And no, just because someone is the leader doesn’t mean they’re the strongest.
Spoilers ahead!
Have you ever wondered which Akatsuki member is actually the strongest? Here’s a list that can help you. It covers Pain’s Akatsuki setup (so no Sasuke or his team), but excludes characters who are dead before the start of the series.
11. Zetsu
Zetsu is not a fighter. Neither of his halves poses much threat in direct combat, unless the circumstances are very specific.
Yes, there are thousands of White Zetsu clones hidden underground, but they are pretty useless in combat — and so, Zetsu is mostly performing the role of an Akatsuki spy.
10. Hidan
On paper, Hidan sounds like an extremely dangerous opponent. Well, he is one, especially for the part of the series where he was introduced in. After all, he has taken out Asume, and he and Kakuzu caught Yugito Nii (the jinchuuriki of Two-Tails) together.
Hidan’s fatal faults are his overconfidence and overreliance on his one jutsu. If you figure out how it works exactly, defeating Hidan becomes a matter of keeping him at a distance and eventually immobilizing it.
The curse ritual requires a lot of preparation, Hidan’s range is limited by the length of his scythe, and while he is immortal, he still can’t recover from certain injuries by himself.
9. Konan
Konan has shown multiple creative ways to utilize paper in combat. From flying — a very powerful ability in the world of Naruto — to being able to smother her opponents with paper, she’s definitely very dangerous.
Her trump card against Tobi was detonating 600 billion paper bombs, disguised as an entire lake. While that’s one of the strongest single attacks in the entire series, it requires an incredible amount of time to prepare.
8. Sasori
Sasori’s battle against Chiyo and Sakura is the longest single fight in the entire series. That is partly because he has an extremely varied arsenal of different puppets, including multiple stages of his own body.
He has mentioned conquering an entire nation at some point, and has actually killed the Third Kazekage, who was said to be very strong. That said, he’s still vulnerable to destroying his heart — assuming you can get through the defenses.
7. Kakuzu
This is where stuff starts to get crazy. Kakuzu wields Earth Grudge Fear, a confusingly-named forbidden technique he stole from his village. It turns his body into threads and allows him to incorporate others’ hearts — and chakra natures — into himself to then use them in combat.
As if this wasn’t enough, he can also sacrifice these hearts to prolong his own life and cheat death in combat. He’s one of the most experienced characters in the series as well, and also one who could actually survive going up against the First Hokage.
6. Deidara
Deidara’s explosive clay might seem like it makes him a one-trick pony, but that’s far from true. In addition to devastating direct attacks, he can fly — and his trump cards are all incredibly deadly.
His attack on the Sand Village was only stopped by Gaara’s sand-controlling ability, and his C4 can disintegrate any living being in a large range. If this still wasn’t enough, he can also blow himself up — this explosion can level whole cities. His main weakness, like for Hidan, is his overconfidence.
5. Kisame
Kisame Hoshigaki was called “the tailless tailed beast” for his enormous amount of chakra. He could actually fight the tailed beasts on mostly equal terms — a feat absolutely crazy even by the standards of Naruto.
As if that wasn’t enough, he was also an expert swordsman, wielding the most powerful of the Seven Blades of the Mist, which further fed him chakra. In the end, he was the one who took himself down to avoid being captured.
4. Orochimaru
Yes, Orochimaru left the Akatsuki, but he deserves a spot on the list. An immoral — and virtually immortal — mad scientist, he possesses a variety of techniques and artifacts that make him a very tricky opponent to fight.
A member of the Sannin along with Jiraiya and Tsunade, he was known as one of the strongest shinobi (and criminals) in the world.
3. Pain
Pain’s set of abilities is dictated by his use of the ultimate doujutsu, Rinnegan (the eyes that were later revealed to actually be Madara’s). He can use the Six Paths, which give him a range of various overpowered techniques. This also gives him an ability to use all chakra natures.
Usually, Pain split his paths among multiple dead bodies he controlled from afar. They had abilities like summoning anything, turning the body into any kind of living weapon, mind reading + instant kill on touch, truth detection which also instantly killed the liars + resurrection of dead bodies, chakra absorption, and gravity manipulation.
2. Itachi
Orochimaru couldn’t defeat Itachi Uchiha, though, who was a prodigy even among his already overpowered clan. And Itachi killed almost all other Uchihas (albeit with some help), which shows just how strong he was.
Itachi’s Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi can already defeat practically anyone — one is flames that can’t be extinguished and the other locks the person in one of the strongest genjutsu out there. His trump card was Izanami, though — a technique that allows Uchihas to trap their opponents in a time loop (of sorts), provided the circumstances are right.
1. Tobi (Obito)
It seems that Masashi Kishimoto really likes the Uchiha clan. Tobi was initially presented as a jokester whose only abilities were teleportation and becoming invulnerable for some time. However, later he was revealed to be Obito Uchiha.
His own Sharingan allowed him to use Kamui, the pocket dimension he shared with Kakashi. In addition to that, he had an artificial body from Zetsu cells, as well as extra Sharingans he used to cheat death with Izanagi. And yes, he got even stronger later in the series.