Naruto saddest backstories

Itachi leads the Naruto saddest backstory ranking with 1403 ELO points over 169 duels, ahead of Gaara and Kakashi.

The Uchiha prodigy pulls 40 ELO points ahead of Gaara, a gap that cements his position at the summit. His forced massacre of his own clan to prevent a coup clearly strikes voters as the most unbearable burden among the shinobi tragedies. Kakashi holds third with 1347 points, followed closely by Naruto himself at 1334 and Sasuke at 1331. The proximity of these three scores shows how tightly the competition runs below the top two. At the other end of the spectrum, Neji, Kabuto and Kimimaro occupy the bottom ranks, with Kimimaro anchoring the list at 941 points. Their placement suggests that voters view manipulation, loneliness or early death as less harrowing than the psychological weight carried by those ranked higher.

The ranking draws from 15416 duels cast by 500 players across 13 contenders, updated on 10 October 2026. Head to the Naruto TopList and vote in your own duels to reshape the order or confirm the consensus that Itachi's sacrifice remains the most devastating origin story in the series.

Updated on October 10, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →