Prison Warden posted:

I was really hoping that he'd keep them a little different. It'd be cool if Nagito's chakra cloak was made of flames,

Scrree posted:

The issue I have with Naruto being the 4th's son (and yes, it was obvious from Kakashi's Gaiden on) is that the way it was handled is a great example of Naruto's problem with scope.

Naruto, as a manga, has been essentially growing in scope exponentially. From Naruto and Iruka in the beginning to Team 7 in the Zabuza arc to the rest of the Konoha Genin + Jounin in the Chunin Exam, each arc has brought with it a host of new characters. By the end of Part 1 the scope was pretty extensive, it went about two generations back (The Sannin trio being the oldest active characters) and had a slew of side characters spread about 3 different villages (if you counted Hidden Sound). This was all fine, except that the scope hasn't really ever stopped expanding, and eventually things have just gotten too big to be manageable.

It's really a lot like the Star Wars Expanded Universe. As more and more of the setting has been revealed it makes older characters feel less important and the whole world feel smaller and more constrained. In the current arc we're dealing with ancient prophecies from several hundred years ago and watching a flashback told by the zombie of the founder of Konoha - how insignificant does that make a character like Sai feel. The only way Kishimoto knows how to keep the main characters relevant in this huge pool of history is by lumping an ever increasing amount of plot significance on them. The Uchiha are a great example of this tactic.

What was once a [Family With A Bloodline] is now the [Direct Descendants of the Sixth Sage, the God of Ninja. Co-Founders of Konoha after losing a feud with their Equally Important Counterpoints the Senju clan. Genetic carriers of a Love-Powered Mental Disorder. Etc. Etc.]. Likewise the Sharingan has evolved a whole host of bullshit plot powers so that Sasuke can continue being important next to the plethora of Kage-level ninjas revealed during the last few arcs; when was the last time someone used the Sharingan to actually copy a Jutsu?

So i'm not bothered just because Naruto is the 4th's son. I'm bothered that he is the inheritor of the 4th's will, and his mother's will as the previous holder of the Nine-Tails, and Jiraiya's will, and Jiraiya's disciple's will, and Jiraiya's other disciple's will, and then finally the 4th's will again because Kakashi is the 4th's disciple! I'm annoyed that Sannin-student rivalry thing amounted to nothing because Sasuke overpowered Orochimaru at 16 and Sakura faded to irrelevance because she didn't have new powers and heritages heaped on top of her every other arc. I'm in-a-huff because the final antagonists ending up being some dude born 5 generations ago and some kid Kakashi knew that got crushed by rocks. I'm irritated that three-quarters of the way through the story it was blithely revealed that the loving moon was created by The Ninja God, who is both the creator of the Tailed Demons and Naruto and Sasuke's direct ancestor (actually this one is kind of funny).

I'm sorry to be such a curmudgeon. It's just that I've been rereading early Naruto and it makes me sad to see how far the story has deviated from the premise. There is some old official artwork, done for a cover or something, that has Naruto sneaking around in normal Chunin gear, and it disappoints me that that kind of scene never really happened.

I'm actually really enjoying reading this last arc (or else I wouldn't be here), but it's just like - it literally went from a zombie apocalypse to a Godzilla battle. It's just so over the top action, and that's okay, but I miss the time when being a Ninja was considered a job and when a major arc was about taking an exam.

canned_fruit posted:

Maybe the Byakugan can also turn into Rinnegan if you give them Senju/Uzumaki DNA.

ActionZero posted:

I am having to try really hard to not make some terrible jokes about Hinata getting the Rinnegan here. The best I can do is avoid making the jokes by pointing out the possibility for them to exist.

Terper posted:

Based on the last few chapters, Hinata will have some Uzumaki DNA in her before the end of this manga.

Reinanigans posted:

Yes...

Anyway, I don't mind how huge this manga has become from it's more humble beginnings because there was always a larger world being hinted at, and it's been revealed fairly slowly, rather than all at once. That, and the fact that the beginning was slower and gave us time to actually care about the core cast before branching out into this bigger world. Plus, most of the new characters and worlds and mythologies have been pretty neat and handled much better than all the crazy bullshit Bleach introduces and then forgets about a chapter later.

I suppose this might be because I read week to week and haven't gone back to re-read this series from the beginning. I wonder how I would feel if I started over.

tbp posted:

I mean that's kind of the problem. Week by week it's tough to notice, but when you look back at it and think, a lot of the major characters seem almost irrelevant. Sasori, Sai, Hidan etc.. All of them are so pathetic in the scope of things it is just a bit weird. He could have kept things a bit more relative.

Charlz Guybon posted:

Didn't she? It seemed that way when she fought Hidan.

Reinanigans posted:

Yes...

Reinanigans posted:

Are we talking about power creep here? Because from the very first chapter, we saw people could summon Godzilla sized frogs to gently caress poo poo up with, so a guy like Sasori, cool as he was, was never considered absolutely top tier in this ninja wizard world. I suppose having an immortal 100-man army at your disposal whenever you want is still pretty neat though.

I kind of like that about Naruto, too. Power creep is certainly a thing, don't get me wrong, but you don't need to be absolutely God-tier amazing to make it in the ninja world. Having a particularly unique ability is usually enough to keep you in the running. As opposed to again, Bleach, but especially Dragon Ball. By the end of that one, if you weren't a saiyan, you were essentially less than worthless.

I suppose that Kishimoto could have given some of these cool new powers to some of the older cast (Kiba, Tenten, Shino, Ino), but then that would be less characters for them to add into the video games/make merchandise of. I wonder how much of the new characters and sidelining of old characters has to do with Kishimoto's editors at SJ asking him to make new characters for merchandising purposes. I remember reading something to the effect of Kishimoto wanting to kill off Team Hebi (later Hawk), but the editors wouldn't let him because they wanted Sasuke to have his own team.

Dexo posted:

Thoren posted:

The story is still about Sasuke and Naruto's journey (Seeya, Sakura!) but it jumps around in terms of perspective in order stuff all these characters into the plot. It doesn't really do the story any favors since all it does is make it glaringly obvious that the author is picking and choosing which characters get to keep up with the power creep and new bad guy developments. The result is a huge cast of characters that get the promise of development and panel time early in the story, but never receive it. Then you have new characters thought up by the author who get a bit too much panel time, and then they're dropped off to that lovely "insignificant side-protagonist" role.

A fictional universe doesn't have to reveal the entire world right away. It made sense not to do that early on in Naruto since they were just kids being trained. They had no idea what the world contained and neither did the reader. It was hinged closely to their experiences. And then when the Chuunin exam started, we started getting introduced to all these other characters, just like the protagonists were introduced to them. That's why that arc is still considered one of the best.

If the perspective had stuck with the Team 7 characters discovering these new places and meeting the characters, it would have worked fine.

What you're describing with the power creep leaving behind certain characters only shows how those characters have become a casualty of a story that tries to focus on too much. The whole moveset thing isn't limiting, they can always be expanded upon. Still, Kishimoto has to write down characters like Deidara, who could have just bombed the hell out of the entire war, or Madara, who could be launching meteors onto the army right now.

Indiana_Krom posted:

I wonder if anyone has ever counted the number of named characters in Naruto/Bleach/One Piece. Character bloat is probably one of the more common complaints I've read about Naruto/Bleach, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if One Piece had the biggest number of characters of them all, and hardly anyone ever complains about that in One Piece. So I don't think the number of characters is an issue, what makes it bad in Naruto and Bleach is how those characters are handled. I guess it comes down to early arc enemies from Naruto/Bleach are nothing by now, while someone who is relatively weak like Buggy from One Piece is still relevant even much later in a war between the strongest forces in the universe.

Terper posted:

Based on the last few chapters, Hinata will have some Uzumaki DNA in her before the end of this manga.

ActionZero posted:

Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to.

Dexo posted:

Actually all of the antagonists from Early Naruto besides Zabuza and Neji are major players right now.

Gaara is a Kazekage and can fight at that level
Orochimaru is obviously able to fight at that level
Sasuke is at that level as well.
Kabuto is at a high level as well.


All of the other antagonists are dead(unless you really want to count Kiba as an antagonist).

Indiana_Krom posted:

I wonder if anyone has ever counted the number of named characters in Naruto/Bleach/One Piece. Character bloat is probably one of the more common complaints I've read about Naruto/Bleach, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if One Piece had the biggest number of characters of them all, and hardly anyone ever complains about that in One Piece. So I don't think the number of characters is an issue, what makes it bad in Naruto and Bleach is how those characters are handled. I guess it comes down to early arc enemies from Naruto/Bleach are nothing by now, while someone who is relatively weak like Buggy from One Piece is still relevant even much later in a war between the strongest forces in the universe.

RatHat posted:

EDIT: According to the wiki Baki is still around as an advisor to the Kazekage.

Autumncomet posted:

Speaking of Baki, I remember that ANBU lady wanted revenge on him for killing Hayate, the chunin exam proctor who got killed then replaced by Genma. I was looking forward to that side story.

Thoren posted:

Then why did he order Kisame to finish them off? Because if everything you're saying is proof of him being a secret good guy, that would be a severe break of character.

Prison Warden posted:

I think the world would feel less real without the Kages of each nation bringing a little entourage along, even if Darui or Choujiro will never be the lynchpin of the plot.

"d[-.- posted:

b" post="413744751"]
You were also willing to poorly reword someone else's joke?

Charlz Guybon posted:

It's not gonna stop expanding because Kishi won't stop writing. After Naruto wins the fourth ninja war there'll be another timeskip and then his kid will be kidnapped by the Black Ships and he'll have to go into space to save her. It turns out that the Elemental Countries are on a lost colony world from the Dark Age of Technology and that Fūinjutsu is the last hope to save the dying Imperium.

SerSpook posted:

It's not noticeable in One Piece because it's a story about a journey. They very, very rarely go back to places they have been. It's less how the characters are handled and more the very structure of the story. One works with a huge cast of characters, the other two don't to a greater or lesser degree.

KoB posted:

Yeah, One Piece leaves 90% of characters behind just because the main characters are constantly moving through the world, Naruto and Bleach have taken place in the same city for 10 years now. We see all those useless side characters constantly because it would be weird if they weren't there (they're Naruto's friends after all) yet you have the issue of them being useless when they're there.

ZYNGA STOCK CRASHER posted:

Naruto 625 is out.

Allarion posted:

That Uchiha Affective Disorder sure is a convenient plot device. Seriously though, that felt pretty abrupt just to go evil eyes like that, though I guess he could be like Itachi and pretending to be evil.

Allarion posted:

That Uchiha Affective Disorder sure is a convenient plot device. Seriously though, that felt pretty abrupt just to go evil eyes like that, though I guess he could be like Itachi and pretending to be evil.

Charlz Guybon posted:

It's not gonna stop expanding because Kishi won't stop writing. After Naruto wins the fourth ninja war there'll be another timeskip and then his kid will be kidnapped by the Black Ships and he'll have to go into space to save her. It turns out that the Elemental Countries are on a lost colony world from the Dark Age of Technology and that Fūinjutsu is the last hope to save the dying Imperium.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

Shame than Sasuke's story isn't as compelling as Madara's.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

Is sad to see how hard Hashirama tried to help Madara but he simply doesn't want help. The parallels with Naruto are more than obvious now and this just confirms that the only end is with Sasuke redeemed, therefore Naruto surpassing Hashirama in everyway.

Shame than Sasuke's story isn't as compelling as Madara's.

Dexo posted:

How is Madara's story more compelling than Sasuke's?