#the very end of the story involved ed's state alchemist name ''hagane no renkinjutsushi'' or ''alchemist of steel''

[evilkitten3]

you have. no idea how hard it was for me to find this....

anyway, i'm just gonna do the relevant panel, but i can come back and translate the others as well if anyone wants.

shikamaru: (thinking) but that guy, huh... i thought he was an amazing guy for someone in the same year as me and i respected him

so that's all interesting but i think there's a couple things worth noting. first, shikamaru appears to be talking about sasuke's capability as a ninja and acknowledging his strength and talent, not saying he likes sasuke's personality

what i find much more entertaining is what he says after that, which is translated into english here as "i always looked up to him" and by me as "i respected him". that's what makes sense as a translation but it's not actually what he's saying.

what he says, 一目置いてた (ichimoku oiteta), is an acknowledgement of superiority, typically from the weaker player in a game of go who's being allowed to place an extra stone as a handicap. so basically shikamaru is a huge nerd

i feel like a lot of dudebro fans project so hard onto shikamaru that now the entire fandom thinks shikamaru himself always distrusted and resented sasuke when that was,,,, clearly not the case lol