Why I hate Itachi the Mary Sue (a Naruto rant)

I've been a fan of the Naruto series for a while now. I've watched the anime ever since it was shown on Toonami (even the lame filler episodes) and have even kept up with the series after it stopped airing in English. So, now that I've finally gotten to a specific point in the series where a certain character finally freaking dies, I thought it would be fitting to send him off by ranting about how much I just hated this guy's "always perfect" antics. Fair warning to anyone who likes this character, I will be bashing him like crazy if that wasn't apparent.

So first off, I might as well start from the beginning. Itachi is some guy from the Uchiha family, which means he's naturally inhearited the Sharringan. One of the most overpowered abilities in existance. The Sharingun is a set of special eyes and if you're wondering what exactly they can do, I'll provide a list of the things we know it's capable of so far.

1. Read enemy movement at a glance and improved reaction speed
2. Copy any physical attack
3. Copy any special technique an enemy uses that DOESN'T rely on having some crazy demon or experimental surgery involved
4. Inabillity to be effected by any illusions
5. Able to trap people in illusions that mentally break them and destroy their will
6. Controlling people's bodies
7. Summoning fire giants from your body that are practically indestructable
8. Creating a blade for said fire giant that can seal anything it touches, destroying it instantly
9. Black flames that burn whatever you look at and cannot be put out, only dissapearing when their target is a pile of ashes or 7 whole days have passes
10. Turning into ravens with no reason or explemation
11. Becoming intangible for a brief period of time
12. Controlling massive demonic tailed beasts effortlessly
13. REVERSING TIME/ EXTRA LIVES! I kid you not, this is a thing that the Sharingan can casually do. It destroys the eye so you can't use it anymore, but still! They seriously had an entire fight against one guy who loved to abuse this ability as much as possible.

Cons-
1. Blindness after 20 years as long as it doesn't effect anything in the plot (can be negated if you just keep using the Sharingan)
2. Uses energy (doesn't show any effect on anyone who was born with the ability, meaning it only ever effects Kakashi because we couldn't POSSIBLY have that effecting anyone importaint to the plot, can we?)

So as you can see, this is the most overpowered freaking thing ever. Now take that and combine it with the ability to breathe fire, outclass anyone else in combat for no reason, and apparently read the future. That's the character that is Itachi.... "But Deth!" You may be thinking. "It can't possibly be THAT bad! What if he's just that intresting of a character or meant to be an insane overpowered threat?"

Well, unnamed member, you have no idea of how badly written of a character this mess is. So chronologically, the first thing we know about Itachi was that he became the highest rank of ninja before he was 17. This really wouldn't bug me as much, but this is the same series where Gaara, a ninja who's never been physically hurt because he has a crazy sand monster inside of him forcing him to crush people into oblivion like it's nobody's buisiness, is considered a low ranking ninja until the series underwent a timeskip of several years.

One could just chop this up to how overpowered Itachi's ability is, but it's also said that it's rare for people to get to that rank, even among the Uchiha. So basically, right off the bat, we're expected to believe that 90% of the Uchiha who aren't importaint to the plot are just sitting on their butts eating cheetos all day practically waiting for someone to kill them. Speeking of which, the next major accomplishment of Itachi is killing his entire family excluding his brother in a single night with the help of a mysterious stranger that won't be invinted until the post-timeskip series, so literally nobody even knows he exists until later on.

Now you might be asking yourself... why would someone kill his entire family? WEEELLLLL........... Apparently, the village's leader told Itachi to do it because they were threatening to seperate from the village and start a civil war. So isn't that a great tactic? Remember in history when the South threatened to leave the Union in the North American Civil War and Lincoln decided to murder everyone in the South? No you don't, because that's the dumbest freaking idea ever!

For one thing, the verry fact that 2 guys managed to murder an entire family clan in a single night shows that the guys on your side are powerful enough to stop a civil war if it starts. What if they had failed and Itachi and the mysterious ninja who will not be named died or had to run away? Then they'd just have an army of people in the Uchiha ready to attack and people in the village joining them because their leader is a horrible jerk with no empathy for human life. What if there were people away on missions that could return later and try to destroy the village or sided with other nations? Well I guess that would be rediculous, wouldn't it? Because only Uchihas that are main characters could ever be remotly compitent.

Whatever, looking past that what happens next? Itachi joins the evil orginazation of evil known as the Akatsuki who are evil for the sake of making money and being evil to serve their evil leader who controls an evil village and kills people to gain power and do evil things. Did I mention these guys were clearly evil? The reason for Itachi to join these guys: So his brother will think he's evil for hanging out with so many characters who deserve more backstory than him so that when his brother's old enough, he can somehow kill him and go back to the village. Somehow redeeming the clan they slaughtered in cold blood even though Itachi's already trying to make himself look like an evil person.

Now, for a moment, lets put aside all the stuff wrong with that social manipulation.... Itachi's brother, Sasuke, is going to be a ninja. Ninja are constantly in danger. How the heck does Itachi even know he's going to survive? Heck, in the first storyarc Sasuke nearly dies! Then, he's nearly murdered by Gaara's crazy sand powers, nearly dies by BSing some reverse summoning thing to survive against an exploding a**hole (Deidara... awesome character, but that's what he is), Sasuke is almost killed fighting Naruto and his demon spirit fox thing.... He constantly has a crazy snake sage after his body who nearly steals it..... AND in the VERRY fight against Itachi, Itachi uses the black flames against his little brother who just barly manages to escape it by BSing some snake skin shedding thing out of nowhere!!! I mean, seriously! And that is why there's just no way- Itachi has to have unmentioned future-seeing powers that only work when it's convienient for drama.

I actually like Sasuke as a character who's consumed by his own desire for power until he gets sick of Itachi's BS and decides to destroy the village that made him do all of that because they're a bunch of jerks, going completly nuts in the process. I usually don't enjoy villian plots that are based so heavilly around BS, but I'm with him this time! Anything to get back at Itachi. Bust out the party favors and lets slaughter a village or 2! At least it makes sense and is intresting, I'd take that over more future-seeing nonsense any day.

Skipping ahead (and ignoring Itachi pulling a crow out of nowhere to force-feed it to a main character because anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out what's wrong with that logic....) The next time we see Itachi doing stuff his more intresting in every way younger brither is getting ready to finally murder the guy.

It's the final clash! Brother against Brother! An epic battle of Itachi calling "it was all a dream" while Sasuke breaks through his random illusions!!! Finally, Sasuke kills him in a dramatic final stand when Itachi burns through all his energy using his invincible fire giant to suck the snake-sage energy out of Sasuke that he should in no way know is there, but he somehow does anyways.

.................

Literally FIVE MINUTES LATER!!!

Turns out, Sasuke didn't kill him, Itachi died because he was apparently sick and blind. Well, excuse me for believing that the guy flipping around was in good health, Naruto Series! I guess that would be a crazy thing to think, wouldn't it? No, you couldn't have him simply being bested by his brother that was develouped over the entire series, he had to fall over choking on his own blood because he's too good to leave his undefeated title behind.

It's like if when Maka fights Medusa in the Soul Eater Anime, instead of actually beating Medusa Maka was kicked around for five minutes before the child Medusa was controlling just randomly dies from a heart attack and then Stein randomly tells them that Medusa was just trying to prepare them for Asura or something. That's the level of BS this was to me as a fan of Naruto!

But at least it's finally over. I mean, they wouldn't take a mass murderer who BS'd half his powers and turned a little kid onto a path of revenge as someone who's absolute good and never wrong, right?

*looks at reanimation jutsu*

RIGHT?!?!