Naruto Officially Confirms Itachi Surpasses Madara — Despite Never Mastering His Strongest Space-Time Jutsu

Every few months the fandom dusts off the same question: who really sits at the top of the Uchiha food chain? If you ask me, the story quietly answered that a long time ago. In the one arena Madara couldn’t bulldoze, Itachi already planted the flag: high-level genjutsu, specifically his Mangekyo special, Tsukuyomi.

Itachi’s one-sided battlefield

People love to bring up Perfect Susanoo, Ten-Tails amp-ups, or Madara turning entire platoons into scenery. All true, all terrifying. But when we’re talking pure mind control — ending a fight before it starts — Naruto already showed us the final boss. It’s Itachi.

Tsukuyomi isn’t your standard Sharingan mirage. It lets Itachi take the wheel of your perception — what you see, what you feel, how long you feel it — and bend time inside your head. One second outside can stretch into hours, days, or years inside that pocket nightmare. Chapter 142 and Episode 84 lay down the house rule: the only clean way out is having ocular power that beats Itachi’s. Not teamwork. Not grit. Not plot armor. Stronger eyes or you’re cooked.

The story’s rule is blunt: if your eyes aren’t stronger than Itachi’s, Tsukuyomi keeps you.

That’s also why Tsukuyomi gets under everyone’s skin — victims live through weeks or months of pain in a blink, and then walk away with all of it burned into their memory. And here’s the kicker: we never see Itachi fire this thing at full blast. He holds back on Kakashi. He deliberately weakens it for Sasuke. He avoids using it on Kabuto because it would be overkill for what he actually needed in that fight. So the most broken genjutsu in the franchise? We only ever got the training-wheels version.

Meanwhile, Madara absolutely knows his way around the Sharingan, and yes, he deploys the apocalyptic Infinite Tsukuyomi. But the argument here is that Itachi’s Tsukuyomi is the nastier, more precise instrument — and Madara never hit Itachi’s ceiling for genjutsu finesse. The manga basically kept the safety on Itachi’s best weapon so the power gap wouldn’t annihilate the plot. If he ever went all-out, it wouldn’t be a duel; it would be a brain-melter.

Bottom line: in genjutsu, Itachi sits above Madara. Everyone onscreen behaves like they know it.

Sharingan cheat sheet: who does what

• Movement prediction (three-tomoe Sharingan): most matured Uchiha, including Sasuke, Itachi, Shisui, Madara, Obito
• Copying jutsu (Copy Wheel Eye): same crowd — Sasuke, Itachi, Shisui, Madara, Obito, etc.
• Tsukuyomi: Itachi Uchiha
• Amaterasu: Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha
• Kamui (teleportation/intangibility): Obito Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake with Obito’s eye
• Susanoo: Itachi, Sasuke, Madara, Kakashi (temporary)
• Izanagi: Danzo Shimura (stolen eyes), Obito, Madara
• Izanami: Itachi Uchiha
• Kotoamatsukami: Shisui Uchiha
• Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan: Madara Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha

So… could Madara tank a full-power Tsukuyomi?

If Kishimoto ever let Itachi remove the limiter, do you think Madara walks out of that headspace, or does the fight end before it starts? I’ve got my guess. Drop yours in the comments.

If you want to revisit the receipts, Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are streaming on Crunchyroll.