Well the name business I don't mind so much but yeah, Naruto being like Tobi is rather...off the wall to say the least.
Personally, a lot of my problems came in with this whole Child of Destiny stuff. I mean, REALLY? You're really going to go so silly on me Kishi? And then there was mastering Sage Mode in a week....when Jiraiya couldn't in his 50 years as a ninja.
The Child of Destiny thing is general kind of breaks one of the longest themes of the series.
Namely hard work vs. talent.
Naruto was supposed to be the character that was meant to embody the benefits of hard work, compared to the more talented Sasuke.
Then... He turns out to be the Chosen One, and in like three weeks masters Sage Mode, compared to Jiraiya, who never did.
It breaks the aesop, even more than it already was (Come on, Naruto has a goddamn chakra demon inside him, he had an unfair advantage from the start).
I don't really think the Chosen One thing did that much damage because whether or not he was one, Naruto still had to work his ass off to do things like master rasengan and summoning and stuff. Being the Chosen One merely meant he was destined to do something great, it really never reflected on his talent. My problem with the whole Chosen One thing is its boring. "Oh Jiraiya, a student of yours is going to start a revolution in the ninja world!" And then all the fans cry out in one voice "It's Naruto!" Really I was hoping for it to be Minato but yeah, it was always going to be Naruto.
But yeah Sage Mode can go suck it.
Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Students should surpass the teacher but Naruto did it in record time. Well, for this series.
To be fair, in the course of the time-skip he spent a ton of effort improving his general skills but learned all of two jutsu, and one of those poorly (great ball rasengan, inducing multiple tails out). In the same time, Sasuke gained like 10 jutsu including Kirin, and Sakura gained strength, high-end medical skills, and drugs/poison.
He had a lot of XP saved up, and when he got sage mode he used his natural cheats too.
Originally posted by Q99
To be fair, in the course of the time-skip he spent a ton of effort improving his general skills but learned all of two jutsu, and one of those poorly (great ball rasengan, inducing multiple tails out). In the same time, Sasuke gained like 10 jutsu including Kirin, and Sakura gained strength, high-end medical skills, and drugs/poison.He had a lot of XP saved up, and when he got sage mode he used his natural cheats too.
Not to be a stick in the mud...but I told you. 😆 😆 😆
I have other apologetics for Naruto. I'll post them later.
Originally posted by Q99
?Is your stance really "If anything looks superficially wrong, don't even try and look for existing in-universe explanations for it"?
? 😕 ?
I did not say anything like that in my post.
Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Students should surpass the teacher but Naruto did it in record time. Well, for this series.
This is easy to address.
Naruto was the child of a powerful Uzumaki. An Uzumaki so powerful that she was selected to be the most powerful tailed beast's host.
Naruto was also the child of one of if not the strongest and most versatile ninja of his generation.
Naruto was also given half of the Kyubi's power.
These three elements make it an obvious reason for why Naruto would be so powerful.
Naruto was born with a disadvantage in the brains department but Kishimoto does well to explain why: Naruto has no parents. The science shows that children without parents are much "dumber" then their peers. Almost universally so. The first 5 years of one's life are strongly influential on how a person will be after they grow up: paramount. This is what the research shows.
So Naruto should be quite dumb and a delinquent. Mix in the fact that he was shunned by those around him and you end up with a sure case of idiocy and delinquency. (what the research shows is a high probability for children like him).
However, Naruto still has those genetic gifts from his parents: the potential to be a super genius and an extreme amount of natural chakra (not from the fox but his very own chakra should be quite strong).
Naruto shows us this true genius several times by quickly grasping, like an idiot savant, many complicated techs. This was established by his character from the beginning of the series and is a recurring theme.
Now forcing Naruto to do an idiot move where he tried the rasengan against revived Pain twice was quite stupid. For me, that was out of character. That's a legit criticism of the plot, IMO. But not liking that Naruto progressed super fast as a Ninja when he showed us from the beginning that he could do so, is not a very well established thought. If you did not like that, then you would not have read the manga. That's pretty much his only redeeming quality as a person: his ability to buck up and make genius leaps to protect those things he loves.
This is why I like Naruto as a character. It is fantasy. Because it can't happen in the real world, I must escape reality and enjoy the fantasy of extreme genius hardwork creating success.
Originally posted by Q99
You know, the "you always defend the plot hole stuff," thing you like to accuse me of when I come up with explanations for stuff. That's what I thought you were implying with the comment.
How dare you make such assumptions. 😆
And it was, "you always defend against accusations of plotholes". uhuh Get it right. 😠
My problem isn't really with Naruto learning things fast. It's Sage Mode specifically that I disliked. How did Naruto manage to get the Rasengan? A crafty approach making use of his signature move. How did Naruto get RS? He once again went with the clones strategy, allowing him to do what is very hard for even normal ninja to do. With Sage Mode there really aren't any tricks to use to master it. One can use Clones to speed up the process but even then the fact that he did it under a week is insane. This should have been the one technique that Naruto had the most problem with. It required patience and perfect chakra balance, two factors that are really not Naruto's thing. And he didn't really figure out a way to do it. He just did it.
Thankfully, Sage Mode itself fell out of style. I didn't really like it. Gold eyes were cool though. Sasuke needs to master Sage Mode(a month, tops) so we can have golden sharingan!
Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
My problem isn't really with Naruto learning things fast. It's Sage Mode specifically that I disliked. How did Naruto manage to get the Rasengan? A crafty approach making use of his signature move. How did Naruto get RS? He once again went with the clones strategy, allowing him to do what is very hard for even normal ninja to do. With Sage Mode there really aren't any tricks to use to master it. One can use Clones to speed up the process but even then the fact that he did it under a week is insane. This should have been the one technique that Naruto had the most problem with. It required patience and perfect chakra balance, two factors that are really not Naruto's thing. And he didn't really figure out a way to do it. He just did it.Thankfully, Sage Mode itself fell out of style. I didn't really like it. Gold eyes were cool though. Sasuke needs to master Sage Mode(a month, tops) so we can have golden sharingan!
Sage mode is easier to understand than the rest which is why I don't get your dislike.
Pa told us exactly why Naruto could do it but Jiraiya didn't quite get to mastery: Jiraiya didn't have the patience to try to perfect it further.
Didn't Jiraiya go there when he was a young lad? Meaning, he didn't have the motivation, yet, that Naruto did when he went there. Naruto went there to get his friend/brother back. Jiraiya did not have that motivation when he originally went there.
Also, are you forgetting that Naruto use his clones to learn Sage Mode, as well?
And Naruto made gradual progress with Sage Mode, by the way. It wasn't instant. Sure, it was faster than what most ninjas could do but that's Naruto's trademark: ultra genius but an idiot.
Also, Naruto still uses Sage Mode. And he worked on making it better. Something tells me that the Sage Mode/Kyubi hybrid will make a comeback with Kurama and Naruto becoming friends.
Naruto mastered the first step before Bee and Sasuke finished their fight. Meaning he mastered controlling the chakra, not drawing it in. Still, compared once again to Rasengan, where he needed a couple days to master the first step....He then did the second part without any clones. And then he not only mastered Frog Kata's but perfected the RS as well.
To compare, the normal RS took much longer, had more clones involved, and even then it was only at 50% completion.
This is really stretching my personal suspension of disbelief, for obvious reasons.
Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
To compare, the normal RS took much longer, had more clones involved, and even then it was only at 50% completion.This is really stretching my personal suspension of disbelief, for obvious reasons.
Rasenshuriken took the equivalent work of...what...a couple of decades had he done it alone?
The Rasenshurkien was also something that Minato had hoped to create, himself. I think Minato, with his stupid chakra control and genius mind, could have mastered Sage Training faster than Naruto.
Jiraiya was like Naruto: dumb, clumsy, and goofy. I think that someone like Sakura could master Sage Training faster than Naruto...BUT...it requires you have a shit ton of base chakra. Neither Sakura nor Sasuke have that...but both would be better at Sage Mode than Naruto, IMO.
The RS was a far more difficult task to master. SM is simply chakra control: of which,Naruto already had years of training. If you consider his rasenshuriken training, Naruto had decades of chakra control under his belt when he attempted Sage Mode.
That said, Naruto still gradually progressed in Sage Mode training. Jiraiya said the last part of the rasengan was supposed to take the longest, IIRC. Naruto mastered it much too quickly. Of all the techs Naruto learned, it would be the rasengan that is the worst offender, not Sage Mode.
For me, Sage Mode is the easiest thing to believe Naruto mastered so quickly and the Rasengan is the worst. Did any of us here think it would take Naruto years to master Sage Mode? I seem to think many of us thought it would be easier than what happened. I don't want to look back..what...2 years? 3 Years? But I'm quite sure some of us commented on how Naruto wasn't getting insta-upgraded like he usually does when he was learning Sage Mode.
http://mangastream.com/read/naruto/84058700/1
Spoiler:
Speak of the Devil.
Also the flashbacks are unintentionally hilarious. haermm