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Etrurian emperor
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I didn't really want to get too anime in the unpopular opinion thread so I'll just say it here.

Its very much true that talent vs hard work is not the primarily theme of Naruto. It is not the central theme that all others resolve around. 

And yet I wouldn't dismiss it entirely because its at least a theme. A theme that consistently comes back and the narrative has a very recurring message about it. Naruto and Sasuke, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Obito and Kakashi, Lee and Gaara. The plucky go getter underdog vs the cold elite and the plucky one ultimately being the admirable one of the pair is a really common pattern in the series. So I wouldn't really resent people for placing importance on it because it seems Kishimoto does too.

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Its very much true that talent vs hard work is not the primarily theme of Naruto. It is not the central theme that all others resolve around. 

And yet I wouldn't dismiss it entirely because its at least a theme. A theme that consistently comes back and the narrative has a very recurring message about it. Naruto and Sasuke, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Obito and Kakashi, Lee and Gaara. The plucky go getter underdog vs the cold elite and the plucky one ultimately being the admirable one of the pair is a really common pattern in the series. So I wouldn't really resent people for placing importance on it because it seems Kishimoto does too.

True, though I would say it's more of a topic or a recurring motif than a theme, as while it is present in the story, it isn't really explored much. The closest I would say it comes to getting explored would be when it gets deconstructed a bit by Lee losing the fight against Gaara.

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I haven't watched much Naruto, but I spoiled myself a ton about it. One thing I really like, is Kishimoto's play on character parallels, and especially with this rivalry Naruto/Sasuke dynamic with multiple characters:

Kakashi and Obito

Rock Lee and Neji

Orochimaru and Jiraiya

 

Also other parallels, like Naruto reminding Tsunade of Nawaki and Might Gai's story because a lot like Rock Lee's. The underdog story of hardwork overcoming inborn abilities is the most inspiring thing about the series, and you can feel the heart in it.

Edited by ♠Soul♠
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5 hours ago, ♠Soul♠ said:

Also other parallels, like Naruto reminding Tsunade of Nawaki and Might Gai's story because a lot like Rock Lee's. The underdog story of hardwork overcoming inborn abilities is the most inspiring thing about the series, and you can feel the heart in it.

For me, the theme I like the most and that I think has the most heart in it is that of overcoming loneliness. Naruto does start off as an underdog in the sense that he's untalented, but that's really just an obstacle for him; what drives him and his character journey is his need to overcome his loneliness. He grew up hated by almost everyone in the village, and was raised with no one to return home to. Out of everyone in the series, he would've had the most reason to want vengeance against the Leaf Village and the shinobi world... yet he doesn't; he just wants everyone to treat him with basic human decency.

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Oh, that's another one of the parallels played between him and Gaara, and then like Kakashi/Obito. There's a lot of those similiarities between characters, and it's pretty cool. I don't know much about Obito, but I really like he's basically Uchiha Naruto. His relationship with Rin was also really cute, and it's heartbreaking how things end up.

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10 hours ago, ♠Soul♠ said:

Oh, that's another one of the parallels played between him and Gaara, and then like Kakashi/Obito. There's a lot of those similarities between characters, and it's pretty cool. I don't know much about Obito, but I really like he's basically Uchiha Naruto. His relationship with Rin was also really cute, and it's heartbreaking how things end up.

Indeed. One of my favourite moments in Naruto (not my absolute favourite, but definitely within the top 5) is after Naruto beats Gaara and this conversation happens:

Naruto: "They're my friends! I won't let you hurt them"

Gaara: "Why? Why would you do this for someone other than yourself?"

Naruto: "Because they saved me from myself! They saved me from my pain and loneliness"

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I don't feel like I agree with the ninja ranking system to measure a character's power. I hear people throw around things like "kage level", "genin level", etc, but it doesn't seem to apply at all for a lot of the main Genin. Characters like Naruto, Sasuke, Gaara, Rock Lee and Neji all have ridiculous feats and I could easily see them as Jonin level, and I wouldn't be surprised if they could beat actual Jounins. And then there's guys like Kakashi and Guy, who are clearly no average Jounins. Gaara can probably beat many Jounins at once without even trying, while I'm sure Kakashi and Gai could just oneshot him.

Then there's Tsunade, who's a literal Hokage, and yet some guy with medical ninjutsu beat her (granted, Kabuto is pretty good).

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16 hours ago, ♠Soul♠ said:

Then there's Tsunade, who's a literal Hokage, and yet some guy with medical ninjutsu beat her (granted, Kabuto is pretty good).

I think that's mostly due to her crippling fear of blood. 

But otherwise I think you're correct. There are indications that power isn't the primary trait that gets a ninja their promotion. Chunins originally were differentiated from genin not because they were so much stronger but because they had leadership skills. That's why Shikamaru got promoted over the likes of Sasuke or Gaara. And even Naruto with all his power and accomplished gets told after the war that he really must start hitting the books if he wants to advance his ninja career. 

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1 hour ago, ♠Soul♠ said:

yeh I don't doubt that

Also, anyone else weirded out how people just take each other's eyeballs and implant them like it's nothing? v:

That is a bit weird. Perhaps the weirdest part is that, in the genjutsu where Itachi removes one of Sasuke's eyes, it definitely isn't treated like it's nothing, and that was just a genjutsu.

Part of it can be explained with healing jutsu, but it still is weird.

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On 12/27/2021 at 12:53 PM, ♠Soul♠ said:

Do they just remove someone's eye out and put it on themselves without any sort of "surgery" or medical jutsu?

Hm... Good question.

In the genjutsu Itachi placed on Sasuke, Itachi just removes one of Sasuke's eyes and places it in a jar to preserve it, and it is shown to be extremely gruesome.

When Obito's sharingan is removed and placed in Kakashi, it is shown to be a delicate process involving "surgery"/medical jutsu.

We are never shown how Madara implanted his rinnegan into Nagato, but we do know that Uzumaki descendants often have a minor healing factor and can survive things that would kill others, so that probably made the process easier.

Sasuke receiving Itachi's eyes is a surgical process that happens entirely off-screen.

Every time I can think of where it's a case of someone just removing someone else's eye and inserting it in one of their empty eye sockets, it's with characters like Madara and Obito, which can be somewhat justified by the healing factor that the Hashirama Cells in their bodies provide.

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10 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Every time I can think of where it's a case of someone just removing someone else's eye and inserting it in one of their empty eye sockets, it's with characters like Madara and Obito, which can be somewhat justified by the healing factor that the Hashirama Cells in their bodies provide.

I always assumed that Madara didn't need a medic to implement an eye while Kakashi did was just the rules not applying to Madara as per usual. I also suspect that the end of Naruto was written under much more crunch and publisher duress that we are aware of, that the writer didn't feel he had time to get into specifics or check back how he handled these things previously. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I always assumed that Madara didn't need a medic to implement an eye while Kakashi did was just the rules not applying to Madara as per usual. I also suspect that the end of Naruto was written under much more crunch and publisher duress that we are aware of, that the writer didn't feel he had time to get into specifics or check back how he handled these things previously. 

I figured that was the case as well; I'm just saying that the hashirama cells do provide some in-story justification for it.

 

Anyway, I forgot two other cases of eye removal in the Naruto franchise: Toneri taking Hanabi's eyes in The Last (and Hinata taking those eyes back), and Urashiki Otsutsuki ripping out his rinnegan and eating them in the Time Travel arc in Boruto.

With Toneri, it's entirely offscreen and the only in-story justification for Toneri having the means to carry out this procedure is that the branch family on the moon always had their eyes removed to power the Tenseigan. Hinata removing Toneri's eyes and giving them back to Hanabi is offscreen and can be justified by Sakura being there to do the procedure.

For Urashiki, it's entirely on-screen, and it is framed as being extremely gruesome (as it should; it's him removing his own eyes and eating them). He doesn't show any visible pain when doing this, but that is thoroughly justified by him having completely snapped at that point, to the point where he was vocally willing to kill Boruto despite him knowing that Boruto is Momoshiki's Vessel and him being forbidden from killing other Otsutsuki.

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  • 4 months later...

One thing I think the Boruto fillers should be given props for is that they avoid the usual problem with Fillers. In the original Naruto, or in other series like Bleach fillers are easily dismissed because nothing relevant ever happens in them. No matter what happens the status quo will always be preserved.

So in that sense I think its somewhat gutsy that Boruto filler do have lasting effect. In one of the earlier fillers a very important Naruto character got killed off. Now he was relatively safe to kill since his arc and story had long since ended, but its still a sign that fillers will have an impact going forward. So while a main character like Sarada won't die in a filler many more minor characters can still die in fillers. And I think that's kinda unique with Boruto.

Spoiler

Case in point, aside from Onoki we currently have the wanabe swordsmen dropping like flies. 

One thing that fillers should not be given props for is that the writers don't always seem on the same page. Boruto's intelligence tends to fluctuate with him either being a clever lad or more akin to his dad. But currently the inconsistency that's annoying me has to do with Denki. Someone in the writing team decided to throw the guy a bone and give him an upgrade. Last arc they made it a point to show him shedding his status as the weakest link, and even beat one of the stronger genins to earn his promotion. Additionally the current arc begins with some guy dismissing Denki as just a weak kid only to be proven very wrong. And then after all that Denki still got kidnapped. Not by the big bad pirate captain, not by a dangerous henchmen, but by mooks. A whole arc about Denki growing stronger and more confident, and then he's still kidnapped again by random mooks as if he's the same non combatant as he was in the first few episodes.

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

One thing I think the Boruto fillers should be given props for is that they avoid the usual problem with Fillers. In the original Naruto, or in other series like Bleach fillers are easily dismissed because nothing relevant ever happens in them. No matter what happens the status quo will always be preserved.

So in that sense I think its somewhat gutsy that Boruto filler do have lasting effect. In one of the earlier fillers a very important Naruto character got killed off. Now he was relatively safe to kill since his arc and story had long since ended, but its still a sign that fillers will have an impact going forward. So while a main character like Sarada won't die in a filler many more minor characters can still die in fillers. And I think that's kinda unique with Boruto.

  Hide contents

Case in point, aside from Onoki we currently have the wannabe swordsmen dropping like flies. 

 

Part of that is that the Boruto "filler" isn't trying to be filler; the creators of the anime and those of the manga have said that both are canon; most of the anime-only content is supposed to be canon, with the idea being that the anime would take the time to flesh out things that the manga, being a monthly release, wouldn't have time to get to.

Of course, that's the idea; I'd say the results have been mixed in practice, likely due to poor planning and the manga being rather inefficient with its pages.

 

As for those examples in the spoiler tag:

Spoiler

Ohnoki's death was definitely well-done; easily one of the highlights of an overall really good but overly-long arc. However, I have mixed feelings on the deaths of the wannabe swordsmen.

Kagura's death was strongly hinted at, but I really didn't think it would happen because I was thinking, "You really think I'll be fooled into thinking you're going to kill off the only Mist ninja besides the Mizukage to have a nametag?" I understand it in terms of plot and character development, but it still felt cheap, and I'm not sure if I can explain why.

That said, I can easily explain my problems with killing off Hebiichigo:

1. her death does absolutely nothing; it does nothing for the plot, it does nothing for any other character's development, and while I dislike character deaths that are just for empty shock value, this one doesn't even have that, as we saw Kagura get killed two episodes prior and the episode stapled on a very unsubtle death flag where she tells Metal Lee that she survived her other fights because she didn't care about anyone's survival but her own.

2. They spent a huge chunk of the arc developing the three former delinquents, with the most attention having been given to Hebiichigo, even having her bond with Metal Lee and giving them a ton of ship tease. I was thinking, "Alright; I didn't really think much of these three in the last arc they were in, but let's see if you can make them interesting". Abruptly killing off Hebiichigo like that feels like they were taking my investment that they cultivated in the first place, throwing it in my face, and laughing at me for having it. "What? You actually thought we were going to do anything with these characters? Ha; what a dummy!"

3. This undermines Kagura's death, as his whole thing was he went out trying to protect everyone.

4. Her death makes no sense; Lee was right there, with literally no other purpose in the fight than to protect her, and he unlocked the first gate over 100 episodes ago; he could've easily protected her. I get that they're tired and hungry after what's essentially a drawn-out siege, but he was literally right there. This is just like Neji dying when Hiashi was right there and could've (and definitely would've) sacrificed himself to save Neji, except in this case Metal Lee wouldn't have needed to die.

Killing off characters is a very delicate balance, especially when having multiple characters drop like flies; one wrong move and your audience will stop caring about the characters because you've basically told them not to care, and Hebiichigo's death, in my opinion, is definitely that one wrong move.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So far the Funato arc has been a bit of a hit and miss for me. 

It does some things pretty well. It focuses on the ninja world rather then going with yet another moon ninja and most of the enemy have some nice exotic weaponry to match their pirate theme.I also liked Metal Lee a lot more now that he actually has screentime.

I don't like the pacing though. I only skimmed through several episodes since the time in the small village and mister simp having like 3 different encounters made several episodes just drag. Especially because the more interesting looking Funato only get like one fight.

I also can't help, but role my eyes a bit at Boruto in the recent episodes. Because yes they do establish that the Funato are people too...but they have such a annoyingly high and mighty victim complex that any talk of 'chains of hatred' is kind of anoying. 'muh sea' aside, they spend most of their time robbing and killing people. So them crying when someone hits them back doesn't earn them many symphathy points with me.

Shame they seemingly

Spoiler

killed the only one who wasn't a complete loon.
 

Complaints aside I do like the direction the current season is going in. 

Edited by Sasori
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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I recall the Mitsuki retrieval arc also being too long and it damaging the phasing a lot. So I guess its a recurring problem for Boruto that they use two episodes for events where one would have sufficed. 

Yeah, I remember that arc being really long as well. It was still good, but it was really stretched. I think the problem is that, even though these arcs are "anime canon" rather than filler and are supposed to provide additional character exploration (especially for the supporting cast) and stuff like that, they still exist at least in part to buy time until they can continue the manga content; a problem that is magnified by the manga being both a monthly release and extremely inefficient in its storytelling.

 

2 hours ago, Sasori said:

So far the Funato arc has been a bit of a hit and miss for me. 

It does some things pretty well. It focuses on the ninja world rather then going with yet another moon ninja and most of the enemy have some nice exotic weaponry to match their pirate theme. I also liked Metal Lee a lot more now that he actually has screentime.

I don't like the pacing though. I only skimmed through several episodes since the time in the small village and mister simp having like 3 different encounters made several episodes just drag. Especially because the more interesting looking Funato only get like one fight.

I also can't help, but role my eyes a bit at Boruto in the recent episodes. Because yes they do establish that the Funato are people too...but they have such a annoyingly high and mighty victim complex that any talk of 'chains of hatred' is kind of annoying. 'muh sea' aside, they spend most of their time robbing and killing people. So them crying when someone hits them back doesn't earn them many sympathy points with me.

Shame they seemingly

  Reveal hidden contents

killed the only one who wasn't a complete loon.
 

Complaints aside I do like the direction the current season is going in. 

Yeah; I agree that this arc has been extremely uneven; there's a lot of good, but then there's also a lot of bad.

The conflict being ninja's vs pirates is an old trope, but this is an interesting take on it, and pirates are definitely more interesting than the Otsutsuki.

Yeah; the village part of the arc did drag on a lot, and it was weird how a Funato's subordinate got three fights while each of the Funato got one fight with the main characters at most.

I agree that the Funato really aren't sympathetic in the slightest; they're pirates, they enslaved people, and they go on about revenge when they struck first. Boruto and Kagura injured Seiren in self-defense and that one guy decides to try to kill them in revenge; what? They establish later that Seiren was unlikely to recover from her injuries, but that's not enough to make me sympathize. It especially doesn't help that the ones that have been killed so far seem to have died from going out of their way to be stupid; the death of that adopted Funato with the crab claw being such a blatant example that the characters in the show called him out on his stupidity. Credit where credit is due though; I don't think the show is really trying to make them sympathetic; just make them understandable, while also highlighting that just stopping them isn't going to be enough to stop the actual conflict.

 

My two main complaints about the arc are the following:

1. The arc began with an interesting topic of how humans treat the sea (not just from an environmental standpoint, but how we view the sea in general), and it so far has just abandoned it and only brings it up occasionally. The arc began with that machine that generates power by essentially destroying ocean currents, and there were lots of protests about both the environmental and economic damage that could cause. That machine never got mentioned again until the most recent episode, and only because it's the location of the big battle. Characters have off-handedly mentioned sailors being dissatisfied with the Land of Waves and flocking to the Funato as a result, but we never see any of it. If they wanted to extend the number of episodes, actually exploring this stuff would've been a good way to do it.

2. Needless character deaths. (Spoilers ahead obviously)

Spoiler

I've seen people complain when stories like Black Clover come across to them as hesitant to kill off characters, but I'd rather a story not kill off a character than kill off a character poorly, and I can think of two cases where this has happened.

1. Hebiichigo. Kagura's death was meaningful: it impacted the story, the characters, and the themes of the narrative. It was a bit weird since Kagura was built up as the heir-apparent of the Hidden Mist and I would've liked to see what he could do in later arcs, I think his death had enough good reasons that I don't mind it too much. Hebiichigo's death had none of this: it is redundant in every way as characters are already mourning Kagura, it doesn't even have shock value as we just saw Kagura's death, and Metal Lee was right there and easily could've protected her; her death does nothing and was nonsensical in how it happened.

Made worse by the fact that I actually really liked her dynamic with Metal Lee; it was weird, but it was actually rather sweet, and I like how the two of them actually complemented each other in combat with her wires providing platforms for Lee's taijutsu.

2. The eldest Funato sibling. "Villain kills off disagreeing subordinate to demonstrate how evil they are" is a tired old cliché, but given that the dad fully believes that he's doing what's best for the clan, I guess it could've worked as a way to show just how crazy he's become and that he's really just consumed by vengeance for the death of his wife. The problem is that the Funato sibling's death was completely idiotic: that sibling is supposed to be the strategist: the smart one, and he knows that the semi-sentient harpoon only obeys his dad. Why would he bring a weapon loyal to his crazy dad with him to a secret meeting where he plans to work with the Hidden Mist to stop his crazy dad?! That makes him seem like an idiot, which is really out-of-character for him!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I got myself to finish the first part of Naruto, and I just skipped 3 seasons of filler.

The Sasuke Retrieval Arc really is as great as I've heard people talk about. Haven't seen the series give so much spotlight to secondary characters like they did here, and it was so good, I keep rewatching some of those scenes. The ones that stuck with me the most is Chouji's fight with Jirobo and Neji's fight with Kidomaru. While it wasn't quite as comparable, I'd say they rival the calibre of Rock Lee vs. Gaara in a few of those moments. Made me like those characters a lot more, it's like everyone got to be cool. And even if Rock Lee showed up very briefly, it was pretty badass until Kimmimaro jumped into the Curse Mark.

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Now that the most recent arc in the Boruto anime is over, I can finally give my thoughts on the arc as a whole.

If I had to sum up the arc in one sentence, it would be this: "The arc is interesting, but uneven, and there are too many pointless character deaths".

That said, I think the arc's overall quality can be most easily summed up with the final episode: the arc presents and builds up effectively two final bosses: one where the conflict is primarily emotional and one where the conflict is primarily physical. This is a very basic and effective narrative structure for building a climactic final battle that is used across a ton of media; one example of this would be Return of the Jedi: Luke vs Vader is the emotional conflict while the rebels vs the 2nd Death Star is the physical conflict. Another example would be Return of the King: Frodo vs the temptation of the One Ring at Mount Doom is the emotional conflict while Aragorn's army vs Sauron's is the physical conflict. For this arc's final... "battle", the emotional conflict is actually handled fairly well overall; nothing too spectacular, but enough to live up to the buildup. The physical conflict, on the other hand, is handled in an extremely abrupt, rushed and anticlimactic way that does not at all live up to the buildup.

My point here is that the plot overall succeeds at making the new characters interesting and making the emotional conflict resonate, but it really struggles in places with its overall writing quality.

 

Overall though, I did like it; the Funato Clan were interesting antagonists, and the reintroduction of Kagura and the seven delinquent swordsmen was well done (even if one too many of them were killed off...). Plus, the animation for the open ocean is truly stunning; I suspect that this arc was written in part to show off how well they could animate water and raging seas, because they did a really good job.

Edited by vanguard333
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21 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I suspect that this arc was written in part to show off how well they could animate water and raging seas, because they did a really good job.

It wouldn't be the first time creators decided for a water setting just to show off how well they can program water. Apparently Mario Sunshine and FF10 got a very watery world precisely because the then new generation could finally create some decent water. 

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28 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It wouldn't be the first time creators decided for a water setting just to show off how well they can program water. Apparently Mario Sunshine and FF10 got a very watery world precisely because the then new generation could finally create some decent water. 

True. It is kind-of funny how the main Mario and Zelda games of the GameCube era (Sunshine and Wind Waker) revolved around water.

 

What did you think of the most recent arc, now that it's over?

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