In Naruto Universe summoning has been a part of the most powerful jutsu, all the major shinobi in Naruto had their particular summon, may it be the summons of the legendary Sannins, Pains summon, the summoning of the god gates to seal the tailed beasts and so on and so forth.
Today we are gonna look at what is summoning jutsu, how it works, and the top summons we have seen in the anime. But it will mostly only include the main manga story content from filler, which is not part of this list.
What is summoning Jutsu?
In summoning jutsu the shinobi creates a contract with animals, beings from other dimensions or weapons, or inanimate objects from other dimensions or far away places with their bloods.
Summoning is a chakra-intensive jutsu where the control over the chakra or the input of the chakra determines the output of the being that gets summoned.
This means if very little care was provided the summoning would fail or a very weak version of the animal would be summoned which we had seen in the case of Naruto when he did not have good chakra control he only summoned Toads from Mount Myaboku.
And with huge chakra input beings on the level of the tailed beasts and multiple beings could be summoned.
It is a form of space-time ninjutsu therefore it could also happen in reverse means in place of you summoning the creature the creature summons you in their dimensions.
Secondly, here the being is not bound to follow your every command as the contract that you created with the being was the basis of mutual understanding not of slave master contract.
A person who didn’t make the contract can also summon the being if he has the blood of the contract maker.
Now let us start with ranking the summons from average to the strongest.
Kakashi’s Dog Squad
First we have the summons of Kakashi which is a squad of 9 ninja dogs also called ninken.
They are very intelligent dogs who are skilled in finding the location/ tracking of the enemy, spying, and fighting.
Many times Kakashi doesn’t summon all of them together only Pakuza who is a talking pug who seems to be the leader of the group.
Even though dogs are the symbol and ninken majorly of the Aburame clan but here Kakashi also has a contract with them.
Itachi and Shisui crow summons
Both Itachi and Shisui are shown to be able to summon crows from out of the blue. These crows have become a symbol of Itachi who had used them both as a distraction and also for his genjutsu’s.
Itachi had used his crow to protect Shishui Mangekyo Sharingan by implanting it into his crow which had Kotoamatsukami which was used on reincarnated Itachi to free him from reanimation jutsu control.
Itachi crow was feared by his enemies as their presence was enough for many to stay away from him.
Monkey King Enma ( Hiruzen)
Monkey King Enma was the summon of the professor and the 3rd Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi and was able to transform into the pole which Hiruzen uses as a weapon.
Enma was good at strategy making as he had as much experience as Hiruzen and he was a huge help to him in the fight against Orochimaru during the chunin exam.
He had fought with the 3rd Hokage against the first and second Hokage under reanimation jutsu.
Shima and Fukasaku
Shima and Fukasaku were the sage toads from Mount Myoboku heirs to the great sage toad.
Fukasaku was the one who taught both Jiraiya and Naruto how to use sage jutsu.
Both Shima and Fukasaku were the summons of Jiraiya and Naruto to help them easily enter the sage mode.
They were skilled in ninjutsu themselves and were of great help in making different strategies in war.
It was because of Fukasaku that Naruto came to know the truth about Pain from Jiraiya.
But still on themselves, they are not very strong summons hence had to be on this part of the list.
Aoda Sasuke
Aoda is the summoning snake of Sasuke Uchiha who had pledged his loyalty to him.
He is very well-mannered and completely follows the orders of his summoner Sasuke.
His strength was said to be on the level of the summon of Orochimaru, Manda who was the king of snakes.
He deserved this spot because he was able to swiftly move between the Ten-Tails clones and got Sasuke near the main body of Ten-Tails during the fourth great Ninja War.
His size is comparable to the great toad Gamabunta.
Quintuple Rashoman
Quintuple Rashoman is the summon of the god of shinobi Hashirama Senju which he uses as an ultimate defense technique.
In this summoning jutsu, Hashirama summons 5 giant gates powerful enough to stop a tailed beast bomb of the nine-tailed fox equipped with Susanoo but the activation of this jutsu is instantaneous without the need for hand seals.
Now all the summon jutsu from here onwards are capable enough to fight against tailed beasts.
Gate of the Great God
The gate of the great mode was also one of the summons of Hashirama Senju which he had used to capture the Ten Tailed but the activation condition of this required the sage mode to be activated.
Gate of the great gods many massive red Tori ( Japanese temple gates ) are summoned from the sky to immobilize the target by capturing it between the Tori and the ground.
These Tori are imbued with natural energy from sage mode to resist the will of the target from stopping it.
Flying Raijin
Well technically Flying Raijin is not a summoning as it doesn’t summon any being or object from some other place but because it was created by Tobirama from the summoning jutsu the basic is the same.
It is also a space-time ninjutsu that allows the user to summon or teleport himself or his allies anywhere within seconds.
It has gotten this place in the list because of the most known user of flying raijin technique Minato Namikaze the father of Naruto who had made it into his main Ninjutsu.
People had feared Minato for this technique and had even given him the name of Konohagakure’s Yellow Flash.
Three Way Deadlock
The three-way deadlock was the name given to the summons of the 3 legendary Sannins all together to pin their targets during the 3rd great ninja war.
Later when their students Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke summoned their summons together it was named the same.
The three-way deadlock included Gamakichi the giant frog, Katsuyu the giant slug, and Manda the giant snake but in the case of the new deadlock, Sasuke has Aoda as his summon.
This deadlock was in my opinion able to fight against Tailed Beasts attacks and hence got this part of the list.
Giant Multiheaded Dog ( Pain )
Giant Multiheaded Dog was the giant summons of the animal path of Pain during his invasion of the leaf village.
Among all the summons of Pain, it was the strongest and most invincible as there was no way to kill him and each time his head was cut 2 new heads took three places.
Even the Rasen shuriken of Naruto couldn’t kill it only way to kill it was to kill the summoner.
Giant Warrior Toads
Now comes the summons of Naruto Uzumaki when we had become able to control his and Kurama’s chakra efficiently allowing him to have enough chakra to summon 3 giant warrior toads Gamakichi, Gamabunta, and Gamabunta along with Shima and Fukasaku.
All the toads are skilled in toads ninjutsu themselves can fight in battles using power and strategy combined.
The giant warrior toads especially Gamabunta the Yakuza boss is fearless and do not hesitate even a bit from fighting against Kurama nor against the 1st tail head-on.
Reanimation Jutsu
Now comes the 3rd most strongest summoning jutsu in the Narutoverse and that is the reanimation jutsu created by the second Hokage Tobirama Senju the younger brother of Hashirama Senju.
The power of Reanimation differs on which beings you summon from the dead because if you summon some unknown shinobi it’s not powerful but if it is used to summon beasts like Hashirama Senju, Tobirama, Hiruzen, Minato Namikaze, all the previously dead Kage’s along with Madara Uchiha it is the strongest ninjutsu in Naruto Shippuden.
It is considered a forbidden jutsu because to use it you need to sacrifice a living person to summon the dead.
Tengai Shinei
Now the ghost of Uchiha had entered the field with his first summon in the fourth great ninja war it was against the allied nation’s huge army and the only thing he needed to do to instill fear in himself was use his summoning jutsu to summon Tengei Shinei.
This summoning jutsu summons a meteorite many kilometers large and wide to target a particular location on the battlefield.
Madara had used this technique to wipe out a large portion of the fourth division of the allied forces.
In this summon this meteorite is followed by a second meteorite which targets the same place whose impact was felt even in the land of lightning in the 4th ninja war.
Gedo Statue
The strongest summon on this list is Gedo Statue which was summoned by Madara Uchiha.
He is just a shell for the ten tails and when all the tailed beasts get sealed in it the ten tails wake up to create the world tree.
The reason for him being the strongest is because he can easily fight against all the tailed beasts without much problem just the thing is to summon it only the Rinngegan users can do so.
Only Madara Uchiha, Pain, and Obito with the rinnegan were able to summon the Gedo statue.
