bigfatloser
Jōnin Strategist 🧠
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2013
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I've been thinking about how naruto has progressed over these last few years. rereading all of the manga chapters, it's shocking how quickly the power-levels progressed and how fast many fan favorite ninja were left in the dust. Although tactics are still present, they have become increasingly convoluted and confusing, boarding on deus ex machina.
At some point, power levels should have plateaued, and instead of getting stronger moves, characters would get medium or even low level moves to assist their movepool and make their fights more interesting. Sasuke did this with his mastery of chidori to the point where he could use Karin. Karin was a very different kind of move from anything else Sasuke had in his movepool up until that time, and it could have given future fights a new dynamic (e.g. how can sasuke get the time to set up karin using his moves.) However sasuke then obtained MS and began relying on those techs. MS had a decent usage limit (too much and you go blind.) but EMS has completely eclipsed sasuke's entire movepool. Why do anything other then Sus + arrows, ama and eye genjutsu?
With naruto, we got a lot of power-ups. I would say sage-mode was Narutos 'karin.' It gave naruto new limits (no more infinite chakra + lasts 3-5 minutes or whatever), opened up options for new techs and didn't completely invalidate his movepool. However, with KM and now BM, those limits have been removed and naruto doesn't even try and fight in his base form because it's so useless. Naruto never really had much of a move-pool to begin with, so this isn't a huge loss.
Now I know what you're thinking: so what, fights are still crazy cool, etc etc.
There was a time when the manga could introduce a new character, and their power could literally be anything. Because most ninjas weren't ridiculously overpowered, kishi could introduce lots of interesting fighting styles and techinques, and display them against fan favorites. Can you honestly say something like puppet ninjutsu would ever fly in today's naruto? They'd need to be made of Hashi-wood with sharigans embedded in their ears and a chakra cloak to boot to realistically stand a chance against anything these days. It sucks because those random powers and tools made the manga so interesting.
There's also the removal of most characters potential relevancy. Lee? useless. Neji? body armor. Sakura? a few pixels in the bg somewhere. If you aren't OP you don't EXIST as far as kishi is concerned. and it's lame, because some of the best fights in the manga were from these side characters.
Old naruto:
Character is introduced with an interesting gimmick... how do you beat it?
A strategy is devised.
Strategy works! Defeated
Strategy doesn't work... Go back to start
New naruto:
Character is introduced with a power beyond everyone else... how do you beat it?
A. overwhelm with power
B. Train, get more power
C. Deus Ex Machina
D. You lose
E. Strategy
I don't want to be the dumbass who says there's no strategy in anything post war arc. but it's been dumb and contrived with a few exceptions, like the third raikirage and itachi, bee and naruto vs nagato.
I'm rambling at this point. My suggestion is that Naruto, the entire Uchiha Clan and the entire Senju clan should be removed from the manga, and the new main character should be someone like Lee, Hashi's grandson or Temari.
At some point, power levels should have plateaued, and instead of getting stronger moves, characters would get medium or even low level moves to assist their movepool and make their fights more interesting. Sasuke did this with his mastery of chidori to the point where he could use Karin. Karin was a very different kind of move from anything else Sasuke had in his movepool up until that time, and it could have given future fights a new dynamic (e.g. how can sasuke get the time to set up karin using his moves.) However sasuke then obtained MS and began relying on those techs. MS had a decent usage limit (too much and you go blind.) but EMS has completely eclipsed sasuke's entire movepool. Why do anything other then Sus + arrows, ama and eye genjutsu?
With naruto, we got a lot of power-ups. I would say sage-mode was Narutos 'karin.' It gave naruto new limits (no more infinite chakra + lasts 3-5 minutes or whatever), opened up options for new techs and didn't completely invalidate his movepool. However, with KM and now BM, those limits have been removed and naruto doesn't even try and fight in his base form because it's so useless. Naruto never really had much of a move-pool to begin with, so this isn't a huge loss.
Now I know what you're thinking: so what, fights are still crazy cool, etc etc.
There was a time when the manga could introduce a new character, and their power could literally be anything. Because most ninjas weren't ridiculously overpowered, kishi could introduce lots of interesting fighting styles and techinques, and display them against fan favorites. Can you honestly say something like puppet ninjutsu would ever fly in today's naruto? They'd need to be made of Hashi-wood with sharigans embedded in their ears and a chakra cloak to boot to realistically stand a chance against anything these days. It sucks because those random powers and tools made the manga so interesting.
There's also the removal of most characters potential relevancy. Lee? useless. Neji? body armor. Sakura? a few pixels in the bg somewhere. If you aren't OP you don't EXIST as far as kishi is concerned. and it's lame, because some of the best fights in the manga were from these side characters.
Old naruto:
Character is introduced with an interesting gimmick... how do you beat it?
A strategy is devised.
Strategy works! Defeated
Strategy doesn't work... Go back to start
New naruto:
Character is introduced with a power beyond everyone else... how do you beat it?
A. overwhelm with power
B. Train, get more power
C. Deus Ex Machina
D. You lose
E. Strategy
I don't want to be the dumbass who says there's no strategy in anything post war arc. but it's been dumb and contrived with a few exceptions, like the third raikirage and itachi, bee and naruto vs nagato.
I'm rambling at this point. My suggestion is that Naruto, the entire Uchiha Clan and the entire Senju clan should be removed from the manga, and the new main character should be someone like Lee, Hashi's grandson or Temari.
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