Quote:
Originally Posted by liondemon
Akatsuki was formed after that.
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I think Akatsuki was already around by Minato's death.
Minato shows that he is aware of Akatsuki here:
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/440/10/
Orochimaru left the organisation when Naruto was 5:
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/238/18/ He was presumably in it for some time before Itachi joined in order for Sasori to recall working with him.
Jiraiya only ever said that Orochimaru "joined" the organisation, he never indicates that he was a founding member.
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/143/06/
Akatsuki had one or two different members here who presumably Deidara or Hidan replaced here:
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/238/19-20/ Although Deidara considered himself to have replaced Orochimaru he never got his ring (
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/140/06/) and so must have taken it from someone else. Both of them make comments about being new in their duration in the manga, for instance:
http://onemanga.com/Naruto/329/11/. Also Kazuku claimed to have killed his partners before Hidan XD.
I think this sort of stuff points to Akatsuki being formed before Minato's death.
If Itachi says otherwise I'm not so sure but with Madara's cunning it seems to make more sense that he planned/organised
everything including Akatsuki out before his first step which was attacking Konoha.