleach matchup out the way first. Reiatsu Crush. First things first, for those of you who have never been in a Bleach debate before, what the FUCK is Reiatsu Crush?

Reiatsu, as helpfully explained in our glossary and Espada sections, is the force that can be applied to a target by exerting one’s Reiryoku. In-series this is oftentimes presented through the lens of a character flexing their power and overwhelming a foe of weaker spirit and strength. The effects of this can range from a feeling of fear or weakness, to unconsciousness, to even death in the event that the power gap between the user and target is great enough. At the start of the Arrancar Saga, Ulquiorra even remarked that being in Yammy’s presence was gradually crushing Tatsuki’s soul, despite the fact that she had resisted his soul-sucking Gonzui just moments prior.

For this reason, a lot of Bleach supporters oftentimes fall back on “Reiatsu” as a one-word explanation for how a Bleach character can instantly kill an opponent or crush their soul into smithereens just by flexing their aura too hard. If a character doesn’t have good enough soul or death hax resistance, they’re cooked, regardless of how strong they are – or so the argument goes.

With that in mind, can the Akatsuki and Warlords even STAND in the Espada’s PRESENCE without instantly dying an agonizing death from sheer aura overload? The answer is… well, yesn’t.

For starters it’s worth clarifying that Reiatsu Crush isn’t usually fatal. Aizen was famously able to kill people with his Reiatsu alone by walking past them… but they were just normal people with no special powers at all, he wasn’t able to just kill literally everyone he came across. Though Ulquiorra did imply Yammy could have eventually crushed Tatsuki’s soul, she was able to survive in his presence for a decent period beforehand, and she’s notably a mostly regular human as well, with only minor spiritual power, enough to just see Hollows and nothing more.

In most other cases, the attack is more psychological. For example, Ichigo feeling as though Kenpachi had his sword pressed against his throat, or Grimmjow being so overwhelmed by Aizen that he fell to his knees. In the majority of situations, provided an opponent isn’t complete fodder relative to the attacker, this is going to be the extent of the damage, it’s not just going to instantly kill an opponent who’s actually strong.

“But it crushes the soul! If you have no spiritual power, can’t it hax you?”

Not a bad question, but it’s worth noting that after Ichigo trained in the Dangai, Aizen believed that Ichigo had forsaken all of his spiritual power for pure physical power, hypothesizing that Ichigo had managed to become strong enough to challenge him that way. Now, Aizen was wrong, to be clear. This was an incorrect guess on his part. But the important part is that Aizen believed that Ichigo could reasonably resist his Reiatsu by just being physically strong enough. Meaning that gaining any kind of advantage via Reiatsu is contingent on the attacker being stronger than the target.

So in short, it is a real thing and is a useful tool against opponents who are already weaker than the user, since it will stun lock them and prevent them from fighting effectively. But it’s not just an insta-win, and if the target is as strong or stronger than the user it won’t be effective at all. Notably as well, both the Warlords and Akatsuki have a degree of soul resistance (more on this later) which should by all accounts make them more resistant than the characters whom the Espada can fatally affect with Reiatsu, such as Tatsuki or nameless Hollows in Hueco Mundo.

Speed of Ceros & Balas

An ever-present point of debate amongst Bleach power scalers is the question of Ceros and how fast they are, namely whether they are legitimate beams of light that move at light-speed, or slower magical light of unspecific speed.

This is important to discuss because Ichigo was able to parry Ceros as early as the Substitute Shinigami arc, during his fight against the Menos Grande, and thus would upscale essentially the entire verse from light-speed as time goes on and characters get continuously faster. For example, one of the Espada’s signature techniques, Bala, is explicitly 20 times faster than a Cero, and thus 20 times FTL if we are to assume an ordinary Cero is real light. Even more impressively, Starrk is so fast that he can fire a thousand Ceros consecutively at such a rapid speed that they all appear to fire simultaneously.

To get the arguments for and against out of the way, it is most definitely undeniable that Ceros have been referred to explicitly as light or beams of light many times in the guidebooks, and the novels have similar statements, even referring to them more specifically as “rays” of light. In Can’t Fear Your Own World, a Cero is even depicted diffusing, which is technically something that various types of energy can undergo (something becoming less concentrated as it spreads out from a central point), but is most commonly used to refer to the way in which light spreads out over distance.

When arguing to the contrary, one would typically need to lean on one or more of four main arguments. One, Ceros are composed of Reiryoku and therefore are not literally light, so all of the statements of them being light are hyperbolic, metaphorical, or both. Two, Ceros in the manga and even more frequently in the anime create explosions upon impact and are described to have “density” in the novels, therefore do not abide by laser standards and thus should be thrown out. Three, there are numerous anti-feats throughout Bleach suggesting the characters are much slower than light. And four, there are no supporting feats to back up the idea that everyone in the verse is FTL on a consistent basis.

Starting from one and working our way up, the notion that attacks that utilize Reiryoku cannot be light is just a misunderstanding of how Bleach’s power system works, and is definitely the weakest argument of the four. Reiryoku is spiritual energy and can be used to empower various substances and forms of attack, providing the various superhuman abilities utilized by spiritually powerful characters in the series. That is to say, there are many attacks that utilize Reiryoku that are not “just” Reiryoku; for example Harribel’s water, Toshiro’s ice, Yoruichi’s lightning, and so on and so forth all utilize Reiryoku. That does not mean that those attacks are not water, ice, or lightning, so there’s no reason why a Cero cannot be made of light.

Ceros creating explosions is a much more valid concern, but one that is fairly easily explained. For one, the fact that the light is empowered by spiritual energy in the first place actually makes this less of an issue. Any minor discrepancies with how the light is depicted could easily be explained by the fact that it is imbued with spiritual energy, and that would not require its speed to be decreased at all. More pertinently, lasers actually can create explosions through superheating, essentially heating up the things that they touch until they explode. Because of this, most VS sites don’t view explosions as a solitary disqualifier anymore, as there are contexts in which it is possible, so long as the beams conform to other standards.

The fact that the beams have “density” is irrelevant since light and other forms of energy have density, it’s just referring to the amount of energy concentrated in one space (which is what the novel was referring to in regard to Ceros).

Regarding anti-feats, there are definitely a few. Gin’s Bankai supposedly extends at Mach 500, which is depicted as extremely impressive, and while he claims to have been lying about its speed, he specifically says it doesn’t extend as fast as he said, so even if that number is inaccurate (guidebooks back it up) it certainly shouldn’t be lower than the actual speed. In the guidebooks, Ichigo in the Soul Society Arc is stated to have speed “like lightning”, and in CFYOW, Candice’s lightning arrows are specifically said to be slower than real lightning.

This one kind of just depends on your standards. For what it’s worth, all of these examples do exist, but most of them aren’t especially consistent with one another if you compare them. If Ichigo is really exactly as fast as lightning, that would put him faster than Gin’s Bankai, which was much faster than him at a later point in the series. It would also put him above Candice’s arrows even back in the Soul Society arc, with Candice being an antagonist from the final arc of Bleach, whom Ichigo fought when he was vastly stronger and faster than he was in the first major arc. All of which is to say, if you’re looking for some deeply consistent narrative intention for Bleach speed, you’re probably not going to find it in these sporadic statements. All things considered, they’re probably a lot less damning than the anti-feats you’ll find in most series. Ichigo going “woah no way” when told something is Mach 500 or being compared to lightning by a simile from a guidebook is hardly something worth getting super picky over.

In comparison, segueing a bit into the “is FTL consistent?” topic, it’s if anything much more easily supported that the majority of the verse is FTL than otherwise, even disregarding Ceros entirely. In the Soul Society arc, Uryu outspeeds his own shadow, requiring FTL speed, and lieutenant level shinigami are able to dodge Negacion light beams even while off guard. In the Arrancar Saga, even Aaroniero, the weakest Espada, was able to dodge natural sunlight relatively casually. In the Thousand Year Blood War arc, Shunsui’s lieutenant Nanao is able to react to Lille Barro’s light beams despite the fact that she had never been in a fight or used a Zanpakuto beforehand.

With all that in mind, it’s actually not very inconsistent at all to say that the majority of characters are FTL, even very early on in the series or when looking at very low-tier characters. If anything, those showings are actually much more consistent with one another than the three-ish anti-feats which all contradict each other. And if we are to accept that Soul Society arc characters are already FTL off of, say, Uryu’s shadow feat, it would make sense for Ceros to be lightspeed, as their descriptions imply, by virtue of the fact that they are a threat to anybody at all.

With all that in mind, we will be erring on the side of their legitimacy. In summary:

Stated to be light in both the guidebooks and novels
Diffuse realistically in line with how light does, in the novels
Consistent with at least four other feats of fodder or near-fodder characters showcasing FTL speed
Small visual contradictions like explosions can be explained through superheating
While there are three notable anti-feats across the franchise, they are contradictory with one another and outweighed by a higher number of FTL feats from the manga

Bleach’s Realm Sizes
(& Related Calcs)

Realm sizes have been a point of contention within Bleach debates; mainly, are they planet sized? If not, how much bigger? Can they even be a full universe individually, or just all together?

This is important to bring up, as a lot of feats within the series, as even Soul Society arc Ichigo was able to block the Sokyoku, which can destroy the Soul Society at full power. Later on, Yamamoto is stated to be able to burn down the rest of Soul Society with his Bankai, and Senjumaru sent a shockwave that shook all the three realms. Most importantly, Soul King level characters are able to stabilize the three realms to prevent them from collapsing, with the Soul King’s death sending incredible tremors throughout the Earth from Soul Society, and Yhwach at full power being capable of destroying not just the three realms, but the Dangai connecting them and the Garganta surrounding them.

First off, the bare minimum for these realms should be planetary in size. That much is clear with Earth, and the realms of Hueco Mundo and Soul Society being portrayed as relative in size. Memories of Nobody, which is canon, even portrays the planets to be of equal size to one another.

There are arguments to make the size of the planet bigger than our own, due to this shot. Notice how the point of view is at ground level and the gates of the Seireitei are fully visible (four slats), and the ground is also visible past that point. Meaning the horizon distance from ground level is at least further away than the near end of the Seireitei. At an observer height of an average human, this would mean the horizon of the Soul Society reaches over 57 kilometers. Backscaling the size of a planet via this, the diameter of Soul Society to have a horizon distance that expansive at such a low height would require a planetary size of over 1.8 million kilometers.

That said, that’s the size of the main planets within the realms, but not the size of the realms as a whole, which should be much bigger. In the Thousand Year Blood War anime, we’re given a graph and an expansive shot of the Human World and Soul Society, with the Dangai in between, surrounded by dozens of Valley of Screams, alternatively known as Kogyoku. These are small pocket dimensions created by Blanks, introduced in Memories of Nobody, and are confirmed to be big enough to contain not just a planet, but a star, with its own day and night cycle and giving off natural light. By comparing the sizes of the realms to the Kogyoku’s on screen, the full size of the realms would be within dozens of astronomical units, and well within cosmic in size. The Dangai connecting them is a bit larger, and the full Garganta containing both these realms and the dozens of Kogyoku’s would be much bigger.

There’s some contention on if the realms could be universe sized, and while certainly possible, it’s a bit unclear at the moment. We know the three realms were born from the primordial sea being split into three, but how exactly big that sea was is never made explicit. Likewise, while Senjumaru is said to shake the three realms of existence, it’s not exactly full definitive proof of the realms composing a universe, even all together. Should they each be solar system sized or so, they’d still compromise ‘all of existence’. That said, the Thousand Year Blood War anime is soon to be over, and perhaps more information will be given to support higher interpretations. Until then, something more in the range of planet to solar system-sized is easier to prove.

In short, the planets of the three realms should be as big as Earth, with potential room to argue significantly larger. The full scope of the realms should be much bigger than the distance between the Earth and Sun, by dozens of times. While the realms could be universe sized, either individually or as a whole, there’s not enough concrete information to make that definitive. Yet.

Warlords of the Sea

Size of the One Piece Planet
(& Related Calcs)

Perhaps the most clear cut example of the three, the One Piece planet is widely known in VS as being significantly larger than our own.

There’s a few ways to get this size, but the main method is simple; during the Alabasta arc, we see a shot of the entirety of Alabasta in comparison to its river. This river is about 50 kilometers wide, and Alabasta dwarfs it, measuring out to be nearly 8 thousand kilometers. And then in the same panel, we see Alabasta and a far wide shot of the surrounding ocean, with no nearby islands or anything in sight. This body of water, at minimum, is nearly 100 thousand kilometers, already much bigger than Earth.

This section of water serves as the minimum width of the Grand Line, a large ocean route that encircles the planet. Alabasta itself is located within the Grand Line, meaning that the large section of water is part of the Grand Line. Through this, we can compare the size of the planet to the Grand Line’s minimum width to get a diameter of over 1 million kilometers.

While absurdly large, this is also supported in-universe, with a model of the planet showing several surrounding celestial bodies and moons surrounding it. Even just measuring the size of a normal moon relative to it would get sizes much bigger than Earth.

With this size, the main feats affected would be Whitebeard making quakes that nobody on the planet would be able to escape from, requiring planetary wide range, which can get into yottatons. That’s the main feat most scalable to the Warlords, given this was Whitebeard far from his prime and their performances against comparable threats.

Now, there are more impressive feats technically, and both heavily reliant on the size of the planet.

Moon Explosion

Currently, the most impressive feat in One Piece actually isn’t Whitebeard’s quakes, or Luffy’s Bajrang Gun, or anything that you would expect, but rather from a random cover story where an unnamed figure causes a massive explosion on the moon. Because the blast launches a massive amount of debris a large distance within the time it takes an observer on the ground to react in surprise, the kinetic energy of this explosion is tremendous, especially when coupled with the large size of the One Piece planet (and by extension moons). Specifically, it comes out to nearly 9 quettatons of TNT.

Unfortunately, given the lack of elaboration on the cause of this explosion, it’s impossible to scale this to anyone in the verse currently, let alone the Warlords. Trying to use it as an argument is just a dead-end.

The Mother Flame

The second most impressive feat in One Piece, currently, is the destruction of the Lulusia Kingdom via Imu’s Ancient Weapon, which was powered by a limitless energy source called the Mother Flame. This blast altered the sea level across the entire planet, which given the size of the One Piece world would require nearly 70 yottatons of TNT to potentially over 2 ronnatons on the high-end.

Unfortunately, nobody currently scales to the Mother Flame, so much like the moon explosion, this cannot be applied to the Warlords. In the future, this may be a worthwhile discussion point, but for the time being it’s another dead-end.

Comprehensive Energy Scale

Comprehensive Speed Scale

Naruto

🍜 Kid Sasuke dodges Zaku’s sound waves (Mach 1.2)
🍜 Gaara’s sand blocks needles (Mach 3.6)
🍜 Gaara moves a lot of sand (Mach 19.8)
🍜 Temari deflects Tayuya’s sound waves (Mach 24.3)
🍜 Gaara’s sand blocks explosion (Mach 29.2)
🍜 Sage Naruto disperses debris (Mach 73.9)
🍜 Base Naruto scales the God Tree (Mach 85.4)
🍜 Sage Naruto’s Rasenshuriken pulls clouds (Mach 120.6)
🍜 Tailed Beast Bombs (Mach 145.4)
🍜 Pain’s Shinra Tensei (Mach 206.7)
🍜 Six-Tails’ tailed beast bomb (Mach 251.2)
🍜 Sage Naruto’s Rasengan (Mach 284.4)
🍜 Pain’s Chibaku Tensei formation (Mach 360)
🍜 Kurama and Gyuuki’s combined TBB (Mach 604.1)
🍜 Kurama’s tailed beast bomb (anime) (Mach 616.9)
🍜 Naruto and Sasuke run to the Valley of the End (Mach 902.2)
🍜 Pain dodges Sage Naruto’s Rasenshuriken (Mach 1174)
🍜 Naruto cuts the God Tree (Mach 447.6 – Mach 1396.6)
🍜 Onoki’s flight speed (Mach 303.5 – Mach 1517.6)
🍜 Kurama and Tailed Beast clash (Mach 3040)
🍜 Black Zetsu absorbs chakra through the God Tree (Mach 3245.4)
🍜 Toneri moves the moon (Mach 550.3 – Mach 3632.2)
🍜 Base Form Naruto’s moon hole (Mach 5056.2)
🍜 Sage Naruto’s massive Rasenshuriken (Mach 6049.4)
🍜 Nameless shinobi make a mud wall (Mach 7706)
🍜 Flashback Kurama’s TBB (1.2% speed of light)
🍜 Deidara flips Turtle Island (1.4% speed of light)
🍜 Juubi tailed beast bomb (Mach 1914.7 – 2.2% speed of light)
🍜 Dan’s ghost flight speed (2.7% speed of light)
🍜 Guy’s Hirudora VS Kisame (1.6% – 3.9% speed of light)
🍜 Storm Adult Sasuke’s meteors (4.8% speed of light)
🍜 Orange Mask Obito reacts to A’s blitz (13.7% speed of light)
🍜 Momoshiki and Kinshiki fly to Earth (16.6% speed of light)
🍜 Near-Death Itachi blocks Kirin (Mach 1342.7 – 16.8% speed of light)
🍜 Chakra Cannon speed (Mach 7454.6 – 18.6% speed of light)
🍜 Toneri cuts the moon in half (19.1% speed of light)
🍜 Hashirama outspeeds Tailed Beast Bomb (22.6% speed of light)
🍜 Sixth Gate squad destroys meteor (Mach 152.2 – 26.4% speed of light)
🍜 Eida’s Omnipotence (40.2% speed of light)
🍜 Madara absorbs the God Tree (3.1% – 46.5% speed of light)
🍜 Kakashi blocks Itachi’s water bullets (58.8% speed of light)
🍜 Rinnegan Sasuke pulls Chibaku Tensei (2.3% – 61.9% speed of light)
🍜 Madara reacts to Mabui’s Heavenly Transport (31% – 63% speed of light)
🍜 Sasuke’s Kirin moves super fast (2% speed of light – Speed of Light)
🍜 Haku’s movement between mirrors (Lightspeed)
🍜 Itachi’s water bullets (Lightspeed)
🍜 Killer B and Raikage A’s lariat (Lightspeed)
🍜 Kid Rock Lee outspeeds his own shadow (FTL)
🍜 Land of Waves KN0 Naruto outspeeds Haku (1.6 times FTL)
🍜 Six Paths Naruto dodges Madara’s Light Fang (2.2 – 3.3 times FTL)
🍜 KN0 Naruto outspeeds Haku again (3.8 times FTL)
🍜 Gokage Summit Sasuke blocks Mifune’s slash (5.4 times FTL)
🍜 Jugo blocks Raikage A’s lariat (6.8 times FTL)
🍜 Adult Naruto dodges Delta’s lasers (11.2 times FTL)
🍜 Nameless shinobi fire quicklime super fast (58.3 times FTL)
🍜 Gokage Summit Gaara outspeeds Raikage A (124.4 times FTL)
🍜 Kaguya’s Expansive Truth Seeking Orb explosion (Storm) (166.4 times FTL)
🍜 Taka Sasuke outspeeds Killer B’s lariat (4.7 – 193.3 times FTL)
🍜 War Arc Lee and Guy outspeed Haku (244.4 times FTL)
🍜 Kisame vomits water really fast (587 – 2925.8 times FTL)

Bleach

👻 Dangai Ichigo’s mountain-busting shockwaves (Mach 21.6)
👻 Ichigo’s Getsuga Tensho reaches the clouds (Mach 170.5)
👻 Ichigo and Ulquiorra’s clash (manga) (Mach 245.1)
👻 True Shikai Ichigo casual travel speed (Mach 369.8)
👻 Ichigo reacts to Gin’s Bankai expansion (Mach 239.1 – Mach 625.4)
👻 Ichigo and Ulquiorra’s clash (anime) (Mach 2146.4)
👻 Kenpachi VS Gremmy’s meteor (anime) (Mach 3633.5)
👻 Reishukaku shockwave speed (Mach 3645.2)
👻 Yhwach lifts the Wandenreich (9.5% – 16.2% speed of light)
👻 Speed of a Cero (Lightspeed)
👻 Soul Society Uryu outspeeds his own shadow (FTL)
👻 Mimihagi’s travel speed (2.8 times FTL)
👻 Yhwach’s Auswählen speed (4.7 times FTL)
👻 Speed of a Bala (20 times FTL)
👻 Hisagi blitzes a barrage of Balas (anime) (>>20 times FTL)
👻 Starrk’s Cero volley (1276.2 times FTL)
👻 Soul King’s shockwave crosses the realms (1509.7 times FTL)

One Piece

🏴‍☠️ Drum Island Luffy’s Gum Gum Bazooka (Mach 27.4)
🏴‍☠️ Skypiea Nami blocks lightning (Mach 73.5)
🏴‍☠️ Skypiea Zoro lightning timing (Mach 94)
🏴‍☠️ Enies Lobby Nami reacts to lightning (Mach 122.8)
🏴‍☠️ Usopp’s projectile speed (Mach 135.8)
🏴‍☠️ Khalifa reacts to lightning (Mach 494)
🏴‍☠️ Gecko Moria’s shadow reaches West Blue (Mach 544)
🏴‍☠️ Luffy dodges Foxy’s Noro Noro Beam (6.8% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Thriller Bark Zoro dodges Kuma’s laser (8.3% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Sabaody Luffy dodges Pacifista laser (18.3% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Post-Timeskip Luffy reacts to Pacifista laser (manga) (38.6% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Marineford Luffy and Ivankov dodge Pacifista laser (41.9% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Sanji dodges a laser (49.7% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Post-Timeskip Luffy reacts to Pacifista laser (anime) (88.4% speed of light)
🏴‍☠️ Vinsmoke Niji lightspeed technique (Lightspeed)
🏴‍☠️ Vinsmoke Ichiji keeps pace with his lasers (FTL)
🏴‍☠️ Sabaody Zoro reacts to Pacifista laser (anime) (3.9 times FTL)
🏴‍☠️ Kuma moves faster than his own Pad Cannon (44.3 times FTL)
🏴‍☠️ Fujitora’s meteor speed (41.9 – 213.7 times FTL)
🏴‍☠️ Doflamingo cuts up Fujitora’s meteors (1222.1 – 6223.7 times FTL)

Verdict

3rd Place –
Akatsuki

(Source)

Some might be surprised to see this, since the Akatsuki are in some circles seen as a strong contender, and regardless of what community you’re from are not commonly placed last, but yes, the Akatsuki are coming in at third place.

For what it’s worth, it’s not by a drastically large margin, as the Akatsuki have overall the broadest arsenal and the best teamwork amongst the three teams. But holistically speaking, they regardless have the lowest stats and the weakest counters. So let’s start with stats, and work our way down the comparison to see where Naruto’s rogue shinobi fall short here.

Attack Potency

When we’re looking at an “average” member of the Akatsuki – that is to say your Hidans and Kakuzus and your Sasoris and Deidaras and Kisames – a good baseline for their stats would be the strength of an average Tailed Beast Bomb. Since all of the Akatsuki were recruited with the purpose of battling the Tailed Beasts and their Jinchuuriki, this is the minimum level of power that an Akatsuki member is required to be able to contend with, in order to be a worthwhile part of the organization at all.

And narrative is far from the only evidence. Kakuzu has tanked Tailed Beast Bombs directly with little damage, and Deidara’s explosives have been compared favorably to them, on top of the fact that they were capable of oneshotting the Three-Tails. Sasori is stronger than Deidara by Deidara’s own admission, and while Hidan is definitely weaker than Kakuzu, it’s not by such a tremendous margin that the two are not relative at all, given that they can both contend somewhat evenly with Kakashi. Not to mention Kisame, who is renowned as the Tailed Beast Without a Tail, and explicitly stated to be able to output Jinchuuriki-like power, on top of directly defeating Roshi, the Four-Tails’ Jinchuuriki.

When clashing with Kurama, five Tailed Beast Bombs put together could contribute half of an explosion that dispersed air across hundreds of kilometers in a split second. Dividing it up evenly among participants, each Tailed Beast was putting in about 444 petatons of TNT, which any old Akatsuki member should be able to match. High multi-continental, nice and simple.

Moving a step up from this you also have the higher-tier members of the Akatsuki, including Itachi, Pain, and maybe Konan if you take her feats from Storm at face value. Obviously all of them would get Tailed Beast Bombs as well, plus several other petaton level feats (Pain’s Shinra Tensei and Chibaku Tensei, the Tailed Beast Bomb from Kurama that Pain tanked, etc.), but the best number that you can pull out is Sasuke’s Kirin, which Itachi blocked with his Susanoo while near-death.

The blast from Kirin annihilated the Akatsuki fortress within a fraction of a second, dispersing its mass at a fraction of the speed of light, requiring a yield exceeding 1.3 exatons of TNT, nearly three times stronger than a Tailed Beast Bomb. Keep in mind that Itachi blocked the attack literally minutes before dying of illness, so as an Edo Tensei he would be even stronger, as would a full-power Nagato. If you use Storm, Konan would also scale via destroying Pain’s Chibaku Tensei.

A step above all of them is Rinnegan Obito, who was portrayed as on par with Edo Madara. Edo Madara and Edo Hashirama were about on par with one another, and Edo Hashirama was stated to only barely be weaker than he was when he was alive. This is relevant because Alive Hashirama was able to contend with a hostless Nine-Tails, who during the battle with Hashirama produced a Tailed Beast Bomb worth 46 zettatons of TNT to nearly 7 yottatons of TNT. While no one else in the Akatsuki would scale, this would be an applicable level of power to White Mask Obito.

Finally, at the top of the totem poll we have Boruto Era Orochimaru. While not provably comparable to top tiers in the Boruto Era, Orochimaru should at minimum be comparable to 96 nameless Kumo shinobi working together to power the Chakra Cannon from the Last, which was powerful enough to shoot into space and annihilate massive meteors visible in comparison to the planet. Given the size and scale of the Naruto planet, the per-second energy output of each of these shinobi would equal 127 yottatons of TNT.

With this in mind, we’ve established a decent baseline power scale for the Akatsuki. That said, there are some avenues to push them higher, mainly through upping the size of Turtle Island based on the fact that it’s visible on the world map. If you were to do that, Turtle Island becomes roughly the size of Australia, which increases the yield of several feats massively. For instance, Deidara’s explosives flipping over the entire island in a fraction of a second would have a kinetic energy of nearly 8 yottatons of TNT, and 7th Gate Might Guy’s Hirudora (which Kisame survived albeit heavily injured) would leapfrog up to over 140 yottatons of TNT.

This is permissible as a maximum high-end, but it’s worth noting that such a massive size for Turtle Island would be substantially inconsistent with every visual depiction of the island other than on the world map. You could probably argue that it’s not drawn to scale, and that if it is drawn to scale it’s an error resulting from Kishimoto not recognizing the massive size that the island’s visibility on the map would imply. At best, a generous high-end which could be used as an equivalent to similar cases from other series.

Speed

Speed is fortunately a bit easier and more universal, since all of the Akatsuki are more or less going to be scaling to the same things. It goes without saying that there are a metric shitton of lightspeed statements for Naruto characters across multiple guidebooks, as well as various light-based attacks in the series such as Darui’s laser circus and photon weapons from the Boruto novels, just to name a couple. However, capping the verse at lightspeed is a massive oversimplification when you consider just how early these statements begin to apply.

The most obvious example of this is Haku, one of the main villains of the very first arc of Naruto, who’s stated in both the databooks and the anime to move at the speed of light between his mirrors. This is occasionally argued as something that only applies later in the series due to some of the hype statements surrounding Haku, to try and sidestep making Naruto FTL from the first arc, but this ignores the fact that Naruto blatantly outspeeds Haku’s movements between his mirrors, once he starts utilizing Kurama’s chakra. He does this more than once, and both times can be directly calc’d to require FTL speed, since Naruto is moving a greater distance than Haku in the same time-frame, in both cases.

And this isn’t really inconsistent, either. During the Chunin Exams, a weightless Rock Lee is able to move so fast that he disappears from sight and visibly leaves his own shadow behind when he does so. Since his shadow is formed by his body blocking the light to the ground, separating from his own shadow would actively necessitate Lee to be outspeeding the ambient light in his surroundings, another example of FTL speed. Compounding this, not much later in part 1, Kakashi was able to react to and block Itachi’s water bullets, an attack directly stated to be lightspeed in the databook, despite Kakashi being much weaker in part 1 than he is later in the series.

So if we have several examples of FTL speed from relatively low-level shinobi, practically from the beginning of the series, it naturally follows that top-tier S-rank ninja like the Akatsuki would be far, far faster than this. How much faster? Well, that too is fairly consistent actually, if we look at the degree to which characters are able to outspeed attacks that are stated to be lightspeed, as the series goes on.

During the Gokage Summit, Gaara’s sand is able to cross a large distance in order to intercept attacks from the Fourth Raikage A mid-movement, with A’s casual attacks being stated to be lightspeed in the databook. Likewise, A’s brother Killer B can replicate the same speed per the databook, and Sasuke was able to substantially outpace his lariat during their fight, especially in the anime. Lastly, during the War Arc, Rock Lee and Might Guy were able to move a large distance to intercept Haku (oh hey, him again-) when he was moving between his ice mirrors at the speed of light.

All three of these examples can be directly calculated to determine the degree to which these characters are outpacing said lightspeed attacks, and in all three cases the result is in the ballpark of a couple hundred times FTL. The Haku example especially paints a relatively clear picture; KN0 Naruto was able to barely outspeed him at the beginning of the series, whereas by the end of the series the characters are able to do so to a much, much greater extent. This level of speed would broadly apply to the entire Akatsuki.

Kisame also has a pretty interesting feat that’s worth acknowledging here, where he spews so much water from his mouth that he floods his surroundings all the way to the horizon in the span of a few seconds. Based on the size of Kisame’s mouth, he’s only physically capable of expelling so much water at a time, so the actual speed he would need to be pushing the water in order to fill this space would be anywhere from 587 to 2925 times FTL.

If you think that sounds fucking stupid, you’re not… really wrong, on everyone’s soul Kishimoto was not thinking about this shit when he wrote that. On a logical level, though, the calc checks out. You can kind of think of it similar to that one Bugs Bunny feat where he fills the Grand Canyon with a shovel. Kisame is producing the water with such an inefficient method that he technically needs to be doing it super duper fast for it to make sense. If you want to label this an outlier and/or stupid, though, we won’t stop you. It doesn’t really affect the outcome regardless.

Arsenal & Abilities

Between the three teams, the Akatsuki come out ahead in terms of quantity, with a vast array of options at their disposal. Let’s go through each member one at a time, and cover how they fare in this war.

Pain

Starting with the de facto leader, Pain’s primary means of combat are the powers afforded to him by the Rinnegan, which are divided between his six corpse bodies normally, but accessible simultaneously when Nagato is fighting personally. This includes powerful gravity manipulation with the Deva Path, energy absorption with the Preta Path, destructive weaponry with the Asura Path, kaiju summoning with the Animal Path, soul removal and mind reading with the Human Path, and soul manipulation via interrogation with the Naraka Path. On top of this, the Rinnegan can create paralytic Black Receivers, suppress power with Demonic Statue Chains, and revive the dead with Rinne Rebirth, at the cost of the user’s life.

However, despite Pain being remarkably varied, the Espada and Warlords have a variety of counters to his options. Starting with the Deva Path’s control over attractive and repulsive gravitational forces, Ichigo’s performance VS Aizen’s Kurohitsugi demonstrates that powerful Reiatsu can overcome intense gravity from lesser opponents. Given that the Espada are (spoilers) stronger than Pain, they should be able to replicate this. Likewise, as powerful a seal as Chibaku Tensei is, it can be broken by a powerful enough opponent, and all of the Espada are stated to be capable of breaking out of seals.

Similarly, looking at the Warlords, Blackbeard’s darkness is to some extent an equivalent to the Deva Path, given that it grants Blackbeard gravity manipulation of his own, and can negate attacks in a similar way as Shinra Tensei. Defensively, several different One Piece characters have feats of enduring assaults by Fujitora’s gravity, such as Law and Zoro. Given that Law was weaker than Doflamingo at the time, and Fujitora’s gravity should be (spoilers) stronger than Nagato’s based on their respective AP scaling, the other Warlords should be capable of replicating this resistance.

As for Chibaku Tensei, Doflamingo’s awakening is a strong counter, being able to turn it to string, given that the planetoid is an inorganic object. Greater AP can also overcome Chibaku Tensei, as shown by Naruto, and Law’s spatial manipulation should be able to cut the planetoid apart given its high area of effect.

The Human Path and Naraka Path’s soul manipulation are completely shut down by the Espada’s greater resistance to attacks on the spirit. Bleach holistically touches on attacks on the soul far more frequently than Naruto, and as such the Espada have much more advanced resistance than characters that these Paths have shown to affect, like Shizune and Konohamaru (who are notably weak even in the context of Naruto). It’s been shown by Naruto himself that resisting the Human Path is perfectly possible, so long as the individual is capable of perceiving and interacting with their own soul, which the Espada obviously are.

The Human and Naraka Paths are unlikely to be significant against the Warlords either, since Law and Jinbe have shown against Big Mom that One Piece characters can resist soul removal through sufficient willpower. Given that powerful enough Haki can overcome Devil Fruit abilities as a blanket rule, those of the Warlords who possess Haki should also be able to resist soul hax based on Brook’s Devil Fruit, which includes soul manipulation as well.

The Animal Path’s summons are largely useless and straightforward, aside from the Multi-Headed Dog with its fission ability, but even that can be removed from the equation simply by attacking the summoner. The dog also lacks hax resistances, and would thus be vulnerable to Baraggan’s Respira, Yammy’s Gonzui, Starrk’s Reiatsu crush, Caja Negacion sealing, Crocodile’s dehydration, Boa’s petrification, Moria’s shadow manipulation, and so on. It would not be a problem at all for either team.

As powerful as the Asura Path’s weaponry has shown to be, none of it is anything that would take the competition off guard or overcome their durability effectively. Some of the attacks are also energy-based, which means they could be countered by energy absorption, such as Nel’s. Those that are not can be countered by physical absorption, such as Blackbeard’s. Many options such as Crocodile and Doflamingo’s awakening could easily destroy any projectiles.

The most useful of Pain’s Paths is, somewhat unsurprisingly, the Preta Path, as its ability to absorb spiritual energy and jutsu would prove incredibly useful. This would allow Pain or Nagato to absorb both Haki and Reiryoku given verse equalization, allowing them to negate ranged attacks or drain energy directly from a person. While it has been demonstrated that characters in Bleach who can absorb energy, such as Ukitake or Nozomi Kujo (an anime-only character), can be overwhelmed by a sufficient volume of Reiatsu, the Preta Path specifically can continue absorbing energy indefinitely. The databook describes the ability as though Pain is sending the energy into a “bottomless swamp”, which is corroborated by Pain using it to absorb attacks that are stronger than him, like Naruto’s Rasenshuriken.

That said, the Preta Path is not impossible to work around. For starters, when speaking about the Path of Pain specifically, it cannot use any abilities other than its absorption, and so needs to be combined with other Paths in order to effectively act offensively. On its own, it’s not much of a combatant, and it’s specifically noted that it can be dealt with through simple physical attacks which it cannot absorb. This weakness actually doesn’t entirely go away when we’re talking about Nagato or Rinnegan Obito either, since it’s stated during the final fight between Naruto and Sasuke that the Preta Path cannot be used simultaneously with other jutsu. Meaning that in order to attack, Nagato or Obito would need to deactivate the Preta Path and leave themself vulnerable; it is not a defense that they will be able to maintain at all times.

The Warlords, meanwhile, actually fare even better than the Espada against the Preta Path and do not need to rely on these workarounds. This is because Zoro has shown that it is possible to resist abilities that drain Haki, having done so with Enma. Most of the Warlords should likely be capable of replicating this resistance to at least some extent, and even if not, have the means to work around the Preta Path. Specific abilities like Law’s spatial cutting should likely be able to circumvent it entirely.

Lastly, in regard to the Outer Path, the Black Receivers’ paralysis is child’s play for the Espada, as Ichigo was able to break out of a paralysis Kido in chapter 1 before even awakening his powers. Demonic Statue Chains are even more powerful than Black Receivers, but would run into similar issues, on top of their suppression being countered by the AP gap. And though Pain/Obito’s ability to control corpse bodies and even revive the dead entirely are impressive, allowing them options to restore deceased Akatsuki members, Szayelaporro can make clones of people with their same abilities, and Aaroniero can gain the powers of dead Hollows by consuming them, giving the Espada similar options to maintain the aid of dead teammates with fewer drawbacks.

On the other hand, amusingly no One Piece character has shown resistance to paralysis. While some characters have paralytic abilities, such as Raizo for instance, they have never been resisted explicitly and are not Devil Fruit based (Raizo > Mihawk via paralysis, you can’t prove otherwise…). That said, the Receivers could still be countered through Armament Haki, preventing them from piercing in the first place. Rinne Rebirth and corpse control are countered via the Warlords having an equivalent in Moria’s fruit, which does not kill the user in the same way as Rinne Rebirth, and can command a larger number of zombies than the Black Receivers.

Perhaps most devastating for Pain among the Warlords’ counters would be Awakening abilities from Crocodile and Doflamingo, which turn inorganic objects in their proximity into their respective elements (sand and string). Given that Nagato controls the Six Paths of Pain via transmitting his chakra to the Black Receivers embedded in their body… which are inorganic objects… the Paths of Pain would all die just from being near Crocodile or Doflamingo. Funnily enough.

Summary: Pain brings a lot of variety to the table but both of the other teams resist or could overpower most if not all of his abilities. The Deva Path grants him good battlefield control and the Preta Path can absorb energy, but he’s also something of a glass cannon, and many of his abilities cannot be used concurrently or have notable drawbacks. Most damningly, there are a couple Warlords who would passively neg him just by being near him, though in fairness this would not be an issue for Nagato himself.

Itachi

Ironically, despite the Rinnegan being an evolution of the Sharingan, the Sharingan is considerably more troublesome for the other two teams in this match.

On a basic level, Bleach characters with spiritual awareness possess resistances to mental effects. This includes mind control, simple illusions, and memory modification, all of which are standard functions of the Sharingan, and would be largely ineffective against the Espada. Though mind reading, which the Sharingan has also demonstrated on rarer occasions, would be more effective; while certain Hollows such as Grand Fisher have shown mind reading in Bleach, no one has ever resisted it.

Similarly, all the Warlords have basic resistance to Conqueror’s Haki, which is light mind hax. They should also be comparable to Luffy, who was able to resist Monet’s sleep manipulation, and absorb Moria’s shadows, which would normally drive someone insane and subject them to mental control.

The best case for them resisting other forms of mind hax comes from Haki being able to hypothetically negate various DF powers. Viola’s Giro Giro no Mi accounts for mind reading, Brook’s Yomi Yomi no Mi accounts for basic/sound-based illusions, Ann’s Bijo Bijo no Mi also produces illusions, Pudding’s Memo Memo no Mi and Kuma’s Nikyu Nikyu no Mi account for memory erasure and modification, and Uta’s Uta Uta no Mi is planetary mind hax that may be beyond the potency of even something like Tsukuyomi – though in fairness in that case, nobody was shown to be able to counteract that through Haki alone, not even top tier Haki users like Shanks who were present for it.

That said, Uta aside, the stronger mind hax demonstrated in Naruto is simply more impressive than practically anything in Bleach or One Piece, with Itachi and Obito’s stronger Genjutsu being significantly more layered compared to even options like Sakanade or Kyoka Suigetsu. For example, one of the more notable illusion resistance feats in Bleach involves Aizen adapting to Sakanade’s Shikai, which reverses his sense of direction. This sort of adaptation is something that even Part 1 Kabuto has shown in Naruto, and a much stronger Sage Kabuto later on was still completely helpless against Itachi’s Genjutsu regardless.

Similarly, Byakuya Kuchiki has a feat in one of Bleach’s filler arcs where his Zanpakuto, Senbonzakura, helps him to navigate a fight against an illusion user, by acting as his eyes and ears. This is similar to how bijuu in Naruto are able to counter Genjutsu, by acting independently of their jinchuuriki. However, Obito’s Genjutsu is able to completely subjugate Perfect Jinchuuriki Yagura in spite of this workaround, proving that his Genjutsu is too powerful to be overcome in a similar manner. This is also to say nothing about options like Tsukuyomi and Kotoamatsukami, which are vastly more powerful and have applications that could not be countered in such a manner to begin with.

That said, there are a few avenues you could use to argue the Espada wouldn’t be completely helpless. In Can’t Fear Your Own World, it’s established that with a sufficient Reiatsu volume (much greater than that of the caster), it would be possible to break free of even the effects of Kyoka Suigetsu, as shown against Tokinada’s copied version of the ability. Now, Kyoka Suigetsu isn’t as layered as Itachi or Obito’s Genjutsu, but it does prove that a significant power gap / volume of Reiatsu can power null illusory abilities. With this in mind, outside of possibly Tsukuyomi and Kotoamatsukami (the former of which elapses in an instant and the latter of which is undetectable), it makes sense that the Espada could simply overcome and suppress some forms of Genjutsu with enough Reiatsu, given their significant power advantage.

Baraggan also might be able to counter an illusion by aging it to completion, even something like Tsukuyomi, based on the fact that he can age Kido, though this wouldn’t work on Izanami or Kotoamatsukami. Both of those last indefinitely, the former until a specific condition is met and the latter outright forever.

The Warlords fare worse. On their end, Tsukuyomi lacks a direct counter outside of trying (and most likely failing) to suppress it with powerful Haki. Though, it is worth noting that Kuma’s ability to extract pain from others could mitigate the torturous agony that Itachi can inflict. Zoro being able to withstand Luffy’s pain could also be seen as evidence that One Piece characters have extraordinary pain tolerance. That said, if Itachi performs a 70 year Tsukuyomi, any of the Warlords would die provided they are unable to escape it.

Note how we keep saying things along the lines of “except Tsukuyomi and Kotoamatsukami and Izanami.” These Genjutsu frankly lack strong counters on the part of either of the other teams. That said, while all are definitely broken, they aren’t going to win the fight in any realistic scenario. The reason being that they all have massive drawbacks that make them difficult or impossible to use more than once or twice apiece, and Itachi is fighting 20+ opponents. Tsukuyomi has the least steep drawback of the three, but even it drains Itachi’s chakra to a dangerous degree, with even a single use leaving him significantly fatigued. Kotoamatsukami can only be used once every ten years, and Izanami blinds the eye that Itachi casts it with entirely.

With this in mind, even being generous to Itachi and assuming two uses of Tsukuyomi in one fight, that would at most allow him to take down five opponents – two with Tsukuyomi, one with Koto, and one for each eye with Izanami – in a fight that again, involves 20+ opponents. Itachi has very prominent stamina issues, and they make him much less effective in a large team battle like this than he would be in a 1v1.

Moving on from Genjutsu, the Sharingan’s ability to copy jutsu would potentially work on some Bleach techniques thanks to verse equalization, but the majority of the Espada’s special abilities are reliant on Hollow-specific physiological factors that Itachi (and Obito) would not be able to replicate due to having different physiology (in the same sense that the Sharingan cannot copy kekkei genkai if the user physically cannot replicate those abilities). Additionally, the Sharingan’s ability to perceive spiritual energy would also be soft countered by Sonido, which can bypass similar extrasensory perception. Sharingan precognition, on the other hand, while somewhat limited in the first place, has no direct counter outside of potentially the same counter, with Sonido.

As for the Warlords, extrasensory vision, precognition and attack prediction have no direct counter, aside from the Warlords having equivalent abilities with Observation Haki. That is to say, they have equivalents, but cannot prevent themselves from being seen or sensed.

Amaterasu’s sun-level heat is absurd, and could probably oneshot some of the weaker Espada who lack sufficient heat resistance feats, but the four Espada who are currently still alive should all be comparable to Royd Lloyd, whose Blut allowed him to resist the 15,000,000 Celsius heat emissions of Yamamoto’s Bankai, more than sufficient to withstand Amaterasu. Meanwhile, Warlords like Crocodile and Jinbe were able to withstand Akainu’s magma, which has been calculated to reach temperatures of 9000 degrees Celsius, not as hot as Yamamoto, but still hotter than Amaterasu.

The Totsuka Blade, being a spiritual sword, would be unable to penetrate the Espada physically or spiritually, and all of them can break out of seals anyway. The Yata Mirror is a solid defense, but it would be a No Limits Fallacy to assume it can truly counter any attack, and even if it could, it is not omnidirectional, meaning that Itachi’s Susanoo could simply be overcome by attacking from other angles. Itachi can also only maintain his Susanoo for a short time due to the physical side effects of using it.

Lastly, Izanagi surprisingly has a very direct counter on the Espada’s side of things. Ulquiorra’s Reiatsu was able to inflict wounds that could not be immediately undone by Orihime’s phenomena rejection, requiring her to break through the Reiatsu in question before being able to heal the wound. Later on, after Ulquiorra had entered Segunda Etapa, she could not negate the wound he inflicted on Ichigo at all. This is significant because this ability works by rejecting, reversing, and reconstructing phenomena, essentially denying reality to undo any event that has happened to her target – a nearly one-to-one analog to Izanagi. With an AP advantage favoring the Espada, Izanagi would be incapable of negating their attacks and effects.

Conversely and much more expectedly, the Warlords don’t really have a counter to Izanagi besides outlasting it or taking out the eye, which in fairness is something that, say, Law’s fruit would be suited to achieve.

Summary: Itachi the solo king is undoubtedly the MVP but ultimately fails to solo. His Genjutsu is overwhelming and his powers are massively varied and broken, giving him many options that can individually eliminate many members of the opposing teams. But his severe stamina problems and the backlash that his powers have on his own body prevent him from actually carrying his team to victory. At most, he’d take down a handful.

Obito

Many of Obito’s more basic powers, like Genjutsu, Sharingan abilities, and Rinnegan abilities, have already been covered under Pain and Itachi, so for brevity’s sake and to avoid repeating ourselves, we’ll skip them here and focus on abilities unique to Obito himself.

Regarding Kamui, teleporting the Espada or the Warlords to another dimension will prove ineffective. For starters, the Espada can all use Descorrer to travel between dimensions and could just leave. The Warlords skip the middle-man entirely, given that strong enough Haki can resist Law’s spatial teleportation, preventing Kamui from even displacing them in the first place. If Obito does manage to BFR any of the Warlords, they could hypothetically escape via Haki, given there are examples of spatial BFR/sealing Devil Fruits, such as Charlotte Mont-d’Or’s Buku Buku no Mi or Charlotte Brûlée’s Mira Mira no Mi. Kamui is still a good counter to projectiles, but BFR isn’t winning Obito any fights here.

The intangibility, meanwhile, is tricky. Certain Espada abilities like Zommari’s marks or Baraggan’s field could potentially bypass it, as they are not physical attacks, as could Yammy’s Gonzui, but given that it isn’t true intangibility, it wouldn’t be countered by basic non-physical interaction and could thus allow him to pass through most of the Espada’s other attacks. That said, Kamui does have some inherent limitations, like requiring Obito to solidify for physical attacks or to suck up a target, and the fact that it can only work continuously for up to five minutes at a time. Espada such as Starrk, who can attack for longer time-frames consecutively, could probably force him into a losing position.

As for the Warlords, Blackbeard’s power null and gravity could potentially make him graspable, since they allow him to cancel powers and grasp the bodies of Logia users even when they are transformed into their element. Though, whether this is directly equatable, even under verse equalization, is… up for debate. Outside of that, several abilities could potentially bypass the intangibility, such as Crocodile’s long-ranged dehydration, Boa’s petrification, and Law’s spatial manipulation. Other than these, they would mainly need to rely on deducing Kamui’s workarounds, which would admittedly be hard, but not impossible. Minato was able to figure a couple of them out after fighting Obito for a few minutes.

Last of Obito’s unique abilities is Wood Release, which gives him the power to both suppress and absorb chakra. It is worth noting that unlike with the Preta Path, there is a threshold here, with a strong enough individual being able to break through wood constructs even while their chakra is suppressed. The best example of this is probably Kisame, who could break out of Yamato’s wood restraints despite having his chakra suppressed. With this in mind, both the Espada and Warlords could probably overpower Obito’s wood pretty comfortably, and the Espada can explicitly overload energy absorption, so long as there is a power threshold (there is here) and the energy is not discharged (it would not be here).

Summary: Obito is a tricksy trickster to be sure, with Kamui intangibility being the biggest obstacle, as expected. Largely speaking, though, he doesn’t have particularly wonderful offensive options here, with Rinnegan abilities being relatively unhelpful, BFR being off the table, and Wood Release being vulnerable to a good old fashioned “nice complex hax ability, dipshit.” His best offensive tool is likely Genjutsu, given that it can bypass resistance, but even that can be countered to some degree and would likely not win any fights by itself regardless. In the long run, Obito is a cockroach who will be a pain to kill, between Kamui and Izanagi, but is not a game changing presence in this fight.

Orochimaru

Orochimaru’s Curse Marks are left via a bite, which requires him to break the skin and is thus countered by Hierro and Armament Haki. The Reaper Death Seal is not doing anything, given the Espada and Warlords both have soul hax resistance. The Reanimation Jutsu requires prep time and resources that Orochimaru would not possess in an ordinary encounter, but even if he did manage to set it up, Gonzui would hard-counter it, as would Moria’s shadow stealing.

The Espada can break out of Orochimaru’s possession, as high enough Reiatsu can break the user free from Kyoka Suigetsu, and Orochimaru’s mental universe can be corroded by a strong enough will and resistance, as shown by Sasuke. Similarly, Luffy resisting Moria’s shadows should be an effective feat of possession resistance on the Warlords’ side. Chakra absorption should be effective against the Espada, though it would likely be unable to fully drain the Espada easily, given how powerful they are relative to Orochimaru and the fact that they can overload absorption. The Warlords, not so much, given Zoro’s showing of resisting Enma’s absorption.

Chakra scalpel would probably be effective for bypassing Hierro, and damaging internal organs would be significant against the Espada since high-speed regeneration cannot heal such damage. However, Szayel also has attacks that target organs, and Aizen has demonstrated that superior Reiatsu is able to overcome attacks such as those from Soi Fon’s Shikai, which can target internal organs in a similar manner. One Piece characters can likewise tank advanced Armament Haki attacks which inflict internal damage, and Doflamingo specifically was able to tank Law’s Gamma Knife rupturing all of his organs at once.

Regarding poison and acid, notably, Yammy no-sold Loly’s corrosive poison, and even Substitute Shinigami arc Ichigo was able to resist Acidwire’s acid, which normally dissolves things, with only minor burns. Grimmjow also adapted very advanced poison resistance thanks to his experience with Askin, and it was implied by Luppi that all Hollows possess some baseline poison resistance that require specifically tailored poisons to overcome.

As far as the Warlords are concerned, Crocodile’s hook is also poisonous, but other than that they lack a solid counter. The best that can be said is that Crocodile’s sand cannot be poisoned, logically speaking, and poisons that require one to pierce the skin may be ineffective against Armament Haki. In fairness there are poison Devil Fruits, such as Magellan’s, making it potentially possible to counter through Haki, but poison attacks are often effective against One Piece characters anyway. It’s a method of attack that pretty consistently works, so the typical “Haki GG” counter doesn’t work too well in this specific case.

Orochimaru can regenerate from damage, as well as shed his skin like a snake to repair his body. This can simply be countered by a strong and large enough attack, if it is able to destroy his entire body thoroughly enough that he can’t come back. Most of the Espada should be capable of this, with basic Ceros. The Warlords, less so, but Crocodile’s dehydration or Boa’s petrification should be able to bypass it.

Snake Mouth Bind would be ineffective, as all of the Espada are established to be able to break seals, and all of them have Descorrer for traveling between space-times. The Warlords can also resist BFR and can likely break out, as detailed in Obito’s section. Orochimaru’s fear aura is analogous to Reiatsu crush, which all of the Espada can resist, and the Warlords can resist Conqueror’s Haki which is likewise similar.

Assuming Orochimaru has access to the Sound Four’s jutsu, as Kabuto does, Tayuya’s Genjutsu could be countered via Zanpakuto, or via a similar method as what the Sternritter Mask de Masculine used against the shinigami Rose (gouging out his own ears to cut off his hearing). Sakon and Ukon’s jutsu may be esoteric enough to work, as the Espada have no clear resistance to its effects, though of course it’s nebulous if Orochimaru would think to try such a thing in-character, given he never has. The Warlords, on the other hand, lack counters to jutsu like Tayuya’s Genjutsu or Sakon and Ukon’s dissolution, outside of some potential degree of illusion resistance via Haki (Brook’s fruit has sound-based illusions for instance).

Summary: Poison would be effective against the Warlords but not the Espada. Otherwise, most of Orochimaru’s offensive options like chakra scalpel, Reaper Death Seal, and so on would be useless, as would his defensive options like regeneration and skin shedding. The Sound Four’s jutsu would be hard to counter, if he were to use them, but he has never actually done so. The Reanimation Jutsu is a big deal if he manages to set it up, but it requires a lot of preparation, and both of the other teams have equivalents and counters if needed.

Kisame

Kisame’s chakra absorption would likely be ineffective against the Espada. In his fight with Killer B, Samehada swelled up far beyond the norm thanks to excess chakra absorption. Since strong Espada like Starrk are established to be capable of overloading energy absorption abilities like Ukitake’s, Samehada would be quickly overloaded here, given the power gap. Against the Warlords, it is similarly not super useful for the same reason as the Preta Path, with Zoro’s showing with Enma proving that Haki users can resist absorption.

On the other hand, if Kisame floods the battlefield with his regular degular water jutsu, any of the Devil Fruit users could potentially die, making him arguably the biggest threat to the Warlords among the Akatsuki. That said, many of them have ways to escape before being drowned. Law could teleport away, Blackbeard could suck the water in with his black hole or disperse it with a quake, Doflamingo and Kuma have high mobility and could get away quickly, and so on. Jinbe could also save any Warlords who get caught in it, and Law could teleport others out. It wouldn’t be an instant win, even if it would be dangerous.

Notably, Gecko Moria’s zombies can be negated by salt, so Kisame’s water jutsu may completely remove them from play as well. Kisame’s shark summons can operate fine in his water, meaning it most likely is at least somewhat saline, given the much higher prevalence of saltwater sharks than freshwater sharks.

Summary: Kisame’s absorption wouldn’t be very useful, but his water manipulation would be extremely dangerous to a number of the Warlords. Less so to the Espada, however, and Harribel and Jinbe are both strong counters to him, to the point where he probably wouldn’t be terribly useful.

Deidara

Most of Deidara’s options aren’t too special. Sure, his C3 and C0 have high area of effect, but neither one of them are strong enough to really put a dent in the competition, and C0 specifically requires Deidara to die to use it, so it’s not something that’s going to be that helpful in a major team fight. Sasuke was also able to avoid C0 via reverse summoning, a space-time teleport that Law and *checks notes* the entire Espada should be able to replicate. The high AoE of Deidara’s bombs is also just as much a detriment as an asset, since he can’t use his more devastating options if his teammates are within the blast range. At least, not without risking their deaths.

However, it is worth acknowledging that Deidara’s C4 is one of the most effective options on the Akatsuki’s side, both for its deadliness and AoE. However, it isn’t a surefire win condition, especially against the Espada. For starters, the microscopic clay would never reach Baraggan due to the Respira field around his body, but even beyond him, the Espada are all capable of sensing spiritual energy. In Deidara’s fight with Sasuke, Sasuke was able to see the C4 as though it were a cloud of chakra thanks to his Sharingan, and so took countermeasures to avoid being affected. While the Espada would not be able to replicate the specific method that Sasuke used to negate the attack, they should all be capable of sensing the attack coming and simply moving outside its effect radius.

The Warlords could potentially replicate a similar “run away” counter, given their Observation Haki and the high mobility that some of them possess. It is worth noting however that unlike the Espada, the Warlords don’t have any members like Baraggan who would just be impervious to C4. They would need to rely on getting the heck out of there to survive.

Summary: Deidara is an unexpected wild card in this fight. Though in some ways just as much a threat to his allies as his enemies, C4 has the potential to clear the board if used properly. That said, his attacks are also pretty telegraphed and easy to avoid, so long as the opposition has sensory abilities and good mobility. Which the overwhelming majority of them do.

Sasori

Sasori’s chakra threads can control the body, but can be resisted through greater strength. His ability to transfer bodies by moving his core can be overcome by a strong enough AoE attack that destroys his entire body.

Against the Espada, his memory erasure would be ineffective, since characters in Bleach with even minor spiritual awareness and no powers such as Tatsuki and BoS Orihime could resist memory erasure, as could all characters with spiritual awareness later on when Rukia returned to the Soul Society. Against the Warlords, it could be countered via Haki, given the existence of Pudding’s fruit, which manipulates memories (blah blah blah strong enough Haki).

While less useful against the Espada, who lack cybernetic or mechanical members, iron sand would be especially dangerous to Kuma specifically among the Warlords, since it can degrade the mechanisms of mechanical things. Against the rest of them, less so. Notably, Doflamingo and Crocodile are a hard counter to Sasori, just as they are to Pain, since his puppet bodies are inorganic and so would be negged by their Awakened abilities transforming them into sand or string.

Regarding poison, Sasori’s poison mostly requires him to break the skin, which is countered by Hierro and Armament, and his gaseous poisons can be countered by simply holding one’s breath, as Sakura did. It also takes days to be fatal, and so would not be a big deal in the course of a single confrontation. Poison resistance covered under Orochimaru’s section.

Summary: Sasori has too many big weaknesses or limitations here to last long. He wouldn’t be able to puppet other people’s bodies effectively, since that can be resisted through strength alone, his puppets and even his own body would be instantly destroyed by an Awakened Devil Fruit, and his poisons need to either break the skin or be inhaled to work, AND need several days to take fatal effect. On top of that, he’s reliant on overwhelming through numbers with his puppets, and a high AoE attack from any of the Espada would take his army out in one go.

Konan

Konan lacks any offensive hax abilities that would substantially impact this war, with her entire arsenal being paper-based weaponry that attacks directly through physical means, either cutting or explosives. She is a reasonably powerful fighter and has high mobility with her flight, but that’s all.

Most prominent of her abilities, in terms of how much there is to talk about, would be Dance of the Shikigami, which allows her to turn into paper, thus making her harder to hit or injure. However, the Haki users on the Warlords’ side can bypass similar “elemental” transformations with Armament Haki, and the Espada should all be able to counter it with a good old fashioned “giant laser beam” that would vaporize her entire body and kill her, paper or otherwise. Additionally, if she expends too much chakra or is caught off guard she can still be struck and killed while her body is not transformed into paper.

Summary: Konan is unfortunately not useful here.

Kakuzu & Hidan

Kakuzu’s hearts can be destroyed all at once by a strong/large enough attack, and the Espada also happen to have a direct counter to them via Szayelaporro’s organ crushing and manipulation. The hearts can be bypassed by petrification from Boa, dehydration from Crocodile, or Moria’s shadow severing. While his ability to harden his skin is impressive, Kakashi has shown that it is not impossible to pierce through his defenses, even at maximum.

Hidan’s immortality is largely useless here, because he doesn’t have a healing factor and is reliant on Kakuzu stitching him back together to continue fighting. Any of the Espada could just blast him to smithereens and he would be finished. He also doesn’t resist soul sucking, nor Baraggan’s Respira.

The death ritual also wouldn’t be useful as it requires Hidan to acquire the blood of a target first, which is countered by Hierro and Armament Haki, which would both harden the skin to the point where he would not be able to pierce them. Even supposing he could cut them to begin with, the ritual also requires too much setup and would be less than useful in a team fight where other combatants could intervene and disrupt the ritual’s conditions. For example, it requires him to draw a sigil on the ground and then stand on it. They could easily destroy the sigil or stop Hidan from standing on it.

Summary: Both of their forms of immortality won’t protect them at all here. Outside of that, Kakuzu is a bruiser who will be swiftly overpowered, and Hidan overrelies on his ritual which is too complex for him to reliably utilize.

Zetsu

Contrary to popular belief, Zetsu isn’t completely useless in battle, boasting the ability to merge his body with other people and possess them. However, Aaroniero consumed Metastacia, a Hollow with a comparable ability, and gained its powers, so the Espada have an equivalent to this, though the Warlords do not.

What happens if Zetsu does successfully merge with someone, you ask? Well, in the Spirits Are Forever With You novel, it was established that Szayelaporro in the past was able to forcibly separate his own soul from his brother Yylfordt, unmerging them from one being into two separate ones, giving him a way to counteract Zetsu’s merging for the Espada. Additionally, other Bleach characters are capable of resisting Hollowfication, which is similar to some extent, being the merging of a Hollow with a host body.

The Warlords are simpler: Zetsu’s merging could likely be countered via Haki, as there are Devil Fruits with similar abilities, such as Robin’s Hana Hana no Mi, Kelly Funk’s Jake Jake no Mi, and Charlotte Newshi’s Gocha Gocha no Mi. Worth noting that Obito was able to resist Zetsu’s possession, retaining control of his body even while the two were merged.

Summary: Both of the other teams could probably force Zetsu off of them if he tried to pull anything weird, and otherwise he’s not very useful.

Teamwork

The Akatsuki have overall the best teamwork of the three. They’ve fought together on a more consistent basis and can combo together more effectively than either of the other two teams, who have significantly higher amounts of infighting. Genjutsu also allows the higher-tier Akatsuki to force the lower-tier ones to behave themselves, if it becomes truly necessary for whatever reason. It is worth noting however that there are still some interpersonal issues among the Akatsuki, with Itachi and Deidara being stand-out examples of possible liabilities.

Summary

a group of anime characters are standing next to each other with red hearts on their jackets

“The Akatsuki, too, had families. The Akatsuki, too, had loved ones. They were shinobi, and they were human.”

Advantages:

Overall the best teamwork between the three groups
Overall possess the most versatile abilities of the three groups
Genjutsu out-layers the mind hax resistance on the other two teams
Itachi in particular can oneshot most of the other two teams with Tsukuyomi, Kotoamatsukami, and Izanami
Obito’s Kamui intangibility and Izanagi would make him difficult to put down easily
Deidara’s C4 is a strong one-shot option with high area of effect
Kisame’s water manipulation is extremely dangerous to the Devil Fruit users among the Warlords
Orochimaru’s poison could affect the Warlords
Have a handful of workarounds to Baraggan’s Respira
Could arguably resist Yammy’s Gonzui
Various means of dealing with Logia intangibility

Disadvantages:

Weaker in AP than both of the other teams on average
Rinnegan abilities are in general countered by both of the other teams
Itachi has severe stamina problems that diminish his usefulness in a team fight
Heat resistance for the other two teams exceeds Amaterasu’s temperature
Energy absorption abilities would be broadly ineffective
Deidara’s explosives are a double-edged sword, as using them would risk harming the other Akatsuki as well
Sasori’s poison is impractical due to how long it takes to kill somebody
Awakened Devil Fruits hard counter Pain and Sasori
The Espada can resist the overwhelming majority of their hax options
Lack physical resistances to Baraggan’s Respira
Lack resistances or counters to Boa’s petrification
Lack resistances or counters to Law’s spatial manipulation
Lack resistances to Moria’s shadow stealing
Methods of reviving dead teammates have more drawbacks than those on the other two teams
Gonzui counters the Reanimation Jutsu, even if it were usable
Konan, Kakuzu, Hidan, and Zetsu are all nearly useless

In spite of their impressive range of abilities and serviceable teamwork, the Akatsuki end up falling short in this fight against either of the other teams.

The Espada outdo them substantially in AP and can match their speed, and have counters or resistances to the majority of their hax. The two biggest options that the Akatsuki have that the Espada don’t have direct answers for are Deidara’s C4 and Itachi’s stronger Genjutsu. But C4 can be feasibly sensed and avoided, while Itachi’s stamina problems would prevent him from being game-breaking in a team fight where he would need to take out more than a small handful of people.

The Warlords, meanwhile, on average have higher AP as well. If you use high-end map sizes for Turtle Island and Onigashima, the Warlords would win via overall higher stats and several abilities that the Akatsuki lack counters to, primarily Law’s spatial hax and Boa’s petrification. Excluding high-end map sizes for both, most of the Warlords are stronger than the entirety of the Akatsuki except for Orochimaru, who is in turn stronger than them. However, most of the most troublesome abilities on the Akatsuki’s end are from characters who are not Orochimaru (Itachi again, and Kisame’s water manipulation). Most likely, in this scenario, the Warlords’ stats would deal with the troublesome abilities, and their abilities would deal with Orochimaru’s troublesome stats.

2nd Place –
Warlords of the Sea

(Source)

Coming in second we’ve got the Warlords. While their teamwork may be less than stellar compared to the Akatsuki, their impressive strength and formidable abilities are enough to keep them out of last place.

Attack Potency

While there are a million feats in One Piece that fall into the country to multi-continental to even moon level range, the most significant showings to discuss here would be Law’s Puncture Wille against Big Mom, Whitebeard’s “world-ending” quake punches, and Luffy’s gigantic Bajrang Gun against Kaido. All of these attacks will vary in yield depending on whether or not you incorporate the larger size of the One Piece planet and map sizes for locations like Onigashima, so we’ll cover both the high-ends and low-ends to be safe.

Let’s start with Law, since it’s a feat from a Warlord. In his battle with Big Mom alongside Eustass Kid, Law ruptured a gigantic hole in the earth under Onigashima, blasting apart a tremendous amount of mass within just over a second. If you were to calculate this based on the energy needed to create a hole like this by splitting the earth horizontally, it would require energy upwards of 1 zettaton of TNT. Factor in the fact that he did it vertically, though, and we’re instead looking at 6.2 yottatons of TNT. Using higher end map sizes for Onigashima, we’re looking at 200 yottatons of TNT.

Most of the Warlords would scale to this. Obviously Buggy wouldn’t, nor would a past-his-prime Gecko Moria and possibly Doflamingo, given that Law by this point is able to contribute notably against Emperors (though is still notably weaker). Still, Crocodile, Kuma, Boa, Jinbe, Mihawk, Prime Moria, Blackbeard, and even Weevil all have showings that would at least put them in the ballpark of Yonko Commanders (and much higher for some of them) who can in turn threaten Yonko and are thus on a similar level to Wano Law.

Speaking of threatening Yonko, Whitebeard. While his quakes being able to “destroy the world” obviously doesn’t mean he’s gonna blow up the planet, it is stated repeatedly during Marineford that his quakes can reach a planetary range. Vice Admiral Tsuru said that even retreating to the other end of the world wouldn’t be enough to be safe from him, and there are comments made throughout the arc along the lines of “if the world is still here tomorrow”, meaning it wouldn’t be a long-term over-time affair for Whitebeard to sink the world. With this in mind, accommodating the size of the planet, quakes strong enough to sink islands on the opposite side of the world would come out to over 18 yottatons of TNT, consistent with Law’s Puncture Wille, which was approaching Yonko level but not quite there yet.

Finally, there’s Luffy’s Bajrang Gun, which based on larger sizes for Onigashima, could clock in as high as 1.6 ronnatons of TNT. This would probably be moreso reserved for Yonko level threats like Mihawk, Blackbeard, and possibly a post-Wano Law, with maybe some room for argument that some of the others might downscale from it.

Comparing the Akatsuki and Warlords, the Akatsuki range from several hundred petatons to double digit zettatons, if you exclude higher map sizes for Turtle Island. Excluding higher map sizes for Onigashima for the sake of fairness, Whitebeard’s quakes would still hit the double digit yottaton range without it. Orochimaru, however, would reach triple digit yottatons off of the Chakra Cannon, and thus he alone would be stronger than the Warlords.

If you do use higher map sizes, Turtle Island feats would boost most of the Akatsuki to triple digit yottatons. However, Luffy’s Bajrang gun would then hit single digit ronnatons, which would swing the results back into the Warlords’ favor even compared to Orochimaru. Meaning overall, depending on whether you use those high-end sizes, the Warlords are either stronger than every Akatsuki member except Orochimaru, or stronger than every Akatsuki member period.

Speed

One Piece characters have been FTL since Skypeia, where it was stated twice that lightspeed reactions would be needed to dodge Enel’s lightning. Not long after, Luffy was able to dodge Foxy’s photon beams, and Zoro was able to bob and weave through Kuma’s lightspeed air pads. If you calc the speed that Kuma was moving his hands here, he would need to be moving over 40 times FTL.

But that’s still pre-timeskip, so naturally there’s way better stuff later. Luffy gets a hundred times faster in his fight with Byrnndi World during 3D2Y; while he shouldn’t scale to Kuma’s speed yet at this point, he has performed multiple FTL feats by then and thus should be hundreds of times FTL at the beginning of post-timeskip. As time goes on, other supporting feats start to crop up too, such as Sabo’s fire blitzing Kizaru’s light beams.

Most impressive are Fujitora’s meteors, which were directly pulled down from space by the gravity well that Fujitora creates with his Devil Fruit. Since he just pulls them and doesn’t create them, the size of these meteors is of significant importance, since meteors this large wouldn’t naturally be found in close proximity to a planet. He would need to be pulling them from a farther source, such as an asteroid belt, requiring him to be pulling them down at anywhere from 40 to 200 times FTL.

Especially significant, Doflamingo was able to carve up one of these meteors with his strings, substantially outspeeding the meteor’s movement in the process. Factoring in the distance his strings moved, he would need to be slicing anywhere from 1200 to 6200 times FTL. Do note, however, that the high-end is technically calc stacking, since it’s applying the speed of one of Fujitora’s meteors from a different scene to the one Doflamingo cut. The low-end, 1200 times FTL, is directly calculating the meteor in the scene with Doflamingo.

Compared to the Akatsuki, the triple digit FTL feats are in the same ballpark as those done by Sasuke, Gaara, and Rock Lee. Doflamingo’s feat is either a couple times slower than Kisame’s calc with the low-end, or a couple times faster with the high-end. Either way, speed is close enough to be considered even “enough”, especially given both series have numerous speed amps on top of these calcs.

Arsenal & Abilities

While the Warlords may lack the quantity of options that the Akatsuki have at their disposal, the abilities that they do have are overall pretty useful, with a few notable exceptions who are more straightforward and strength-focused. Once again, let’s break them down one at a time.

Crocodile

The most important thing to start with regarding Crocodile is his Logia intangibility, which allows him to turn his full body into sand to phase through attacks and regenerate from bodily damage. Crocodile in particular has shown to do this subconsciously, meaning that you can’t just bypass the effect by catching him off guard or speedblitzing him. Additionally, Logias are able to transform portions of their body at a time while leaving the rest of their body solid, meaning there’s no workaround where you can time your strikes between states or anything of the sort.

That said, both the Akatsuki and the Espada have various ways of overcoming this effect regardless. The easiest and most obvious is water, which in addition to being a blanket weakness for all Devil Fruit users, is extra dangerous to Crocodile specifically, being able to congeal his sand and make him tangible again. With that in mind, Kisame and Harribel are obvious hard counters to him, not to mention other Akatsuki like Obito, Itachi, Kakuzu, Nagato and so on who have their own water jutsu. The Espada in particular are familiar with a Hollow made of sand named Runuganga, who has a similar water weakness, and thus would know to try it against Crocodile.

Even outside of this, though, Crocodile has a lot to watch out for. Itachi’s Totsuka Blade, various Genjutsu, Deidara’s C4, Sasori’s poison gas, Orochimaru’s acid, Chibaku Tensei, Human Path, and many more Akatsuki abilities could hax him out regardless of his body’s physical state. Additionally, In one of the Naruto movies, it’s also shown that Gaara has a jutsu that can turn his body into sand, similar to Crocodile. Why does that matter? It means that there’s a ninjutsu equivalent to Crocodile’s Logia intangibility, meaning it might be possible for his sand body to be absorbed by the Preta Path (which can absorb elemental ninjutsu) under verse equalization.

As for the Espada, they also have a lot of ways around it. Baraggan’s Respira, if it were to engulf Crocodile’s whole body, could decay him into nothing. Szayel’s organ crush and Zommari’s marks could both potentially bypass the sand body, since they aren’t direct physical attacks. Most damaging, Ceros have a massive area of effect, could vaporize Crocodile’s entire body, and all of the Espada can use them.

So Crocodile can’t stall for very long with intangibility alone, but his offenses are just as important. With just a touch, he can dehydrate a target, draining them of their bodily fluids and leaving them in a desiccated state. This effect can also be transferred across surfaces, and thus does not necessarily require him to make direct contact or be up close.

While the Akatsuki and Espada cannot individually counter Croc’s dehydration, they have workarounds nonetheless. The Espada, notably, are all capable of flight and thus would be capable of substantially outranging and outmaneuvering him, and in most cases wouldn’t be in direct contact with any surfaces that he could transfer the dehydration effect through.

On top of that, certain members of both teams could theoretically save each other by using water to rehydrate one another. Six of the Akatsuki have access to water jutsu, and Harribel controls all water in her vicinity. Luffy was able to rehydrate just by dropping water on himself, so it doesn’t take that much. Worth emphasizing that Croc’s dehydration has never killed anyone, only leaving people severely weakened whenever it’s used, so it likely wouldn’t be imminently fatal.

Lastly, for Croc’s poison-coated hook, the Espada broadly have poison resistance, so they should be able to just tank it without much trouble. As for the Akatsuki, Orochimaru and Obito have poison resistance, Sasori is a puppet, Pain doesn’t have blood and can survive Kurama’s poisonous chakra, Konan is made of paper, and Zetsu is made of Zetsu. Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Kisame would be affected, though medical ninjutsu can be used to treat poison, so even for them it probably wouldn’t be too bad.

Summary: Crocodile is pretty badly countered on most fronts. None of his abilities or offensive measures are anything that the majority of the competition can’t deal with. Though his Logia intangibility is a decent defensive countermeasure when it’s not against specific abilities that can counter it.

Boa

Boa’s arsenal is remarkably simple, centered around turning her opponents to stone, but one of the most dangerous among the Warlords because neither of the other teams have any especially solid counter to it.

“But doesn’t it only work if the target is attracted to her???”

In some cases, yeah, in which case you might be able to extrapolate that it wouldn’t work on some individuals. For example, Sasori is a puppet and lacks emotions or physical urges, Pain is a bunch of corpses, Baraggan is a skeleton, ~~and some of the guys on the other teams are definitely gay~~. Though there are also some people on the other teams who would definitively be vulnerable by this metric (Luppi, Nnoitra, Deidara just to name a few).

That being said, Boa has versions of the ability that don’t require attraction. She can inflict petrification via Slave Arrows or just with physical strikes, and it has worked on robots or even nonliving cannon balls that are obviously not attracted to her.

Resistance to transmutation on the opposing teams is… sparse. Senjutsu chakra can turn people to stone if they can’t handle it, so you can probably extrapolate a resistance for Obito, who’s been fine with it. Hashirama Cells can turn people to wood, similarly, which would be an additional transmutation resistance for Obito. But on the other hand, Pain has been turned to stone via Senjutsu chakra and Orochimaru’s body explicitly can’t handle Sage Mode, so neither of them would be immune to stone transmutation.

As for Bleach, Reiatsu has never been shown to overcome transmutation. The closest you could perhaps argue is that Gremmy was able to turn people’s bones into cookies, but didn’t try this on Kenpachi and didn’t believe he could beat Kenpachi. However, even assuming that Gremmy factored transmutation into his opinion, it would be extrapolating a lot to interpret this as a resistance, since Gremmy didn’t actually try it, so we don’t know why he thought it wouldn’t work. And even if it were a straightforward resistance for Kenpachi, this version of Kenpachi should realistically be stronger than any of the Espada, so it likely wouldn’t scale over anyway.

So… Boa MVP? Yes and no. It is worth noting that her petrification is reliant on projectiles and physical contact for the most part, so things like the Preta Path and other methods of interfering with projectiles could potentially mess with it. Zoning with flight and ranged attacks is also a decent answer, as far as the Espada are concerned. While Boa’s pulses can affect a large number of people at once, these are attraction-based; projectiles would have a more limited range of effect and give the other teams more time to adapt.

Summary: One of the most dangerous members of the Warlords, undoubtedly. Boa has the potential to take out large portions of the other teams all at once, so they need to take her out as quickly as possible.

Kuma

Kuma’s biggest boon is his ability to reflect attacks. This goes for both projectiles and physical attacks, as long as he can block them with his palms, which makes him a great counter to the Espada’s zoning, but conversely makes him less effective against large groups or people who can dish out more attacks than his two hands can reckon with. Starrk, for example, would be a substantial counter to his reflection, with thousands of Ceros at once being more than he could reasonably block.

Against the Akatsuki, Kuma’s worst nightmare is Sasori, whose iron sand could corrode his mechanisms and leave him defenseless, which he lacks any kind of major counter to. Iron sand is also malleable and thus could be maneuvered around his hands.

Outside of reflection, Kuma can also BFR people to another location across the world, which would be a good way of removing people from the field. However, Obito and Zetsu could teleport back or retrieve people who are displaced. Reverse summoning is another similar counter on the Akatsuki’s side of things, and the Espada of course make the tactic entirely useless with Descorrer.

Lastly, Kuma can also repel physical sensations such as pain (the feeling, not the guy) and redistribute them, though it requires some setup. This could allow him to negate damage done to his allies or forcibly subject enemies to agony, but given the amount of time it would take, this isn’t too reliable.

Summary: Definitely useful for battlefield control and the best ranged counter on the Warlords’ side. Though he’s not too offensively useful outside of hitting really hard, and he has some notable weaknesses or limitations that can be leveraged against him.

Moria

Moria’s principle contribution to this fight is numbers thanks to his massive zombie hordes, but he’s also relatively dangerous due to his shadow severing, which leaves people in a state where they will disintegrate if exposed to sunlight. Since cutting off a person’s shadow is an extremely esoteric hax ability, it naturally hasn’t come up for either of the other two teams, and thus is something that none of them have any special resistance to. Unless you were to make an argument based around characters moving fast enough to separate from their shadow, which would be… a stretch, to say the least.

The shadows that Moria manipulates are described as a “second soul,” so you could maybe argue that soul resistance would be enough to circumvent it. Though this would be pretty debatable, since it’s a unique type of “soul” being affected, compared to any of the resistance feats on the opposing teams. Even if you were to consider it directly analogous to a normal soul, given that Orochimaru could not resist having portions of his soul severed by the Reaper Death Seal, the Akatsuki would likely be pretty vulnerable regardless, though the Espada would not be.

With all this said, it’s a pretty inefficient hax, even supposing that no one can resist it. It would require Moria to use his shears to cut off each person’s shadow one at a time, which is easier said than done with a moving target. Then, once their shadow is severed, he needs to get them into sunlight to actually kill them. If they’re indoors, or if it’s nighttime, cutting off their shadow alone won’t accomplish much of anything. If his shears are disarmed from him or destroyed, he loses the option. Altogether, it’s just not all that reliable, though it is certainly dangerous, if properly implemented.

Perhaps more relevant is Moria’s zombie creation. Similar to Szayel’s clones or the Reanimation Jutsu, this option grants the Warlords a way to theoretically revive fallen comrades, with fewer drawbacks than the Reanimation Jutsu. Though it does require some setup, such as having available corpses and putting shadows into them, so it’s perhaps also inefficient.

Summary: Inefficient is holistically a good word to describe Moria. His shadow severing is a strong oneshot hax and his zombies could turn the tide with numbers, but both of them require him to jump through a few hoops first, so he’s an inefficient asset. Far from useless, though.

Law

Law is definitely the Warlords’ MVP here in a lot of ways, just off of the sheer amount of bullshit his Devil Fruit can do. Just to run down the list, he can:

Teleport people and objects
Control his environment telekinetically
Use spatial cutting to sever his opponents’ body parts
- These cuts can have up to island-wide AoE
Channel energy through a target’s body to pop all of their organs
Remove a person’s heart without killing them, and then use their heart to leverage their cooperation
Swap hearts between individuals, which functions as a mind swap
Cancel all sound within a certain vicinity
Warp space to create barriers in the air
Heal any injury or sickness
Grant immortality (at the cost of his own life)

First up, teleportation. While he can’t BFR anyone permanently for the same reason that Kuma can’t, his teleports are localized and are excellent for battlefield control, especially paired with his telekinesis. The Deva Path is a decent equivalent to the latter, but the Akatsuki have no direct equivalent to the former, with Kamui for instance having start-up time. However, it is worth noting that Law can’t teleport anyone whose spiritual energy is too strong, which could apply to the Espada.

Speaking of which, the Espada should be able to resist spatial cutting from opponents weaker than them, scaling to Dangai Ichigo doing something similar against Aizen’s Kurohitsugi. Of course, that version of Ichigo is stronger than the Espada, but Law is a lot weaker than Aizen, and the Espada are much stronger than Law, so their Reiatsu should be able to resist his cuts. The same cannot be said for the Akatsuki who have absolutely no such resistance. Even Madara fucking you-can’t-touch-me Uchiha with the entire Ten-Tails inside of him was still affected by space warping, safe to say none of the Akatsuki are immune to that.

Organ destruction and heart removal is another case where the Espada neg it, and the Akatsuki might have more trouble. Reiatsu can repel attacks to the organs (thanks, Soi Fon). For the Akatsuki… Obito survived impalement through the heart but was pretty badly injured by it. Kid Naruto was able to survive Gentle Fist attacks which target the organs, so the rest of the Akatsuki should have some baseline resistance, but then you have things like Kakuzu being fucked up by his hearts being destroyed, Chakra Scalpel being effective due to targeting internals, and so on. It’s not something that they just have no defense against whatsoever, but it would at least hurt pretty bad.

For some of them, that is. Orochimaru or Kisame’s regen is probably good enough to handle it, and some members like Zetsu and Sasori don’t have conventional organs or hearts to target. Konan could potentially counter by turning her body into paper, Pain isn’t reliant on metabolic processes (his bodies being corpses), and Hidan’s immortality makes it a less than effective measure. The main ones who would be inconvenienced are Itachi, Obito, Deidara, and Kakuzu. In a similar vein, swapping hearts would work on those that have hearts.

Sound canceling is hyper-specific but is a good counter to sound-based Genjutsu. Also, as a method of healing, the Ope Ope no Mi is pretty useful, though it’s worth mentioning that we don’t yet know the specifics of the immortality operation.

Summary: Without a doubt the most dangerous member of the Warlords… for the Akatsuki. Spatial cutting is ending anyone he catches with it, and he can apply it anywhere he likes within the vicinity of his Room, which can span island-sized areas. On the other hand, he’s pretty much useless against the Espada, since they resist all of his abilities.

Jinbe

Jinbe exists to be the Warlords’ answer to Kisame and Harribel, primarily. With their water manipulation being so dangerous to the many Devil Fruit users here, Jinbe’s ability to redirect water and swim real good is going to be key if the Warlords don’t want half their number drowning to death in one go. In a 1v1, however, while he likely beats Kisame, Harribel is way too strong for him, and if Jinbe dies she would have no trouble coming in and cleaning out most of the Warlords with a tidal wave.

Other than that, Jinbe’s shockwaves can inflict internal damage, which has already been covered repeatedly in other sections. It would do some damage but its effectiveness would depend on the Akatsuki member that it’s used on, and most of them can power through internal damage to some extent. Against the Espada, it would be practically useless.

Summary: Very important for keeping the Warlords out of last place, not great at getting them into first place. He’s a pretty good counter-play, but not much of a game-changer himself.

Doflamingo

Doflamingo is capable of physically commandeering people’s bodies with his strings. On the Akatsuki’s part, Sasori’s chakra threads are a direct equivalent to this, and characters in Naruto can resist the control of chakra threads, so the Akatsuki should generally be fine here. Worth noting as well that Sasori has puppeteered up to 100 puppets at once, while Doflamingo has never used his body puppetry on that many people. Unlike the Akatsuki, the Espada don’t have a direct equivalent resistance, but should just be able to power through it, realistically.

Doflamingo’s Awakening gives good environmental control, being able to turn his surroundings into string. It doesn’t work on living things, but it could still affect the Akatsuki’s weaponry like shuriken, kunai and so on, and Pain and Sasori in particular get hard-countered by it. Since the Espada’s weaponry are Zanpakuto and thus alive, however, those likely would be unaffected.

While Doffy can make clones, the Akatsuki can do so in much greater numbers via clone jutsu, and Szayelaporro can make numerous clones as well with his technology. Doffy’s regen can keep him fighting even while severely injured, but won’t repair fatal wounds, so it’s not super useful overall. His bird cage is good for fencing people in, but both of the other teams have numerous ways of destroying or haxing their way through it.

Summary: Outside of jobbing Pain out with a technicality, which is admittedly very funny, Doflamingo is pretty useless here. None of his abilities are very helpful and scaling-wise he’s one of the weaker Warlords.

Blackbeard

Blackbeard’s quake punches have the highest AoE out of all the Warlords, given that they should scale to Whitebeard’s planetary range. While they aren’t super haxy outside of hitting really hard, they can send shockwaves through a person’s body, and in fairness, they do hit really hard. The sheer destruction they cause is also pretty good for controlling the battlefield, or more appropriately for negating the battlefield control of other people. Disrupt order with chaos, and all that.

The Yami Yami no Mi is considerably more interesting. For one, it can stop people from using their powers at all, which does require touch, but he can suck a person in to achieve it. This would likely work on the majority of the Akatsuki, since even equipment-based fighters like Sasori are reliant on chakra and ninjutsu to actually use their weapons. With that in mind, it’s important for the Akatsuki to keep Blackbeard from getting his hands on them. The Espada would probably be fine, given that Reiatsu has an inherent power null component that they are constantly resisting in all of their battles.

Blackbeard’s darkness can absorb objects, people, and projectiles, sucking them up and crushing them into nothing under “infinite gravity” (ooooooo~). This would be a very good counter to ranged options like various elemental ninjutsu, as well as Ceros. Blackbeard does specify clearly that not even light can escape, after all. On top of that, the gravity of Blackbeard’s darkness should not go unstated, as it’s a counter to the Deva Path and an excellent means of battlefield control on top of the options that the Gura Gura no Mi already affords him.

In terms of counters from the other teams, the Preta Path could potentially absorb his darkness (how the turns have tabled…) and Reiatsu can resist powerful gravity manipulation. Obito could likely phase through the darkness with Kamui, and Itachi could arguably seal it with the Totsuka Blade. Since darkness isn’t physical, it probably wouldn’t be stopped by Baraggan’s Respira, notably.

Lastly, Blackbeard has the currently-unexplained ability to steal Devil Fruit abilities, which he used to snatch the Gura Gura no Mi power from Whitebeard’s corpse. This is currently too unexplained to say it would work on powers that aren’t Devil Fruits, since we have no idea yet how he does it. Though with that being said, Blackbeard could potentially use it to swipe the powers of other Warlords, preserving his allies’ abilities even after they die.

Summary: Very dangerous. Hits like a truck with quake powers, and his darkness can cancel out a lot of offensive measures and power null people he touches. Great range, great battlefield control… less than amazing team player, admittedly.

Fraudhawk

Mihawk might as well have painted his swords black, with how little he’s actually bringing to this battle. Sure, he’s probably the strongest Warlord at the moment. Sure, he’s got dat Haki. But against anyone who he can’t beat by hitting them really hard, he’s going to be useless. Take Obito, for instance. Kamui makes Obito immune to Mihawk’s singular method of attack. Take Orochimaru, for instance. Mihawk cuts his head off, and then Orochimaru just regens and is fine. Take Baraggan, for instance. Mihawk swings his sword, and wuh oh! All of a sudden, no more sword!

Summary: He’s struggling… Let’s stop.

Weevil

Take everything about Mihawk up there and make him also a dumbass manbaby, and you’d basically have Edward Weevil. Maybe he’ll be the GOAT in the future, whenever he shows up again, but for the time being he’s useless outside of being really strong and beeg.

Summary: He’s gonna Weevil all over those guys.

Buggy

You may think that Buggy is useless here, but that’s just Gorosei propaganda. In actuality, Buggy possesses transcendent power beyond our earthly conceptions to such an extent that we are simply incapable of perceiving his scaling properly. This is actually very similar to how Aizen couldn’t be sensed in Bleach once he had begun evolving toward godhood, so under basic verse equalization it’s pretty clear that Buggy soloes the Espada, just like Aizen would. The Akatsuki, on the other hand, would naturally be afraid of him given his close visual resemblance to the Sage of Six Paths (some say they may be related, or that Buggy may be his reincarnation, currently unclear, wait for the flashback).

Summary: Unfortunately, due to the scale of the gap in power between Buggy and everyone else on the battlefield, we must disqualify him for the sake of fairness. We’re sure you understand.

Teamwork

The Warlords definitely have the biggest reputation for having zero teamwork, and while it’s definitely true on some level, it’s not really as devastating as it’s been made out to be. Marineford shows that most of them can work together given a common goal, with Law and Doflamingo really being the only major exceptions. Even Blackbeard is pretty good at playing nice when it benefits him, though the rest may be unwilling to play nice with him.

It’s also not like the Akatsuki and Espada don’t have teamwork issues of their own. Both have a long, checkered history of backstabbing each other and trying to kill each other, and while the Akatsuki have better showings of collaboration than the Warlords, the Espada genuinely do not. It’s not something that’s going to singularly tank the Warlords chances, the way that some people think it would, it’s an issue that all of them have.

Summary

a poster for the seven hearts of the sea shows a group of characters

“Don’t panic. You seem to have forgotten something. The reason they chose us to be the Seven Warlords… was for our strength!!”

Advantages:

Stronger than the Akatsuki
Law’s spatial manipulation lacks counters from the Akatsuki
Boa’s transmutation lacks counters from both teams
Good battlefield control with Blackbeard
Kuma and Blackbeard counter projectiles
Jinbe can curtail water-based tactics from Kisame and Harribel
Moria’s zombies could theoretically provide a numbers advantage
Moria’s shadow severing in theory could kill anyone on the field
Logia intangibility can phase through attacks
Have resistances to a decent chunk of the haxes on the other teams (soul manip, high heat, gravity manip, etc.)
Observation Haki improves field awareness massively
Easy counters to Pain and Sasori

Disadvantages:

Weaker than the Espada
Subpar teamwork
Lack resistance to Orochimaru’s poison
Lack resistance to Deidara’s C4
Itachi’s Genjutsu supersedes resistances
Many of them would struggle to deal with Kamui intangibility
Lack resistances to Baraggan’s Respira
Lose to the Espada in range and mobility on average
Several members lack special abilities, including Mihawk, the strongest
Buggy is so powerful we had to disqualify him 😦

Between the Warlords and the Akatsuki, both have several big options that the opposing side lacks defenses against. For example, it’s easy to equate Itachi’s oneshot Genjutsu with Law’s oneshot spatial hax, as well as Deidara’s AoE C4 with Boa’s AoE transmutation. In that regard, Law lacks Itachi’s stamina problems and Boa has more controlled variants of her petrification compared to Deidara’s exclusively high-collateral C4. The Warlords also job Pain instantly, win out in general battlefield control with Blackbeard, and have several methods of getting around Obito’s Kamui.

Ultimately, the biggest thing in the Warlords’ favor is stats. Speed is within an error margin, swinging slightly one way or the other depending on which ends you use, but AP is usually going to favor the Warlords on average. They fully sweep if you use higher map sizes, and if you don’t, the only Akatsuki who’s stronger than them is Orochimaru, whose abilities outside of poison aren’t very useful against the Warlords as a whole, and who lacks counters to Law or Boa.

Altogether, it’s not lopsided, but the Warlords take second over the Akatsuki with high difficulty. That said, they fall short of first place, because…

1st Place –
Espada

(Source)

Sorry Bleach fans, we know you all really wanted a win, but… Oh shit.

Yeah, taking the gold medal we have the Espada. With the highest stats and the tightest hax resistances overall, the gap between first and second is notably larger than the gap between second and third. That being said, let’s go over why Aizen’s top officers have what it takes to crush the competition.

Attack Potency

The most blatant AP feat that can be broadly attributed to the entire Espada is the destruction of Las Noches, which all of them are said to be capable of, even Aaroniero. That alone is hitting double digit petatons of TNT, but this isn’t their limit, far from it; it’s just a baseline. Much more impressive are various showings, even earlier in the series, of characters threatening entire realms or pocket spaces within Bleach’s world.

For example, Ichigo in his Shikai was able to block the Sokyoku during Soul Society, well before he reached the level of strength needed to take down any of the Espada. Even accounting for the Sokoyku’s power boost between its different transformed states (stated to be dozens of times), Ichigo would still need to be countering, at minimum, a respectable fraction of the power needed to destroy a planet-sized realm. This could be increased even more if you were to account for the larger size of the Soul Society.

Notably, Ulquiorra was able to contend to some extent with Full Hollow Ichigo, who during the Hellverse movie was able to tear through the three layers of Hell, which should each individually be at least planet sized. Ulquiorra’s fight with Ichigo was even noted to have shaken all of Hueco Mundo, in the novelization.

Even more substantial, in the Memories of Nobody film, 156 Kido Corps members were able to power a weapon called the Kido Cannon, which destroyed a dimension that very explicitly contained a star. Can’t Fear Your Own World later confirms that the light in this dimension is “natural sunlight,” meaning the star is real. This is important because Memories of Nobody takes place before the Arrancar Saga, meaning that the Espada broadly scale to the power of an individual Kido Corps member at this point in the timeline. Dividing the yield, each one would be contributing over 870 ronnatons of TNT.

This isn’t even the highest number you could argue, given that Grimmjow, Harribel, Nel and Luppi come back later during Thousand Year Blood War and Can’t Fear Your Own World, and thus could potentially scale to Kenpachi’s Dangai split and the various statements about Soul King candidates, which would boost them up to potentially solar system level… but that would be overkill. 870 ronnatons exceeds any calc for the Akatsuki or Warlords by hundreds of times.

Speed

As detailed to an extent in the Before the Verdict section, Bleach has feats as early as the first arc in which characters like Ichigo react to Ceros, which are stated multiple times to be beams of light. Around this time, Uryu also outspeeds his own shadow, and fodder characters like Nanao later react to legitimate beams of light, lending consistency to FTL speed for even low tier characters. This is a trend that you can see with the Espada as well, with even Aaroniero, the weakest of their number, being able to dodge actual sunlight.

Moving past baseline FTL feats, the Espada can also launch Balas that are 20 times faster than Ceros, and they all scale to at least lieutenant level shinigami such as Hisagi, who can speedblitz a massive Cero barrage so fast he is invisible in comparison to the beams. Perhaps most impressively, Starrk can fire a barrage of a thousand Ceros within the time it takes the original beam to travel a tiny distance, making it look as though they all fired simultaneously. This would require speeds exceeding 1200 times FTL, and though Starrk was the top dog at the time, he’s more middle of the road holistically, with about half the Espada or so scaling to or above him.

If you need consistency for this number, look no further. In Thousand Year Blood War, the Soul King’s corpse sends a shockwave across the realms at around 1500 times FTL, and True Shikai Ichigo reacts to attacks from Soul King Yhwach that utilize the same power. Grimmjow, and by extension the other living members of the Espada, is comparable to this version of Ichigo.

While the other two teams are quantifiably higher than this, at least on the high-end, the gap is only a couple of times, which basic power cliffing is enough to exceed. Resurreccion on its own is a 5 to 10 times amp, scaling off of Bankai, and the current Espada should definitely compare to Starrk’s feat even without releasing. So that’s more than enough to make up the “gap.”

Arsenal & Abilities

The Espada… vary, in terms of how complex their abilities are, with a good chunk of them not having any notable hax to speak of. That said, all of them possess some shared options, such as Reiatsu Crush, spatial warping as a general offensive power, and some equipment based hax like Caja Negacion. With that in mind, let’s run down the full list of things the other teams need to watch out for.

Reiatsu Crush
(& Gonzui)

Reiatsu can induce strain onto an opponent, causing fear, paralysis, intense pressure, incapacitation, unconsciousness, and even death if the difference in power between the user and target is great enough. In Yammy’s case, he was able to nearly crush Tatsuki’s soul with his presence alone, via Reiatsu. So it’s important to discuss both mental effects and soul resistance.

Starting with the Akatsuki here, Chakra is able to induce physical and psychological strain on the target, somewhat similar to Reiatsu. On top of which, there are a variety of things in Naruto that can be extrapolated to suggest some baseline interaction between chakra and the soul and/or soul hax resistance, including but not limited to:

Orochimaru’s body transfer is stated to affect the soul, and Sasuke was able to resist it, eroding the effect through sheer force of will
The version of Kurama inside Naruto’s mindscape is stated to be Kurama’s soul
- Sasuke’s Sharingan was able to suppress him
- Naruto and Killer B are able to battle Kurama’s soul within said mindscape and withstand hits from him and vice versa, which would constitute direct attacks on the soul
By extension, the jutsu that all of the Akatsuki use to extract tailed beasts would be extracting their soul, the time-frame of which is proportional to the strength of the users
Sealing jutsu are explicitly stated to affect the soul in the war arc
The databook says that the four symbols seal that was placed on Naruto works on evil spirits
The databook says that Dan’s ghost jutsu crushes the soul of the body that he inhabits
Deidara’s C0 is stated in the databook to damage the soul
Orochimaru could resist the Reaper Death Seal in part 1, though primarily its soul removal, as it was still able to damage his soul
Tsunade’s medical ninjutsu can interact with the soul, as she could have repaired Orochimaru’s limbs
The Totsuka Blade sucks out the target’s soul
The Outer, Human, and Naraka Paths all manipulate souls
Tsukuyomi is stated to have an effect on the soul in the novels
Obito’s Kamui is able to transport his soul back from the Pure Lands temporarily
Tayuya’s flute can materialize spirits
Orochimaru and the Sound Four can remove and seal souls in anime filler
Ino’s mind transfer jutsu is stated in the databook to transfer her “heart and spirit” and Obito was able to resist that

With this in mind, it’s probably fair to say that the Akatsuki would largely be fine from being “aura mogged” by the Espada flexing their Reiatsu a bit too hard. The Warlords can similarly resist Conqueror’s Haki, the mental effects of which are comparable to Reiatsu, as well as soul hax from Big Mom.

Though we’re skipping ahead a bit, the soul resistance stuff here would also likely apply to Yammy’s Gonzui, which Tatsuki was able to resist simply due to possessing minimal amounts of spiritual power. Given the Akatsuki and Warlords are a lot stronger than Tatsuki and have a degree of soul resistance, it’s fairly safe to say they would be fine.

Caja Negacion

Caja Negacion is a piece of equipment that can seal things in another dimension, and all of the Espada have access to it. Most of the Akatsuki don’t have direct counters to this, but some of them do, with the biggest example being Obito. Given his Kamui, he could easily return from this dimension if trapped there. Though it is worth noting that Espada have been trapped there before and could not simply leave with Descorrer immediately, so he may need to actually break the seal first.

Since Obito is shown to be able to resonate his Kamui with dimensions other than his own as well, such as Kaguya’s time-spaces, he could hypothetically use Kamui to travel to and from that dimension at will after being trapped with it, to free other Akatsuki as well. Notably, Itachi’s Amaterasu was also able to burn him free from Jiraiya’s Toad Mouth Bind, which is classified as a space-time seal.

As for the Warlords, their best counter would just be Haki, given that Law couldn’t spatially displace Kaido or Big Mom due to the strength of their Haki. Though it is worth noting that the Warlords are not as strong as the Espada, so whether this resistance would be strong enough to extend to Caja Negacion is debatable.

“Nice Complex Hax Ability Dipshit,
Check This Shit Out”

While not exactly a “hax”, all of the Espada can produce massive energy attacks with vast area-of-effect. When exerting their power to a great enough extent, this consistently allows them to warp or even tear through space, which could be argued as a light durability bypass.

A number of the Akatsuki have good counters to energy attacks. Pain, Obito, Kisame, and Orochimaru all have energy absorption, and certain defensive measures like the Yata Mirror or Kamui could either guard against or avoid these attacks, even those that warp space. Substitution and clones (i.e. Deidara, Zetsu, or Konan) are also a decent countermeasure, as is teleportation (Zetsu).

That said, a number of the Akatsuki are more vulnerable, with Sasori, Kakuzu, and Hidan lacking counters almost entirely, and several others like Konan and Deidara only countering via avoidance and not being able to handle these sorts of attacks head-on. Absorption being a major counter is also troublesome, since it’s established in Bleach that the Espada can overtax energy absorption if they exert their power in high enough quantities. While some of the Akatsuki’s absorption methods wouldn’t have an issue with this, such as the Preta Path, others like Samehada potentially would.

As for the Warlords, Kuma can repel energy attacks with his Fruit, and Blackbeard can absorb them with his darkness, which not even light can escape from. Law’s teleportation, meanwhile, could help to avoid them. The rest of the Warlords don’t really have many great answers to just getting blasted, at least not given the size and power of the attacks.

With that in mind, hitting the other guys really, really hard is ironically not a bad tactic for the Espada to fall back on. But they can also do a lot more than that too, so let’s get into some of the individual powers and the counters that the Akatsuki have to those.

Starrk

Starrk can… hit the other guys really, really hard.

…Okay, maybe not a great one to start on after that transition, but for what it’s worth, Starrk exemplifies the tactics outlined above to a tee. He can fire Ceros so quickly that a thousand of them seem to fill the same space in an instant, overwhelming his opponents with sheer speed, size, and accuracy. This is a lot faster than Law could reasonably teleport around, too many Ceros for Kuma to block with two hands, and can overload energy absorbers, so even Blackbeard won’t do well against it.

Ditto for Kisame and Orochimaru, who have a certain threshold for how much energy they can absorb. The Preta Path has no such threshold, but needs to stop absorbing before Nagato or Obito can use other abilities. Speaking of which, Starrk’s ability to keep up the pressure with constant attacks would allow him to far outlast the time limit of Obito’s Kamui and Izanagi.

Summary: All this is to say, if it’s one on one? Bet on Starrk. He doesn’t have options beyond hitting hard, fast, and a lot, but the sheer number of attacks he can launch at once, coupled with the power and size of those attacks, would allow him to quickly eclipse whatever defense anyone on the other teams can put up. Maybe Itachi could catch him with a Genjutsu before he can start blasting, but Starrk leads with Cero spamming, so that wouldn’t be easy either. It would probably take people ganging up on him to take him down, and even then bro can fire a thousand shots instantly, he might just headshot everyone on both of the other teams and be done.

Baraggan

Okay okay, actual hax boy time now. The big, immediate elephant in the room that needs to be addressed is Baraggan and his time dilation field, aging aura, and devastating Respira attacks. A lot of people, understandably, view Baraggan as practically unbeatable, and it’s not uncommon for him to be viewed as a fighter potentially capable of winning this fight for the Espada all by himself.

While Baraggan’s ability is definitely one of the most dangerous on the Espada’s side, you’ll quickly find that this is something of an exaggeration. While the Akatsuki don’t have physical resistance to being aged to death, broadly speaking, they do have a number of ways to deal with it, and it most certainly wouldn’t singlehandedly decide the fight.

For starters, it’s worth remembering that Respira is a projectile that can be avoided by a fast enough opponent. While it does have high AoE and was fast enough to tag Soi Fon, the fastest captain at the time, an opponent who can get away quickly enough via fleeing or teleporting could evade it fairly reasonably. On top of that, given that the ability is Reiatsu-based, there’s nothing preventing it from being absorbed by abilities like the Preta Path. The Deva Path could repel it via Shinra Tensei given that you can’t age gravitational force, and Itachi’s Yata Mirror can mimic the properties of an attack to block it, and thus could likely block Respira in a manner similar to Baraggan’s own membrane. Obito can also phase through it, and both he and Konan could teleport away from it.

That said, it is worth acknowledging that if an Akatsuki member were caught directly by it, they probably would just die. Zetsu is immortal and thus potentially couldn’t be aged to death… maybe. Sasori’s puppet body is designed to never decay, but his core contains organic components and thus would be more susceptible. They have many ways to circumvent the attack, but if they fail to do so properly, they could be caught and end up in serious trouble.

On the Warlords’ end, they do have some pretty decent counters. Law’s spatial teleportation is the most obvious, since teleporting a piece of Baraggan’s own body inside of him was how he was defeated and killed in canon, and Law’s Room should be able to bypass Baraggan’s barrier, since the effects can be applied directly to anything within its radius.

Baraggan can age Kido, so Boa’s energy pulses probably wouldn’t be able to get through, but Blackbeard’s darkness would, because it’s not physical. Speaking of which, Blackbeard could likely absorb Respira, since it’s still a Reiryoku-based ability, and his darkness would be impervious to the aging effect. Likewise, you can potentially argue that Crocodile’s sand could withstand it, since sand can last for millions of years without decaying, a much longer time span than what Baraggan has been shown to age (his best feat being a thousand years).

Worth noting as well, there are some Devil Fruit powers that can cause aging and decay. Bonney’s Fruit can change people’s age, and Shinobu’s Juku Juku no Mi can mature and decay anything she touches, much like Baraggan. With that in mind, powerful Haki could feasibly resist the effect… though since Baraggan is stronger than the Warlords, that probably wouldn’t work too well. In which case, he could probably brute force his way through most of them, as long as he’s able to actually hit them. Though the more mobile members, like Law, Kuma, Doflamingo, and so on would perhaps be hard to pin down.

Summary: Very, very dangerous, undoubtedly, but surprisingly not completely game breaking on his own. The other teams have a fair number of workarounds to his defenses and could in many cases avoid or nullify his offenses. If he actually catches them with his attacks, though, most if not all of them would just die.

Harribel

Harribel’s major unique ability is her water manipulation, which is actually pretty useful since most of the Warlords would die if she floods the battlefield. Of course, they have Jinbe to help them out, but Jinbe is a lot weaker than Harribel, and his martial arts wouldn’t hold up well against her sword. Likewise, she can overwhelm Kisame’s absorption and overcome his regeneration, making her overall the strongest water user on the battlefield.

Also of note, her Reiryoku can control any water around her, and she can boil the water she attacks with for greater damage. This would allow her to commandeer any water used by Jinbe or Kisame, and turn it scalding hot to increase the degree to which it would be able to damage them. Jinbe in particular has endured scalding water in Impel Down, but it can still hurt him, and he was badly injured by the heat of Akainu’s magma during Marineford.

Summary: Wins the water fight and drowns most of the Warlords afterward. Other than Kisame, the Akatsuki largely wouldn’t appreciate a flooded battlefield either.

Nel

For the most part, Nel is just a bruiser, so outside of the basic “can fly and blow up countries” thing that can be said for every Espada member, she doesn’t have too much to talk about, but there are a couple things of note. For one, her Lanzador Verde can drill through space, somewhat similar to a Gran Rey Cero, as established in Can’t Fear Your Own World. None of the Akatsuki resist this, and while the Warlords can counter spatial manipulation with strong enough Haki, Nel is one of the strongest Espada and thus well beyond the threshold of their resistance. Making her lance a viable oneshot option against anyone who can’t regen from it.

On top of that, she also has energy absorption, where she can inhale Ceros with her mouth and spit them back with extra power. This is a decent counter to some projectile attacks (like fire jutsu or laser blasts from the Asura Path, for instance), but cannot be used to directly absorb energy from an individual, and thus is not a threat offensively, outside of just deflecting attacks back to sender.

Summary: Major threat just due to her sheer power, and has a oneshot option against anyone with her Lanzador. Good for countering energy attacks as well.

Ulquiorra

Now we’re starting to get into a string of members who are truly just good at hitting things really hard, so let’s knock ‘em out nice and quick. Ulquiorra’s regeneration makes him hard to put down, even if it can’t repair lost organs, and his Lanza can obliterate massive areas, making him great for crowd control and sheer destruction. Perhaps most notable is the fact that his Reiatsu is so strong it’s impervious to Orihime’s rejection ability, making him a very strong counter to Izanagi, which functions similarly.

Summary: Strong boy, hits hard and heals good. Helps make sure that Uchihas stay dead when they die.

Nnoitra

Nnoitra specializes in nearly-impenetrable defenses with his skin, and can heal quickly even if he is injured, regrowing lost limbs near-instantly. Other than that he’s just strong, so there’s not much to pick apart here.

Summary: On the weaker end of the Espada and lacks special abilities. Nothing very worth noting; a lot of the other Espada do his job better.

Grimmjow

Grimmjow is the strongest Espada, so broadly speaking all of the arguments about AP, overwhelming Reiatsu, flight, range, AoE and so on pertain to him most of all. In terms of special abilities, he doesn’t really have a lot, but he does have even better poison resistance than an average Hollow thanks to his fight with Askin, and his Gran Rey Cero can damage space, making it a valid oneshot option against anyone on the opposing teams.

Summary: Straightforward fighter, but far from useless. Through sheer strength alone, he could tear through most if not all of the competition, and his Gran Rey Cero can oneshot anyone on the field if it hits them.

Luppi

Almost as strong as Grimmjow, and also can damage space with his Gran Rey Cero, plus the fact that he can fire eight Gran Rey Ceros at once with his tentacles. On top of that, his blood contains a poison that can even affect people with poison resistance, which should work on the majority of the Akatsuki and Warlords, with the possible exception of specific individuals like Orochimaru and Sasori.

Summary: Between all of that and his unhinged mind, he’s arguably even more dangerous than Grimmjow, and similarly capable of being a big AP stick that tears through people quickly and efficiently.

Zommari

Zommari can paralyze and control people in the line of sight of one of his many eyes, by creating a special mark on their body. These are decently dangerous (amusingly, given how much of a jobber Zommari is) though would potentially be ineffective depending on the opponent. Certain Akatsuki members (Orochimaru, Kakuzu, Konan) have detachable body parts and thus would not be severely hindered even if tagged. Crocodile’s Logia intangibility is a similar counter, and Blackbeard’s power nullification should be able to negate the marks, as they would be touching his body.

Other characters might be more susceptible, but it’s worth noting that Zommari’s ability has a lot of weaknesses that Byakuya was able to figure out easily over the course of their short fight. For example, Byakuya demonstrated that barriers can block the markings, so things like clones or physical barriers like Rashomon or the Yata Mirror could probably do the same. They could also be potentially absorbed by abilities like the Preta Path, which can absorb things like shadows as long as they are jutsu-based.

Summary: Dangerous, but manageable. That said, if he catches specific people lacking, there’s really not a lot they would be able to do once the marks are placed on them. He’s also pretty good for crowd control.

Szayelaporro

Szayelaporro has a lot of weird abilities that are context-dependent but potentially threatening. For example, his ability to nullify powers requires setup, but could work if he’s given enough time to get it in place. His clones can be countered by… well, clone jutsu, and to a lesser extent by Moria’s zombies and Doffy’s string clones. His illusions can be countered by the Sharingan and basic Counter Genjutsu, but would be more effective on the Warlords.

His organ crush wouldn’t work on Hidan, Orochimaru, or Zetsu, and since it requires him to suck people up first it probably wouldn’t be usable against Obito due to Kamui. Other Akatsuki members would have a harder time with it, though it is worth noting that Kisame has tanked internal attacks from Neji, as have weaker characters like Part 1 Naruto. It should also be noted, however, that organ destruction has proved debilitating to Akatsuki members such as Kakuzu and even Obito. Against the Warlords, Doflamingo can repair damaged organs and Law can heal with the Ope Ope, on top of having heart attacks of his own. The rest would be more susceptible.

Szayel could also revive deceased Espada potentially, via his cloning or via a similar method to what Kurotsuchi used in Thousand Year Blood War. It’s worth noting, though, that the Akatsuki also have Izanagi, Rinne Rebirth, and the Reanimation Jutsu which can achieve roughly the same effect, though not without drawbacks in the case of the first two, or significant setup in the case of the Reanimation Jutsu. The Warlords have Moria’s fruit to potentially revive them, but this likewise requires setup.

Szayel is technically immortal, able to be reborn through the body of a person that he implants himself into. This does require setup though, and he can be killed via relatively mundane means, like stabbing him in the heart.

Summary: Very good supporting player, between his intelligence and his various tricks and weird abilities. If there’s one word that could describe Szayel’s impact on the other teams here, it’s probably “annoying.” He’s just going to generally make things harder for them, which is a pretty decent niche for him to fill.

Aaroniero

Aaroniero could hypothetically steal people’s abilities via eating them, but this would require him to actually kill them first, so it’s not necessarily suuuuper useful. That said, there are some people on the other teams, like Itachi, Obito, Boa, and Law who would be very dangerous if their powers were successfully stolen. In that sense, Aaroniero brings a distinct advantage to the table: the most dangerous powers that the other teams bring are all things that he could steal for the Espada in the right circumstances.

That said, he also has the most debilitating weakness given his inability to function in direct sunlight. This could be pretty easily taken advantage of, in the event that, say, someone were to read his mind with the Sharingan and find out about it, or just notice the fact that he stays out of the sunlight.

Summary: The weakest Espada with the worst weakness, but potentially good for stealing advantages from the other teams.

Yammy

Yammy’s biggest attribute is his ability to get progressively stronger over time, which is pretty bad for the other teams when he’s already stronger than them to begin with. He can also grow gigantic, which is useful in terms of making it harder to deal with him, though in fairness both of the other two teams have dealt with similar and larger opponents, and it does make him a bigger target.

Other than that, as already discussed earlier, his Gonzui is possibly an extremely dangerous option, since it’s an AoE soul suck that he can just pop whenever he wants. But both of the other teams should have the minimal soul resistance needed to resist this, like how Tatsuki did. That said, Gonzui isn’t useless, since it hard counters the Reanimation Jutsu. Other than Madara, no reanimated shinobi was able to resist their souls being sealed or removed from their bodies.

Summary: Useful in the same sense that a wrecking ball would be. He can brute force the other two teams reasonably well, and he would clutch up with Gonzui if the Reanimation Jutsu comes out.

Teamwork

The Espada, largely speaking and with only a handful of exceptions, aren’t friends and don’t have showings of fighting alongside one another. Some specific pairs like Nel and Nnoitra or Grimmjow and Luppi have established animosity, and other members like Szayel and Aaroniero have tried to kill each other in the past. The group works together moreso because Aizen forces them than for any other reason.

That being said, all of the living Espada teamed up against Ikomikidomoe during the events of Can’t Fear Your Own World, even Grimmjow and Luppi despite the fact that they have the strongest animosity for one another out of the entire Espada. Against a mutual foe, the group as a whole are capable of setting aside their differences, they aren’t just animals. While not as coordinated as the Akatsuki, they should at least be on par with the Warlords in this respect.

Conclusion

a black and white drawing of a man with a beard holding a gun

“If Aizen has ten or more of those Vasto Lordes under his command… the Soul Society is doomed.”

Advantages:

Strongest of the three teams
Flight grants them the highest average mobility
Extremely high range and AoE helps with overwhelming the other teams
Hax resistances are overall the most all-encompassing between the three groups. Can resist:
- Law’s spatial manipulation
- Orochimaru and Sasori’s poisons and acids
- Attacks that target internal organs
- Various types of basic mind hax
- Power nullification from Blackbeard
- Gravity manipulation from the Deva Path and Blackbeard
- Any hax that must pierce the skin to function (Curse Marks, Hidan’s ritual, etc.)
- Soul manipulation (Reaper Death Seal, Moria’s shadow severing, Human Path)
- High temperature attacks like Amaterasu
- Sealing (Totsuka Blade, Chibaku Tensei, etc.)
Starrk’s thousands of attacks can overwhelm anyone on the other teams
Baraggan’s Respira can oneshot most of the other teams
Space-tearing attacks like Gran Rey Cero and Lanzador Verde can oneshot anyone they hit
Szayelaporro’s clones counter zombies and clone jutsu
Yammy’s Gonzui counters the Reanimation Jutsu
Harribel can drown any Devil Fruit user
Harribel is a superior water user than both Jinbe and Kisame
Aaroniero can steal dangerous powers from the other teams
Capable of overtaxing energy absorbers (other than the Preta Path)
Can escape Obito’s Kamui Dimension with Descorrer

Disadvantages:

Vulnerable to Itachi’s stronger Genjutsu
Largely unable to resist Boa’s petrification
Largely unable to resist Deidara’s C4
Largely unable to resist Crocodile’s dehydration
Preta Path and Blackbeard’s darkness can absorb energy attacks

It’s fairly easy to look at the three teams and come to the conclusion that the Espada are holistically the strongest. While a lot of their members are more about brute force than abilities, it bears emphasizing that every single member of the Espada can fly and shoot gigantic laser beams that can bust countries and warp space. Their mobility, range, and area of effect are the most consistently impressive of the three groups, and that shouldn’t go unstated.

From there, they also just compare favorably in other regards. Their AP is by far the highest of the three groups, their speed is up to par, and they have the tightest hax resistances overall, with Reiatsu being able to overcome the vast majority of options on the opposing teams. So long as the person is stronger than the attacker, of course, which… the Espada are. The strongest Espada like Grimmjow should be able to tank most attacks that would be dangerous and tear through the other teams with sheer AP alone, with AoE high enough that they could feasibly take out numerous enemies with singular attacks.

From there, add on hax options like Respira, Gonzui, Amor, and all of Szayelaporro’s weird esoteric bullshit, and it’s game over. Even if some of those options can be countered in one-on-one situations, they’re all incredibly dangerous and capable of killing members of the other teams quickly and efficiently.

En esta contienda de los Tres Grandes, el enemigo cae ante La Espada.

✨Bonus Round✨

So now that we’ve presented you with a certifiable novel of Big Three stats, abilities, and VS discussion, as a bonus let’s run through a bunch of other Big Three matches and talk about who we think is most likely to win! Obviously these are going to be more off-the-cuff compared to the overall team fight here, but we’ve done enough research into all three verses that we think we’ve got a pretty good idea of things. Starting with… a couple individual matches from members of these teams!

Jinbe VS Kisame

This is “probably” the best one-on-one match between a member of the Akatsuki and a member of the Warlords. While it should be somewhat close, overall the result mirrors that of the full organizations. Jinbe is on average stronger and should be comparable in speed, even using the high-end of Kisame’s water generation calc. Though it is worth noting Kisame does have better regeneration and Samehada’s chakra absorption is a decent way of bridging the gap in AP if the fight goes on long enough. It was able to do so against Killer B and the Eight-Tails, who should be as strong or stronger than Jinbe, so Kisame could definitely win if things go right for him. Since Jinbe starts out with the AP advantage though, he generally has easier options for winning earlier, compared to Kisame who would be reliant on stalling until the late fight.

Law VS Obito

In contrast, this is one where the Akatsuki member probably actually wins. In a one-on-one fight rather than a team match, it’s much more permissible to give Obito the Ten-Tails, in which case he both stat and hax stomps, even with Law’s broken abilities. But even without it, Law likely has no easy counter to Kamui and would be subdued quickly via Obito’s Genjutsu. Obito also has comparable mobility, battlefield control via the Deva Path, and can absorb Haki via the Preta Path.

Naruto VS Ichigo

If you stick to solar system level interpretations for Bleach, Naruto should probably have the advantage… mostly. While Yhwach has technically threatened more space-times simultaneously than Kaguya (three realms + Garganta and Dangai + at least 29 Kyogoku), the method that Kaguya was going to use to destroy her time-space (atomization) balances out the results numerically, and speed should be roughly comparable, even if you try to extrapolate with multipliers. From there, Naruto has much better abilities across the board (clones, various elemental attacks, cellular damage via Rasenshuriken, etc.), outside of some specific categories like regeneration that Ichigo would scoop up.

In order to argue for Ichigo winning, you would need to make the case that he completely eclipses Naruto in strength, since if strength is close or in Naruto’s favor, Naruto would win via abilities. With that in mind, if you were to accept Bleach’s realms as universe-sized but deny the same affordance to Kaguya’s time-spaces or the Limited Tsukuyomi, then Ichigo would be much stronger and thus win. Bleach’s arguments in this respect are probably overall easier to make, since the Human Realm is just the normal reality, whereas all the “dimension” related feats in Naruto pertain to alternate time-spaces. So if you were to side with Ichigo for this reason, that would make sense and be a reasonable take as well. Though if you were to accept universe-sized for both, then it goes back to Naruto winning again, much like if you were to reject it for both.

Naruto VS Luffy

This one is a lot more straightforward. There’s nothing in One Piece currently that stacks up to Kaguya’s Expansive Truth-Seeking Orb and even a variety of lesser Naruto feats, and Naruto takes nearly every ability-related category here as well. Clones, regeneration, Rasenshuriken and Lava Release to bypass Luffy’s physical resistance to damage, resistance to internal damage from Advanced Armament, greater intelligence, greater stamina, etc. Baryon Mode also hard counters Gear Fifth, since it can shave down the target’s lifespan with each hit and could thus force Gear Fifth’s time limit to elapse immediately with one or two hits.

Madara VS Aizen

This one is even more debatable than Naruto VS Ichigo, because unlike Naruto, Madara doesn’t scale to Kaguya, and Aizen stacks up a lot better in the event that stats are close. Madara would still scale to the Limited Tsukuyomi, so he’s still at least in the ballpark of lower Bleach metas. But if you were to accept “universe-sized” for both, then Aizen would probably AP stomp. Obviously, he would also AP stomp if you accepted it for Bleach and rejected it for Naruto.

On the other hand, if you go with the lower-end solar system ish interpretations for both, Madara probably wins. Kyoka Suigetsu is definitely layered mind hax based on some statements from Can’t Fear Your Own World, but Genjutsu is even more so. Since both of them focus so heavily on illusions and mind hax, Madara being superior in that regard is a big advantage. Aizen’s immortality will make him hard to kill, but a lot of it is because his Reiatsu is far beyond most of the Soul Society and therefore capable of suppressing whatever powers are used against him. With comparable stats, Madara has the means to overcome his resistances and negate his regeneration. It’s definitely a close call though, and there’s a good chance that this will be outdated soon, if Aizen uses his unknown Bankai in the anime.

Kaguya VS Yhwach

Yhwach probably takes this one fairly comfortably. As with the other two Naruto VS Bleach top tier matches, you can probably get stats close enough, and Kaguya has abilities like the Infinite Tsukuyomi which are potentially outside of what Yhwach can resist. But the Almighty is frankly just really really broken, and can essentially be used to circumvent Kaguya’s entire arsenal. The only reason why Aizen was able to affect Yhwach with Kyoka Suigetsu was because he placed him under the effect before Yhwach had the Almighty. So by the time Yhwach had the ability back, there was no possible future where he wouldn’t be under the effects of KS. If he starts the fight with Almighty, this workaround wouldn’t work. This is to say nothing of Yhwach’s various Schrifts, which should widen the gap even further.

Sanji VS Rock Lee

A lot of the argumentation in the actual Death Battle for this matchup doesn’t really hold up. Rock Lee doesn’t know how to use the Seventh or Eighth Gates canonically. He has only ever used the Seventh Gate in a gag spinoff, and the notion that he’s “claimed” to be able to use the Eighth Gate as an adult is… um, made-up. He can’t. The episode shouldn’t have given it to him.

That being said, he should kind of stomp even without it. According to the databook, his striking strength with the Gates is comparable to Six Paths Naruto, and as of the Boruto Era, Sasuke believed that he would be capable of fighting and helping to defeat Momoshiki. This would put his strength vastly beyond Sanji even without needing to kill himself, and their speed should be in the same ballpark. Even assuming that Sanji was still significantly faster (he’s not), the Gates give Lee enough AoE to eclipse entire country-sized areas, so he should be able to catch Sanji with that pretty easily.

Sakura VS Rukia

This one is probably going to make some people mad, but Sakura should probably win this to be honest. Even ignoring the meme argument of “she broke Kaguya’s horn,” Adult Sakura was able to contend with and beat the shit out of Shin Uchiha, who could pierce Adult Naruto’s KCM cloak and keep up with Adult Sasuke. Considering Adult Naruto was able to fight Momoshiki and trade punches with him even while in his base form, and overwhelm him with KCM, this should put Adult Sakura in the ballpark of some of the weaker Otsutsuki level characters like Kaguya.

In contrast, Rukia was able to beat As Nodt post-training, which should put her above beginning of TYBW Byakuya, which would scale her above feats throughout the series beforehand, such as the Kido Cannon, various Espada feats, Sokyoku, etc. But there’s no way to scale her to Soul King stuff or anything related to that, so she’s just comfortably below Sakura’s weight class. She could potentially score a win with her absolute zero Bankai, but chakra can be used to prevent freezing, and Sakura’s travel speed should be high enough to outrun the ice wave regardless. And once Rukia activates Bankai, it turns her into a sitting duck and a glass cannon, since she can’t even move without potentially shattering her body.

The only real way to argue a Rukia win that would probably have legs is to say that Sakura can’t see her and pair that with absolute zero to say that Sakura would just be oneshot because she can’t see anything Rukia does to defend. But as long as you stipulate that Sakura can see her, she probably doesn’t win.

Orochimaru VS Kurotsuchi

This one is a clean Kurotsuchi win. Orochimaru caps at the Chakra Cannon, which is exceeded even by some early-series Bleach stuff, and Kurotsuchi was able to defeat Pernida, one of Yhwach’s Royal Guards and a hand of the Soul King. You might be able to get Orochimaru higher if you give him Hashirama and Tobirama, since the former is pretty cracked, but Kurotsuchi likewise has some heavy hitters like Nemu and Luppi in his pocket that would balance that out. If you compare their abilities and poisons as well, Orochimaru’s are more “standard” while Kurotsuchi can do things like create time loops in your mind, or stretch your perceptions so that seconds feel like decades. Orochimaru hasn’t really shown drug resistance on that level.

Gaara VS Crocodile

Gaara should take this quite easily. He was able to contend with base Momoshiki and Kinshiki in Boruto, so he scales a lot higher than any of the Akatsuki, and a lot higher than Crocodile. Croc’s dehydration could potentially kill him, but it requires touch or a direct line of contact to transfer the effect across, and Gaara’s fighting style is based heavily around zoning and battlefield control, so he probably wouldn’t get the option. That only leaves Crocodile’s Logia intangibility keeping him in the fight, which is a non-factor considering Gaara 1) has the same power in the movies, 2) is capable of solidifying people who can turn into sand, since he taught his son how to do that in Boruto, and 3) in the worst case scenario, could just seal him away permanently.

Minato VS Yoruichi

This one is a little like Naruto VS Ichigo, in the sense that if Minato is comparable in stats at all, he probably wins given his arsenal is just a lot bigger. Given that he was able to help Naruto clash with Juubito, he probably is comparable, as long as you give him KCM, so he’d probably win. Yoruichi scales to Askin, so she’s not super outclassed in return, but she doesn’t completely stamp out Minato in strength, and she would need to do so to win.

Grimmjow VS Rob Lucci

Grimmjow definitely tears Lucci apart without much trouble. Neither one of them are big hax guys, so it just comes down to stats, in which regard Grimmjow mogs him easily. He also has lasers that can tear through space and affect country-sized areas, which is probably better than any of Lucci’s abilities as well.

Zoro VS Kenpachi

This is a cool matchup, but it definitely feels like it was conceptualized around a hypothetical end-of-series Zoro rather than Zoro as he is now. For the time being, this is basically the Big Three equivalent of a surly teenager getting his ass beat by his dad. Kenpachi is way, way stronger than Zoro, much older, and his Reiatsu would overwhelm Zoro immediately and prevent him from even really fighting back.

Zoro VS Killer Bee

This one is maybe a bit more balanced. Zoro would probably be stronger than any of B’s forms short of the full Eight-Tails, which would be stronger than him in return. With that in mind it’s probably a win for B, though not a super lopsided one. Zoro has fought larger enemies than the Eight-Tails, so the size difference wouldn’t matter too much, but B still has more variety with his techniques, regeneration to heal off any damage, and greater AoE with Tailed Beast Bombs.

Urahara VS Law

Urahara is a lot stronger than Law and has comparable oneshot hax with his Bankai, so he should probably win pretty comfortably. High enough Reiatsu can negate spatial manipulation, as can high enough Haki in One Piece, so it’s consistent with both power systems that Law’s ability wouldn’t work here.

Itachi VS Byakuya

Byakuya is stronger than Itachi, but Itachi could oneshot him with any of his various Genjutsu options. This is definitely a prime example of Itachi being much more dangerous one-on-one than in a team setting; most likely, he would lead with Genjutsu and win faster than Byakuya could overwhelm him. Byakuya does have some degree of illusion resistance thanks to Senbonzakura being able to fight independently and break him out, but Sharingan Genjutsu can overcome Perfect Jinchuuriki who have the same kind of counter.

Hinata VS Orihime

In the Last, Hinata has some good feats which should scale her pretty high actually, but Orihime’s powers can defend against Yhwach, so she should be able to counteract any of Hinata’s offenses pretty comfortably. In general, Orihime is probably much too haxed for Hinata to reasonably beat without stretching massively.

Whitebeard VS Yamamoto

Yamamoto’s got this one. Whitebeard’s world-destroying statements don’t stack up to Yama’s, and on top of that there are a bunch of Bleach feats you could scale Yama above that would put him even higher. On top of that, Yama is much older than Whitebeard and his flames are significantly hotter than Akainu’s magma, which burned through Whitebeard like paper. Whitebeard can power through damage to an extent, but he would be quickly overwhelmed here.

Before We Go…

We would like to give a massive thank-you to every contributor who worked on this blog, whether it be researchers, beta readers, those who worked on the art pieces for each chapter, analysis slates, audio clips, and so on. All of those people are listed in the credits section of the first blog post, and we are deeply grateful to each and every one of them for their hard work, as they are what made this release both possible and special.

Additionally, we would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to each and every person who took the time to read this blog! This has been a massive undertaking over two years in the making, and it has been incredible to see so many people take time out of their days to read it. It might not sound like much, but it really does make everything worth it.

Lastly, before we go… there is the small question of what we have planned next. Well…

🚨Next Time…🚨

Note that this blog is… already fully completed! The blog will be releasing this weekend, so as to provide a brief gap between releases after this monster of a blog. We hope you look forward to it!

(1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10)

Before The Verdict

Akatsuki

Size of the Naruto Planet(& Related Calcs)

Higher Naruto Metas(& Why the Akatsuki Don’t Scale)

Espada

Reiatsu Crush

Speed of Ceros & Balas

Bleach’s Realm Sizes(& Related Calcs)

Warlords of the Sea

Size of the One Piece Planet(& Related Calcs)

Moon Explosion

The Mother Flame

Comprehensive Energy Scale

Naruto

Bleach

One Piece

Comprehensive Speed Scale

Naruto

Bleach

One Piece

Verdict

3rd Place –Akatsuki

Attack Potency

Speed

Arsenal & Abilities

Pain

Itachi

Obito

Orochimaru

Kisame

Deidara

Sasori

Konan

Kakuzu & Hidan

Zetsu

Teamwork

Summary

2nd Place –Warlords of the Sea

Attack Potency

Speed

Arsenal & Abilities

Crocodile

Boa

Kuma

Moria

Law

Jinbe

Doflamingo

Blackbeard

Fraudhawk

Weevil

Buggy

Teamwork

Summary

1st Place –Espada

Attack Potency

Speed

Arsenal & Abilities

Reiatsu Crush(& Gonzui)

Caja Negacion

“Nice Complex Hax Ability Dipshit,Check This Shit Out”

Starrk

Baraggan

Harribel

Nel

Ulquiorra

Nnoitra

Grimmjow

Luppi

Zommari

Szayelaporro

Aaroniero

Yammy

Teamwork

Conclusion

✨Bonus Round✨

Jinbe VS Kisame

Law VS Obito

Naruto VS Ichigo

Naruto VS Luffy

Size of the Naruto Planet
(& Related Calcs)

Higher Naruto Metas
(& Why the Akatsuki Don’t Scale)

Bleach’s Realm Sizes
(& Related Calcs)

Size of the One Piece Planet
(& Related Calcs)

3rd Place –
Akatsuki

2nd Place –
Warlords of the Sea

1st Place –
Espada

Reiatsu Crush
(& Gonzui)

“Nice Complex Hax Ability Dipshit,
Check This Shit Out”