Naruto Uzumaki is easily one of the most well-known anime characters in the entire world. His distinctive appearance, journey from a social outcast to celebrated hero, and almost god-like powers make him a beloved character within the anime fandom and a known entity to more mainstream audiences. While his story may have ended with the last episode of Naruto ending several months ago, he continues to inspire with his regular appearances in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations; where he takes a supporting role as his son Boruto goes on his own ninja journey.
There’s no doubt that Naruto is a popular, relatable, and motivating character; but the fact of the matter is that a lot of other anime characters are stronger than everyone’s favorite orange ninja. He may be one of the strongest characters in his universe, but a good number of other anime operate on completely different power scales or rules from the ones that allow Naruto to excel. In fact, there are dozens of characters that could beat up or defeat Naruto whenever they wanted.
Boruto’s dad is a force to be reckoned with after countless hours of training, overcoming his own emotional trauma to gain the power of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, and earning the power of the man who invented ninjutsu. That being said, these 20 anime characters have even more devastating abilities or skill sets that are so hyper-focused that Naruto wouldn't stand a chance in a fair competition. While an encounter between Naruto and any of these characters would certainly be a visual treat, it’s hard to envision Naruto as the victor in these battles.
Here are 20 Overpowered Anime Characters That Are Stronger Than Naruto.
Saitama - One Punch Man
Saitama, the titular one punch man, is named such because of his ability to obliterate seemingly any foe with a single blow. While this setup does lead to some of the best action sequences in the entire anime medium, it also leaves Saitama with a sense of existential dread.
He’s sullen and numb to the world after spending three years training to become the world’s strongest hero, and realized far too late that he enjoyed the struggle of trying to achieve his dream far more than the fruits of his labor. While his life might not be as fulfilling as Naruto’s, Saitama could easily defeat Naruto because his unrivaled power is both his most defining feature and the source of his all-consuming melancholy.
Son Goku - Dragon Ball Z
While not every version of Goku could defeat Naruto when he’s at his strongest, Goku could easily defeat Naruto following the Saiyan's second resurrection in the Majin Buu saga. Once he gains the Super Saiyan 3 transformation, Goku possesses enough raw, destructive power to obliterate entire planets on a whim.
This scale of destruction is never approached by any character in Naruto, let alone its main protagonist. Sure, one can argue that raw destructive power isn’t everything in a fight, but once Goku achieves the divine speed and precision of the Super Saiyan God and Ultra Instinct transformations, there’s no comparing the abilities of the two characters. Son Goku, the grandfather of modern shonen anime, can still best Naruto and many of the more recent protagonists in the genre as well.
Monkey D. Luffy - One Piece
Monkey D. Luffy, the protagonist of the incredibly influential and still ongoing series One Piece, would just squeak out a victory against the blond ninja. While Naruto can create massive energy creatures and attacks that can level a mountain range in an instant, his most devastating techniques require him to borrow the strength of other characters.
All of Luffy’s attacks come from his own rubberized body after he’s transformed by the effects of the Gum Gum fruit, while Naruto needs the help of the nine-tailed demon fox and other powerful characters to defeat his last few opponents. In a one on one fight with no outside influence, Luffy would definitely emerge victorious after a long and entertaining struggle.
Isaac Netero - Hunter X Hunter
The former head of the Hunter Association, Isaac Netero, lost his life after a climactic battle with the pinnacle of evolution, the Chimera Ant King Meruem. While the average Naruto character is way stronger than the average Hunter X Hunter character, Isaac is the exception and could beat Naruto at his own game.
While Naruto can summon the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox to fight by his side, Meruem can create a massive karate god to defeat his enemies with thousands of different attacks. Isaac is also far smarter and craftier than Naruto, not to mention physically stronger after accidentally training for more than a decade in order to throw ten-thousand punches in an instant during a training pilgrimage that was supposed to end his life.
Ban - Seven Deadly Sins
Could Naruto defeat just about any other character within his own universe? Absolutely, but he is still weighed down by his own mortal coil. This isn’t true for the Fox Sin of Greed Ban, however, who gained immortality after drinking from the fountain of youth found in the Fairy King's Forrest. Ban nearly passes away in just about every way imaginable over the course of The Seven Deadly Sins, and is likely to almost die in awful ways as the series goes on, but always regenerates with little effort.
While Ban might not be able to inflict much damage onto Naruto, the damage the immortal inflicts will only compound as Ban effortlessly heals through even the most fatal of injuries. It could take a lifetime, but any battle between Ban and Naruto would eventually end in the immortal's victory.
Mob - Mob Psycho 100
Kageyama Shigeo, nicknamed Mob after his knack for blending into a crowd, possesses telekinetic abilities that equal the destructive force of numerous natural disasters rolled into one. When Mob loses control of his emotions or falls unconscious, his psychic powers become almost unstoppable.
Naruto might be physically stronger than Mob and have far more abilities, but there’s nothing in the ninja’s arsenal of weapons and powers that would allow him to combat Mob’s invisible and instantaneous psychic attacks. Granted these two characters are easygoing or passive enough that they’d never exchange blows. Naruto has never fought an enemy even remotely similar to Mob and wouldn’t stand a chance against the young man’s telekinetic onslaught.
Jotaro Kujo - JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Jotaro Kujo, the third main protagonist in the long-running JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime and manga, would easily defeat Naruto by utilizing his Star Platinum Stand ability. In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stands are manifestations of the soul that allow a person to perform a unique paranormal ability.
Jotaro’s Star Platinum allows him to stop time several seconds, and launch a volley of super-destructive punches in both paused and flowing time. Naruto doesn’t have any way to defend against an opponent who can stop time, and even if he did the incredibly quick-witted Jotaro would easily develop a counter-strategy. Jotaro Kujo, one of the toughest and coolest characters in all of anime, could easily best the loud-mouth ninja in any kind of combat.
Light Yagami - Death Note
Light Yagami would pass away if Naruto so much as tapped the walking messiah complex hard enough. However, the world-famous serial killer would also never let their confrontation get that far and would likely devise a way to discreetly dispose of Naruto before things even got close to violence.
Also known as Kira, Light uses the power of the Death Note to eliminate anyone in the world he deems unworthy of living. All he needs to do to end a person’s life in any manner he’d like is to write their full name in the Death Note while imagining their face. The genius supervillain would know Naruto is coming for him well in advance and could easily dispose of the ninja, who’s quite fond of promoting his own name and face.
Alucard - Hellsing Ultimate
In a fight between vampires and ninjas, vampires are far and away the safe bet the vast majority of the time, and this battle is no exception. Alucard, also known as Dracula, is a functionally immortal vampire at the beginning of the Hellsing Ultimate and, by the end of it, he can blink in and out of existence whenever he sees fit.
Moreover, he has legions of demonic entities that are more than willing to fight any living creature on his behalf. Between his vampiric powers and his affinity for massive firearms – which Naruto has absolutely no concept of since they don’t exist in his series – Alucard would easily defeat, and probably eat, the orange ninja.
Tetsuo Shima - Akira
Tetsuo Shima is a psychic with unrivaled powers that nearly brings an end to the entire world in the anime film Akira. After nearly passing away in a motorcycle accident, he awakens his rapidly growing powers and begins to exact his vengeance on a cruel world that has no place for a poor orphan like him.
While Naruto is incredibly powerful by nearly any measure, Tetsuo is so powerful by the end of the film that he’s capable of destroying and creating entire universes with his uncontrollable psychic powers. Tetsuo’s abilities put him in a league of his own when it comes to battle and Naruto just is not one of the few anime characters who stand a chance against they troubled young man.
Kirby - Kirby: Right Back At Ya
While he’s mostly known for his video game appearances, Kirby appeared in his own anime, Kirby: Right Back At Ya. In this anime, the adorable pink blob protected Dreamland from a wide variety of threats and displayed incredible feats of strength. Kirby is so strong in this series, that he can throw an enemy towards the sun with enough strength and precision, that they cook while in the Sun’s orbit and arrive back to Kirby exact location so he can eat the now thoroughly toasted evildoer.
Also, if you count his video game exploits, Kirby is fully capable of eliminating eldritch monsters and survives an apocalypse that wipes out every other video game character in existence. Few stand a chance against this adorable pink blob, and Naruto is not one of them.
Guts - Berserk
The black swordsman Guts may be physically weaker than Naruto, but he is emotionally stronger by a mile. Guts endured just about every bad event that can happen to a person in Berserk’s dark fantasy setting, and then dedicates his life to slaying the demons responsible for some of the worst of those horrors.
Guts is still in the process of healing from some of the passing of all of his loved ones after the betrayal of his close friend Griffith, while Naruto merely found his own self-worth over the course of his character arc. Guts is an emotionally stronger person than Naruto by just about any measure, and could probably do quite a bit of damage to the ninja with his Dragonslayer sword and fake arm that’s also a cannon.
Eren Yeager - Attack on Titan
Could Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan defeat Naruto with his ability to transform into a 15-meter tall titan? Absolutely not, Naruto would easily defeat a 50-foot tall man whose only real abilities are healing quickly and punching stuff super hard. However, that’s not Eren’s only power.
Later in the series, Eren learns that he can command all Titans to do his bidding. While Naruto could defeat a single 15-meter tall titan easily, there’s no way he could go against an army of them; especially with a couple of the 50-meter tall Titans thrown into the mix. Maybe Eren wouldn't win in a fair fight, but if anything goes, then the Survey Corps member’s Titan army could easily best Naruto’s ninja techniques.
Yami Yugi - Yu-Gi-Oh
Yami Yugi, the king of games, would lose to Naruto instantaneously in any kind of physical altercation. How often do people, even in anime, get into fist fights, though? The answer is way less often than people play any kind of competitive game. Yami Yugi would wipe the floor with Naruto in a game of poker, shogi, any of the Game Boy-esque games that weirdly exist in the world of Naruto, and any other game for that matter.
Granted, Yami Yugi’s abilities are far less impactful in Naruto’s world since it children’s card games are way less important in this universe, but there’s no denying that Yugi is far stronger than Naruto when it comes to games.
Korosensei - Assassination Classroom
Naruto is an extremely powerful character that is that’s inspired a continent’s worth of people, he’s not as strong or motivational as a yellow octopus man who teaches troubled youths though. A science experiment gone awry, Korosensei gained impossible speed and destructive power at the expense of his human form.
He’s faster than a gun and is strong enough to destroy the moon, and threatens to do the same thing to the Earth if a class of misfit high school students aren’t able to eliminate him over the course of a school year. Whether it’s in a brawl or inspires the leaders of tomorrow, Korosensei will always come out on top against Naruto.
Ichigo Kurosaki - Bleach
While Naruto may be a more consistent and thematically coherent story than Bleach, the latter’s protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki, could totally take Naruto in a fight. After awakening another new set of powers at the end of Bleach, Ichigo is capable of slaying reality bending gods with relative ease.
At the end of his own series, Naruto is only able to seal a being that might be a god or an alien with the help of Sasuke after a vicious struggle. While the series is pretty on pace with each other the majority of the time, Bleach’s power scale ramps up dramatically in its final moments and makes Ichigo the safe money in an altercation between him and Naruto.
Kenshiro - Fist of the North Star
One of the original shonen anime protagonists, and a character that basically amounts to Mad Max but with mystical kung-fu moves, Kenshiro could obliterate Naruto. He’s a master of the Hokuto Shinken martial art style and can make an opponent’s head explode by disrupting the energy in the body via pressure points.
He isn’t able to perform any of the massive energy attacks that Naruto uses regularly, but all he needs is one good hit on the blond ninja to ensure his victory. Naruto isn’t exactly the most cautious fighter, so it is extremely likely that Naruto would let his guard down just long enough for Kenshiro to land a single, deadly blow, and emerge in a victory.
Yusuke Urameshi - Yu Yu Hakusho
Spirit Detective Yusuke Urameshi is one of the best shonen anime protagonists in the medium and the star of one of the greatest shonen anime ever made, Yu Yu Hakusho. On top of his stellar character arc that focuses on Yusuke recovering from his troubled childhood and accepting that he is worthy of other people’s love, his spirit energy attacks make him immensely powerful.
His Spirit Gun attack and demonic transformation allow him to go toe-to-toe with any foe. It’s safe to say that Yusuke inspired many of the more modern shonen anime protagonists, though few have lived up to the caliber and depth of writing the goes into him. Not only is Yusuke a stronger fighter than Naruto, but she is also a stronger and more compelling character.
Kyubey - Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Kyubey may be an adorable and petite cat-like creature, but it also possesses a monstrous power capable of obliterating the universe. Kyubey is the embodiment of entropy and seeks only further a cycle of destruction that transforms girls into agents of destruction so that they can eradicate all of existence. He’s immensely powerful as well as immortal, and would erase Naruto from existence if given enough time.
This emotionless monster cannot be beaten nor even slowed down for very long. He is the heat death of the universe personified, and as such will lead an opponent to an unavoidable, and likely painful, demise that makes them regret every decision they’ve ever made over the course of their life.
Atomsk - Fooly Cooly
The Pirate King Atomsk is more of a plot device than a character in FLCL. He embodies the power and freedom pursued by many of the characters in the series, who want only live their lives free of the constraints put on them by others and society.
He can’t lose to Naruto, because he wholly embodies the idea of liberation, and a defeat at the hands of Naruto would run counter to that idea. He’s also a colossal space phoenix that can travel through space and time on a whim, and sometimes a robot that’s capable of destroying other robots several times his own size. Basically, Naruto doesn’t stand a chance against this metaphorically, and literally, overpowered anime character.
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Can you think of any other anime characters who could defeat Naruto? Let us know in the comments!