#about naruto...

Like okay. There were moments that I was like, oh wow yeah! YEAH! This is feelin' like the Naruto I remember! The action! The awesome! The sheer coolness that is ninja! That childhood wonder from ninth grade where there was a good reason why I was a Narutard.

But then, the plot.

NO. FUCKING. No. Bad.

Like, okay, the 'plot twists', they aren't plot twists. The big reveals are little more than canon confirmation that has been known for YEARS. Minato is the fourth hokage and also Naruto's pops? OH WOW DIDNT SEE THAT ONE.

Obito is Tobi? FEKKIN WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!

The Nine-Tails was originally inside Naruto's mom? HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIII--IIIIIT!

...I'm being sarcastic, yeah...

Like, sure thing, I'm all for doing those big plot things, and like, if it's been hinted at for so long, yeah, that's cool. I'm all for that sort of thing. But there's just something about the execution of all this. Like, okay. Since I'm a huge fan of Homestuck, let's look at that fer a second.

Homestuck is KNOWN for that sorta shit. But when it happens, it's kinda cool! It's like, OH SWEET MY THEORIES WERE RIGHT! Or OH MAN DANG IT I WAS SO SURE! And yeah we fight about theories and shit a lot, but it's not like...done the same way? Hmm...it's hard to describe.

It's just like...at this point, I just want Kishimoto to get on with it. Everything is dragging. It's moving too slow for the rate it wants to be at. Most, if not ALL of the stuff that's happening should've happened years ago. 

Like again, look at Homestuck! Hussie's doing that three year gap, but he's kept it interesting! He has a huge number of characters to work with, he's got time warpy goodness, he's got flashbacks, he's got everything and it's about 6000 pages so far! I get that a manga has seventeen pages per chapter and there's a little over 600 chapters of Naruto...probably exceeding Homestuck by a couple thousand pages. But the substance, I'd say they're about equal in the number of words that's been filled in. Content-wise? There's a huge gap.

And Hussie's so far ahead of Kishimoto...

Like...maybe I wouldn't be as irked if Naruto didn't do the whole 'Shippuden' thing, or maybe what Kishimoto should've done was actually do a lot of this building up IN those three years, instead of just skip them completely. I get there was training, and the whole, not going back to Konoha for three years, was supposed to make everything move faster...those three years were wasted on unknown training that honestly, a lot of plot development could've been done. It's lazy from where I'm seeing this. 

But he should've found out about Minato while with Jiraya on his travels.

He should've found out about his mom while on his travels.

He should've been taken to the Froggie Frog place much MUCH earlier. Yeah yeah, he woulda been real young and he needed to face these other guys first. But why couldn't he have done that one his travels? I'm all for the 'he was trying to keep him hidden' but come ON! Naruto is NARUTO. God, he asked him if Madara was fucking insulting him because they couldn't come to a 'consensus'. (Honestly in that moment, Naruto became DUMBER than he was in the first chapter. FUCKING STUPIDER THAN STUPID.) There had to have been at least ONE FUCKING TIME THAT THEY GOT CAUGHT AND HAD TO FIGHT THEIR WAY OUT. 

HONESTLY. THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN WHAT THEY DID. INSTEAD NO. WE GET THIS STUPID ASS TIME SKIP, WHERE NOTHING INTERESTING HAPPENS/EVER GETS SHOWN, AND END UP HAVING TO PUT UP WITH SHIT THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN DONE AGES AGO, BUT FUCKING MANGAKA PEEPS TOOK FUCKING *YEARS* TO DO.

*breathes*

One of the things I liked about Naruto was that you got to know these characters, a shit ton of them actually, but you got to know all of them. Each of them was special in a way to you, you learned about them, you got to see them grow! Sure, a lot of it was done via flashbacks, and at times that got annoying (and if you look at it in a different way, it's almost as if characters weren't completely thought through in the end...and the flashbacks were just an easy way to get around that...), but in a way, it was Kishimoto's style. It just fit with how Naruto worked, and honestly? It didn't bother me as much as it bothers so many people.

You got to know these characters right? They grew in so many ways, but doing that time skip thing? We missed out on seeing them grow up. A lot of growing up actually. There's just a huge gap in between...and in a way, we just see an outer growth, no real inner growth...which is what I liked a lot...that and the action, hoo, it was fun! Fantastic! And jeez, it just feel like it's lacking lately...

Then there are the fucking plot devices. Honestly, I just don't expect anyone to stay dead anymore. Next thing you know Kushina will be back, then Jiraya! 'Cause goddamn, no one fucking stays dead! I'm GLAD Neji got killed. I was waiting for someone in the main gang to die. PERMANENTLY. Sure, the whole 'bringing everyone back with the Edo Tensei' thingamajig, that was cool, and if the manga ended with that part, I would've been okay with the 'bringing back the people who died in that particular battle'. That would've been really cool, and it would've been great to see everyone and like...I don't know, it would've worked for a great ending! And if he pulls that sort of shit again, Imma lose it! You save that kind of thing for THE END, not the 'near' end...AND DON'T FUCKING TEASE WITH A STUPID CHAPTER CALLED 'THE END' YOU'RE NOT BEING CLEVER, IT'S FUCKING STUPID AT THIS POINT.

It's like how in Supernatural, no one stays dead. You live, you die, you come back in another episode. But like...at this point, I prefer the Supernatural way of doing that! It makes sense in a cosmic sorta way...literally. 

I get the feel either Obito's gonna succeed in destroying the world and recreating a new one with him, Rin, Kakashi, Minato and everyone living some sort of happily ever after, minus the ninjas and jutsu, and I actually want it so that what happens is that the world he creates is this one, no ninjas, no jutsus, just guns and different kind of violence (which probably would just be like Madoka, but I digress).

Or, if Naruto wins, he's gonna use the Ten tails to bring the peeps that died back, and fix up the cities that were destroyed. Then goes off to fight Sasuke, who has Minato under his control or some shit, and shit happens, and he gets to live with his father after seriously injuring Sasuke, but because he's a ninja, and some shit with Kurama, he gets two dads (Minato and Kurama), a best friend that's totally resolved his ways (but ends up blind or some shit for some shit reason) and Obito is forgiven, everything is happy and--GAHHHH NO. AGH.

Then this is probably nit-picking but I gotta say...the fucking line, where Hinata and Naruto are holding hands. She says 'so big...so manly...' I just about lost my shit. In a bad way. That was stupid. That was BEYOND STUPID. WHY THE FUCK WOULD SHE SAY 'SO MANLY'. NO. THAT'S STUPID. SHE'S A NINJA. SHE'S A FUCKING NINJA THAT WHILE WEAK IN THE BEGINNING GREW INTO THIS AWESOME CHARACTER THAT'S MY FAVORITE AND YOU HAD TO GO AND MAKE HER REGRESS BACK TO A STUPID LITTLE WEAKLING.

Sure. Okay. It could've been a translator's decision. Okay. I'm fine with that. But why the hell would you go with 'so manly'?! God, it makes her sound like a blushing bride from a really shitty shojo. I get that this is a shonen, and the girls tend to be on the weaker side, but COME ON. She had some MAJOR development in that whole Pain arc. She could've said, 'so big...they've grown...' or 'so big...so strong...' like, that would've worked. That would've made her sound so much less like a fucking pansy girl. She's a NINJA. Just...please no. Just. No.

I'm sorry. I just...I'm literally just keeping up with this comic to see how it ends. I get moments of oh hey that's really cool. But then I get those INSANE URGES to stop reading. But I'm this far. I've followed it since...about the time it premiered on Toonami. I wasn't there since the beginning...but I've been following it for so long...and it was one of the first comics I really got into, and like...have kept up with you know? I remember discovering OneManga for the first time and realizing how far behind the comics in America were...and well...it set me off into a spiral of soooo many comics...I'd spend all my money on the volumes they had out...haha, they had only just released the second half of the chunin exams in America if I remember correctly...

I miss those days...Naruto was acually pretty damn amazing. I'm not even exaggerating! It was a great comic back in the day...and I guess that's what happens when yer comic gets bigger than what you had ever expected...or somefin...I don't know...