@SMUDGE:
Again I must stress that the Pain arc was to show without a doubt how much Naruto had surpassed all the others, therefore they weren't allowed to take away any of the limelight, including Kakashi. Although I believe they might have had a decent opportunity to fight someone like Konan, regardless of a victory or not.
Them not even trying, or doing a single thing to protect the citizens, and a handful of them not even being in town, is a piss poor way of doing it.
Only to carry on kishi important message about the next generation. Its pretty much the biggest message he tries to impose upon the ninjas of konoha. As shown with Tsunade and her tale entrusting Naruto with the necklace.
I'll grant that's one of the themes Kishi pushes heavily. There is also "history repeats itself" and "Hard work will take you far." Two of those are being fought constantly.
But 3 years younger isn't the "next generation.", its the same peer group And since Konohamaru appointed himself as Naruto's rival, it annoys me that he uses all Naruto's moves. Shouldn't he be trying to master something from his grandfather, the third hokage instead?
Also, isn't Naruto all about BREAKING the established cycle? Since him, Sasuke and Sakura are carbon cutouts of Jiraiya, Tsunade and Orochimaru, if he doesn't break the cycle then it means Konohamaru's dark haired friend is eventually going to become evil and betray everyone and his female friend is going to becomes Sakura's apprentice, lather rince repeat. Heck, his entire speech to Pain was to not follow what had come before.
As it is, I'm incredibly annoyed that this has apparently been going on since the first Uchihas and Uzimaki's, for generations upon generations and so Naruto and Sasuke were destined to do this , and that Naruto is in fact related to the fourth AND fifth hokages. (and possibly either of the first two as well) It kinda fight the OTHER main theme of "hard work will get you what you want, sorry Lee" by saying Naruto was just born into being destined to be great, and that it was all part of his father's master plan.
You might be able to flaunt a new move or two but that in know way covers their full new abilities, adopted attitudes or even the slight change in attitudes towards their roles. Again I must stress that if kishi was going to unveil them properly he would dedicate chapters to it, not a few mere lines, as shown with all the other fights involving the side characters. (except tenten)
Showing them for one panel every now and then only dirties them further. Pretty much how they were shown against Tobi and Kakuzu. If you want them to be taken seriously then you'd have to have more one on one drawn out battles to full reveal how they have progressed since their last encounter.
Well yeah, its 300 chapters too late NOW to fix the problem and go back to what he was doing right before. Of course it would be crammed if, at THIS point, he started trying to show everybody. But it would have been easy to do along the way. A few pages here, a chapter there. Like he HAD been doing.
Its fine that they're not the leads, but its not cool that they lost all spark of independance somewhere along the way and are just talking heads now, incapable of doing ANYTHING.
I would prefer to not see them at all then see some short clips of them embarrassing themselves.
Shonen staple that the weaker characters lose their fights. Its no shame losing to a far superior enemy. It IS a shame to stand back and go "Yeah, whatever, I'm just going to stare at this guy and do nothing."
During Pain they could have even been KILLED, with no long term side effect, due to the fruity dues ex machina at the end.
After all the ace they usually bring out is found towards the end of a fight, and the last time I checked they stood as spectators to the last three fights.
Thats exactly my point. Why even have them there at all, if thats all they're going to do?
They had to be given large portions in the beginning to show the competition Naruto would be facing as well as the various points of the ninja world that needed to be disclosed to the readers. By the time Naruto had surpassed them they had given enough to the plot and ran their course of being useful. Now the only time you will see them is to wrap up the plot twist set up from the beginning.
Then what the hell was the point of giving them further development in the chase Sasuke arc if thats all they were meant for? And they all failed THERE too. Choji and Neji basically died, and Kiba, Lee and Shikimaru couldn't beat their opponents till the Sand siblings showed up to save them. But them losing there did nothing to degrade them, they at least TRIED.
If all they were ever meant to be was tournament fodder, why give them unique backstories and depth, instead of just making them all assholes that the audience would have loved to hate? By having so many of them along in the rescue Sasuke arc, they were hiked up in importance. If they were meant to be nothing, Sasuke could have run off on his own, and Naruto could have chased him on his own.
Why not leave Choji and Neji dead, and Lee broken, to show the dangers of being a ninja? Why at the end have every last one of them swear "I will get better and stronger"?
It's that arc, more than any other, that made it seem like those guys were a permanent fixture of the world, that the series was going to be about this group of individuals. Drop that arc entirely, and I'd have no problem whatsoever agreeing with you that they were never meant to be anything more. Except they WERE there, and Shikimaru got another arc after that still.
I have a feeling that if Danzo manages to make it back to Konoha he will instruct root to take over in a finale coup de tat. If this comes to fruition then I'm sure we'll see the side characters make a grand re-entry into the chapters.
Nope. Never happen. They're never getting proper screen time again, I accepted that fact. And if it wasn't for the fact they tended to be more varied and interesting than the actual leads, that wouldn't be so bad.
Not always are the best routes taken but at least he tries something new rather than follow the typical plot set out by so many other authors.
Fine, don't compare him to his contemporary peers, or anyone that came before him, or any of the other literature in the history of mankind. Compare Kishi to Kishi. He was a better artist and storyteller in part 1, and clearly had more enthusiasm for the series.
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[/hide] You tell me which is more interesting, which tells more about a character?
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[/hide] where we get 8 different characters all reacting differently to Roger's death. Its JUST headshots, but because we ALREADY know the characters, we can fill in the blanks and extrapolate a lot and each of their expressions tells another story. (Not to mention the single shot of Moria tells an entire story by itself due to him not looking the same as he does later.)
