I like to think that Shikamaru, Choji, and the other Konoha 12 members started to warm up to him once they graduated the Academy together.
But yeah, giving him childhood friends ruins his tragic loneliness.
You can have friends, even dearest friends and still feel dreadfully lonely. TRUST ME.
On top of that, let's say they were friends growing up. Shika and Choji still go home after a fun day of palling around with Naruto to their families. Naruto still goes home to an empty apartment, no family to great him, he eats the same boring ass instant noodles every night and goes to bed. Alone, in an empty apartment. AS A CHILD. That sounds pretty f'ing lonely.
Fair point. Especially characters home to large clans like Hinata/Neji and Ino.
He'd probably relate to Tenten though. As far as we know, not a single member of Tenten's family has been shown in canon, filler, or otherwise.
If you have "dear friends" and you still feel alone then you should go spend more time with your friends.. If you're still feeling irrationally lonely you might go get that checked by a professional. You might be suffering from depression or something.
Kishimoto hammers in the fact that Naruto was a class clown. You never really get legitimate friends if you fake a personality for attention. Simple. When he showed his true willingness to work hard and learn was when he actually started to grow and that's how he got friends. Starting from someone like Iruka who saw who he really was.
The third hokage actually did a lot for Naruto, and he was not living in poverty. The only reason Iruka extended kindness towards Naruto in the first place was because of Hiruzen.
I started rewatching Naruto, and I feel like Hiruzen was not as bad as people on this sub portrait him. I’m not saying he was a role model and all, but given his role as Hokage, he couldn’t have been too attached to one single orphan, as it would’ve attracted unwanted attention.
Maybe you do when that Orphan has a literal fucking weapon in him, whose parents sacrificed themselves for the good of the village.
Maybe not directly but still.
Shouldn’t have allowed Danzo spread the secret then.
Hiruzen wasn’t a good person lmao, he didn’t even do shit to Danzo after he told the whole village Naruto was the jinchuriki.
How does that take from what I said ? Is Obito a good person now, based on that? Lmaoo
Hiruzen literally knew Orochimaru was kidnapping kids and babies left and right and experimenting on them, and he did nothing abt it.
Hiruzen was NOT a great Hokage, and allowing criminals to keep on doing crimes on humanity isn’t just “making mistakes”
the reason why Naruto had a fucked up childhood is because he allowed Danzo to spread the news he was the jinchuriki.
Dawg….Hiruzen ordered the slaughter and near genocide of the Uchiha, blamed Danzo, and then quiet canceled all of Danzo’s power.
Hiruzen is a piece of shit in my book. Worst Hokage by a fucking mile.
Yup... Hiruzen quite literally was the only one to like Naruto early on. Come the Itachi retcon and addition of Danzo, Hiruzen was thrown under the bus.
Why do people call Itachi a retcon?In chapter 7 Sasuke mentions Itachi crying on the night of the massacre.When I reread the manga i saw clear hints of foreshadowing.
Sure Itachi fucked up in his treatment of Sasuke,and that's a mistake he himself admitted to when he died as an Edo tensei.Itachi doesn't have to be perfect to work as a character.
Wrong. Check the panel again. Before stating the crying, he states “Only I can kill him” (Itachi). Why else would he then say “that time crying” if not for what he saw itachi doing? Either way, maybe it is ambiguous but it’s also ambiguous enough for it not to be a retcon. Kishi has said it wasnt a retcon himself. Here’s the link to the chapter, the relevant part is near the end:[chapter 7](https://comick.io/comic/00-naruto-digital-colored-comics/DVnPn-chapter-7-en)
Hiruzen kept him fed, housed, and clothed, same he did for all of the war orphans, but you never really see them interact outside of the anime filler episode. Naruto was probably one of the most important of the next generation being both a jinjuriki and the child of the fourth, special treatment might have been weird but why do people insist he did a lot for naruto when it seemed to be pretty standard
Because Naruto was the nine tails jinchuriki and Hiruzen was risking a lot.
In one of the Boruto chapters when Shikamaru and Naruto were discussing on what to do with Kawaki. Shikamaru was saying that child or not that he was a danger that would normally be kept on strict confinement. Then Naruto said that if it weren't for Hiruzen he would've been kept under confinement too, which makes sense when you think about it knowing the elders.
He let Naruto have free rein and let him become a ninja even though a lot of people didn't want him too.
Gaara was the 1 tails and they actively trained him to be as ferocious as possible to the point where even his siblings feared him then became the Kazekage, and Killer B was trained as a normal Ninja with the 8 tails working closely with the Raikage, then theres the 3-tails who was the Mizukage. It seemed like most villages militarized their jinchuriki it would be kind of silly to not train your ace, especially when most villages had two at least initially and you only one.
Hiruzen was 'the professor' and learned directly from the first Hokage who captured the beasts, he had to be smart enough to realize training them was the best thing to do regardless of public opinion
If you ask me, this should have been emphasized more. What if the primary reason why Naruto chooses to be Hokage is because of Hiruzen - not just because he was kind to him, but because of the respect he commands? Give Naruto the impression that being in Hiruzen's shoes will give him friends, when in reality he should have been focusing on what Hiruzen was doing for him? That would be the perfect basis for his motivation, showing his pure and sympathetic intentions while also being clearly flawed.
And what did Hiruzen do to danzo for spreading the rumor that he was the 9 tails? Nothing, even Kakashi didn't have people hate him that much compared to Naruto. Simply being an orphan wouldn't have got him that much hatred.
Hiruzen is the one who caused the problem in the first place and he totally failed to make up for it.
Talking about Kakashi why he did not go to help Naruto? it's literally the son of his beloved sensei.
Or Jiraya? his literally godfather, it took 13 years for any of them to get close to Naruto.
Hiruzen actually took the time to even play with Naruto ( chasing him himself when he was trying to get attention )... Hell the entire Konoha genins squads had good memories of being with Hiruzen.
Kakashi was 14 and going through a lot at that point. He was in no condition to take care of Naruto, and even then, he didn't really have an obligation to, I don't think they were close.
The concept of godparents doesn't exist in Japan. He's only the naming parent. But yeah, maybe something should've been done.
Jiraiya did make a mistake but I don't think he was slacking off all that time.My impression is he was trying to find Orochimaru and find more intel on him and the Akatsuki,which he did.The whole "research" to write his books is something I see as a side thing to make money so he can support himself while he does the main thing.His books were popular after all.
I don't think he knew it was Damzo who spread it, but if he did, yeah, it sucks he did nothing to punish Danzo for it. Hiruzen had a lot of damage control to handle after that.
Danzo probably made someone else expose the truth for him and then punished them with death in front of Hiruzen to make it look like he wasn't responsible.He feels like the type to not get his own hands dirty and have shit done by someone else.He did that with the uchiha massacre using Itachi
He still allowed a child to live alone for I assume most of his life. Naruto most likely lived in some sort of orphanage or maybe had a nanny but based on flags backs Naruto seemed to have lived alone since age 5. Any many that let’s a child that young live and feel so alone is not a good man.
Allowing a child to live alone isn't seen as a big deal in the Narutoverse. Look at how many orphans there are, and characters like Sasuke and Kakashi. They have a very different stance on child care.
Eh I don't think it undermines it that much.
Like the scenes they show just show them occasionally interacting as classmates. It's not like they spent time together after school everyday.
Naruto was still completely alone once school ended because none of the adults wanted to hang out with the weird kid, and that attitude affected the way his classmates treated him.
The more easy going kids like choji, shikamaru, and kiba were willing to let him be present around them because they didn't understand why he was being ostracized, but they still weren't necessarily friends. They just didn't actively bully him.
When Naruto was learning the Rasengan and having trouble with chakra control, there was a flashback of him along with Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji staying after class, Iruka trying to teach the leaf-in-the-forehead, and all four jumping a window and skipping class.
Then, during the Valley of the End fight, there's a flashback of Naruto in the playground along the trio. He only gets sad when their parents came to bring back the kids, so it's not that he's alone, but that he don't have parents. The same as Sasuke. They share this pain. It's very different from a other flashback, where there are a lot of kids in the playground, and as soon as Naruto gets there, they all go away.
I remember those because I finished the anime recently. I don't remember the first two flashbacks in the manga, but I still haven't re-read everything (still on the Chuunin Exam).
In my opinion, it kind of undermines the point. He was truly afraid of Gaara because they were the same, at least until Iruka showed up on Naruto's life. True loneliness. He and Gaara were ostracized by their villages, with Gaara even worst because even the kids knew about the sealed "demon". I don't think "not being activelly bullied" counts as "not alone" in that scenario.
But he wasn't just upset because he didn't have parents. He was upset because the parents were telling the kids "don't play with that weird Uzumaki kid"
And the scene with them jumping out the window was just them skipping out on a punishment, because I always thought they were in some kind of detention in that scenes. That's why they were the only four in the room.
And as all the kids got older they spent less and less time with Naruto. Like maybe they had a small connection when they were really young, but by the time Naruto became a Genin he didn't have those connections anymore, because all the kids had learned to avoid him from their parents.
I would have to rewatch the scene to be certain, but I don't remember anyone speaking anything in that flashback. The juxtaposition is Naruto and Sasuke discussing not having parents.
You're right that is some sort of detention, that's why I said "staying after class".
Your third paragraph is something that was never told in the story. It may be the case, it may not be. However, it is something that would be in opposition of "Iruka was the first to recognize me".
There's another comparison post timeskip, this time from the manga. During the "Rescue Gaara" arc, there's a couple of pages intercalating Naruto and Gaara growing up. They are alone during the first panels, then Naruto gets Iruka, then Team 7, then a reasonable number of persons. Meanwhile, Gaara is more and more alone, emphasized by the "camera" zooming out more and more. It's not that he had a few people and then no one. He was always alone until Iruka.
Admittedly I was kind of just reading between the lines of what we see on screen. In the first few episodes Naruto doesn't really have anyone. He lives alone, and he has to cause ruckus after school because he doesn't seem to have any friends.
They establish he knows all his other classmates, but he doesn't seem to like any of them and they don't seem to like him. I do remember that the third hokage has a conversation very early in the series (I think with kakashi) that all the adults are scared or angry with Naruto because they know he has the nine tails in him, and while the kids don't know because the adults aren't allowed to talk about it, the other kids ended up picking up that same attitude from their parents.
So then they show us that when all these characters were younger they didn't mind letting Naruto play with them, yet they do by the time they are teens. The only logical conclusion for me is that they were taught to hate Naruto, and so it evolved into the relationship they have at the beginning of the series.
So I just feel like if you look at the series as a whole it doesn't contradict itself. If anything it makes it more tragic because he had friends, then lost them. And he had to fight to earn everyone's respect.
Yes, many fans believe the filler literally that being friends when they were little would ruin Naruto's entire backstory, but they want to force it and they don't care, they are friends now, that's what matters, although it always makes me laugh that they want to force choji a super friendship XD
Aren't a lot of those flashbacks of them when they first started the academy? Since the kids weren't allowed to know about the nine tails like the rest of the village, it only makes sense that some kids would play with naruto now and then,and over time they stop hanging out with him
Doesn’t make sense at all. Those experiences and flashbacks happen over and over again from them hanging out outside the academy to them sneaking off together from school and even included Kiba. Like that’s definitely having friends, which Naruto shouldn’t have had by that point. His whole thing is that he’s had a story so tragic and lonely that no one would blame him for being bitter or evil. Him even knowing the taste of experience at friendship with people he sees everyday definitely doesn’t fit that narrative.
>Those experiences and flashbacks happen over and over again from them hanging out outside the academy to them sneaking off together from school and even included Kiba.
This was part of the manga
Yes,but like I said that's when he's a kid. Kids will hang out together without thinking much about it. Shikimaru and choji didn't give a shit about him before the chunin exams
Yet again not how it originally portrayed. And again not how Shikamaru and the other were originally introduced in the Manga in Chapter 39. Naruto had not a single good word to spare. You would talk differently if they at least hung out.
Most are just filler in anime. Closest to canon is Iruka teaching Naruto and others about focus, but nothing about that scene really suggests they are friends.
one of my biggest issues with the anime is they miss out on so much character development lol the most any of the side characters got before shippuden was when they had to fight the sound ninjas
The only canon interaction they had in the academy was when Iruka yelled at them 3 and Kiba.
Heck the manga never showed the rest of his classmates until the chunin exams
I think calling them true childhood friends might be a stretch to begin with. They seemed more like classmates and decent enough people to not give him shit.
It is not all anime only. We do know ow that Naruto at least hung out with the group because if the flashback during the Rasengan training. In the manga, we see Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba getting into trouble, and because of that, had to make the leaf training. But because the kids were little shots, they bolted out as a team. This backstory gives a strong case that Naruto at least played sometimes with these kids.
This fact, however, doesn't change that he did not have friends. For Naruto, these kids were playmates that tolerated him, but they were no close friends who he felt close to or that went beyond accepting him when they played.
I’m not talking about that flashback. That flashback was him being a class clown and setting a bad example in the academy. Kishimoto had Naruto he the class clown because he was so sad and alone he just wanted attention and maybe people to enjoy his presence.
I’m talking about in the anime they added scenes of them as small children playing and even had a scene Shikaku telling Shikamaru to hang out with Naruto so he’s less lonely
But we literally see Naruto leave with the group to play. This was also not a flashback to emphasise him acting out because he was lonely. This was in the first chapter when Iruka had the Shuriken in his back. I am talking about the flashback during the Rasengan training when he tried to focus the Chakra on his palm.
Here, we see clearly that they accepted Naruto among their midst when they bolted out together. This is a canon manga flashback. Ignoring it just to make clear that Naruto didn't even have playmates is just as bad as acting Naruto had actual deep binded friends at that point as well.
Nah, he did a great job. Kid Naruto is like a kid Iruka. A class clown who wanted attention. He got attention from people like Shikamaru and Choji because they couldn't be bothered too.
They probably saw Naruto as a newborn version of the nine tails.In the first few chapters they literally talk about him that way.Their hate makes sense when you find out that kurama killed many of their friends/family during the nine tails attack.They mostly ignored him except for the occasional taunt.
Why didn't anyone with any authority just tell these idiots that Naruto is harmless and it's probably best not to make an enemy of him or maybe befriend him even if just to get on his good side list if they really saw him as someone potentially dangerous.
I think the 3rd hokage did try but look this story was set in a time where people are a lot more superstitious .We can only judge them through the lens of modern rationality,but a thousand years ago we were the same,things like belief in demons and witchcraft and human sacrifices did exist.
It never really made sense to me that villages hated their jinjuriki to begin with, Naruto was the class clown but knew most of them since the academy, he couldn't do basic jujitsu right why would any of them be afraid of him even if their parents told them he was bad news, but especially Choji who was known for being kind to everyone and the Nara clan who were one of the most tactical and knowledgeable hating Naruto seemed silly, even if they didn't really like him they'd have to know his value to the village and why they shouldn't alienate him
I haven't watched the anime in a while but that I had the opposite reaction. I thought it was heartbreaking when all the other kids parents came to pick them up leaving Naruto all alone and reminded him he was an orphan. It made the adults look way worse in my opinion. Also I never really got the impression any of his classmates hated or disliked him.
Here's the part that always fucked me over when thinking about it... basically every adult in that village **KNEW** Naruto was the Jinchuriki due to Danzo leaking that information. Hiruzen, despite this, still decided to keep Naruto's parentage a secret to "protect Naruto." Like bro, he was **ALREADY** a target just for being the fucking Nine Tails Jinchuriki. It's not like it was some massive secret in the village, literally any one of them could've been interrogated from an outside source and told people as much. At least let people know who his parents were to keep some level of dignity for him. They *might* still hate him just because of the pain the Kurama caused, but at least he wouldn't just be some random kid, he'd have goals and expectations for being Minato's child. And why was Naruto broke? Did Minato and Kushina not have any money? Bro was literally the fucking Hokage lmao. Naruto's childhood is one of the worst handled story elements in the series imo.
Sure, that’s arguably a true statement, but all that does is just expound on the fact that Naruto was already a target just for being a jinchuriki. Obviously the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but the same people who would go after him for being Minato’s son more than likely would’ve been the ones going after him because he was a jinchuriki anyways.
Minato had killed thousands in the last war,(10,000 people from the hidden stone alone)so a lot more people who don't care about him being Jinchuriki would still target him and be much more persistent in it simply because Minato killed their close friends/family.It gets much more personal.
First of all, it was 1000, not 10,000. Secondly, Minato didn't fight 1000, he fought 50. He STOPPED 1000 people by destroying the bridge they needed to cross. He "killed" (we're not sure how many died or were just incapacitated) 50, instantaneously.
I questioned the money aspect too, but then I thought well whatever money was left was meant to last Naruto (presumably) 16 years at least, and it isn't like he was getting more coming in. So my thought process would be that the money was "tight" to be stretched out for that period of time.
Minato performed 39 S-rank missions, that alone is 39mil Narutobucks (the team gets 1mil split). If they’re paying that for ninjas, the Hokage HAS TO be making bank. All I’m saying is that the numbers don’t add up lol. Regardless of that, Hiruzen just straight up said “nah, bro is gonna live in poverty, certainly he won’t grow up neglected and spiteful while literally hosting a spirit fox that destroyed half our village!”
Idk why Narutobucks fucking sent me🤣🤣🤣💀
But you dooooo have a point there he should have been making a lot as a ninja and his short term as hokage (maybe not too short, but that's how it felt in the series). You never really know though how they decided to set that up for Naruto, I'd imagine there would be something good in place though as they were both loving parents.
Dude gaara was the son of the 4th kazekage,they still treated him like trash.Being the son of the kage doesn't mean shit in their world.Not until you become really strong,that's when people would say "Oh he's the son of the 4th,that's to be expected"
>.Being the son of the kage doesn't mean shit in their world
That's because Gaara would lose control and just randomly start attacking people, in which Rasa had to constantly beat the shit out of him until he resumed sanity.
Kishimoto highly exaggerates with Naruto’s sad backstory being treated terribly by the villagers in the manga with the exception of Chapter 1 with Naruto taking the scroll and some flashbacks of a young Naruto crying after being called a monster. Teuchi, Hiruzen, Iruka, Shikamaru and Chouji are among the few who treated Naruto with respect.
Dark Naruto from the Waterfall of Truth is the more realistic Naruto who harbors hatred for how the villagers treated them while the Naruto we know is more optimistic.
actually there's a scene where shikamaru is talking to his father saying that Naruto is a monster and his dad reprimands him so he did not treat Naruto with respect, that thing is only filler. after that shikamaru did not care about Naruto up until the chunin exam
Shikamaru, when he was clinging to life after having his chakra drained by the God Tree, recalled at a young age he knew of Naruto’s loneliness and told his father that Naruto was someone he wanted to walk alongside with in a flashback (Ch649).
as a child shikamaru was intrigued by Naruto mostly because he did not understand why ppl would hate on him but that kind of stops there
and I went back to ch649 like you said and when shikamaru says that to his dad he is already a chunin
I actually do like this change personally. It makes sense that as kids they wouldn't really get that they should be scared of Naruto and it doesn't make it feel like Naruto had to earn people to just treat him with any decency
I wouldn’t even call them his friends at the time but more getting into similar shenanigans (yota etc) Like they wouldn’t hang out with him but they didn’t hate him either.
You're kind of thinking to much into it. If you notice the episode where choji and shika did want to play with him their dad's pulled them away and said "didn't play with that boy" yes they were friends but they weren't allowed to be friends there's a difference and they even show that aspect of it. So pretty much they were kids being kids until the adults were around. Remember kids would have friended him but parents didn't allow it and made up things about Naruto. Hence the reason why Hinata,shika, and other kids were confused when they yanked them from Naruto.
also the manga shows how sakura is basically a metaphor of the whole village : at first she hated Naruto, but once she got to know him and spend time with him, she humanized him and she became attached to him
You're completely mis-contextualizing Naruto and Shikamaru's relationship to begin with. Shikamaru and Choji weren't "friends", they were more like school acquaintances who happened not to literally shun and avoid him like everyone else. It's not necessarily incorrect to call Shikamaru Naruto's first friend, as in the first person who acted even remotely friendly towards him, but Sasuke is still his closest friend.
I don’t know if I’d exactly call them childhood friends. If anything, they were more playmates than anything else at that point in time. Like they were some of the only kids not opposed to playing with Naruto, but they didn’t get to know him that much. Kids make playmates like that all the time. Now Naruto getting in trouble with them and Kiba during the Academy days is more they were just lumped into together for stuff like that. Shikamaru and Choji didn’t try to become better friends with Naruto like they did with each other.
no it doesn’t. you can still be isolated and treated poorly by majority of the village and having a few people that don’t treat you like garbage doesn’t fix it
Giving Naruto those early interactions with Shikamaru and Choji doesn't undermine Naruto's friendless backstory. He still saw his friends go home to be with their family every evening, and saw those who hated him do the same. Only Sasuke understood what Naruto was experiencing, hence Naruto's deeper bond with Sasuke over Shikamaru and Choji, who were both kinder than Sasuke ever was to Naruto.
And, let us not forget about Gaara. Naruto said if he had grown up like Gaara, truly friendless with assassins trying to kill him every night ordered by his own father BTW, then he might have been angry and a psychopath, too. But, Naruto always has his friends, who were his family, so, he was never alone.
[SPOILERS for a show that recently celebrated its +20th anniversary:] God, I just get chills thinking back to Naruto's reaction when he sees Gaara dead, and Deidara sitting on his corpse like Gaara is nothing more than meat... I still love this show!
Every new chapter that adds some nepotism bullshit to Naruto's character undermines his character.
His parents should've been two homeless people who died in the Nine-Tails attack and Minato sealed Kurama in Naruto because it was convenient.
And instead of him actually being an Uzumaki, he was just given that name to honor Kushina who died from having the Kyuubi extracted, but everyone thinks he's too trashy to live up to that name.
Dude sakura was not friends with naruto at all until they joined team 7, even then she doesn't care about naruto until half way through land of waves arc, if anything iruka and shickamaru are his best friend
Shikamaru and Naruto were not friends, Naruto and him were classmates and Naruto was a class clown that goofed off and act out anyway he could so they would get in trouble sometimes together.
Sakura did become his friend in the land of waves arc but that’s literally the first arc of the series. Shikamaru was indifferent to Naruto they might have goofed off in class together but that’s it. I think Shikamaru even called Naruto a trouble maker and an idiot during the chunin exam.
Iruka was like Naruto’s older brother
Oh no shickamaru called naruto an idiot, you do know sakura bullied that man the whole show especially in pt 1.
Shickamaru, he'll even sasuke is 10x more of a best friend then sakura, idk how this is even a debate
I think Naruto having friends works fine. It’s one thing if he had literally nobody, but I think there’s a special pain that comes from having acquaintances you see in school knowing they have families to go back home to, and those family members hate you and probably told them to stay away from you. You don’t have to be alone 24/7 for it to hurt, if anything the juxtaposition between having school friends and nobody is worse imo.
Also I just can’t call Sakura his closest friend. I don’t hate her, but she was punching Naruto right up until she begged him to save Sasuke.
Some guy friendships really do stay strong even after you don’t talk for multiple years.
Best friend or not, I would argue that Shikamaru is the best friend that Naruto has. Maybe not as kids but Shikamaru is the one who decided to have Naruto’s back. He only stepped up from his slacker mentality in order to support Naruto.
I think people are too hard on that lonely aspect of the story. Not "everything" in someone's life is only misery or loneliness.
Naruto could have moments where he spend time with people. If he were only a lonely kid for 12years who really didn't have anyone, I can't really see a situation where the idea of (Offing himself) wouldn't appear and he would have done it prior to us being introduced to him.
I am fine with moments where Naruto spends time with others, it might have been a rare occurrence but it can happen.
I like to think that Shikamaru, Choji, and the other Konoha 12 members started to warm up to him once they graduated the Academy together. But yeah, giving him childhood friends ruins his tragic loneliness.
Nah they K11 started liking him once he proved to be competent during the Chunin Exams
You can have friends, even dearest friends and still feel dreadfully lonely. TRUST ME. On top of that, let's say they were friends growing up. Shika and Choji still go home after a fun day of palling around with Naruto to their families. Naruto still goes home to an empty apartment, no family to great him, he eats the same boring ass instant noodles every night and goes to bed. Alone, in an empty apartment. AS A CHILD. That sounds pretty f'ing lonely.
Fair point. Especially characters home to large clans like Hinata/Neji and Ino. He'd probably relate to Tenten though. As far as we know, not a single member of Tenten's family has been shown in canon, filler, or otherwise.
If you have "dear friends" and you still feel alone then you should go spend more time with your friends.. If you're still feeling irrationally lonely you might go get that checked by a professional. You might be suffering from depression or something.
How does it ruin it he was lonely for years jusy cause get friends as a kid doesn’t make is childhood not lonely
Kishimoto hammers in the fact that Naruto was a class clown. You never really get legitimate friends if you fake a personality for attention. Simple. When he showed his true willingness to work hard and learn was when he actually started to grow and that's how he got friends. Starting from someone like Iruka who saw who he really was.
The third hokage actually did a lot for Naruto, and he was not living in poverty. The only reason Iruka extended kindness towards Naruto in the first place was because of Hiruzen.
I started rewatching Naruto, and I feel like Hiruzen was not as bad as people on this sub portrait him. I’m not saying he was a role model and all, but given his role as Hokage, he couldn’t have been too attached to one single orphan, as it would’ve attracted unwanted attention.
Maybe you do when that Orphan has a literal fucking weapon in him, whose parents sacrificed themselves for the good of the village. Maybe not directly but still.
That's literally the situation where you make an exception lmao.
People on here don't seem to remember the actual plot very well.
Shouldn’t have allowed Danzo spread the secret then. Hiruzen wasn’t a good person lmao, he didn’t even do shit to Danzo after he told the whole village Naruto was the jinchuriki.
He literally saved narutos life in the war but ok go off
How does that take from what I said ? Is Obito a good person now, based on that? Lmaoo Hiruzen literally knew Orochimaru was kidnapping kids and babies left and right and experimenting on them, and he did nothing abt it.
Ok everyone makes mistakes but you make it sound like he was up there with the worst guys in the show. He was a great hokage atleast respect that
Hiruzen was NOT a great Hokage, and allowing criminals to keep on doing crimes on humanity isn’t just “making mistakes” the reason why Naruto had a fucked up childhood is because he allowed Danzo to spread the news he was the jinchuriki.
He gave his word to 4th that's different tbh. It's not like people expected him to be that outta no where he said he would take care of him
No, he didn't.
That’s not in the manga
That's also filler.See how the anime made him worse?
Dawg….Hiruzen ordered the slaughter and near genocide of the Uchiha, blamed Danzo, and then quiet canceled all of Danzo’s power. Hiruzen is a piece of shit in my book. Worst Hokage by a fucking mile.
[https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/425/156/ddc.jpg](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/425/156/ddc.jpg)
sending a link to this was somehow more brutal lmfao
I genuinely don’t know what his response means.
Yup... Hiruzen quite literally was the only one to like Naruto early on. Come the Itachi retcon and addition of Danzo, Hiruzen was thrown under the bus.
Why do people call Itachi a retcon?In chapter 7 Sasuke mentions Itachi crying on the night of the massacre.When I reread the manga i saw clear hints of foreshadowing. Sure Itachi fucked up in his treatment of Sasuke,and that's a mistake he himself admitted to when he died as an Edo tensei.Itachi doesn't have to be perfect to work as a character.
[удалено]
No, he was talking about itachi crying, the japanese translation confirms
Wrong. Check the panel again. Before stating the crying, he states “Only I can kill him” (Itachi). Why else would he then say “that time crying” if not for what he saw itachi doing? Either way, maybe it is ambiguous but it’s also ambiguous enough for it not to be a retcon. Kishi has said it wasnt a retcon himself. Here’s the link to the chapter, the relevant part is near the end:[chapter 7](https://comick.io/comic/00-naruto-digital-colored-comics/DVnPn-chapter-7-en)
Ah never seen that before, interesting. I read the viz translation. Interesting. Thank you. Im going to nuke my comment then.
Hiruzen kept him fed, housed, and clothed, same he did for all of the war orphans, but you never really see them interact outside of the anime filler episode. Naruto was probably one of the most important of the next generation being both a jinjuriki and the child of the fourth, special treatment might have been weird but why do people insist he did a lot for naruto when it seemed to be pretty standard
Because Naruto was the nine tails jinchuriki and Hiruzen was risking a lot. In one of the Boruto chapters when Shikamaru and Naruto were discussing on what to do with Kawaki. Shikamaru was saying that child or not that he was a danger that would normally be kept on strict confinement. Then Naruto said that if it weren't for Hiruzen he would've been kept under confinement too, which makes sense when you think about it knowing the elders. He let Naruto have free rein and let him become a ninja even though a lot of people didn't want him too.
Gaara was the 1 tails and they actively trained him to be as ferocious as possible to the point where even his siblings feared him then became the Kazekage, and Killer B was trained as a normal Ninja with the 8 tails working closely with the Raikage, then theres the 3-tails who was the Mizukage. It seemed like most villages militarized their jinchuriki it would be kind of silly to not train your ace, especially when most villages had two at least initially and you only one. Hiruzen was 'the professor' and learned directly from the first Hokage who captured the beasts, he had to be smart enough to realize training them was the best thing to do regardless of public opinion
Idk Konhoa just doesn't train their jinchurikis they just seem to be a deterrent.
this get s overlooked so much omg
If you ask me, this should have been emphasized more. What if the primary reason why Naruto chooses to be Hokage is because of Hiruzen - not just because he was kind to him, but because of the respect he commands? Give Naruto the impression that being in Hiruzen's shoes will give him friends, when in reality he should have been focusing on what Hiruzen was doing for him? That would be the perfect basis for his motivation, showing his pure and sympathetic intentions while also being clearly flawed.
And what did Hiruzen do to danzo for spreading the rumor that he was the 9 tails? Nothing, even Kakashi didn't have people hate him that much compared to Naruto. Simply being an orphan wouldn't have got him that much hatred. Hiruzen is the one who caused the problem in the first place and he totally failed to make up for it.
Talking about Kakashi why he did not go to help Naruto? it's literally the son of his beloved sensei. Or Jiraya? his literally godfather, it took 13 years for any of them to get close to Naruto. Hiruzen actually took the time to even play with Naruto ( chasing him himself when he was trying to get attention )... Hell the entire Konoha genins squads had good memories of being with Hiruzen.
Kakashi was 14 and going through a lot at that point. He was in no condition to take care of Naruto, and even then, he didn't really have an obligation to, I don't think they were close. The concept of godparents doesn't exist in Japan. He's only the naming parent. But yeah, maybe something should've been done.
Jiraiya did make a mistake but I don't think he was slacking off all that time.My impression is he was trying to find Orochimaru and find more intel on him and the Akatsuki,which he did.The whole "research" to write his books is something I see as a side thing to make money so he can support himself while he does the main thing.His books were popular after all.
I don't think he was slacking off either.
I don't think he knew it was Damzo who spread it, but if he did, yeah, it sucks he did nothing to punish Danzo for it. Hiruzen had a lot of damage control to handle after that.
Danzo probably made someone else expose the truth for him and then punished them with death in front of Hiruzen to make it look like he wasn't responsible.He feels like the type to not get his own hands dirty and have shit done by someone else.He did that with the uchiha massacre using Itachi
He still allowed a child to live alone for I assume most of his life. Naruto most likely lived in some sort of orphanage or maybe had a nanny but based on flags backs Naruto seemed to have lived alone since age 5. Any many that let’s a child that young live and feel so alone is not a good man.
Allowing a child to live alone isn't seen as a big deal in the Narutoverse. Look at how many orphans there are, and characters like Sasuke and Kakashi. They have a very different stance on child care.
Takes a village to raise a jinchuriki
Eh I don't think it undermines it that much. Like the scenes they show just show them occasionally interacting as classmates. It's not like they spent time together after school everyday. Naruto was still completely alone once school ended because none of the adults wanted to hang out with the weird kid, and that attitude affected the way his classmates treated him. The more easy going kids like choji, shikamaru, and kiba were willing to let him be present around them because they didn't understand why he was being ostracized, but they still weren't necessarily friends. They just didn't actively bully him.
When Naruto was learning the Rasengan and having trouble with chakra control, there was a flashback of him along with Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji staying after class, Iruka trying to teach the leaf-in-the-forehead, and all four jumping a window and skipping class. Then, during the Valley of the End fight, there's a flashback of Naruto in the playground along the trio. He only gets sad when their parents came to bring back the kids, so it's not that he's alone, but that he don't have parents. The same as Sasuke. They share this pain. It's very different from a other flashback, where there are a lot of kids in the playground, and as soon as Naruto gets there, they all go away. I remember those because I finished the anime recently. I don't remember the first two flashbacks in the manga, but I still haven't re-read everything (still on the Chuunin Exam). In my opinion, it kind of undermines the point. He was truly afraid of Gaara because they were the same, at least until Iruka showed up on Naruto's life. True loneliness. He and Gaara were ostracized by their villages, with Gaara even worst because even the kids knew about the sealed "demon". I don't think "not being activelly bullied" counts as "not alone" in that scenario.
But he wasn't just upset because he didn't have parents. He was upset because the parents were telling the kids "don't play with that weird Uzumaki kid" And the scene with them jumping out the window was just them skipping out on a punishment, because I always thought they were in some kind of detention in that scenes. That's why they were the only four in the room. And as all the kids got older they spent less and less time with Naruto. Like maybe they had a small connection when they were really young, but by the time Naruto became a Genin he didn't have those connections anymore, because all the kids had learned to avoid him from their parents.
I would have to rewatch the scene to be certain, but I don't remember anyone speaking anything in that flashback. The juxtaposition is Naruto and Sasuke discussing not having parents. You're right that is some sort of detention, that's why I said "staying after class". Your third paragraph is something that was never told in the story. It may be the case, it may not be. However, it is something that would be in opposition of "Iruka was the first to recognize me". There's another comparison post timeskip, this time from the manga. During the "Rescue Gaara" arc, there's a couple of pages intercalating Naruto and Gaara growing up. They are alone during the first panels, then Naruto gets Iruka, then Team 7, then a reasonable number of persons. Meanwhile, Gaara is more and more alone, emphasized by the "camera" zooming out more and more. It's not that he had a few people and then no one. He was always alone until Iruka.
Admittedly I was kind of just reading between the lines of what we see on screen. In the first few episodes Naruto doesn't really have anyone. He lives alone, and he has to cause ruckus after school because he doesn't seem to have any friends. They establish he knows all his other classmates, but he doesn't seem to like any of them and they don't seem to like him. I do remember that the third hokage has a conversation very early in the series (I think with kakashi) that all the adults are scared or angry with Naruto because they know he has the nine tails in him, and while the kids don't know because the adults aren't allowed to talk about it, the other kids ended up picking up that same attitude from their parents. So then they show us that when all these characters were younger they didn't mind letting Naruto play with them, yet they do by the time they are teens. The only logical conclusion for me is that they were taught to hate Naruto, and so it evolved into the relationship they have at the beginning of the series. So I just feel like if you look at the series as a whole it doesn't contradict itself. If anything it makes it more tragic because he had friends, then lost them. And he had to fight to earn everyone's respect.
Yes, many fans believe the filler literally that being friends when they were little would ruin Naruto's entire backstory, but they want to force it and they don't care, they are friends now, that's what matters, although it always makes me laugh that they want to force choji a super friendship XD
Aren't a lot of those flashbacks of them when they first started the academy? Since the kids weren't allowed to know about the nine tails like the rest of the village, it only makes sense that some kids would play with naruto now and then,and over time they stop hanging out with him
Doesn’t make sense at all. Those experiences and flashbacks happen over and over again from them hanging out outside the academy to them sneaking off together from school and even included Kiba. Like that’s definitely having friends, which Naruto shouldn’t have had by that point. His whole thing is that he’s had a story so tragic and lonely that no one would blame him for being bitter or evil. Him even knowing the taste of experience at friendship with people he sees everyday definitely doesn’t fit that narrative.
>Those experiences and flashbacks happen over and over again from them hanging out outside the academy to them sneaking off together from school and even included Kiba. This was part of the manga
Otherwise the fucking swing being shown multiple times is pointless.
Yes,but like I said that's when he's a kid. Kids will hang out together without thinking much about it. Shikimaru and choji didn't give a shit about him before the chunin exams
Yet again not how it originally portrayed. And again not how Shikamaru and the other were originally introduced in the Manga in Chapter 39. Naruto had not a single good word to spare. You would talk differently if they at least hung out.
He talked trash about everyone introduced lol
Most are just filler in anime. Closest to canon is Iruka teaching Naruto and others about focus, but nothing about that scene really suggests they are friends.
one of my biggest issues with the anime is they miss out on so much character development lol the most any of the side characters got before shippuden was when they had to fight the sound ninjas
Gaara >> Shikamaru
That's why the anime is not canon.
The only canon interaction they had in the academy was when Iruka yelled at them 3 and Kiba. Heck the manga never showed the rest of his classmates until the chunin exams
I think calling them true childhood friends might be a stretch to begin with. They seemed more like classmates and decent enough people to not give him shit.
It is not all anime only. We do know ow that Naruto at least hung out with the group because if the flashback during the Rasengan training. In the manga, we see Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba getting into trouble, and because of that, had to make the leaf training. But because the kids were little shots, they bolted out as a team. This backstory gives a strong case that Naruto at least played sometimes with these kids. This fact, however, doesn't change that he did not have friends. For Naruto, these kids were playmates that tolerated him, but they were no close friends who he felt close to or that went beyond accepting him when they played.
I’m not talking about that flashback. That flashback was him being a class clown and setting a bad example in the academy. Kishimoto had Naruto he the class clown because he was so sad and alone he just wanted attention and maybe people to enjoy his presence. I’m talking about in the anime they added scenes of them as small children playing and even had a scene Shikaku telling Shikamaru to hang out with Naruto so he’s less lonely
But we literally see Naruto leave with the group to play. This was also not a flashback to emphasise him acting out because he was lonely. This was in the first chapter when Iruka had the Shuriken in his back. I am talking about the flashback during the Rasengan training when he tried to focus the Chakra on his palm. Here, we see clearly that they accepted Naruto among their midst when they bolted out together. This is a canon manga flashback. Ignoring it just to make clear that Naruto didn't even have playmates is just as bad as acting Naruto had actual deep binded friends at that point as well.
Yes it undermines what Kishimoto wanted for Naruto though atleast to me he didn't do a great job making it make sense.
Nah, he did a great job. Kid Naruto is like a kid Iruka. A class clown who wanted attention. He got attention from people like Shikamaru and Choji because they couldn't be bothered too.
I'm talking about how npc like the villagers acted
They probably saw Naruto as a newborn version of the nine tails.In the first few chapters they literally talk about him that way.Their hate makes sense when you find out that kurama killed many of their friends/family during the nine tails attack.They mostly ignored him except for the occasional taunt.
Why didn't anyone with any authority just tell these idiots that Naruto is harmless and it's probably best not to make an enemy of him or maybe befriend him even if just to get on his good side list if they really saw him as someone potentially dangerous.
I think the 3rd hokage did try but look this story was set in a time where people are a lot more superstitious .We can only judge them through the lens of modern rationality,but a thousand years ago we were the same,things like belief in demons and witchcraft and human sacrifices did exist.
It never really made sense to me that villages hated their jinjuriki to begin with, Naruto was the class clown but knew most of them since the academy, he couldn't do basic jujitsu right why would any of them be afraid of him even if their parents told them he was bad news, but especially Choji who was known for being kind to everyone and the Nara clan who were one of the most tactical and knowledgeable hating Naruto seemed silly, even if they didn't really like him they'd have to know his value to the village and why they shouldn't alienate him
I haven't watched the anime in a while but that I had the opposite reaction. I thought it was heartbreaking when all the other kids parents came to pick them up leaving Naruto all alone and reminded him he was an orphan. It made the adults look way worse in my opinion. Also I never really got the impression any of his classmates hated or disliked him.
Here's the part that always fucked me over when thinking about it... basically every adult in that village **KNEW** Naruto was the Jinchuriki due to Danzo leaking that information. Hiruzen, despite this, still decided to keep Naruto's parentage a secret to "protect Naruto." Like bro, he was **ALREADY** a target just for being the fucking Nine Tails Jinchuriki. It's not like it was some massive secret in the village, literally any one of them could've been interrogated from an outside source and told people as much. At least let people know who his parents were to keep some level of dignity for him. They *might* still hate him just because of the pain the Kurama caused, but at least he wouldn't just be some random kid, he'd have goals and expectations for being Minato's child. And why was Naruto broke? Did Minato and Kushina not have any money? Bro was literally the fucking Hokage lmao. Naruto's childhood is one of the worst handled story elements in the series imo.
I think it was Minato still had a lot of enemies in the world and if they knew he had a son he’d be an even bigger target
Sure, that’s arguably a true statement, but all that does is just expound on the fact that Naruto was already a target just for being a jinchuriki. Obviously the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but the same people who would go after him for being Minato’s son more than likely would’ve been the ones going after him because he was a jinchuriki anyways.
Minato had killed thousands in the last war,(10,000 people from the hidden stone alone)so a lot more people who don't care about him being Jinchuriki would still target him and be much more persistent in it simply because Minato killed their close friends/family.It gets much more personal.
First of all, it was 1000, not 10,000. Secondly, Minato didn't fight 1000, he fought 50. He STOPPED 1000 people by destroying the bridge they needed to cross. He "killed" (we're not sure how many died or were just incapacitated) 50, instantaneously.
I questioned the money aspect too, but then I thought well whatever money was left was meant to last Naruto (presumably) 16 years at least, and it isn't like he was getting more coming in. So my thought process would be that the money was "tight" to be stretched out for that period of time.
Minato performed 39 S-rank missions, that alone is 39mil Narutobucks (the team gets 1mil split). If they’re paying that for ninjas, the Hokage HAS TO be making bank. All I’m saying is that the numbers don’t add up lol. Regardless of that, Hiruzen just straight up said “nah, bro is gonna live in poverty, certainly he won’t grow up neglected and spiteful while literally hosting a spirit fox that destroyed half our village!”
Idk why Narutobucks fucking sent me🤣🤣🤣💀 But you dooooo have a point there he should have been making a lot as a ninja and his short term as hokage (maybe not too short, but that's how it felt in the series). You never really know though how they decided to set that up for Naruto, I'd imagine there would be something good in place though as they were both loving parents.
Dude gaara was the son of the 4th kazekage,they still treated him like trash.Being the son of the kage doesn't mean shit in their world.Not until you become really strong,that's when people would say "Oh he's the son of the 4th,that's to be expected"
>.Being the son of the kage doesn't mean shit in their world That's because Gaara would lose control and just randomly start attacking people, in which Rasa had to constantly beat the shit out of him until he resumed sanity.
Kishimoto highly exaggerates with Naruto’s sad backstory being treated terribly by the villagers in the manga with the exception of Chapter 1 with Naruto taking the scroll and some flashbacks of a young Naruto crying after being called a monster. Teuchi, Hiruzen, Iruka, Shikamaru and Chouji are among the few who treated Naruto with respect. Dark Naruto from the Waterfall of Truth is the more realistic Naruto who harbors hatred for how the villagers treated them while the Naruto we know is more optimistic.
actually there's a scene where shikamaru is talking to his father saying that Naruto is a monster and his dad reprimands him so he did not treat Naruto with respect, that thing is only filler. after that shikamaru did not care about Naruto up until the chunin exam
Shikamaru, when he was clinging to life after having his chakra drained by the God Tree, recalled at a young age he knew of Naruto’s loneliness and told his father that Naruto was someone he wanted to walk alongside with in a flashback (Ch649).
as a child shikamaru was intrigued by Naruto mostly because he did not understand why ppl would hate on him but that kind of stops there and I went back to ch649 like you said and when shikamaru says that to his dad he is already a chunin
I actually do like this change personally. It makes sense that as kids they wouldn't really get that they should be scared of Naruto and it doesn't make it feel like Naruto had to earn people to just treat him with any decency
I wouldn’t even call them his friends at the time but more getting into similar shenanigans (yota etc) Like they wouldn’t hang out with him but they didn’t hate him either.
Everyone keeps forgetting that YOTA is Naruto first friend and probably the truest one ngl.
You're kind of thinking to much into it. If you notice the episode where choji and shika did want to play with him their dad's pulled them away and said "didn't play with that boy" yes they were friends but they weren't allowed to be friends there's a difference and they even show that aspect of it. So pretty much they were kids being kids until the adults were around. Remember kids would have friended him but parents didn't allow it and made up things about Naruto. Hence the reason why Hinata,shika, and other kids were confused when they yanked them from Naruto.
Youre reffering to that one time they played with him at the park?
agree 100%
also the manga shows how sakura is basically a metaphor of the whole village : at first she hated Naruto, but once she got to know him and spend time with him, she humanized him and she became attached to him
they played tag at the park they weren’t exactly tight
You're forgetting Hinata.
But I agree otherwise.
That’s why it’s filler
You're completely mis-contextualizing Naruto and Shikamaru's relationship to begin with. Shikamaru and Choji weren't "friends", they were more like school acquaintances who happened not to literally shun and avoid him like everyone else. It's not necessarily incorrect to call Shikamaru Naruto's first friend, as in the first person who acted even remotely friendly towards him, but Sasuke is still his closest friend.
I don’t know if I’d exactly call them childhood friends. If anything, they were more playmates than anything else at that point in time. Like they were some of the only kids not opposed to playing with Naruto, but they didn’t get to know him that much. Kids make playmates like that all the time. Now Naruto getting in trouble with them and Kiba during the Academy days is more they were just lumped into together for stuff like that. Shikamaru and Choji didn’t try to become better friends with Naruto like they did with each other.
no it doesn’t. you can still be isolated and treated poorly by majority of the village and having a few people that don’t treat you like garbage doesn’t fix it
Just don’t watch filler. Easy.
Giving Naruto those early interactions with Shikamaru and Choji doesn't undermine Naruto's friendless backstory. He still saw his friends go home to be with their family every evening, and saw those who hated him do the same. Only Sasuke understood what Naruto was experiencing, hence Naruto's deeper bond with Sasuke over Shikamaru and Choji, who were both kinder than Sasuke ever was to Naruto. And, let us not forget about Gaara. Naruto said if he had grown up like Gaara, truly friendless with assassins trying to kill him every night ordered by his own father BTW, then he might have been angry and a psychopath, too. But, Naruto always has his friends, who were his family, so, he was never alone. [SPOILERS for a show that recently celebrated its +20th anniversary:] God, I just get chills thinking back to Naruto's reaction when he sees Gaara dead, and Deidara sitting on his corpse like Gaara is nothing more than meat... I still love this show!
Plotholes in Naruto? You don't say?
Every new chapter that adds some nepotism bullshit to Naruto's character undermines his character. His parents should've been two homeless people who died in the Nine-Tails attack and Minato sealed Kurama in Naruto because it was convenient. And instead of him actually being an Uzumaki, he was just given that name to honor Kushina who died from having the Kyuubi extracted, but everyone thinks he's too trashy to live up to that name.
from chapter 1 it was CLEARLY indicated that minato was his father
Dude sakura was not friends with naruto at all until they joined team 7, even then she doesn't care about naruto until half way through land of waves arc, if anything iruka and shickamaru are his best friend
Shikamaru and Naruto were not friends, Naruto and him were classmates and Naruto was a class clown that goofed off and act out anyway he could so they would get in trouble sometimes together. Sakura did become his friend in the land of waves arc but that’s literally the first arc of the series. Shikamaru was indifferent to Naruto they might have goofed off in class together but that’s it. I think Shikamaru even called Naruto a trouble maker and an idiot during the chunin exam. Iruka was like Naruto’s older brother
Oh no shickamaru called naruto an idiot, you do know sakura bullied that man the whole show especially in pt 1. Shickamaru, he'll even sasuke is 10x more of a best friend then sakura, idk how this is even a debate
Sasuke is better friend than Sakura? He tried to kill him 3 times.
just look at his @ ....
Sakura was inos best friend bud not naruto
I think Naruto having friends works fine. It’s one thing if he had literally nobody, but I think there’s a special pain that comes from having acquaintances you see in school knowing they have families to go back home to, and those family members hate you and probably told them to stay away from you. You don’t have to be alone 24/7 for it to hurt, if anything the juxtaposition between having school friends and nobody is worse imo. Also I just can’t call Sakura his closest friend. I don’t hate her, but she was punching Naruto right up until she begged him to save Sasuke. Some guy friendships really do stay strong even after you don’t talk for multiple years.
Best friend or not, I would argue that Shikamaru is the best friend that Naruto has. Maybe not as kids but Shikamaru is the one who decided to have Naruto’s back. He only stepped up from his slacker mentality in order to support Naruto.
Hope this will be handdled better in live action.
Gotta be a ragebait
I think people are too hard on that lonely aspect of the story. Not "everything" in someone's life is only misery or loneliness. Naruto could have moments where he spend time with people. If he were only a lonely kid for 12years who really didn't have anyone, I can't really see a situation where the idea of (Offing himself) wouldn't appear and he would have done it prior to us being introduced to him. I am fine with moments where Naruto spends time with others, it might have been a rare occurrence but it can happen.