is a character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. Itachi is the older brother of Sasuke Uchiha, and is responsible for killing all the members of their clan, sparing only Sasuke. He appears working as a terrorist from the organisation Akatsuki and serves as Sasuke's greatest enemy. During the second part of the manga, Itachi becomes involved in attacks to ninjas possessing tailed-beast creatures until facing Sasuke in a one-on-one battle. Although Itachi perishes during the final duel, it is later revealed that Itachi had a secret reason for assassinating the Uchiha clan. Itachi is a playable character in most of the video games from the series. Itachi's character has been popular with readers of the manga, and has been positively received by critics. His appearance as an antagonist has been praised by several writers, although some have considered his initial appearance to be unsurprising. The gradual revelations of his past and its impact on the story has also received positive reception, and his fights were noted to be "one of the best" in the series. Numerous types of merchandise have been released in Itachi's likeness, including keychains, plush dolls and figurines. Creation and design When Itachi Uchiha is first mentioned by Sasuke Uchiha in the manga, Masashi Kishimoto had not planned out the character's backstory. The only idea he had was to attribute to Itachi some violent action that would have Sasuke wanting to kill him. However, when Itachi was introduced, Kishimoto had the idea to make Itachi Konoha's secret agent who killed his clan under their orders. Itachi was originally conceived as the leader of Konoha's Special Assassination and Tactical Squad called the "Anbu", dubbed the , which would have been a 70-man group divided into four teams, specializing in assassination and other illicit operations. However, this idea was scrapped in favor of the current Itachi working for the Akatsuki. From all the Akatsuki characters Kishimoto designed, Itachi is his favorite based on his backstory. Itachi's Japanese voice actor, Hideo Ishikawa, often talked with Sasuke's Japanese actor, Noriaki Sugiyama, about their characters. When the two characters first confronted, both Ishikawa and Sugiyama found Itachi's massacre of the Uchiha clan hard to believe and started to read the Naruto manga in order to see if Itachi was hiding something. After Itachi's death, the two actors noted that in the end Itachi served as a