Just pressing the right buttons.
I'm actually reminded of what Plague of Gripes keeps saying about stories like this.
Paraphrasing, but it effectively translates to, "You're the main character. You're special. It's all about you. You're not a weak, spineless little maggot that won't amount to anything. You're actually destined for greatness. You're not gonna get pushed around. You're actually dangerous and people are gonna be sorry they fucked with you once you realize your full potential."
Like that.
God, even writing it out made my bones cringe. It's just unrealistic expectations on steroids. I mean, would you rather tell your kid the cold hard truth, or lead them on until the cops call you in involving an "incident"?
Well, the manga is named "Naruto" so of course we had the expectation that he would be the greatest ninja sooner or later. That does not mean that the execution was not botched. By having the prophecy and the reincarnation, it was almost as if they broke the forth wall and acknowledge that Naruto is the main character. We know that, no one else is supposed to know that, certainly not the characters.
I don't have a problem with Ninja Jesus because it contradicts previous ideas and themes. I can understand that. This is a long series and I get it. What bothers me about the Ninja Jesus bit is EVERYTHING AFTER. It would be fine if there was nothing after, but that's not the case. We have Boruto and the Last which now have to play around Naruto being Ninja Jesus. We also have to play around Sasuke being Ninja Jesus as well. This boiled over into such a massive problem that's caused endless problems ever since.
The Ninja Jesus is more of a hindsight problem. Retroactive. In my opinion, the sequel should have taken place a century after Naruto in order to have a bit of a blank slate. All the powerhouses would be gone and they would be part of the legendary past.
Well this is when I would say it's just a cartoon and not real life and humor is humor. Time however has clearly proven that notion wrong. I never saw anything wrong with it. Often Naruto did deserve it. It's hard to call Naruto a victim when he eggs her on. That's just an anime trope and it's not dying anytime soon. At least she repays it by saving his life on multiple occasions.
Naruto does occasionally deserve it sometimes but Sakura is criticising a man far more capable than her. She does not have a sit down, she just hits him even when she knows a lot of his attitude problems stem from his lack of a family. Also, regardless if one likes Sakura or Hinata more, Hinata is better for Naruto as she is kinder to him. Naruto spend his early years being a punching bag for the village 's anger even before he pulled pranks to annoy others. Why spent even more time being his wife 's abused spouse? He is fine where he is. Hinata might be underutilised but she has always been respectful and kind to Naruto.
When i was a teenager, Naruto was my favorite of the big 3. I really really liked the series up to the Pain Arc. And I thought the Kage Summit Arc was good too.
What killed my love for the series was the War Arc. It's seriously got to be one of the worst written arcs to any series i have ever seen, maybe even in all of fiction.
It feels like Kishimoto stopped giving a shit about trying to make anything make sense.
Nothing, literally NOTHING in this arc feels earned. It feels like characters get constant random powerups for no reason, and the power creep went through the roof.
I will address your points one by one:
- Kakashi, who always struggled with stamina issues, in the War Arc he can spam Kamui with no repercussions. He would pass out after firing a couple Kamuis before but now in the War Arc he's got unlimited chakra for some reason. Also for some reason he never goes blind even though he spammed the shit out of the Mangekyou.
His stamina issue was fixed temporarily when he was given Kurama 's chakra, before and after that, you are right, it makes no sense.
- Naruto Tailed Beast Mode for some reason looks completely different from the other tailed beasts, and honestly looks kinda lame and a rip-off of Super Saiyan. The red V2 Cloak Beast Mode that every other Jinchuuriki has and he used before too looks much cooler.
And no it's not because he only has got half of the Nine Tails, cuz when he absorbs the rest from Minato he still looks different from the other Jinchuuriki.
Kishimoto wanted yet another Super Saiyan homage. Also, notice how Gaara 's V1 and V2 Cloaks look different from every other Tailed Beasts '. If every TB had each own different looking version of V1 and V2 Cloaks, then there would be no problem. As things are, Kurama and Shukaku are outliers for no reason beyond "LAZY RETCON".
- Speaking of Nine Tails, why is the Kyuubi so much stronger? Naruto can basically solo the other eight beasts on his own and he HAS GOT ONLY HALF THE CHAKRA OF THE NINE TAILS WTF The power creep makes no sense.
Headcanon of mine: Kurama kept eating his pursuers and assimilated their chakra.
- Obito gets a Rinnegan and he never uses the Six Paths abilities. He says "It's useless since they already know how to counter them", what a stupid reason!
Stupid indeed. Naruto barely managed to counter them. Everyone else was nearly helpless. Plus, he had six TBs providing back up. We were shown this was not true when Nagato and Itachi alone were enough to capture Naruto. The Six Paths are powerful, certainly more powerful than the Fire Style he was using. Not to mention that Kamui could have been used to cover up the weaknesses of the Six Paths.
- Minato was able to master Kyuubi Mode while being DEAD.
This is so stupid. And it also makes Naruto struggle to tame the Nine Tails he went through the entire series completely pointless too.
We are not explicitly shown but the stomach of the Shinigami might be a short of seperate dimmension that allowed Minato to communicate with the good half of Kurama for 18 years and tame him. But yeah, it could have been explained better.
- Madara can just do whatever the fuck he wants. Remember when you needed to do a transplant to get another person eyes? Madara can just take out your eye from the eyesocket, and put it in his eyesocket like a lightbulb, and it works instantly. Ok.
I do not get that either. Eyes are such a sensitive organ. Is it the Hashirama cells again?
- Then he uses Susanoo without eyes. Wtf? Susanoo is a sharingan ability how in the fuck did he do that? If you don't need Sharingan to use and just need two Mangekyou to unlock it, then why did Sasuke go blind when spamming Susanoo during the Kage Summit?!
Either a retcon or the Hashirama cells again. Also, your eyes cannot go blind if you do not have them anymore.
- Speaking of Susanoo... Why does the Sharingan have this stupid power? I mean why does an eye summon a suit of armor to fight for you? It makes no sense. You would expect an eye power to be vision related, what does this have to do with eyes? Amaterasu and Kamui are not much better... I think the only Mangekyou power that makes sense is Tsukuyomi/Kotoamatsukami at least those powers are actually vision based.
When it comes to the Susanoo, Kishimoto likes Kaiju battles. He had confirmed that he wanted a kaiju battle for a finale. As for the other abilities, in Greek Mythology (as well as the culture that were affected by the Greeks and the Romans), there is an association between eye related powers and descendants of sun gods. Example: Medea, granddaughter of the sun god Helios was known for her occular powers. She could kill, torture and burn things according to her will by looking at them. Maybe Kishi was influenced by that myth?
- Madara can solo the entire Shinobi Alliance and Nine Tailed Beasts... without having eyes. Uhhhhh ... Sure.
Yeah, I got nothing. He should not be that powerful even with Hashirama cells.
- First Hokage is now a GOD even though in Part 1 Kishi said the Third and Fourth Hokage were the strongest. "Every Generation is stronger than the last" my ass.
I have said this before but I will say it again: Naruto betrays its themes with its retcons.
- I still have no idea why transplanting your sibling eyes makes you immune to blindness...
The best theory I have heard is the the process is less transplant and more of a fusion.
- Remember when Kakashi was given Double Mangekyou Sharingan + Perfect Susanoo from Obito from the FUCKIN AFTERLIFE AFTER HE DIED? What in the holy fuc... Not only you never told your readers you could transfer techniques like this but the guy even did the transfer from the AFTERLIFE !?
This MS pair has the ability to cross dimensions through Kamui. But you are right, it should have been Armored Susanoo, not Perfect Susanoo. Kishi is playing fast and loose with his story.
- Sage of Six Paths should have been just a legend, he never should have appeared and ruined all the mistique of the Ninja world.
Legend or not, he is someone who had died in the distant past. Him appearing like that is blatant Deus ex Machina.
- Not only that, he never should have gifted Jesus Mode to Naruto and Sasuke. What a lazy way to make your characters stronger, like i said, remember when characters had to train instead of using cheat codes? Nothing feels earned.
Too true. Just give them a weakness like "it takes some time to get used to it before you can unleash the full potential" or whatever.
- Remember when Konoha 12 actually were strong? Good times. Now Naruto and Sasuke are basically Gods and everyone else in the verse is complete fodder, what a lame way to scale your powercreep.
Worse powercreep than Dragonball.
- For some reason you can summon the Ten Tails even while lacking the full Chakra of the Eight and Nine Tails...
Okay... Okay... Then let me ask you a question...
I suppose it makes some sense: He could not bring 9 and 8 to the statue so he brought the statue to them and had them hit it with chakra blasts. After that, the 10 Tails could recover its strength albeit at slower speeds than it would with the actual 8 and 9 TBs absorbed. When life gives you lemons...
WHAT THE FUC... WAS THE POINT OF THE WAR, OBITO? YOU ARE A MORON!
To draw out the 9 and 8 while weakening the rest of the ninjas.
She could have worked a bit better if she was more tied to the narrative: Madara, in his quest for further power, absorbed the tree into himself. That served as the final step required for Kaguya to begin taking over his body as being the 10 Tails made him the perfect vessel for her. That way, we are reminded that the mindless quest for power is dangerous and self-destructive. None of that Black Zetsu bullshit.
My favorite is how Hagoromo asks Sasuke what he's going to do and he literally gets told "Oh yeah I'ma kill everyone and make a new world". And he just goes "Okay, I got u fam. Here's God powers".
I get that Hagoromo was kinda desperate but you are right, it was a gamble. Maybe he placed faith in Naruto, as the new Asura, to win when time came? Still, a gamble.
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