#it's why temari and tenten's fight wasn't even shown on-panel

[evilkitten3]

#i think it's largely because they're thinking of the setting as though it were an actual tiny little universe#kishimoto just made all of this shit up and let em loose like god and then turned it all into a manga like a nature documentary obviously#they're not thinking from a An Author Wrote This perspective#they're thinking from a 'in-universe this is Real to them so what is going on in their brain' way#which is the Wrong way when youre looking at a story that was written by an author because the AUTHOR is making the things do the things

that. exactly that.

but it's baffling how many people manage to only do that when it comes to female characters and not like. literally any other aspect of the manga

one of the most frustrating things about reading naruto meta is that every now and then you'll run into a post that's absolutely brilliantly thought out, has stupendous points, and pulls out all the stops on almost every level....

and you just have to stop and wonder how someone can simultaneously be so good at media analysis and so fucking bad at accepting that sometimes authors just cannot and/or will not write female characters on any level

[tentenarchive]

In Defense of Tenten - the Chunin Exams' Written Test and Her Mirrors

A common joke made about Tenten is how obvious her mirror and line contraption, used to share answers with Rock Lee during the written exam, is. In this post, I'll show how her solution is perfectly reasonable and why she wasn't disqualified by the ninja proctors.

Firstly, we have to stablish what the objective of this written test is: to cheat. The written test was designed to be too difficult for ninjas of their level to be able to answer, forcing them to cheat from each other. Such is stated by Ibiki in the end of the First Phase chapters:

Next, the proctors are all higher level shinobi, better prepared and used to seeing various tricks and jutsu. It's not an stretch to suppose they're aware of EVERY cheating attempt made by those Genin, but were responsible for judging if their technique is too sloppy, obvious or ineffective.

My theory is supported by this scene, where Izumo eliminates one of the ninjas doing the test, claiming he took "five strikes".

It implies the competitors are allowed five errors before being disqualified, and one of the eliminated Genin makes it clear to the reader the "five strikes" are five times being caught cheating.

Naruto is also implied to be caught almost cheating when Hinata offers him her test answers (it can be interpreted either as Naruto being closely watched or Naruto's nerves making him think like that, half the proctors' job is to scare the Genin) and even then he is not automatically removed.

Tenten's technique may be obvious for us, as readers who have been shown by the author himself how she did it, but it's a single and successful attempt, and it's not commentated by any other characters, meaning no one caught on her besides the proctors, and they would only disqualify her if she did it more than once (which wasn't needed, she found the mole with all the answers!).

A pettier criticism i've "how isn't anyone seeing the lines?" to which the answer is very simple: manga is a visual media and the author needed the audience to understand how she was manipulating the mirror. If you take in consideration Tenten's fight with Temari in the anime - which is filler, btw, and it's up to you reading this to decide if it's a fair assessment on their abilities or not - she's shown using invisible lines to manipulate her weapons after throwing them. The lines are, conveniently, only visible when the animation needs us to understand how the weapons are moving backwards. Any other frame they're invisible.

You can see in the panel how the lines fade out towards the bottom and only show where they're attached to the mirror.

Finally: that's exactly what Ibiki expected the genin to do. There have been a few posts, specially on twitter, asking "how are you supposed to pass if you don't have a kekken genkai??". Like Tenten. That's how.

Kankuro and Tenten are the only characters which Kishimoto showed us cheating that didn't use an exclusive DNA super power. Kankuro and Tenten both use hidden threads, one uses chakra lines for puppetry and the last manipulates mirrors. They also pass their answers to their teammates, Temari and Lee.

(Sakura is the only confirmed character to do the entire test without cheating. Congrats Sakura!! You could argue Hinata used her byakuugan to cheat like Neji, but if you think she did it by herself, I will give you the pleasure of congratulating Hinata too. Congrats Hinata!)

Tenten's method was practical, and used her specific skill set: summoning and kunai work (where do you think the mirrors came from? a scroll, that's for sure). It was probably set up before the test started, during the commotion Team 7 created with their arrival. We're not shown it because Tenten is a tertiary character and Kishimoto wouldn't invest 2-3 panels of set up for a 3 panel sequence pay-off that works by itself very well. She is smart, did great and made sure her teammate was not left behind.

Tenten is not even the most absurd method used in this exam, so, as a treat, i will show you, in order, the most obvious cheats shown in the manga from least to most!

Sasuke's Sharingan If you're a ninja from the Leaf Village, you know who Sasuke Uchiha is and what a Sharingan is capable of. Unfortunally for him, the Exam is being held at the Leaf Village and all the jounin and chuunin there are from the Village. Any proctor looking at his direction in a position in front of him could see clearly his eyes and know exactly what he was doing.

Neji's Byukuugan Like the Sharigan, you can physhically see when it's activated, with the downgrade of being noticible by people sitting at up to 95º from him, as the veins are visible on the sides of his face too. A fair trade for the ability to see better than the Sharingan, even if you're not able to copy, in my personal opinion.

Ino's Mind Transfer Jutsu The jutsu's hand signal is simple and can be missed, but it's still obvious for any Konoha ninja watching, it is a very recognizable ability. There's also the higher chance of Ino being caught since she needs to do it three times (once for getting Sakura's answers, twice to pass them to Chouji and Shikamaru). Besides, the "dropping dead on the table" thing can be disruptive in a mostly silent classroom.

Akamaru and Kiba's communication Akamaru is barking all the way through the exam, and while the balloon used for the text is the one for thoughts, it's also the same used for whispered conversations up to this point in the manga. The anime makes the barks happen in the real world, and not in their thoughts, and as far as i could find, Kiba can understand dog language but there's no psychic talk between them. By the noise alone he could be caught. I think he wasn't expelled just because a full conversation between dog and human is a novel enough ability to not be considered by most ninjas unaware of the Inuzuka clan's special abilities.

The Most absurd one: Kakuro and his Puppet He put an entire guy no one knows and has never been seen in a room where all the authorities are from the same village and have, at least, a vague knowledge of each other's existence. To increase the absurdity, somehow everyone let Kankuro use his own puppet to guide himself to the bathroom. I cannot express enough how unlikely it is that, in a real info gathering mission inside a single room where all the higher rank ninjas are exclusively from the same village, Kakuro's plan could work. Most decent sensors could also catch the chakra line's signature.

I'll give it to him, making the puppet talk helps with the disguise, but it only fools his fellow attendees, not the proctors. He's too confident that he didn't raise any alarms.

But Ibiki goes as far as insinuating he knows (and has known from the start) about the puppet's existence when Kankuro comes back from the bathroom.

If Kankuro was able to finish the test and not get disqualified, even if he had what I consider the most obvious cheating attempt from the named characters shown, it's fair game for Tenten and all the other important cheaters. Besides, it's a single attempt at cheating, even if it required an entire prep work for it, so it doesn't matter if all the high level ninja's are aware, that's not enough to kick him out.

I cannot leave out the meta reasons why these characters weren't removed from the class: they're important to varying degrees to the story and they need to advance through the first phase to keep readers engaged.

Regardless of how absurd I think Kiba's and Kankuro's methods are, they need to go all the way to the fight tournament after the Forest of Death, where they have important roles to fill: Sasuke and Naruto are main characters and are prioritized by the narrative; Ino and Sakura will have an important character developments and flashbacks during their fight; Neji has an entire arc that only concludes all the way in his fight against Naruto; Kiba is the rival for Naruto in the surprise fighting tournament and he is one of the few characters able to match Naruto's silliness so he can win in a silly way; Kankuro and Tenten are both part of the two strongest cells present in the event, the Sand Siblings and Team Gai, both introduced as real threats to Team 7, and having anyone from these cells lose would undermine the narrative created around then. All of them would get through anyway.

Tenten losing against Temari in future parts of the Chuunin Exam has narrative importance too, a fight I will cover in the next In Defense of Tenten, but in short Tenten was introduced as a threat alongside Neji and Lee, her abilities and experience surpassing Team 7's. Having her lose against one the Sand Shinobi serves to show how big their gap in power is: if someone more experienced and well trained than them can't win against them, Team 7 has no chance. It's part of the build up for the future Naruto and Gaara fight, and the suspense about their real strength (since the fight doesn't exist in the manga, only the result is shown).

Conclusion: people are overly critical of Tenten because she's seen as a "lolcow" in the Naruto fandom, in part by the bad adaptation of her fight with Temari to the anime, which poisoned any feat of hers before and after it; but also because Naruto and Boruto don't give satisfying ends to any of the original female cast besides Hinata (she marries the man she loves and becomes a housewife away from the battlefield, an honorable decision i will never shit on, she never wanted to be a ninja and is a kind mother and wife, good for her!) so all female characters are seem as weak and useless when compared to their male peers. Naruto is a work riddled with undercover misogyny, never out right stated but always preventing the girls to achieve any meaningful resolution or permanent development.

That added to the ever expanding powerscalling abilities and fights make characters with simpler and down to earth abilities and feats outdated by its own universe. Knowing how big the Naruto fights and jutsu get in the future make people look down on crafty solutions like sealing scrolls, kunai and mirrors, when that is a perfectly respectable solution within the series and matches the powerlevel presented this early in the story.

Tenten is not weak, or bad, or useless. She's misrepresented by the most popular media consumed: the anime, and further misunderstood by the fans of said work. Large fandoms can be allergic to text interpretation and infighting is stimulated to the point fans of smaller characters are bullied off social media and forums (i.e. the forum where I got the list of all chapters Tenten is in is filled to the brim with comments about how OP should move the topic to "fan works" since no one would want to read about it in the canon work page, or how the mods shouldn't allow him to have a thread). I respect Tenten's feats, as well as other small characters', and refuse to be fed the same "uselessness" narrative this fandom always had, because i actually enjoy Naruto, even if i have many problems with it, and I take it seriously.

She did great.

[sakuraharuno156]

Temari would wipe the floor with Hinata 🤷‍♀️

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We all know that Hinata fans are extremely delusional, but saying that Hinata has any chance with (OR EVEN WORST - COULD WIN WITH) Temari is on a different level....

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The simplest explanation is the fact that Temari was promoted to a junin at 17 yo, while Hinata is just a chunin at 32 yo.

There is no "junin exams", to become one, you have to be a chunin that is seen as a strong ninja by your Kage. It's not that Hinata has never participated in an exam, or she just chose not to be a junin, she was never deemed strong enough to be one. Therefore Temari is canonicaly stronger. That should be the end.

And don't come at me with "But NARUTO WAS A GENIN WHEN HE WAS THE STRONGEST 🤓" bullsh*t. To become a junin you have to be a chunin that is strong enough to be promoted. If Naruto was a chunnin in Shippuuden, he would become a junin after Gaara retrieval arc. Hinata was a chunin, so if she was strong enough - she would be promoted. Simple as that.

It should be obvious, but for Hinata Fans obvious is not enough, so I'll try to explain it further. I'm getting tired of people bluntly lying to themselves 🤷‍♀️

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In a real fight there are a few key abilities:

Speed,

Strength,

Durability,

Intelligence,

Additional skills (healing, genjutsu, summonigs, etc.)

Fighting style

1. Speed and strength:

Hinata has never been shown to be fast, BUT let's assume her speed to be high, only for the argument seak, but is she faster that Lee? No way in hell.

Are her attacks strong in anyway? No. She uses gentle fist that is a high level taijutsu, but again, is she stronger at taijutsu than Lee? No way in hell.

Why am I comparing Hinata to Lee when it's Hinata vs Temari fight? Because of this one panel:

We will assume that Lee didn't use his maximum speed and strength (although he was really angry at what Temari did to TenTen), but he was fast enough to attack her without Guy stopping him. Guy didn't manage to stop Lee, his beloved student that risked disqualification. Yet, he easily stopped Neji, who was so fast that Hinata didn't even move away from the attack.

Obviously, I'll assume (again, in favor of Hinata) that Guy didn't think Lee would attack or that the attack wouldn't disqualify him (but we know that it will cost him the whole exam if he managed to hit her, as we learned from later) OR Guy has known that Temari can protect herself.

I don't think it's needs any explanation. Lee's kick is stronger than any attack that Hinata can master. Mind you, it wasn't any kick it was his technique:

Both Naruto and Neji had known it wasn't a weak attack because they immediately screamed. If Lee was bearly touching her OR if the attack was slow, they wouldn't make such a fuss.

And Temari stopped it like it's nothing.

2. Durability

We have nothing on their durability, exept that Hinatas is extremely low:

Fight with Neji - she's almost dead.

Fight with Pain - she's almost dead.

War, where everyone was fighting - she's on the floor.

For the seak of the agreement, let's again assume in favor of Hinata, that Temaris durability is just as low (even tho it should be a crime, because Temari is a damn Junin, BUT LETS SAY).

3. Intelligence

Intelligence is obviously Temari. She was smart enough to get into a real mind game (and be VERY GOOD AT IT) with Shikamaru during chunnin exams, and Shikamaru is the smartest.

Meanwhile Hinata....

Had to be reminded to even look at the enemy

And to use her byakugan... her only damn weapon

Let's just say she's not the smartest tool in the shed 🤷‍♀️

4. Additional skills

Hinata has:

Byakugan and... that's it

She has "lion fists", but it's just a waste of chakra because that jutsu HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING.

Temari has:

Her summoning, that can cut the whole forest and kill a person in one sweep

She can FLY

She has her fan that is extremely durable and allows her to channel her wind better

5. Fighting style

Hinata is strictly short distance, with an exception of an air palm that still is short to mid range.

Temari is mid to long distance fighter.

Fight

If that fight was to occur, because of Temaris high intelligence, it would be definitely long distance. Hinata (if she remembers to activate it) would see where Temari is with her byakugan, but it wouldn't amount to sh*t because just seeing her move wouldn't allow Hinata to stop Temaris wind.

Hinata may try to close distance, but Temari is too smart to go into close combat (like she did in chunin exams fight against Shikamaru), and even IF Hinata somehow can get close to Temari... Temari can FLY AWAY ON HER FAN. How would Hinata counter it? By doing an air palm and blowing Temari even further away?

Hinata can't do rotation like Neji, her air palm wouldn't move A WIND THAT CAN CUT DOWN A WHOLE FOREST, and even if it could protect her in any way, she can't do it for a long time, while Temari can spam with her wind for long enough to keep 3rd Raikage away.

But even IF Hinata somehow gets to a close combat, Temari has a fan that can protect her from stronger attacks than Hinatas (like Lee's kick) and a summon that can separate them.

So even if we take all unknowns for Hinats sake - Temari is winning with no difficulty. There is no doubt that Temari slams Hinata to the ground.

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Obviously, the winner is Temari. Every Temari would destroy every Hinata with no difficulty 🤷‍♀️

The same goes for Sakura, who would k*ll Hinata in seconds, Ino, who would destroy Hinata with her mind and TenTen who would also win with almost no difficulty, but she deserves her own post 🤷‍♀️