Tag: spoiler

The Shonen manga was among my all-time favorite…until author made a mistake in my opinion

Way back when I was a youngling, I used to devour manga. I read all the Japanese comics that I could find and spent reading until late at night. I had found several websites where I could read for free since I did not have the money to pay for it. I did buy the Shonen Jump magazine, so don’t criticize me that harshly. I read Shaman King, One Piece, and one manga I forgot the name which consists of playing Go.

However, one of my favorites was Naruto.

What is about

The manga is about a young ninja who has been neglected by his shinobi clan. He has been so isolated that he has lashed out and been rambunctious. He has decided to become the Hokage, the top shinobi who is elected to become the leader of the village. The problem is he acts before he thinks, and when he thinks, his ideas tend to be not so smart.

He has another drawback. He is the host of a Demon Fox that almost destroyed the village. Only the Fourth Hokage was able to stop it by sealing the spirit into Naruto’s body when he was a baby. That is the reason why the village shuns Naruto. They are afraid the Demon Fox will spill out. However, the Demon Fox has a large amount of chakra, energy that Naruto can use for ninja techniques and make him enormously powerful.

Naruto finds outs he has the Demon Fox inside him early on. Through the series, he slowly learns to use his energy and when he grows up, he learns to communicate with the Demon Fox, become friends, and thus save the world. At the end he becomes the Seventh Hokage.

Message

The main reason I was attracted to Naruto was that the protagonist was a failure. Still, he kept trying. He only started succeeding when he did things his way. Slowly, his genius started appearing. His tenacity was the attribute I admired the most. He was born into nothing, and when everybody was telling how a failure he was, he kept insisting he was going to prove them wrong.

The Chunin Exams

This story arc was my favorite, and the reason I became hooked to the series. Naruto and his teammates need to pass several examinations to become true chunin shinobi. It is like the O.W.L exams in the Harry Potter universe, but with one-on-one fights in one section. They meet powerful rivals, and in the last test, Naruto faces with Neji, a genius young ninja who has a dark family history.

Nature vs. Nurture

During his battle, Naruto learns that even though Neji is a ninja genius, he will always be a servant. His father and uncle were twins, but Neji’s father was born second. The family has a royal line where the oldest maintains the secrets of the clan while the rest must protect at all cost. So Neji will always be there to be second fiddle to his cousin, the shy and clumsy Hinata.

Of course, this causes resentment for Neji. He laughs at Naruto’s ambitions to become Hokage because only the main families will obtain the title. Naruto, a born nobody, will never obtain it no matter how hard he works at it.

Naruto dismisses him and claims he will become Hokage by sheer will. At the climax of the battle, he promises to Neji that he will take away his family’s discriminatory rule when he becomes Hokage. This is the last thing he says before he beats Neji.

The problem

The entire premise of the show at the time was that everybody could make their dreams come true by sheer determination and iron will. It didn’t matter how you were born or whose family’s name you were inheriting. Sure, it gave advantages and prestige, but they meant nothing if you didn’t have the fire to pursue your dreams.

Naruto was born into nothing. He worked hard and never surrendered until he become a great ninja. The problem was that he wasn’t a peasant. He was born into shinobi royalty.

The Fan theory

At the height of the series’ popularity, everybody started wondering about who Naruto’s parents were. A main theory was that the Fourth Hokage was his father because they were drawn similarly.

That was the main clue, and it ended being just enough.

This is where my disillusionment with the series began.

The plot hole

When Naruto’s past was fleshed out, it was revealed his mother was the original host, but something went wrong during his birth and the demon got freed. Naruto’s parents needed to combine their energy and sacrificed their lives to contain it once again, this time inside Naruto.

So, if they survived, Naruto’s life would of course be different. He would have been honored just by being the son of the Fourth Hokage instead of being a scamp. This change doesn’t undermine Naruto’s ambitions. He didn’t know his parents and never received special treatment. What it does is create a big plot-hole that affects all the series

It was revealed that there are nine Demon Animals and were used as ultimate weapons by different countries. This means that Naruto should have been protected by being the host of a mystical weapon, not shunned. He was supposed to protect the village, but instead he was treated as a pariah.

The main reason why Naruto was great is that it symbolizes you don’t need pedigree to obtain your dreams. The problem was that the main character was royalty from the start. He just didn’t know it yet.