How The Substitution Jutsu Breaks The Naruto Universe

The Substitution Jutsu is a staple of the Naruto series, but it breaks the Naruto universe. This jutsu is absolutely overpowered and most of the times it's used as a Deus Ex Machina jutsu for characters to escape certain situations. Kakashi used to spam this jutsu in the Land of Waves Arc and the jutsu was used a lot during the Chunin Exams. Sakura also spammed it in the Forest of Death to fight against the Sound Village team.

Kishimoto realized this jutsu was a mistake, it shouldn't be as powerful, so he decided to use it way less in Naruto Shippuden. Let's explore the problems with this jutsu for the Naruto story.

Become a member to get cool perks:

Like the video!

Subscribe:

[DygoKnight]

What's the best type of substitution?

[Ki_Adi_Mundi]

Imagine when Naruto and Sasuke finally got Kaguya at the end of the series she just poofs into a log and bodies them 💀

[astralnaught]

Naruto: Hand-signs substitution off screen
The enemy too busy giving a monologue: “Gonna pretend I didn’t see that”

[olagarto]

i think the substitution jutso is not a teleportation jutso but a cloning one.
the ninja turns the log into a clone and them like, hides in n a brush while the log has fun in its place

[aceclover]

I always found Sasuke’s Koto-ble-ble Kishi’s way of retconning the subsititution jutsu to something unique and OP like how it originally was. Sasuke literally swapping places or substituting himself with an object in the environment
Some people already said it but hilarious Sasuke’s main rinnegan ability is a worst version of the substitution lol.

[Omgtired]

Danzo collects tons of sharingans to use isanagi multiple times. Sakura: boy, oh, boy, let me show you something

[Anonymality]

naruto: hand signs go brrrr
boruto: tf is that?

[hulkman]

I seriously thought the body flicker and substitution we're one and the same😂😂

[AnthanKrufix]

This one is so iconic to the franchise that it's kinda transcended Naruto in general and is used by ninja characters in other media, complete with the Naruto visual effects of disappearing in a puff of smoke and being replaced by a log.
My favorite use of it comes from fighting games where it's commonly used as a parry. Of course there's the Naruto fighting games, but also the likes of Greninja in Smash bros, Answer in Guilty Gear, or Ibuki in Street Fighter.

[Jpx]

In the defense, the ranks are not for the power of the jutsu, but the difficulty to master

[rblackmore]

Jiraya was fighting 1v I dont even know how much people. He eventually ran out of substitution jutsu charges and got overwhelmed.

[Chris-jmgx]

Another way to balance Kawarimi is to make it close to medium range, and if there are no objects around to substitute to then you won't be able to use it.

[supergamingpros]

Another nerf would be if used in advance unless a person gets hit by something in a certain time limit say 20s it would undo itself

[zgk]

I always thought of it more like a clone jutsu that maybe is more convincing when you strike it

[ookjannesplanting]

Could probably balance it with some more rules, like having to manually activate or tag the subbed object

Also it definitely could've been used more creatively, imagine Naruto subbing for one of his clones or for a thrown kunai

[D_Wito]

It could be pretty easy, rock/paper/scizors
Make it work only on bludgeoning/cutting/stabbing DMG
And characters would have to guess correctly what enemy will do and enemy could try to hide weapons to prevent right guess (still hudge power in hands of writer as he may just make them guess right, but not as large power in hands of characters)

[Chill.Gaming]

I’ve always imagined that the substitution jutsu was derived from the clone jutsu. If you have to make a clone (just an illusion not a solid clone) you can pair the illusion with any object which you have a summoning contract with. Like ninja tools. I’m sure they have a warehouse full of ninja logs ready to be summoned. Summoned log + clone = substitution. Sakura can make a few clones as a genin that why she was able to pull off a few substitutions in the forest of death. Jiraiya got tricked by pain’s substitution because it’s such a basic jutsu like clone jutsu that he didn’t expect such a basic jutsu. Orochimarus jutsu is more like a solid clone of himself which he summons. (Not an illusion) the smoke effect from the summoning is also like the smoke from a clone disappearing

[GregL_G]

You frogot to talk about how each substitution jutsu will have a about 177 flashbacks, which makes the original Naruto much more enjoyable 😅

[FlamingNinjaBoi]

The jutsu is so dumb the writers didn't even realize it, because Sasuke's mangekyo ability is basically just a super substitution.

[mehrufus]

substitution jutsu is basically sasukes rinnegan