Naruto

Spoilers for the latest chapter of the manga Thought i would open a discussion of the latest part of the manga, which will probably end with discussion in general.

Chapter 272 - Akatsuki's origins revealed, and now we know for sure that Jiraiya will die before he leaves the country of rain.

Why he is doomed (Basicaly counting off the death tropes reasons he is now expendable). He has taught Naruto everything he can - no more use as a trainer, he has passed the badge on. It's time for Naruto to have a mentor to emote over. He has made preparations for his death - while not a sure sign of death, these preparations will unseal the Kubi, making Naruto stronger. This is a shonen fight series, anything that can make the lead stronger, will. He is within striking distance of the Big Bad - And you know that he has to last much longer, the only possible outcome is The Worf Effect, Pain will kill Jiraiya just to show that he is stronger than the Sanin. Plus that will piss of Tsunade. He is their master - making him responsible for Akatsuki, he will die by their hands as redemption for creating them.

Jiraiya is doomed - opinions?

Ah, Jiraiya. You're so dead. Deader than dead. Dead as the dormouse. Just watch. Peyn is going to come out of the wings and blow away his magic hair, kill him, and have lots of hair-bondage themed sex with Konan.

He sealed his fate when he sent the other guy to Ibiki, really. Now they have a plot-thread connecting Peyn info to the rest of the cast.

And he's getting flashbacks too! Flashbacks Of Death! People always die/lose in Naruto if they get flashbacks. Orochimaru and Deidara both got flashbacks... right before dying too.

God i forgot about the flashbacks - i don't think it is possible to be lower on the Sorting Algorithm of Deadness than this.

I agree — seeing as things are now, it's extremely likely that Jiraiya will become The Obi Wan. In a series that's known for making people into Obi-Wans (two at the last count — the third and Asuma), I'd say that this counts as deader than disco.

Plus mentors can never survive a fight with their students in Naruto, it's practically a law.

I think the only way Jiraiya could possibly be more dead is if he said he was one day away from retirement. >_>

Look out Tsunade, Kishi's gunnin' for the old folks!

Kakashi's probably gonna go next. Kurenai has a kid, so she has a reason to live for at least a year, and Guy is ETERNALLY YOUTHFUL, so he dodges Kishi's "Kill all the old people" campaign.

Viewtiful Jeff wrote:

Kakashi won't die until he faces off against Tobi, aka Obito, with his Laser Eye of Doom.

Don't say Tobi isn't Obito. Tobi has the sharingan eye on the other side of Kakashi's. Kakashi has Mangekyou somehow, and it would be nice and symmetric if it was because he got the eye from Tobi/Obito.

But I've been annoyed at Naruto since the nanobomb incident, so I'm probably being overly cynical.

Narvi wrote:

You mean the Sasuke-couldn't-survive-that-but-he-did-despite-having-no-way-of-excaping-it-whatsoever incident? Yeah, I hear you.

By the way, my tinfoil-hat theory based on the evidence we have thus far is that Tobi only has Obito's body, and is somehow possessed by Madara (has happened before, with Orochimaru). Madara's objective is to capture Naruto, unseal the Kyuubi and sic it on the Leaf Village — with Konoha out of the way, Akatsuki can proceed to conquer the world.

whitetigah wrote:

More of the "not-making-sense" thing. Nanobombs? That disintegrated living things and yet didn't blow up air? Where were the corpsey bits going? Hammerspace? This isn't Star Trek (and it didn't make sense in Star Trek either!)

Deidara would have won if he had worked out the ancient and timeless art of flying more than a few feet outside the range of your enemy's attack.

Have a homing missile launcher, get it blown up. Idiot. Wouldn't it have been easier just to use his nuke attack? You know, the one which blows up villages? The one which I was expecting instead of fucking nanobombs?

whitetigah wrote:

I thought it was because Obito was just a bastard. But that's just me.

That never occurred to me, it would be an awesome twist. Madara/Tobi fights with Kakashi and boom - mask falls off and it's orbito's body that he is using. I think that might actually make Kakashi FreakOut

Ah, so Peyn has the Rinningan?

Man, that sounds silly.

Rin! Rin! Rinny!

RINNINGAN!

I think Peyn took the Narutoish guy's body. The hairstyles are too alike for it to be a coincidence.

Personally, I'm waiting for someone to temporarily resurrect the Fourth Hokage. You know, like Orochimaru did with the first and second way back when. The resulting battle would be pretty emotionally intense for the parties involved.

Wait, he sent that guy to Ibiki? Aw, and here I thought there was hope for the Pervy-sage... yup, we've got ourselves our third Obi-Wan of the series...

"I suppose, since you're going to die, I can tell you my plans."

I burst out laughing when I read that line. Genre blindness, much?

Awww, Jiraiya's going to escape this fight. He'll die afterwards due to injury, but he'll escape.

And you were doing so well too, Peyn...

Changing the subject, I've seen several pages that claim Sasuke is the author's favorite character, mostly claiming he's TheWesley even though he's recently ranked first in the poll (I'm sure plenty is DracoInLeatherPants, but you can like a character in a different way than that). The title of UchihaSyndrome syndrome was probably one of them (I think it is a trope, but since there are only three of them, it's just Character Focus and Out of Focus).

I'm getting conflicting comments on whether or not Sasuke is his favorite character. Some say it's Naruto and Sasuke is just his favorite to draw.

Goddammit, Kishimoto fucking caved. I literally can't believe it. No one could be this stupid.

Tanto wrote:

I am really ,really hoping that Madara's just fucking with Sasuke about his brother protecting him,because the alternative is too much to bear. Why,goddammit,WHY? He's going to have to roll one hell of an Author's Saving Throw. Three natural 20s at least. No, it's not sufficient that Sasuke doesn't believe it. Explain it to us,or we lose all respect for you as an author. []Madara explains that Itachi passed on all his techniques to Sasuke with a touch (BANG),set it up so that they'd activate when he looked at Madara,and was trying to protect his brother all this time - all the eyeball-stealing and trying to kill him and killing his entire family/clan was just an act(BANG)]]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

I'm starting to think I should pick up the manga again just to see what all the fuss is about.

From what I hear, people have complained about a lot of weird twists. Like, I dunno, Jiraiya being a bad guy ( was there something like that? ) and Itachi turning out to be good? I wonder why exactly everyone is pissed off about those things. I mean, since I haven't been following since the beginning of Shippuden, I'm put in a neutral position about all these twists, with no bias of my own to cloud my judgment. So, I'm curious, what exactly do you hate about those twists? Did they come out of nowhere? Is it somehow obvious that they weren't planned from the start and were just thrown in to please the fangirls? If so, how can you tell?

Chapter 398: From what I can see, it's saying Itachi actually liked his brother, but in a way that means he's fine with killing hundreds of other innocent people so his brother would survive and supposedly coming out of it better (by that I mean more power, but impossibly screwed up mentally). Itachi turned out to have killed the entire Uchiha because he was order to by the guys from Root (keep in mind that he still did it completely of his own free will), and everything he did to Sasuke was a Xanatos Gambit/Roulette so Sasuke would live and come after (partly to kill his enemies for him). So he went out of his was to protect Sasuke... by Mind Raping him and killing every other member of his family so that his life and manipulating him for years. He is ultimately the most fucked up version of a Stealth Mentor EVER. I think that means he's was still a bad guy.]]

Okay after reading those Spoilers, I did a literal wall banger.

This is Uchiha Syndrome taken beyond impossible. Why doesn't the Author just go ahead, drop a Bridge on Naruto in the form of a bowl of poisoned ramen that makes him giggle uncontrollably until he dies and then goes ahead and makes it a giant Sasuke-centered fightfest ?

Sasuke is getting too much of a Canon Sue, in my opinion.

Oh, hey, my first post...

If I were Naruto I probably would have smothered Sasuke in his sleep with a pillow by now, or something. This is because I feel more sympathetic towards Naruto (I'm not a particularly huge fan of the series, but from what I have seen and heard I like him most) because he's got the whole spaz-with-hidden-talent thing going for him, whereas Sasuke just wants to be STRONGARRRRR so that he can get back at his asshole-or-possibly-not-asshole brother. If he is an asshole, it must run in the Uchiha blood. I heard that Sasuke's defection was just part of a Xanatos Gambit, though...

EDIT: Okay, not smothered him...Actually, Hell, I would've tried to make friends with him. Cheer up!

I'm not sure what to make of 399. Madara might be twisting things to make himself seem more sympathetic, but...

Saving throw coming. Will it be enough? I don't know. The reasons are good,despite the Unreliable Narrator. []I am willing to accept that the Uchiha clan was being marginalised and that Madara didn't like that one bit; it's a classic motivation. Turning traitor,coming back for revenge: fine. His attacks on the village increasing suspicion and marginalisation of the Uchiha,causing others to turn as well,eventually segregating them enough to want to plan a coup: totally plausible feedback loop of suspicion,betrayal and bad blood. Yet he said that he didn't summon the Kyuubi. So why did we get that amazing two-page spread of the First and Madara battling (with? amongst? against?) the Kyuubi if he didn't summon it? Could this be an earlier battle? If so - bingo,more unfounded Uchiha distrust. 'Only they can summon things like that,so it must be them.']]I guess Itachi gave him a healthy dose of Mind Rape to establish him as a 'He's weak - we can let him live' in the eyes of the authorities.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Uhm, I got a question unrelated to all the spoileriffic discussion here. Do abilities like Shikamaru's shadow manipulation and Ino's mind/body control count as bloodline abilities like the Byakugan, or are they just secret techniques passed down in their families? The manga seems a little vague about that. There's so much people in this setting can do without bloodline abilities that it gets a little confusing when it's not something clear cut like all the magic eyes that seem to be floating around.