

The hard part about using the Chidori or Rasengan is making contact. If you
make contact, the battle (should) be over.

I don't see how having a Chidori or Rasengan is that much better than just
using a kunai. Sure, a Chidori does more damage; but still, if you stab
somebody with a kunai, the battle (should) be over.


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Why were the Chidori and Rasengan ever regarded as powerful jutsu?


Look, first of all, stabbing someone with a kunai does not _instantly_ end a
battle. Second of all, those two justus are very complicated and hard to
master, even control. By themselves, you can do a lot of damage.

Rasengan is a dense ball of rotating chakra. A little chakra by itself is
nothing, but if you harvest enough chakra to make a rasengan, you could so
some serious damage. As your saw in Naruto Episode 95 (I think), Kabuto took a
lot of damage when Naruto drove a Rasengan into him. See, Kabuto's cells can
regenerate instantaneously, so it's pretty hard to do any damage to him.

Now, I understand your view on the chidori. All we really see Sasuke and
Kakashi do with it is plunge it into other's bodies. But still, the chidori
requires a user to be able to have advanced chakra control. Just like one of
the variations of the Rasengan, the Rasenshuriken, the user has to perform a
change in chakra to create the chidori. There are many variations of this
jutsu that are better than the basic chidori, like the chidori blade. But
still, the chidori itself is really strong.

In conclusion, I don't see why a Rasengan vs. Chidori would end a battle.
Besides, massive amounts of chakra can be very reactive when making contact
with other strong sources of chakra.


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Waiting "an hour or so" is neither a practical nor feasible option, especially
considering the injured has that time to escape or heal or bandage their
wounds, or worse yet, claim the upper hand in the battle. It would not be as
easy as you claim it to be.

Not to mention that _Naruto_ is full of ridiculously strong characters who can
take a lot more abuse than one kunai stab and come out fine. Against enemies
with that kind of durability or regenerative ability, the raw power of jutsu
like the Rasengan or Chidori is absolutely necessary to secure the fight.

Saying that they're not that much superior to a kunai because you can wait "an
hour or so" for the enemy to bleed out is like playing an RPG using only
starter gear. It's not practical unless you're fighting the weakest enemies,
and you're going to get quickly outclassed and probably killed by the first
enemy that decides to wear armor.


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The point of Rasengan and Chidori is not just to make contact, but POWERFUL
contact.

A kunai can never penetrate Gaara's shield or any other strong defences, but
Rasengan and Chidori can. Oodama Rasengan and Rasenshiriken are on even
greater levels because their damages are astronomical.

In the fight with Kakuzu, before Naruto came, it was incredibly hard for the
others to stall out Kakuzu, let alone finish him. But with Rasenshuriken, the
destructibility penetrated and annihilated his charkra system in cellular
level. I don't think you can do that with a kunai.

The power of the Rasengan and Chidori is not limited to just "making contact".
Charkra nature manipulation and shape manipulation comes into great meaning at
this point: Sasuke can turn his Chidori into mini needles, arrows, sword (with
adjustable length), and stream. Naruto can fuse his Sage charkra style into
the Rasenshuriken to make it a flying disk of destruction. This can't be
accomplished with a simple kunai.


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To be honest in early Naruto it (rasengan) seems to be more of a cool trick
than anything else. It doesn't do that much more damage than a kunai and takes
time AND a shadow clone to make. To its defense it does send the enemy flying
and seems to be somewhat of a superpowered punch that can do some series
internal damage, but from the complexity of its use and the time required you
could throw 10-20 kunai in the time it takes to use it. Even though I do have
to admit its a whole lot better when fighting stronger enemies, like in the
fight with Kabuto. Against an enemy at that level a kunai wouldn't be able to
do enough damage, but most importantly they could dodge or deflect them all.

In conclusion I would say that Rasengan, while a good technique to know for
last ditch efforts against a superior enemy, seems to be a waste of chakra for
anyone who isn't Naruto.

A side note for chidori, it seems to be a slightly weaker version of Rasengan.
We see this when Naruto and Sasuke fight before Sasuke leaves, they both have
similar levels of base chakra yet Naruto's attack does a noticeably bigger
amount of damage to that water tank. Also from the type of damage dealt it
seems fair to say that Rasengan was better at penetration. (as in basically a
giant punch)


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The rasengan is made of such violently rotating chakra that it sends you
spinning violently in the opposite direction for a dozen or so meters or until
you hit something. The first time we see the rasengan, Jiraya sent two guys
spinning in the opposite direction and when they hit a balloon stand they
destroyed it. Keep in mind only one of them got hit with the rasengan directly
and the other was behind the one who was hit. When Naruto first used it Kabuto
had started healing the impact point before he was even hit and it still
knocked him out. As for the chidori it is stated to be a jab from a lightning
covered hand that is performed at top speed, and considering Sasuke with the
stage one curse mark dodged an attack made of sound, it's pretty fast. It's so
fast that it gives the person tunnel vision and requires the visual perception
of the sharingan to make it safe for the user to use it without being open to
counter attack. The chidori/raikiri is aimed usually at the heart, so if you
succeed in landing it, it's pretty much game over. Naruto managed to deflect
Sasuke's chidori into his lung instead of his heart, and he still would have
died if he didn't regenerate the lost organ and tissue. Considering the fact
that we never see someone's heart get pushed out when they're hit with
chidori, we can assume it's destroyed on impact. So no, I don't think that a
kunai is as effective at ending a fight as the rasengan or the chidori.


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In response to the other answers here, the rasengan is no joke. While using
the rasengan for the first time Naruto one-shot Kabuto, even when Kabuto had
started healing the impact point. Using the rasengan Konohamaru was able to
take out the Naraka path of Pain and using a sage mode enhanced version of it
Naruto was able to instantly take out the Asura path of Pain. Even after he
had dropped out of sage mode, when Naruto managed to hit the Deva path of Pain
he defeated him. As for the chidori/raikiri, the first time we see it used it
would have killed Zabuza had Haku not intervened by sacrificing his life. When
Sasuke used it against Gaara, he was able to break through Gaara's sand,
something that was able to repel attacks from Lee, a major hard hitter. When
Kakashi threw Sasuke into the water tower the chidori went right through it.
When compared to what Naruto did, it doesn't seem all that impressive, but
that water tower was made from metal, I would assume steel, which is much
harder to pierce than the human body. In part two at the five kage summit he
is able to use the chidori to pierce through the fourth Raikage's lightning
chakra cloak, though he isn't able to pierce the Raikage's body. In short, the
chidori and the rasengan are invaluable assets in a fight, more-so than a
simple kunai.


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