Kishimoto Denied Madara’s Susanoo The One Game-Changing Ability Sasuke And Kakashi Had

If you have ever paused Naruto Shippuden and gone, 'Wait, why does Madara Uchiha, the guy who broke the franchise in half, have a Susanoo with four arms and zero wings?' yeah, same. Let’s talk about how Kishimoto basically clipped Madara’s wings on purpose, why it reads like a nerf, and why it still fits the character a little too well.

Four arms, no wings, and that does feel intentional

Madara’s Susanoo reveal is one of those all-timer Naruto moments. Look closer, though, and it kind of looks like the series traded flair for blunt-force mayhem, maybe even tweaking its own rules on the fly. Stack Madara’s Susanoo next to Sasuke’s and the gap is obvious: Sasuke gets wings. Even Kakashi — who only unlocks the full package by borrowing Obito’s eyes for a hot minute — sprouts wings on his Perfect Susanoo. Madara? Not shown with wings in the anime or the manga. Not even a token feather.

That’s extra weird because Madara is supposed to be the Uchiha endgame. The man literally wakes up the Rinnegan. But when it comes to Susanoo, the 'Ghost of the Uchiha' is the outlier: four arms built to smash, and no aerial option.

'Madara’s Susanoo trades wings for raw upper-body power because the fight he lived for never needed flight.'

Is that a nerf, or just the point?

On paper, sure, it looks like Kishimoto quietly nerfed him. You can almost see the calculus: if Madara could fly around with a winged Susanoo, Hashirama would be stuck playing whack-a-mole from the ground. And Hashirama already has to juggle meteors, Kurama, and enough trauma to fill a bingo card. Chasing airborne Madara would have been a step too far.

But it also reads like a design choice that lines up with how the anime uses Susanoo to show personality. Itachi’s is elegant annihilation — Totsuka Blade, Yata Mirror, that spiritual, untouchable vibe. Sasuke’s is a high-mobility bruiser with two swords and a bow — aggressive and always moving. Kakashi’s double-Mangekyo version is basically a late-game cheat code with its own shuriken.

Madara’s? Pure violence. No finesse. Four giant arms that grab, slice, slam, and launch Yasaka Magatama like they are skipping stones. It looks like it could punch a mountain in half, and sometimes it feels like it does. The lack of wings isn’t a bug; it’s the character. Madara doesn’t outmaneuver you. He overwhelms you.

The Hashirama blueprint

Also important: his greatest rival, Hashirama, is not a flyer either. Their fights — including those big clashes of Susanoo vs Wood Release — are ground-shaking slugfests with giant constructs, giant swords, giant everything. Hashirama’s ace, Sage Art Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands, is literally an ocean of arms. When you put that next to Madara’s four-armed Susanoo, the intent clicks. Madara isn’t thinking wings; he is thinking, 'I need more hands to break down the forest in front of me.'

So yeah, it feels like a small retcon of the usual winged Susanoo silhouette, but it is tailored to the only fight Madara truly cared about winning: stand toe-to-toe with the First Hokage and win through brute force.

The odd one out among top-tier Susanoo users

For the record, among the heavy hitters we actually see use Perfect or near-Perfect Susanoo, Madara is the outlier with no wings. Sasuke’s has them. Kakashi’s has them. Itachi’s never shows a full manga-canon Perfect Susanoo, but his manifestations skew defensive and refined. Meanwhile, Madara’s is the only top-tier Susanoo we see that can bulldoze a landscape and still can’t fly to save its life. Again: by design.

Quick refresher: where to watch, how they stack

• Naruto (2002-2007) - IMDb: 8.4/10 - Streaming: Crunchyroll
• Naruto Shippuden (2007-2017) - IMDb: 8.7/10 - Streaming: Crunchyroll

Bottom line

Kishimoto did not forget to add wings to Madara’s Susanoo — he removed them. It keeps the Hashirama rivalry grounded (literally), leans into Madara’s smash-through-everything persona, and gives us a silhouette that’s all brawler, no bird. Call it a nerf if you want, but it’s also the most Madara thing possible.