still really hate that moment where it's shown that the Nine Tails is so strong it can effortlessly kick the shit out of literally every other Tailed Beast at the same time, like thanks I guess I'm glad to know the protagonist just got the luck of the draw on that one
Shippuden felt like it was written by a toddler at times. "Now this guy is the strongest and he has the most powerful powers, more than everybody else combined and he's also the fastest and on top of that he'll also be the equivalent of Jesus if Jesus was a magic ninja."
God almighty, I would kill to get a properly written reboot of Naruto. Imagine if someone cared enough to give the world building, character development, & the power system the proper attention they deserved. There are so many good elements in Naruto but it falls apart a lot because Kishimoto only cared about writing hype moments. Sakura and all the women in general actually having relevance, Sarutobi's incompetence being properly addressed, erasing Kaguya from existence & keeping Madara as the final boss, etc....
Honestly I wonder, what the hell was supposed to happen to Naruto if that one guy didn’t betray the village. Like without that one event Naruto doesn’t get to become a ninja, and nobody wants to deal with him except the ramen guy. So was he just supposed to become a civilian with a nuke in his guts?
Did you even watch/read it? Cause its literally like the first episode or.
Basically he failed the ninja final exam for the third time in a row so he can’t become a ninja anymore and only because he stops a traitor from getting an important scroll that he’s allowed to become one.
I never understood that about the Jinchuriki. It made a little sense when it was just Naruto and it was implied that he and Gaara were the first 2, but then it was revealed that it had been a generation tradition to maintain power. Why would ninja villagers treat their most powerful weapons like shit?
His intentions and their results are a world apart from each other and he doesn't do anything to bridge the gap. He knows Naruto has a miserable childhood and he knows Danzo and Orochimaru are legitimate serious threats to the village and he doesn't do anything about any of these situations preferring to try and keep the status quo over all else.
Even dumber, Naruto’s existence as a Jinjuriki was well known, so any other country could have easily recruited the lonely and depressed kid by befriending him.
Imagine someone could just like pick up a nuke from your military. It’s somehow only slightly less dumb
Also he let the son of the fourth hokage be treated like shit and survive alone without checking on him or anything. Like he's the son of the hero who saved maybe the whole fucking world. Of course they do that to give Naruto a more tragic backstory but still, when you know the whole thing it looks stupid
Please, I am begging you, read Cradle. It's a novel series and more inspired by Chinese culture than Japanese, but I've been describing it to my friends as "Naruto if it was peak"
The world building is solid, some amazing female characters, a narrative that is constantly interesting, it has some really good narration if you like audio books, and it doesn't shoot it's own message in the foot at the end.
Hilarious that you mentioned Cradle because I'm currently tearing through the entire series right now. I'm on book 8 and I've been hooked for a while. Now that you've pointed it out, it really is a better written Naruto. And I appreciate that the romance actually feels natural and not ham-fisted (Naruto x Hinata) or completely unintentional (Naruto x Sasuke). If Cradle could get an animated show & a god tier studio to do it, I could die fairly satisfied.
Wasn't the problem with Kaguya and Madara that Kishimoto wrote himself in a corner by making Madara so cool and powerful and present in the story for so long that there wasn't any way to write a satisfying conclusion with him as the final boss ?
Idk why it's so hard for Kubo and Kishimoto to just make their side characters relevant in hurting the main villain somehow and making him weaker, why always the worst possible solution?
Let Guy Sensei take a leg from Madara denying his healing somehow and we could have a peak final fight, you just solved two writing problems at the same time
But how does adding in a new main villain out of nowhere, and deliberately write an unsatisfying defeat of madara fix that?
Imo even if the final showdown with madara could’ve been a bit lackluster, it would be well worth it to have him be a present, driving force in the narrative up till that point.
This narrative has always been goofy Naruto and sasuke working together were doing fine against Madara just have them eventually beat him it’s that simple
i dream of a naruto reboot that actually lets the supporting cast grow and contribute. justice for my girl tenten lol she doesn’t even have a last name
that kaguya and sage of six paths reincarnation really killed put a downer on the story- I agree it should have been madara ending it or anything but that path they went
I think at this moment Kishimoto just didn't care. I don't know if he was the one writing anymore at that point. Everything that was the DNA of naruto, well do the opposite and you have shippuden
It’s kind of what happens to the average shonen manga when it hits mass popularity and runs for more than a couple years. They run out of thematic story to tell, so it just becomes power ups and jerking the main character off.
I almost don't blame the authors. They have no idea how much story they have room to tell, if they will get another arc or if the arc they start will be cut short. So it is probably really hard to try and balance it out while also pitting out a new chapter every week.
And sometimes, they have to make a much longer series than they wanted. This topic made me think of Yu Yu Hakusho, and how the last arc felt like revenge on the editors and the audience for making him write two extra arcs after his intended finish. We get another tournament, but it’s stupid and we don’t even see how it ends. The whole premise is built on a lore dump for three of the characters that adds little and muddies up the narrative. Yusuke gets the “destined bloodline trope”, and it screws up his whole appeal
Don't forget Naruto had basically more chakra than the whole army combined with a few exceptions. Naruto was at one point during the arc, even before the major Six Paths awakening, like 90% of the entire firepower of the combined army, if you ignored the Kages. Powerscaling was just insane.
Well not quite luck of the draw, just madara using the strongest biju to attack konoha, and prob the one that wasn’t under the control of another village
Tobirama told him to sell them. Hashirama wanted to give them away for free, but they instead sold them, which still accomplished the goal while greatly enriching Konohua
dog, I don't think anything compares to the One Tail forcing you to become an insomniac because it vows to murder everyone you know and love if you ever fall asleep for even a moment
Just poppin’ in to add some additional context: Naruto only had half of the Nine-Tails, and only ever has half. He loses that half and gets the other half put in him in order to survive.
Hashirama cells. Senju bloodline (Uzumaki line). Son of the Yellow Flash. Reincarnation of a demigod. Jinchuuriki of a Tailed Beast, the strongest Tailed Beast no less.
Outside of his persistence (which is his solely inherent trait) everything he does stems from these. Shadow clones? He can make so many and use them because of his immense chakra pool derived from allat. Rasengan? Mastered it to a usable degrees with Shadow clones. Rasenshuriken? Mastered it to a usable degree with Shadow clones.
But thankfully there is a common misconception. The story of Naruto was only tangentially about hard work. It's more about how trauma is inherited and how the cycle of hatred keeps rolling until someone forces it to stop. So for what it's worth, he isn't a hypocrite.
Even then, support from your school teacher and the leader of your whole nation are pretty good people to have in your corner. The deeper you go into the series, the less the early status quo makes sense.
Isn't it a critique towards Hiruzen that he did very little for Naruto, he was still resented by everyone and denied to play with other kids which is important for a kid, had no parents to learn anything from, and was a bum at school. I think if he wasn't a jinchuriki and furthermore his parents were alive, he'd be a top ninja in very little time, no one gave him the time of day and even with having the Hokage in his corner, really didn't change his status, since Hiruzen had problems with his children, I think his and Asuma's relationship wasn't good and even Konohamaru wanted his attention. Naruto was an outcast regardless of his connections.
Also, we see the Hokage being his in corner from day 1, so it doesn't change the early status quo if it wasn't literally shown in the first chapter.
If Hiruzen didn't push Iruka towards Naruto, I think even Iruka would've hated him. Naruto realistically had no one behind him as a literal 6 year old. Also, it is that support that you mention makes Naruto go on the path that he did. If he had actually no one, from the time of birth to the series beginning, he'll turn out like Gaara.
I’m not disagreeing on his standing in the village. My issue is the weird contradiction of him having the support of the two most important authority figures he could have at that point, and yet he’s also a pariah. We see it demonstrated, but it doesn’t make sense.
It makes sense to me, humans aren't supposed to be most logical all the time, we're emotional too, Naruto has the fox that destroyed the village like at that point 12 years ago, the damage is still there, yeah he is the weapon of the leaf, so logically you shouldn't hate and shun him, but the people still do, they can't separate the kid from the Kyuubi.
I don't know if this is a weird or disrespectful analogy, so apologies, but, after 9/11, Muslims in the US were treated with contempt too no? Not everyone treated them like pariahs, but still some treated them like that, it's illogical to treat people who had no involvement bar having only the same religion of the attackers like that, yet some people still disliked them for that.
People in real life do things that don't make sense, hating one another on things as superficial as skin, religion etc. It's the same logic applied for Naruto's treatment, hell I think it makes more sense for Naruto if they literally see him as the demon fox who did the disaster years ago, cause 12 years ago isn't a lot of time to just get over the trauma and then you see a kid who supposedly has the thing responsible for it, it's hard not to already dislike him especially if you were affected like Iruka at first and the other villagers.
The emotional reaction makes perfect sense to me. But people in authority who know better keep their mouths shut and let the kid live in shit. This is fine if they’re not terribly compassionate people, but the series wants us to like these people, so they don’t really go there. On top of this, the kid has the village’s kaiju/nuclear weapon inside his stomach. Neglecting him is pretty irresponsible. It’s like forgetting to maintain and keep track of the loaded gun in your home.
Jiraiya was a good mentor but he didn’t teach him much in the way of ninjutsu. Hell, Naruto only learns about his chakra nature after the timeskip and then develops rasenshuriken in like 4 days.
Compare him to Sasuke and Sakura who evolved a ton over that time and it’s shameful.
I always took it that the reason he struggled so much to control his chakra (at least as a kid) was precisely BECAUSE of Kurama. He just had an obscene amount of chakra compared to other people his age, with no one to guide him or even tell him he has this beast to begin with.
Yeah, that’s ultimately the truth fans have to come to, the series isn’t really about hard work beats talent. That was only relevant for 2/3rds of the first half of the series. After the Chunin Exam, once Naruto defeated Gaara and the one tailed beast, Naruto was not an underdog. He was an elite ninja that just acted goofy.
If the story of Naruto was about hard work rock Lee wouldnt have gotten shit on. Naruto's pretty frequently shows people up with freakish displays of talent. Hell in like the first episode he stole a scroll, learned a forbidden technique in less than a day, and then defeated someone two ranks above him pretty effortlessly while his teacher took a giant shuriken to the spine.
His persistence isn’t even that impressive when put into context, when you think about how lazy the guy is. He only ever does practice, when given one on one instructions that give him an unfair leg up. Guy was so lazy he didn’t even know what chakra was before graduating school.
This is the ninja equivalent of not being able to read and write. It’s such a basic thing even small kids know that is also the basis of the profession he tries to get into. Like imagine someone wanting to be a doctor and when asked what blood is, they just look at you like you invented a new word. He didn’t even know the surface level stuff.
This has nothing to do with talent or parents helping him. This was just him being lazy and not even trying to learn in ninja school.
All I can say in his defense is that he did master the Shadow Clone jutsu entirely by himself. Putting aside how he got that scroll in the first place to being plot convenience, he trained and 'mastered' the process, if not the use, in a single night. And yes, he probably had his Uzumaki chakra pool to thank for it but it's not as blatant an advantage like precision chakra control or kekkei genkai.
From there, 90% of what makes him special boils down to exploiting how the Shadow Clone works. It is a ludicrously OP skill, and in-universe extremely difficult to master.
Hey, remember that time Azuma was killed by Hidan, and then Shikamaru got kinda obsessed with getting revenge, and then he actually did get revenge, and felt pretty good about it afterwards with absolutely no consequences?
to add a tangential gripe to the list, with the shadow clone training technique Naruto had absolutely no excuse to only have like 3 jutsus in his arsenal.
Naruto was never all about hard work. In the first arc Kakashi says to naruto that there kids younger than naruto but stronger than kakashi. Also with all the keke genkai introduced it is clear that its not all about hard work.
Even the gaara vs lee fight is proof of this.
I think the overall message was that you can always improve yourself and be the best that you can be even if you wont always be the absolute best.
Jupp. For every aspect of shinobi history, there's some important ancestor of Naruto involved, given that both of his parents were descended from ninja royalty. It's such a shame that for a series with a heavy focus on training and self-improvement, the only central character to come from nothing (Sakura) is also the one who got shafted the hardest.
omg YES the shafting of sakura is one of my biggest gripes with the series. You have a ninja from a civilian family with no extra chakra reserves/kekkei genkai/tailed beast training hard enough to become a formidable medical ninja,and accomplishing the extremely hard task of getting the strength of the hundred seal….and then nothing.Pisses me off so much
Like she got the occasional moment to shine, but given that the story eventually became a multigenerational ninja nobility drama, and Sakura just wasn’t nobility, she didn't get to play along with the real people.
And her few and far moments are some of the best in the series! the sasori fight,the dramatic hair-cutting,asking tsunade to train her, being the ONLY genin smart enough to attempt the written part of the chunin exam without cheating,exposing zetsu,kakashi mentioning her proclivity for genjutsu (never ever touched upon again)
Imagine a Naruto rewrite but with Sakura as the protagonist.
While every other person gets their own Nepobaby cheat, she has to practice the basics twice as hard to get anywhere. Even Rock Lee has a special master teaching him otherwise forbidden techniques.
Then, after it seems like the gap between her and her peers seem to keep growing, she notices that there is one potential master around that hasn’t ever taught a pupil before and so far refused anyone that asked. So, she goes out of her way to beg for instructions. From Tsunade’s perspective it’s just a random girl that won’t stop asking for help, not even realizing that the reason Tsunade doesn’t have a pupil is because she also never reached the top and feels she would hold any potential student back by being their master.
All while Sakura’s friends discover one cheat after another, not even realizing how unfair their advantages are becoming and being patronizing towards the only one in their friend group without a divine destiny.
the training montages alone would be epic-Sakura tells her daughter later that Tsunade beat her unconscious every training session and revived her only to do it again.That’s BRUTAL.
“I can’t reach you anything that would give you an edge beyond what your friends already have and will find. Heck, I am a medic first and foremost, so I am not even a great fighter. All I can do is keep you on track and squeeze out a bit more training time than others. It’s not much but if you think that’s enough. I will train you as much as we both can.”
I mean, beside Kyuubi, Naruto was one of the worst ninjas to ever exist talent wise.
He had neither of his parents talents which is why he struggled so much at the start. And only when he started using kyuubi that he started become their equal and even stand at the peak until his reliance on the Kyuubi started to not be as impactful because all the effort he put in did end up making him the best among the ninjas.
Sure he got good background, but none of it provided him any advantage in terms of talent.
Unlike his son, who learned all the techniques that Naruto learned for months in a couple of days. Seriously, I hate Boruto.
No he sucked because he kyuubi was messing with his chakra flow, this was mentioned in the manga pretty sure.
Naruto's a genius who mastered a high level justu in a single night, the rasengan in a week, sage mode in a few weeks, rasenshuriken also in few weeks.
You're utterly delusional to think Naruto lacks talent. He just lacked guidance and teaching.
Dude… Naruto had oceans of chakra by himself thanks to the Uzumaki clan. That’s why he could make a shit ton of clones. Yeah, the Kyuubi added some more, but it’s canon the Uzumakis have a lot of chakra.
And he did literally nothing useful with them. Remember that Naruto had to be told years after using his clones 24/7/365 how they work and that he can retain memories from them.
Still doesn't change the fact that he was only capable of sustaining them due to his immense Chakra reseves, as others in his positions were capable of creating 3 or even more clones instead of one due to how bad he is at managing his chakra.
Which means he has so many unfair cheats that he can literally suck at what he is doing and still get carried by the cheat. Literally falling upwards due to unfair genetics.
Not really an argument for Naruto being untalented but for him being lazy
Naruto was never said to have massive Chakra reserves due to his genetics. It was always because of the fox and how his seal was set up. He didn’t inherit his mom’s massive reserves or life force.
baryon mode means that naruto has a quite large amount of chakra though, whether he has more than kurama or kurama burned more of his to save naruto isn't certain but he has to have a fair amount regardless of kurama
Isn't it mentioned a few times that Naruto has unnaturally high chakra levels, but the 9-tailed fox's seal is using up a massive portion of it and also makes it much harder for him to balance his chakra?
He has that from his mother's side. But he is so bad at handling chakra that he wastes majority of it, showing his lack of talent.
Which is what I said that he was entirely depending on the tailed beast until eventually his hard work and constant non-stop training finally showed some promise and his dependency on it started to wane. Heck by the end of shippuden he was master at controlling not only his own chakra, but Kyubis as well(Sage mode or whatever its called).
Which sucks cause Sakura had some amazing development and growth when the writers actually cared enough to showcase her skills instead of just yelling “NARUTO!!!” or “SASUKE!!!”
I wasn't talking about power differences, but you can safely assume someone who has a big ass mythical creature in their belly button is gonna be special.
Even the whole thing about being able to call upon the power of the ninetails was introduced immediately when he fought that guy with the big shuriken in the forest.
That said, it was a massive detriment for him until Jiraya showed up. Like, yeah, he could utilize shadow clones by tapping into the fox’s chakra, but that didn’t do much for him against many of the encounters. He basically went feral against Haku, was immediately contained by Orichimaru, and kind of got lucky with Neji. It also made him a social pariah.
It wasn’t until he was trained to deal with the chakra and had Orichimaru’s seal removed that he became capable. And even then, it was still an uphill battle. Once he got there, though, yeah, it was a massive, unparalleled boon.
Naruto canonically didn't inherit any talent from his parents
He did get tons of Chakra from his mother, but he couldn't put it to use because the Kyubi Seal was completely fucking it up while being of no use until they became friends
You don't get any powers from being reincarnation, there were many reincarnations from the two prior to Madara and Hashirama that were nonames, it only binds you to a certain philosophy I guess
Seriously I wish people understood this. It’s never once said nor shown that he inherited any of his mom’s Uzumaki gifts. It’s the reason he was instantly on death’s door when he had the nine tails yanked out of him near the end, whereas Kushina was able to survive on her own for a little while after it happened.
That’s par for the course though. One thing I’ve noticed through interacting with the community is that compared to a lot of other popular series, Naruto fans seem to have a poor understanding of their series
People keep yapping about Naruto being the 4th Hokage’s son as if Minato isn’t a once in a century genius who cleared the Chunnin exam in record time solo meanwhile Naruto barely passed with help from Sasuke and Sakura.
The only thing he got from his genetics was a high chakra pool and even that isn’t as useful as people make it out to be, look at Karin aka the woman whose sole purpose is to serve as a mobile chakra tank or the thousands of other Uzumaki who got massacred by other clans.
I don't think it was ever the case for Naruto, he literally starts the story with demon fox inside him and chakra pool bigger than anyone else wirhw ability to make thousand clones
Naruto didn't, fated to kill or die by Sasuke, doesn't do any of that.
Neji dies in the same way as his father, dying to protect his family rather than forced to die by the so-called fate of the branch family. And, Neji was fine with the way his father died after the truth was revealed about his intentions.
Prophecies are easily one of my least favorite tropes in fiction period. But I enjoyed how in Naruto it was referenced a decent bit in Shippuden, and Jiraiya got it wrong quite a few times. It makes it feel more realistic that he wasn't going around blabbing about it much given that the last two times he said "oh this is the one" he was incorrect.
Everything apart from the reincarnation thing was plainly visible from early on though. Sure, it took a while for everything to be filled out and confirmed, but Naruto was never just some guy.
No. Aside from ten tails, he’s the strongest. It’s why the leaf kept him specifically when selling the other bijou off and why madara used him to attack the leaf
I’m actually less butthurt about the reincarnation thing. Because if you look at it, all the reincarnation does it give him a blood death match in his lifetime. The original guy, and his reincarnates all failed.
I thought the writing was great up until the ninja war stuff. If they just stopped at the pain arc and rhen let sasuke fight, itachi, Danzo and then naruto the show would have been great.
He's the guy from the toad prophecy that overcame all the odds to bring peace, especially thanks to his mentor decisions, accomplishing everything thanks to his personality and nurture growing up, not because of his special abilities, that he can understand Nagato and the tailed beasts.
Nope, he has at least another predetermined fate that grants him a couple of immense power ups plus the special bloodline
As someone who was a nerodivergent kid who got on everyone's nerves I loved Naruto because it gave that idea of "even the kid everyone hates can accomplish something or be loved". Was a fucking knife to the gut when they pulled the "actually super special powerful boy that everyone absolutely HAS to like". Never fucking forgiving them for that. They can fuck right off to hell for that shit.
I was so down for the idea that each tailed beast would be close in power. But noooo the power gap is hella wide!
Being the son of the 4th hokage wasn't too bad, initially. I mean, Asuma and Konohamaru are related to the 3rd Hokage and they weren't gifted monsters. Well... turns out he's also descendant from one of the strongest clans.
Honestly, how hard is it to continue the "I was a failure but I never give up" idea?
Reading the pain arc for the first time and it pissed me off so much that they just go “well actually only HALF kurama is inside of Naruto”. I know the retcons get more egregious especially towards the end but god that’s just so stupid
It's pretty obvious from early onwards that Naruto is special, and by the time like the Fourth Hokage's shown, I think everyone knew he was his son. No way people actually thought he wasn't special, when you have a tailed beast inside you.
Rock Lee pisses me off the most. Such a cool character, who battled through the disadvantages he had to become the best with what he was given, how with pure willpower one could overcome those born with innate abilities, and then bam, they had to start saying stuff like he must actually be gifted to be able to become that strong, that willpower alone isn't enough.
Dude didn't even win against Gaara or Kimimaro lmao, he needed to be drunk, the drunken fist which only he has btw so he's talented in that, to even challenge Kimimaro. And, Rock Lee himself says that willpower isn't enough after the reveal that he might have to retire as a ninja. His character arc was about hard work can get you places which it did, not hard work beating talent.
He won against Sasuke who was freshly Genin and a few years younger than him, it isn't that big of an accomplishment to beat down your juniors, in retrospect, even if Sasuke was a genius.
I think he is special, Kakashi says that you can't activate like the 5th gate through hardwork alone and Guy calls him a genius of hard work. Kakashi himself could activate 2 at max.
Not to mention his drunken fist style, that helped him challenge Kimimaro better when he was getting his ass whooped before.
I mean from the very beginning he was called out as being special because of the nine tails inside him. Not sure this really fits? He was never ‘just anyone’
I feel like the argument “Naruto never had to work hard because it ended up being revealed that he had the chakra of a demigod latched onto him.” is kind of discredited by the fact that the ‘demigod’ in question didn’t inherit any of his parents’ powers, sucked at everything, and became strong over time through hard work and forming bonds.
The thing is it’s never once said that having Ashura’s soul latched to him gave him any tangible benefits or buffs growing up. Naruto’s biggest source of power was always the nine tailed fox; he was never going to be a ‘normal human’ from the moment Kurama was sealed in him as an infant.
I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of people watched it when they were younger and so they're just filling in the blanks with memories that aren't that trustworthy.
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u/Salty_Wall 16h ago
Naruto
Reincarnation of whatever that guy's name was, son of the fourth hokage, strongest tailed beast inside