#chōji

[wordswhisperinthedark]

OUGH I was not expecting the sheer aura😯😍

[the-konoha-daily]

BREAKING: The T&I Chief’s Guilty Pleasure!

It seems even the most intimidating of Konoha’s shinobi aren’t immune to a little juicy gossip! ALLEGEDLY, none other than the fearsome Head of T&I, Morino Ibiki himself, is an avid follower of The Konoha Daily. Sources from HQ report that Ibiki is often seen thumbing through the latest edition, occasionally chuckling (yes, chuckling!) at the spiciest tidbits.

And, of course, it’s all alleged, but rumor has it he once postponed an interrogation because he was too engrossed in reading about Tsunade-sama’s alleged sake escapade. Could it be that our scandalous headlines are his ultimate guilty pleasure?

[bearpoll2023]

[dante-heller]

ALRIGHT! LET'S FUCKING G-

Oh... I guess I'll be watching her fight next time.

[narasnooze]

Chōji: No matter how hard you work, Chōji: or how big a celebrity you become... Chōji: You will never be as famous as cheese.

[chronicangel]

Sinking

Link to this fic on AO3. Words: 2088 Date posted: September 22, 2019

Summary: "He left us, Chōji!" She doesn't see it, but based on his sharp inhale, she can picture the way his eyes widen and his breathing pauses for a moment. "He didn't even say goodbye. Didn't he know how much that would hurt?"

He leaves.

Without even giving her a real goodbye, he leaves, on a mission to Suna that she is told may take anywhere from a week to an entire year. She runs to the gates at five in the morning on the day that she knows he is due to leave with Temari, but Izumo and Kotetsu just frown at her with furrowed eyebrows and explain that they left an hour ago. The irrational, over-emotional part of her brain questions, Was he that desperate to avoid seeing me?

For the next month, she goes to the gates every day, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest and just waiting for him to show up.

She hasn't skipped a meal in nearly a year, but it's so easy to settle into the routine of not eating breakfast to head to the gates first thing in the morning and just wait for hours. For the first week, she allows Chōji and Asuma-sensei to drag her away for lunch or dinner, though it is almost always only one or the other. On the last day of the week, she eats so quickly to get back to the gates that she makes herself throw up right in front of Izumo and Kotetsu and the two of them finally send her home, telling her to rest so she doesn't make herself sicker. She spends the whole time worrying that this will be the day that Shikamaru gets back and he will find that she wasn't waiting for him.

After that, she doesn't let Chōji or Asuma-sensei drag her away anymore. It is wasted time, and perhaps her stomach is grumbling by the end of every day and perhaps when she gets home she passes out from how much her stomach twists and burns with the desire to eat, but if it means that she will not miss when Shikamaru returns then it is worth the discomfort. After the third day in a row of Ino refusing to go to lunch with Chōji, he hesitates a moment and then sits on the ground next to her, and she stares at him with wide eyes because Chōji has never turned down an opportunity to eat in his life-- she knows because she's been there for all of it.

They settle into a routine, shortly. He will come with an armful of bags of chips, of which she will only eat a handful while he happily munches on the rest, and he will walk her home when the sun has been set for hours and she will let him because the chances of Shikamaru arriving in the middle of the night are rather slim, anyway.

"So," he says around a mouthful of chips, and she doesn't have the energy to make a face this time at his lack of manners. You're the one from a noble clan, why are you the most socially clueless one on this team? She grumbles to herself in the back of her head. "Why do we do this every day, anyway?" He asks, and she opens her mouth to answer immediately but he cuts her off. "I mean, I know it's so we can greet Shikamaru when he gets back from his mission and all that, and that's cute and sweet and whatever, but why are we doing that? He's gone on missions without us before and we've never bothered." She doesn't know how to explain that it's because she's maybe-probably in love with their teammate, nor does she particularly want to, so she just stares silently at the horizon for a long time while thinking about what she can say.

Eventually, she settles on, "He's never been on a mission that could take an entire year before, though, Chōji. Imagine if he came home and he thought... he thought that for that entire year we'd just forgotten about him." It leaves a sinking feeling in her stomach, and it doesn't feel wholly like the truth, but it is enough to settle Chōji and stop him from asking questions for the rest of that evening.

A couple of weeks pass and Chōji meets her at the gates every morning. Then, he misses a day. Misses two in a row, then three, and then he doesn't meet her at all anymore, and she furrows her brows and curls up at the gates but does not say anything.

After the first month ends, she stops going to the gates. Shikamaru does not even write to her. It has been an entire month and she hasn't received a single letter from him, a single scroll. Why does it matter if we've forgotten about him, if he doesn't even pretend that he's thinking about us? Why should I care about him when he doesn't extend the same courtesy? She tells herself that's why she stops going, but it doesn't feel quite right. The first morning that she decides not to go to the gates, she runs into her father downstairs, and he seems legitimately surprised to see her. "Oh, is Shikamaru already back from his mission? That's funny, I was just talking to Shikaku earlier this morning and he didn't mention anything..."

"No, he's not back from his mission, Dad," she says, inwardly cringing. "But, y'know, I'm a ninja too and I figured it was time to stop wasting my days waiting around for Shikamaru when I could be training or getting missions of my own from Tsunade-sama. Speaking of which, I should probably go now. Love you, Dad!" Her father just nods after her as she rushes out the door, and she doesn't realize until she's already reached the training grounds that she totally skipped breakfast. Well, it's too late now, she decides, and instead focuses all of her attention on training, throwing every kunai and shuriken she has on her person at the training dummy, and once she's out of those, throwing kicks and punches at the wooden figure until her knuckles bleed.

The days continue like this for a long time. She begins to develop callouses on her hands from how often she punches the wood, and subsequently loses more and more body weight until she's all muscle and bones. Occasionally she goes on missions with Asuma-sensei and Chōji, but it's mostly errands. After all, the Hokage has no use for two-thirds of the InoShikaChō trio. They train together even more infrequently-- Asuma-sensei seems to have taken this as an opportunity to see more of Kurenai-sensei, and Chōji has always hated training just as much as Ino did when they were younger, so he doesn't exactly do it when their sensei isn't making him.

Shikamaru has been gone for three months the first time she passes out while training. One second she is throwing a kick and only a little light-headed, and the next she is on the ground. She had forgotten, apparently, how much energy is sapped out of her when she isn't eating. Still, it doesn't mean she starts again. When she wakes up, she launches herself right back into training, punching the wood over and over again until she is panting and her knuckles have split open again despite the rough callouses on them.

She had been eating once every week or so, after training with Chōji and Asuma, but now at least forces herself to have a few bites of the leftovers of whatever her father has for dinner every couple of days, when she plans to do any particularly intense training. It is not really enough to sustain her, but it is enough that she doesn't die, enough that she doesn't pass out whenever she spends more than an hour training, and that is all she needs.

Two more months pass like this. Shikamaru has been gone for six. She ends up in the hospital.

A full day passes before she wakes up. She doesn't even know what she is doing here. She only knows that when she wakes up, Chōji is the only other person in the room, and she stares at him with bleary eyes that are already filled with tears. Her stomach burns. "What were you doing?" He says without even looking up at her from where he stares at his hands, his voice dangerously low.

"I was training," she says weakly, defensive despite how tired and guilty she feels.

"You were starving yourself," he corrects, finally lifting his eyes to glare at her, and she winces. "One second Asuma-sensei and I are preparing to throw kunai at you because you told us, you swore to us, that you could catch them right out of the air, and the next second you're on the ground." She glances down at herself for cuts or scrapes before he says, softer, "We hadn't even thrown them yet, Ino..."

She sniffs and tries to ignore the thousand silent questions he is asking her, tries to ignore the pleading look in his eyes. She has never been very good at ignoring Chōji though, really. Not on purpose. He is too warm, fills the room with his presence too well. Really, he is one of her best friends. Not as close to her as Shikamaru or Sakura, but a constant presence in her life nonetheless. She doesn't know what she'd do without him any more than she does Shikamaru.

She can feel her own tears trailing down her cheeks, hot and wet and entirely too salty, so much so that they make her eyes sting. She squeezes them shut to compensate as she sobs, "He left us, Chōji!" She doesn't see it, but based on his sharp inhale, she can picture the way his eyes widen and his breathing pauses for a moment. "He didn't even say goodbye. Didn't he know how much that would hurt?"

"He never says goodbye before a mission, Ino. He probably doesn't even think about it."

"But this one was different!" She cries, finally prying her eyes open to see Chōji's brows furrowed in concern. They are the two emotional members of their team. Shikamaru always thinks with his head, going through life with an almost lazily logical approach. It's like emotions just take too much energy and so he has opted out of them. Asuma-sensei, on the other hand, is likely a balanced being of logic and emotion, but he's also very private. She has never seen their sensei cry, nor has she ever seen him particularly angry. Chōji is the one who is so violently emotional, and he's the one who's always understood her depressive episodes and her quick temper and her... everything. Shikamaru completes her, balances her, and Chōji guides her, motivates her to be better by being the same and better all at once.

He has his fists clenched at his sides now, and she doesn't know if he is angry with Shikamaru or her but she doesn't know if she wants to. She has seen Chōji truly angry so few times in their lives. He has always been jubilant. Always been happy and kind. She is hot-headed, but he is simply warm. Simply pleasant. He offsets the both of them, Shikamaru and Ino. He brings out the best sides of both of them. It is easy to whisper her true fear to him. "Were we not good enough? Was I... Was I not good enough?"

He stomps closer to her and now she stares up at him with wide eyes even as she knows he would never do anything to hurt her. Would never even upset her on purpose. Still, he grips her shoulders with bruising force and she stares at him in fear because she has no idea what he is going to do.

"Are you stupid?" He murmurs after a moment through gritted teeth. She flinches. "Is that why you've been doing this? You've been starving yourself and training 24/7 because you think that's what Shikamaru would want?"

At this point, she can see tears welling up in Chōji's own eyes, and she can't nod or shake her head or say anything because really, she doesn't know why she's been doing this. It was just so easy to fall back upon. When she did not have Shikamaru to comfort her, she could comfort herself by becoming better. She could always be thinner and stronger and just... better. When she just stares at him for a long moment, eventually he squeezes his own eyes shut and lets his tears spill over and pulls her close.

"You idiot..."

[thesandyfreak]

@majorluz comment made me remember another potential that was wasted here: most people in Naruto share the same physique, and while you could argue that it makes it easier to draw and/or ninjas are all ectomorph, it just another prof of how much potential was wasted here because of a simple reason: story telling.

Alert for big study post (aka: frustation-venting post)

Most people, especially the artists, will know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't know: story telling is much more than simply using words to describe what a character is like; it's using the state of their clothes to show their personality, the look in their eyes and the way they stand to show their mental state, the structure of their bodies to go along with their fighting style. All of this is story telling performing without a single word, it's beautiful and it's divine when done right.

And Naruto didn't.

An example of failed story telling? Might Guy and Rock Lee. We know that their fighting style is, in its simplest form, a brawl; while they do have knowledge about martial arts, most of the time they use brute strength.

But their design. Don't. Reflect. That.

And worse is, it's not just a passing "oh, they punch, yeah, that's cool", no, we have an active idea of how tough their train is, and even for an ectomorph, it's a plain example of failed story telling. We'd NEVER realize what their style is like using their design (okay, maybe we could, but it's a big maybe)

Not to say I dislike a nimble-slim Lee (he uses strength AND speed after all), but Naruto has decided on copy-pasting the same bodies for almost all of the main and major side characters and that's just lazy work. (I mean, c'mon, Lee as an adult is, apart from two or three scenes that made him right, thin.

As an counter idea, we have Neji: he too relies on taijutsu, and while he doesn't show muscles as well, his design actually works for him: the Hyuuga have a deeply ingrained martial style, an it's show on the style of their clothes (in Neji's case. Hinata doesn't use her clan's traditional wear). They use force, but their fighting stance relies on speed and precision, hence a more nimble body structure.

I know that's just how anime is, but Kishimoto and Pierrot decided to throw design charism out of the window and then stomp on it until earth shattered and sent it to hell.

(tldr: most characters have shared bodies and I'm mad that every female has the same size)

(AKA: Temari should have been taller than Shikamaru because I said so)

(AKA: Gaara should be smaller, that boy barely slept his growth spurts were DOOMED and his body hated every hour of it)

(AKA: Chōji is perfect)

Nothing, just,

[youghvaudough]

Wind Breaker characters have a theme to their names, a thread, part 2:

(part 1: Bōfūrin!)

Shishitōren / 獅子頭連

with a name that literally means "lion's head (legion)", you can find some sort of animal in each of shishitoren members' last names

兎耳山 丁子 • Tomiyama Chōji: 兎 / rabbit

(fun fact: his last name, if we break it down kanji by kanji, is "rabbit" "ear" "mountain")

十亀 条 • Togame Jō: 亀 / tortoise

(fun fact: his last name, kanji by kanji, is "ten tortoises")

basically Jō and Chōji are literally the tortoise and the hare of wind breaker.. cute

佐狐 浩太 • Sako Kōta: 狐 / fox

有馬 雪成 • Arima Yukinari: 馬 / horse

鹿沼 稔 • Kanuma Minoru: 鹿 / deer

(next part: part 3 (manga spoilers) - noroshi!)

[tanuki-kimono]

Perfect match for those kimono and obi depicting all-season plants (chrysanthemum, pinks, cherry blossom and maple leaves) kusudama.

Kusudama (flower ball, lit. ”medecine ball”) were originally kind of potpourri pouches which were hung on Tango no sekku (5th day of the 5th month, today held in May as Kodomo no hi). Kusudama would be kept until the 9th day of the 9th month (Chrysanthemum/double ninth Festival) and then replaced by chrysanthemum flowers.

Auspicious goshiki no ito (five long dangling ribbons) were used to close and hang kududama. In rich households, the ornamental pouch would be made of luxurious Nishiki brocade. Inside, you could find jakō (musk/incense), jinkō (agarwood), chōji (cloves), kanshō (a kind of honeysuckle?), ryūnō (kind of camphor), etc. All those elements were thought to ward of evil and prevent illness.

Overtime, the pouch slowy became a kind of flower arrangement. Because of their auspicious nature, they are often found on antique girl and women garments.

[wordswhisperinthedark]

I wish this got animated I think it's really cool imagery

Also, I really like how the high contrast in the manga makes Sakura & Togame look like stars in Chōji eyes. It's kind of alluding to how this fight is the fun and freedom Chōji's seeking (and will eventually get back)

[wordswhisperinthedark]

Just throwing this in from Takahashi-san:

it's really cool how this song encapsulates the shishitoren arc as a whole

After listening Stronger (the song I was waiting for weeks) more than once (it's still on the loop) I can understand why they waited for Choji and Umemiya's fight to release it it's literally and I'm not exaggerating it's literally Choji's song every word of it is for Choji

"Always remember protecting someone"

[the-konoha-daily]

Buzzing Tensions: Shino vs. Sakura?!

ALLEGEDLY, Shino Aburame recently returned from a mission to Kusa no Kuni with a rare and prized blue beetle, said to emit a luminous glow under moonlight. The shinobi community was abuzz—until the unthinkable happened. Witnesses claim that during a routine meeting at the hospital, Sakura Haruno “accidentally” squashed the precious insect.

Though Sakura insists it was an honest mistake (“Who keeps a bug on their shoulder during a medical consult?!”), Shino has reportedly been giving her the coldest silent treatment in all of Konoha.

Whispers suggest there’s bad blood brewing between the kunoichi and the Aburame heir. Could this be the start of a cross-clan insect scandal, or will Shino’s famously calm demeanor keep things… well, bug-free? Stay tuned, dear readers.

[giustoart]

Did someone say TEAM 10?

Love them three! Do you like The Last’s concept of Chōji? I really don’t. He was so handsome in shippuden…so here you can see my alternative concept art of the trio!

TEAM 8 here

[dante-heller]

I don't think Ino's doing okay.

[el-moleskine-de-kusubana]

Cuando los árboles no dejan ver el bosque

•.ƸӜƷ.• Cuando los árboles no dejan ver el bosque El amor de Hinata por Naruto era algo evidente para todo mundo. Pero eso de ninguna manera significa que una cita entre los dos sería tan simple como podría suponerse.

✿Género: Humor, Romance, Amistad

✿Personajes: Hinata Hyūga, Naruto Uzumaki, Hanabi Hyūga, Neji Hyūga, Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Chōji Akimichi, Sai, Kakashi Hatake, Maito Gai, Shizune, Rock Lee, Tenten, Tsunade, Temari

✿Tipo: Canon divergente

✿Estado: Completo (22 capítulos)

✿¿De qué va? Es más o menos un NaruHina, pero más o menos.

Iba a ser un corto de 3 capítulos, tres perspectivas únicamente… y de pronto explotó, tuve que cambiar el título original que era “Los recados se dan en persona”, y abordé 17 personajes y 5 capítulos complementarios con el título "Hablando se entiende la gente"

Ya para la edición 2024 volví a cambiarle el título, y es que ese dicho "Cuando los árboles no dejan ver el bosque", resume mucho mejor todo el caos que sucede en esta historia.

✿En FanfictionNet

✿En Wattpad

✿En Ao3

✿En portada Ilustraciones de Higurashi Workshop Studios (editadas)., fondo, texturas, filtros y elementos varios recuperados de freepik. Tipografías: Crowd Pleaser.

[hirazuki]

For Now [Chapter 15 snippet]

Sasori/Haruno Sakura, Sasori & Haruno Sakura | T | Blank Period | canon divergent | angst, hurt/comfort, enemies to friends | ongoing [AO3]

•────────────────────⋅☾ ☽⋅────────────────────•

There’s the sound of shuffling and the clinking of plates, as everyone tries to make room for three more people at their already-crowded table. 

Someone yells something about not mixing up the drinks and someone else complains that Chōji is taking the chance to swipe food and Kiba’s shoulder knocks into hers, jostling Sakura out of her panic-induced stupor.

Her mind, shinobi-trained since childhood, immediately latches on to the familiar spike in her adrenaline, leading her to that place where hearing and vision sharpen enough to leave the world lagging, and she starts making plans the way she would on a mission: evaluating potential diversions; assessing what can be used as cover; identifying exit points. 

Sasori didn’t have anything formal to wear, so he’s in his regular clothes – dark pants and an oversized sweater – and it’s just as she’s debating whether she can reach over and pull the hood down over his head without it being suspicious that she realizes that Kankurō is talking.

“Nah, I’d better not,” he says, adjusting the strap of his pack with one hand. “I’ll catch you all next time.”

“What?!” Naruto exclaims. “Come on, you’re here for the festival, you know – stay and have some food!”

Kankurō groans and rolls his head to the side. “Trust me, I want to, but I’m giving a presentation at the Academy tomorrow – your Academy, by the way, for your ninja brats – and I can’t do that if that puppet I was planning to use is damaged.” 

“So, fix it later,” Naruto states.

“I can’t do ‘later,’” Kankurō sighs, leaning over to snatch Temari’s sake cup out of her hands,  downing it in one go as she whacks him. “I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it, so who knows how long it’s gonna take.” He puts the cup back on the table and starts towards the door. “It’s being a pain in the ass.”

Sakura doesn’t really hear anything beyond that, other than a general tone of whining from her teammate and of farewell from the others, because Kankurō is the only one here who would definitely recognize Sasori and Kankurō is leaving, and the sense of relief that floods her is so heady, so profound, that she swears her bones themselves are melting and – 

“Which one?”

Huh? 

“Huh?” Kankurō stops and asks over his shoulder.

“Which puppet?” Sasori repeats, and turns in his seat to fully face him.

She sees Kankurō freeze and then blink and then look at everyone else around the table, and, if she wasn’t currently busy with the ice that’s now rushing through her own veins, she would deeply sympathize with him.

“Well?” the voice across from her demands. “How long are you going to make me wait?”

This can't be happening, she thinks, feeling like she is watching this play out from somewhere far away. This just can't be happening.

He really has the worst timing in the world; he's had months, no, years, to develop an interest in his old life, and of all of the times for him to –

“S-Sasori,” Kankurō stammers out.

“And what's wrong with it?”

“Are you serious?” Sakura hisses at him under her breath, finally managing to string multiple words together.

“Dunno,” Kankurō replies slowly, glancing around again in plain confusion. The fact that no one else is confused or concerned or reacting in any way at having someone who, in his eyes, no doubt, is clearly Sasori of the Red Sand at their dinner table seems to be only confusing him further. “I, uh, can’t get the blades from the neck to eject properly.”

“Sounds like it needs new springs,” Sasori states.

… is… is he seriously going to have an argument about puppets?

“Already did that,” Kankurō answers.

“Did you rewire the latching mechanism?”

He is. He’s having an argument about puppets in public, just out in the open, across the entire length of the table, and Sakura thinks that if her heart beats any faster, it will simply burst out of her chest to fall straight into the grill alongside the cuts of beef that are already sizzling there, however medically impossible she knows that to be.

“Of course.”

Is anyone else hearing this?

She tears her eyes from the exchange to look at, first, Shikamaru and Ino – the blonde has captured her long-absent teammate in a headlock and is in the process of rubbing her knuckles on his head while teasing him, to loud encouragement by Temari – and then at the rest of her friends. 

Most are laughing at Team Ten’s reunion; only Hinata and Shino seem to be aware that there’s another conversation happening and, thankfully, neither of them ever had much to do with Akatsuki outside of Pain’s attack on Konoha. 

But they are both smart and Sakura refuses to leave things to chance, so she quickly asks one of them to pass a bottle of sauce that she has no intention of using – 

– and which Sai promptly knocks over, accidentally, reaching for it at the same time as Shino, causing Shino to try and contain the spill and Hinata to run off to find something to clean it up with. 

Sai turns towards her and smiles.

Sakura smiles back at him, weakly. If she survives this, she’s going to buy him a mountain of art supplies and all the tofu he can eat.