gng

[rdx-x]

still tied for first place fav village (architecture-wise tho, most definitely not economically or socially). whole place can't catch a break. frequent warzone, then totalitarian control, then post-war anarchy basically. like what we saw when the three sannin went to fight hanzo the salamander. i js know their citizens are gloomy asf, plus the poverty and constant surveillance. im lwk tied between amegakure and kirigakure.

like damn. i would say konoha too, but architecture-wise, it's not my fav. plus i feel like i wouldn't be a fan of the weather. maybe kumogakure, weather-wise. same with sunagakure. because i love the architecture, but i would die in the weather.

[rdx-x]

i feel like shippuden was a little rushed. not in the sense that it was excessively fast to the point of watching the series being impossible, but i feel like some events should've taken more time. or been drawn out a little more to build some actual tension. like in the fourth great war, everyone from shinobi history and their mothers apparently were being resurrected, but no one had a major reaction or freak out. same with the demigods and goddesses and rabbit lady in the moon whtever.

but overall, i felt like pain's invasion was the thematic "peak" (for lack of a better word at the moment) of the show. there were real roots in shinobi history, philosophical struggle, etc. those villains were at least human, and had a real downward spiral into their drastic "peace" bringing methods. (same with itachi kind of. he was indoctrinated fs) they used to be optimistic children, being trained by jiraiya, until the reality and tragedies of the shinobi world got to them, and boom, evil akatsuki. i say evil akatsuki because when yahiko was alive, their purpose was different. after his death, nagato, konan, and the organization changed. their whole shtick was like "can hatred end?" i reckon, but after pain, the story shifts from that moral sort of philosophy into escalating power levels. and by that, literally js look at madara, kaguya, and aliens. the war was basically a head-to-head power struggle, nothing overtly shinobi-like, such as espionage and sneaky tactics. although i do know that those things probs wouldn't be all that great or helpful against those kind of enemies. still, the whole show about ninjas just turned into some epic microcosm of mythology. i doubt the show was ever abt realism but i can be a little bitter.

[rdx-x]

how sunagakure fundamentally changed as a culture post-rasa's death was extremely interesting too. since it was like gaara's redemption was institutional, and not just personal. The entire village technically changed as he did.

they went from weaponizing jinchuriki and child soldiers to producing what arguably seems like one of the healthiest kage administration. I mean, gaara lasted throughout tsunade, kakashi, naruto, and shikamaru all being hokage. the village that raised gaara treated him as a demon or, at best, a military asset. a jinchuriki was a weapon and it was like rasa was making gaara's detachment be his "strength" or smth. actually, if i yap just about that, it's even bigger. suna produced emotionally repressed siblings on purpose. like, the sand siblings. gaara, temari, and kankuro were all stunted (in different ways, but they all had issues, no doubt) because they were raised where affection was actively discouraged, lived in a militarized state with dwindling resources, and had an unstable jinchuriki as a sibling on top of that. lwk the siblings only became like siblings fr after the invasion and rasa was dead.

by the time gaara's kazekage, the culture is radically different (tho the lingering hesitation is still shown in that last season of og naruto where gaara's student gets kidnapped). gaara's way more about leading with diplomacy instead of force, and protecting the next generation, not hardening them like he had been. also i'm a little lost about gaara never getting a childhood back. maybe that's why, unlike everyone else's infinite tsukyomi's about the future, his was in the past as a child. because naruto gains friends and sasuke eventually gets closure, but gaara immediately becomes kazekage. basically, his reward for surviving abuse and literal hell is more responsibility.

just as far as the village itself goes, too. due to the natural state of the land of wind, the desert shaped Suna's politics. which is obvious, but, like, it was the whole reason every political decision Suna made (including the one to betray konoha, i can imagine) stems from trying to survive an environment like that. their whole being is about adaptation, so i could be wrong about the gaara not getting a proper reward or whtever. everything famous about the village (mostly i mean the puppets, fans, poisons, sand techniques, and survivalism (js look at the architecture f; oml i could yap abt the architecture forever)) exists because they had to invent ways to make an inhospitable and harsh land livable. any desert, in general, would have water scarcity, nasty supply lines, difficult agriculture, and isolation, which is the whole reason suna had budget cuts and very little missions coming in in the first place.

[rdx-x]

chunin exams be propaganda. ik i've js been thinking abt this kind of public tournament, children-fighting-each-other-to-the-death shtick because of that decaying orange's event. but the chunin exams aren't purely for promotions. i do believe hiruzen only did that with his philosophical speech whtever before the preliminaries (idk i lwk forgot) but he spoke about the ninja world needing peace, and so they use the exams as a pseudo-war thing. but its village propaganda. like, point blank.

they're basically olympic games mixed with military recruitment. villages flex their strongest young genin to attract clients to their village and deter enemies. basically the only purpose of gaara's presence (tho the whole invasion thing cut the finals off), since he was crazy, crazy strong with his weaker jinchuriki seal. like the show showed, villages don't send all their genin that are eligible and want to be promoted; they only send their strongest as a message. they don't give a shit abt anything else. the exams cover intelligence-gathering (or js intelligence if you didn't need to cheat in the first exam like sakura), survival, and combat. but, realistically, actual chunins would have to do way more that isn't largely made to be demonstrated in the exams, like tactical command, instruction, cryptanalysis, or advanced chakra control. they could've even actually had them know T&I shit, that would be extremely useful in the field, since Ibiki and Anko were there.

especially cryptanalysis, too. the second exam had them working to deliver a scroll, but it was just running and delivering. not decrypting encoded messages, which, no doubt, every village does so if their shinobi die in the field, other villages can't get a hold of whatever they had. but i def get gladiator vibes. especially the final stage with the circular dome shit and like Rome-type elevated stands for the public to watch these children kill each other. meant more for entertainment and showing off.

[rdx-x]

i lwk js want another naruto show with the og animation abt kakashi's generation, like the third war and stuff.

[rdx-x]

the prison system inner workings in naruto is interestin too. i mean, js the arc with asuma and kurenai going to the prison and mizuki escaping, etc., shows how kinda unrealistic it is that there are the typical cells and guards. logically, too. how the hell do you properly imprison and contain, let alone rehabilitate or punish, teleporters, earth users, illusionists, explosive users, bloodline holders, and god knows what else? honestly with the little amount of expansion given to side characters, there could be all kinds of shinobi. js like kimimaro. bro could pull his bones out. like how the fuck, ordinary cells obviously wouldn't work.

like i mentioned with that mizuki escaping arc, all it took was him convincing two other shinobi, fujin and raijin, into staging a prison riot and it worked. like wth. then there should hv been breakouts everywhere, nearly all the time. although i do know that the two legendary stupid brothers are extremely strong, given that they beat asuma and kurenai, two elite jonin (tho it's not shown on screen, so im assuming that the other escaping prisoners and mizuki also helped in overwhelming them), but still. i could argue that chakra suppression fields, rotating seal specialists or smth, and anti-elemental jutsu architecture should be used. and thats tru. but most likely there's far more to be done, too.

prison systems are always fascinating to me, considering its inhabitants and how, in naruto especially, it'd house war criminals and the worst kind of people with the most devastating kinds of abilities. the hokage, too, would have to manage and oversee that shi. routine inspections and prisoner evaluations, i would imagine. it was also unrealistic to me how the prisoners weren't widely separated to limit interaction, and put into different wings with higher or lower security levels depending on their crime severity. in what world, let alone the shinobi world, would allowing the entire prison's population into one working field together to talk and possibly conspire ever be seen as anything but stupid and illogical?

[rdx-x]

the whole post-fourth shinobi world war resolution was always a little iffy to me. the whole world basically sorta transitioned into peace relatively quickly, leaving a whole lot of the long-term rebuilding js non-existent. at least after the konoha crush, in the following episodes, we saw the large-scale rebuilding and complications in the aftermath of the attack.

logically, after such a large-scale war, with all kinds of gods and demi-gods and reincarnations or whtever, fighting each other and basically leveling the earth for miles, there would be nearly ten times, if not more, the work to be done. there would be displaced civilians, massive orphan crises, and whole slews of shinobi dead from all the villages. and that's just the life count problem. just inside the respective villages, forget about the world as a whole, there'd have been damaged infrastructure and veteran trauma (in the sense that there could be ppl driven mad from their experiences and lashing out). and then, on a wider scale, there's to be arms reduction, intelligence sharing, and especially war crimes investigations.

but instead, in the short span, peace has fallen across the elemental nations at a ridiculously fast pace. even if the argument of naruto's influence and the whole unity thing is used, it's still unrealistic and unexplored. not only did they magically recover like that, in less than two decades in boruto, but they've also apparently thrived. technology skyrocketed and they somehow built a whole ass city on top of the hokage mountain (still hate that). js a little strange to me, ig.

[rdx-x]

the rapid development in naruto makes a lot more sense lwk with some diff perspectives. since it was alr neo-feudal, as more chakra techniques are discovered and developed, expansion and the village's ability to do more increases exponentially.

like just practically, what different elemental releases could be used for. also imagine like businesses using chakra. water jutsus would do reservoirs, fire release would be hella useful in steel production, and wind release could be mills? idk abt wind, but probs that, some sort of energy production. and lightning release (my fav) would js accelerate the development of electricity's presence across the elemental nations. they did have things like TVs, even in og naruto. so im iffy abt what stage of electrical powering they had. but regardless chakra creates entire industries. earth jutsus could do, like, tunneling companies. i always felt like the anbu would've used some elaborate, secret and confusing underground tunnel system as their hq.

that's another thing i felt was hella underdeveloped: the ANBU. there's all these, like, headcanons and made-up stories abt what goes on in there and what their system is like. but there's nothing official, because it's never been expanded into. though, of course, they're the black ops that handle counterintelligence, espionage, and assassinations. beyond that, however, everything else is rarely seen. i always hoped to know abt their internal investigations (because surely the third had them doing at least something abt looking into danzo), infiltration cells, undercover shit, financial surveillance (this especially), and political manipulation. there's no way they weren't used for things like that, considering hiruzen and danzo's nasty plans to handle the political crisis with the uchiha's and their coup plans. mostly the anbu are js elite fighters and glorified guards in masks.

[rdx-x]

politics in naruto should've def been dominated and ridden with genjustu. lwk js the arc with kurenai and yakumo showed how much reality and illusion can mix and blend. so if illusions can alter perception, influence decisions, and extract information, then diplomacy, not js shinobi politics but in general, would be hella terrifying.

it'd be necessary for all those summits to be crawling with genjustu screenings and illusion experts. largely it's just combat and the more obvious and brute-force threats that receive focus. but there's no psychological verification or mental seals. that's why the idea of the ninja academy, even just the one in konoha, not having genjustu as a mandatory, in-depth curriculum is beyond me. there wasn't much worldbuilding for the academy, considering it was legit like max 2 episodes. but apparently the students only learn shuriken, substitution, clones, and transformation. and then apparently they good to go into wars...right.

with the sasuke retrieval arc, there was a much more realistic depiction of what shinobi actually need, skill-wise. diplomats, assassins, trackers, interrogators, spies, even doctors. so, if those skills are necessary, then, in their teachings, where's the logistics, survival (genjustu, my lord, it's underrated, kurenai too), politics and dirty tricks? shinobi aren't samurai. they use dirty tricks; that's like the whole point of 'em.

politics being infested with illusions would breed constant suspicion and paranoia, as approriate. it would make sense for civilians to despise shinobi js for that. but overall, the little that we saw, missed that shit. though, i suppose gaara is an exception. as the kazekage, js his past as a child and his jinchuriki status is basically an illusion in and of itself, making it easier to pass decisions, i would imagine.

[rdx-x]

that dumbahh hyuga clan got away with everything too. sure, others like orochimaru got left off light since he got somehow invited to naruto’s wedding. as if he didn’t try to kill him in the forest of death at 12, gave his best friend an evil hickey, and that said best friend ran from the village to go with him, and therefore leading into basically the overarching plot of the series. naruto chasing sasuke. but anyway, that clan got away with their shit too. even before hinata was alive and all the stuff that happened since then, for generations before her, imagine the things that that clan did. back near the founding of their traditions or whtever, when the members and leaders were far more brutal. the series gives them some criticism, like around the chunin exams arc and in the third stage with naruto ‘changing’ neji’s ways. I never felt like he ever entirely removed neji’s resentment. but that’s better clear in the show too. neji js stopped venting it out on hinata. and the seal is horrifying, as established. it’s institutionalized slavery within a ‘family’. the main branch hides it behind tradition and "protecting" their bloodline. in practical terms, that is true. but how they largely used it, no. still, it’s presented as like some "unfortunate" necessity instead of the human rights nightmare it is. like tf are all those elders talking abt some protection, as if main branch members are immune to getting their eyes ripped out in the battlefield too. those old bags of bones think that it’s a valid approach to their literal kin? then, on what basis are they ever considered and respected as a noble clan. that dont seem noble to me lwk yall.

and there’s no doubt hiruzen knew. no just hiruzen, the hokage system and all the major clan heads and everyone worth their power in the village. it’s not legal. it’s hereditary oppression inside at the heart of the supposedly good guy village. but there’s no intervention, because nobody in the village wants one of the strongest clans to pull out and go somewhere else. so they don’t hold any accountability to em. and hiashi gets his abuse ignored because “oh no, he changed his ways and now he’s a good grandfather and trying to make up for it” gng i was ts was in real life. watch how many child abusers get let free because now they love children. after the war, it’s implied that the whole branch family system was abolished. And it’s all happy shit. except it shouldn’t because that system is so deeply ingrained into every single one of the clan members because they were raised with it for generations on top of generations. it couldn’t have been a easy movement. even if officially, technically, it was gone. many members, especially the uptight superiority complex main branch, wouldn’t change their attitude and treatment. and there’s no chance there wasn’t at least one bitter non-main branch person didn’t lash out and go batshit at others once the seal was removed and there was no fear of it. we never see any political struggle, accountability or reparations, as far as I remember. that would’ve been a nice arc. smth real and deep abt the shinobi world aside from gigantic explosions and deep talks to get ppl away from the evil side. as if the good side is any better.

it’s a nasty social system, but the story moves on with its plot of reincarnations and gods. the branded children shit is really an ick, even now.

[rdx-x]

lwk tsunade felt like a better hokage overall, blunt and flashy prowess aside. I know it’s contended that kakashi never fully rlly ever aimed to become hokage. but everytime I look back on what kind of shitshow tsunade had to come and handle, she def done a fuck ton of work. even for an alcoholic gambler, dragging the village out of the konoha crush with her hangovers is crazy skill.

by the time naruto and jiraiya gave her reason to go back, the village had been destroyed repeatedly, there was financial instability no doubt, and constant political pressure (istg I still despise homura and koharu). i still stand by my thinking that tsunade most DEF protected Naruto from the council for years. the third probs did too, as much as i'm iffy abt him. the council were the ones that came to the radical solution of genocide to fix the threat of the uchiha, so it’s entirely plausible they had some nasty plans for their only jinchuriki too. the scale of the shit she fixed, too, orochimaru’s attack, the akatsuki and pain’s attack. everytime i see some incel on twt talk abt tsunade like she was useless and just the girl who jiraiya was supposed to end up with, it pisses me off. jiraiya and tsunade's relationship is hardly a percentage of her character as a whole. same thing that happened with kurenai. ppl ignored her actual character, just writing her off as asuma's widow. bro dont piss me off.

tho im complaining tsunade doesn't get enough credit, i do know it's widely appreciated that she trained sakura into becoming as strong as she did. but at the same time, since she wasn't js spending her time training a teenager, tsunade worked to fix and revolutionize the medical corps situation in the village. esp in terms of battlefield survival and their practicality as a shinobi village. tsunade’s very presence def inspired all those young impressionable academy students into wanting to be a medical ninja too. which all shinobi villages need a skilled abundance of. so she inherited the title of hokage and leader of the medical corps, all the idolization as a legendary sannin and the only senju left (and the living legacy of the first two hokages). And she accomplished all the fixing of shitshows and the akatsuki situation for like 4-5 years. meanwhile, kakashi inherited world peace. again im not saying he’s bad or any more incompetent, but based on what actually had to be done in that specific role, tsunade tops. kakashi alr did a fuck ton with his past on minato's team, in ANBU, dealing w team 7 since they were 12 and into the years past the war, and what he did in said war. tsunade that girl fr

[rdx-x]

isn't boruto only like a 17-18 year shift from naruto? so, if ever since og naruto, the elemental nations were clearly a more feudal kind of world, with limited, erratic technology, then how did boruto become a show with mechanized cities, and cyborgs or whatever the hell. naruto was a rustic, resource-scarce world. and boom, less than two decades later, its sci-fi, cyborg shit everywhere. though infrastructure does increase fast. like how they built what looked like a whole new city on top of the hokage mountain (still don't like the idea of there being construction for offices or whtever on top of a historical, revered monument). tho there was some tech in og naruto too, i think there were some cable tvs.

and those scientific ninja tools that fire unlimited, absorption-proof jutsu. and that point, they're not shinobi. these tool things highlight the moral dilemma of the peace-era. there's no excessive necessity for human shinobi, like in naruto (where even in peace-time, things like the wave arc happened), basically just having an existential crisis for the ninja world.

even as far as the plot goes, like with villains, all those aliens replacing human motivations. the end of shippuden had kaguya, but boruto made the otsutsuki alien clan the central focus. just these totally evil other-worldly beings that're definitely villains. and all those ninjas with deeply philosophical and emotional motivations, like pain and obito are replaced by them. there's no good turned evil from the harsh reality of the world with wars and the suffering of shinobi life. i do understand tho that boruto did that to explore those themes of divinity, parasitism, and the "true" cosmic history behind chakra itself.

hardly any combat success in boruto came from strategy and that effort, such as with the fight between shikamaru and tayuya. instead, power scaling was largely reliant on cybernetics, having otsutsuki DNA, and genetic modification. maybe im just mad about how they ruined the og characters (how naruto is ever portrayed to be an absent father, given his childhood, is absolutely beyond me), but it's eh. tho i am talking strictly abt the naruto world, and the logical timeline, not so much the real world goings-on.

[rdx-x]

i feel like all the progress and skillsets displayed in non-protagonist characters was wasted. the chunin exams, for instance. there were so many episodes just for the three stages (plus the preliminary rounds, so four ig), and all of the four teams in the konoha 12 were shown. but then after the arc finished, throughout the rest of the anime, the powers that characters like shino, tenten, and lee were highly underutilized. during major fights and wars, a whole slew of the cast were discarded into support roles. if not being outright thrown away into retirement or incapacitation. just to shine a light on the protagonists and their love interests.

og naruto was about a hard-working underdog clawing to overcome a harsh reality and past. then in shippuden, it was demigods, all-powerful bijuu, aliens, and a rabbit goddess in the moon. mostly, yes i know all the aspects in og didn't disappear. but naruto spamming shadow clones, rasengan, and kurama's chakra was..a choice. like how are you going to have naruto calling himself the "unpredictable ninja", whilst being incredibly predictable. og naruto had distinct jutsu, more scrappy, clever traps and strategies. sasuke retrieval arc, namely, especially neji's fight. that was gorgeous. like kidomaru finding the byakugan's blindspot, and later, a poisoned and damaged neji figured out how to channel chakra via the web thread and destroy kidomaru's internal organs. since neji was low on chakra, in came the scrappy strategy, he allowed himself to be impaled on kidomaru's arrow just to pull his move.

fights js strayed from what they used to be abt, in my opinion. they were about exploiting blindspots, using those traps, digging into elemental weaknesses, and bluffing. not like full conversations and villian/hero monologues in the middle of the fight, like sasuke explaining his chidori or kirin or whatever smack in the middle of the fight at the valley of the end. instead of distinct battles, in which each shinobi has to use their unique sets and tools and intellects to survive, i remember a majority of the fights just being a brute force and massive-scale jutsu show. shinobi aren't samurai. they can't afford morals or honor or a strict code of conduct type stuff. they're ninjas, so espionage and pragmatism. valuing efficiency over honor. literally the definition of their careers, being the ones in the shadows doing the dirty work for the good of the village. though the show didn't show the nitty gritty dark parts, since the main character is naruto. and he's like an optimist, idolizing figures like the hokage and the shinobi life. most likely heavily indoctrinated. hiruzen was the only kind, consistent adult figure in his upbringing. and as hokage, whether he's fond of naruto or not, hiruzen needed to make sure the village's only jinchuriki became a shinobi, and a strong one at that.

[rdx-x]

my girl anko was done wrong too now, mind you. she should've, and i mean that sm, had a WAY bigger role in the story. not only was she orochimaru's student, but she was the FIRST successful survivor of the cursed seal. she literally set up for the whole plot basically, with sasuke leaving.

they gave her so many backstory clips like in the sea monster/foot race arc with her going to demon island with orochimaru, memories of being in the base with orochimaru, getting the curse mark, her memory being blanked out when she got back to konoha. like there was so much there, but it was js abandoned.

ever since i saw her in the chunin exams, she was interesting asff. like wdym snakes bro and her personality with her being in T&I. she fought orochimaru in the forest, and should've been literally number one alongside the other two sannin in dealing with the snake. i feel like her and tsunade would've been able to mesh. similar personalities. kind of a tsunade filler arc with her fixing her teammate's messes, like she said that one time when orochimaru was bribing her with nawaki and dan.

some ppl gonna say she's just a plot device, but i don't think so. there was depth to her. besides the fact it showed how her personality was shaped by being let down by her mentor, who she adored. only to be forced to witness her other two teammates die, and be abandoned after getting his curse mark.

and im not even going to THINK about whtever dumpster fire kishimoto created in boruto. what the actual fuck did he do to her, making her fat like that. her ENTIRE mentality was shown to be about how she was obsessively training and being tough in order to always be the strongest and fittest she can possibly be to kill orochimaru and any threats like him, so nothing like what happened to her could happen to anyone else. LORD.

plus her obsession with dango, which is even mentioned in the conversation between kakashi, asuma, and kurenai. maybe im reading into this part a little much, but it's not totally crazy i think to say that it's related to her trauma. like after orochimaru's stifling hold, not only is the fixation on dango a kinda autonomy proving thing but also it's her eating those "sweets" to wash away the "bitter" past with "blood" and "slimy" "snakes." get it?...ok maybe, idk.

[cicadaundertable]

YES! JUSTICE FOR ANKO!

I'm glad I didn't watch the anime, because the scene where Sasuke and Kabuto resuscitate Orochimaru from her curse mark would've made me nauseous!

She also could've tagged along Sasuke's rescue on the exams, and on Naruto-led search parties too, to fight Orochimaru!! Sakura mentioned how similar Anko is to Naruto... And I can picture Anko using underhanded tricks to land hits on Orochimaru. If Naruto has the clones and the sexy-jutsu... What could Anko have? She's on T&I! Imagine that!

Anko and Tsunade would be SO FUN. I like you. Please write fillers /positive

But I understand the character development in making Anko fat. All characters got a 180º, didn't they? Might Guy became disabled, quiet Shino became a teacher, Kakashi finally fucking retired, badass Kurenai became a SAHM...

Anko could've gotten fat from antidepressants or other meds, or even from the more sedentary lifestyle that settling down as an academy teacher allows.

Her revenge on Orochimaru... Wasn't it consuming her, like Sasuke's with Itachi? She could've missed on so much, just like Kakashi in his bad days. Maybe the best way to use her experience isn't surpassing Orochimaru, but spotting other Ankos at the Academy. I'm not saying she should get over her trauma or forgive or be friendly with Orochimaru, but to not let him keep ruining her life. She survived, she should live.

What I think is diabolical was making women retire for men.

I didn't watch the anime, only read the manga, but what the fuck do you mean ex-ANBU Yuugao Uzuki retired because her man was assassinated on Suna/Oto invasion?

What the fuck do you mean Kurenai Yūhi, who could be either a civilian or from a very minor clan, who climbed up the ladders to become one of the few jounin kunoichi in the series, specialized in genjutsu in an Uchiha-less Konoha, gave up her career to be a stay at home mom??

Come ON ヽ(* `д´)ノ Asuma was evil for getting her pregnant during the peak of their careers. He should've gotten pregnant if he wanted to preserve the Sarutobi line that bad. Mirai is adorable but she could've arrived much later in the series.

[rdx-x]

omll fr. anko, kurenai, and yūgao are my goats, especially yūgao's kenjutsu. obvi being an ANBU would alr set her high up in power scaling. tho i feel like a large majority of what i see abt her is ppl chalking up her character to her relationship with hayate, and her grief. lwk crazy because she was on a team with kakashi and itachi on team ro, so i feel like there should've been hella more on that point. the fact that she was even on that team, able to keep up and work alongside with the future sixth hokage and the uchiha clan murderer, meant she was crazy strong. and we didnt see anything on that. at all, like 60% of her screentime was her at the memorial stone.

and everything that happened with kurenai made me frustrated. both her and asuma were 30-31, so nowhere near out of commission. literally prime. and they were both elite jonin with full teams to train and go on missions with, so who knows where this random ass child came from (no hate on mirai tho), idrk. kurenai's arc with yakumo and the kurama clan rlly interested me, since it showed wht she could do with genjutsu. or any shinobi at that, since no one else rlly focuses on it. they just use ninjustu and taijutsu. plus there was that whole flashback with her passively-aggressively talking to hiashi abt how he was mistreating and discarding hinata. there was literallyyy the potential for a whole arc, like going against an old, stuck-up, 100-year-old traditional clan, like i've said before. i feel like asuma's death was just an excuse to show the viewers that shikamaru like 'matured' and 'saw the real world', and gave an excuse for hidan to die.

[rdx-x]

i was rewatching the chunin exams arc becus why not, tho ion get why when gaara and the one-tail are introduced in it, shukaku is like explicitly stated to be the vengeful spirit of an old, corrupt monk from the hidden sand who was sealed inside a tea kettle. and his anger is what he uses to drive gaara mad. tho later in shippuden, the story changes, with all the tailed beasts being fractured pieces of the original ten-tails that was created by hagoromo thousands of years ago.

although it did see sumwhere that this early part in og naruto was done before kishimoto fully solidified his whole thing with the jinchuriki. so probs in shippuden they tweaked the explanation with the monk having shukaku inside him or smth.

which also changes gaara's bg somewhat, because he considered himself a complete monster after yashamaru's death. tho since he heard abt the demon and the myth abt the vengeful whtever, he believed the voice inside of him wasn't a tailed beast but a corrupted spirit. hence why he kept calling it mother, probs a misunderstanding of his protective sand and manipulation. yashamaru still a bitchass for lying and telling gaara that karura hated him.

[rdx-x]

of course, i discover that its shisui uchiha's birthday on october 19th, and on october 18th, its asuma sarutobi's birthday. but one day before, on october 17, my actual birthday, there's nobody. and then october 10th, it's naruto's birthday.

literally the characters that i thought had hella aura. bro everyone i see says they share a birthday with a character, but i gotta swing and miss 😭😭 LORD AND on oct 24, it's anko's birthday. fuck me, she's my goat. you hv got to be shitting me.

tho shisui died before the series timeline from danzo, and then asuma was killed by the akatsuki. im next yall.

[rdx-x]

i lowk kinda hated what they did with the hokage mountain in boruto. how they put those skyscrapers on top of it, and all those buildings and places where people live.

in naruto, it was like the thing to literally look up to. a testament to the high status, honor, and power that the hokages, past and present, held. by having all that stuff above it later js kinda dampened it.

i felt like it lost its significance. a monument's sole purpose is for commemoration and symbolism. by having their faces above the people, it symbolized their position as the protectors of the village and all the village's inhabitants. it was meant to be seen from below, displaying how they looked over the people.

making it so that, in boruto, the hokage faces are like sandwiched between buildings, not only dampens the respect, but also switches it from a symbol of honor to a backdrop for more modern development. i mean, there are Earth Jutsu, did ya rlly have to stack offices or whtever there? its js kinda eh. visually too.