Even if this were the case, I'm not sure I see the problem? It can be described in her profile that it's possible her Rasengan is only Bijuudama level when she's tapping into Kurama's chakra, but that wouldn't change that she has a Bijuudama level jutsu in her arsenal that she can use freely.
So it's a jutsu that we can only assume she might have learned offscreen that she also might be able to use push to Bijuu levels with what we would presume is a better chakra control than Naruto, who needed clones to be able to use Rasengan at all, let alone its greater variants for a good chunk of the series.
It feels a bit charitable to me, especially since Kurama should be actively hindering her ability to use chakra like Naruto.
This is an entirely different thing though. The Rasengan itself is a jutsu to fight Bijuudamas, this hypothetical nature infused Rasengan+ is just something to make it even stronger.
From what we were told, the perfected Rasengan was to incorporate change in chakra nature and Minato had
always intended that to be the case, which is why Rasengan was considered an "incomplete jutsu."
This feels like unnecessarily adding a variable. Nowhere is senjutsu mentioned even in passing in the chapter, and we don't know if he'd even started training for Sage Mode at this point; he was about 16 or 17 at this point, with him not having a mastered Sage Mode even at 24.
Nowhere in the chapter is it mentioned that Minato intended to fight Bijuu with it either. Yet the argument is that you can imply it due to his care for Kushina and other external factors.
My point that the topic is more nuanced and vague than what can be argued with just "the narrative makes it seem like Minato was gonna use normal rasengans stop Bijuudama"
This is why Kushina's current Rasengan rating is a likely.
should be a possibly tbh.
Let's put it like this, Minato's goal for this story was to create a jutsu strong enough to counter Bijuudamas,
*for Kushina.
something set up from the very beginning of the chapter, and the chapter's climax is him
using his Rasengan to counter a Bijuudama,
Probably mentally amped, Minato is clashing with the outershell of a still being-formed TBB, by a sealed and chained Kurama is not the same thing.
Let's not act like the narrative takeaway is "Minato's Rasengan = Bijuudama" and not "Minato cares for her so much that he would fight insurmountable odds for her, visually represented in a jutsu that literally symbolizes his devotion to her, pushing back against the source of all of the worst parts of her life.
with supplementary material indicating that
it was a victory rather than a tie/loss. Even though you can argue against the scaling ramifications of this fight against Kurama in a myriad of ways, I think the author intent of his creation being a success, and this "proving" it is pretty clear.
Minato saved Kushina from Kurama, which is infinitely more important to Minato than any contest of power.
If the battle was for Kushina, then ofc Minato won in that instance. This whole oneshot was quite literally a showcase of Minato's love for Kushina, rather than with a typical battle shounen "winner is the stronger one" mindset.
Plus, thinking about it from a more indirect lens, Minato physically scales above Bijuu,
huh? They all scale to the same value.
and the Rasengan is far above the user's physicals, sometimes even being portrayed
as one shotting people on/above their level (obviously being supplemented by its consistent parity to the Chidori which almost always pierces through opponents).
Let's not do that..
- Asura Path is not Sage Mode Naruto level or above
- Deva Path has just exhausted itself trying to seal KN6 and has been fighting the entire village. "oneshotting him" is more than a stretch.
- Naruto and Sasuke have been fighting an entire war and were on their last legs of chakra after fighting each other for more than 12 hours, calling that a one-shot is insane.
- Kabuto is a bum.
If Naruto in any of those cases could manifest a Bijuu bomb, let's not act like the damage would be less than a normal Rasengan.
Bijuudama are also significantly stronger than the user, but not to the point of one shotting; the whole basis of this revision is Bijuu downscaling from their Bijuudama after all. It just makes sense, both from a narrative and scaling lens, for Minato's Rasengan to be at least Bijuudama level.
The basis of the downscale isn't that Bijuu can tank the entire yield of their standard Bijuu bombs; otherwise, we would just be scaling them directly to Bijuu bombs.
The point of the downscale in the first place is that Bijuudama have a wide surface area, and they can take a portion of the yield and survive, as we saw with Gyuki, and calculating that portion would be calcstacking, so we downscale instead.
What are your thoughts on possibly 18.34 teratons?
I still don't agree at all tbh.
TBH, I think a more likely way to use the argument is to make Naruto's Futon Rasenshuriken Bijuudama level, considering it actualizes Minato's intent of a perfected Rasengan, which he believed Kushina would one day be able to use against Bijuu and Jinchuuriki.
