Naruto Chapter 483

[Uchiha Barles]

There are a few things about shikamaru and his fights to consider.

1) I'm not at all convinced that the girl Shikamaru fought in the preliminaries was actually stronger than he was. If she was, it did not seem like she was CLEARLY stronger than he was. Their strengths were likely comparable.

The tactic you mentioned shikamaru using was also not all that brilliant. It seems like a basic tactic to use in conjuction with the powers he had. If you can cause someone to mirror your every move, the basic tactic is to cause your movements to be safe to you, but cause harm to them. Moving five steps back when there's solid ground behind you, but a precipice behind your opponent is in line with what he actually did, and quite basic for that technique. Wearing kunai on both legs when most opponents only wear them on one is another. That way, you grab a knife such that the corresponding leg of your opponent doesn't have one, and their grasping at air. Then, you walk up and stab them with the knife, while they "stab" you with nothing. Again, it's a basic tactic for that power.

2) The fight against Tayuya doesn't serve as a counter example either, because just like poop said, shikamaru needed to be saved. Him being saved was not part of his own calculations. As far as he was concerned, it was over for him. Shikamaru was defeated, but thanks to someone else coming in and saving him, he was not killed. Now, one could argue that Shikamaru was not defeated IF it was actually a part of his plan to simply last long enough until help arrived. It wasn't though. His plan failed, and thus his combination of intellect powers wasn't enough to defeat Tayuya...thanks mostly to Tayuya's strength.

There are two reasons I didn't mention Shikamaru in my earlier post. First one, Shikamaru is not just smart, he's EXTREMELY smart. In general, far smarter than any of his opponents, or any opponent you've seen in the Naruto world at all. A great deal was done to impress that point upon us. So with regards to Shikamaru, it's almost as if his intelligence is a power, and thus you could consider it as part of his "strength". I understand some of the arguments against that, but the story's development is such that it really is just a gimmicky power because NO ONE ELSE'S intelligence plays a significant role in the outcome of a fight unless, like I said before, the strengths of the fighters are comparable. And as has already been mentioned, even in Shikamaru's fights, for the most part, his intelligence didn't make him win.

Which brings me to my second reason. Even if you disagree that Shikamaru's intelligence can be considered a power of sorts, Shikamaru is an exception. One character in a story of many. I think every fight with the exception of one or two (probably one) Shikamaru fights conform to the generalization I made.

I'll also agree with poop that there actually were a good number of fights in which team work was used to defeat stronger opponents.