Naruto

Evil Brain Chakra tm

As I said before, the basic issue is that Sasuke betrays the Leaf a bit too early on in the plot and stays a villain far too long. The former is a problem because he never quite felt like an actual friend of Naruto (they started to feel like Worthy Opponents around the time he betrayed the leaf).

The latter is a problem because essentially they have to keep handing him the Villain Ball in order to save his redemption for later. First he joins Orochimaru (which is bad). Then he betrays Orochimaru-could this mean he's turning good? Nah, he's still bad. Ok....so what now? He gets his own team together...and kills Itachi! Well now he has no reason to stay a bad guy. Oh, wait...no, now he's just done a 180 and wants to destroy the Leaf. After a while, he then decides he does want to save the world...buuuut then he decides afterwards to kill all the Kages.

I thought Sasuke's intention to die holding of Gaara to protect Naruto and Sakura was a pretty good indicator of their friendship but there could have probably been one more arc between Tsunade's return and Sasuke's betrayal.

Now, I often think that there should have been another ninja mission prior to the Chunin Exam arc. But you really can't move it much later in the actual timeline without major rewrites and I'm not sure if the story would benefit. It absolutely has to come at the end of part 1, for starters; it just wouldn't feel right not coming right before the time skip.

But I think the other problem (aside from Sasuke seeming to take a 90 degree turn right into asshole country that I already mentioned) is that the war arc just goes on for so damn long. You could probably make it half as long as it actually was. It's also full of Sasuke's absolute worst moments (when people complain about Sasuke, it's almost certainly because of the shenanigans here).

Someday I could probably write a big long essay type post going over all the changes I would make to Naruto; the funny thing is, I don't think you would have to change a ton to make it really excellent, and for all the complaining we've done about Sasuke, I actually really do appreciate how the story has two branches in Shippuden.

I think Kishimoto's original scope for the series (focus on missions, interact with other countries) would have worked much better for developing Sasuke's friendship with his team.

The shift to the Chunin Exams is pretty jarring. Team 7 have a single on-screen mission, and then they're ready to progress to the next step of ninja? And so are the rest of the rookie 9, who we haven't seen any development of. It definitely feels too soon to move on.

I'd definitely say that they need one more mission. I think more than two arcs might bog it down a little in terms of pacing though.

I could have had multiple smaller arcs of missions, easily. I do think that probably wouldn't be as popular as batshit-crazy Tournament Arc though

Didn't Kishi say that was his original idea before his editor convinced him to do the tournament arc?

From what I gather, the Chunin Exam was always on the cards and the editor told him to speed up to the exam instead of doing more missions.

This weeks Bolt we got to see Yamato fall for a simple jutsu by Karin/Salad, Bolt realizes how little he knows of Mitsuki and it causes him to have a small BSOD, he learns how fucked up a parent Orochimaru is(Implanted a Self-Destruct Cursed Seal if anyone learns Mitsukis origins), Salad meets Karin, the Elders put their faith in Nardos plans, and he even tells Konohamaru how different he'd treat Mitsuki if he knew his origins.

Ino Shika Cho and Moegi appear to stop Bolt and Salad from visiting the White Snake Sage.

The fact Orochimaru wants to keep Mitsukis origins such a secret is also believed to tie into theories he's a Orochimaru/Toneri hybrid.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 13th 2018 at 7:42:29 AM

A few more mini arcs leading up to the Chunin Exams would have made them feel more like they grew into being friends. They need more time to evolve instead we are told that Naruto and Sasuke became rivals to friends.

Orochimaru's Best Dad award has officially been rescinded.

Still a better father than Naruto.

Edited by Eagal on Sep 14th 2018 at 8:00:25 AM

Who the hell sends a shadow clone to his own daughter birthday?! That's messed up.

Also, Boruto and his class are just nine years old or so. Weird, I though they were a little older than that.

Naruto may struggle with work/life balance but he didn't put a bomb in either of his children's heads.

Boruto in that case has a right to be pissed.

And this is why Orochimaru should have remained a villain.

Edited by firewriter on Sep 14th 2018 at 10:08:11 AM

And he didn't even get angry for himself. He was ready to forgive Naruto for missing his birthday, as long as he was there for Himawari. Boruto is such a good brother. The part where he makes pancakes for Himawari is just sweet.

Boruto really has it hard. Not only is his father neglectful, literally everyone around him makes excuses for Naruto, praises him, and generally do their best to invalidate Boruto's feelings and make him feel bad for having them. No one should go through this, especially not a kids who's not even ten.

Also, the Scientific Ninja guy is really creepy.

Yes, Boruto has it difficult. But it's not like Naruto is being an ass to him on purpose, he's their country's president and we've already seen that Hokage is a job that carries a tremendous administrative burden from Tsunade. It's not like he's a deadbeat dad, Naruto just has loads of responsibilities that require his attention.

Also, wait, how is Boruto not even ten?

Edited by Sigilbreaker26 on Sep 14th 2018 at 5:38:50 PM

Nah I like Boruto but he has no point. Naruto experiences the same thing his clones do. Yeah he's not the best dad but he's at least trying. He could have just not shown up at all. Yes Shadow Clones aren't the original but since they share memories and experiences they are a valid substitute and might as well be.

Edited by Chariot on Sep 14th 2018 at 1:42:22 PM

I wouldn't quite say they're a valid substitute, more that Naruto's position is pretty understandable: A child's birthday should seem like a pretty good time to take a day off, but this trade deal is really important and it'll fail if you don't push it through, if we don't negotiate this border dispute right now we won't be able to do it for months, this infrastructure project's been underfunded for two years...

...and then your familial responsibilities just kind of get buried. It's not even that Naruto is being selfish, necessarily, just that he isn't prioritising properly between his duty to care for his country and his duty to care for his family.

Naruto's home life would vastly improve if he just learned the delegate no jutsu. Seriously, I refuse to believe that all this paperwork is so top secret only he can handle it - they haven't even been in a war for years. Just hire a couple of people to handle the routine stuff!

And oh yeah, in episode 54 they mention that it's been 10 years since the Great Ninja War, so Boruto can't be older than around 9 years old. Realistically it's probably close to 8 or 7.

In that case why not leave the paperwork to a clone and show up in person from time to time?

Edited by Shlugo_the_great on Sep 14th 2018 at 7:59:06 PM

Yeah, I don't get why Naruto has any problems with paperwork when he can just make ten shadow clones and get it all done in a few minutes while he hangs with his family.

He'd probably get one hell of a headache when they popped, though.

He fought on every battlefield of a war all at once. I think he could handle a few bunshi doing paperwork.

Another thing: It's weird how Boruto is supposed to be this super prodigy who was chuunin level before even finishing academy, but suddenly he can't win any fight without resorting to the Scientific Ninja Tool.

I took it more as Bort had the tools to overcome his challenges (Like curving the shuriken to take out gum boy and using water and lightning to beat the triplets) he didn't have the confidence in his skills and used the scientific ninja tool to show off for his dad.

Maybe, but they sure are doing some wonky things with his characterization. Like, he's now Book Dumb to the point he can't pronounce "electromagnetic", even tho previously he was effortlessly acing test that were made too hard to pass without cheating.

Okay, one other thing: True, Naruto denied Katatsuke request to let genins use the Scientific Ninja Tool in the Exams, but.... he never informed anyone else that those things are banned. He literally had to explain what those are when he disqualified Boruto. How is it cheating if you ban something but don't tell contestants that it's banned? Is Boruto supposed to be mind reader now? You can't make hidden rules and then punish people for not following them.

Seriously, why is this series going out of it's way to make Naruto look like an asshole?