#arc: search for tsunade

[every-jiraiya]

[velvet-ymarinebloo77]

[sannin-three]

In a fight, right?

In a fight, right??

[land-of-the-eddies23]

[dutifullybitchyblaze]

[watermelonsloth]

Things the Naruto Fandom Don’t Talk About Nearly Enough Part 5: Itachi and Kisame’s Visit to Konoha

So, there are layers to this.

At first, this just seems like a simple mission to stop by Konoha and snatch Naruto off the streets, but we learn two things about this later on that makes this very funny to me: Itachi’s actual intention was to remind Danzo that he’s still alive so he wouldn’t use Hiruzen’s absence as an opening to use Sasuke and the Akatsuki wouldn’t be in a position to extract the nine tails for another two years.

Some of you may see where this is going.

Pein wouldn’t have ordered them to get Kurama two years early, it would’ve just brought unnecessary attention to them and reveal the Akatsuki’s motives (or at least methods). So, if they aren’t following orders, why is Kisame going along with this? Did Itachi say “early bird gets the worm” and Kisame was like “fuck it, I don’t have anything better to do”?

If Kisame is under the impression they’re capturing the nine tails, why did he offer they stop for tea? Itachi wanting to waste time and risk drawing attention would make sense, but not Kisame. Right? Does Kisame make them stop for tea and dessert on missions? Does Kisame make them stop so regularly that Itachi was counting on it for his plan?

Speaking of Itachi’s plan, did he actually account for the village response to two very known criminals being in the village? Like, nothing would’ve stopped Danzo from just sending all of anbu after them. Did Itachi think he and Kisame could take all of Konoha’s shinobi force? Or maybe he thought they could get away before that became a problem?

What would Itachi have done if they did capture Naruto? He, presumably, didn’t know that Jiraiya was in Konoha and it’s not like Naruto had any bodyguards. I can’t imagine he would’ve dropped the act. Would he have just pretended to have another spike in psychopathy and shanked Kisame? Would he have tried to talk Kisame into leaving Naruto? Would they have brought him back with them?

If they brought Naruto with them, what would that conversation look like? ‘Cause Pein probably wouldn’t have let them go to Konoha, so it’s not like he’d know they were going to get Naruto in the first place. “Hey boss, we’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is we got that jinchuriki you wanted! We know it’s a little early, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. The bad news is all of the Land of Fire is after us.”

Last question, did the rest of the Akatsuki find out about this? If so, can we please have a novel about their reactions?

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[deadmegumi]

Itachi wasting his tsukuyomi on sasuke was so funny like bro he's twelve. You have to run away and recharge ur chakra bc you used the worst torture technique ever on. a twelve year old. a little 🤏 baby. Cmon man.

[roseangel19]

There’s one moment during the “Tsunade Search” arc that puzzled me the first time I saw it; when Orochimaru had stabbed Tsunade in the chest with his Kusanagi sword.

He pulls the sword out from her, jumps back and says that she’s the one person that he wouldn’t kill. Which makes me think, “Why? What makes her the exception to all of the other people you’ve killed?”

Except a few moments later when she’s defending Naruto, he says that if she’s willing to put her life on the line for someone like him then he’d be happy to accommodate her. Which adds even more confusion than previously, he’s technically killing her by slashing her with the sword. Idk 🤷🏼‍♀️.

[stealthydemocracy369]

“You're wrong, that's not what makes a shinobi. You never did get it. A real ninja is one who endures no matter what gets thrown at him… Let me explain something to you, there is only one thing that matters if you are a shinobi, and it isn't the number of techniques you possess. All you do need, is the guts to never give up.„~ Jiraiya to Orochimaru

[every-sasuke-uchiha]

[every-jiraiya]

[ddrqoyote]

search for tsunade arc: tsunade is an addict. orochimaru is consumed by obsession. jiraiya is a sex offender. all three legends have lost themselves. but while orochimaru refused to be reached, naruto influences tsunade (through bravery) and jiraiya (through making him feel fatherly) and they start to turn back towards other people and rebuild their reputations.

shippuden: tsunade is hokage. orochimaru is still consumed by obsession because he won't listen to anyone, but he's a villain so it makes sense. jiraiya is... still a sex offender. but his reputation is rebuilt. everyone respects him and sees him as a hero, even foreigners. he's still a sex offender. but that's just a little thing.

[confront-ation]

Naruto Live Spectacle (and Road of Naruto)

The first two parts of Naruto Live Spectacle run for two hours. The first one retells the first part of the manga, and the parts that do not directly relate to the main storyline (Naruto and Sasuke) are cut out. There are completely no Chunin exams arc and Tsunade search arc. But the Land of Waves arc is shown quite fully there, with all the necessary dialogues about the "most precious" and love and power. Clearly, the priority is on themes and content, rather than battles and events. Next comes the battle with Gaara (which also contains dialogues about love from Yashamaru) and VOTE1. This is probably the best option for adapting the first part in two hours.

The situation is similar with the second part, which adapts the first four arcs of Shippuden. There's nothing that doesn't include Sasuke. There is no Kazekage rescue arc and Team 8's battle against Akatsuki (but there is the creation of a Rasenshuriken). But all the quarrels between Naruto and Sai about Sasuke are included, lol. Priorities here...

This is a kind of Sasuke Shippuden tbh, his arc with Itachi is central here. It's obvious that the director is a Sasuke fan.

Some scenes legally look like a Romeo and Juliet production.

I immediately remembered the PV "Road of Naruto", which also briefly retells Naruto. Everything there consists of battles and there is almost nothing beyond them in general. And there is a very strange prioritization. Chunin exams take the most time (1:55 minutes out of 9:30) there. The Fourth Shinobi World War is mainly shown in a slide show. The battle against Madara at the end lasts 4 seconds, like???

But the funniest thing there is the Kage Summit arc. It SCREAMS that the director hates Sasuke because... Well, first there are intentionally several seconds about how Gokage kicks Sasuke's ass, and not the other way around, and then the emphasis is on all his "terrible crimes" in this arc. In particular, the attack on Sakura, who attacked him first, lol. This is the most disgusting summary you can think of.

I just like the comparison of these two summary. They have a different format, but that's not even the main difference. They focus on different things and it is obvious from them how their creators see "Naruto" as a whole.

[land-of-the-eddies23]

Against Kabuto and/or Orochimaru.

[casgirl]

itachi heading back to the akatsuki lair after that confrontation w naruto and sasuke in the search for tsunade arc like hacking up a lung and bleeding from the eyes and someone is like whoa man did you get your ass kicked or something and itachi is like no i just overexerted myself putting my brother in the hell dimension. deidara is like to be clear this is your brother who is in like sixth grade right.

[watermelonsloth]

Ino Should’ve Been on the Sasuke Retrieval Mission, Not Neji

I realized something and if I don't say it, it’s gonna bother me.

In part 1, pretty much every member of the Konoha 12 can be split into two categories: those who take their jobs seriously and those who don’t. The first group are the characters with something to lose or, more often, prove who tend to be more skilled than their peers. It includes Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Rock Lee, Hinata, and seemingly Shino (although we don’t know enough about him or his motives for me to say this with full confidence). The second group either has superficial or no known reason to have become ninja and for a variety of reasons don’t really take their jobs, training, or (in some cases) even winning or losing seriously. It includes Sakura, Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, and Kiba. The only one I didn’t place was TenTen because she doesn’t have enough of a presence for me to know which she falls under.

Along with the part 1 finale, the Sasuke Retrieval Arc also serves as a wake up call for the team of genin. The entire series was a slow burn of information about how unfair and dangerous the shinobi world is—bell test set up KIA’d shinobi and that everything was not as it seemed, land of waves set up shinobi being used as tools and team 7 realizing their personal priorities, chunin exams introduced that there were much bigger fish and how cruel the shinobi world is, and the search for Tsunade arc displayed what could become of the shinobi who grew up in this system—that built to the Sasuke retrieval mission being the wake up call that not only did they need to get serious, they needed to get serious now. I could write a whole essay on this arc and what it represents, but I’ll leave it at this: the Sasuke retrieval mission made Naruto realize that he didn’t understand Sasuke nearly as much as he thought he did and the rest of his team (-the backup) realize that if they didn’t start taking their job seriously, they’d get themselves or their friends killed.

Or… almost the rest of his team. Neji doesn’t actually fall into this category. As I already said, he already took his job seriously and he was already very aware about what happened to the powerless. I’d be more forgiving if it helped move his personal arc along more or at least did something else for his character, but it doesn’t. It’s just extra screen time. And as much as I like Neji, he really didn’t need to be a part of this arc (or at least not such a large part).

You know who did? Ino. She never actually got an “oh crap, my priorities out of whack” moment. She doesn’t take her job seriously during the chunin exams, she doesn’t really show up again until the very end of part 1 for a scene here and there, then we don’t see her ‘til shippuden where she’s suddenly taking her job seriously. Maybe you could argue that Choji nearly dying was her wake up call, but it would be a pretty flimsy one considering the only reaction she has is calm relief after finding out he’s okay. Everyone else got their wake up call—Sakura during her iconic forest of death scene and the boys during this arc—but she didn’t.

Now, as you might’ve guessed from the title, I think the most obvious solution to this problem is the best. By swapping them out, Neji isn’t acting as a noticeably unnecessary inclusion and Ino gets a proper moment of character growth (and badassery). As bonus points: I think Ino would have a more interesting dynamic with the rest of the team, Ino would have more emotional stakes in the mission through knowing Sasuke and Choji sacrificing himself prior to her fight, the audience could potentially get some actual insight into why Ino (and the other girls) like Sasuke so much, and both of Shikamaru’s teammates nearly dying on the first mission he led would be even more of a swift gut punch for him. Ino should’ve been on the Sasuke retrieval mission, not Neji.