#naruto critic

[burstsofenergy]

Honestly... I did not expect so many biblical references in Naruto... I was simply watching the anime and in the middle of this epic battle I am suddenly confronted with the story of Eve eating the damn apple in the garden of Eden?

I am not a theology student, so I don't know much about the theological value or theological interpretations... but I know about the philosophical implications in this story, especially from a feminist viewpoint. And really, I feel as if Kishimoto is trying to pull all possible strings here. As if he is begging for a deep feminist discussion of his writing.

And I am not even looking into the logic of this sudden reveal or how it fits into the established world that he had built up 'til this point. Or how he introduced this to the reader/viewer

[sanjipussyindulgence]

i havent caught up with bnha in a while but after hearing about the ending... i think we can all safely agree its the naruto of this generation. they both got too distracted writing an accidental gay love story for the ages to fix the fucked up corrupt society that uses child soldiers.

[sinnbaddie]

Naruto as a series is perfect if I ignore the lack of change to the systematic oppression and the victim blaming and the child cruelty and the oppressors being forgiven and the clear classism and the regression of character development and the-

[pinesepia]

buddy of mine showing me naruto and i like rock lee he's so cutie patootie

[mageknife]

i’ve only been into dragon age for like. checks calendar. two and a half months. and the amount that my opinion on veilguard has changed after playing the other games is crazy

[whoishotteranimepolls]

"Who's Hotter?" Group Battle

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

[thinkingfandoms]

Why are masked characters so hot?

only it becomes more and more weird

[sailorplutoirl]

Blacktober Rainbow Dash!

I based it off of David Bowie and the colors from Jane Gumball’s Nightmare Rainbow Dash Art!

Also be sure to donate to Amani’s gofundme below!

[haine-kleine]

rewatching Naruto and going insane over the extremely obvious way Horikoshi copypasted the essence of that story into MHA. funnily, the ending proves that he doesn't seem to fully understand the source material.

what really makes Naruto stand out is that every character is treated as a human who is worthy to make their story known. it's still shounen so the powerscaling and violence are ever present but the humane element never goes away. it might seem downright ridiculous that up until the undead evil aliens come to assume the big bad role in the end, every big bad that has been carefully hyped up before ends up revealing their sob story and leaving the spot vacant. but this was precisely what made the characters so interesting that they still have loyal fans nearly two decades later. the audience was always allowed to sympathize with the villain, no matter how evil, violent or how long their kill list is, because what it really comes down to, is a collection of various people's stories about their trauma and how they deal with it.

all of the villains have extensive kill lists: Gaara was a serial killer at the tender age of 12, Itachi killed his best friend, his girlfriend, then his entire clan and mentally tortured his 7 years old little brother, Sasuke later goes on a killing spree and nearly murders several people who considered him heir friend, Obito and Madara killed more people than there are named characters in the Naruto universe, and so on and so forth. the story still encourages the readers to sympathize with these characters, to the point of obnoxious stubbornness, but it drives the point home. Naruto's approach to writing the villain characters is the antithesis of 'cool motive, still murder'. the story is much more concerned with telling the stories about individual characters, their traumatic backstories and how they deal with the trauma, than it is with the worldbuilding angle of 'and what legal consequences are coming for them next?'. the story would rather conveniently lean to fit the chosen narrative for each villain character than deal with realistic consequences, just so that the character remains sympathetic and/or tragic in the eyes of the audience. Gaara was known for being violent and unstable in his village, but after he had his change of heart he is allowed to become the Kazekage and is accepted and supported by his village. Nagato wipes out the entire Konoha village because he is supposed to be introduced as the ultimate big bad to date, but then magically brings back everyone to life in a disney esque move, because after unlocking his tragic backstory, we are supposed to consistently feel bad for the guy. the story would rather be ridiculously unrealistic to overstress the tragedy and trauma, because realism was never the purpose.

then, in MHA, which is a story about magic people using their individual magic skills to fight and save people, you would assume that the realism wouldn't be a primary concern here as well. at the heart of the concept, before it fell apart, MHA seemed like a perfect successor to the message conveyed in Naruto, which excused the various rip offs. it seemed Horikoshi had successfully cracked what was the problem at the heart of every single villain in Naruto: trauma and mental illness, and capitalized on it. the concept of the story seemed to be 'what if Naruto set out to save the Akatsuki?'.

(and it is impossible to deny the heavy inspiration, because s1 Shigaraki is literally chuunin exam era Gaara. they are the exact same character)

as a fan of Naruto and not much of a shounen enjoyer, MHA seemed to take everything i loved about Naruto and amplify it. the kids characters got to spend more time together as a clas, rather than being paired randomly during filler episode missions. we got to spend more time with the Akatsuki League of villains and got to see how they interact with each other as a group and what their individual relationships are like. they got to build up their tragic backstories early on, to be dramatically revealed later, and not immediately die afterwards. Shouto got to actually talk to his older brother, and discover his tragic backstory from the source instead of hearing about it after his death and being powerless to do anything but cry about it.

but then, around the final arc, the story, or rather the author, seems to realize that it has become too big for a shounen. and his way of dealing with the issue was abandoning everything he has been building up for years. the comparison with Naruto really highlights how the issue lies not in the characters and their irredeemable actions but in the story straying too far from the main theme and eventually getting lost completely.

that is not to say the execution or the plotline wholeness were not an issue in Naruto, it's riddled with plot holes and retcons. but where it lacks the logic and stability, it makes up with the sincerity and compassion the author never fails to have for his characters. the uchiha massacre was a really shitty plot line from a political standpoint, but it's not there as a part of the plot. it has always served as a background for Sasuke, first and foremost, to the point Itachi's character was reshaped and retconned twice to fit what Kishimoto had going for him. the plot, the world are a stage for the characters, not the other way around.

and what made MHA's writing fall apart was switching the focus from the characters as the driving forces for the story to the sociopolitical plot starting to use those characters as tools. before the war arc, it wasn't meant to be realistic, the 'reality' was a playground for the characters. just look at the MVA arc (the best MHA arc). what about a malnourished insomniac Shigaraki defeating a CEO who happens to be the leader of a terrorist organisation so hard said CEO is so impressed with him that he gives up his spot for Shigaraki is realistic? alternatively, what about the Sports Festival arc makes sense? nothing! the students of the most prestigious hero academy having the competition where they show off their quirks and all of its drawbacks for the entire country to see on live TV is the opposite of sensible, and during the licence exams the students of the other schools even point this out! Horikoshi just wanted to have his own chuunin exam arc, and can you fault him for that? it was cool as hell.

the thing about MHA is that it was never meant to be too realistic. it can't be, because the realism hurts this kind of story. shounen isn't meant to be realistic, it's meant to be flashy, cool, over the top dramatic, perhaps tragic, but realism really has no place in shounen. most importantly, because shounen is supposed to tell the story of the main character, whose epic journey is as enjoyable as it is inspiring.

but the main character's journey is supposed to have an end purpose, and successfully achieving it would be the culmination of the story. Naruto's purpose was saving Sasuke, who was taken in by the Big Bad Orochimaru, when everyone else has given up on him. Izuku's purpose seemed to be saving Shigaraki, who was taken by the Big Bad All For One, and the entire world has given up on saving him when he was just 5 years old. thus, Izuku would become 'the world's best hero', because he achieved an unprecedented fit of saving a villain. hell, he would have been even cooler than Naruto, who mastered the therapy talk jutsu on all the villains he had successfully reformed, but still had all of them die on him.

but no. funnily, Izuku fails spectacularly at achieving the purpose he had set for himself. Izuku doesn't save Shigaraki, he actually kills him. not even on purpose, Tomura's death was entirely an accident. (to really drive home how ridiculous that is, can you imagine Naruto murdering Sasuke on accident during their final battle, and then moving on with his life? an even more accurate example, imagine Naruto killing Gaara instead of giving him a heartfelt speech in s1)

by simple shounen logic, this means Izuku failed as a shounen character. he doesn't get his happy ending, because he didn't deserve it through consistently written and developed hard work towards a singular goal the character had chosen for himself. this also means Izuku didn't become the world's greatest hero. he lies to us in the prologue.

but we can't have a tragic ending to such optimistic and hopeful story now, can we? so the story does a very awkward and forced job of switching the perspective to drive the audience attention from the reality of the tragedy the ending brought on it. to drive attention away from Izuku and his failure, we have the public aggressively blaming Shigaraki for the destruction. his story is never made known and Izuku is not particularly interested in making it known, putting this responsibility on Spinner. Allmight, who felt personally responsible for Shigaraki's kidnapping by AFO back when he was alive is suddenly unbothered by his passing. the epilogue has nothing to focus on because every hero character had failed at achieving their personal goals and thus peaked. it is also weirdly stubborn in its refusal to seriously view the aftermath as tragedy, following the characters (acknowledged!) failure to save the villains they intended to save. the explanation was still warranted however, so the chosen strategy was focusing on the outside world and how it was affected by the consequences. but it simply won't work because the story was never focused on this before! it's no Avengers Civil War, The Boys or even MHA Vigilantes. MHA was always about the characters and their individual experiences. the world leaned into the characters plot points and shaped itself accordingly, not opposed the various socioeconomic and political problems that the concept of heroes would bring. the heroes ranking and HPCS are the highest authorities we know of in MHA. who is the president? who are the politicians? why is so much budget spent on the heroes, to the point the devastated and ruined after the war country deems it important enough to build various statues of them? the issue of quirk racism is consistently important, but why aren't any anti racism organisations brought up? isn't there any legal punishment for violence against mutants? does the law just permit harming or even killing mutants? shouji had his damn face cut up as a kid and his parents never went to police or made a lawsuit about it? we do know that police exists separately from the heroes, but how does law work at all in this universe? the answer is, it doesn't, because Hawks has a footage of him committing a murder shown on national TV and he doesn't face any legal repercussions at all, and is in fact promoted to a HPSC president shortly afterwards.

i hope the above paragraph conveys how utterly cartoonish MHA's 'realism' is. and what makes it bad isn't the illogical inconsistency or even the double standards, it's that the realism is used as a coverup for the author smashing the core theme of the story he took from another manga with hammers and setting it on fire. it's 400 chapters too late to make the core theme of the story the society in general and various social issues as concepts. it was supposed to be a story about Izuku saving Shigaraki, Ochako saving Himiko, Shouto saving Dabi. i don't have to reach to get that message from the source text itself, because no one forced Horikoshi to repeat the world 'save' 27363279 times throughout the story. it was supposed to be a story about saving traumatized people who had no one to save them. it didn't have to be, Horikoshi could have easily continued with Kishimoto's established trend of having his villains die immediately after finishing their therapy session. but he didn't take that direction, and capitalized on the theme of saving people, even those who don't seem to deserve it, even those who say they don't want to be saved. and in the final, crucial moment, he didn't carry through.

this is the story of how Izuku didn't become the greatest hero.

my not-hero academia

[rennelelorren]

It will never be not annoying how people in this fandom give Inuzuka whole concept to Hatake.

There's little to no info about Hatake clan, but like even looking at the clan symbol it looks like a peace of land. Also, Kakashi name mean "Scarecrow", even this hints on his clan origin.

They're farmers.

Probably, the reason why there's only two of shinobi with this clan last name is because Sakumo decided to ditch clan's origin of a farmer and become a shinobi instead. He's special like that.

[burstsofenergy]

One of the arguments that seem to always come up when discussing Naruto with my boyfriend (who has watched naruto back when it first dropped and has knowledge about the fandom I'd argue) is that it is a Shonen.

Like I will criticise the narration, the plot holes, the inconsistency (boy how much I like to rant about the inconsistency) and the argument is nearly always that because Naruto belongs to the shonen genre, that is something of a given(?!?). And I am not a big expert in anime or anime culture or categorization or all but after confirming with wikipedia shonen is basically just the name for a special target group.

And I get it that shonen anime might be more focused on the fights and the power scaling and the action. Which are all things that I can not only understand but also appreciate, I stand firm in my believe that just because an anime is aimed at teenage boys, this should not mean that one cannot have expectations and quality requirements when it comes to world building or inner logic? Because really, boys also deserve to have animes that are packed with amazing fights and fighting systems additionally to a consistent world building and engaging narration.

And honestly, I expected a lot more from an anime that is as popular and successful as naruto really. And while the second argument always made is that the anime and the original manga aren't always aligned with each other, my argument still stands.

Despite a very sad lack of attention to detail, the world building is sloppy at best. Ideas and systems are introduced but never really realized. This deficiency has to be picked up then by the characters and the plot, I guess. And the animation/art. And really I can acknowledge that Naruto has a lot to offer for fans. There is a huge variety of characters which are engaging and interesting. And the plot is also really interesting in its basics. But I would still argue that the execution is again lacking.

[kathrahender]

One of the things I dislike most about fandoms is the hypocrisy of their fans. And this is about ships again, yes (it's about characters too ngl).

Every anti-Bakudeku/Catradora fan says things like "How can you ship couples like these? It's so abusive! It's disgusting! Catra/Bakugo were so mean towards Adora/Izuku! Catradora/Bakudeku is so toxic and you shouldn't like it!" and then, when talking about Hiccstrid people always love them together. Even if Astrid was also a bully to Hiccup. Even if her development was null (don't say she had development, her "redemption" arc was shit and she needed more time in screen and more scenes between her and Hiccup to change from "I hate all the dragons" to "I was wrong about them". And one scene with an OST called "Romantic Flight" is not enough to make her redemption believable). Talking about development, do I really have to say that you hate Catradora/Bakudeku, but at least Catra and Bakugo apologized to Adora and Izuku? Astrid didn't say sorry to Hiccup for bullying him/hurting him. And you should be aware of that.

Bakugo and Catra didn't redeem in one day, they didn't get up one day and decided to be nicer. No, they had to work in their redemption and they also had to work in their relationship with the people they hurt (Izuku and Adora). Astrid didn't do that. All she needed to change was flying in a dragon with the person she used to hate.

Having all of that in mind, tell me, which relationship would be more healthy, logical and believable? The ones where the bully had to work hard to make amends for their mistakes, to heal their scars to make it better for the MC? The ones where the bully apologized to their victim, to the people they hurt? Or the one where all it took to change from "I hate you so much" to "I like you" was one scene, and they didn't even apologize for being a bully/being a bad person? Think about that.

And think about another thing too. A girl hurting a boy is bad. "But she-" No. "But she's not being cruel and she-" Enough. Don't fucking justify female-on-male violence. Violence is violence. If you hate Bakugo/Catra so much for hurting Izuku/Adora, then treat Astrid the same way, because she was not an angel before changing. She's not innocent. She was a bully too. And if you despise Bakugo/Catra's past actions, despise Astrid's past actions too.

Where I also saw Double Standard in media is in shows where there's a female character stalking a male character. Two examples that come to my mind right now are Hinata Hyuga from Naruto and Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous Ladybug.

The thing about them is that a lot of people love them. A lot of people love a female character stalking a male character. Dear God, Marinette learned the daily schedule of Adrien, and she even traveled to another country for him. Because she couldn't bear thinking he was in another country where she couldn't see what was he doing. That's not freaking normal, you guys. "She was a girl" "She didn't know what was she doing" "She's just in love". Excuse me- What. the. hell. Okay. So you're saying you're okay with a girl being so jealous that everytime her "crush" talks to a girl she needs to be around. You're okay with a girl entering her crush's house without permission (Do you know that's a crime, right?). You're okay with a girl having her bedroom full of photos of her crush (and I'm not talking about a fictional character from a show she likes. I'm talking about a real person. Because in Miraculous Ladybug's world, Adrien is Marinette's classmate, not a character from a show). I'm sorry, but if you think that's okay, there's something wrong with you. People can like someone and have a crush, sure, but what she has is an obsession. What she's doing is not normal. (And she can do that in the show, after all she's a character, but don't act like she's a nice person and an innocent person because she isn't. And definitely don't see her actions as a normal thing).

People, please, don't think what she's doing is "iconic" or something like that. If you're watching this show, please, don't do the same as her with your crush because is awful and disgusting. She's not "cute" for doing this. She has a problem, I'm being serious.

If she had a better love story with Adrien, like she did in the movie, I would understand the Adrinette ship because in the new movie it's just beautiful and wholesome and it's actually healthy. But when it comes to the show, the Adrinette ship can't be nothing more than toxic. So stop acting like Marinette's actions towards Adrien are okay (Yes, Adrien's actions towards Ladybug weren't okay neither, but this post is about female characters).

What Hinata Hyuga did -in comparison with Marinette- is not that bad, but even then, following her crush (Naruto Uzumaki) everytime he's with his friends/classmates is not nice. It's not cute. It's not something people should do. And the Naruhina ship honestly makes no sense. Okay, I get it. It's the type of romance we all want to have. We all want our crush to fall in love with us. We all want to have a relationship with the person we used to have a crush on. But if you want to include that trope if your story, if you want them to end up together in a show/book/movie, give them development. The ship has to feel natural.

We have to feel/see the chemitry. And I saw (and still see) no chemistry between Naruto and Hinata. Sasunaru, on the other hand, has a lot of emotional moments together and moments when they bond (their chemistry is right there). And it's not for my own preference, but they would have made a better couple. Mostly because they shared more screen time with each other. Even though Shikanaru and Gaanaru are also good options for a canon ship. Because they also had chemistry. But Naruto's love for Hinata in my opinion didn't feel natural. It was forced.

After all of this, let me say something more. You probably don't care about a girl stalking a boy in fiction. You're probably like "She's not doing anything wrong" "She's a teenager" "Stop being judgmental, she's a good character" "She's a nice person". If what they do it's okay for you, let me ask you a question. What if their gender was reversed? Yeah. Imagine if Marinette and Hinata weren't girls. Imagine if they were boys. Imagine if a boy went to another country to control the actions of another girl. Imagine if a boy entered his crush's house without permission. Imagine if a boy stalked the girl he likes to see if she's talking to another boys. Imagine if a boy had pictures of the girl he likes in his bedroom. What would you think then? Oh- You would think it's disgusting? It would be disgusting for you, right? Why? Because it's a boy?

People, have this in mind:

👏👏👏 If a boy does something bad and a girl does the same thing they both need to be treated the same way 👏👏👏

A girl hitting a boy isn't funny. It shouldn't be played for fun. As well as a boy hitting a girl. Neither of them is funny. And neither of them can be justified.

A girl stalking a boy isn't funny. As well as a boy stalking a girl. Neither of them is funny. And neither of them can be justified.

That's why I ask you to stop being two-faced. If you despise someone's actions, you despise someone's actions, whether it is a boy or a girl. You want equality? Then fucking stop with the double standard.

A bad action is a bad action, no matter who makes it. Period.

[memoriesofthingspast]

l.o.v.e.🔥

🏜️⏳✨

🌊

[asexuwales]

guys how could i make ts more interesting?

i never seem to be able to pull off good and interesting artwork (ive been at this shit for 20 years)

[internal-ethics]

no one :

my brain :

the Shinobi WW4 was in year 1989.

konoha was founded in 1921.

tobirama was born in 1892, died in 1939 at 47 in SWW1.

hashirama born 1889, became Hokage in 1922, died as a old man in 1958.

madara born 1890 and Izuna 1894*

hiruzen's gen was born between 1915-1919.

the sannin born 1935

minato's gen born 1948

kakashi was born 1958.

and naruto's gen born 1972, making boruto a 90s kid. chapter 700 takes place in 2005.

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

1- boy tenten cute

2- i still don't really know what's going on with tenten's gender but please jot down the fact that lee and neji don't see her a girl, but will attempt to help her embrace femininity if she asks them to because they are supportive. also masculinity. they would help her transition in any direction.

3- the first half of the episode was an exercise in toxic masculinity feat lee and naruto attempting to defeat neji in manliness and ultimately failing so the hard left into "tenten is immune to gender" for the second half is really fucking funny.

4- really interesting is that the episode does not try and prove that tenten is a girl by giving her girl traits. the whole thing starts because tenten is insecure in her femininity because she doesn't need saving, and it ends with tenten still not needing saving. so jot that down for naruto the narrative being weirdly lenient towards tenten's gender non-conformity and tenten's gender non-conformity ALONE!!! everyone else is getting shamed.

5- the real naruto gender standard was the haircut we got along the way