It might be fun to take Raiga's arc into account when you talk about Kirian genocides. He may be ugly and filler (and also he may happen to share a few gross episodes of curry), but he is an interesting character and his and Ranmaru's meeting offer a bit of light on genocide — or, at least, at one of the possible ways to do it.
TLDR: genocides weren't always a direct order, people in villages of Land of Water suck
In case you didn't watch the episodes: Raiga is successor of Kiba, one of the Seven Swordsmen and a nukenin of Kirigakure. One day he is sent on a mission to kill the Ame spy — or something like that.
Ranmaru is a small disabled kid, his age not directly stated. He cannot walk by himself and he had Kekkei Genkai (some weird dojutsu, but KG is KG). He has no parents and villagers bring him food, because he's not able to take care of himself (he can't walk at all). But one day his KG is found out about by accident and the villagers stop feeding him. Normally, he would die in a few days (because he's small and weak).
However, a very interesting event happens: Raiga is set on a mission to kill the intruder. To the exact same village where few days ago a Kekkei Genkai kid was found. Also, Ranmaru didn't really seem to be actively dying, so that must've happened in a day or two after founding out. An interesting coincindence, isn't it? More than that, Raiga states that he forgot who he was supposed to kill — how convenient. He gets extremely sad over Ranmaru, picks the boy up and leaves to show him the world.
What can we do out of that one? Well, important things:
- Genocide wasn't always direct like many people seem to think. At least sometimes the missions were NOT about killing the Kekkei Genkai'd and even the ANBU may have received orders not about KG.
- Genocide was not only lead by Yagura, it was actively supported by common folk (another example of this is Haku's dad). Yes, it's probably due to propaganda, but... may actually not be.
And not so important:
- Someone in the village apparently called the higher-ups after seeing a disabled KG kid, or Raiga won't hape appeared so quickly. But, maybe, there was a spy in the village, who knows how information about Ranmaru's KG went out to government.
- Kirian ANBU was so low on people that they had to take in a mentally ill crybaby of a man who loves burying people and is also forgetful. By the way, Raiga knows he's forgetful, he states that at one point.
- Someone at some point abandoned their Kekkei Genkai kid and nothing was done because of that. Might actually make a fun common practice out of it. Or, maybe, a disabled kid — both reasons are valid. Should there even be a reason to throw out your kid in Kiri?
- Mentally ill people are apparently accepted into Seven Swordsmen (yes, we had sadists and freaks, but Raiga is genuinely ill). I'm not sure if thay's a good thing, though...
- Swordsmen love picking up kids, don't they?
You should watch Raiga's arc at least once. Ignoring the curry bits. Or enjoying them. He's an interesting critter and it's sad no one talks about him more. He's one of the most cruel and most kind people in Naruto imo.
