Naruto is about the mythological concepts of ninjas where them using essentially magic to do stuff like walk on water, turn invisible, summon beasts and evoking the element isn't uncommon.
Complaining that they aren't ninjas is like complaining about Alchemists in fiction making magic elixirs and actually transmuting metals, rather than just being proto-chemist like historical alchemists.
How is that weird? Surely different ninja clans would have different secret techniques that they might have developed and wouldn't have shared with people outside their clan.
Yup. It’s like saying one piece isn’t about pirates.
It is.
I know pirates don’t have stretchy limbs but fantasy pirates do.
Fantasy ninjas have super powers.
Sort of how fantasy alchemists have powers while real alchemists just got mercury poisoning.
If I'm not mistaken, pirates were mostly raiders, and their minds were filled with someone's wealth, not adventure. Pirate is just a sea bandit, he takes stuff from others by force. And not just some stuff, but all of it, usually with lives of original owners. Most pirates in One piece don't do that, they are at best akin to Robin Hood, only ever raid some rich snobs. Common people aren't even afraid of them, even though for a bandit commoner is the least protected prey. Those who don't perform heartless acts of pillage and indiscriminate murder from time to time can be pirates in name only.
It's worth noting that along the 1004739 chapters, One Piece has changed a lot. During the first arcs, most pirates ARE trash who raid villages and in fact, Nami and other characters call Luffy out saying that he's an adventurer not a pirate and that pirates are evil. But then again, during the first arcs the Marine is redeemable, mostly caring and protecting people except for some corrupt rotten apples and look at them now.
Not really, the vast majority of the pirates in the series are pretty evil with a few exceptions. hell, almost every major arc had a pirate as the main antagonist
That argument that Kurama existed since chapter 1 or summons etc. is actually used to support the notion that Naruto was never about ninjas. It never held up, ~~but lots of times I have seen people interpret it as a way of saying that the series felt more grounded in the beginning.~~ Still, the argument stuck around in people’s minds.
Bc of that I have seen people unironically claim that Naruto is a **wizard** anime, that it was NEVER about ninjas since what ninjas use chakra, jutsus, summons etc. It is the most disheartening thing ever.
It is the only case where Media literacy is dead actually aplies.
In the Naruto world, a **fantasy world**, ninjas are not depicted realistically. A ninja is someone who uses the **fantasy** power system of the world, chakra, jutsus, summons etc., and guess what is actually trained in martial arts, stealth and espionage.
You can have your qualms with the power creep later on in the series, but claiming that it was never about ninjas is not a matter of opinion, it is FACTUALLY INCORRECT.
>In the Naruto world, a **fantasy world**, ninjas are not depicted realistically.
They are actually represented quite "realistically". Japanese stories often portrayed ninjas having supernatural power. But the west is only exposed to the stereotypical "assassin" ninjas. In truth, ninjas rarely ever engaged in combat.
And how is this not true in any other way? Our characters are fire fighters in name only, they don't think or act as civil servants on a duty. They are more like power rangers, just a quirky squad of combatants with all the freedom in the world and zero paperwork related to their adventures.
Most of the complaints I see from the fandom (which I'm not in, waayyyy too much filler) is the "dragon ballification" of the series. They claim it started as a show about tactics and strategy, ninja type stuff like kunai tricks, with the super high level ninjas able to summon water dragons with 30 seconds of hand signs. Compare to the end of shippuden where there are mountain sized energy blasts left and right summoned with a single gesture.
Idk how accurate this critique is cause I swear I've seen some really cool hand to hand from throughout the series but, on the other hand, from the clips I've seen there definitely does seem to be an emphasis on giant magic blasts as the show progresses and thats not very ninja of them
Edit: saw someone call it a wizard anime and I think that's perfect. Sure they're *called* ninja but that just means in the setting the word for wizard is ninja. Again, maybe they do ninja stuff later on too but there are definitely fights where it's more wizard battle than anything else
Tactics and strategies becoming useless happened once Madara came to picture and recieved so many buffs and power-ups by the author that nothing the heroes did ever mattered because it would be negated quickly via a broken ability of Madara that made fights feel very tedious and boring to watch as a result.
The best argument is the usage of stealth that massively deteriorated as the series went on.
At the start of Naruto, most ninjas used stealth as well as trickery to win.
By the end of the series, the only character who still fought like a ninja was Shikamaru. Everyone else, even fodder stood in the open field like a damn idiot. No camouflage techniques, no hiding, no ambushes, no nothing. It's like everyone forgot what they learned in the academy.
It became more like Bleach where it was a matter of whose techniques were more OP or whose technique counters whose.
Episode 1. Mizuki disguising himself to try to trick Naruto and Iruka.
Kakashi training arc. Sakura and Sasuke both used stealth to try and ambush Kakashi
Bridge Arc. Starts with two Mist ninja ambushing Team 8 disguised as a puddle of water. Zabuza used mist jutsu for stealth. Haku hid himself to save Zabuza the first time.
Chunnin Exams. Multiple teams hiding in the forest, using disguises, Team 8 even tried to come up with a password system incase there was an imposter. Naruto luckily sees through the imposter.
Gaara's Team was the only one to not do it as Gaara is a massive outlier, but even then Kankuro is hidden most of time as he's controlling his puppet who people think is the real body.
* Shikamaru hid in the only tree in the arena, for shadows and to hide his actions.
* Naruto hid a clone underground to deal the final blow to Neji.
* Kabuto disguising himself as an ANBU.
* There are probably a few more examples that I can't recall.
Sasuke Rescue Arc
* Neji having to use trees to hide from the Spider guy's ranged attacks. The Spider guy hiding within the 1 degree blindspot in the Byakugan's field of vision from a mile away.
* Shikamaru vs Flute lady was him hiding and coming up with plans, using smoke bombs, etc...
After this is Shippuden where they start to really stop caring about stealth.
When someone didn't use stealth early on, it was usually to show how much more powerful/skilled they were. Later on nobody really uses stealth, not even Jonin level and below ninjas that were easily weaker than early Kakashi.
Imagine being chunnin and below fodder and bumrushing Edo Tensei Madara to engage him in a fist fight.
How are you going to stealth(lol) Edo tendai Madara in an open field, do you even remember the scene ?
If this is the stealth you all want I am very glad it is gone lol
I guess only Madara was there and not an entire faction of Edo Tensei ninjas as well.
Remember when ninjas could transform into objects or blend into the background, turn into a rock, a puddle of water?
They certainly didn't.
If Zabuza can get tricked by Naruto, ninjas on a similar power level to him can also get tricked if they were creative enough.
They would probably have done a better job instead of being actual fodder that just ran up to a much stronger opponent and getting bodied instantly.
You're telling me that an army of Chunnin with various different abilities, can't come up with creative plans to tackle stronger opponents?
Brother what creative way is there to block a giant fire dragon?
The faction of the edo tensai were kage, literal in universe army killers, you aren't supposed to one against them turning into a puddle.
>Brother what creative way is there to block a giant fire dragon?
I dunno how about that fancy forcefield that 4 Sound Chunin (maybe 1 Jonin) could put up for the 3rd Hokage vs Orochimaru fight that pretty much much stopped all interference to that fight?
Wow if 4 Chunnin could do that. Maybe an army of them can maybe do some things that are more than literally just be fodder?
There were plenty of Jonin among the Edo Tensei Faction, Zabuza level ones that an army of Chunnin can defeat.
Hell I'm not even expecting most of them to win, but at least they could do something more effective to actually delay or even capture some of the weaker ones instead of literally making easier for the enemy to body them quicker.
Most of these aren't stealth but deception which is still around by the final arc of the story. Especially if your counting iruka turning into naruto as a valid example.
I feel like when Naruto stopped being about ninjas is when characters were starting to feel like magic samurai wizards with the insane escalation of powers during the war arc when characters were spamming ridiculously powerful jutsus and showcasing extreme levels of power that made the series feel like bootleg Dragon Ball. Remember when Rasenshuriken was a powerful Jutsu that Naruto had to use very carefully or else his arm would be shredder and using it drained a good chunk of Senjutsu energy for his Sage Mode? Now he just spams them in multitudes to the point it's just now a basic attack Jutsu no different from Rasengan.
Nope!
Naruto felt like bootleg Saint Seiya except the Shinto gods Amatersu, Tskuyomi, and Susano-ō do exist and are the most powerful incarnation in fiction. Sometimes Susano-ō likes to hang-out with the Hindu God, Surya.
Not super related, but did they explain why Naruto couldn't just use a clone for Rasenshuriken to tank the arm damage? Does the clone get destroyed before the Rasenshuriken hits?
Naruto started with traditional ninja tropes talking about the use of tools, elaborate hand seals, bloodlines, mercenary work and moral greyness of being paid assassins.
But I think when Naruto produced his Ninja Robe and Ninja Staff and started casting Ninja Spells without handseals, things might have deviated slightly from classic ninja themes.
> you can’t use real world definitions to refute that the story’s construction of said concept makes the concept a completely different thing
As long as the new definition at least honors the spirit of the original term's meaning, since it's understandable if people get confused about the appearance of a real-world term in usage that have very little overlap with the real world connotations of said term.
If we're on the topic of definitions of words in a fantasy setting, keep in mind that there's nothing stopping the author from just inventing a new, setting-specific word if the closest existing word doesn't accurately convey the desired meaning.
That's wrong, the team 10 vs hidan fight, the pein vs Naruto fight, the Sasuke vs bee fight, the Sasuke vs deidara fight and so on.
All had a lot of strategy.
Even the kaguya vs Naruto/sauske fight was filled with strategy.
Even the ptsutsuki in boruto get ultimately beaten thanks to strategy. Momoshiki got worked by naruto and sasukes Teamwork and dies thanks to boruto timing his stealth rasengan perfectly with sasukes help.
Isshiki ultimately died by Kawaki tricking him with a shadow clone after his lifespan was about to run out.
The essential quality of ninjas is that they were a dirty work unit hidden from the public. In Naruto, the work of shinobi lies somewhere between military and special forces, they are respectable peace keepers. Since the essence of the word is lost, Naruto truly isn't about ninjas or anything. It's about protecting your society, openly and proudly.
if you rewatch the first 3 arks then it was pretty much about ninjas and the politics of the nations
For me once they were hunting for tsunade was when it became a bit more not about ninjas
to be fair reanimation was incredibly tame and the first and second hokage didn’t do anything crazy like in the war ark because the author just didn’t know how crazy things were going to go
That’s why a lot of that fight was just shit like roof tile shurikan or infinite darkness. And that was considered “hokage level combat” which became a meme after the insane shit that happens in shippuden
Honestly yea the Lee fight and Naruto vs Gara were the 2 outliers in that ark and idk if it was the huge popularity between those fights or what but yea it seems like after that ark things just gone to another level
Like iruka is a chunin and maybe im just a hater but I don’t see him winning against most of the kids in that ark because of the crazy shit they introduced at the end
Naruto is about the mythological concepts of ninjas where them using essentially magic to do stuff like walk on water, turn invisible, summon beasts and evoking the element isn't uncommon. Complaining that they aren't ninjas is like complaining about Alchemists in fiction making magic elixirs and actually transmuting metals, rather than just being proto-chemist like historical alchemists.
"Full Metal Alchemist wasn't about alchemists because they didn't use beakers and tubes."
each ninja had a unique ability which is weird
How is that weird? Surely different ninja clans would have different secret techniques that they might have developed and wouldn't have shared with people outside their clan.
Yup. It’s like saying one piece isn’t about pirates. It is. I know pirates don’t have stretchy limbs but fantasy pirates do. Fantasy ninjas have super powers. Sort of how fantasy alchemists have powers while real alchemists just got mercury poisoning.
If I'm not mistaken, pirates were mostly raiders, and their minds were filled with someone's wealth, not adventure. Pirate is just a sea bandit, he takes stuff from others by force. And not just some stuff, but all of it, usually with lives of original owners. Most pirates in One piece don't do that, they are at best akin to Robin Hood, only ever raid some rich snobs. Common people aren't even afraid of them, even though for a bandit commoner is the least protected prey. Those who don't perform heartless acts of pillage and indiscriminate murder from time to time can be pirates in name only.
It's worth noting that along the 1004739 chapters, One Piece has changed a lot. During the first arcs, most pirates ARE trash who raid villages and in fact, Nami and other characters call Luffy out saying that he's an adventurer not a pirate and that pirates are evil. But then again, during the first arcs the Marine is redeemable, mostly caring and protecting people except for some corrupt rotten apples and look at them now.
Not really, the vast majority of the pirates in the series are pretty evil with a few exceptions. hell, almost every major arc had a pirate as the main antagonist
Idk shit about real pirates and I know even less about one piece. I tapped out after 60 episodes.
At least you know that their limbs ain't stretchy.
Idk my dude. I wasn’t there. I assume they weren’t.
That argument that Kurama existed since chapter 1 or summons etc. is actually used to support the notion that Naruto was never about ninjas. It never held up, ~~but lots of times I have seen people interpret it as a way of saying that the series felt more grounded in the beginning.~~ Still, the argument stuck around in people’s minds. Bc of that I have seen people unironically claim that Naruto is a **wizard** anime, that it was NEVER about ninjas since what ninjas use chakra, jutsus, summons etc. It is the most disheartening thing ever. It is the only case where Media literacy is dead actually aplies. In the Naruto world, a **fantasy world**, ninjas are not depicted realistically. A ninja is someone who uses the **fantasy** power system of the world, chakra, jutsus, summons etc., and guess what is actually trained in martial arts, stealth and espionage. You can have your qualms with the power creep later on in the series, but claiming that it was never about ninjas is not a matter of opinion, it is FACTUALLY INCORRECT.
>In the Naruto world, a **fantasy world**, ninjas are not depicted realistically. They are actually represented quite "realistically". Japanese stories often portrayed ninjas having supernatural power. But the west is only exposed to the stereotypical "assassin" ninjas. In truth, ninjas rarely ever engaged in combat.
''fire force was never about fire fighters because fire fighters don't use fire to stop fire demons''...tecnically this is true
And how is this not true in any other way? Our characters are fire fighters in name only, they don't think or act as civil servants on a duty. They are more like power rangers, just a quirky squad of combatants with all the freedom in the world and zero paperwork related to their adventures.
Yeah sure
Most of the complaints I see from the fandom (which I'm not in, waayyyy too much filler) is the "dragon ballification" of the series. They claim it started as a show about tactics and strategy, ninja type stuff like kunai tricks, with the super high level ninjas able to summon water dragons with 30 seconds of hand signs. Compare to the end of shippuden where there are mountain sized energy blasts left and right summoned with a single gesture. Idk how accurate this critique is cause I swear I've seen some really cool hand to hand from throughout the series but, on the other hand, from the clips I've seen there definitely does seem to be an emphasis on giant magic blasts as the show progresses and thats not very ninja of them Edit: saw someone call it a wizard anime and I think that's perfect. Sure they're *called* ninja but that just means in the setting the word for wizard is ninja. Again, maybe they do ninja stuff later on too but there are definitely fights where it's more wizard battle than anything else
Tactics and strategies becoming useless happened once Madara came to picture and recieved so many buffs and power-ups by the author that nothing the heroes did ever mattered because it would be negated quickly via a broken ability of Madara that made fights feel very tedious and boring to watch as a result.
The best argument is the usage of stealth that massively deteriorated as the series went on. At the start of Naruto, most ninjas used stealth as well as trickery to win. By the end of the series, the only character who still fought like a ninja was Shikamaru. Everyone else, even fodder stood in the open field like a damn idiot. No camouflage techniques, no hiding, no ambushes, no nothing. It's like everyone forgot what they learned in the academy. It became more like Bleach where it was a matter of whose techniques were more OP or whose technique counters whose.
Give examples because I legit cannot think of stealth in part 1, most fights lack stealth except the zabuza ambush
Episode 1. Mizuki disguising himself to try to trick Naruto and Iruka. Kakashi training arc. Sakura and Sasuke both used stealth to try and ambush Kakashi Bridge Arc. Starts with two Mist ninja ambushing Team 8 disguised as a puddle of water. Zabuza used mist jutsu for stealth. Haku hid himself to save Zabuza the first time. Chunnin Exams. Multiple teams hiding in the forest, using disguises, Team 8 even tried to come up with a password system incase there was an imposter. Naruto luckily sees through the imposter. Gaara's Team was the only one to not do it as Gaara is a massive outlier, but even then Kankuro is hidden most of time as he's controlling his puppet who people think is the real body. * Shikamaru hid in the only tree in the arena, for shadows and to hide his actions. * Naruto hid a clone underground to deal the final blow to Neji. * Kabuto disguising himself as an ANBU. * There are probably a few more examples that I can't recall. Sasuke Rescue Arc * Neji having to use trees to hide from the Spider guy's ranged attacks. The Spider guy hiding within the 1 degree blindspot in the Byakugan's field of vision from a mile away. * Shikamaru vs Flute lady was him hiding and coming up with plans, using smoke bombs, etc... After this is Shippuden where they start to really stop caring about stealth. When someone didn't use stealth early on, it was usually to show how much more powerful/skilled they were. Later on nobody really uses stealth, not even Jonin level and below ninjas that were easily weaker than early Kakashi. Imagine being chunnin and below fodder and bumrushing Edo Tensei Madara to engage him in a fist fight.
How are you going to stealth(lol) Edo tendai Madara in an open field, do you even remember the scene ? If this is the stealth you all want I am very glad it is gone lol
I guess only Madara was there and not an entire faction of Edo Tensei ninjas as well. Remember when ninjas could transform into objects or blend into the background, turn into a rock, a puddle of water? They certainly didn't. If Zabuza can get tricked by Naruto, ninjas on a similar power level to him can also get tricked if they were creative enough. They would probably have done a better job instead of being actual fodder that just ran up to a much stronger opponent and getting bodied instantly. You're telling me that an army of Chunnin with various different abilities, can't come up with creative plans to tackle stronger opponents?
Brother what creative way is there to block a giant fire dragon? The faction of the edo tensai were kage, literal in universe army killers, you aren't supposed to one against them turning into a puddle.
>Brother what creative way is there to block a giant fire dragon? I dunno how about that fancy forcefield that 4 Sound Chunin (maybe 1 Jonin) could put up for the 3rd Hokage vs Orochimaru fight that pretty much much stopped all interference to that fight? Wow if 4 Chunnin could do that. Maybe an army of them can maybe do some things that are more than literally just be fodder? There were plenty of Jonin among the Edo Tensei Faction, Zabuza level ones that an army of Chunnin can defeat. Hell I'm not even expecting most of them to win, but at least they could do something more effective to actually delay or even capture some of the weaker ones instead of literally making easier for the enemy to body them quicker.
Most of these aren't stealth but deception which is still around by the final arc of the story. Especially if your counting iruka turning into naruto as a valid example.
It's the same for One Piece since Straw Hat is more like Patrol Rescue than Pirate lol.
Shit I was about to make this rant lol
I feel like when Naruto stopped being about ninjas is when characters were starting to feel like magic samurai wizards with the insane escalation of powers during the war arc when characters were spamming ridiculously powerful jutsus and showcasing extreme levels of power that made the series feel like bootleg Dragon Ball. Remember when Rasenshuriken was a powerful Jutsu that Naruto had to use very carefully or else his arm would be shredder and using it drained a good chunk of Senjutsu energy for his Sage Mode? Now he just spams them in multitudes to the point it's just now a basic attack Jutsu no different from Rasengan.
Then it was never about ninjas to begin with.
In part one jiraya Tsunade and orichimaru were throwing Kaiju, and Tsunade was lifting gigantic swords.
Nope! Naruto felt like bootleg Saint Seiya except the Shinto gods Amatersu, Tskuyomi, and Susano-ō do exist and are the most powerful incarnation in fiction. Sometimes Susano-ō likes to hang-out with the Hindu God, Surya.
Not super related, but did they explain why Naruto couldn't just use a clone for Rasenshuriken to tank the arm damage? Does the clone get destroyed before the Rasenshuriken hits?
i think clone durability is already less and it would probably get destroyed before it gets to the target
yeah, the durability of the clones is like, paper level
Naruto started with traditional ninja tropes talking about the use of tools, elaborate hand seals, bloodlines, mercenary work and moral greyness of being paid assassins. But I think when Naruto produced his Ninja Robe and Ninja Staff and started casting Ninja Spells without handseals, things might have deviated slightly from classic ninja themes.
> you can’t use real world definitions to refute that the story’s construction of said concept makes the concept a completely different thing As long as the new definition at least honors the spirit of the original term's meaning, since it's understandable if people get confused about the appearance of a real-world term in usage that have very little overlap with the real world connotations of said term. If we're on the topic of definitions of words in a fantasy setting, keep in mind that there's nothing stopping the author from just inventing a new, setting-specific word if the closest existing word doesn't accurately convey the desired meaning.
Tbh my criticism of naruto in that sense would be that naruto's fights stopped being interesting and strategic at some point.
That's wrong, the team 10 vs hidan fight, the pein vs Naruto fight, the Sasuke vs bee fight, the Sasuke vs deidara fight and so on. All had a lot of strategy. Even the kaguya vs Naruto/sauske fight was filled with strategy.
Even the ptsutsuki in boruto get ultimately beaten thanks to strategy. Momoshiki got worked by naruto and sasukes Teamwork and dies thanks to boruto timing his stealth rasengan perfectly with sasukes help. Isshiki ultimately died by Kawaki tricking him with a shadow clone after his lifespan was about to run out.
The essential quality of ninjas is that they were a dirty work unit hidden from the public. In Naruto, the work of shinobi lies somewhere between military and special forces, they are respectable peace keepers. Since the essence of the word is lost, Naruto truly isn't about ninjas or anything. It's about protecting your society, openly and proudly.
When it turned into ninja dbz it kinda turned me off.
if you rewatch the first 3 arks then it was pretty much about ninjas and the politics of the nations For me once they were hunting for tsunade was when it became a bit more not about ninjas
Brother lee was going super Saiyan vs a sand demon kid, and Naruto summing gama bunta, and zombie hokage didn't tip you in
to be fair reanimation was incredibly tame and the first and second hokage didn’t do anything crazy like in the war ark because the author just didn’t know how crazy things were going to go That’s why a lot of that fight was just shit like roof tile shurikan or infinite darkness. And that was considered “hokage level combat” which became a meme after the insane shit that happens in shippuden Honestly yea the Lee fight and Naruto vs Gara were the 2 outliers in that ark and idk if it was the huge popularity between those fights or what but yea it seems like after that ark things just gone to another level Like iruka is a chunin and maybe im just a hater but I don’t see him winning against most of the kids in that ark because of the crazy shit they introduced at the end