Naruto Manga/Anime Discussion IV

[Hazard]

I'll agree that Kyuubi changed faster than Sasuke.

I attribute it to the Kyuubi being the more mature of the two, plus he isn't batshit insane.

Kyuubi is a dick and with good reason, but he knows what type of person Naruto is, so he knows he actually means the stuff he says and is mature enough to accept the olive branch.

Sasuke is a brat lashing out (I could have put it in kinder more accurate terms, but that does the trick) on top of being insane.

So of course it is harder to reason with him.

Eh, Neji's complaints were kinda convoluted and it was pointed out to him that he himself was rebelling against them, but his two points (IIRC) were that potential was set at birth, and that people who weren't born with that capability could never become great (why he kept mocking Naruto's, Rock Lee's and Hinata's efforts as futile until after the fight). I don't think he ever said that you didn't have to work for it, or that the great thing you did had to be good or evil (he was pretty clearly not a fan of the whole Caged Bird Seal, f'r instance).

There is more to this than that.

Mainly because of Lee.

The whole Loser thing boils down to 'regardless of how strong you are a loser is a loser. Fate will conspire against you and make you lose'.

I mean really, Lee was the second strongest in the exam, his point makes no sense otherwise.

Edit: Also Naruto is not the kid of the prophesy until after Jiraya makes him the kid of the prophesy, so he wasn't at the time.

Edit2: Bloodline also apparently didn't matter to Neji, because Hinata was classified as a loser. Hinata as in his superior in regards to birth.

Edit 3: Stupid teenagers and their half baked philosophies...

[1505627]

i hypothesise that the eight tails name is takekiyo

[The Dog]

There is more to this than that.

Mainly because of Lee.

The whole Loser thing boils down to 'regardless of how strong you are a loser is a loser. Fate will conspire against you and make you lose'.

I mean really, Lee was the second strongest in the exam, his point makes no sense otherwise.

But... Lee LOST in the Chuunin Exams.

Edit: Also Naruto is not the kid of the prophesy until after Jiraya makes him the kid of the prophesy, so he wasn't at the time.

Uh, yeah he was. Cause if it was up to Jiraiya to decide who the child of prophesy was, then the child of prophesy would've been Nagato. Or Minato.

Hell, Jiraiya was telling lots of people that Minato was 'The One'. The fact he wasn't after Jiraiya's bragging pissed off Ei, remember?

[The Once And Forever]

Hell, Jiraiya was telling lots of people that Minato was 'The One'. The fact he wasn't after Jiraiya's bragging pissed off Ei, remember?

Which means that the prophecy is kinda shit, doesn't it?

[Hazard]

But... Lee LOST in the Chuunin Exams.

That's kind of my point. Saying someone is a loser and will always be a loser because they lost to the best makes little sense when they are the second strongest in the exam and could very well kick your ass at full power.

The only way it makes sense is if Neji believes Fate conspires against you to make you into a loser regardless of how strong you are(Lee) and regardless of what your bloodline is (Hinata).

Uh, yeah he was. Cause if it was up to Jiraiya to decide who the child of prophesy was, then the child of prophesy would've been Nagato. Or Minato.

Hell, Jiraiya was telling lots of people that Minato was 'The One'. The fact he wasn't after Jiraiya's bragging pissed off Ei, remember?

He is now, because Jiraya believed in him. He wasn't back then, because Jiraya hadn't made a choice yet.

Choice. Mutable. Choices. Alternatives. Variables. Math.

Not Fate.

i hypothesise that the eight tails name is takekiyo

Any particular reason?

Personally I was expecting Pantyhouse.

[1505627]

Any particular reason?

Personally I was expecting Pantyhouse.

in a prominent myth, an ushi-oni(what hachibi is) is killed by an archer named Takekiyo. Hachibi hasn't told Bee cause he's embarrassed of being named after an ushi-oni killer

[flashdisk]

I didn't say that we should stop the discussion. I just thought that the posts were getting too long for their own good.

And I didn’t say you wanted to stop. I only stated my intention to keep the discussion going and my purpose, if you look at my post.

There's lots of us here that feel that certain characters have been underutilised, so to speak, by Kishimoto. So yeah. You're just preaching to the choir.

This isn’t a sermon, this is a discussion. It is something to induce questions and reaction. I'ts also a means to see where people stand. Even discussions can cause change.



.

..what?

This is a pretty tiny anime/manga board by comparison to others like it on the internet and even if it was bigger Kishimoto probably wouldn't even know that it existed. Not to mention that the manga is basically reaching the end as we speak.


Us discussing if a character is used right or not won't change anything in the series. I'm not even sure why you'd think that it would..

Who knows, maybe someone out there reading may convey the same ideas to change. I don’t know how far or wide ideas can be shared in the internet. But it feels better than doing nothing. Even if it’s a very low chance, it’s an easy gamble. And a gamble I’m okay taking.

So do I and lots of others. But it's probably not gonna happen, at least not the way you want. So saying that she's not good enough, which is basically what you're doing, when she's actually pretty damn good at what she does isn't helping anything.

That doesn’t mean I should hide my concern and wants on the matter.

I also have no illusions that things will happen truly the way I want them. And things would be far, far different if they had. But to change things even, ever so minutely is enough for me. A small change is good enough.

Basically you see potential in her and how she could an amazing person with awesome abilities. I think that we all do that to a certain degree. The difference is that you're the one who is taking it all to bad fanfiction levels of sillyness in regards to how good she should be and you're kind of missing the point of her character.

Out of the trio she is the average human one. With all the limitations and flaws that includes. And yet she's grown so much from what she used to be and there's still room for her grow as normal person. She's strong and capable.

You seem to think that an average person should only be this or only be that. But I see the average person as having just as much potential as a Naruto.


If Naruto is about a person changing his/her fate. A story where the weak can become strong. Then it makes it so much more important for the average, for those who don’t stick out to rise up and become great. It makes it that much more important for her, the average one to rise up and become great.

Even average people deserve the chance to be great and reach for the stars.

you're kind of missing the point of her character

I don't think I've missed the point of her character. She is being developed as a person who wont reach the same level of power, achievement or development as her other companions due to the belief that this would make her relatable to people.

That simply doesn't work for me. I don't want that for the character. And I don't feel that it makes her relatable. So I would want it changed.

Wishing that she was better than she is is fine up to a certain point. After that you're just dismissing her actual achievements. She's still a good character.

And I don’t feel I’ve reached that certain point yet. Not when I think Sakura can do a lot more.

Also, it’s not dismissing her achievements. It’s seeing that she still can do more. It’s wanting to see that a person such as her be given just as much opportunity to grow as Naruto and Sasuke have.

A mark of a good character is tha a lot of stories can be told with him/her. And the oppurtunity to tell those stories is what I'd want for characters such as Sakura and the rest of their bunch.

Sadly. She has been, at least when compared to Naruto and Sasuke, so she'll probably have to get her story importance in some other way.

I know. How about having her be the one to discover the secret behind the mysterious murders in the shinobi alliance and having her be one of the people in charge of healing large parts of the army. Oh wait.

That was a very short scene to save herself against one lone zetsu clone. It wasn’t enough to show growth in her character.

Also, this isn’t a medical drama. Just showing her putting her glowing hands on someone doesn’t convey any improvement in skill or technique.

Those are all ridiculously over-the-top examples, kind of, that don't match up with Sakura actual field and would require years of training to pull off.

They aren’t over the top examples.

Hitting someone 1000 of meters away is an ability real life soldiers have with their sniper rifles. There have even been snipers that have been able to hit targets at more than twice that distance. It’s efficient and effective.

Gassing entire areas with poison also is not over the top. Chemicals and poisons are or at least were used in various military. Chlorine gas for example was used in 1915. Another example is mustard gas, phosgene gas etc.

You mean the technique that when not used by the ninja super-genius that was Minato Namikaze requires three jounin-level people to use properly? That doesn't seem very practical.

I don’t really know the requirements of the Flying Thunder God technique. In fact the requirements for the technique are still blank. For all I know, it just needs book smarts, memorization of certain sutras and/or chakra control. (After all, Minato could do the Rasengan without kagebunshin) In terms of chakra precision, Sakura is quite skillful considering her current strength technique. If it requires some sort of concentration, her ability to concentrate might be even better than Naruto.

And if there's an unknown requirement that may be difficult for Sakura to do, they could have her find a creative way around it. It would be similar to the way Naruto found a way to make rasengan using kagebunshin.

[Ebon Phantom]

So? The very fact that he could have means Neji is wrong. Come on, if your parent wants you to be a doctor and you decide to be a doctor. It isn't Fate. It's your choice.

Fate is set. No choice.

Unavoidable

What about if you didn't know your parents wanted you to be a doctor, no one told you of it or to do it, yet you worked you entire life towards that goal. Wouldn't that be fate that you're doing as they wished without knowing it?

So essentially Naruto winning= Fate

The idea that this is his own merit never entered your head at all. It's an unavoidable conclusion that would have come even if he decided to spent his entire left time in bed.

Why exactly can't both be involved? He won against Pain due to his own merit, but that doesn't change that he also had quite a bit of luck during that battle too that help him win. Without either, he likely wouldn't have won.

Yet change is there. Politically, yeah may be the same ,but there is a world of difference between the position of the Neji that hated the Main House and the Neji that trains with Hiashi while Hinata brings them something to drink.

You know spending time together like a real family does.

I'm pretty sure Neji was never forbidden to spend time with the family. Before his father's death, he was shown in the training dojo along with Hiashi and Hinata.

So Fate= Hard Work.

And if he hadn't worked he would have been great anyways because Fate

The entire point is that what could have happened changes everything in this subject.

The fact that choice is acknowledged. The paths not taken lampshapded. Means that we have a variable future. Hence no Fate.

If anything the Toad's prophesies make it clear we are dealing with a mutable future.

He worked without anyone telling him to. Everything he did, he did of his own desire and for his own goals. Yet without anyone really guiding him, his actions lead him straight down the path that his father had desired him to take to fulfill what his father had wanted.

Also, I don't think something being fated and someone working hard are mutually exclusive. From the way games and movies had it, the heroes do work hard to fulfill their destinies.

Naruto runs away from Konoha at a young age.

Naruto never meets Jiraya.

Jiraya never makes the choice to choose him.

Naruto is never the kid in the prophesy.

Hell, the entire point of everything coming to Jiraya's choice makes the future mutable.

And plenty of other examples in the manga shows us he could have turned many other ways.

As a matter of fact the norm were those many other ways. It's Naruto's merit that he didn't.

I mean really, Sasuke shows us that those fancy plans don't really have to work at all.

So I am not really getting your point here.

Those are all things that could have happen, but didn't. Every choice Naruto has made has lead him to his current path. The fact that Naruto took this path of his own free will and is doing exactly what Minato and Jiraiya wanted when they never told him to do so speaks for itself. Just because things could have happen differently had he made different choices doesn't affect that he instead made the right choices to "follow his fate". It could even be argued that Naruto was destined to make the choices he did.

Sasuke's actually another example, being consumed by the hatred of the Uchihas even before he knew Konoha was behind his clan's destruction and literally becoming more consumed by it as time went on. Their rivalry being nothing more then another in the long line of rivalries between the Uchihas and Senju, even though neither had an idea of that til recently and by all accounts will be the final battle of the series.

[Siriel]

He is now, because Jiraya believed in him. He wasn't back then, because Jiraya hadn't made a choice yet.

Choice. Mutable. Choices. Alternatives. Variables. Math.

Not Fate.

The fact that someone could have made different choices and the fact that they were fated to end up in their current situations aren't mutually exclusive, just to note.

Because they didn't make those different choices. Fate is that the future is already predetermined; not that you have no choice but that your choice is already known before you make the decision yourself.


To put it this way:

Let's say some prophet went "On the fifth of the third month of the year 2012, Siriel will eat a candy bar. That is his fate.".
Then comes that day, and I do indeed eat that candy bar, because I like candy.
I could have chosen to not eat that candy bar, but I did. The fact that my choice was predicted made it fate, but I wasn't forced to make that choice, it's just that someone knew I would make it in advance.

[Hazard]

The fact that someone could have made different choices and the fact that they were fated to end up in their current situations aren't mutually exclusive, just to note.

Because they didn't make those different choices. Fate is that the future is already predetermined; not that you have no choice but that your choice is already known before you make the decision yourself.

I disagree. Variables are one thing. Fate is another. Certain outcomes are certainly more likely than others based on circumstances, I won't deny that.

However Fate means that it is unavoidable. In other words regardless of what you do, you will eat a candy bar. In other words the idea of 'could have' cannot exist, because those 'could have' would have led you to the same event.

[Hazard]

What about if you didn't know your parents wanted you to be a doctor, no one told you of it or to do it, yet you worked you entire life towards that goal. Wouldn't that be fate that you're doing as they wished without knowing it?

To answer you question: It doesn't matter.

Also, what goal? Naruto wanted to be Hokage.

He never wanted peace.

It wasn't until he sees Pain that he starts seriously thinking about it to extends his parents never did (because lets face it Minato is all to willing to hold a guy's brother at knife point to threaten him and seal a demon in his kid. Tough choices yeah, but not the type of choice the Messiah would make.)

His merit.

Why exactly can't both be involved? He won against Pain due to his own merit, but that doesn't change that he also had quite a bit of luck during that battle too that help him win. Without either, he likely wouldn't have won.

Fate requires a set outcome, which means that regardless of the variables the end result is the same.

I'm pretty sure Neji was never forbidden to spend time with the family. Before his father's death, he was shown in the training dojo along with Hiashi and Hinata.

Yet he didn't, which is my point.

He had the opportunities, but he was angry at the Main family.

His situation is better because he is willing to talk things out as opposed to being angry all the time because Fate.

He worked without anyone telling him to. Everything he did, he did of his own desire and for his own goals. Yet without anyone really guiding him, his actions lead him straight down the path that his father had desired him to take to fulfill what his father had wanted.

So? You know, I don't really get your point.

Also, I don't think something being fated and someone working hard are mutually exclusive. From the way games and movies had it, the heroes do work hard to fulfill their destinies.

Fate means that choice doesn't matter.

Whether you do X the result is Z

Whether you do A the result is Z.

Don't get me wrong Fate and Prophesies exist in other works, but you'll rarely see truly immutable Fate, and when you do it is mostly tragedies. However, Naruto acknowledges variable outcomes plenty of times, and its prophesies show a future far from set or alternative so obvious you didn't need a useless psychic power to know. In other words not Fate.

What you are thinking of seems closer to Hitsuzen.

Those are all things that could have happen, but didn't. Every choice Naruto has made has lead him to his current path. The fact that Naruto took this path of his own free will and is doing exactly what Minato and Jiraiya wanted when they never told him to do so speaks for itself. Just because things could have happen differently had he made different choices doesn't affect that he instead made the right choices to "follow his fate". It could even be argued that Naruto was destined to make the choices he did.

Wrong. Choice changes everything.

If you talk about Fate you talk about a foregone conclusion regardless of what choice is made.

If variable outcomes are acknowledge Fate cannot be.

Sasuke's actually another example, being consumed by the hatred of the Uchihas even before he knew Konoha was behind his clan's destruction and literally becoming more consumed by it as time went on. Their rivalry being nothing more then another in the long line of rivalries between the Uchihas and Senju, even though neither had an idea of that til recently and by all accounts will be the final battle of the series.

Which had nothing to do with Fate.

Obito was a really nice guy as we recall.

And Itachi while insane isn't really about "Hatred!".

Only Sasuke is like that, and with good reason other than 'he was born Uchiha.'

[Dark Soul # 7]

And I didn’t say you wanted to stop. I only stated my intention to keep the discussion going and my purpose.

-SNIP-

Yeah well. I think that we've reach a point of repetition here.

I know that I've said pretty much all I have to say on the subject. So we'll just have to agree to disagree or something.

[Estrecca]

Chapter out.

spoilers:

Baby tailed beasts was pretty much facepalm worthy. And that comes from someone who isn't overly bothered by most of the stuff in recent Naruto.

end of spoilers

[flashdisk]

Yeah well. I think that we've reach a point of repetition here.

I know that I've said pretty much all I have to say on the subject. So we'll just have to agree to disagree or something.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong to disagree on stuff, imo.





As for the most recent chapter, it was quite good. The Naruto manga is hitting a lot of good points and doing it in epic proportions. And it's nice to see the development of the tailed beasts. They are really like nice interesting people. I hope to know more about them. The same goes for their jinchuriki.

It was quite cool in many ways. And wow, the fox turned his tails into arms. That was cool. I liked the team work and the dialogue between Naruto and Kurama. Kurama teasing Naruto of his.....kissing mistake with Sasuke. I like Kurama. Nice.

Kurama looked cute when he was younger.

[Hazard]

He actually raised them.

That's actually pretty responsible.

That means he was kind of a father to the beasts.

Whoa.