[MidnightViper88]

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

I think Kishimoto is just playing a game here, he wants us to believe this is the true Orochimaru, but then later he will reveal that this version of Orochimaru is somehow crippled. Orochi's "nice" behaviour might be due to that, if he know that he's not at full power he would not risk a battle against Sasuke. If this was the real full powered Orochimaru i would expect a much more serious effort to bring him back, something more epic than this simple way of pulling him out of a seal and a piece of flesh. Something like traveling half the world, gathering stuff, then having some fancy ritual. But not this anticlimactic way of bringing him back.

The alternative would be finding a way to reverse the Sword of Totsuka's sealing of the "real" Orochumaru, which I found would unfortunately cheapen the effect of such high-level fuuinjutsu...Anticlimatic, yes, but to substitute a lesser ass pull in lieu of a potentially greater ass pull is of decent salvage to the series...

But I never believed a sentient copy of Orochimaru would ever be anything less than crippled, but how strong is he supposed to be now? Is he "brought down to normal" crippled or only "sub-Sasuke by comparison" crippled? The latter would otherwise be just Orochimaru during Sasuke's mutiny, which could still be consistent with the current Orochimaru, given how many power-ups Sasuke has gone through since then, and the previous battle between Sasuke/Itachi vs. Kabuto as witnessed proof...If it's the former, then that would just suck...