Why No One Ever Uses Nagato's Soul Dragon?

Nagato's Soul Dragon ability is insane. It's basically an AoE Human Path, one shoting everything it touches. So why no one ever uses it other than Nagato? We see the dragon in action during the Nagato vs Hanzo fight, Nagato summons the Gedo Mazo and destroys the enemy army with it, Hanzo the Salamander barely escapes. Still, more characters had the Rinnegan in Naruto Shippuden so in theory they could use it as well.

Madara, Sasuke, and Obito never use this OP ability during the Naruto War Arc. It could have been useful against the Allied Shinobi Forces or even powerful characters like Naruto, Kakashi, Might Guy, the 5 Kage. Let's explore why this ability is never used again by other characters with the Rinnegan.

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[DygoKnight]

What's the strongest Rinnegan ability?

[collinsobonyo]

Nagato represented the rinnegan so well.

[umarorick]

Pain was actually the last antagonist of the story, after the pain arc everything went DBZ powerscales. Rinnegan was supposed to be so OP and complicated but Sasuke/Madara/Obito never use it's true abilities. 6path of Pain was and will always be the best user of rinnegan.

[madambutterfly]

If anything the soul Dragon should be a Technique expansion of the Human Path.

[FirtisGrandlus]

Nagato used it once and was permanently disfigured. Kishimoto probably realised if he was going to make a jutsu that would physically ruin Nagato he could make it as crazy as he wanted since the cost would be so high.

[sixpaths]

nagato might actually have the largest chakra pool out of any ninja in the series bar none.

he got nerfed heavily using this jutsu.
then shortly after started using the 6 paths of pain jutsu for 10 - 12 years while the Rinnegan continously drained his chakra due to not being able to deactivate and still showed he had extreme amounts of stamina in his fight vs the leaf and naruto.

obito stated EVEN WITH HASHIRAMA CELLS he could barely handle one Rinnegan.
like what?

[taldal]

I can only think of the Susanoo as the only thing that can counter it since they are both ethereal creations and the Susanoo is a defensive ethereal weapon so it should be able to prevent the dragon from touching the user. Also, the Jutsu requires the Gedo Mazo so only one user of the Rinnegan can summon it at any one given time.

[Darkluster]

Maybe the Soul Dragon isn't a necessarily a Rinnegan ability and is something unique to Nagato. I've seen people mention that the Sealing Jutsu that the Akatsuki originally used to extract the Tailed Beasts is similar to it. That technique took 3 days to extract Shukaku from Gaara, but later we see Obito and Madara use chakra chains to instantly seal the Tailed Beasts. So that was probably Nagato's way of doing the Tailed Beast extraction. The Gedo Mazo was just a means of amplifying the technique.

[jonikalemasi]

Btw in case u missed it. The dragon is the ability that Nagato pulls ppls soul he used it on Naruto at KMC1 when they had the power struggle that itachi interferes. But we can assume that this abilities or at least the full dragon manifestation eats away nagatos life force cuz we see him getting dried up and he was directly connected to the gedo statue and while nagato was ripping ppls souls the gedo was eating his life force to the point it almost killed him and he quite literally handicapped himself after.

[godsteeth]

Because if anyone used the rinnegan to its full potential nobody would realistically be able to beat them, Sasuke only uses like 2 of the rinnegans abilities, and even obito and madara never fully use it because it would make them even more unbeatable

[kuroi_hane]

Nagato: used technic once and left crippled
Dygo: WhY nObOdY UsEs It🤔

[hasseo]

Fun fact.

Tayuya can do a similary thing, in smaller size.
Her Oni can create a spirit like worm, who eats part of the spirituell energy of the target. When it hit Shikamaru, came his spirit arms out of the body.

Both jutsu are probally using the same concept (create a beeing, nearly completly out of spirituell energy, who need body energy for stabilation). And can probally be blocked by jutsu, that target the spirituell energy part of chakra (it would fit, if the monk have that kind of jutsu, like barriers from classic monks in anime, as like Miroku from Inu Yasha).

[rolltide]

Awesome video! Recently I have been wondering why this jutsu was never used again. For some reason I never thought that maybe it was absolutely dependent on summoning the statue AND getting skewered.

[grimgolum]

It also reminds Tayuya's summons they kinda resemble Gedomazo statue ... She might be an Uzumaki cuz she is aggressive and has reddish hair...

[Not_anNPC]

Nagato: Hado no 99 Goryu Tenmetsu





Aizen: you reading this comment was a part of my plan.

[zachman]

We are told in the story you can get amps from emotions and this is clearly nagato peak rage. So we can assume that this attack has a massive chakra cost and probably a life force cost for using too. That’s why nagato doesn’t just use this attack every fight.

[uqoescm]

Normal: Throws kunai at ninja
Yahiko: Throws ninja at kunai

[Rewwgh]

Moments like these make me really wonder how much also being THE illustrator for a story influences Kishimoto's decisionmaking. He might really just want to do a cool dragon jutsu that happens once, is a super cool moment but does not want to repeat it.
It's something I've been wondering ever since the Lightning release video, I think that guy really likes drawing certain kind of jutsu. As well as dramatic, flashy moments that might sometimes make him compromise on the writing consistency end of things.

[unique_thunder_]

Just for me Gedo mazo is a tailed beast without tails as it is stated to have chakra equal to a tailed beast and it does have a physical body of ten tails

[caiomangolin]

What about that spirit dragon that the akatsuki use to seal the tailed beasts back in the start of the series? I always tough they were related in some way, cause they essentially do the same thing.