#back in middle school when i first watched the chunin exams

[hellcifrogs]

Out of topic, but do you think it could exist blind/mute/deaf ninjas?

Lol yeah? There are ninjas with missing limbs and body parts, magic eyes that slowly blind them and murderous energy beasts sealed on newborns left and right... Why are you stopping THERE? 🤣

[do-i-look-like-a-doctor]

okay but the Naruto universe is so fucking weird yet funny if you explain it and question it.

first, you have this lil orphan broke kid ninja boy named after a fishroll. then, you have an emo kid who acts like he got parents and a good way in life despite the fact he’s equally as much of an orphan as Mr. Broke-Blonde-Bitch. THEN you have this normal chick with pink hair who signed up for absolutely none of this nonsense yet got dragged into it. tell me why it’s these three against the world yet none of them can function together? it’s like watching ferrets hyped up on PCP fight over raw spaghetti noodles. dont even get me started when they were in school together, i can bet every person here 6 cents that at some point Sakura aka Ms. Fuckall got tired of Naruto and Sasuke’s bullshit and just tried to abandon them at an animal shelter.

speaking of school and general tomfoolery, why was the dude in charge of these three young squishy brained freaks the most depressed 20 something year old creature on the planet? i will admit, Kakashi is attractive and a great dude. he is so iconic, he misses his old team, and it’s clear he wanted best for his Group of Weird Children but he also reads porn all day and his mask probs smells like cheap aftershave.

if i was a 13 year old ninja child and i saw my sensai (who’s name sounds like cashew) doing all that i’d assume im either about to learn a sick ass skill (how to not cope with emotional trauma properly) or im about to get my ass handed to me. or im about to dropout.

back on track. so you’ve got orphan #1, orphan #2, Ms. Get-Me-Out-Of-Here, and Emotionally Repressed Man in one team. what do the kids do? beef for like 3048384 episodes. what does Kakashi do? try to teach them the power of friendship the entire damn series. oh, and let’s not forget that Naruto apparently has a demon fox inside him because of course he does.

anyways, once the team gets good at teaming they haul off to take their lil ninja exams. who do they meet? some kid named Gaara with smudged eyeliner and shaved brows. he’s a red-head, that’s cute. oh and he can control sand and tries to kill every child in the exams because his dad is a piece of shit hipster. who else do they meet? a kid named Rock Lee who can kick really hard, a girl named Tenten who wishes for all of us to stfu, and poor Neji who can’t keep doing this. there’s also some guy named Guy. yeah, the chunin exams nearly flop because Gaara doesn’t know how to act right.

all this is happening but the pivotal of it all? Sasuke decides to be extra emo and FUCKS OFF TO KILL HIS HALF BLIND SICKLY OLDER TWINK BROTHER.

then, Naruto decides he wants to harness his powers and FUCKS OFF WITH AN OLD ASS BUSHY HAIRED MAN WHO WRITES PORN. Jiraiya needs to be studied on a microscopic spiritual level. he is why SCP’s exist.

who let these kids out? i told you all not to feed the animals and look what happened. now theres beef between a group of kids and the akatsuki.

oh and the akatsuki?? don’t get me started. wtf is that. why is this group of fucked up people with weird powers who are being led by a ginger hive mind of corpses just wandering around? and why is Weasel, aka Itachi, in the middle of it with his goofy explosive hypnotic eyeballs? i want them all put down.

so you’ve got the evil eldirch horrors in the streets. thats fine. Naruto gets put into a new gang cuz Kakashi has to hospitalized. cool, whatever. Naruto decides to start hutning down his rogue boyfriend alongside Sakura, who became a sickass ninja doctor, along with his new sensei Yamato. wonderful… THEN SOME BITCH NAMED SAI SHOWS UP.

DO NOT GET ME STARTED.

what is that? why is it emo? why is its tongue tattooed? put it back outside bro i stg. i love him so much.

everything is just everywhere in this anime bro I can’t. Sasuke is no where to be seen, Naruto is doing fuckall across the world with his groupie, Kakashi is lowkey sad again cuz his kids are gone, and Sakura can barely breathe without issues occurring.

not just that but the twink brother named Weasel is being stupid and enables his own murder. yeah he basically wants Sasuke to come for his ass. meanwhile, Naruto comes home bigger, better, older but still broke and full of fox demon. still, not a single soul except his friends and teachers like him. shit gets even more wild, it becomes knock-off Cheetah Girls vs. The World.

girl i gotta go before i hurt someone. see yall in part 2.

(all of this is heavily unedited, apologies for mistakes)

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (5)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

START  / RREV / NEXT

Ms Iroi always tries to engage him in conversation whenever she comes in, asking questions and chatting to herself in a fruitless attempt at helping him recover his 'lost' memories. Most of the time, Kakashi is indifferent to her presence and always has a magazine handy as an excuse not to talk.

Today, Iroi is in a particularly good mood, humming to herself, greeting him with an energetic, “How are you doing today!”

Kakashi grunts a noncommittal response which doesn’t do much to discourage the woman’s good mood as she runs through a check-up routine.  

“You should try watching U.A’s sports festival tomorrow. I hear it’s going to be particularly spectacular this year,” she says as she pulls the blinds on Kakashi's window, blocking out the distant city lights. 

U.A? he recognises the name. Kakashi glances up over the pages of HERO!! MONTHLY BREAKDOWN. It is the third time he has read this issue.

“You know, since you like reading those hero magazines, I figured you would be interested in watching the ‘next generation of heroes’ debut,” she continues, noting his attention, “U.A always puts on a good show.”

Kakashi frowns. The problem with his amnesia cover story is that he is still trying to figure out what he can get away with not remembering. So far the doctor’s seem content to chalk up the disappearance of his long term memories to a ‘quirk’ accident but were always more concerned when he failed to recall basic factual information. Something to do with different parts of the brain being responsible for different types of information.

 “Watch how?” He settles on asking. U.A. was supposed to be a hero-training academy so whatever this ‘sports festival’ was was worth checking out. 

“Oh,” Iori pauses to think, “I, ah, think channel 2 with be covering it?” she hesitates, “You know what. I’ll look it up and let you know later. Sorry, I can’t carry my phone around with me while on shift.”

“Thank you.” He smiles and makes a show of returning to his magazine to dissuade further conversation.

Later the same evening, just before the end of the evening shift, Iori pokes her head into his room again. She is out of uniform, long hair untired, waving to catch his attention.

“The coverage is on channel 2 and starts at 11am,” She holds up her portable communication devise like it means something.  It probably did mean something. The frequency by which people checked them suggested it had a function beyond basic communication. He has held off attempting to steal one because, unlike pens, people would notice and care if one went missing.  

“Have fun watching! Oh… also, I forgot to ask…”

Kakashi raises a brow.

“I have a bunch of old gossip magazines. Mum used to read them all the time and there are a few hero-themed ones in the mix. I can bring them in if you want more stuff to read.” 

“If you want.” Iori must have noticed him re-reading the magazines. 

"I'll bring them on Friday!"

Iori had been unsubtly hinting that Kakashi might have had a history in heroics. It definitely wasn’t because reading information on a page just made sense when compared to the barrage of conflicting reports the television gave him. A few weeks with only the television as his information source has him writing off most of its information as useless or propaganda.  

…

...

“HEELLLOOOOO, LISTENERS!”

Kakashi stares dully as the video footage, which had been giving him a bird’s eye view of a positively massive stadium, changes to a sweeping shot of what must be thousands of people crammed into seats. It almost makes him claustrophobic just watching it.

“WELLCOME TO OUR ANNUAL U.A. SPORTS FESTIVAL! THE HIGH SCHOOL ADOLESCENT RODEO YOU ALL LOVE TO WATCH. CAN A GET A ‘OH YEAH!’”

As if of one mind, thousands of people leap to their feet screaming. The camera angle changes again to show a grinning blond-haired man, seated at a desk and pointing enthusiastically at the camera. All these shot changes are going to give him a headache. Kakashi is already having reservations watching this and its only10 minutes.

“Thank you! You’re an AMAZING audience!”

 It almost reminds him of the final Chunin Exam stages -if the Chunin exams had had three times the audience - which always involved some sort of combat display.  There hadn’t been any public Chunin Exams recently for reasons such as a large portion of Konoha being flattened by Pein.

“FIRST UP ARE OUR FIRST-YEAR EVENTS! And what an exciting round of events they are, perfect for debuting our newest students! Give us a shout so they can feel your support!”

Another loud shot as thousands of people yelled in unison.

“Come on! Louder than that! These are your future Heroes I’m talking about! SHOW THEM SOME LOVE!”

More yelling. Kakashi turns down the volume.

“But! Wait just a minute!! We're not only here for our Hero students! As I'm sure you all know, behind every great hero is a hardworking support team! GIVE IT UP FOR our Support, Management and General departments who are also competing for a chance to face off in the finals!”

Kakashi sighs. He is getting the sense that this might be more for entertainment than utility purposes, conforming to the general trend of Hero-related stuff being flashy. Different from the Chunin exam which had deadly consequences if not taken seriously.

“Hey. Hey! HERE THEY COME NOW! OUR STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN THE FIRST YEAR STAGE!”

What follows is an overly dramatized race where the only thing of interest to him are the obstacle types, including robots, - mobile mechanical weapons of some sort that produced a lot of environmental damage but were taken down fairly easily- and explosive devices that acted a lot like explosive tags. Then there was a team elimination round and one-on-one tournament fights after which the coverage shifts to the second year and third year stages.

He uncovers the sharingun only to discover that, while its memorisation function worked fine, the part that translated the movements into muscle memory felt off. Perhaps, the replication and copying component of the eye didn’t work when viewing a technique through a screen rather than in person. Interesting. As there wasn't anything particularly impressive technique-wise during the events he counts the new information as a net gain. 

The student-heroes – he is not sure if there is an official term for a hero in training – barely match Konoha’s academy standard in their taijutsu and physical conditioning though there was marked improvement between first, second and third-year groups. These students were what...between 14-18 years old...and yet most had the skill level of an academy  students and fresh genuin with only a few notable exceptions?

Sure, there were - honestly ridiculous- versatile and powerful bloodline abilities being thrown around like nothing, but ninjutsu techniques only took a shinobi so far without a strong base to work from. He shakes his head, reminding himself that these kids - because what else did you call combatants who hadn’t graduated yet- weren’t shinobi in training and would be policing civilians and engaging ‘Villains’ of similar skill levels. It was obvious that the students favoured non-lethal takedown methods and put little to no thought into stealth and misdirection during fights. 

Different words…different priorities. 

As Kakashi has yet to see any evidence that the country, Japan, was at war with another he thinks the skill level displayed might be serviceable. There were also no major conflicts between the country’s large cities over farmland, water sources and the like. Obviously, this place had sorted out the resource and distribution issues usually encountered when supporting such large populations. Or, who knows, maybe everything on the television was a carefully constructed lie to lull people into complacency.

Now he has seen an example of hero-students, he better understands the low combat ability demonstrated by the police. It also gives incite into the blurry recordings of Hero/Villain confrontations which played on repeat across the various ‘news’ reports. They all tended to hover around Chunin or maybe Special Jounin in terms of skill. He knows generalisations are dangerous so, until he saw the combat in person, he would exercise his usual level of caution. There were bound to be outliers after all-the impressive brute strength of the number one hero comes to mind- and there was no telling what advantages a bloodline ability might provide. Absently, he makes testing the susceptibly of people without chakra to genjustu as something to figure out sooner rather than later.

He sighs. This is why he hated the television. Whenever he watched it, he came away increasingly confused, with more questions than he had answers. Not to mention anything useful being constantly interrupted with information detailing one of the many products that he could apparently buy here. It irritated him to no end. 

...

...

The chakra collecting seal is ready before the week is out. Mostly ready...it was ready enough.

Kakashi returns to the roof. Sitting cross-legged, back against the stairway entrance, he works his way through the 100 or so pens, cracking them open and tapping out ink into a large bowl, stolen -like the pens -from hospital staff.

The mix of black, blue and red ink is gluggy, forcing him to add water to thin the solution out. Once satisfied he pulls out an appropriated scalpel – one of a growing collection hidden alongside his pens because having a stash of weapons is never a bad thing- pricking his middle finger, watching the blood drip and curdle with the mixture. The blood would be absorbed into the ink, allowing it to conduct chakra. He mixes everything with pair of disposable chopsticks, taking care not to spill it on the ground or stain his hands.

The whole process reminds him of other insistences where he had improvised fuinjutsu ink in the field. The last time being during his final Anbu missions where he had created a body storage scroll from scratch after unexpectedly losing a squad mate on what should have been a simple intel retrieval mission. Not a particularly fond memory but a memory he was stuck with.

Since his demotion to Jonin-sensei there had been fewer of those sorts of missions. Not that being a Jonin-sensei had been easy – considering all his students had gone off to find other teachers he didn't even think he had been particularly good at it - bringing with it its own special brand of stress, culminating in a stint as Hokage, a fourth war and him stuck here. He is pretty sure his experiences aren't universal. Team 7 was just cursed to fail in increasingly spectacular ways.

He lets out a heavy sigh, leaving his airways open to a sudden gust of cold wind which carries the scent of cleaning chemicals from the hospital and oil from the road straight up his nose. He exhales forcefully and mentally bumps finding a face mask up his list of priorities. It would be good for hiding his features and dulling the artificial smells of a city housing over a million people.

The sound of wind whistling around the building almost blocks out the echo of feet in the stairway, approaching his location. In one smooth motion, Kakashi stands pushing the remaining broken pen back into the vent, nudging the cover back in place with his foot. Carefully he holds the bowl of ink in his injured arm and a scalpel in the other. Kakashi steps back against the entrance so the outward opening door would hide him from whoever came out.

A crying kid comes barrelling through the door.

Well, not completely crying, more like sniffing loudly, eyes all shiny. He even recognises the kid from the U.A combat demonstration, as improbable as that was. It is the first year hero student with the speed-enhancing ability which, seeing him up close, probably had something to do with the strange growths coming out of his caff muscles. High speed movement put enormous strain on the body so he could reasonably conclude that the kid was physically resilient to acceleration stress and similar forces. Not resilient to stabbing though....

Kakashi forces himself to relax, his scalpel lowering ever so slightly. Lucky he had heard the kid coming or he might have accidentally hurt him. A few weeks of reduced sleep coupled with a lot of time to ruminate on past missions and failures has put him on edge. This was exactly why he disliked taking extended breaks. 

Maybe, Kakashi should start relocking the stairway if he was planning to make regular trips up here because the young male probably hadn’t had the roof in mind as a destination. Kakashi knows from experience that, unless you were injured or a member of staff, there were few good reasons to wander around a hospital at odd hours.

With the hero-student distracted sniffling into his arm, Kakashi slips around the door and back down the stairs. He hadn’t planned on applying the seal on the roof anyway. Too exposed to the elements and the concrete was too rough for the delicate line work.

He continues mixing while he walks, having mentally mapped the hospital well enough to know which hallways to use and which to avoid. There is a surgeon with some sort of heat-sensing vision who works late most nights that he must be careful around and a nurse with a weak proximity based empathic ability working in paediatrics. Both obstacles force him to take a meandering detour on his way to the ground floor and  the larger shower blocks which housed  cubicles the size of small rooms. Enough smooth floorspace for the expanded seal design and easy to clean afterwards. He supposes he is lucky, some complicated fuinjutsu required several meters worth of floor space. The containment on Saskue’s cursed seal comes to mind and he is glad that this seal is infinity smaller.

Not one to waste time knowing that nurses and patients regularly used the space even this late in the evening, he immediately slips into a cubicle upon arrival. Flopping onto the floor he pulls out the paintbrush he had had scour the hospital for and eventually to steal from the children’s ward. Carefully, he begins the slow process of application.

…

…

The final seal design is circular, about the size of his splayed hand, positioned on his uninjured shoulder just above where his Anbu seal had previously sat. The sleepwear provided by the hospital had sleeves that extend just past his bicep. It hid the design, for the most part. The final visible seal is a bit bigger than he had predicted or planned for. If this were a proper infiltration mission, where blowing his cover came at the price of death, he would be in big trouble. If this were a proper mission, he would have waited before applying this. An unnecessary risk. He itches the back of his head, turning from where he is craning his neck to see the seal, gathering up his supplies to be thrown in one of the hospital’s many rubbish bins. Kakashi lets out a breath. Maybe, this whole ‘trapped in a different world’ thing is affecting him more than he was willing to admit and making him sloppy.

He pulls down the sleeve so it mostly hides the design. Not like the doctors here would recognise the significance of fuinjutsu, he reminds himself, even if their questions would be annoying to deflect.

He pumps chakra into the seal and a jolt akin to lightning runs down his limb. It activates without issue and Kakashi grimaces as his chakra is slowly drained and collected. The rate of the drain is pathetically slow. Three years too slow. But, between this and his sharingan - which was always active and draining chakra- he can’t risk making it quicker. Despite the relatively low-level threats around him, Kakashi is, first and foremost, a Jonin in an unknown territory who is already taking risks simply making and applying the seal. He can’t afford to impair himself with poor chakra management on top of everything else.

Kakashi pops his head out of the cubical, scanning the shower block. Nothing of note has changed and he darts out, intent on returning to his room. He is tired and it would be a long, tiresome week as his body adjusted to the strain as well.

NEXT  

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Update on my attempt to catch up on both Naruto and Boruto on Crunchyroll (probably a bad idea to switch between the series but whatever):

1) So the last time I watched Naruto religiously was back in middle school which for me was over a decade ago. Specifically, I stopped around the Chunin Exams and Gaara fighting Naruto. The reason I bring this up is that I remember when Hanabi was just a little girl, so seeing her as a grown-up and getting drunk threw me off. Also, the comments threw me off since a lot of them were thirsting over her. It was like that scene in Game of Thrones where Arya had sex for the first time, it’s just awkward since you first saw her when she was a kid. 

2) I actually don’t mind the fillers, especially when they’re funny. I tend to like the slice-of-life/comedy anime over the typical shonen stuff, so the fillers aren’t a problem for me. It’s only the really, really, really bad ones that bother me (like the one where Naruto becomes Tony Stark for some reason). 

3) Older Mirai Sarutobi is wonderful. 

4) Along the same lines of point 1, I remember when Shino was this mysterious guy who seemed to be the smartest one in the room. It was mainly because of his glasses and hoodies that gave off that impression. So it was really jarring to see his redesign in Boruto. I don’t know, there’s something about the visors that just seem off to me. He looks like a wannabe Geordi La Forge.

[shewhoridesonrainbows]

Words Upon Your Skin - Ch. 2

AO3

Chapter 1 * Chapter 2 * Chapter 3 * Chapter 4

Marinette was stressed. 

It was four weeks and three days since someone stole the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous from top fashion designer, Gabriel Agreste, and his assistant, Nathalie Sancoeur. Neither of the former-villains remember anything from the last five months and, until the Miraculous Heroes get to the bottom of it, they were keeping the identities of Hawkmoth and Mayura close to the vest. 

Another thing the heroes were hiding was the truth about Mme. Agreste. The official story was that she had been a Jane Doe in another country after an accident and Gabriel had only recently found her. After Ladybug told Gabriel what the consequences of his wish would've been he agreed to put her in the best hospital in Paris.

Marinette growled as she ran her fingers roughly through her hair, halfway undoing the braid she'd put her hair in that morning. Her last year in school was starting soon and all she could do was worry about the Thief.

Why did they take the brooches? How did they find Hawkmoth's lair? What's their plan? WHO ARE THEY? Are they biding their time, learning how to use the Miraculous? She didn’t even have Master Fu to help anymore since he had used the last of the magic keeping him alive to erase Gabriel and Natalie’s minds of anything dealing with the Miraculous.

"UGH! I'M GOING TO GO CRAZY THINKING ABOUT THIS!" The sudden shout startled Tikki and Plagg, who were both curled up napping together in the windowsill.

As soon as they were able to find time alone that disastrous day, Marinette had revealed herself to Adrien. Tears were shed, hugs happened. They'd even tried dating for a brief (very brief) time but quickly realized that neither of them were in the emotional headspace to be anything other than friends with the other. And they both really needed a friend.

Which is why Adrien was currently sprawled out on her chaise, headphones on and blasting the latest Jagged Stone album. One of her old magazines blocking his face from view.

"C'mon Lil' Bug," Plagg yawned, "I was in the middle of such a nice dream." The God of Destruction floated down to her, landing on top of her head and curling up. "I was surrounded by cheese..."

Tikki watched her Chosen as Plagg rambled on about his dumb cheese dream. She knew that Plagg and her balanced each other out, that all of her Bugs needed one of Plagg's Kittens so they wouldn't burn themselves out. Plagg was doing his best to lighten Marinette's mood but what she really needed was the boy that was trying to deafen himself if the noise coming from those headphones were anything to go by.

While Marinette was distracted by Plagg, Tikki zipped across the room to get Adrien's attention. She hovered right between the blond's nose and the magazine in front of him, green eyes going crosseyed to look at her. Tikki motioned for him to turn the music off so they could talk.

"What's-" he started, but Tikki shushed him. He tried again in a whisper, "What's up Tikki?" He leaned forward to close the distance and set the magazine down.

"Marinette is seriously stressed out!" It almost sounded like a hiss. "The Thief is all she can think about and if you don't take that girl out and do something fun, Right. Now. I will personally make sure you'll never find you left socks ever again."

"Tikki, socks aren't left or right, they're for both feet," Adrien chuckled. He made the mistake of thinking Tikki was joking. Hint: she wasn't.

The tiny red Goddess started to vibrate, magic slowly being released from her body.

"Do you want to test me, Adrien Agreste?" Eyes wide and barely able to swallow down fear, Adrien stood up abruptly.

"Come on, Marinette," he said a tad too brightly to be completely real, "Let's go get ice-cream and maybe we'll hit up that fabric store you like!"

"What are y-" Marinette didn't finish her question before Adrien was grabbing her wrist and dragging her down the stairs. The Kwamii quickly sped after the teens, zipping into Marinette’s purse as she grabbed it from the hook by the door. Adrien and Marinette were on the street before he slowed down long enough to look back at her.

“Sorry about that Mari, but you’re stressing way too much to be healthy so you need an afternoon off.” Adrien pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly typed up Andre’s Ice-Cream. “And hey, Andre’s cart is close by, we won’t even have to walk far.”

Marinette relaxed just a teensy bit at how caring her Chaton was. Of course she’d noticed that Tikki had said something to her partner, and by his sudden eagerness for ice-cream Marinette could guess the gist of what that ‘something’ was, but she could still feel the love from both of them.

“Alright, but slow down, Kitty,” she smiled, “I’d still like my arm attached.” That got Adrien to stop completely and they both looked down at the grip he had around her wrist.

“Oh,” he winced and let go. She rolled her shoulder as he continued, “I’m sorry, Bugaboo. Guess I got a little overzealous.”

“It’s ok.” Marinette glanced ahead and could see the ice-cream cart on the corner at the end of the street. She looked back at Adrien and grinned. “Bet I can get to Andre first.”

He turned around, grinned back at Marinette, then stepped backwards to line up with where she stood. “And what do I win when you don’t?”

 She stretched her legs as she thought about a worthy prize. “Well,” he started limbering up too, “on the off chance that you beat me, I promise that we can have a full day of no Thief talk. Just us, some video games that I’ll definitely beat you at, and all the leftover pastries we can eat.” They both straightened and Adrien reached his hand out. 

“I like that idea, and if you win I’ll buy every bit of supplies you’ll need for your next three projects.”

Marinette’s grin widened as she shook his hand, “Prepare for your wallet to lighten considerably, Agreste.”

With the conditions agreed upon they hadn’t even let go of the other’s hand completely before taking off. Adrien had long legs but Marinette was quicker on her feet so she shot passed him immediately. She laughed as she drew closer to the ice cream cart, just inches ahead of the other but stumbled to a stop when she heard the voices coming from around the corner. Adrien had just enough time to give her a startled look before running straight into a group of girls that had appeared from around the building. He knocked over the leader of the pack and they both fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Apologies started to form on his lips as he jumped back and stood up, until he got a good look at the girl. There, still lying on the ground, was Lila Rossi. Her hair was shorter but it was definitely her. Adrien took a quick moment to bemoan his bad luck before shoving down the voice in his head that was telling him to let the liar stay on the ground. He put on his most forced smile and reached towards her. “I’m sorry, Lila, I didn’t see you in time.”

Lila smiled sweetly back at him and grasped the offered hand, pulling herself up. 

“It’s ok, Adrien,” she started. “I know how good Andre’s ice cream tastes and I’d be running to it too,” she paused then began to rub at her ankle, “if I hadn’t twisted my ankle while I was in Gotham.”

“Really?” came Rose’s voice. Adrien looked over at the rest of the group, all of them were the girls from his class. “What happened?”

Adrien could feel three pairs of eyes roll behind him as Marinette stepped forward to stand at his side. Eye contact with Mari confirmed that they both knew what was going to happen next. Here comes some long winded tale about how Lila tripped while saving some celebrity’s hamster or something.

“Well,” Lila began as everyone was served ice cream from Andre, of course Adrien and Marinette were shoved to the back of the line. “As you know, my mother is a diplomat so I was touring America with her during our summer vacation. During our stop in Gotham, which is such a beautiful city by the way, I was caught up in a villain attack.” Lila paused a second for her audience to gasp. 

“I know, I know. It was scary. Especially since Ladybug wasn’t there to be able to Cure everything. My mother and I were dining with Bruce Wayne and his family when the windows were shattered. Everything was a bit of a blur but the next thing I knew Scarecrow had grabbed me by my ponytail and was about to inject me with his Scare Toxin. Luckily I noticed a knife from the table had fallen close to me so I grabbed it and sacrificed my hair so I could get away.”

There was a chorus of ‘oh no’s from the other girls. Except for Mari. Mari had to hold back a snort because Adrien had leaned over and whispered, “Like Sakura during the Chunin Exams?” in her ear.

Lila was still smugly going on.

“I twisted my ankle when Scarecrow lunged at me, making me trip over a chair. Lucky for me Batman and one of his sidekicks swung in and saved the day. He told me that cutting my hair saved my life and might’ve saved everyone else’s because it distracted Scarecrow long enough for Batman to get there.” 

Lila sat back and took in all the oo’s and ah’s from the group around her. Alya grabbed Lila’s attention and asked, “Can I interview you again for the Ladyblog?”

“Of course you can,” Lila smiled. “I’ll try to fit it in my schedule, I met my soulmate while I was there and Dami likes to take up a lot of my time. I was actually in Gotham to meet him in the first place.”

The mention of soulmates had Rose almost frothing at the mouth.

“Oh my god how romantic!” she grabbed a hold of Juleka’s hand and beamed at her girlfriend. “Remember when we met and found out we were meant to be?” The taller nodded but Lila coughed gently to get everyone’s attention again.

“Yeah, it was really special, how Dami and I figured it out. It was right after the attack and Dami asked for my number, he said he wanted to be able to check up on me but it was obvious that he had fallen for me. So when he wrote my number on his hand and it appeared on mine too we knew we’d found our soulmates in each other.”

“Wait,” someone piped up from the other side, “he was at the restaurant during the attack?” 

Lila feigned surprise, “I’m sorry I keep forgetting only those close to him call him ‘Dami’.” She giggled a little. “I told you I was dining with the Wayne family, my soulmate is Damian Wayne.”

Marinette almost gagged. Of course, Lila was claiming to be soulmates with the heir to some huge fortune an ocean away. Marinette tugged on Adrien’s sleeve.

“Come on, I don’t feel like ice-cream today,” she said when he looked down at her. She smiled weakly and continued, “Besides, you won the race so what do you say to starting my winning streak early?” She knew he could see through her but she knew he’d go along with it if only to get her away from Lila.

“Sure thing, Buginette.” And, without another word, they turned around and walked back to the bakery, leaving Lila to spin her tales to those that had refused to listen to Marinette a year ago.

Marinette felt safe to vent halfway down the street. Adrien nodded along because he knew she needed to let out some steam.

“Lila is so easy to prove wrong,” she began. “Like, all they need to do is look up anything about a Scarecrow attack over the summer and bam!” Marinette clapped her hands together. “But nooo, they're just going to believe the story. I love them but sometimes they’re about as dumb as a box of hair.”

Marinette waved her hands around during her rant and something caught Adrien’s eye. His focused zeroed in on the marks on her left arm. 

“Mari, hold on a sec,” he said, grabbing her wrist for the second time that day.

“What is it?” 

“Was this here earlier?” They both examined the words written on her arm. Her eyes went wide.

“No,” she squeaked out and looked back up at her partner. “Adrien does this…”

He grinned at her. “Marinette, you’re soulmate wrote to you.”

They must’ve broken records with how quickly they ran back to Marinette’s house, desperate to get to her computer. After a quick Google, it looked like “11pm Pier 5 Bring Titus” didn’t mean jack shit without a specific city to go with it. Adrien pushed himself away from the desk with a frustrated sigh.

“Looks like you’ll just have to write them back and ask what they meant,” Adrien stated. He turned and looked at Mari sitting on the chaise, analyzing her arm as the writing faded. She hadn’t said a word since the markings first appeared. “What’s wrong Bugaboo?”

She finally tore her gaze away from her (now clear) skin. Her voice was barely a whisper, “This is the first time my soulmate has ever written me.”

Adrien was startled by this. 

“You’ve never had even a dot appear?”

“Never,” she shook her head.

“What kid never draws on themselves? Hell, even I doodled on my arm at one point and you know how Gabe is.”

The thought made Marinette wince. “What kind of parents do they have that they were never able to even try to contact me?” 

They sat in silence until Mari jumped up and grabbed the nearest pen with a determined expression. “Well, whatever life they had before this is over, they’re going to have so much support and encouragement from me their arms will look like those inspirational posters.”

Adrien could only smile as his lady got to work scribbling on her arms.

NEXT

[realitachifacts]

🍫 - a box of chocolates

i’m not sure if i did this right or not but i had an idea so Here We Go. thanks for sending an ask!!! i might’ve messed up the timeline but it’s whatever. also omfg it’s so long for a drabble whoops.

-…-

He doesn’t remember the day when he was a year old.

He doesn’t remember the day when he was two years old.

He doesn’t remember the day when he was three years old, or maybe he does, but there’s this sort of unconsciousness memory repression he has, regarding events involving the majority of his family members.

He remembers one thing from the day when he was four years old. His mother walks over, she sits down next to him on wooden steps outside the house and she meets his eyes and there’s this summer bright smile all over her face and she asks Itachi how he’d feel about having a younger sibling. He returns that smile, teeth white like the unblemished moon and says that would make him very happy. His mother hands him a small box of chocolates, the outside pink as soft flower down and there’s a cartoon animal, looks almost like a ferret, on the side. He’s replayed the memory a few times in his head, and he can never remember the time of day, the weather. It’s different each time, midday, hot breath of breeze and flinching young leaves, midnight, an ink sky with stars indented in it as if it’s been fashioned with millions of tiny diamonds.

When he’s five, the day is far more memorable. Itachi is going to be joining the academy soon, there’s pulsing in his heart over that, excitement, he’s been working on the fireball jutsu and shurikenjutsu outside of class, has mastered the former even to the point of his father’s satisfaction. His body was glowing warmer and brighter than those licks of red and orange and red and yellow and red tongues of flame hot inches above the lake’s surface. Anyways, he sits outside, Sasuke there in his arms, and their mother’s gotten Itachi a box of chocolates, same as last time, namesake cartoon of an animal right there, curled up into the pink of the box. He’s been told Sasuke isn’t allowed to have any of the chocolates yet, and Itachi, he can’t wait until he’s old enough to share. Itachi loves sweets, the way they melt so soft against his tongue. He wonders if Sasuke will feel the same. There’s a half moon like a sideways smile thousands and thousands of miles up in the air.

When he’s six, just months from seven, things again are crystal bright in his mind. A few weeks left before Academy finals, which Itachi has no worry over, none at all, and he’s sitting outside on the porch again, Sasuke there too, few months from two, sitting in his older brother’s lap. Itachi is eating chocolates, same brand as before, same gift from his mother, and Sasuke reaches for one. “Oh? You want one of these?” Itachi says, small grin, closed lips on his face, sweet expression, and Sasuke nods, reaches out further. Itachi gives him one, and Sasuke chews it for just a bit, before spitting it out, all disgusted, lip curled high at the edge, and Itachi sighs.

“Ew.” Sasuke whines, and Itachi lets out a light breath of amusement.

“Sorry about that, Sasuke.”

When he’s seven, it’s another memorable day. He’s nearly mastered the sharingan, the third black comma mark edging the iris is finally there, and something Itachi realizes that he likes is genjutsu, mind manipulation and alteration and shifting of reality. He’s getting better and better at it. Sasuke sits to the left of him, again on those wooden steps, damp and rotting inside from the recent rainfalls. And it’s even become a joking tradition to give Itachi the chocolates, brand name a play on his own, word for weasel. Sasuke watches him eat in silence, seems to have learned his lesson from last time, swings his legs back in forth in loose scissor motions. Itachi looks over at him.

“Hm?”

Sasuke’s head whips up and he looks at Itachi like he always does, like his older brother has given him the world. “How do I make my eyes red?”

Sasuke’s seen him training, probably, Itachi thinks. “It’s called the sharingan. You’ll probably be able to do it when you’re older.” Tries to keep it simplistic, terms for a two and a half year old.

“Sha…rin…gan.” Sasuke seems to feel out the word on his tongue. It’s quiet again for a few moments and crickets sing in the dusky light, brightness dying down as the sun edges into sleep. Sasuke points to Itachi’s chocolate box. “Can I have one?”

Itachi smiles softly and hands one over to Sasuke, who chews it, looks all disgusted, but at least has the decency not to spit it out this time. He swallows with a grimace. “Ew.”

Itachi smiles almost guiltily. “Sorry about that, Sasuke. Try not to eat any more in the future.”

Sasuke just pouts at that.

Year eight is uneventful, year nine even more so.

When he’s ten, Itachi is in the middle of the Chunin exams, and deep down in his heart he nearly pleads for Sasuke to be the focus of their parents’ love and adoration, to have a day of his own. He’s a few hours into the Forest of Death, trees stretch long necks of trunks up to reach for the heavens, knotted branches grasp into thin air. Drops of light bleed down between the few areas where the sun can slip through wood and leaves. Itachi reaches into his small pack of tools for a kunai knife, there’s a fish in his other hand, ready to be gutted, and Itachi feels an. Object. Of some sort, in the ninja pouch. He pulls it out.

Pink box of chocolates, “Good Luck!” sprawled across the top in Sasuke’s rough and messy handwriting. Itachi smiles. He’ll pass the exam. He won’t let Sasuke down ever.

He’s a Chunin at eleven, in ANBU at twelve, or maybe earlier than that, these are all all memories he wants nothing more than ever to forget.

When he’s thirteen, it’s the worst. He stands in the Hokage’s office because he is supposed to be on a mission right now, the sky is milky pale with dawn and caterpillar bloated white clouds, and Itachi is talking to the Hokage, oh so very annoyed and scared and anxious, a barely teenager just restraining shaking at the edges of his skin.

“My clan won’t relent. The likelihood is that we’ll have to continue with our last resort plan soon.” Itachi keeps his voice placating. “Lord Hokage. Don’t send me on the mission. I would like just one last holiday with my parents… One last holiday with my brother.” Sasuke, pure and clean of all this black sin and corruption, one last holiday for Itachi’s favorite person in the whole wide world. And the third Hokage looks Itachi Uchiha up and down with those wise old owl eyes, assessing everything about him, every one of Itachi’s movements, fidgets gnarled and wrinkled fingers down the neck of his pipe. Makes a ‘hmmm’ sound. 

“Very well.”

His voice is so, so raspy, Itachi thinks.

That night, Itachi sits with his brother on the porch, and Sasuke goes on to talk about his day at school and all of the kids in his class and this one boy who particularly annoys him, and Itachi drowns himself in every word because his aching heart knows that he may never hear them, Sasuke sounding excited, happy to see him. Eventually, their mother tells them to go inside, and Itachi walks up to his room, and there’s this pink box of chocolates with a cartoon ferret on the side nestled there in his sheets, and Sasuke’s handwriting is across the top, quickly scrawled note of “I love you forever, Itachi!”.

Life is cruel, Itachi thinks.

He eats one of the chocolates, unable to stomach the rest.

When he’s fourteen, he spends his first Valentine’s day in the Akatsuki. They don’t celebrate Valentine’s day, not really, and he’s recently been assigned a new partner, ocean mist blue-gray skin and shark gills, tall man named Kisame, who Itachi respects, he’s a strong fighter at the very least. The two have a sort of mutual understanding, they leave each other alone, communicate only when necessary, not because they don’t like each other, just because Itachi truly just wants to be isolated from most everyone. He’s reclusive. They both know this. And that’s why Itachi is surprised when Kisame sits next to him, out in the rain speckled grass outside the inn, looking up at the white spider eyes of stars in the darkness and forcing his face, his body into not displaying emotions. 

“Eh? Somethin’ on your mind?” Kisame asks, and Itachi is silent. Doesn’t even look over.

Neither of them speak for a long, long time.

Kisame gets up. “Look, I’m not one for drinking myself, but you’re down right now, so c’mon, I’ll pay.”

Itachi keeps his eyes on the stars. “I wouldn’t be able to, even if I desired it. I’m fourteen.”

“Yer HOW OLD now?!” Kisame gapes. “Heheh, fourteen? Damn, I thought you were twenty or somethin’. You sure look it, and ya act that way. I guess the world is full of surprises, huh?” He waves his hand as he walks back to the inn. “G’night.”

“Kisame.” Itachi turns, oh so slightly, looks straight at Kisame.

“Hm?” Kisame turns to meet his gaze with his shark eyes, black and pale.

“Thank you.”

That night, Itachi looks deep, deep into his tools pack. He finds a small pink box, writing on the top, at the bottom. He eats a single chocolate from it, and none of them have gone stale, even a little bit.

He reads the writing at the top again and again and again before he goes to sleep that night. 

It’s starting to get harder to. 

The words are a bit blurry.

When he’s fifteen, nothing all that important happens. He and Kisame are in some small village in the Land of Fire, their organization’s numbers are growing, and Itachi is glad, at least, he has a partner he can tolerate, one he’s even grown to consider a close friend.

His only friend.

Really, it’s… not as if there’s a large pool to choose from. But Itachi isn’t very social, as it is, isn’t fond of making or maintaining friends in the dangerous world he lives in now, wearing a black cloak with red clouds. There’s no important mission that day and so Kisame takes Itachi to a small tea shop, one of his favorite things, there’s mainly silence, Kisame shares a few words to a nearly empty room, Itachi nods at a few of them, responds to even fewer. It doesn’t bother his partner, though. They’ve come to accept this as their friendship.

They camp under a full moon that night and Itachi eats another chocolate, again miraculously not stale. He reads the words on the box until his head hurts.

His heart hurts, too.

He knows Sasuke doesn’t mean them anymore.

But that’s for the better.

Years sixteen and seventeen are uneventful. Itachi eats a chocolate each time.

When he’s eighteen, things begin to get worse. He’d seen his brother again, for the first time in years, and he looks colder, Itachi thinks, he looks broken, and he charged at Itachi with lightning in his hand and fire in his eyes and sharingan irises the color of the petals of lover’s roses and Itachi grabbed his arm, and forced Sasuke to relive his pain again and again and again and he told him how he lacked hate, a motivator, if anything, and he wants his brother to get stronger, but he’s beginning to wonder, really, if he’s doing this the right way, because Sasuke has become someone made of cracking glass.

“He looks like you, ya know.” Kisame said, at the time, and Itachi agrees, silently. They’re brothers, after all. But Kisame says little about it after that. As far as he knows, as far as everyone knows, Itachi could care less about Sasuke, if he lives or dies. It’s not an appropriate topic to broach, even with his best friend.

The day itself is boring. 

He spends most of it on the road, walking under trees alive with birds.

Itachi eats another chocolate that night.

It takes significantly more effort than he’s used to to make out each word written on the pink box, with the ferret on it.

When he’s nineteen, things are the worst they’ve been in a long time.

Itachi is at the side of the road, his whole body is aching and rush after rush of hot blood leaves his mouth with each cough, his whole body shivers, wracked with trembling and spasms. Eventually, he leans back against a tree, breathing heavy, and Kisame sits next to him, watching oh so very carefully.

“It’s gettin’ worse.” There’s concern, actually, in his voice.

“I’m aware.” It’s not dismissive, it’s sad, lonely, like a lost ghost. It’s hard to come to terms with these things, after all. “I’ve been taking medications and trying to care for my body otherwise, but there’s little more I can do than that.”

They try to start down the trail again but it’s clear that it really isn’t a good day for Itachi, not at all, so they camp in the woods that night, and Kisame catches some fish for them, and Itachi starts a fire with a Fire Style jutsu, and Itachi doesn’t want it but he takes it anyways, thanks Kisame for the effort he’s put in. 

Itachi keeps track of the days. He eats another chocolate.

He can only read two of the five words his brother has written, now. But maybe if Sasuke’s handwriting was better at the time, that would be different.

When he’s twenty, he eats the last chocolate in the box. Only one of the words Sasuke wrote is distinguishable to fading, dying eyes.

Now he’s twenty one, and he’s grocery shopping, of all things, with Kisame, they’re walking down the aisles and Itachi cannot believe even a little bit that nobody has approached them yet, that there haven’t been any strange looks. Still. They reach what is probably the candy aisle, Itachi thinks, and his eyes drift down it all bored before they stop on something.

Familiar, almost.

It’s pink, and there’s a shape on the side, white and brown, amorphous, indistinguishable. He tries to read the brand name, the lettering, any of the words.

He can’t.

They’re all faded blurs in his eyes.

Itachi picks up the box, motions to Kisame, who walks over. “What is the brand name?”

Kisame tells him. It’s… exactly what Itachi expected.

“You like sweet stuff. We should get it for you, it’s even got a ferret on the box. A weasel, just for you, heheh.”

Itachi thinks. He’s silent for a while.

He puts the box back on the shelf.

“I’ll be alright.”

That night, Itachi is back at the inn, and the moon in the sky is full and bloodied red, crimson dripping over it like a fresh severed corpse, like a heart pumping fast from love. He pulls the box, empty, from the bottom of his bag. It smells like chocolate, faintly. Itachi walks outside, walks for a long, long time before he’s nowhere, at least to him. He sits on the ground, under a pine tree that’s likely older than the oldest building in the whole entire land. Itachi’s chest jolts in pain and then he’s coughing out warm blood, digging his fingers into fabric, clenching to alleviate the suffering somehow, he has one hand over his mouth but even then drops slip between fingers and when he pulls it back his hand is stained liquid garnet. Itachi cleans his hands and mouth with some water from a small canteen. He’s started carrying one for this purpose.

Itachi uses his ninja tools to carve a small fire pit into the dusty soil. 

He looks at the area on the box where black meets pink, and he can’t even read a single letter anymore, but he knows what all of them say, he’s read Sasuke’s note over and over and over again, he knows the words by heart. Itachi places the box in the pit, nestled into loose earth. He is dying, and he knows he is dying, and he wants to and will soon be dead, and he knows how he wants it to happen. The Sasuke who gave him chocolates is not the one he will meet in a few weeks, or at most, few months. It’s best to cleanse these memories from his mind. Give them the funerals they deserve. 

He uses fireball jutsu to set the box aflame, it’s careful and controlled, and within minutes there’s nothing left but puffs of silky gray ash and charcoal.

Itachi looks up at the sky.

The reflection of a blood moon dances across the crow talon darkness of his irises, sharingan dormant.

I love you forever, Itachi!

“I love you forever too, Sasuke.” Itachi whispers, and there’s nobody to hear him except the night sky and the moon and the trees and the millions and millions of stars all around them. 

[amandajoyce118]

Friday Five: Naruto Characters

I told you guys you would be getting plenty of Sailor Moon and Naruto content over the next few weeks. Sorry, the work just keeps piling up for those two shows, so I keep watching and rewatching anime episodes.

This week, it’s my favorite Naruto characters since I have three Naruto lists in the works right now for ScreenRant. Yes, that’s right. I said three. This blog might accidentally be turning into a Naruto blog.

Admittedly, I’ve only read bits and pieces of the manga and only seen specific arcs of Shippuden, so there are definitely characters I don’t know. My favorites could change. But, right now, during my fevered binge watching, these are my faves.

And yes, even though the manga/show is years old, uh, spoiler warning, I guess?

Five: Tenten

Tenten suffers from a severe lack of character development. She’s one of the few women in the series that doesn’t get a whole lot of story outside of her fighting with her team. What we know about her is that she’s got perfect aim, she doesn’t specialize in one weapon because she can use them all, she has a huge admiration for her team, she’s all about the greater good, and she never gives up. I mean… that’s actually a lot for someone who doesn’t get a ton of personal development. I think I love her because she’s as good as the boys. Naruto’s universe has a tendency to make the women really, really good at one thing, and then turn them into the damsel in distress. See: how many times Sakura or Hinata end up as hostages even after proving themselves or how Ino doesn’t really participate in fights outside of using her mind control even though she attended the Academy like everyone else. Tenten, despite us not getting a lot of her personal backstory, gets to engage in a way the other women don’t. And she cameos in Boruto as someone who is still a genius with weapons, creating a massive obstacle course for the chunin exams. I hope we get to see more of her.

Four: Hinata

Hinata has a reputation for being weak. She’s not a master of a ton of jutsus. She’s not great at hand-to-hand combat. And she’s as shy as possible. But that’s all when the audience first meets her. You want to talk about a character who experiences real growth? There’s been no character arc with as much growth on television since Pacey Witter. (Yes, I did just reference Dawson’s Creek while talking about Naruto. What.) Hinata develops her own jutsu. She trains in the middle of the night to do it. She forces herself to become a better ninja so that the rest of her friends don’t have to keep saving her life. She wants to be useful and she wants to help people. Her instinct to protect people outweighs probably only Naruto’s himself. She starts out timid and afraid of a fight, but her chunin exam against Neji? Such a formative moment for her, refusing to back down, and trying to prove she’s more than what people thought. And yes, people can say she was a stalker all they want, but she’s not a textbook stalker. She admired Naruto for his nerve, and she used that to inspire her own training. She never got in the way of his other relationships. She never tried to do anything that made him uncomfortable. She was just too shy to become his friend for a very long time, but she got there. Just… so much growth.

Three: Asuma

Asuma’s exasperation with his team is one of my favorite things about this show. He’s like that cool teacher you had in school who you know was probably talking shit about the students behind their backs because he was too amused by these immature kids. He’s going to teach you a few life lessons while you’re goofing off, and you don’t realize it until it’s too late. I love that he’s not just a sensei to Ino-Shika-Cho. He’s more like family. This group hangs out together when they aren’t training or on a mission - with Asuma - which we don’t see from a lot of the other groups. I don’t know. Maybe I have a skewed perception of him because I refuse to watch the episodes that I know he doesn’t make it out of. (And yes, he’s the only character on this list that doesn’t live to see the Boruto series. Clearly, I get attached to, mostly, the right people.)

Two: Temari

As soon as Temari of the Sand Village was introduced, I knew i would like her. She’s secure in her abilities, clearly cares about her boys, and her ninja specialty involves a giant fan. What’s not to love? One of the things I found interesting about her right away was that you didn’t know if she was going to be a hero or a villain. The Sand Village genin were made out to be the villains in their first appearance, but really, they were manipulated into it. Temari’s biggest concern is making sure Gaara and Kankuro make it out of the Hidden Leaf Village alive. Even though she knows that people think of them as an enemy, she still comes back just one arc later to save Shikamaru’s ass when he’s getting beaten by a woman playing a flute - and she does it with so much style. I love that her story takes her from being a possible enemy to being a diplomatic liaison too as she teaches classes at the Academy and runs messages back and forth. I also like that her caustic nature means you don’t always know when she’s flirting, or if she’s really just that mean. Like her calling Shikamaru a crybaby after his first mission as a chunin is a failure. Once you know her, you know that’s just her way of telling him he needs to be stronger, but it’s also probably a little payback for him conceding his match to her and not fighting her outright with a lame excuse. She’s just a badass.

One: Shikamaru

Normally, I don’t really rank my Friday Fives. They’re just five topics thrown up here. But Shikamaru is hands down my favorite character. I love that this lazy, sarcastic, dick is actually a genius and the kind of ninja who regularly puts his life on the line for his friends. I love his friendship with Choji and his unconditional support of him when everyone else makes fun of him. I love that despite how much Ino annoys him, he treats her like his sister. I also love, probably to no one’s surprise, the development of his relationship with Temari. He sees her as troublesome, but lets his guard down around her early on. His whole “women are a drag” thing up against Temari’s “men are all the same” is just too entertaining. I’d watch a spinoff just about the two of them. His shadow posession jutsu is also one of the most interesting in the franchise to me. It’s got such clear advantages and weaknesses that a writer could do so much with it. He grows up to be the advisor to the Hokage, not living an average, boring life like he initially wanted either. What’s not to love?

Narrowly missing making my top 5: Ino, Choji (because Ino-Shika-Cho really deserved more screentime, you guys, but I already had one of the three on here and their sensei), and Konohamaru. Admittedly, I like Konohamaru as an adult in Boruto more than I like the child in Naruto. That’s why he didn’t make this list and Tenten edged him out.

[creative-type]

The Problem with the Chunin Exams

Though I didn’t know it at the time, Naruto was my first anime and my first anime love. I was exposed to it through the American dub as a kid without realizing it was Japanese or based on a comic. In my defense, this was before we had internet at my house, and at best I was only able to watch it every other weekend because my dad had cable and my mom didn’t. 

I dropped the anime when it started into filler hell and switched over to the manga in high school. I started at the timeskip and caught up to the weekly release around the Naruto-Kakuzu fight. Over the years I grew dissatisfied with the story, though I don’t really have a single moment where I gave up on it entirely. There was a slow decrease in excitement, going from eagerly waiting for the latest spoilers, to reading each chapter as they released, to dropping the manga entirely, and only picking it up again to see the final arc through and being incredibly frustrated with the finale, wondering week to week just where things went wrong.

All this to say, I’m not writing this as a hater. I loved Naruto like I love precious few stories, and though I don’t feel that way now doesn’t stop the series from holding a special place in my childhood. I reread the first 87 chapters to prepare for this - seeing many of them in the manga for the first time - and what I read reinforced what I’ve thought for a long time:

The Chunin Exam arc occurred too early in the series. My reasoning is under the cut, but be warned that long post is long. I regret nothing.

I don’t want this post to turn into a Naruto bash-fest to make One Piece look better in comparison, but in my analysis of the build up to the Arlong Park arc, one of the points I tried to make was that by letting the series build organically to an emotional peak tho “big moments” don’t feel cheap and are much more powerful to the reader.

Naruto starts much faster than One Piece does. It establishes Naruto as a character, introduces Team 7, and gets through the Wave Mission arc by chapter 33. In comparison, chapter 33 for One Piece was the middle of Usopp’s recruitment arc and had yet to have the series’s first, for lack of a better term, epic moments.

The problem for Naruto is that the Chunin Exam arc starts in chapter 34 with the introduction of the Sand Siblings. There’s no time to wind back down, no time for the audience to catch its breath, and no time to explore some of the milestones that were made in the Land of Waves.

And I’m not just talking power ups here, although that would be nice. There are several emotional significant moments for several different characters that are left hanging. I think the most obvious is Sasuke, so we’ll start with him

Team Seven’s Lost Development

Sasuke has a ton of focus even in these early chapters before the Uchia’s took over the plot, and I think it would be fair to say that Naruto and Sasuke are less main character and rival and more deuteragonists with branching stories that interconnect at key points of their lives.

This is taken from when Sasuke saves Naruto from Haku during the climax of the arc. Note the past tense. At this point in time, Sasuke no longer hates Naruto. Through the whole Wave arc there have been moments showing the evolution from Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship from a bitter one-sided rivalry into them actually acting like teammates. The Naruto-Saskuke dynamic is arguably the most important thing in the entire series, and the audience can’t be expected to believe later on that they have this super strong friendship without scenes like this. 

Then immediately after the Wave arc we get this

The relationship has soured once more. Sakua even says a few pages later that their relationship is worse than it was before the mission.

I don’t call shenanigans on scenes like this because Naruto and Sasuke are both emotionally stunted orphans unused to interpersonal relationships. There’s a good chance that they don’t know how they’re supposed to react after going through such an emotional life or death scenario. 

However, I can and will call shenanigans on events like the Valley of the End or the entirety of Part II because the author never shows Naruto and Sasuke growing beyond this petty antagonism. Instead of being written as two outcasts regressing to avoid dealing with the feels of the Wave arc, the Naruto-Sasuke dynamic stinks of sticking to the status quo. 

Sasuke and Naruto aren’t the only ones hit with this, but I tend to give Sakura more of a pass because her character growth happens during the Exams. There are several little hints of Sakura’s increasing awareness of how far behind she is from the boys sprinkled throughout to early exam chapters before hitting the bulk of her character arc during the Forest of Death. There’s even a nice little moment during the written exam where she actually considers someone other than Sasuke for what feels like the first time in the series

The problem here is that this development isn’t given enough set up. I would trade six panels of Sasuke looking cool to see just one interaction between Sakura and her parents. It is absolutely abysmal character writing that we learn about Sakura’s former friendship with Ino from Shikimaru and their rivalry from a freaking info box

Why did Sakura become a ninja? What do her civilian parents think about her being in life-threatening situations as a 12 year old girl? How does she feel about being the only (besides Naruto, as far as she knows) to graduate without a bloodline or family jutsu? What’s the deal with her “Inner Sakura”, is she just repressed, or is there some sort of split personality going on there? Does she have a crush on Sasuke for any reason other than his alleged cuteness? Why didn’t she ever apologize to Naruto for saying that she was jealous he was an orphan, even though he wasn’t present at the time?

Whether intentional or not, Kishimoto made Sakura a very unlikable character early on. I for one remember despising her when first watching the series. And you know what, that’s okay. Each member of Team 7 has enormous personality flaws, and having them slowly overcome said flaws makes for a strong narrative.

The thing is, it takes more time to develop an unsympathetic character than it does one who is sympathetic, and Sakura gets the least character development out of all Team 7 (Kakashi included). This is exacerbated by the fact that she is physically the weakest and does the least during fights - a huge flaw for a main character in a battle manga to have.

Lastly, Sakura’s greatest assets - her intelligence and superior chakra control - are rarely presented as useful. In fact, during her fight with Ino she falls into a basic trap, and the only thing that saves Sakura is her willpower...split personality...whatever the Inner Sakura is. It’s not really made clear and never shows up again.

And speaking of ignored plot points, remember this?

Do you remember Kakashi’s reaction to the possible weakening of the seal keeping in the Nine-Tailed Fox? You know, the innately evil demon monster that can level mountains with just one of its tails?

Yeah, that never gets addressed before the Chunin Exams.

Sakura and Sasuke have an excuse because they didn’t actually see Naruto, but Kakashi is never shown pulling Naruto aside and asking him what happened or taking steps to keep it from happening again. Naruto - the Leaf Village’s Number 1 loudmouth ninja - never asks what happened or is worried that he might lose control to a monster.

Also recall that Naruto decides on his Ninja Way during the Wave arc, yelling it out for everyone to hear because of how upset he was about having to fight and nearly kill someone he liked. This clashes with the current system, a fact Kakashi points out, but Kakashi doesn’t warn Naruto about the potential dangers of this line of thinking, nor are the ramifications of having kids act as child soldiers ever explored.

It’s things like this that make the time taken between major arcs so, so, so important. Not only does it give the characters (and audience) time to process what happened, but quiet moments can lead to incredible character growth, or at least set up later growth that in turn becomes more powerful and realistic because it was properly set up to begin with. 

Establishing Secondary Characters

When rereading the primaries for the third round of the exams, three fights stick out as carrying the most emotional weight: Rock Lee vs Gaara, Hinata vs Neji, and Sakura vs Ino.

I’ve already touched on the travesty of the Sakura-Ino rivalry, and while Rock Lee was also introduced during the exams, his motivation and character were established pretty well during the early parts of the arc.

That leaves us with Hinata vs Neji (and later on Naruto vs Neji). Now, out of the Leave genin introduced during the exams, only Ino and Hinata have any real connection to Team 7, and considering Hinata’s place as possible love interest to the main character, she’s arguably the most important to the narrative. Not that she’s ever treated that way, but I digress. Her wholehearted, albeit silent, support for Naruto sets her apart from almost every other character thus far, and her timid, gentle nature is a nice contrast to, well, almost every other character thus far. 

(In case it’s not apparent, I really enjoyed Hinata in Part I. I’ll try to keep my bias to a minimum) 

In addition, Hinata brings a nice spin on the “hard work trumps natural talent” theme that at this point was important to the story. Unlike Rock Lee and Naruto who (supposedly) are neither talented nor from powerful families, Hinata is a character from a powerful family who has no talent, and has to work past her weakness and overcome the burden of being the heir of one of Konoha’s most prominent families.

We learn none of this until her fight with Neji.

Time is an integral part of tension, and previously establishing conflict would go a long way in getting rid of some of the more awkward exposition dumps. For the Hinata-Neji fight Kishimoto has to explain 1) the byakugan 2) the gentle fist style 3) chakra points 4) how Neji and Hinata are related 5) Hinata’s struggle to better herself and 6) Neji hatred of the main house/fatalist mindset. 

That is a ton of information to try to get across in a short period of time, and this isn’t an isolated thing. These mega info dumps aren’t quite as pronounced during Rock Lee and Sakura’s fights, but they’re certainly there. To be fair, it can be hard to convey to the reader what’s going on without some kind of commentator character, but nothing kills the flow of a fight by cutting away from it constantly.

Lastly - and this is again pulling back and looking at the series as a whole - Hinata is basically ignored after this fight, so whatever character development she gets is lessened because there’s no followup.

To be fair, I am just talking about Hinata in this instance. Neji goes through significant growth during the rest of Part I before being mostly ignored in Part II. Because of her injuries Hinata a non-factor during the invasion, and obviously she wasn’t picked to recruit Tsunde or retrieve Sasuke.

This lack of focus has the unfortunate side effect of making the Hinata-Neji fight nothing more than a reason to hype the Naruto-Neji fight. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with hype, and in fact it’s necessary when looking at the arc as a whole. At the same time, it’s also clear Kishi had no idea how to handle the ensemble cast he’d created during the exams.

This mishandling of secondary characters becomes an even bigger issue during Part II, when Shikimaru becomes the only one of the former rookies to get any sort of character focus. Hinata is a favorite of mine, but I don’t buy her love confession anymore than I do Sakura’s, because she’s never seen interacting with Naruto. She is in love with the idea of who she thinks he is (much like Sakura and Sasuke, to be honest. Maybe Kishi should just stay away from romantic subplots.)

I mean, it’s well over 100 chapters before Hinata’s confession is even addressed in canon. I don’t think they have a word for how terrible that kind of writing is.

Fixing the Problem of the Chunin Exams

It can be almost impossible to have “slow” chapters while trying stay up in Shonen Jump’s popularity polls, and I don’t envy the mangaka trying to plan their manga under crushing schedule of weekly serialization, but using the power of retrospect, this is how I would have gone about fixing the problem of the chunin exams.

Firstly, I would have had at least a few of the other rookies be present in the first chapters. Ino would have been a good one to slip in the background when introducing Sakura.

Secondly, I would show the entire rescue the Fire Lady’s cat mission. This might seem stupid, but it would give a baseline for Team 7′s teamwork ability, and give Sakura a chance to show off her brain. For example, Naruto and/or Sasuke could attempt a simple henge only for Sakura to tell them that a cat will still be able to smell them. Something simple like that to establish she’s not absolutely useless.

Thirdly, during the Wave arc I would have Kakashi assign Sakura alternate training, planting the first seed of how far behind the boys she is in terms of ability. This could be anything from working on a jutsu to practicing infiltration to being responsible for setting up booby traps around the house for protection (which would not only make her immediately useful in the Wave arc, but be a nice call forward to the traps she sets during the Forest of Death).

I’d have Team 7 run into Asuma, Ino, Choji, and Shikimaru upon returning from Wave, introducing the concept of the Rookie 9 and Sakura’s rivalry. I would also have Naruto ask Sasuke if they want to train together sometime. In this scenario Sasuke reluctantly agrees, but during the training Naruto asks who Sasuke’s brother is and why Sasuke would want to kill him. This goes about as well as can be expected,  thus souring their relationship into the canon state I pointed out earlier.

Forced to train alone, Naruto runs across Hinata working on her taijutsu after Kiba and Shino have gone home for the night. I don’t know if Hinata’s shyness would let her speak in such a situation, but Naruto sees how hard she’s training and tells her to keep up the good work. 

Alternately

Team 7 could run across Team Gai at some point, and the audience is introduced to Kakashi and Gai’s rivalry. The Sasuke vs Lee fight from the exams is moved here, while Neji acts like enough of a douche for Naruto to hate him on principle. I kind of like the idea of Sasuke respecting Lee for working to beat someone stronger than he is, which would give Sasuke an added anchor to the village outside of Naruto (for added tragedy when he defects/humanizing him in the present) and give another reason for Lee to chase after Sasuke later in the series.

I would also put a scene where Kakashi asks Naruto about what happened when the seal weakened and/or telling the Hokage about the fox. This would also be a good time for Naruto to first contemplate telling Sakura and Sasuke that he’s a vessel for the fox.

No matter what happened, I would do a repeat of the team’s first cat mission just to show off how far our band of lovable ninjas has come.

Lastly, when Kakashi hands out the application for the exams I would have Sakura talk to her parents about it, or at the very least get their reaction. It would not only give Sakura greater depth but also be a good chance for some world building.

All of this could be done in a chapter or two and without breaking the flow to the exams. Hell, Kishi could have sent them on another C Ranked mission to another country and get in some sorely-needed world building and set up some of the political side of the chunin exams. The possibilities are endless.

In Conclusion 

The older I get, the more convinced I become that it’s the stuff that goes on between major story beats that’s most important when developing a story’s emotional tone. It’s a little thing, but it gives a story depth. Unfortunately, it’s a thing that Kishimoto failed to do, and it’s a flaw that only worsened as time went on.

Agree of disagree, thanks for taking the time to read the ramblings of a disenchanted fan. Going over these early chapters reminded me of how good early Naruto was, flaws and all. I don’t regret all the time I’ve put into this series over the years regardless of the omnishambles it turned out to be.

But hey, at least there’s fanfiction.

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Meets New Characters And Rallies Around Rock Lee

Welcome back to the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I'm Carolyn, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we covered episodes 43-49, and we continue this week with episodes 50-56.

  Let's be honest, I like me some good pathos. While the exams are definitely one of my favorite arcs in this series, I can't help but be drawn into the aftermath of the one-on-one tournaments. Especially poor Rock Lee's physical devastation that he's still somehow determined to overcome. The gut-wrenching stuff is the stuff that really gets me. Anyway, enough of that.

  Let's get on with what really matters... you. Or in this case, reader WiseJake237, with a good question about Rock Lee and chakra!

    Yeah, the Rock Lee vs. Gaara fight is really cool, but one thing's got me confused. If Lee can only use Taijutsu, how is he able to master the forbidden art of opening the gates that control chakra flow? Doesn't controlling chakra fall under the category of Ninjutsu?

  Nate: I think the difference is that Ninjutsu molds chakra to create something, like a spell--Sasuke molds chakra to do a fire jutsu, for example, while Lee is just actively releasing chakra in his body to power it up. He's not actively using it as much as he's channeling it, but that's just my take on it.

  OK, let's see how the Crunchyroll Features team is holding up after this week's episodes!

  Naruto has taken to saying his signature catchphrase “Believe it!" a bit less. Do you miss it?

  Kara: He still -dattebayo’s a little at the end once in a while, but yeah. I wasn’t sure if it was just me noticing it less or if Naruto really was saying it less. I don’t really miss it so much, but that could be because it achieved joke status in my circles so quickly.

  Joseph: I feel like he’s doing his little vocal tic just as much as ever, they just don’t always bother giving it the “believe it” flavor in the subs.

  Peter: I didn’t even notice.

  Paul: I think Naruto's still doing his “-dattebayo” speech affectation about as much as usual, but he has fewer lines in this batch of episodes, because they focus more on the supporting characters.

  Jared: I feel like I still heard it here and there, but it wasn’t enough to make me think it wasn’t as frequent, so I guess I really didn’t miss it much.

  Danni: It’s always felt like an awkward addition, so I don’t miss it, honestly.

  Kevin: Honestly, since I’m watching this subbed, I only occasionally caught the “dattebayo” anyway, so him not saying it as much really doesn’t make a difference to me.

  Naruto has come face-to-face with the Nine-Tailed Fox and that thing is terrifying. How do you think this event will change/shape Naruto’s journey to becoming Hokage?

    Kara: This is seriously exciting! I’ve been waiting to see how that comes into play. So far, Naruto has had to learn to exert discipline over his own impulses and personality. He’s doing a lot better than he was but, you know… Naruto is still Naruto. Now he’s going to have to do the same with something that’s a lot bigger and scarier than anything about him personally. I’m interested to see how taming the Nine-Tailed Fox helps him discipline himself.

  Joseph: This is a really big event, and while I don’t know that it was handled as expertly as it could have been, the Nine-Tailed Fox is an appropriately intimidating entity. Also, tick the box, because pushing Naruto in this direction is the first cool thing Jiraiya has done.

  Peter: I always thought Kishimoto steamrolled what I thought would be a huge revelation for Naruto. He discovered the reason he was ostracized as a child was he had a literal demon sealed inside him and didn’t even bother investigating it? I suppose it changes nothing but it probably wouldn’t have taken too much effort to discover who his father was after that. He kind of doesn’t even interface with it despite going kyubi several times until the finale of this stretches final episode.

  Paul: Personally, I think Megumi Hayashibara's turn as Hakumen no Mono in Ushio and Tora is the scariest incarnation of a nine-tailed fox that I've seen in anime, but Tessho Genda's take in Naruto is a close second. I love that Naruto's reaction is to belligerently demand that the fox fork over some Chakra, like he's a deadbeat roommate living in Naruto's body. As for the final question, Naruto becomes Hokage? OMG! Spoilers!

  Jared: I’m real curious to see just how much of a power boost this gives him initially and how that’ll help him in the final bits of the chunin exams. I also liked how he just didn’t back down from it which earlier Naruto might have done.

  Danni: I expected a multi-episode stretch where Naruto literally has to fight his inner demon to earn his power, so I was pleasantly surprised to find his inner demon is just kind of a deadbeat roommate finally forking over all the rent money he owes.

  Kevin: *Looks ahead to Shippuden* Uhh… I plead the Fifth on the grounds that I legitimately don’t want to spoil what happens.

  David: While I too know from experience how this plays out, I wanted to point out that its placement in the story is pretty perfect as a mirror or counter of sorts to Sasuke’s own internal power issues. It’s going to be interesting to see how differently they each handle their newly discovered powers.

  So … we’ve met Jiraiya and he’s really something, isn’t he? If this is your first introduction to the Pervy Sage, what are your thoughts on him so far? If you know how Jiraiya turns out, how do you feel about this introduction?

    Kara: So I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before, but years ago I messed around with the old Billy vs. Snakeman game on Anime Cubed. That started out with Naruto one-offs but eventually brought in Bleach and Death Note and a lot of other stuff. So whenever I see a new character, I immediately think of their BvS counterpart—which means I only think of the comical view of them. It was really cool seeing that Jiraiya is actually kind of a badass, and but for one thing, I would 100% name him New Favorite Character.

  Joseph: I have all the cool stuff he does later in my head, so I forgot what a dip Jiraiya was in the beginning. What a dopey introduction for a cool character. I thought Naruto already had pervy dudes in it but I guess they didn’t have the ultimate requisite perv sage yet.

  Peter: I completely forgot how bad he was. I guess I didn’t think about it much back in high school when I first watched Naruto but man Jiraiya really sucks. Tsunade was the only good to come of that squad.

Paul: If I could go the rest of my life without encountering another example of the Shonen Jump “perv” character creeping on girls from the bushes, I would be able to die with no regrets, fist raised to the Heavens, Raoh from Fist of the North Star-style.

  Jared: They really wanted to nail down and beat you over the head with the fact that Jiraiya is a skeevy dude and leers at women constantly. I hope what everyone’s saying that he becomes better is true because oof, that was a bad first impression.

  Danni: He’s just Roshi for a new generation of Jump readers, and like Roshi the only thing about him I like is his big animal friend.

  Kevin: I am part of the group that has seen the show before, and this introduction really doesn’t do Jiraiya service. He’s awesome and is actually really important to the overall backstory of the world, but this paints him as just a pervert who is experienced enough to teach Naruto, and seems to have a bit of backstory that we don’t know yet.

  David: Jiraiya, as he is right now, isn’t a very likable character in my opinion. If I remember correctly, he does get more interesting and fun to watch later, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for coming out of this introduction with a bad taste in their mouths. Compare to Kakashi, who reads questionable material out in the open but isn’t quite such a creep.

  Speaking of Pervy Sages, the Sexy Jutsu is back in full force. Is that killing this part of the story for you? It feels quite creepy seeing Jiraiya constantly ogling his underage student.

    Kara: Yeah. That’s the one thing that stops me from naming him New Favorite Character. It doesn’t kill this part of the story, entirely, but it does shake me out of it temporarily. I understand it’s meant to be funny, but wow no. Stop. Please.

  Joseph: It’s 100% clear that Jiraiya is like three bushes away from being concealed enough from the public eye to have sex with Naruto in Sexy Jutsu form. It’s a bad gag.

  Peter: Oof.

  Paul: Blargh. I like the idea of three legendary ninja that are so strong that they basically answer to no one except themselves. It reminds me of the Seven Warlords and the Four Emperors from One Piece, and how their presence (or absence) can completely tilt the political balance and set world-shaking events in motion. I just wish it wasn't wrapped up in a package like Jiraiya as he's currently presented.

  Jared: Ban sexy jutsu and ban Jiraiya doing this.

  Danni: I hate the frog man.

  Kevin: Can’t say I disagree. Honestly, most of the time I’m not too upset about the Sexy Jutsu, since generally, it is either on screen for a short time or Naruto is using it in a surprisingly strategic way, but the scenes with Jiraiya are where it got legitimately uncomfortable at times, as the middle-aged man gets a nosebleed from someone he explicitly knows is a 12-year-old boy who just looks female (and decidedly not 12) for the moment.

  David: The only blessing here is that there is a pretty large gap between times when Sexy Jutsu rears its ugly head.

  Man, Rock Lee, you guys. Given how much everyone has loved him over the past couple weeks, how are you all holding up watching his brutal, emotional journey?

  Kara: ROCK LEE DESERVES BETTER. That said, I was kind of surprised to see that the show didn’t immediately reward “hard work and guts,” but instead chose to show actual consequences for using a killer move.

  Joseph: It’s a bummer of an ending to Rock Lee’s battle, but I kind of love that about it. Rather than giving him a victoriously explosive finale, Kishimoto totally ripped him up and put him back further than square one. With that said, please get well soon, Lee, we love you.

  Peter: Sakura’s line at the end really killed the scene for me, kind of implying neither girl has even attempted to work as hard, not just Rock Lee, but any of the boys in the cast. I really like Rock. I’m not sure if he ever really gets a narrative pay-off but both Kishimoto and Pierrot love to show off his power so in that way he gets a lot more than similar characters like Chad.

  Paul: If you'll pardon the pro-wrestling reference, Rock Lee is clearly the Mick Foley of Naruto, in that everybody loves him yet his most famous matches tend to involve him getting his ass royally kicked. I don't like to see Lee suffer like this, but I also know that, on the meta-textual level, there was no way in heck he was going to beat Gaara. That's just not how these kinds of story arcs are written.

  Jared: The Rock Lee comeback tour starts now. I’m even more curious to see where they go with him as the guy who tried his hardest and still came up short, so where mentally does he go from here. Even if he wasn’t able to beat Gaara, he’s still a winner in my heart.

  Danni: I really, really wanted him to win, but I’m at least satisfied with how he lost. He fought to the bitter end, past the brink of consciousness. I have a sneaking suspicion his ninja days aren’t over yet.

  Kevin: This is largely why I think people love Lee so much. Sure, you got to see him grow in power immensely during his fight, but he really endears himself to the audience by not giving up on his dreams, even when literally everyone is telling him that there is no hope of achieving them.

  David: Always, always a fan of when stories get you excited about a character, have them lose or fail in some way, yet manage to only leverage that to make you like them even more. Rock Lee is a huge winner in that area.

  And on that note, the one-on-one battle portion of the exams was a popular arc. Is this new arc jarring? Is it a welcome change? How are you all adjusting to the post-exam arc?

  Kara: I loved the battles so much, and I loved finally getting to meet a lot of these other characters. But after all that, I really am kind of ready to bring it back down to our protagonist again. Unlike the bit before the Chunin Exam, though, I feel like this period of time is letting us see the growth of the characters and letting those events take hold more permanently. Like, even Ino and Sakura are showing growth in their friendship.

  Joseph: With just a couple post-battle episodes, I haven’t quite settled in yet. I’m completely fine with some downtime, though. Naruto is generally pretty good at its peaks and valleys.

  Peter: I forgot they got an entire month. This is where my perception of time got really messed up because I felt like Sasuke Retrieval was right after Chunin Exams. Wasn’t even sure whether Naruto learned his super move before the last stretch. Seems like a huge amount of time considering there are supposed to be a ton of diplomats in town ready to watch the event.

  Paul: After all of the intense combat of the Forest of Death and the preliminary matches, I liked that they took some time to focus on everyone training for The Final Test. I liked the idea that Naruto has been brute-forcing his away along while relying on his superhuman stamina, and I liked that the focus of his training involves Naruto learning how to manipulate his Chakra with finesse. We also get a glimpse at the bigger picture, with the various Villages plotting intrigues against one another. It's a welcome change of pace.

  Jared: The way the show has been moving at such a rapid pace with the Forest of Death and all the fights, there needed to be some downtime. After coming off the highs of those last few fights, it did feel somewhat like the show slammed the brakes, but that hasn’t wavered my anticipation of the final parts of this arc.

  Danni: It hasn’t been as jarring as I thought it might be. I tend to like one-on-one training arcs that really lean into a character’s strengths and weaknesses, teaching them how to make use of both. I didn’t think Naruto would ever use a summoning jutsu, so I’m eager to see him ride some big frogs in the future. Again, though, why Jiraiya???

  Kevin: In short, I wish that the preliminaries hadn’t happened. Just cut out the prelims, change nothing else, and then add in the prelim fights as the first round of the main third Exam. This month of downtime is great for introducing new mentors and getting the Genin to have new abilities, but it really doesn’t work well when it comes between two sets of 1-on-1 fights with high emotional stakes.

  David: Honestly, it mostly just seems weird that they would put such a huge gap in what’s essentially the middle of an exam. Imagine taking a test, you get two-thirds in, and then your professor tells everyone to go home and study some more for the last part. Bizarre.

  As always, high points and low points. What you got?

  Kara: High point, absolutely where we left off, with Naruto finally confronting the Nine-Tailed Fox. Close second being my perfect son Rock Lee still trying to train even while in multiple casts. Low point is any and all Sexy Jutsus, and this probably won’t change.

  Joseph: Low point: Jiraiya’s introduction and almost every scene he’s in here. High point: Naruto’s attempts to use summoning jutsu resulting in increasingly less tiny frog children.

  Peter: Low point was Jiraiya. High point Naruto confronting his inner demon. Pretty straightforward this time.

  Paul: High point: Choji Akimichi finally getting to eat some BBQ, which is a welcome reward after he got completely punked in his preliminary match. Low point: Jiraiya.

  Jared: Low point was all the sexy jutsu and Jiraiya being Jiraiya. High point would be Rock Lee continuing to be the best even when he’s hurt and Naruto finally facing off against the Nine-Tailed Fox.

  Danni: High point was seeing everyone acknowledge Rock Lee even in his defeat. I don’t really have a low point this time around ha ha just kidding it’s Jiraiya.

  Kevin: High Point: I know that it started in last week’s episodes, but I will always love Lee’s fight, and I absolutely adore the Eight Inner Gates as a concept. The only thing that can content with it for top moment is Lee doing push ups outside the hospital, due to the sheer emotional weight of the scene. Low Point: Worst moment is probably the first time that Jiraiya sees Naruto’s Sexy Jutsu, for reasons discussed above. Other Point: As for another moment I want to shout out: Everything to do with Naruto’s seal and chakra control. Sure, we’ve seen him as a screw up throughout much of the series, but when he is serious about training, he can honestly learn and grow very quickly. We’re also getting the first steps of controlling the Kyubei’s chakra, which will have major impacts to the latter part of the series.

  David: Agreed with this set being straightforward. High point is Rock Lee’s everything, low point is Jiraiya’s poor introduction.

  COUNTERS:

"I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 2, 21 total

Bowls of ramen consumed: 26 bowls! 28 bowls, 3 cups total

Shadow Clones: 96, 216 total

  And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto!

  Here's our upcoming schedule!

  -Next week, on MARCH 15th, EPISODES 57-63 will be hosted by DANNI WILMOTH!

-Then, on MARCH 22nd, NICOLE MEJIAS will host EPISODES 64-70!

-On MARCH 29th, DANIEL DOCKERY will dive into some Hokage fights in EPISODES 71-77!

Have any thoughts on this week's episodes? Let us know in the comments! Or ask us some questions for next week's installment on episodes 57-63!

----

Carolyn Burke is a writer for Crunchyroll, Bunny Ears, and Cracked. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

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