AINT NO WAYYYYYYY, IS THAT OFFICIAL ZABUZA & HAKU IN THE CROCODILE YEAR OF 2024?!?!?!!??? Please tell me i'm tweaking because i was so sad after Zabuza birthday was dry as hell on X two weeks ago.
ABOUT THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE LAND OF THE WAVES ARC, THE ACTIONS OF TEAM 7 AND WHY ITS ONE OF THE BEST ARCS OF THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE:
I'll never shut up about the Land of the Waves arc.
Here are the facts:
A corrupted man —who was believed to be the richest man in the world due his shipping and transportation business— decided he wanted to make his a small land made out of islands, better known as the Land of the Waves.
In Tazuna's words: "Nami No Kuni (the Land of the Waves) isn't a real prosperous land. Even our local lords are poor..."
The name of the corrupted man is Gato. He was affiliated with drug trafficking and contraband, as well as being a criminal who employed gangs and teams of shinobis to help him (through violence) to take over companies and countries alike. That's what he did to the Land of the Waves, taking hold of all the marine transportation and their shipping industry. Since the Land is made of a number of islands, Gato successfully isolated them. He was now the owner of the local economy and had the power to decide how people lived there.
Tazuna is an old man with no money at all who had been tasked to be the architect and overseer of the new bridge. If completed, it would mean that Gato no longer had absolute control over the Land of the Waves. It'd free them all, bring more movement to their economy and stop the crazy violence promoted by Gato's gangs.
To make sure we all understand the severity of the mission and the power of Gato, let's remember that he employed Zabuza Momochi.
Zabuza is one of the Seven Ninja Swordmen of the Hidden Mist. Kirigakure was known for one of the cruelest traditions regarding shinobis: they'd have to fight each other to death and only the survivors would be promoted. Zabuza put an end to it himself, killing an entire year of graduates. He was not even a student yet.
Zabuza also plotted a coup against the Mizukage, but he was betrayed. He became a rogue nin after that, taking money from men like Gato in order to keep living.
That's the first Team 7 mission.
Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke are staked to help Kakashi free a land of a corrupted businessman and in the process have to fight one of the most legendary shinobis they can encounter out there. We're talking about an entire small nation!!! We're talking about the insane irony of Zabuza being a rogue because he fought against the corruption of his own Hidden Village, and he lost and now he has to work for a man doing the same to others.
The first Team 7 lesson was not only to work as one, to value their teammates, but to question the world around them. Kakashi told them to not follow orders blindly and the narrative throws the Team on a mission to test it.
Kakashi accepted to continue the mission without telling the Hokage anything. He knew he had the jinchuriki and the last Uchiha with him, that it was a great risk, but he accepted because he wanted to help Tazuna and the Land of the Waves and he knew Tazuna had not enough money to pay for a class B mission. Hell, he was lucky Kakashi got a genin team. One of the best jonins of the Hidden Leaf could give his service under the disguise of a rank C. Kakashi was using a loophole to disobey orders and he complains the whole time in his head because he knows it's gonna be a mess of a mission, but he does it anyway.
Do you want to know why is my favorite arc?
The reality of the Land of the Waves is a perfect scenario to force Team 7 to wake up. Naruto and Sasuke sure know loneliness and misery, but they were also part of a very rich land and a powerful Hidden Village. Sakura didn't go through anything like Sasuke or Naruto, which is worse in the sense that she was more naive than them.
Their world falls apart when they meet Haku and Zabuza, when they realize this is not s fairytale of good heroes and bad villains, but people who had to become violent to survive.
Like Kakashi said, the only reason he and Zabuza are trying to kill each other is because they were paid to do so. Zabuza works for Gato, Kakashi for Konoha, that's it. Kakashi didn't want to kill Haku and Haku didn't want to kill any of them, but the Naruto world is old and messy, the customs and the means to survive are others.
Shinobis are no heroes. They're mercenaries, they act as the military force for the strongest nations. They are tools and weapons. It's not advanced in any sense, so many years after the Warrant Era and the world was just as cruel and wild. People with kekkei genkais were forced to practice that violence to protect themselves, like Haku, Sasuke and Neji. People with bad luck like Naruto and all the jinchurikis were the same. People like Sakura, who loved and cared for those others, devoted their lives to joining the fight, to try and protect the ones dear to them.
That's why the final conversation of Team 7 —the one after the events of the bridge that ended with Zabuza and Haku dead— went the way it did. The members of Team 7 weren't happy with the reality of the shinobi life. Naruto even ended up saying that he would make his own ninja way, basically denying such reality and promising to break the traditional ways that kept all shinobis chained to violence, fated to kill each other.
Just look at it:
Sakura: ... But still... Master Kakashi...
Kakashi: Hmm~~?
Sakura: ... I can't help wondering. Were those two right about what a ninja should be?
Kakashi: A Shinobi shouldn't be concerned with a reason for her own existence... It is important merely that we exist as a tool for our homeland to use in whatever way they need. That's as true for us in Konohagakure as it for any ninja anywhere else.
Naruto: Is that really what becoming a full-fledged ninja's gonna be about? I don't like the sound of it!
Sasuke: Do you really feel that way, master Kakashi?
Kakashi: Well... No. And that's why all we ninja live our lives with that ideal always bubbling beneath the surface of our minds, disturbing us. ... Like it did Zabuza ... And the boy.
Naruto: That's it. I've made up my mind! I am going to create my own nindo— my own ninja path. My own destiny!
This arc plants the seeds of what should be the rest of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. Team 7 is frustrated and they don't agree with the tradition. None of them, not even Kakashi. Naruto promises to be the change, to make his own destiny.
Sadly, it doesn't happen. The manga changes its tone halfway through. Naruto ends up becoming part of such tradition and he ends up being the fated reincarnation, the chosen one. His destiny is not his exactly and his own ninja path gets lost in the way, replaced by a hollower desire to become Hokage. Naruto doesn't evolve to deeply question the order of his world or his society.
Instead, Sasuke occupies his place and the story turns him into an antagonist (someone who wants the direct opposite of the protagonist, someone who is on the way of the protagonist to reach his goal). The story radicalizes the dream that was so innocently spoken in this chapter. It also ends up chaining Kakashi to the same system, uses him as someone to fill the Hokage role until Naruto is old enough and then gives Naruto the hat, forgetting the themes set on the Land of the Waves arc.
What started as Team 7 fighting corruption and people sick with power while trying to help the victims of the system, understanding that their world is made of greys and not moral absolutes, ends up becoming a kids tale of ninjas = heroes and aliens = villains. All the complexities of politics get softened by Black Zetsu's manipulations and Kaguya's existence.
It wouldn't be a reach to say that the Land of the Waves belongs to a very different type of manga, one that never got its continuation.
I appear for one hot second with another self indulgent nostalgia piece! It's my birthday today, I'm now [redacted] years old and I'm reminiscing about the passage of time..
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