Naruto Manga/Anime Discussion IV

[Estrecca]

That automatically makes it more uncannon than any other filler, including the talking ostrich episode, because there is no way that anybody ever would ever think that it was a good idea to resurrect Hidan of all people.

He is, genuinely, a pretty potent character by most in-universe standards.

It is just that his natural stomping grounds are somewhere around the level of pre-timeskip Kabuto and that's really not much to talk about these days.

Of course, among the Akatsuki he stands out as a relative gnat, but it is canon that they kept him around for Kakuzu to use as a chewtoy whenever he got angry, so...

[Rod G]

Two words.

Toonami.


Tonight.

[Kamina]

Two words.

Toonami.


Tonight.

Am I really going to stay up to 12:30 for Naruto reruns...?

Yes.

[Totoro Man]

I deleted a part of my post that said "Itachi arguably, I stopped caring what the hell he was up to because he came back and tried fix most of it anyway".

I mean, do you consider him "major". He's Sasuke's plot mcguffin - he was only referenced early in the story, appeared for one arc and had one fight scene. In Part II, he gets two/three fights maybe, one with Naruto (but it turned out to be a clone), one with Sasuke (but he was half-ass'ing and dying), and one with Kabuto, when he isn't mind-controlled. By Part II, we're supposed to believe Itachi slaughtered his clan for "noble reasons" so I don't fully acknowledge him as an "antagonist" by this point.

now that I think of it I'm glad Itachi is such a minor character-- he was too perfect for his own good. never lost a fight, super-proficient, super-observant-- apart from having low stamina he was basically perfect. never losing a fight, or having all of his defeats retconned didn't do much to make me like him more than I did.

I kinda hate Itachi (and Itagaki from 'Hajime no Ippo') for that reason. they need a nice, healthy and humiliating defeat at least once now and then. I like characters to have some flaws and fail every now and then. even if they're SUPPOSED to be totally awesome, wish-fullfillment power fantasies-- otherwise it just feels rote and unsatisfying.

Madara is a smug jerk-- but at least, a long time ago, he lost a fight that mattered and became a broken down, lonely and bitter old man who couldn't see the light of day ever again (barring plot magic). so it makes him -slightly- more interesting than Itachi.

[remydat]

now that I think of it I'm glad Itachi is such a minor character-- he was too perfect for his own good. never lost a fight, super-proficient, super-observant-- apart from having low stamina he was basically perfect. never losing a fight, or having all of his defeats retconned didn't do much to make me like him more than I did.

I kinda hate Itachi (and Itagaki from 'Hajime no Ippo') for that reason. they need a nice, healthy and humiliating defeat at least once now and then. I like characters to have some flaws and fail every now and then. even if they're SUPPOSED to be totally awesome, wish-fullfillment power fantasies-- otherwise it just feels rote and unsatisfying.

Madara is a smug jerk-- but at least, a long time ago, he lost a fight that mattered and became a broken down, lonely and bitter old man who couldn't see the light of day ever again (barring plot magic). so it makes him -slightly- more interesting than Itachi.

Itachi is losing the only fight to him that likely matters though. The fight for Sasuke's soul. For all his super proficient, super-observant qualities, his actions helped turned the person he cared about most into an enemy of the dream he cares about most (preserving Konoha's peace). Of course, Sasuke hasn't really done anything yet to Konoha and may not when it is all said and done but until that arc plays out, Sasuke is Itachi's big failure and you could argue it is a failure more meaningful than losing a fight. Especially when it seems nothing Itachi does can convince Sasuke and he has given up doing so and has left it to the one guy who seems to have a special ninja ability to cause all villains to have a change of heart.

There is also the small matter of him having to massacre his entire clan. From a fight perspective, I suppose that is a win but certainly not from an emotional perspective. For all his seeming invincibility from a physical and combat perspective, he has taken a few losses from an emotional standpoint that I think few people would want to endure. And that is what makes him compelling for some although like anything it is a matter of preference.

The problem with Madara is other characters end up being marginalised in order to make him look so awesome with Nagato and the 5 Kages being the main victims to date.

[Dark Soul # 7]

He is, genuinely, a pretty potent character by most in-universe standards.

It is just that his natural stomping grounds are somewhere around the level of pre-timeskip Kabuto and that's really not much to talk about these days.

Of course, among the Akatsuki he stands out as a relative gnat, but it is canon that they kept him around for Kakuzu to use as a chewtoy whenever he got angry, so...

I am reminded of the Rock Lee spin-off chapter that had the Akatsuki in it. They start arguing and end up in a big fight. Most of them unleash their ultimate super-moves. Hidan stabs himself.

[Hazard]

now that I think of it I'm glad Itachi is such a minor character-- he was too perfect for his own good. never lost a fight, super-proficient, super-observant-- apart from having low stamina he was basically perfect. never losing a fight, or having all of his defeats retconned didn't do much to make me like him more than I did.

I kinda hate Itachi (and Itagaki from 'Hajime no Ippo') for that reason. they need a nice, healthy and humiliating defeat at least once now and then. I like characters to have some flaws and fail every now and then. even if they're SUPPOSED to be totally awesome, wish-fullfillment power fantasies-- otherwise it just feels rote and unsatisfying.

Madara is a smug jerk-- but at least, a long time ago, he lost a fight that mattered and became a broken down, lonely and bitter old man who couldn't see the light of day ever again (barring plot magic). so it makes him -slightly- more interesting than Itachi.

Ah, I see it a bit differently. A win loss record is pretty much an afterthought for me when judging a character.

I mean yeah, Itachi is pretty damn strong.

But Itachi has so damn many flaws (and failures too to be honest) that I don't see how he can ever be said to lack them.

Edit:

To put it simply:

Itachi is the perfect ninja.

That's his problem.

[Siriel]

This has obviously moved past discussing the manga and into personal territory.

So that discussion is over, remydat and The Transient Guest.

In the future, note that rather than saying "I don't want to discuss this with you" and then writing a long post, it's a lot better to just ignore the other person and move on.

[Totoro Man]

I am reminded of the Rock Lee spin-off chapter that had the Akatsuki in it. They start arguing and end up in a big fight. Most of them unleash their ultimate super-moves. Hidan stabs himself.

that was funny and awkward at the same time-- he seemed to be enjoying that a little too much.

[Hazard]

Ah, I am too late to make a joke post it seems.

Anyway, have some Akatsuki Beach Fun:

[Totoro Man]

I guess Itachi seemed more convincing as the evil douche-bag villain. once he got retconned into a hero it kinda ruined the character for me. he moved away from being the annoying perfect invincible ninja villain to the perfect invincible ninja WTF-retard tragic hero. it would be like if Ichigo defeated Byakuya in Bleach and Byakuya said "nuh uh! I was playin' you the whole time. I wanted to lose that fight to help you grow as a person and be worthy of my little sister! oh yeah, and I secretly set up a team of crack ninja-shinagami to bust my sister out of prison in spite of the fact that it goes against everything my character has demonstrated thus far."

I'm not a big fan of authors trying to outsmart their readers-- I particularly hated it when Jeph Loeb would pull this kind of stunt with his Batman stories (TLH, DV, Hush). basically draw the reader to think "A" is the most likely suspect and then completely contradict that by putting up "B" as the culprit-- and THEN once you've got people hooked that it might be "B" change it to "C". "Dark Victory" would have been a better comic if Loeb had simply allowed Two Face to be the main villian-- by dragging Sofia back from the dead (and she SHOULD have been dead from the fall she took) confirmed my worst suspsicions about his weaknesses as a writer.

in the same way-- Kishimoto constantly playing games about Tobi/Madara/Obito's identity got really tiresome.

after looking back at all of the stuff that's happened in Naruto over the last few hundred issuees I found myself wondering-- couldn't all of this been done with Nagato as the main viillain? wouldn't it make sense if Konoha getting flattened by Nagato would lead them to seek the help of other villages? how much of this Obito/Madara stuff (apart from the Moon's Eye Plan) have been taken care of by Nagato and the existing members of Akatsuki? apart from the intended usage of the Juubi-- they're initial plan was the same-- collect all of the tailed beasts and create a super-weapon out of it.

oh well, I guess Kishimoto HAD to give Nagato some kinda of transformation of heart because there was really no way he could be truly defeated otherwise. he also single-handedly killed 80% of the regular cast up to that point-- and nobody could really stop him from killing Naruto and turning him into part of the Juubi... although it would have been nice to have seen Killer A and the Hachibi make a shot at it.

compared to pre-time-skip almost all of this post-time-skip stuff feels kinda frustrating. I can't put my finger on why that is, though.

[Hazard]

Seriously?

Itachi had no character in Part 1 beyond That One Guy that Killed Sasuke's Family.

Even then most of the information we knew of him came from a biased point of view (Sasuke).

And even then it didn't take long for many fans to guess he was a secret good guy (thought let's be fair here fans made every theory) and, let's face it, it make a lot of sense in retrospect.

Itachi: Yep, can't beat J-Man. We have to go back.

Kisame: You sure? 'cause I can totally flood the entire two and stuff. You can set him on fire by looking at him after.

Itachi: Yep. Totally. Too much for us.

What I am saying is the from a writing's perspective, Itachi had no established character in Part 1 (and for most of Part II too), so Kishi was free to write him however he wanted and it wouldn't have been out of character.

I mean, while I get that some people prefer can I killed your family and I don't care Itachi, I cannot say his reveal was Kishimoto trying to make a shocking plot twist. If anything the guy's writing shows he is the guy that won't go out of his way for a shocking swerve (unlike, say, Kubo).

[remydat]

I read the first 200 chapters all at once so let me know if I am misrembering but I thought we got flashbacks early from Sasuke showing his impressions of Itachi as a loving thoughtful brother. That always made his being the villain douchebag unconvincing and from the time I read those flashbacks I was expecting him to have a good reason for slaughtering his entire clan including his parents.

Obito and Madara are another matter. Kishi clearly played games there and with Madara basically destroyed otherwise good characters to do it which was not the case with Itachi. Nagato was one of my favorite characters in the whole series until Kishi turned him into an unwitting pawn just so Madara could be cool. Even then I was like well at least he had the Rinnegan but nope Kishi took that away from him too, lol.

I think pre-time skip Kishi did a better job making all the characters feel important. Post time-skip it has basically been revealed that Madara and Obito has been pulling all the strings which has made all the other villains feel like filler with the exception of Sasuke. Even Naruto's allies have been marginalised. Pre-time skip, I would venture there were fans of just about every major ninja in training and those fans got a chance to see their favorite shine in a story that wasn't just filler. The manga was more an open ended universe in which Naruto was the protagonist but every ninja in training was on a journey and we saw that journey from their perspective from time to time. Post time skip, we have barely seen guys like Rock Lee shine and even in the Ninja war all of their fights just seem like filler because at any point Madara and Obito could have killed them ala the 5 kages but were just having fine. Their stories have basically all be in the service of Naruto's story and by extension his villains.

In short, it's like Naruto is a video game that changed play styles in the middle of it. It started out as an RPG in an open ended universe with side missions, side quests and a rotating lead hero and then post time skip became a video game with a very linear plot and everything was in service of that main story plot. It's the difference between playing say World of Warcraft or Skyrim vesus playing a more linear game like say the original Mario Brothers. Both great games but if you went in expecting one and got the other you might end up disappointed.

I am hoping this Ninja alliance changes that and these guys get to actually have an impact rather than just being sacrificed so that Kishi can further illustrate how awesome Madara is thereby making his eventual defeat at the hands of Naruto make Naruto look so great.

[Hazard]

Itachi's character exposition kind of goes like this:


First appearance:

"Wait, that's the guy Sasuke said he wanted to kill. Damn, he's badass. Sasuke got, like, completely owned there."

Established: Itachi is strong and you don't want to mess with him.

Also, Itachi is prone to mind rape.

Second:

"Man, Itachi was actually a nice brother when Sasuke was a kid... wait, he is a jerk... He is LYING! Lying!... and there goes the family..."

Established: Itachi is a liar... also a killer.


Third: "Man, didn't expect a fight with Itachi so soon. Damn illusions! Mindrape! Clone! Liar."

Established: Nothing much. We do confirm that Itachi always lies though and mindrapes.


Fourth: "Akatsuki meeting. So cool... wait, they don't know Naruto's name? Why doesn't the Akatsuki know Naruto's name? I mean Itachi ... stupid lying Itachi..."

Established: Itachi hides information, even to his allies.


I could go on, but it's more of the same.

Basically Itachi is a liar who is prone to mind-rape. Every appearance of his kind of reinforces this. and what do you know? He was.

[Siriel]

What chapter was the Akatsuki meeting again?