The Chunin Exams is the third story arc in the Naruto series.
Arc Length: Chapters 34-115
Short Summary
The Chunin Exams are coming up and Kakashi nominates Team 7, despite their relatively recent promotion to Genin. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke find themselves competing with many potential candidates, including classmates from their own village as well as a mysterious trio from the neighboring Sand Village. The exam proves to be more dangerous than they expected, especially with the interference of a mysterious enemy from Konoha's past...This arc proved to be an early turning point in the whole series, introducing a massive amount of characters — including the rest of the Konoha 12 and the first part's Big Bad — many of whom would go on to become fan favorites and breakout characters in their own right. The events in this arc would have repercussions that would last throughout the entire series, not the least of which being Gaara's eventual Heel–Face Turn and Sasuke's eventual defection from Konoha.
Long Summary
The Chunin Exams have the following tropes
- Actually a Doombot: Kankuro is an ambiguously non-villainous example. He disguises his puppet Karasu as himself during his fight with Misumi.
- All or Nothing: The written portion of the exam has this in mind.
- If one candidate loses all of their points during this time, they and their team fail together.
- The "Final Question" is hidden until all who want to drop the exam are out. But if the rest fail it, they are permanently barred from retaking it, taking this trope to eleven.
- Bandaged Face: Tonbo Tobitake (the Interrogation Force guy who gets into a fight with a genin) has the top of his head, including his eyes, completely wrapped in bandages. Similarly, Dosu's face is completely covered in bandages besides one eye.
- Batman Gambit: Most of Shikamaru's fights have him correctly predicting the opponent's movements with these kinds of plans and trapping them via his Shadow Possession jutsu.
- Big Brother Bully:
- Inverted: Gaara is younger than Temari and Kankuro, but he makes it clear that he doesn't care about them as siblings and threatens to kill them if they piss him off too much (with the obvious implication that he's done so many times before), and they're both terrified of him.
- Neji and Hinata are cousins rather than siblings, but Hinata still calls him "brother." Since she's part of the main branch family and he's in the side branch, he's supposed to protect her; however, he deeply resents her for this, since, as part of the main family, she is the heir to the Hyuga clan despite him being so much stronger than her. When they're paired against each other in the preliminary matches, Neji tries to verbally bully her into giving up without fighting, and when that fails thanks to Naruto cheering Hinata on, he beats the crap out of her, almost killing her.
- Blood Oath: After Hinata loses her fight against Neji despite trying her very hardest and giving it all she had, and then hearing Neji cruelly belittle her for it, Naruto swears on her blood to defeat Neji in her place in the main tournament. He succeeds.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Interestingly inverted, thanks to the difficult questions of the written course. In fact, while never stated, the examinees are encouraged to use whatever means to get information from others... so long as you're not caught doing so.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Hinata during the Naruto v. Kiba match in the preliminaries; since Kiba is her teammate, she knows she should be rooting for him, but she also wants to support Naruto due to her deep feelings for him. She ends up silently rooting for Naruto, but gives both boys some of her healing ointment after the fight is over.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Several:
- In the Forest of Death, Gaara completely annihilates a trio of Genin, establishing how insane/deadly he is.
- Out of the tournament matches: Temari v. Tenten and Dosu v. Choji. Misumi initially appears to have pulled one on Kankuro, but Kankuro fakes Misumi out and curb-stomps him instead.
- Neji's match is notable as well; he completely destroys Hinata in their fight. Even after she resolves to fight seriously, she's no match.
- Dosu's and Hayate's deaths.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Opening the Eight Inner Gates is this, as each one causes serious damage to the body, with opening all eight causing the death of the user.
- Darker and Edgier: This arc displays children as soldiers fighting to survive as shown in the Forest of Death. Not to mention Gaara, who ruthlessly massacres his opponents in cold blood.
- Designated Girl Fight: Sakura vs Ino and Temari vs Tenten.
- Double Knockout: Quite literally how the preliminary match between Sakura and Ino ends: with them punching each other in the face at the same time and knocking each other out. This is thus the only one of the 10 preliminary matches to not have a victor, since the match is declared a draw, and both girls are eliminated from the exam.
- Dramatic Spine Injury: Temari ends her fight against Tenten by using her Wind Scythe jutsu, which shoots Tenten upwards, traps her in a tornado and inflicts several cuts across her body. Finally, Tenten falls from the sky, landing spine-first onto Temari's folded fan. The horrific injury is highlighted by a small spray of blood from Tenten's mouth, followed by her friends staring in shock and Naruto commenting on Temari's cruelty.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dosu was built up initially as a competent and intelligent shinobi and was the only one of his team to pass the preliminaries. He also comes to realize that his squad was only being used by Orochimaru to test Sasuke's abilities with the cursed seal and made it a point to try and undermine his master's plan in order to show that he wasn’t a disposable pawn. Then he proceeds to attack Gaara in the dead of night in order to get a better chance at fighting Sasuke, only to be quickly killed by a partially awakened Gaara. The poor kid had no idea he was fighting the Shukaku host.
- Fartillery: How Naruto beats Kiba, totally by accident, thanks to his sensitive nose.
- Fight Unscene: The Temari vs. Tenten fight in the manga, of which only the aftermath was shown. The anime expanded on it.
- Gave Up Too Soon: When Ibiki is about to give out the tenth question on the written portion of the exam, he first gives an ultimatum to the teams: either quit before he gives them the question, in which case their teammates fail too, or receive it but be barred from the test forever if they get it wrong. After these teams are weeded out, he reveals to the remaining test-takers that it was a Secret Test of Character to test their resolve to take risks.
- Heroic Second Wind: Naruto vs Neji. Neji has sealed away all of Naruto's chakra and left him with no chance of winning — and then Naruto remembers he has the kyuubi's chakra, too.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Forest of Death.
- Impossible Task: The Chunin Exams are treated as such, to the point that after completing two of the three stages only 21 of the original 153 Genin make it through, and the Hokage and test proctors think that number is too high and worry the exams this year may have been too easy! By the end, only one person actually gets promoted out of that original 153. It is basically expected to have to retake the test several times.
- It's Personal:
- Naruto to Neji for what he did to Hinata during their match. When Naruto realizes that the tournament rounds put them against each other right off the bat, he's all for it, and in fairness Neji has similar thoughts.
- Dosu to Shino, set on avenging Zaku. He dies before he can do anything about it, though.
- Just Here for Godzilla: In-universe example; during the second fight exam, much of the audience and neighboring countries had arrived solely to watch the fight between Gaara and Sasuke. They even make an exception when Sasuke arrives late, when tardiness normally means disqualification.
- Love at First Sight: Lee to Sakura, much to Naruto's, and especially Sakura's, annoyance.
- Not Just a Tournament: Arguably one of the most well known examples in all of anime. The Chunin Exams are initially presented as a way to graduate Genin to their next level in the ninja hierarchy and the final test is a series of one on one battles à la a Tournament Arc. However it soon becomes clear that something more sinister is going on when Orochimaru shows up. By the end of the arc it is revealed that the Hidden Sound and Sand Villagers were using the Exam as a cover to invade Konaha.
- One-Hit KO: Ironically, after Neji practically curbstops Naruto through most of their match, Naruto manages to win by blasting out of the ground and incapacitating Neji with one punch.
- Rousing Speech: A completely accidental one. Hibiki in the first exam tells the examines to either quit now and fail their entire team, or answer the final question and risk being banned from re-taking the test forever if they get it wrong. Sakura actually considers rejecting the question and failing her whole team, as she doesn't want to ruin Naruto's dream of becoming Hokage — and then Naruto stands up, tells him not to underestimate him and he'll fulfill his dream even as a Genin. He ends up inspiring not only himself, but everyone else still taking the exam, meaning a lot more applicants then planned end up passing the first round.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Kabuto has a few moments, foreshadowing his role as The Mole. Yoroi as well.
- Secret Test of Character:
- Kakashi to Team Seven before the exam even begins. He neglects to mention they have to register as a team, instead telling them to decide for themselves if they want to apply. He knows Sakura has been having doubts about her self-worth, and doesn't want her to take the exam only because she feels obligated to. Likewise, if Naruto and Sasuke decided to abandon their teammate and register without her, he would have flunked them both on the spot. He's very proud when all three of them individually decide to take the exam anyway, passing his test.
- Twice during the first part of the written exam. Candidates are told they get ten points at the start of the exam. They'll lose 1 point every time they get an answer wrong and lose 2 every time they get caught cheating. If one candidate loses all 10, then they and the team they are associated with fail. The questions themselves are extremely hard, way beyond what a normal genin should know. It turns out the point of the exam is to cheat without getting caught, in order to test their information gathering skills. After which, Ibiki informs the remaining ones that they'll have a choice on whether or not they want to answer the final question, in which refusing results in an automatic zero (but are able to retake it the next year), and answering it wrong means being forbidden from taking the exam ever again. When Naruto states his determination to continue to try even if he fails, this too is revealed to be a test, this time of the candidates' resolve to take risks and protect each other.
- Tournament Arc: The latter half of the arc. Though it's not so much winning as showing the examiners combat prowess. Also subverted in that the tournament never makes it past the first round.
- We Used to Be Friends: It's revealed that Sakura and Ino were best friends as children, but as they got older, they both starting crushing on the same guy (Sasuke). Sakura ended their friendship, both in order for them to properly compete for his affections and because she didn't want to always be stuck in Ino's shadow. After their match is finished, though, they begin to patch things up, and are Vitriolic Best Buds for the rest of the series.
- You Can't Fight Fate: How Neji feels at this point in the manga. Though Naruto changes that after their bout.
