Onionhead Attacks

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I've last been on this site. How's everyone been? I decided to see what happened to the Naruto franchise out of morbid curiosity one random day and I sort of regret dredging up some bitter feelings of the past. But, I decided to look into it a little more objectively and not as a biased shipper.

I was inspired by this other thread, which analyzed NS scenes after the end of the manga and agreed with all of the posters. This here is my analysis of the series and why it upset a lot of fans. All of these points are debatable and just my opinion since I only went by the manga and stopped watching the anime after Part I (excludes all the fillers), but these are the points that I felt caused a lot of distress in fans. I must warn you that it is quite lengthy and will span several posts.

It is broken down into 5 main points as listed below:

1. Character Growth
2. Unrealistic Love/Feelings
3. Believability
4. Writing Difficulties
5. Cultural Differences

CHARACTER GROWTH

• Character growth was linear from childish (beginning character) to mature adult character (ending character)
  • Idealistic Naruto doesn't mature in his thinking process, which is typical of coming of age stories which I assumed this was. Instead, Naruto continues his childish idealistic thinking process as if he were not exposed to the real ninja world outside of the safety of Konoha's walls. His personality is only less hyper but he is just as loud and vocal as he was in his youth.
     
  • Naruto also lacks the pathos that another idealistic character has. For instance, MCU Captain America is known as idealistic for his beliefs but throughout the films you can see that he is becoming more aware of the world he now lives in and is more jaded compared to before. He still fights for what he believes in such as in Civil War even though it tore apart his team but he isn't as naïve to the real world as he once was. He stays true to his character to fight for what he believes in, but you can see his character progression. With Naruto, it feels as if he is constantly shocked with new revelations by the real world and just foolishly and naively promises to change it but in the end of the story haven't made any changes at all.
     
  • Naruto is too obsessed with bringing Sasuke back that he doesn’t learn to respect Sasuke's decision despite multiple attempts to get through to him. I understand trying once or twice, but multiple times with the same result and with world destruction on the table? Naruto is too naïve to believe that a few words would get through to "best friend" who he's spent maybe only half a year to one year with at most with the most antagonistic and not evenly remotely brotherly interaction that I've ever seen. I've seen frenemy bromance written better than this because it moved on from early tentative stages of bromance in part I to plain suicidal in part II.
     
  • The story is all about Naruto working hard to achieve his goal of becoming Hokage. I would have loved to see his journey from eternal genin to rising through the ranks to becoming Hokage rather than skipping the ranks.
     
  • At the end of the manga it appears that Naruto is this super serious and jaded Hokage that spends all his time working. I understand that Kishimoto was introducing family conflict (to be touched upon later), but it feels out of left field and untrue to Naruto's character who was written as a stubborn mule who would die to protect his loved ones first rather than to abandon or forget about them and with a personality that was relatively unchanged despite how many hardships he had faced. It feels as if he not only does not know his family as well as he should (with how little time he spends with them) but he also is not that close to his closest friends and their respective children. He knows of them but he doesn't really know them as personally as he should if he were consistent with his character.
     
• Wasted character growth
  • Sakura as one of the main characters had a lot of character growth throughout the course of the manga. She was initially portrayed as a young childish girl who only cared about her crush. This is typical in Shoujo manga and would work in that instance, but this is a Shounen manga. She is depicted as intelligent but is weak to average in everything else. She is shown to realize her weakness and to grow to overcome them so that she can stand on equal footing as her two teammates. This determination was not based on impressing her crush, which was what chapter 3 Sakura wanted to do, but on self-reflection and self-improvement to be the best kunoichi that she could be as depicted in end of Part I. She wanted to feel useful and to be the one that could protect her loved ones rather than the damsel in distress. Kishimoto showed this growth in Part II where Sakura not only trained to become a respected medic-nin but also a fearsome combatant. However, he barely touched upon her combat abilities other than her chakra enhanced strength, which was one of the points she was trying to overcome.
     
  • On the other hand, Kishimoto did a fantastic job showing Sakura growing up from a young girl to a very caring and mature young woman. She initially did not like Naruto, had a childish rivalry between her ex-best friend and other girls crushing on Sasuke, and only cared about getting her crush's attention. She grew to become a skilled and confident doctor, someone who was more in tune with her feelings (unlike before where she had to act like demure, which is opposite of how she really thinks or acts), and supposedly a fearsome combatant. She is no longer the damsel in distress character that he started her off as.
     
  • However, as a main character she is also underdeveloped compared to Naruto and Sasuke. The two boys had a ton of background on their heritage while Sakura had none because she is from a civilian family. There is also no depiction of what other skills she picked up that showed her growth other than being a copy of her Master as a skilled medic with monstrous strength. I wanted to see skills that is more specific to Sakura and how she differed from the previous generation, not how she is able to only be a copy of them. I wanted to see elemental ninjutsu, genjutsu (since she supposedly had an affinity for it), more taijutsu, tactical and stealth skills, new creative skills that even Tsudane wasn't able to perform or she had just developed. I'm not seeing her use her vast intelligence as much as Shikamaru is shown using his. I also wanted to see her mature from childish crush to first love to mature love in a realistic sense because I felt like she was clinging to an unhealthy obsession to the very end for someone who abandoned her, tried to kill her and her best friend (Naruto now) several times and was on the verge of destroying the world.
     
  • At the end of the manga and what little I glimpsed of Naruto Gaiden (not the anime or light novels), I see limited interaction of Sakura with some of her closest friends. What happened to that compassionate and caring person who opened up and strived to maintain her bonds? Why is it only for certain people and not all? Also, what is her background now? Is she still a doctor? Is she a respected head of the hospital? Is she a housewife? It is not clear what she is or what she is doing since she was only drawn together with Sarada so we do not know. Naruto and Sasuke on the other hand was stated as Hokage and out on an extended mission respectively, but not for Sakura who was only stated as being the head of the hospital via light novels (added way later and not written by Kishimoto).
     
• Lack of redemption arc for Sasuke, who seemed more mentally unstable if end goal was for a redeemed character
  • Sasuke was depicted early on in the manga as a character who only had one goal in his life, to kill his psychotic murderous older brother he essentially broke his mind as a child. He was then shown to grudgingly develop friendship and bonds with his team, but was ultimately overcome with jealousy as someone he had seen as inferior to him started to surpass him. He acknowledged Naruto's growth and strength, but he was developing so much jealousy and resentment that he started lashing out and then ultimately left the village to someone who promised him more power. It was a cowardly move and it was the easy way out since he was always depicted as a skilled genius who didn't need to work as hard as average individuals like Naruto and the others.
     
  • He was next depicted as someone who had come to terms with his decision to leave all his loved ones behind and he cut all ties with them. He was not going to linger on them nor was he ever planning on returning to his previous life so long as he accomplishes his life-long goal and that he would kill anyone who stood in his way, whether it be friend or foe as evidenced when he attacked his old teammates with lethal force. He has no idea what he will do after he does it, but he made it clear when confronted with Team 7 that he has no wishes to return.
     
  • Subsequently after finding out the truth bomb of what happened to his brother and having him die tragically, Sasuke set out on avenging his family for being wronged. At this point he was conflicted about his feelings for his brother and what became of his life, but he settled on vengeance and set out to destroy Konoha. At this point his character progression made sense. He is and was consumed by hatred for so long that it has become a part of who he is. He was also so determined to destroy Konoha, then the whole ninja system for how much conflict the world is in. At this point he is an anti-hero with good intentions to rid the world of its current dysfunctional system but through extreme means. He loses in his fight against Naruto and has an epiphany that he was loved by his new family but feels ashamed and wants to end his life but Naruto refuses. He is then reformed and travels the world on the lookout for a dangerous threat on an extended mission.
     
  • With how he was portrayed early on, he pretty much had no bonds with anyone in Konoha at all and only tentative bonds with Team 7 that was on shaky ground. It is hard to believe with how emotionally unstable that he was that he would feel strongly about it enough to the point that he would want to return to Konoha, which he barely felt was his home at the time. His relationships with his new family were very underdeveloped for the magnitude of feelings and drama that the story evoked. The relationship he had with Team Taka felt stronger than with Team 7.
     
  • Honestly, the way Sasuke was written, it doesn't feel like a natural progression. He went from hell bent on revenge to world destruction to realizing his mistakes at the 11th hour and is forgiven. It is also unbelievable that even if he is reformed that he be allowed freedom after all that he has done. Realistically he should have had the death sentence demanded from other villages. If he were to get leniency he should have only had life imprisonment and sealed chakra for all his crimes.

• Inconsistent character portrayal
  • Naruto was shown time and time again to put the happiness of his friends and especially Sakura, before his own. You can see the heartbreak in his smile when he promises to bring Sasuke back for her. For Naruto, it was to bring back a lost teammate who he considers his brother. For Sakura, it is her first love. It was like that all the way until the Kage Summit where Naruto straight out contradicts his reason for bringing back Sasuke. He tells her that he's not doing it for her, but for himself. It essentially turned Naruto's selfless and promise and huge burden to a selfish desire to beat sense into his brother and bring him back against his will.
     
  • Naruto was also shown early on to talk to his enemies and be empathetic to them since he has a big heart and cannot bear to kill those he didn't have to. He became more selective with who deserved that treatment as the series progressed.
     
  • Sakura was shown as a strong individual who cared so much about Naruto's well-being that she threw herself headlong into danger for his sake. As evidenced in the scene in during the Heaven and Earth Bridge, she rushed to try to talk sense or try anything she could to stop Naruto from hurting himself due to the Kyuubi's powers and to talk him out of carrying such a burden by himself. She wanted to relieve him of the promise and to take it onto herself since now she doesn't want to rely on others for her shortcomings and have them suffer as a result. She wanted to be the one to protect him now instead of the other way around. It was her deep feelings and protectiveness for Naruto that it showed her growth in feelings for him. She is always shown to think about what is best for Naruto and even giving up opportunities for herself for his sake (i.e. Chuunin written exam). With how deeply she cares about him and how much she puts him first before everyone it's hard to believe that she would put Sasuke above Naruto at the end.
     
  • Sakura volunteered to kill Sasuke for the greater good but couldn't because of her "love" for Sasuke. Rather than love, it seems more realistic that it's her compassion and her humanness being her downfall. Because she cares so much for everyone she cannot kill anyone whom she deems her precious people. She is also a doctor who's oath states that she will do no harm. It's kind of contradictory considering how ninjas operate, but her hesitation is due to a multitude of reasons and not only "love". She pretty much decided to let go of her feelings of Sasuke for Naruto and the world's sake for this mission, but she goes on in the end of the manga to claim that she never once stopped loving Sasuke. It's whiplash with how fast her feelings change. She does not truly know who Sasuke is a person since her memories only consist of young Sasuke, Team 7 Sasuke, and murderous Sasuke. What about emotionally conflicted Sasuke during the years they spent apart?
     
  • Sasuke's character was all over the board. The only consistencies that I could see is that he is deeply filled with hatred, has difficulties forming bonds with people after his family massacre, and is only intent on fulfilling his lifelong goal. He is lost after discovering the truth of Konoha but he is back to being filled with hatred and revenge. What's confusing is how he can go from extreme hatred to becoming a reformed character so close to the end of the story? This redemption arc would make more sense about two-thirds way into the manga not at the very end so that we can see his though process and character progression. It feels more like we're told rather than shown his journey for where he is at the end.

• Self-reflection
  • Kishimoto added in ideas as he wrote, but characters are written in very flawed ways without any changes after their self-reflection. Kakashi and Jiraiya are prime examples. After they realized Naruto's connection with the Yondaime, which in reality they should have known from the very beginning due to the massively obvious clues, they didn't apologize nor change the way they treated him. If story facts were already inconsistent at this point, he should have written reasons for why Naruto was pretty much neglected throughout his childhood from people who should've theoretically taken him in. Perhaps Kakashi was grieving too much that he pretty much lives as an ANBU 24/7 for years to numb the pain? Jiraiya was on long term dangerous intel gathering missions that he couldn't care for a young child? Responsibly, they should have found someone to take care of Naruto if they couldn't.

• Underdeveloped and unnecessarily developed characters
  • As pointed out by many others, Kishimoto likes to develop some of his side characters, which in some cases is great but in other cases feels distracting to the story. It feels like he wants to explain everyone's backstories and then once he is done he just relegates the character to the background and never touches on them again. If that is the case, was there a need for the development? Couldn't he have kept it minimal instead of giving us a full glimpse of them? From the media that I've consumed, usually that type of development is reserved for a bigger character that is ready to leave the show (either killed off or written off), a redemption arc for said character, or serve as the purpose of creating an anti-hero. But the main point is, this development is usually seen for bigger characters not side-characters (i.e. a character making an appearance in 1-2 episodes versus a recurring character appearing in 6 or more episodes of a show).