@El-Matematico:
I do remember this opening and I hate it. The whole "Sasuke is Naruto's only friend" thing irritates me since they never got along well, and part 1 already retconned Naruto's lonely past so that he was friends with Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba. Also, the singing guy's voice it's weird, like it's off-key several times.
What are you talking? That opening totaly is about how "Sasuke is Naruto's only real Love" and not how "Sasuke is Naruto's only friend". They didn't got along well, because they were tsun for each other! Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba previous friendship have nothing to do with this, because Naruto feeling for Sasuke is a lot stronger than mere friendship. Naruto even hyperventilated when he discovered that Sasuke was in Konoha Blacklist! That is real love! :ninja:
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@Outerspec:
^^All these openings. Nostalgia overload.
Shikamaru, Chouji, and Kiba weren't friends with Naruto. They talked to him a few times mostly out of curiosity and they were classmates, but mostly kept away from him along with most of the village.
Sorry, but they were! They were always together when making pranks and they played at the park together!
One of the only Naruto Flashbacks, is Naruto playing in a park with Shikamaru, Chouji and Kiba and then they going with their parents home and Naruto having nobody nor anywhere to go(Something that is fucking impossible, but let's not start talking about that right now), and so when walking around after that he finds Sasuke in the lake, like him, with nobody and nowhere to go.
Also Naruto remembers in the funeral of the Third Hokage, that he basically seen the third Hokage as the guy that would catch him and the gang(Shikamaru, Chouji and Kiba) every time they would do a prank together and it would scold them.
They really were friends since then, even though they treated each other with stupidity. Shikamaru was lazy and was bothered by everything, Chouji only cared about food, Naruto and Kiba were always trying to look cool(even thought they weren't) and badmouthing/looking down at the others, but mainly at each other.
The only thing that Naruto had with Sasuke was arguing all the time, looking down at each other, and had two short scenes of good cooperation, yep, exactly two scenes: Against Zabusa and against Haku. In the Chuunin Exam they didn't had any good time together, except when they were after Gaara, but unless I'm forgetting something, it was just go after somebody together and there was never any real cooperation. After that they fought against each other, almost killing each other and then it was at the Valley of the End, where they argued again.
Not only they weren't never that much as friends, but I believe they were only "friends" for around 6 months, the interval between Chunin Exams.
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@Outerspec:
The first missions Team 7 was given tasked them with things like babysitting, shopping in neighboring villages, potato digging, and tracking down lost cats. All very low level "D" ranked missions. The next most dangerous mission they received was a "C" ranked mission which tasked them to provide protection/escort duties (Zabuza/Haku Arc). They didn't get an "A" ranked mission until the Orochimaru invasion.
http://narutobase.net/manga/Naruto/116/18
Point is they definitely weren't doing "S" ranked missions right off the bat. If anything the problem with the mission rankings was the jump in difficulty from the tasks "D" ranked missions provided you with compared to the difficulty "C" ranked missions had going on. How are you supposed to go from babysitting a dude's kid to escorting a wanted man through hostile territory?
No, the mission against Zabuza was definitely an S ranked mission! The rank of the mission changed when they discovered that the client had lied to them in order to pay less. The initial mission was only to protect the guy from Konoha to his village from bandits that would appear in the middle of those points. It ended being not only protect him from bandits, but also from Gatou, the richest guy in the Naruto world, until the bridge finished building. Giving that Gatou contracted with Zabuza an Blacklist S ranked ninja, than the mission would certainly be S, and would be made by a group of Jounin or even Anbus(That at that time looked strong but only disappointed since then).
Kakachi being the intelligent and mature Ninja that he is should have returned with the client to Konoha and made a new contract, but because this is Shonen and where Good Morals, even if retarded, prevails, he decided to help him for free, taking noob kids with him! Yep, New Genins to a mission that could go from A to S.
If by mission in Orochimaru invansion you're talking of going after Gaara and stopping him than, at that time they were in state of War and emergency, that was an internal affair mission given by Kakachi a ninja that doesn't have the power to make that kind of decision. So basically it was an ad hoc mission and so it wasn't ranked nor even considered an official mission!
Sasuke Retrieval was also an internal affair and it wasn't ranked as well. That mission was getting Sasuke, a traitor Ninja, from the hands of an S rank criminal Ninja with an army, it was certainly an S ranked mission as well! A mission where our :ninja: GREAT :ninja: 5th Hokage Tsunade gave to 5 kids, a recently made Chuunin and 4 Genin. What can i say? An Excellent decision!