Naruto/Headscratchers


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Naruto in General

 * Naruto's backstory has generally stopped making sense. After his mother's revelations, we know that the Uzumaki clan basically had their own village, were key allies of the Hidden Leaf, and were probably well known due to their kekkai genkai relating to control over Tailed Beasts. Furthermore, they were in existence as late as what? 16 years ago? Even assuming Kushina was literally the last of the clan, her flamboyant red hair and attitude would have made her as recognizable as, say, Naruto or Sakura. Furthermore, all the adults of the series were alive and well during the time of Minato's reign, during which she was active as a ninja. Even setting aside the Leaf's citizens knowing about the Uzumaki clan's abilities and whatnot, they would have been apparent to any enemies whom they were fighting, including the other Big Five villages. Considering how huge of a deal Tailed Beasts are in terms of raw power and deterrent ability in the Naruto world, it makes sense that abilities relating to their control were highly sought-after. So regardless, there should have been many attempts similar to the one carried out on Kushina to secure those abilities for other villages, something probably correlated to her blood, and, therefore, her family name. Anyways, the Third decided to give this kid the last name of his mother, for his own protection...what? How does that make sense? If anything, that last name should have made him more of a target to foreign powers. So that reason is thrown out. Furthermore, how did everyone in the village magically find out this kid was the Jinchuuriki? The implication is that Minato sealed the Nine-Tails, but didn't just scream out "HEY ERRYBODY ITS IN MY SON THXBAI!" while doing so. If anything, the village elders, the Hokage, and (maybe) the ANBU would have known. So why all the paranoia about Naruto?
 * Minato wanted Naturo to be viewed as a hero, but either way it probably would had been best to just keep quiet of the matter, if you think about it that was an error all villages made, there are different ways to seal a bijuu but as far as we know the Uzumaki seal is the only one that leaves evidence (a tattoo) so why was it always make a public or partially public thing? you could say that it helps the host know and try to learn to use the bijuu's power and control it, specially since it helps the military purpose that's the main intention, but then why wasn't Naruto told he was a Jinchuriki? (12 years of not telling him)how did they know that in 13 years (until Itachi and Kisame came) no one would had tried to kidnap the orphan vessel of the most powerful military power in the world, heir of a presumably extinct clan and son of the last leader of the nation? that no one never captured, used genjutsu or torture on at least one ninja or even civilian to give them the information that everyone over the age of 5 at the time of his birth on the village knew was a VERY lucky shot.
 * Name change to Uzumaki because of protection is Fanon. The name Uzumaki is linked with Kyuubi Jinchuriki, so that wouldn't give him protection either.
 * Then again, for Naruto (who lacked education at the time) the name "Uzumaki" didn't mean anything, and thus he behaved as if there wasn't anything. And if someone looking for a survivor member of the Uzumaki clan saw an orphan who had no idea whatsoever about seals, had no talent as a ninja, and didn't think he was related to any clan, he would just assume that the name was randomly given and that the child really has no relation to the Uzumakis (especially that other than the verbal tick, which only people who were around him would notice, if they actually paid attention to him, Naruto wasn't that similar to his mother, nor to any other member of his clan). If his last name was Namikaze, on the other hand, people (from other villages at least, but it's those people who should not know about his relation to Minato) would quickly notice the similarity between him and his father, and that left Hiruzen afraid for his life. Granted, people would notice in this case, but whether they would notice that he isn't the nine-tailed fox personified, or that he is the descendant of Minato (which wouldn't be that good, since then they would only see him as the shadow of his father, and not as himself), is another matter entirely. So basically, Hiruzen chose the option which carried the least risk for Naruto that still allowed him to take the name of one of his parents.
 * Interestingly enough, I think it was mentioned at some point that Minato and Kushina marriage was asecet to the rest of the leaf village. As for the alliance with the Uzamaki clan, I'm fairly certain that was a secret from most of the people of Konaha. Though I'll admit I'm not a hundred percent certain.
 * All important discussions seem to get dropped. For instance: in the Naruto vs Orochimaru fight, Sakura sees Naruto in his 4 tailed form and is horrified. He wakes up to find her crying over him and doesn't understand why. The matter quickly gets dropped as she hits him for accidentally insulting her. Just a bit later, Naruto finds out that it was him who hurt her, and freaks out as well. That seems to get dropped as well. Hinata's confession happens and then is unresolved. And so on, and so on. Everybody seems to have a huge pile of things to discuss with each other, but nobody ever seems to really try. Heck, Sai of all people seems to think more about that kind of thing than the others.
 * How does Naruto afford that apartment before he starts taking missions? He didn't seem to have a source of income until then.
 * His parents might have left him money that, even if he doesn't know who they are, could take care of it or there might be provisions made for orphans. And you know that even if there wasn't any money at all, the Hokage isn't about to let the son of the Yondaime and their precious Jinchuuriki live and maybe die on the street.
 * He may have been in a "ward-of-the-state" situation.
 * He most probably was - for all we know, there is an orphanage when children are taken care of, but when they join the ninja academy they simply have to move out of it (for whatever reasons, and it's not difficult to see why keeping a group of children with pseudo-military training in the orphanage with "normal" kids is a bad idea, since they are all just kids, and are likely to try showing off) and, in case they aren't able to live with any of their relatives, are given a place to live for free (for as long as they are still in the academy - when they start taking missions they can afford to pay for it).
 * Chapter 549: Itachi confirms to Naruto that the whole Uchiha Massacre Story is true. Naruto's reaction? "So Madara was telling the truth! The Uchiha clan was plenning a coup d'etat!". My question is: why is Naruto more concerned about this part of the story, instead of, you know, the fact that his beloved Konoha was not a land of saints? It was the Konoha elders who ghettoized the Uchihas, and it was the Konoha elders who ordered the massacre, ruining Itachi's and Sasuke's lives in the process. Is Naruto really okay with Konoha's modus operandi?
 * Naruto was already familiar with Konoha's darker side because of his treatment (and status) as Jinchuuriki. And a coup is a pretty big deal, especially when all information about it has been suppressed.
 * And the Uchiha weren't 'ghettoized'. They lived in opulent mansions, could continue to be ninja and ninja police, even a few being a Hokage Candidate's student. Hell even Madara's story falls apart when we realize there WAS a Hokage Candidate who was a Uchiha in Hiruzen's time.
 * Actually, while they weren't exactly "ghettoized", they were still in a pretty similar situation, because of the fact that Tobi was supposedly an Uchiha. And that was the reason for their coup - they didn't want to be treated as potential criminals any longer. Getting back to the point, though - Naruto is the kind of person who hid his feelings behind a cheerful facade precisely because he wanted to believe that while things can be dark, people shouldn't succumb to the darkness; add to that the fact that Sasuke only "lived" since the massacre, and Naruto's primary objective is centred on Sasuke, and thus this is the part he is going to care the most about.
 * There was probably a really good reason why the Uchiha were suspected of being involved in the Kyuubi Attack. On the day when Kushina was supposed to give birth she was walking with Sarutobi's wife to the secret location where she was to give birth. They run into Mikoto and Baby-Sasuke and talk about childbirth. Biwako, Sarutobi's wife rudely drags Kushina away, which would be suspicious to anyone especially a jonin-level Kunoichi like Mikoto. Later we see Itachi babysitting Sasuke and learn that their parents have suddenly left. At the same time Tobi suddenly learns of the exact time and place when Kushina is supposed to give birth. Also remember that the Uchiha-clan did not participate in the fight against Kyuubi, when even the Hyuuga were there. Considering the security measures over the birth Kushina's movements were probably heavily monitored along with the people she talked to. To any investigator those events would be too suspicious and could only be connected. The only reason why they didn't immediately charge the Uchiha with treason was probably the fact they did not have concrete evidence that the Uchiha had leaked information. But the fact that the Uchiha did not help in the defense of the village was already close to treason and would actually warrant the accusations, being confined to their clan compound and slowly having their control over the military police stripped from them. What ever they were doing it cost them a lot of the trust they used to have. Traitors or cowards, they did bring it on themselves.
 * And furthermore, emotions were running very high. Not only was the casualty rate from the attack very high, but all of the noble clan heads had either pregnant wives or newborns at home. Put yourself in Hiashi or Shikaku's position- you're out there on something close to a suicide mission as the last line of defense even though your powers are pretty much useless against the Nine Tailed Fox, but you're out there anyway because it gives your pregnant wife a marginally better chance of surviving the night. Meanwhile, the clan whose powers would be most useful is nowhere to be found. At the very least, you'd regard them as deserters and demand something be done, because their actions endangered not only the village as a whole, but the wives and children of the clan heads raising the issue as well.
 * And don't forget that at least Danzou knew about the fact that one needs a Sharingan to control the Kyuubi. Everyone would suspect the Uchiha, since it is their bloodline limit, and I think the village knew about Kushina being the jinchuuriki of the kyuubi. I don't think the higher-ups' first thought was to blame Minato for being lousy at maintaining the seal. This might as well be the reason for the Uchiha massacre, meaning that Sasuke should have his revenge on Tobi as well...
 * When aiming for a vital point to instantly kill an enemy, why do most ninjas go for the heart instead of the head?
 * Same reason police officers and soldiers are taught to shoot a man in the chest instead of the head or limbs: the head is a small, mobile and very hard to hit target.

Naruto's Social Life

 * Does anyone else think that Naruto’s whole tragic back story could have been avoided if at least someone involved hadn’t acted like a complete jerkass/idiot. You would expect, that the son of the greatest ninja the village ever produced, get a private teacher like Konohamaru before he enters the academy, thus ensuring that his talent isn’t wasted. Just think about how much time Naruto lost because he didn’t have appropriate training, his lack of training is the only reason he was weaker than Sasuke. Moreover, why didn’t the third Hokage give someone he trusted the mission to adopt Naruto and watch over him, because you know, having a father/mother figure can be very important for a little child, especially if the child is the container of the most powerful and evil creature on earth. And why on earth did Hiruzen make a secret of Narutos family background? Yes his father was very famous, but Hiruzen isn’t that unpopular either, everybody knows that Konohamaru is the grandchild of the legendary third Hokage and nobody is trying to kill him. Furthermore, Naruto’s family didn’t have blood limits, so there wouldn’t have been kidnap attempts on him just to get a special ability as it happened with Hinata. If the Hokage had told everybody that Naruto is the son of the most popular man of the village, don’t you agree many people would have changed their judgement about Naruto? And if that didn’t worked, Hiruzen could have added “By the way, did I mention that if he ever gets angry or becomes too depressed, he might break the seal and let the fox bring havoc to the world? Maybe you should give him free ramen as much as he wants, and instead of avoiding him you should tell your children to play with him and become friends with him, just to make sure that in case the seal breaks, Naruto has an actual reason to not kill us all”. And where the hell was Jiraiya? Why didn’t he ever bother to look after his godchild? Or Kakashi, yes he was rather young when his sensei died, but he could have visited Naruto from time to time, just like Shikamaru does with Kurenai. Well there were probably more pressing matters they had to deal with, than the fate of the world which depends entirely on the well-being of one lonely, emotional abused little boy.
 * The Third pulled a batman gambit to get Iruka-sensei to care for Naruto. Forcing someone to be Naruto's foster parents probably wasn't an option since there wasn't anyone in the village that wasn't too scared or angry at the 9-tails to take him in.
 * Seems like some of the secrecy comes from his mothers side of the family. Remember Kushina's special Chakra was considered important enough for their to be at least one attempt to kidnap her. And if they made it public that he had the fox inside him, that's also a reason for other villages to target him for kidnapping. As for keeping it secret from the children of Konoha, Look at what happened with Killer Bee. One of his best friends tried to kill him as a kid because he hated the 8 tails.
 * Ok, in order to protect him from other villages, which might try to kidnap him because of his family background, they just tell nobody about his parents but give him the surname Uzumaki? Yeah, that's going to mislead even the toughest assassin. Moreover this doesn't excuse the bahaviour of Jiraiya and Kakashi.
 * Well Jiraiya is a Kage level ninja he had more important things to do (getting info on another Kage level ninja Orochimaru and a Kage level "group" Akatsuki), it's only when Akatsuki starts going directly after Naruto that he decides to train him (before Naruto annoying him into teaching him how to walk on water, then he thought him summoning jutsu to defend himself a little since he was the Kyubi vessel) and Kakashi doesn't teach anyone who doesn't pass his test of approval.
 * Actually Jiraiya was Konoha's spymaster. He was too important to be chained to Konoha and raise a kid. He was needed on the field not only to keep an eye on Orochimaru and eventually Akatsuki, but against all other potential threats as well. Kakashi on the other hand doesn't really have an excuse as he could have been there and would have had help looking after Naruto if he had to go on a mission. Heck, Sarutobi himself could have adopted Naruto as he would have had help from not only Asuma, but Konohamaru's parents as well. Leaving Naruto to fend for himself is one of the biggest face palm -moments in the series.
 * I agree that leaving baby Naruto alone with no parental guidance/family etc was a bad move, but in the case of why Kakashi did not look after him, he does have a small excuse. When Naruto was born, Kakashi would have only been 14-16 years old, and there is the chance that he was at the time, a bit of an emotional basket case (what with the memories of his father and Obito's death, and the recent death of his sensei). He may not have been capable of looking after Naruto full time, however he could have at least fostered some sort of relationship with him (as a friend or older brother figure even!)
 * Kakashi also entered into the ANBU sometime after Obito's death. Between his emotional state just after said fact and then becoming an ANBU, he has well enough of an excuse to not have been looking after a child.
 * Why has it occurred to no-one to tell Naruto who his father is? Don't they think he might want to know - hell the kid was seriously depressed and acting out half his life - what's wrong with giving him someone to look up to?
 * Also, why did everyone hate the kid so much if he's the flesh and blood of the guy who saved your skin? That's gratitude for you.
 * Maybe they didn't know that bit of information. Maybe their hatred and fear is bigger than any gratitude they can have.
 * He resembles the former leader of the village, has the last name of the leader's wife, is an orphan, should be pretty obvious who he is, and has Jiraaya as his godfather, shouldn't that get them to be a bit nicer to him.
 * The common fanfic explanation is that the information is clasified to protect Naruto life, as being the son the yellow flash would surely put him on the to-kill list of at least Iwa. And even considering his similarities to the fourth (which in this tropers opinion is little more than eye and hair colour), a bit of sealing jargon by the third could easily make most ignore the similarities.
 * It's the human nature obscuring their vision - his name was not Namikaze, and thus any potential relations to Minato were instantly outed because "how could a daemon be related to one of the greatest ninjas ever". Yes, Humans Are Bastards, but that's hardly different from real life (other than the fact we don't have daemons and such), and it's proven that people are less inclined to search for additional information on someone they hate (even if they have no justification for that), because that would mean caring about the existence of the hated thing.
 * Still, consider this. Nobody apparently made the plans to tell him at some point. Its like all those who did know were just sitting on their asses talking and reminiscing about Minato and Kushina without even thinking; "Hey wait a minute, we need to tell their son about them."
 * Look no further than Tsunade and Jiraiya's last meeting before Jiraiya leaves for Amegakure. Jiraiya knew he might not come back, and as a last request he could have said: "Tell Naruto the truth," or even Tsunade or Kakashi could have taken the initiative on their own, (Remember that at this particular point its essentially common knowledge that Naruto has the Kyuubi, and that Akatsuki is after him, and he's now able to take care of himself).
 * Couple this with the events that happened during Pain's attack. With Sarutobi, Jiraiya and Kakashi (temporarily) dead, and Tsunade comatose, this meant there was nobody left who could reveal the truth, (Unless Danzo or Orochimaru figured it out, and speculatively speaking, they probably did. Good luck getting Naruto to ask them though.)
 * So lets say that one of the villages many "geniuses" like Shikamaru, Shino, etc. figured it out. Good luck getting anybody not of their generation to believe them, never mind those who survived the Kyuubi attack.
 * Also, its one thing to not tell Naruto the direct truth,its another not to at least say something along the lines of; "Yes, you did have parents, they loved you, and though I can't tell you right away, I can tell you everything at (random age). Its better than letting the kid believe that he's an unloved orphan.
 * Truth be told, to me its a bigger surprise that Naruto didn't flip out when Kakashi outright confirmed he knew all along.
 * Here's an alternate theory- Has it ever been definitively shown that Naruto does not know?
 * It's never outright stated that he doesn't know, but there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that he doesn't know. First of all, Naruto is probably the least subtle person ever. He'd probably be shouting from the rooftops, "My dad was the Yondaime and you guys better start respecting me!" Then there's the whole Tsunade deal where she basically insulted the Sandaime and Yondaime. Naruto never said anything about not disrespecting his father.]
 * That falls flat though considering how its common knowledge that Konohamaru practically runs around screaming "I'm the Hokage's" grandson, and yet nobody goes around chastising him for it.
 * Well considering how recently Naruto put on a longcoat very reminiscent of the Fourth's I wouldn't be surprised if Jiraiya told during the timeskip. Naruto had by then matured enough not to go on about it. He'd probably just feel sad from never knowing him...
 * Moot point as of Chapter 439.
 * It had been etsablished that Naruto kind of looked up to the fourth anyway, even after finding out the fourth sealed the kyuubi within him.
 * I think the reason why he wasn't told he's the Yondaime's son was to avoid awkward questions about how the Yondaime got rid of the Kyuubi, which I'm sure Naruto would have been eager to know had he known he's the hokage's son. They couldn't have refused to answer, either, since he could say that as his son, he has a right to know.
 * How about this? How exactly does Naruto grow to be mostly alright, morally, when no one seems to be guiding him or, heh, even keeping him alive through his toddler ages? If there was someone doing it then that someone should at least get a bit attached to him, no? Not even Iruka is shown to be fond of him until the end of chapter one.
 * My theory is that Rin, Kakashi and Obito's teammate and the Fourth's student, took care of Naruto while he was very little, and then she died, in the course of life as a ninja, before he would remember her.
 * Hang on, you're assuming. Naruto had a mother (Kushina Uzumaki), and it's never mentioned when she died. It could have been just a year or two before the story started, and even after she died, the Third Hokage kept an eye on Naruto to make sure he didn't get into too much trouble.
 * Well, we now know she died right when he was born, just like his father. Most likely the Third took care of him for the most part. At any rate, while he was treated like dirt by most of the village, the Third's plan of not letting the parents tell the kids about the Kyuubi seemed to have partially worked in that in the flashbacks Naruto seemed to be friendly enough with Shikamaru, Kiba, and Chouji at the very least. He also had his half acknowledged rivalry with Sasuke from a very young age. Iruka was the first to acknowledge him and make him feel wanted, but he had always had some level of friendly interaction with his peers, unlike Gaara who was shunned even by the other children.
 * Actually the people of Suna had some justification in fearing Gaara before he went all homicidal. Sure they feared him because he was a Jinchuuriki, but his seal was also so poor and he did not have the needed control, which allowed Shukaku to harm bystanders even though Gaara did not want that. Just look at the flashback where Gaara tries to use his sand to stop kids from running from him and drags them back hurting one girl. This may have been due to Gaara's lack of control or Shukaku's influence without Gaara's knowledge.
 * He doesn't need anyone to "guide him" to have his own moral codex. It's difficult for people to think that someone can create his own one (that can't be summed by "burn everything", since many people think that not being taught the "common moral code" makes people incapable of having any morals, but let's face it - while creating your own code is difficult, it is your system then, and thus one you agree with. It's pretty similar to a Real Life example of "how can atheists be moral if they don't believe in God who gave us moral codex", while there are people even amongst the believers who break the codex. So basically, it's a What Are You In The Dark that stretches over one's whole live instead of just one situation - there are people who would still be moral, and there are people who would not be. As to the fact that not even Iruka acknowledges him, it's more about Naruto's pranks than about himself, and Iruka was shown to still be fairly sympathetic towards the kid, only scolding him when he did something obnoxious.
 * We're told repeatedly that Naruto has no friends. The village is supposed to hate him, parents keep their kids away, that sort of thing. We're told this over and over, right? But then you get flashbacks in later chapters, with Naruto playing with Chouji, Kiba, and Shikamaru at a park, and even getting in trouble together. You would think this implies friendship or some sort of familarity. However, when the series starts, they all act like they've only seen him from afar. Did Not Do the Research on their own characters, perhaps?
 * It's possible they only hung out with him when their parents weren't around, but when push came to shove they abandoned him like anyone else. Sort of like that kid at school who is so cool because your parents tell you to stay away from him. Also, that was all years before the start of the series, so they've probably grown apart a lot since then, explaining why they acted like they had only seen him from afar.
 * That makes sense. But it raises the question of why all the teacher he runs into over the series don't seem to hate him. And from what I've heard Iruka didn't start caring for him until the end of the first chapter? I got the impression that he'd been one of the ones caring for him.
 * The first chaper of the manga seems to imply that Iruka pitied him and sort of related to him prior to the whole Mizuki deal and therefore took him under his wing a little, but he didn't really respect him until after it. Or something like that.
 * One possibility is that the kids from the academy don't outright hate him as a result of being influenced by their parents' treatment of him, but they (with the exception of Hinata) don't necessarily like him either, because of his annoying and immature personality. One possibility is that he latched onto the Choji-Shikamaru-Kiba group, and while they didn't necessarily push him away, they didn't see him as one of them.
 * It is an explanation, true, but there is a hole in it still. Kiba wouldn't really care about Naruto for real because they were only ditching classes together, and his family's training would probably incline him not to associate with Naruto seriously because of his low strength. Shikamaru would be too lazy to care, too. But wasn't the Akimichi clan supposed to really care about their acquaintances, even if they weren't exactly friends? Unless that was an anime-only thing, that is (it was a long time since I've read the early chapters of the manga, and anime added a lot of things that don't exactly make sense).

Naruto's Techniques and Abilities

 * Naruto and how he learnt the mass shadow clone technique. Let's see, Naruto is presented to have low intellect, the jutsu requires a lot of chakra, and its forbidden (with the connotation of being lethal/godly/powerful). What intrigues me is Naruto just learnt this technique by simply reading a big scroll. So would all the forbidden techniques can be learnt at Matrix-download-speed just from a fricken' scroll??
 * The jutsu is probably forbidden because it requires too much chakra. Though it doesn't make it any more logical...
 * Not the question. How easy is it to learn forbidden techniques from a scroll?
 * Forbidden doesn't mean difficult, it means inhumane (Impure World Resurrection) or potentially deathly to the user, the point was that someone with anything but a high chakra control (hence why Kakashi knows the technique) would die by accidentally summoning a fifty clones when their limit would be around twenty, in fact it means it's easy to learn, a genin could learn it but since it doesn't require that much technique, experience or training to learn it they could end up making the mistake I stated, it's like this, opening a person with a scapel doesn't require technique or experience, opening without seriously injuring or killing them on the other hand.
 * Actually, the Shadow Clone Jutsu is not a forbidden technique. Which is why a bunch of other people are shown using shadow clones. The Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu, on the other hand, is a forbidden jutsu because it's incredibly easy to kill yourself using it, and it's the second one that Naruto learns from the scroll. I think the answer here is that Naruto (as is clearly shown later in the series) has a lot of talent and potential as a ninja, it's just that his learning style (he's a very kinesthetic learner) is much different than the methods used in the Ninja Academy. His best subject in school was taijutsu, as in the subject that required the most hands-on learning. Note that he's shown mostly goofing off in Ninja school, but he only uses the Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu when Iruka is almost dead. Naruto learns by doing, and he probably only paid attention to the scroll because it was forbidden, therefore it was exciting and interesting for him to read it. Once he's actually paid attention and someone he loves is threatened, he does the jutsu and it works because he's fired up.
 * The Shadow Clone Technique splits the chakra equally, and it's pretty easy to misuse it, losing most of one's chakra in a few moments. On the battlefield, that would be equivalent to a suicide, and thus it's better to spend the time teaching ninjas anything other than this technique. Granted, it can be useful, but no people other than daemon containers or members of the Uzumaki clan (increased stamina, and thus chakra reserves) is capable of creating clones in numbers that truly matter. Other than that, it's very possible (though not confirmed) that the clones aren't "ideal ninjas", but rather shadows of the user's personality, and thus if one only learned to use it because he was afraid to fight, the clone wouldn't fight at all (most genin are like that, and by the time anyone hits chuunin level, they are required to start thinking tactically, and thus have tools that offer better effectiveness to chakra usage ratio).
 * There might also be a different reason. We know that the user gets memories from the clone, and most clones destroyed in combat are eliminated with lethal hits. That means the user practically experiences his own death, with everything but the effect of dying, on a daily basis. How many people would stay sane or longer than a week of fighting using this technique? How many would still be sane after a month? A year?
 * Naruto developed a new technique, the rasen shuriken, but he can't use it because it damages him. However, it's shown that a shadow clone can also perform the technique, and it has been shown numerous times that if a shadow clone is damaged, this does not affect Naruto himself in any way. So what stops Naruto from using the technique using a shadow clone?
 * When he makes a shadow clone, he puts a specific amount of chakra in for it to use. The Rasen Shuriken takes up so much chakra and so much CONTROL that a clone made to use it would consume more chakra than he can safely give.
 * Yes, it was established that the technique consumes enormous amounts of chakra, making it impractical for long fights. However, that's not the main reason why Naruto was heavily warned against using it. The main reason was that using the technique is extremely dangerous and can cripple him so badly that he may not be able to use any chakra techniques at all anymore. However, if a shadow clone performs the technique, wouldn't the damage happen to the clone and not to Naruto himself? If that's the case, the technique becomes very usable because it's awesomely powerful, even if it consumes all your chakra in one or two uses. The series does not deal with this at all, and simply states that Naruto cannot use the technique because it's so dangerous (rather than simply impractical because of the amount of chakra consumed).
 * The way I took it was: he can't use it himself because of the damage it does to his body, and he can't have a clone use it because it takes so much chakra that his average clones just aren't powerful enough to pull it off. I suppose if he wanted to do something like put half his chakra into a single clone, he might be able to get around that, but considering that clones disappear after being hit once, that has some serious potential to backfire. In the end the move is probably just Awesome but Impractical no matter how he goes about it.
 * He was shown to perform the technique using a clone without problems. And this was after he had performed the technique once already. And he still had enough chakra to perform it a third time.
 * Well... maybe the one the clone was holding was just a convincing-looking facsimile? It was supposed to be a decoy, after all. Because otherwise, yeah, the original comment above is completely right, and there's no reason for him to ever use the move himself.
 * I reckon he probably would have started using it with clones if he hadn't figured out how to -throw- them at people instead. Much better.
 * Notice that its only when he actually lands the Rasen Shuriken that it does damage to Naruto. A clone could create and hold a Rasen Shuriken but if it tried to land it, the clone would be destroyed the moment it landed the technique, causing it to fizzle and do a fraction of the damage, while still wasting a ton of chakra. Once he gains the ability to throw them, it becomes a non-issue, as both clones and the actual Naruto can deploy it successfully without being injured.
 * Just another thought: It's been established in the series that Naruto gains the experiences and chakra fatigue of the shadow clones when he releases them. That's how he learned it so fast in the first place. Also, note that the Rasen Shuriken does not cause physical damage - it severs his chakra "veins" such that too many times would make him unable to mold chakra. Physical damage cancels out the clone, but it's unknown what chakra-network damage would do to a clone. So it's possible that if he used it with a clone he would just take on the damage when he recombined with that clone.
 * So in other news, he fixed it so it doesn't cut him up anymore, made it explode and also be a thrown weapon. GG.
 * Naruto wasn't capable of using Rasenshuriken through one of his clones because without access to the natural energy (which allowed him to throw it instead) it would dissipate in the exact moment the technique connected, thus not achieving its full power and being much worse than an ordinary Rasengan.
 * Better question why doesn't Naruto ever summon after the Gaara fight during the first part? "Sasuke come back with me or I crush you with a giant toad" would've been a lot easier.
 * Because then Sasuke would lose, and then not allow all the Sasuke-wanking going on in part two of the manga... Besides, that's not 'good guy' behavior. And the 'good guy' ninja seem to want to be samurai without using the title.
 * So it's okay to shove chakra balls of death at people and start using a demons power to survive but summoning a giant toad isn't? I call BS. Sasuke love aside that battle should have gone differently!
 * It was established following Sasuke's defection that bringing Sasuke back to Konoha was an extremely personal matter for Naruto, hence why he puts so much effort into trying to bring Sasuke back alive and well instead of trying to kill him for his outright treachery. In this line of thinking, summoning Gamabunta would have been an intrusion of sorts that would have defiled the highly personal nature of Naruto's quest.
 * Plus Naruto wanted to prove that he was stronger and using a third party just wouldn't be satisfying.
 * Which brings the wallbanger, why did he stop the rasengan? he talked on and on about beating him half to death if he had to, he was more surprised than injured at the fact that Sasuke almost killed him by blazing him and all of the clones, so why not continue with the attack? it would had proven he was stronger if he did win, he would had been able to retrieve Sasuke even if he lost (doubt Sasuke would had been able to stand before Kakashi got back).
 * To actually answer your question instead of using it as an excuse to whine, a giant toad isn't fit for fighting all enemies on all terrain. The Sannin all used their big summons in an open field and Naruto fought with Gamabunta against the one tailed. I doubt Sasuke could have beaten Gamabunta, but he probably could have run away. Anyway, for Naruto this was to person to let it be handled by or with anyone else (though if he knew that he would lose by himself, he might have otherwise).
 * Alright that explains the battle away but why didn't they use one of the toads as transport? Not Gamabunta of course but one of the bigger ones that can move fast seems like it'd be a good idea.
 * Are they really faster than a regular shinobi jumping through the trees/running? Plus, remember Sasuke had that speed upgrade from the Gaara match and the cursed seal.
 * At that time he didn't have very good control over who he was summoning. He would probably either end up using his regular chakra to get a toad that was too small to ride, or using the fox chakra to get one that was too big to travel through trees.
 * There's also little chance of Gamabunta actually listening to Naruto anyway; he only helped him against Shukaku because Gama-whatever said Shukaku was being mean to him. He'd have just sat there and smoked his pipe. 'Fight for me, ya little brats!'
 * How did Naruto's summoning of some clones,then dispelling them,give him some chakra back? It's explicitly stated at the very start that any energy used in creating the clones is lost. Oh, and the first poster's very negative views of the main character and his rival just bug me. Most of the serious hardcore yaoi is timed in Shippuuden, whereas fluffy PG crap is pre-timeskip. She would also like to direct the poster to chapter 431. Yes, the impulsive retard taught Konohamaru the Rasengan, and is badass enough to earn his right to scream GATTAI!
 * Naruto didn't actually teach Konohamaru the Rasangen, just some striptease or something with the Sexy no Jutsu, that Konohamaru used to teach himself the Rasangen, in less than a minute.
 * Yes he did. Konohamaru has a flashback where he remembers Naruto tells him he's going to teach him a jutsu and begins describing the various stages of the Rasengan training and Konohamaru, having only learned the sexy jutsu from Naruto assumes that it's a variation of that. It's explicitly stated ('I wonder what kind of pervy technique it is http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/428/04/ )and starts imagining what it is. Naruto thinks he's being weird and says 'What are you talking about, this is a difficult A rank attack jutsu' or something like that.
 * Okay rereading that I'll withdraw my last statement.
 * My understanding with Naruto's clones is that he divides his chakra out evenly among them when he creates them. If he manually dispels them, he can reobtain that chakra. If the clone is killed, he does not reobtain this chakra. But, knowledge/experience is transferred to Naruto from a clone in either situation. As to Naruto losing chakra during clone creation, he (the original) naturally regains it with time/rest, like stamina. So creating clone "chakra batteries" is plausible.
 * A variation on the argument: Sage Mode is just that, a mode. It requires concentration, not a storage of chakra/energy. Naruto going Sage Mode should NOT be likened to Goku going Super Saiyan. Therefore, creating a clone in this meditative state, then dispelling it to obtain said state, is also plausible.
 * Naruto does not gain any chakra back from the creation of the clone. But Sage mode is based off natural chakra taken from the environment. The chakra used to make the clone goes, but the absorbed chakra goes to Naruto.
 * There is a pretty simple answer to that - chakra comes from spiritual energy and physical energy, the first one coming from concentration and the second one from stamina. And since his clones only keep themselves together by using chakra, they lose it when they are hit, and a strong enough hit causes them to lose it all and thus be unable to hold themselves together. By that point, since the clones used their whole chakra to "defend", there is none Naruto can get back. If he dispelled them himself before that, on the other hand, he would keep all the left-over chakra (minus the part used to transfer memories, that is).
 * Sexy Harem knocking over trained warriors bugs me. We see people who can and do stand up to all sorts of horrors fall over because of what they percieve as a bunch of naked girls. I am officially confused. And bugged.
 * It happens simply because of Rule of Funny. And because All Men Are Perverts.
 * The Third explains that it is so crass and unexpected to seasoned warriors who would never even considering using something like it that they can't help but fall for it.
 * I want to know why this move isn't given more credibility in the series. I mean, of course its crass but that's precisely why it would be effective. Who wouldn't be stunned by someone turning into an army of naked people. It's the ultimate distraction move. For a ninja who depends on misdirection (i.e. every character in this series) that means everything.
 * It's pretty much Rule of Funny. It the author tried to use it in a serious way, Naruto would be using this technique to transform into clothed women and gather information, but that probably wouldn't be interesting to read, not in a shounen manga at least (I challenge you here, fan-fiction authors). Moreover, it's influenced by Japanese culture - if such a thing was drawn by an American or European (I'm generalizing here, I know that there are many cultures in Europe), the reactions of those hit by this technique would be very different.
 * If finding out your attuned element was as easy as touching a piece of paper, why didn't Naruto do this sooner?
 * It's special paper, so it's probably not readily accessible to everyone and Naruto didn't know about before he began training to make his own jutsu. Plus Kishi probably didn't come up with it until Part 2.
 * Even so, that kind of knowledge would logically be fairly well known. Of course, there's a flashback in the manga that gives me the impression that Naruto probably slept through a great many important lectures or skipped out with Kiba. (It's during the search for Tsunade, when Jiraiya leaves him alone to practice the Rasengan.)
 * It is likely that the paper used for the test is extremly rare and expensive. Konoha is a military unit, and like any military unit, it won't waste money on outfitting the regular grunts (Genin) with the best equipment there is.
 * Also, knowing what your attuned element is doesn't seem to do much! Naruto can't use wind jutsu in combat right after he uses the paper to identify his wind-attunement, it takes substantial additional training. Likewise, Sasuke knows his elemental affinity from birth (fire, because he's an Uchiha), but it takes him considerable practice to master his first fire jutsu. I always presumed the reason Kakashi and Jiraiya didn't bother until that point is that it wouldn't have done Naruto much good, anyways, because he still would have needed to master nature manipulation itself.
 * Well Jiraiya could had found out and thought him at least basic wind level techniques, which also brings the question as to why didn't he thought him any "new" jutsus and not just improvements of the rasengan, shadow clone and summoning jutsus.
 * I doubt the paper is that expensive. Naruto just hadn't reached that point in his training. As for why he didn't know about the paper, he hasn't been shown to particularly bright or to have payed any attention in school, so...
 * While I am aware that this is still a plot hole (falling under "why didn't Jiraiya teach Naruto much during their training trip", but that's a whole another matter), there is an explanation for that. Most of the young ninja we see getting stronger are still children or teens, and for them "awesome moves" are pretty important. Adults, with experience in battle, on the other hand, know that what matters is not what techniques you have (to a certain degree at least), but how you use them, and whether they match your combat style. If anyone gave that paper to Naruto before his apprenticeship under Jiraiya had started, he probably wouldn't have given it much thought and lost time trying to learn techniques he would have no use for in combat because those would be incompatible with his style. On the other hand, if one only learned about his element after he got a solid outline of his own style, he would know which techniques he'll have any use for, and which he shouldn't care about.
 * While this is a detail that doesn't necessarily bug me, it's a question that I have for the rest of you: Would Naruto gain the most character development out of realizing that he doesn't need to become Hokage to get the Leaf Village's respect (along with knowing all of the limitations of being Hokage), or would it be from knowing that the position has its limits and striving for it anyway?
 * Both of these seem pretty likely: he'll probably realize (if he hasn't already) that he doesn't need it to earn everyone's respect, but aim for it because he wants to help people while acknowledging (and getting past) the position's limitation.
 * Personally, I hope the entire series ends with Naruto making a comment about becoming Hokage, and then someone makes a crack about him still being a genin, and then everyone laughs, like at the end of an episode of Thundercats.
 * I personally think that Naruto's reasons for Hokage are shifting over time, especially since his goal shifted from getting respect to protecting his friends. He may well indicate at the end of this current arc that he wants to become Hokage to work for world peace, especially if it's after he hears about how people see him.
 * They are. On the beginning, he thought that he'll get acknowledgement if he becomes a hokage and thus sought it for that. Later, he had realised that he'll become a hokage if he gets acknowledged and not the other way around, and realized that he didn't really care about the position for the position itself, but because it will allow him to protect the people he holds dear. And personally, I hope that at the end of the manga he'll die, and we'll be given one more chapter without him; not because I don't like him (heck, he's my favourite character in the manga), but because the whole "nobody got hurt and they lived a long and happy life" is so clichéd I'm starting to dislike it.
 * There's something that bugs me about Naruto's chakra, we know that naturaly he has huge chakra reserves as determined at birth,I think Jiraya gave us some info on this but I don't remember exactly where, but having the worlds greatest chakra source inside him didn't act like a buff or debuff his chakra reserves just grew naturally didn't he sublimaly commit some chakra to keeping it sealed or didn't the extra source help his chakra increase?
 * And while I'm here if chakra is physical stamina + spiritual energy why is only stamina mentioned as a cap when using jutsus is spiritual energy infinite and to be a litle more specifical for D&D is is Inteligence Wysdom Charisma?
 * For your first question, I think the answer is both. The fox helped, but Naruto naturally had high chakra reserves. Comes from being the Fourth's son and all. For the second question: The Naruto d20 system that I use actually bases it off of Constitution.
 * This casting from Con alone intrigues me but in the area of jutsus are the mental stats really not necesary for added damage or something?
 * It's a skill-based system. Each jutsu or technique fits into one of four categories- Chakra Control, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu. Each one has a perform DC that you need to beat in order to properly use the technique. So you put skill points into the appropriate four skills as above. You get the standard ability score bonus to each skill- Wisdom for Chakra control, Intelligence for Ninjutsu, Charimsa for Genjutsu, and Strength for Taijutsu, plus your stats are relevant when learning the techniques. Constitution just determines how much chakra you have. In fact, just check out the (free!) PDF here
 * It's not exactly "skill-based" (since that's only how they chose to represent it in a d20 system). But using a little d20 analogy, total chakra capacity is dependant on one's stamina (Constitution score) and ability to focus, aka. mind (Wisdom score, partially at least), but stamina determines base amount and mind only a multiplier. Thus, those with high stamina but low ability to focus have more chakra than those with low stamina but high concentration (though knowing more and being able to focus also increase one's chakra control, acting like another multiplier). And now getting to the original topic, Naruto's high chakra capacity was mostly a result of his higher than average stamina, boosted even further by his Uzumaki blood (because let's be honest, the stamina boost of Uzumaki clan members was pretty much a bloodline limit), though there is a small bonus from the seal. And now there's a tricky part, because from this point it's all speculation: For all we know, Naruto's chakra is automatically holding the nine-tailed fox's chakra leaking from the seal on a level that would either be used up to power the seal, or that would be unnoticeable. Because of that, his chakra control is a little lower than what it should be (because he's constantly performing chakra manipulation and thus any additional chakra usage leaves his mind multi-tasking) and it means he is capable of using the fox's chakra when he's either very angry/confused (diminished ability to manipulate chakra meaning the daemon's own leaks from the seal) or when he concentrates really hard on it (turning off a function he was performing constantly and automatically, similar to controlling one's breath or pulse). That also explains why using the sage mode was so "easy" for him - with his body and mind balancing two kinds of energy (his own two types of chakra, and the nine-tailed fox's one), he was used to it already, even if the type of energy changed.
 * How does the power scaling go with Naruto's Tailed Forms? The two most likely I've come up with are either: A) type where, say, 1-Tailed Form is 1/3rd as powerful as 3-Tailed Form, 1/6th that of 6-Tails, 3-Tails is 1/2 as powerful as 6-Tails, etc., or: B) power doubles with each tail (2-Tails is 2x power of 1-Tail; 3-Tails is 2x power of 2-Tails; 4-Tails is 2x power of 3-Tails, 6-Tails is 4x power of 4-Tails, etc). Which, going by what is shown in the series, seems more accurate?
 * Actually, it's been shown that the Kyuubi's chakra can be split in half, as well as dispersed among 2000 shadow clones, but still be stronger than the Hachibi's. Therefore, a more plausible theory would be that the Factorial, x! (x being the number of tails), would be better for a tailed beast's chakra amount (compared to the tailed beast below it); e.g. the Kyuubi has 9! (362,880) times more chakra than the Hachibi, while the Niibi has a measly 2! times (twice) as much as Shukaku.
 * How come Naruto learned so little from Jiraya in the timeskip whereas as Sasuke learned so much under Orochimaru? All Naruto learned was a bigger rasengan varient and how to dispell genjutsu. Other then a little extra physical training it seems like they were just messing about. Does Jirata want Naruto to die if he's teacghin him so very little?
 * It should be noted that the fight was when Naruto was injured from overuse of the Fox's power and Naruto was unwilling to fight with Sasuke and wanted to reason with him. The fight still would have been in Sasuke's favor however it wouldn't have been so one-sided if Naruto was in full strength and had actually tried. Also according to Sakura, Sasuke most likely took drugs to improve his combat ability. Plus the rest of Konoha 12 and pretty much improved at the same or even less rate accoding to the databooks books that theory up. The question however is why Jiraya didn't teach Naruto Sage Mode?
 * Well everyone didn't had one of the legendary Sannin as their teacher. Sasuke learned snake summoning, developed the chidori (on his own since Orochimaru can't use it) gained a better control over his cursed mark than Kimimaru, learned a teletransportation technique, and some genjutsu (Madara said he's not even the genjutsu type) and further learned to use the sharingan (entering Naruto's inner world, defeating Orochimaru's possession technique and his microscopic view and chakra detection). Sakura learned healing jutsu, and extreme chakra control. All Naruto learned was how to escape from normal level genjutsu (something Sakura knew 2 years ago) and how to make either 2 rasengans or a bigger one.
 * That doesn't really excuse why during two years when Sasuke was learning all sorts that Naruto learned so damn little. We all see that Naruto can learn high-level jutsu quickly so two years with just Jiraiya and no distractions should have made him better than jonin. Heck it that crappy 3-tails filler, Jiraiya breifly pops up and teaches Naruto syncho jutsu. Naruto learned that quite easily. But after two years with Jirairya it's just bigger rasengan variant and dispell genjutsu, what an utter joke.
 * They didn't even found out his nature affinity. Jiraiya was shown to be able to teach Nagato, Konan and Yahiko jutsus that weren't of his affinity, so he should had been able to teach Naruto at least basic Wind style jutsus.
 * It isn't at all noticeable compared to Sasuke's Super Speed and Sakura's Super Strength but Naruto's taijutsu improved a lot skill-wise. Compared to part 1 where he easily got overpowered by Kakashi to his performance again in Part 2 where he actually was able to hold his own against Kakashi. From what I figured Jiarya noticed Naruto's crappy Taijutsu and figured that since Naruto already had two strong offensive jutsu's he might as well improve his Taijutsu.
 * But two years to improve just Taijutsu? Okay, first, Naruto has huge chakra reserves, so it should make sense that Jiraiya should have trained him in ninjutsu more. Second, Naruto has been shown to be a quick learner when given the right motivation and teacher. Why didn't he improve all three jutsu aspects, instead of a barely noticeable just-one?
 * He did go from a crappy barely graduated genin taijutsu level to being capable of fighting on somewhat equal grounds with Kakashi taijutsu level. It's pretty noticable. He's just Overshadowed By Awesome because Sasuke and Sakura improved so much.
 * He learned A LOT with regards to using his Kyubbi powers. He can now go up to 4 tails, while before he could only use 1. Also at 3 tails he is still partially in control - compare this with Sora, who was a mindless beserker it at 1 tail. I know his 4 tailed form wasn't meant to happen, but at 1 tail he was equal to Cursed Seal Level 2 Sasuke - factoring in Sasuke's improvement Naruto might then equal him with 3 tails. Also, it's subtle, but he uses the Rasengan more often - in part 1 he usually only used it once per fight, while in say, his fight against Itachi he uses it 3 times, and one was a uberpowered version. And as for his larger Rasengan, it's insanely powerful, and it's not Jiraiya's fault he only uses it once (or just found no relevent situations to use it in). Overall, he actually improved to about the same extent as Sasuke and Sakura.
 * He did learn quite a lot, but the problem is that it was a misplaced training. Naruto learned something that was useful for him, but quickly became obsolete/too dangerous to use/something Naruto didn't want to use/whatever. Granted, what Naruto had learned was still too little, seeing as there were things he should've been taught then, but maybe Jiraiya decided that instead of teaching Naruto subtlety, it's better to give him a training that will reinforce his current, pure-power-based style of combat (which would be still a mistake, but understandable at least).
 * I think the answer here is that Naruto is the equivalent of those people who made it through high school without being able to read. Simply put, the system set up at the Ninja Academy failed him. Compare any of Naruto's Part I fights to the fight with Kakashi at the beginning of Part II. In Part I, Naruto pretty much just stumbled through his fights on sheer talent (his incredible amounts of chakra) and luck. He clearly never mastered the basics of fighting as a ninja; in Part I, he's easily the least polished fighter of the main cast. During the timeskip, Jiraiya basically retaught Naruto the basics of ninjutsu and taijutsu, and it clearly shows in Part II: Naruto's movements and attacks have the same level of polish and skill as any other fighter in the series. What Jiraiya did was give Naruto a strong base to build off of, leading to his vast improvements in strength over the course of Part II. That strong base is something that every ninja is supposed to get from the Ninja Academy, but Naruto never got that, which is why he needed that extra one-on-one training with Jiraiya.
 * Why does the Eight-Tail have octopus tentacles? I thought he was supposed to be a Bull. Plus, people keep calling him the Eight-Tailed Bee; I can understand the mistake, but he's a bull! And Sasuke seems to have depowered by several levels. A single blow slicing his neck and chest open? A counter to his Sharingan that Naruto could possibly use in the future? Yowza.
 * That counter to illusions has been around since forever. Naruto tried to use it when he faced Itachi during the Gaara rescue arc: it just didn't work then.
 * And regarding the strength gap, remember Sasuke doesn't have the Curse Seal anymore, not to mention us having zero knowledge of the Eight-Tailed beast's strength, so who are we to say he won't kick Sasuke's ass any day?
 * It's not a surprice that Killer Bee was able to beat Sasuke with ease seeing how he's a shinobi veteran. It doesn't matter that Sasuke has the sharingan, is an Uchiha etc. He's still only 16 years old. Bee has got way more experience than Sasuke and is the hachibi's host aswell.
 * It has octopus tentacles because it is an Ushi-Oni, a creature of Japanese folklore that is basically a bull with sea creature parts.
 * Alternatively, it's just another very tragic story.
 * How come Naruto used Kagebunshin - and not just any Kagebunshin, but Tajuu Kagebunshin - while in frilling Chakra Mode? Me thinks it was expressedly stated by the Hachibi that he shouldn't do that because the Kyuubi would suck his chakra dry in absolutely no time?
 * Correction, what the Hachibi said is that Kage Bushins increase the rate the chakra can be consumed by the Kyubi. However, Naruto spent several hours training to see the limits of his mode, remember. And when he did Tayjuu Kage Bushin, he created what 12 clones. When he normally makes a hundred or a thousand.
 * What makes Kurama special among the Tailed Beasts? All of the other ones we've seen have some themed ability they grant to their hosts: Shukaku and Gaara can manipulate sand, that Three-Tailed water thing and Utakata can manipulate bubbles, Gyuki and Killer B can manipulate ink, and so forth. But Kurama and Naruto don't seem to have anything special to manipulate. If it's fire, hasn't that been taken by the cat and Yugito Nii?
 * Raw chakra - its as simple as that. Fact is that all of those other creatures need the fancy tricks to keep up with something that can grant a child the ability to create 1000 Shadow Clones at will. To put it another way the Nine Tails is to Naruto what Super Saiyan is to Goku or Bankai is to Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. No special abilities, tricks, techniques or spells. Just overwhelming destructive power.
 * Except that doesn't work. The OP is asking what is special about the nine tails that sets it apart from the other eight. Nothing about Super Saiyan separates Goku from Vegeta or Gohan at least. It might be like Ichigo's Bankai where it's super power is simply whoop ass. We don't really know enough about the tailed beasts to make a good guess. It's likely that the sand manipulation came from Gaaras mother not the Shikaku and we've seen enough clans with odd abilities and Naruto knows so little that Kurama's special gift could be anything.
 * My original point still stands regardless; the Nine Tails special ability is raw chakra. It doesn't need special techniques because it is strong enough to overwhelm the first eight beasts without them - and even if, for arguments sake it wasn't, Naruto is no longer that little kid who was completely overwhelmed by the monster. He's a highly experienced combat veteran who now has unprecedented control over his beast thanks to Killer Bee's training - he would know by now.
 * This troper always assumed that one of two things happened: 1) Naruto's Healing factor is the special power or 2) when the 4th hokage sealed the yin chakra it took away the kyubi's special power since the yin chakra is what gives chakra its "shape"
 * The ability of the Kyuubi is to sense darkness. It's a relatively lame power, but it goes beyond that. If the Kyuubi Chakra Mode's bright, glowing aura and markings suggest anything, the Kyuubi's pure chakra may actually be

Naruto's Clothing Style

 * Why the orange? Correct me if I'm wrong, but orange ain't the most stealthy of colours.
 * Magic ninjas man, this show has far bigger problems than a ninja in an orange jumpsuit. It bothers me as well but this is probably due to Rummage Sale Reject reasons, a plain black ninjitsu gi just isn't a good cosplay and doesn't stand out enough (Kinda the point) for the protagonist of a shonen fight series.
 * Well, the jumpsuit is just his normal clothing, what he wears everyday anyway. Would you change your entire wardrobe just because you graduated middle-school? And the genin all wear casual clothing anyway, versus the higher ranked shinobi that wear the full uniform(with the vest and all.)
 * Genin ninja and lower are not even suppose to go out on C missions and even if they did for exceptional reasons (post war crisis) they are accompanied by a Jonin (who could do a mission of that level alone). Chunin and Jonin do have to wear a uniform that blends with their regional surrounding (green for leaf village, white and light brown for the sand village, dark and bluish for the mist(water) village) then there are people like Jiraiya, Minato and Akatsuki who are so strong they don't need to worry about hiding and that in fact wear clothing that reveals their identity to others, most who stand back. That's also why I don't like the fillers sending Genin (youth) on dangerous missions who only survived due to plotjutsu.
 * It's also a Shout Out to Dragonball.
 * The real question is, why do any of them dress distinguishably at all? Not only does the orange make him easy to spot, but it makes him easy to identify. In a world where every shinobi seems to have their own special ability, why would any famous ninja (i.e. Kakashi, or Minato) want their opponents to be able to identify them and thus be prepared for their attacks? Every ninja should be wearing the exact same hooded, masked uniform.
 * Originally, all ninjas were supposed to wear masks, but Kishimoto found it too hard to draw expressions that way and it became only a few characters' (example: Kakashi) main feature.
 * Well, reputation can be a valuable first line of defense. It may be better to be fighting enemies prepared for you than to face the far greater number of enemies who, not knowing who you are, think they might be able to take you (status seems to deter casual attacks, unlike with, say, Western gunslingers). Kakashi may be getting the best of both worlds, in that he's utterly unrecognizable without his distinctive uniform... and it's not impossible that other distinctive appearances can grant the same advantage.
 * One word to that, Yellow Flash: flee upon sight.
 * Uh, we let other ninjas of pop culture get away with wearing bright colors. Why are you making a big deal out of Naruto's outfit when there were other high visible ninjas before Naruto? Get over it!
 * This debate often forgets all Ninja from the Academy know the transformation jutsu, with that what's the point in dressing sneaky like.
 * I think that Naruto is actualy fairly smart...don't look at me like that just think of this. If you can get you stealth skills so well that you can hide in plain sight with orange just think of how stealthy he would be when he dones black.
 * Because if you saw a ninja dressed in bright orange you'd waste valuable moments wondering how he managed to survive. And then, just as his foot was closing in on your head, you'd realize "Oh. That's how." But it would be too late by then.
 * Yeah, how insane of Naruto to dress absolutely nothing like a Ninja to the point that other Ninjas would be incredulous you are one, after all, everyone knows that spies had a dress code for a reason. Also, camouflage clothing is really not that good, in say, a city or a different woods, or a meadow or Grassland and I think doing clothes that are mean to make you invisible would make other people, like guards, soldiers and enemy Ninjas kind of notice you outside said blending. Besides, with the supernatural abilities Ninja posses, just blending with the enviroment wouldn't really help you much and say, why if you don't have the time or the opportunity to get your "equipment" to be all Ninja-like stealthy and had to rely in good old tricks, movement and timing? Besides, who in Naruto world actually dress stealthy anyway?
 * Technically the stereotypcial "black ninja gear" sprung from Japanese portrayals of ninja in theatre. Ninja usually just wore normal clothing, which was what made them so terrifying - unlike the obvious samurai, the ninja could be ANYONE. So naturally, whenever Japanese plays portrayed ninjas... they dressed like the stagehands. Now, you'll notice that just about everyone dresses garishly in Naruto-land. So they're blending in just fine! ...and they can always stealth it up with, like, magic, I guess.
 * Actually ninjas did wear black, on night related missions, but they also wore whatever color or color pattern blended more with their environment, black got more popularize by the media because after all, black is cool, but imagine being on a snow field or a sandy field or in plain daylight wearing black, black is not an all time cover color, I'm looking at you Kankuro of the "sand" village (at least his puppets have the correct color).
 * Naruto's main techniques consist of creating multiple copies of himself (bad for stealth), making a bright swriling energy ball (very bad for stealth), and summoning a toad the size of a mountain (the exact opposite of stealth). I think it's safe to say he's abandoned the idea entirely.
 * Also, orangutans are orange as well, and they are actually pretty well camouflaged in jungle terrain. And where is the village hidden in the leaves again?
 * Er...this is an orangutan http://tinyurl.com/yc9sm3c, and this is Naruto - http://tinyurl.com/y9t7qon . It's safe to say that Naruto isn't gunning for stealth. Besides, the entire series is about confrontation. We see stealth only once in a while. ANBU is a good example.
 * Bright orange is stealthier than you give it credit for. It has to do with how light works and the colors higher in sht spectrum (red and orange for example) becoming effectively black once things start to get dark. If you don't believe me take something red outside at night. Also not that his outfit does a great job of breaking up his outline camoflauge as often as not is not about making you harder to see it's about making you harder to aim at. For example look at the current military cammies that look like they were spat out of an Atari.
 * Read Chapter 498. Kishimoto knew what he was doing the whole time.
 * What do you get when you mix Konaha's Yellow Flash with the Bloody Red Habanero? Konoha's Orange Hokage! This moment is more than worth all the Fridge Logic behind the color.
 * Honestly, most "ninja" battles involve shooting giant fireballs, creating massive water dragons, growing to the size of Godzilla, or summoning giant animals, so much so that whenever any real stealth gets used, the opponents lose their shit. So why is everyone complaining about his jumpsuit?
 * Naruto's new coat bugs me. Specifically, why red rather than his usual orange?
 * Most likely a tribute to Jiraiya, who's clothing was red.
 * That's a coat in the exact same style as Yondaime-sama. More pointing at the fact that Naruto is really his kid.

Naruto's Relationship With Sasuke

 * Other than the fact that Masashi Kishimoto loves Sasuke for some reason, why exactly does Naruto want to save Sasuke? I know if the person I thought was my best friend betrayed my country (village, whatever) to its greatest enemy and then almost killed me I would want to kill him or at least catch him for him to face punishment from the authorities.
 * He's part of his Nakama, and even if Naruto didn't want to save him, they still feel doing whatever with him is their responsibility.
 * This troper wonders how Naruto can conceive Sasuke coming back after all he has done. Redemption Equals Death is the only option for Sasuke.
 * So what HAS Sasuke actually done? Helped destroy the guy who lead the latest full scale invasion of Konoha? Fulfilled his brother's dying ambition? Infiltrated the evil organization? The absolute worst thing you can accuse him of is fighting another country's jinchuriki and even then his target survived (whether by intention or fluke is still up for grabs). He hasn't even killed a single person yet. He HAS rather indirectly caused a couple of his opponents' deaths, but I think it is not a coincidence that he still doesn't have blood on his hands.
 * While a great many fans (including me) would like this, it seems really doubtful considering how sympathetically Kishi treats Sasuke, even after a big part of the fan base has come to dislike him. After all, Kishi has said that he's devoting this whole year to Sasuke. While this isn't WMG, I'd have to say it's much more likely Sasuke will just do a regular Heel Turn Face.
 * Sasuke sought asylum with a traitor who tried to actively destroy the village, aimed to kill Naruto, invaded a village to kidnap one of its members to kill later, openly assaulted and attempted to murder the leaders of the five major ninja villages (later succeeding in killing Danzou), and is now working for an enemy organization hell-bent on taking over the world.
 * Sasuke probably spent the whole timeskip studying how to defeat Orochimaru, so he cannot be considered evil at least till he learns the truth about Itachi from Tobi. Even after that, Kumogakure wasn't an ally of Konoha, and Sasuke technically isn't in the Akatsuki. He didn't even kill Bee, he just wanted to test his powers. And, more importantly, he didn't want to kill any of the kages beside Danzou, but he had to battle him anyway sooner or later, because Danzou wanted him dead ever since the Uchiha Massacre, that is when Sasuke was still completely innocent. While he almost lost himself there, I don't believe Sasuke became completely evil, seeing how he's fighting alongside Itachi against Kabuto, who joined forces with Akatsuki. This means Sasuke is basically fighting Akatsuki now, so we can definitely conclude that he is nowhere near being a member of the Akatsuki. And it's also important to know that Sasuke holds nothing against any of the villages except for Konoha, and that's because what they had done to Itachi. Even if it's not justified, which it may be, or may not be, Sasuke's actions are understandable, and if the series was called Sasuke, and not Naruto, he would be the hero (except he wouldn't pierce through Karin and the like then). Even Naruto says he understands why Sasuke did what he did, so I think that so should the readers.
 * Sasuke still attacked Bee for Akatsuki, he could've waited to attack Danzo like his teammates suggested, instead he attacked a international summit in a neutral country, which made 3 more villages and the samurai want him dead as well, he's just recently turned on Tobi simply because he had gotten Itachi's eyes working. Just because his reason to attack Konoha and Danzo makes sense doesn't make his methods any less evil or stupid.
 * Sasuke never said anything about being allies with Tobi, and he turned against him because he wanted to capture Naruto when he promised that Sasuke can fight him, not because he awakened his eyes, not to mention that Sasuke wants to destroy Konoha himself and the fact that Itachi is raised from the dead and is on the good side. He can't have waited before attacking Danzou, because he wanted to go to Konoha immediately, but Tobi held him back. Sasuke went through him with the Chidori, remember? Tobi could've killed him if he resisted, and Sasuke isn't stupid enough to fight if he has no chance. Sasuke may be rash and do some things that are possibly evil (though in a shinobi world, the definition of evil is a tricky one), he is the victim of the circumstances just as much. Had Tobi arrived later to kidnap the Sasuke who just defeated Itachi, things would have been very different.


 * If Naruto and Sasuke fail to bring Sasuke back, it would be an extremely depressing ending, and would still be a Downer Ending even if it had the Redemption Equals Death ending. Naruto's quest to bring Sasuke back is hardly the bleakest "friend redemption" plot I have ever seen; a similar situation in Muhyo and Roji in which Muhyo's main goal is to bring Enchu back, even though Enchu seems to have fallen to evil and is actively trying to kill Muhyo.
 * Ho Yay.
 * In the fight against Haku, back before Naruto had the village's regard, Sasuke took half a dozen needles to the throat for him. This comes soon after Haku's speech about becoming strong to protect people, and echoes Iruka defending Naruto in the fight against Mizuki. Naruto isn't going to be convinced that Sasuke is irreedemably evil any more than if Iruka defected.
 * Why was it that Naruto didn't seem very concerned when it was getting within weeks until the three years since Orochimaru last changed passed even though they had no leads on finding him and Sasuke?
 * He had the more pressing goal of becoming strong enough to defeat him; if he can't do that, finding Sasuke is pointless.
 * In a recent chapter, it has been explained (or at least suggested) that Naruto's vast chakra comes from his mother.

Naruto and the Ninja Academy

 * At the start of the manga (and anime) they state that Naruto failed the graduation exam twice before, so how is it that he is the same age as the rest of the cast? Shouldn't he be two years older at least?
 * He probably started two years earlier, what with the dream of being Hokage he's always had.
 * Which doesn't explain how he didn't know Neji, Lee, or Tenten when they would have passed the exam at the time of his second failure.
 * Multiple classes. Konoha's pretty big and Naruto's class only seems to have thirty or so students, even if most kids don't go to the academy it'd make sense that there's more ninja's than we see. The 'rookie nine' being teams seven eight and ten reinforces this idea.
 * They never say that the exam is annual. The Chuunin exam could be taken twice a year so the Genin could have been the same or they could take it when they felt they were ready. The Genin exam is much simpler and only involves the ninjas from the academy. My view of this is that Naruto failed the exam once and then he retook it some months later but still failed. I think that doesn't sound too silly.
 * Given that Naruto seems to think he'll have to wait ages to retake the exam and the fact it seems to be a big production, I don't think they have a 'take it whenever' policy. It's possible that they have multiple graduations a year but I think the way that they show all the students who graduated with Naruto and then jump up to Gai and his students who have been training for a year without once mentioning any in-between teams points against that. You would think that, for example, the argument about whether or not it was right for Kakashi to enter his students into the Chuunin Exam so early would be a perfect time to bring up an in-between team. Gai could bring any of those teams up as an example of more precedence for waiting to take the exam or, if they took it sooner than Gai's students did, Kakashi could point out that not everybody waits as long to test his students as Gai does.
 * Well, there's such a thing as repeat exams. He could have simply used the time leading up to the graduation ceremony to retake the exam. Schools in Japan (and other countries besides) have a policy to have make-up exams for students who fail a term exam just so they don't fall behind their peers. Likely this is where Kishimoto got that system.
 * In a situation where the majority of the graduates are doomed to fail just as part of the system no matter how talented they may be, I can't believe that they would let people who couldn't pass the exam on the first try get another chance. This isn't like in real-life schools. Naruto failing shows that he's probably not ready to be a ninja and will therefore probably die and get his teammates killed if he is passed. He challenged this belief when he learned the Kage Bunshin on his own with very little time but most people who fail the exam just aren't ready and it won't do them any good to give them extra chances to get lucky.
 * Naruto was also very impatient at the start of the series, which may have been the reason why he thought it would take ages to take the next test. He was also more arrogant about his skills back then, thinking that they were better than they actually were. He might have tried to graduate early because of his own arrogance thinking that he was better than he was in reality.
 * This troper is bothered by how the Academy Exam at the begining of the series based it's final exam around a showing of a single Jutsu. That's like a normal class final exam consisting of only one question and counting for 90% of your total grade.
 * As revealed by Kakashi, the Academy Exam doesn't really matter. The test given by the jounin sensei is the only thing that matters and it's doubtful any jounin would pass a genin who wasn't ready.
 * The Academy has a bit of Continuity Drift; there were initially 27 students in the academy, but when Sasuke first attends in the flashback, there are 30. Additionally, Lee somehow passes without being able to do ninjutsu at all (although Neji indicates that he's an unusual case). It's possible that Naruto could have passed without being able to do the clone jutsu if his grades were good enough, but since he wasn't a very good student, he failed.
 * This troper always assumed that they tailored the final quesiton to each student's weakness, and were measuring how much they had overcome their earlier inability.
 * Canonically Naruto also started the Academy early, but he's the same age as his classmates. Similarly, despite failing multiple times, there are no implications that any of the earlier genin (Like Lee, Tenten, and Neji who should know him) have any idea who he is.
 * Why doesn't Naruto just ask Tsunade to declare him a chunin? (Especially since he knows her) The Hokage after all, has final say.
 * The missions he is being given are Jounin rank no question, everyone knows how powerful he is and Tsunade even strongly considers him as a replacement Hokage if she ever died. What is in a title when he has bigger goals?
 * Yes but I doubt the elders are going to allow a gennin to become hokage, it's way to big of a jump.
 * Gaara anyone? (I thought he went through the jounin rank, though. That's the impression I got from Kankorou's flashback in volum 28.)
 * That seems to take place in Part I, and it mainly concerns his decision to part with his siblings and join a regular squad. Unfortunately, the databooks never mention when someone becomes a Jonin; only their graduation and Chunin promotions (12 and 14 for Gaara), so we have no idea when or whether he became one (although it's possible to be promoted quickly; Neji became a Jonin by age 17 after becoming a Chunin at age 15).
 * Just because your the world's best soldier doesn't mean when you join the army you'll become an general. Being a chunin is just as much about maturity, leadership, and cunning as it is about ninja skills.
 * The problem is that clearly the rank of Kage is based MORE on your power than your overall wisdom. (Unless the current batch are just a freak occurance) Neither Jiraya nor Tsuande are shown to be particularly brilliant or wise. Who would want a drunken gambler as the leader of the village or a wandering porn writer? Particularly when you had people as smart as Kakashi around. (I'd add Danzo to the list but I'll accept that he simply didn't exist to be an option.) Gaara can't possibly be the wisest or even in the top ten wise people in his village. If the Mizukage is the wisest person in her village I pity them. Not as much as pity the people who put the Raikage in charge for his maturity but still. A simple look at the current batch (I'll grant you that the historical kage seem to be above average inteligence but even the First Hokage fought Madara for the privelege) so yeah Naruto stopped Pein, something the entire village combined failed at he's the best choice for what is effectively the champion of the village. It's worth noting that we've seen that the Kages aren't actually in charge, there is a council of elders that at the very least has to approve of anything more important than which ninja get sent out on missions.
 * Having a council approve your decisions doesn't mean you're not in charge, it just means there is more of a balance of power. Clearly the Kage has more power than any individual council member and is the one that really sets policy.
 * Isn't it also kind of Naruto's fault since there's an exam they're supposed to take? Of course, since part of it has to be taken with a team he'd have to, however briefly, leave Sakura and Kakashi again and deal with two people he doesn't know. (And given his reaction to Sai, he might not do so well dealing with a new "team" for however briefly it lasts.)
 * If Sasuke comes back, he has a second person.
 * Which might also explain why he wants to bring him back (one fiction even had such a thing as a noodle incident, with all genin other than Naruto and Sasuke surrendering their fights out of fear; I'm digressing, though). And while Tsunade can make him into a chuunin, it's possible that him being genin is amusing for her, and it's not like he cares about the rank that much. Besides, he believes in individual effort too much to ask Tsunade to make him into a chuunin.
 * Remember, pre - Time Skip, the only reason Tsunade kept him around is that with all that ramen, at least he's cheap to feed.
 * The reason he wants to become Hokage is for acknowledgment, not the rank. Same for the Chuunin rank. He wants to show everyone what he is capable of. If Tsunade simply names him a Chuunin, he won't have earned it. He gained a lot of respect during the Chuunin exam, and he wants the respect he would get if he goes through all the way. Being able to say "Tsunade thinks I'm strong enough" doesn't quite have the impact of kicking butt in front of hundreds of spectators.
 * The way Tsunade seems to be just plain mean to him Just Bugs Me. For instance, in The Mysterious Curse of the Haunted Castle, she picks Kiba for his enhanced scenting, Hinata for her sight (Byakugan), and Naruto because "he's available". If it's a search and retrieval mission you're on, wouldn't the ability to make a bunch of clones be a useful skill to have on your team? I'm surprised Hinata didn't mention it, seeing as she likes him. Though in that case it could be because she's not good on the spot. What's Tsunade's excuse? Is she trying to toughen him up?
 * This is a form of Character Exaggeration in the anime. In the manga, the only time she gets angry with him is when he complains about getting a C-Ranked mission right after coming back, and otherwise expresses great faith in him, although not always directly to him.
 * In Shippuden Movie 2, Neji says Naruto's teamwork is still Genin-level. This is shown when he does a Leeroy Jenkins and runs into the attack on Shion's temple, resulting in him getting trapped in the enemy's jutsu (although he does save Shion's life in the process). Then again, Naruto says during the 10th question of the first phase that even if he's a Genin forever, he'll find a way to become Hokage, so being a Genin, Chunin or Jonin matters less to him (although he's a bit hurt that he's still behind his friends).
 * Well they've been ignoring procedure, they send our little Genin on S-ranked missions on a regular basis...They've got important things to do then worry about ranks.
 * There's also the rank of S-Rank, which is pretty much designed for him. It's higher than Jonin but lower than Kage, and you just have to be powerful, there are no tests as far as we know. Jiraiya was one. Why not make Naruto, who by this point is undeniably stronger than him and around as strong as the Kage's, one?
 * I think that's more a comment on power-level than an actual rank to hold. Some Jounin may be S-ranked, some Kages may be not. You can say that Naruto is an S-ranked ninja but not that Naruto is no longer a genin and is now an S-rank.
 * If Naruto hadn't graduated, there would have only been 26 academy graduates. How exactly would they form enough three man teams for everyone?
 * Maybe they could mix or match them into other teams? Just because Kakashi only threatened the fail his entire squad doesn't mean that other Jonin couldn't have possibly failed only one or two members of their own three-man squads, then plugged those holes with the extra two students. Also, it's of course possible that one or more of the students could have failed alongside Naruto. He doesn't have the monopoly on Book Dumb.
 * I'm inclided to think that if Iruka didn't pass Naruto team 7 would be a two man team (and likely fail due to Kakashi's strict standards)
 * Strangely enough, during Sasuke's first year at the academy (it also bugs me that they don't specify how long people attend, although it seems to be five or six years), there were 30 students in his class and 90 in the academy. Three of the class might have dropped out.
 * I like the explanation provided in a fanfic called "Destiny is a Hazy Thing" (which seems to be a "love it or hate it" story) - in it, there are two classes, a normal one and an "elite" one, the second of which is filled with clan heirs, people who got recommendations for entering, and then (if there are enough places left) some of the normal class' best students. After the graduation, everyone who passes is given an exam by one of their assigned "jounin instructors", but only those who got the clan heirs and recommended students (and fillers, such as Sakura, who either got lucky or was supposed to be treated like a clan heir for whatever reason) pass their teams (it does make sense with some exams; Kakashi passed them when they fed Naruto, but he might've passed them just as well when they refused to feed him, citing their ability to follow orders as reason [regardless of his own agenda]), while the rest are sent back into the academy and then graduate into regular duty after some time, without getting their jounin instructor and only being able to get a merit promotion (in said story, chuunin exams are treated like political war-games of sorts, which would make sense seeing as the strongest genin would be those who got their own instructor, and only those [due to the fact that "normal" graduates would lack a team] would be able to enter; thus, all of the major nations could have their fights on the arena instead of the battlefields). Going with this train of thoughts, if Naruto didn't graduate, then one of the fillers would be placed on Kakashi's team, unless Kakashi wanted Naruto as his underling and later did something to make graduation possible for him.
 * Here's what is confusing me about the Academy Final Exam. Sakura proved that all it required to pass this test was to transform into Iruka AKA transforming from one person into another. So why does Naruto fail even after using the Sexy Jutsu? He changed gender, managed to hide his clothes and held it for a decent length of time showing that he is capable of the required chakra control. the Sexy Jutsu is the Transformation Technique, it's just a very inappropriate use of it. The ultimate proof of this is that barely weeks later, after failing this exam for three straight years, he managed a near enough perfect recreation of Akamaru despite the stress and injuries that came from his beating by Kiba.
 * Naruto failed not because he didn't know the henge. Sexy Jutsu is after all a good example of it. He failed because he disobeyed orders and more or less showed that he was fooling around instead of being serious. Look at all the other kids, they all transform into Iruka, which was probably the point of the test aka following orders and showing the skill. Naruto did not follow orders and thus failed.
 * It's like drawing a lion when your art teacher tells you to draw a house cat. It's similar, but not what was asked for.
 * Naruto didn't fail because of his inappropriate use of the Transformation Technique; the exam required him to perform the Clone Technique. The Transformation Technique task was a regular class exercise, not the exam.
 * That wasn't an exam, but rather just practice before it. Nevertheless, here is the reason Iruka was angry at him. In the Naruto continuity, being a ninja is equivalent to being a soldier, and thus one of the most important things for the graduates is to be able to listen to orders. That is why Naruto changing into something differing from the specified form made his teacher angry - it made it clear that Naruto doesn't follow orders, and just one day from the graduation exam that was a problem.

Misc

 * Why do the ninjas wear sandals and not proper shoes/boots/etc. The explanation "so your feet can breathe" is just silly. wouldn't it make more sense to have shoes that afford more protection? On a related note, why do the akutski people have black nail polish? Fashion statement?
 * Naruto's initial design had him wearing boots, but it was changed because Kishimoto likes drawing toes. Take that as you will.
 * Why does the Naruto CCG classify Naruto as a Lightning-element ninja? He's been classified in-story as Wind-type.
 * Someone's been playing too much Chrono Trigger?
 * He wasn't classified until long after the CCG came out. They didn't have a clue what his element might be, so the gave him the element that most closely matched his hyper personality.
 * There's also the issue of balancing the elemental natures of the cards and getting them to work well together, in cases when some characters like Sakura have no determined elemental nature, and some elements are more common than others (for example, more than a few characters have Lightning affinity, but hardly any have Earth affinity).


 * When Pain asks Naruto what his solution would be to stopping unending hatred and bringing real peace, at first Naruto's speechless, then answers "I don't know". Wouldn't his typical answer be "To become Hokage and change it"? It was his answer to Neji during the Chuunin Arc, and it's what he set out to do after Haku and Zabuza died. How does Pain's situation call for an "I don't know"?
 * He's older and more experianced now, and has seen the limitations of a hokage's power. He has, in the meantime, seen Sarutobi die ultimately a failure, having failed to stop his wayward pupil. He's seen the rise of Tsunade, and how she's been so limited in what she can do. He's spent three years with Jiraya, who has reasons for not wanting to be Hokage, which he's no doubt shared with Naruto. He obviously still wants the job, but he's been long since disillusioned about what he will be able to accomplish when he gets it- he no longer sees it as a be-all end-all "make the world perfect" position.
 * Also as Hokage, he only would have the power to change konoha, and the clans that reside in it, pain's question was basically "how are you going to bring about world peace?" and just like the answer of "becoming US presedent" is not a vallid answer,because, as your influence ultimately stops at the boarders so does the influence of Hokage, stopes at the konoha gate
 * I've always wondered why do they keep on the Hokage motive still. In the beggining he said he wanted to be the Hokage so everyone would respect him and acknowledge him and look up to him, doesn't a lot of people even outside Konoha already do that? he keeps striving after a tittle even when he has achieved all the reasons he wanted it in the first place.
 * Just before the Third Hokage sentences the First, Second and Orochimaru's arms into the gut of the Death God he states that it is an eternity of pain. Seeing as the Death God is supposedly impossible to escape, how does he know that being sealed with this jutsu is agony? obviously it wouldn't be pleasant; but there is simply no way for anyone to know that it inflicts an eternity of pain or an eternity of mild annoyance.
 * Can you honestly tell people that you think the interior of Death's stomach would be a GOOD place to be? It's like Hell- We might not have been there, but past references seem to think it's a bad place.
 * Why does Naruto suddenly decide that he has to single-handedly fight and win the entire war all by himself and no one else is allowed to do anything? He's been told that this won't work because not even he has that much energy and he's already visiting all the battlefields at once. I get that he wants to protect people but that still doesn't explain the extremism. When the already dead Itachi says that he knows how to stop Kabuto and Naruto has no plan, why demand to be allowed to face Kabuto alone on top of everything else he has to deal with?
 * Made worst when you remember how he was telling everyone that no one was taking into consideration how he felt staying on the sidelines while everyone else fought. So now he's trying to turn the tables, doing the opposite.....to the military population of the 5 biggest nations in the world plus the samurais. So he's really taking thing to a new level by being a hypocrite to 80,000 people
 * I don't think Naruto's a hypocrite. People really are dying and Naruto acquired pretty huge power so why would it be hypocrisy to try to save everyone when he already saw what happened to people affected by war (i. e. Nagato and Konan). He just wants to protect everyone from becoming that and it doesn't matter to him if he's injured because his friends are more important to him. However, Itachi is also justified in saying that if you take too much responsibility, you could in fact end up as an evil person, although it was a bit of a stretch to me to compare him to Madara (alright, he acted selfish, which he shouldn't have done, but I think Naruto was closer to becoming Sasuke than ever to becoming Madara... although Itachi thinks the world of Sasuke, so he wouldn't warn Naruto against becoming Sasuke...)
 * The key word is fighting with everyone. Everyone wanted to protect Naruto, be it to protect a dear friend and so Madara doesn't achieve his goal, or just for the later. In Naruto's mind, it was, they mean good but I can't stand in the sidelines not doing anything while everyone else is fighting, but now he wants to do everything and put everyone else in the sidelines, not thinking, hey they might feel just the way I felt not a moment ago. His intentions are still good but he's still a hypocrite because of his earlier complains about depriving someone of a battle to protect, friends, family, nation, etc.
 * But he also knows that a war means tons of people dying. I don't think he would have any problem with someone wanting to protect him in times of danger, but he hates the thought of people being in war and dying. He wants to end the war quickly so no one has to fight. He also had Nagato tell him that maybe he can end the cycle of revenge, and he knows from him that wars are not really just about friends protecting each other but involves a lot of random killing without any reason whatsoever so Naruto wanting to hurry to end the war is understandable. Also, if he's the only one fighting, no one has to die. This is not necessarily true, but that's how Naruto thinks (at least in my interpretation).
 * You can be a hypocrite with good intentions.
 * Yes, you can, only he's not doing the same thing as the others. Everyone is pretty much okay with fighting a war because they want to protect Naruto, but Naruto hates the very thought of fighting a war, so he wants to do everything himself, because fighting alone doesn't count as a war. He wants to stop the war, only he needs to fight it to end it. Still, what he wants is pretty much impossible, so I would say that he's pretty desperate and it just looks like he's a hypocrite. You know, Itachi even compares him to Madara, which I thought was a bit of a stretch, but I think now Naruto is sort of okay with everyone helping him in the war, so if I was wrong, and he was really being a hypocrite, he isn't now.
 * Read what I said again again, you 'can be a hypocrite with good intentions. This thread started when the latest chapter was the end of their fight with Nagato, where Itachi told Naruto that, hey there's other people in this war and I'm technically already dead, don't try to do everything yourself (which he's doing, he's fighting "with" everyone now). And I think Itachi wasn't comparing him to Madara, he was just telling him that that was how Madara started.
 * But he told him how Madara started for a reason. I thin that he did compare Naruto to Madara not because he really thought that Naruto was at risk of turning into Madara but because Naruto was behaving irrationally and he's not easy to talk down when he's like that. Itachi's Madara comparison shut him down with just a few sentences.

Sasuke's Revenge
the reason why he went off the deep end Sasuke has officially been dubbed a bad guy by In-Universe legal authorities ever since the end of Part 1, when he abandoned his village in order to join Orochimaru. But something to bear in mind is that, while Sasuke did technically betray his village, Part 2 reveals that he was planning how to usurp/assassinate Orochimaru from the moment he joined his organization. Part 2 also gives us scenes where Sasuke, despite spending three years as Orochimaru's pupil, refuses to kill anyone who's not a Complete Monster. Given this, I'd say that, until he met up with Tobi, Sasuke's actions were reckless and irresponsible, but weren't actually immoral.
 * Wouldn't killing Sasuke end the cycle of revenge, seeing how there's nobody left who cares about him to avenge him should he ever die?
 * Technically, it would, but it would also make the lesson: "A Cycle of Revenge would be bad, so make sure your either only take revenge on someone with no loved ones or kill anyone who might avenge them in response."
 * But seeing how Sasuke actively worked to destroy all his ties with other people and is always on "revenge" mode, wouldn't it be kind of like poetic justice/irony if he died with nobody bothering to avenge him? And I don't necessarily mean killing Sasuke in revenge either; some people want him dead simply because he's dangerous, not because they're trying to avenge someone else.
 * The latter is fairly reasonable idea, and is pretty much what Shikamaru suggested. Sort of like how in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga one of the major themes is also not letting a desire for revenge overcome you, but since most of the villains are to dangerous to let live and/or to horrible to forgive they usually are just killed by someone else.
 * Naruto is planning to kill Sasuke (granted, he's got the stupid idea that he'd die in the process, but we'll forgive him his lack of confidence), so technically that is how he's going to end the cycle of revenge. Sasuke dies and he die, and no one wants revenge either way.
 * Yeah, that part just kind of bugs me because the cycle can end with Sasuke's death alone and that he doesn't really deserve having someone die for his sake.
 * He doesn't have to, but he wants to because if he can't keep his promise, he doesn't think that he deserves to live.
 * Naruto isn't planning to kill Sasuke, he said that he would keep stopping Sasuke every time he wants to try his revenge, and that cycle would probably lead to a mutual kill. Naruto plans to stop the cycle from moving.
 * All of the above certainly factors into it, but most importantly it seems that Naruto knows something that Kishi hasn't revealed to us yet. The frog-prophet-thingy (whatever his name is) alluded to it, and so did Naruto in his conversation with the Konoha 11. Something epic (probably) is going to result from that final confrontation which will lead to their deaths. Now whether that 'death' is to be taken literally or metaphorically remains to be seen. Unless, of course, Naruto manages to evade that confrontation as my predecessor suggested.
 * The implication is that if Sasuke were killed by someone other than Naruto, he and possibly Sakura would kill his killer, thereby perpetuating the cycle, despite Naruto's harping otherwise.
 * Okay, so Sauske was planning a revenge on the elders and Konoha. But now what? Konoha is a smoking crater now. How is he going to take revenge on that (Although this editor would love to see that)? So then what will he do from here now that his MAIN ambition is now null and void. Can I get a Heel Face Turn anyone?
 * He'll probably be really pissed when he finds out and will likely try to kill all the survivors since he explicitely said he wanted to kill every one of them (I'm sure there were at least some survivors, as the head statues were intact and they kept people in there after evacuating).
 * That would make him even MORE pathetic.
 * Or he'll show up at the exact time that Danzo is making his move, Danzo will reveal that it was all his idea to massacre the Uchiha, and then there will be one of those "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?" moments, resulting in Hawk taking out all of Root.
 * The thing is, revenge on Konoha never meant "destroying its buildings" but "killing its people". Pain's invasion had no impact on their numbers, Konoha as an institution/a village still exists hence the goal is unchanged.
 * Why doesn't Sasuke realize that for the Uchiha to have been discriminated against enough to justify a coup and possibly starting a war, he shouldn't have to have been told it was happening in the first place? He should have been well aware of it as it was!

It's only in the aftermath of Itachi's death that Sasuke truly becomes a villain. Here's how I interpret his mindset at that point:

He's spent most of his life planning to kill Itachi; he refers to this as his "reason for living". Then he finally achieves his goal and. . . he's not happy. He comes face-to-mask with the other man responsible for the Uchiha Massacre, but now all Sasuke's drive and passion is gone; he can't think of anything except to ask to be left alone. I believe that, if Sasuke had been left alone then, he would have killed himself, having found his purpose in life to be empty and unfulfilling.

Then Tobi drops The Reveal about how the Leaf Village ordered the slaughter of the Uchihas and how Itachi, forced to commit such an atrocity against his own family, still loved Sasuke, tried to protect him, and was ultimately driven into suicice-by-proxy. Suddenly Sasuke is given an explanation for why Itachi's death brings him no joy, because, even if he could only guess at the truth through little hints (Itachi's tears after the massacre, his dying words to Sasuke), on some level he knew that Itachi wasn't the person he should be angry at.

Tobi gives him a new target for his anger, an anger that's only intensified after being manipulated into killing his brother. And Sasuke, who had been left with no reason to go on living, jumps at the opportunity to have a purpose for his existence again. And this time he expands the scope of his revenge beyond the people directly responsibile for his suffering; he starts targetting everyone remotely connected to them as well. Why? Because deep down he fears that, if he kills Danzo and the other village elders, all that will happen is he'll once again feel the way he did after killing Itachi: empty, joyless, without the will to live. He swears revenge on the entire Leaf Village, and even on the entire Shinobi world, because he recognizes that this is a goal he'll likely never be able to fulfill, that he can spend the rest of his life on it and never finish. Because if he does succeed, if he kills everyone he's sworn vengeance against, he has nothing but despair waiting for him.Until Naruto can do for Sasuke what he did for Gaara, show him that he can have a purpose in life other than violence, Sasuke's only options are a never-ending crusade of revenge or an emotional emptiness that will drive him to suicide making him like old gaara.

The trauma from the reveal caused Sasuke to be actually clinically insane, at least in his obsession to kill everyone. There is a mental condition called delusional disorder, and looking at the symptoms, they apply to Sasuke The patient expresses an idea or belief with unusual persistence or force. That idea appears to exert an undue influence on the patient's life, and the way of life is often altered to an inexplicable extent. Despite his/her profound conviction, there is often a quality of secretiveness or suspicion when the patient is questioned about it. The individual tends to be humorless and oversensitive, especially about the belief. There is a quality of centrality: no matter how unlikely it is that these strange things are happening to him, the patient accepts them relatively unquestioningly. An attempt to contradict the belief is likely to arouse an inappropriately strong emotional reaction, often with irritability and hostility. The belief is, at the least, unlikely, and out of keeping with the patient's social, cultural and religious background. The patient is emotionally over-invested in the idea and it overwhelms other elements of their psyche. The delusion, if acted out, often leads to behaviors which are abnormal and/or out of character, although perhaps understandable in the light of the delusional beliefs. Individuals who know the patient observe that the belief and behavior are uncharacteristic and alien.

Sasuke's Techniques and Fighting Abilities
1 - He at least has some of his energy back from biting Karin, though admittedly not all of it. 2 - He has the stupidly overpowered Susanoo, which as far as he knows Kakashi has no hope of penetrating (just look at the effort it took Danzo to do it). 3 - Amaterasu fire eyes, which people can't really dodge (unless you're the Raikage). 4 - He's an over-confident, self-absorbed asshole who by this point thinks he's the greatest fucking thing on Earth. The ten-tailed beast could break out of the moon and he'd probably think he could win.
 * How does Sasuke expect to take on Kakashi in this latest setup? I mean, let's face it... He just offed Danzo. He's exhausted, while Kakashi is fresh. Even if Sasuke were to assume that Kakashi hadn't gotten more powerful over the three years since they'd last seen one another, why is he assuming that he can take out his former teacher? This isn't about revenge, either. It's not like his fight with Danzo or Itachi, where he went in with a strong emotional backing to want to push the fight to the limit. The sum total of Kakashi's offensiveness to him is Kakashi's association with Konoha. I assume he's going to split, because if he actually fights Kakashi at anything but a major disadvantage it'll be a huge Ass Pull.
 * Several reasons:

As for the actual result, here's how I see it. First, he isn't going to run, not until he gets some blows in at least: 1 - He fights and loses, but either runs or Madara grabs him. It's not like Madara's that busy at the moment. 2 - He fights and wins, killing Kakashi, then Madara shows up to grab the eye. Kubo Kishi seems to be going to a lot of effort to make Sasuke a monster, and killing Kakashi would do it. 3 - He fights, nearly wins, but Kakashi is saved by Naruto. Then he retreats. 4 - Same as above but without the retreating, and gets his sorry ass handed to him by Sage-powered Naruto, as a reminder to both the author himself and the audience who the goddamned protagonist of this story is (admittedly, this is wishful thinking on my part).
 * When did Kubo become the Mangaka? Most likely result, in This Troper's opinion: Kakashi roughes him up, they both try to deal a killing blow, Naruto comes in and saves both of them, then Sasuke does something stupid and evil, which gives Naruto all the reason he needs to beat the tar out of him. Then Sasuke pulls some hax and escapes, or Madara comes in and saves him.
 * Damn you Bleach and your author with a K-sound name! That could work too.
 * See my WMG about Kishimoto and Kubo peer-reviewing each other's work before publishing it.
 * It turns out that Naruto's going to be the one to fight Sasuke. I suspect this battle won't be as long as the one in the Final Valley, and will end in one of a few results: 1)Sasuke escapes. 2)Sasuke loses to Naruto and gets captured. 3)Sasuke loses to Naruto and, on the brink of a Heel Face Turn, gets captured by Madara and taken to operate the Gedo Mazo Statue. 4)Sasuke's about to win and collapses from overusing his Sharingan and gets taken away by Madara.
 * Actually he was too exhausted even after getting some chakra from Karin, he was just being his "I think I can curb stomp everyone even thought I technically lost the last 3 fights I had before Danzo and I don't have any chakra" jerk ass usual self.
 * Does Sasuke know yet that Kakashi has the Mangekyo Sharingan? If not, how do you think Sasuke'll react when he does find out?
 * "My Sharigan Is Stronger Than Yours." Arrogance is really the only option now. He's too self-absorbed to act any other way
 * Maybe ask who died during the timeskip for him to get it? I wanna know that too...
 * Maybe it was just Obito's death. He does consider him his best friend and certainly carries around enough guilt issues given how he died.
 * He mentions that he completed it recently near the start of Part II, so it's probably during the timeskip. He may have had the potential to awaken it, but hadn't been able to do so until then.
 * I don't think he does; the only people who saw him use it so far are Deidara (who's dead), Pain (who's dead), Team 7 and Team 8 (whom Sasuke hasn't seen since the Sasuke and Sai arc until Sakura appeared before him), and possibly Choji (who may not know what the ability is).
 * Sasuke and Kakashi are just about to fight. Odds are that now we'll get to see Sasuke's reaction. Though, considering how Sasuke just pretty much went off the deep end, he may not react strongly at all.
 * We've now seen Sasuke's reaction: a mixture of anger and disbelief that an "outsider" managed to awaken the Mangekyo... and promptly use it to nullify one of Sasuke's strongest attacks. And thus we watch Sasuke's sanity slip a little bit more... and run out of chakra before he could lay any hurtin' on Kakashi.
 * It's more like anger at him having it, civil disbelief at awakening it, then complete and total breakdown after trying to appeal to what little sense of sanity he has left. Also, he didn't run out of chakra, just went blind.
 * This is something that's bugged me for a while: How can Sasuke have both Fire and Lightning chakra natures? When Kakashi explains the whole concept to Naruto, he definitely implies that each person only has one nature (otherwise, how would that paper test work?). When an enemy ninja like Kakuzu or that filler chick voiced by Lust uses multiple chakra natures, its a sign that they've forced severe changes onto their body to receive that kind of power. The only other way to use two natures seems to be a Kekkai Genkai, like Haku or Yamato, but in those cases the natures are combined to form a brand new chakra nature. Plus, Sasuke has never been mentioned to have a Kekkai Genkai beyond the Sharingan. So how the hell did Kakashi teach a young kid with a Fire nature to use Lightning Style jutsus?
 * The paper test figures out which element they are best at, and most ninja can learn more than one element without a Kekkai Genkai.
 * It's pretty simple. Let's say that each person has 1 to 10 points in every one of their elements, with 10 being the strongest possible affinity and 1 meaning "feh, don't bother using it" but still not being equal to 0 (and thus meaning that they can use techniques of said element, but it requires far more training and ability to use them as well as someone with 10 points would). Now let's also say that every person can only have one element with affinity of 7 or more; Sasuke's lightning element would probably rate 9 or 10 on that scale. Now let's also say that various bloodlines can add a few points to any of the elements; if that was the case with the Uchiha blood and fire element (which it is), it would allow Sasuke to have two high-score affinities instead of just one, and thus make it possible for the paper to react to them both (either because said elements have the same rating, or because the paper only detects affinities that rate "x or more"). Also, as you had mentioned it yourself, the multiple-element female ninja is a filler character, and fillers in Naruto don't necessarily make a lot of sense (in fact, they most often have more plot holes than Swiss cheese).

Sasuke as a Villian/Antagonist

 * Does Sasuke really think that four people are going to be able to singlehandedly crush Konoha? I mean honestly, yeah he has his cool new Sharingan, but against a whole village of ninja? Of course, he's pretty much become a Canon Sue to the point it makes me sick, so maybe he knows Kishi won't allow anything to happen to him.
 * He's probably going to use Naruto/Kyuubi to do it. Madara seems to be part of his team now, and he can control the fox. Cue Naruto going berserker on the village, and Sasuke doesn't have to lift a finger. But then Sakura comes out of nowhere and tries to pump him full of kunai, so he has to fend her off, then the rest of the Konoha Eleven show up and- ... Wait, this isn't the Wild Mass Guessing page.
 * He's stated he's just going after the elders.
 * ...right before he stated to Madara that he was gonna Kill Em All, and the elders thing was just to make sure his team thought... well, you'd think at least Suigetsu would be in on an open massacre, and I guess Karin would do anything for her Sasuke-kun, but Juugo, in his sane state, would be all against it, and that would cause complications. As much as his berserker state causes bloodbaths all too happily, the big guy's actually kinda nice/sweet/kind. So yeah, Uchiha-teme's planning to kill everyone in Konoha then raize it to the ground.
 * The scene where he says he is going to crush Konoha was a flashback that happened before the Hachibi fight. On the way to that fight, he told his team they were using Akatsuki. He is obviously lying to one side. Who would you lie to, the people who risk their lives fighting on your side or the guy that helped kill your entire clan?
 * That doesn't prove anything. He could just as easily be using Akatsuki to kill all of the people in Konoha.
 * He does know Madara's backstory, so he could be saying what he thinks Madara wants to hear. Then again, it's entirely possible that they'll believe that he let the Hachibi Jinchuuriki get away, and have him killed- Madara warns Sasuke that he will kill him if he betrays Akatsuki in Chapter 404.
 * We went from Sasuke being a whiny, angsty, revenge bent teenager to a cunning, sly ninja who knows what he's doing and has this big plan of amazing proportions. What?
 * Ok. Why would Sasuke lie to Madara? what does he gain by telling him he wants to kill everyone in Konoha and everyone else if they oppose?
 * Well, Pain has shown that six people can singlehandedly crush Konoha. Turns out that original statement wasn't too far off after all!
 * Six god-level ninja sharing a brain and field of vision. Given that God Realm is a walking nuke and each other individual body is more powerful than most Jonin, it's really not a valid comparison.
 * Sasuke does have Amaterasu, bear in mind. Since the flames spread wildly and can't be put out, just setting fire to the entire town seems like a genuine possibility.

Misc.

 * When Sasuke meets Itachi the first time since the anime/manga started, he gives that speech. "In order to defeat you..." after which he charges up his Chidori. After charging up, though, he looks at Itachi, screams the last line of his speech, and his left hand pulls the collar of his shirt down. WHAT. THE. FREAK. That just took much of the awesomeness out of their meeting, since there is no reason why he'd want to do that. If it's to show his curse seal, that's on the back. This is just... odd.
 * I figured it was either so he would be easier to hear or to keep the collar out of his face when he's charging.
 * Fanservice? (I get the feeling that if it had been the curse seal, Itachi would have been really, really pissed off with Orochimaru. Like, 'I know you lack hatred, but I'm still killing whoever molested my foolish little brother.')


 * Let Me Get This Straight... Sasuke's primary reason for going mad was that his whole clan is dead, and he shouts at Kakashi to bring them all back. Okay, at first glance, this looks like a reasonable way of showing that Sasuke's off the deep end. Then Kabuto shows up. You know, the guy who just brought back every single damn ninja who's died in the series? And ITACHI?!? What in blazes is keeping Kabuto from bringing back the rest of the Uchiha, which would satisfy Sasuke's desire and maybe finally snap some sense into him? We've seen all it takes is a sacrifice and DNA. So what's keeping Sasuke from demanding Kabuto to bring his clan back and solving this damn mess?
 * Sasuke would still want to take revenge, because bringing them back still wouldn't change the fact that they were killed, and Sasuke's quite a revenge driven person.
 * Oh, yes. I'm sure he'd be perfectly happy having his family dragged from the afterlife to become zombies bound to Kabuto's will, that doesn't sound incredibly disturbing even to a mentally sound individual at all! Also, Kabuto hasn't exactly been subtle about his intention to gut Sasuke and research his remains the next time he sees him; they're not allies, Madara sold Sasuke out to Kabuto in order to get Kabuto to work with HIM.
 * As we saw with Deidera Kabuto doesn't HAVE to have control over the ninja if he doesn't want it. Also he presumably wouldn't have control over them if he was dead and it's been stated that killing him would not end the jutsu. I don't know how happy they would be about it or what other disadvantages there are to the Edo Tensai as it currently sits it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring back your best ninja and have them as the primary defense of your village. Can you imagine anybody taking out Konoha if it had immortal Uchias as the defense force. Especially if you keep it a secret that they are immortal?
 * One problem with that- he'd still need to sacrifice one person for each Uchiha he wanted to revive. Just who is going to be the sacrifice? PO Ws? Congratulations, you just made Sasuke complicit in an atrocity that is going to prevent reconciliation from being viable.

Sakura
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 * Why does nobody ever punish Sakura for hitting Naruto? I thought Kakashi was about teamwork and repsect for your comrades, and yet Sakura doesn't get so much as a slap on the wrist. The only time Kakashi ever stopped her was in the begining of part 2. The rest of the time, everyone just watches. More importantly, why doesn't Naruto hit her back or something. He clearly has no problems with hitting women when Tsunade insulted the previous Hokages. And since most of Sakura's reasons for hitting Naruto are Disproportionate Retribution, he has an excuse.
 * Because it's slapstick and it's played for laughs.
 * This just occured to me: how the hell did Sakura not HEAR the Chidori? It was not 3 feet away from her head, and yet somehow she didn't hear the sound of "1000 birds". What the fuck?
 * Probably because it was just a lightning charged hand, as opposed to the annoying ball of lightning chakra in the hand that is Chidori. Not that the former wouldn't make noise, mind you, but he could do it on the fly before she had a chance to hear it and dodge.
 * Why is it that we know absolutely nothing about Sakura's parents, or the Haruno family in general? I mean, Sakura is the main female.
 * Because they only go into families as they are plot relevant and Sakura's presumably civilian parents haven't impacted the plot at all.
 * Or one of them is Tobi(or both). Don't say I'm the only one with that idea
 * After Sasuke and Naruto pretty much declare they're going to off each other, why does Sakura say that this scene makes her believe there's a chance for Team 7 to get a happy ending with all of them together? I'd figure someone would go into an Angst Coma if her old friends declare they're going to kill each other and leave her alone. T
 * She's saying she believes Naruto can do it without them both dying. And saying "I'll let Naruto do this thing becuase he actually has a plan that doesn't conflict with how he feels" not "I'll never try and do anything myself again".
 * One of Sakura's flaws is that she has a tendency to make decisions on the behalf of others that they don't want out of the belief that it's for their own good, which can be patronizing at best and often leads to mistakes. For example, she was going to forfeit before the 10th question so that Naruto wouldn't try to answer it, almost certainly get it wrong, and stay a Genin forever. In this case, she realizes that she can't kill Sasuke, and should instead trust Naruto to find a solution.
 * Okay, I can't believe this hasn't been asked before, but why in the FUCK is Sakura still 'in love' with Sasuke? Pretimeskip, she was nothing but a pestering fangirl to him the entire time. True, he grew to care for her to an extent, but at no point did he ever make any show that he returns her feelings. Sakura has a crush, and that's fine for a 12 year old girl, whatever. Near the end of Part I, she begins to see the flaws in Sasuke, with how aggressive he can be with his inferiority complex, and then he plans on leaving Konoha. Then she want to abandon Konoha with him, abandon her entire life, everyone she knows and loves to join fucking OROCHIMARU of all people with him, and become part of his terrorist organization...Why?! Because he's hot?! But that's still nothing compared to the time skip. Apparently, for 3 years, she has dated no one, thought of no one else romantically besides Sasuke. As Sasuke descends further into madness, and explicitely tells her that he wants to kill everyone in Konoha, she can't bring herself to end his life, not even to defend her own. What bugs me is that I don't understand what in the fuck Sasuke did for her that is so worthy of her loyalty and affection. The only time he showed any ounce of affection toward her was when she thought he complimented her on her beauty, and that was Naruto in disguise. Yet many trope pages maintain that Sakura grew out of her crush and learned to love Sasuke for the flawed individual that he is. But I don't think it's true, because she was just made more aware of his flaws, and disregards them. Which would be fine, except there are no good things he has done to outweigh his flaws. Since the beginning, he has shown nothing but callous indifference to her at best, and has only gone down into murderous psychopath as the tale went on. Why the fuck does she 'love' him?! What in hell makes him worth so much pain and heartbreak?
 * Love is not logical. I don't like Sakura or Sasuke, but I think that for Sakura, it doesn't matter if he doesn't reciprocate her feelings. Same way for Hinata to Naruto. Truth is, Sakura came to care for Sasuke for real, instead of shallowly fangirling over him. I agree with you though, that Sakura did disregard many of Sasuke's flaws in the beginning and excused him for it, and never did anything to stand up to him. Now, she passionately defends Naruto from Sasuke's bullcrap, even going so far as to get angry with him for the first time ever. I wondered the same thoughts, though.
 * I agree with the OP. WHY did she develop feelings for him? that is the question, she liked him because he was cool and hot, that's ok she was only a fangirl then, but then she loves him despite all his flaws? why? I had a crush on him when I only thought of him as hot and cool, now I love him because he's hot and has anger management, would sell his village and all his friends even ME for his selfish reasons. Where are the positive points? the question is what did Sasuke do to be "loved" by her. I always considered her to be a representation of a crush taken to the extreme and she telling herself that she loves him, but apparently Kishimoto is trying to say she's really in love.
 * Like the first response to the OP said: love isn't logical. People fall for and remain loyal to bad people all the time. I think Sakura has just been fond of him for so long that her fangirl admiration just kind of evolved in genuine love as she matured. Also, it's easy to forget amidst all the Sasuke hate that even though he's been a prick from the moment we first saw him, he at least had admirable qualities (despite what the haters claim): At one point he did genuinely care about Naruto and Sakura, at least enough to be willing to risk his life for them and state out loud that he considers them "precious" and will not let them die. Even when he defected and fought Naruto, he was willing to acknowledge Naruto as an equal and fight him as such, showing some humility (and this is someone who is generally anal about people being stronger than him). He was the type of person that, despite appearances, did care about people and was capable of doing the right thing. That's the Sasuke that Sakura fell in love with: The one that was flawed (not evil) but did have good, even admirable qualities underneath those flaws. The shallow fangirl obsession she had for him based on his looks and popularity evolved over time into genuine love for the flawed, yet decent person he was. As was said earlier, it doesn't matter to her that he never reciprocated her feelings (which may not be entirely true anyway. It was hinted during their confrontation as he was leaving the village that he at least appreciated her affection on some level). She can't let go of him because the memories of that person he used to be are just too strong.
 * I call BS on the "love isn't logical" part. And apparently, you do too because if it was, then everything you just said that logically supported why she'd love him is meaningless. Love is can be strange and ironic, sometimes funny, and it's definitely complex, but it's certainly logical. Now, as for your argument itself, you are confusing what we, as the audience, see with what Sakura sees. I never tried to say that Sasuke was an evil asshole from the beginning (I actually really like Sasuke from Part 1), but that doesn't matter because he never showed her any part of his good side. Ever. He acknowledged Naruto as his equal (Though why would acknowledging Naruto instead of her be a major plus in her book is beyond me), but that was at the valley of the end. She only saw was him at the hospital, being an insecure jerk over the idea that his friend could be stronger than him. The one time he risked his life for her in a way that went beyond standard duties was during the Gaara incident, which is also when he acknowledged that Sakura was precious to him...except she was unconcious during this, so she never heard him say it. Given her ignorance during the aftermath, where she presumed Sasuke saved her when Naruto did, I assume she only got the general story but remains ignorant of details like what Sasuke said. Other than that, he has never shown an ounce of affection for her except telling her that she was annoying (ironically, but how would she know that?). After the timeskip, his behavior just gets worse and worse, culminating now in an attempted assassination, and there is STILL no indication that her feelings have changed for Sasuke in the slightest. The way I see it, it's not love, a sick obsession that she has (and Naruto does too, for that matter).
 * To the above troper who says that Sasuke never showed Sakura any affection. While you might think that Sasuke was nothing but a jerk to her, she could have seen things differently. Remember in the bell test when she was knocked out by genjutsu, and Sasuke is standing over her when she recovers and then confides in her? She could have taken that as him warming up to her. Or during the Land of Waves arc, when the Demon Brothers were about to kill Tazuna and Sakura jumps in front of him? Sasuke then jumps in front of Sakura. Could be seen as to protect Tazuna as well, but to a 12 year old girl crushing hard, it might be taken as something else. In the Forest of Death, Sasuke bailed her out of many problems, and grabbed her hand in comfort after the curse seal came into affect. After she gets beaten by the sound trio, Sasuke wakes up and demands to know who did that to her, and wants to make them pay. For the rest of the phase of the exam, you can see Sakura helping Sasuke out and him letting her help him, and also asking her not to tell the examiners about the Curse. That, and his last words to her before he left, "Thank you." I'm sure lots of that can be seen in a different light to a 12 year old girl. So, I personally think Sasuke showed enough good in part 1 to her that she did end up falling in love with him instead of blind fangirling. That, and those last words before he left the village could be seen as something else, and could have made her think they meant something more than they actually did.
 * She's sixteen.
 * One could say the same about Naruto.
 * Fridge Logic moment: Discounting the vicious cycle angle, considering Sakura was bullied in her youth, why on earth is she so abusive of Naruto (at least earlier on; she is--for the most part--getting better, though she's still dismissive and downright manipulative--or so she attempts to be--at times)?! You'd think she'd have more empathy.
 * People often like to bully the people they consider below them. It sucks, but they just take it as the natural way of life. I knew plenty of people in my school who were bullied by someone, only to turn and bully the kid that has an even more noticable flaw (for example, like stuttering) and considered below them. Also, keep in mind that Sakura was constantly trying to be one of the cool kids so Sasuke would like her (or did she like Sasuke because it was considered cool?), so since Naruto was the pariah, that made him a target for her.
 * It is a Japanese thing. Sakura thumping Naruto is played for laughs. Notice she rarely does any serious damage to him. Moreover, she gets Flanderized in the anime and punches Naruto far, far more than she does in the manga. As for her behaviour towards him in Part 1, she's grown up a bit since then and is beginning to understand him.
 * There is a significant amount of time developing Sakura as a proficient medic ninja- so why doesn't she use the amazing battle med jutsu that we see Tsunade and Kabuto use? Instead of just punching people out, she could cut their tendons with a touch in battle. Kishimoto isn't taking advantage of all the character development he's done with her, chickifying her, really.
 * Also remember that the maneuver you mentioned was only used by Kabuto, and Tsunade is far from being that subtle. Her fighting style consists mainly in smashing her foes with her fists and sometimes use her medical knowledge to cripple her enemy, but even then it isn't as subtle and precise as Kabuto's attacks. Sakura is just fighting like her master taught her to.
 * The point is, everyone has his own style of combat (look at Naruto with his Rasengan-centred attacks), and it's possible that she does know those tricks, but simply doesn't like using them. And people usually don't use things they don't like using, because they prefer to feel comfortable than to be efficient. That, and she was taught to defend herself with chakra-empowered strikes, and not by cutting tendons (which Kabuto is the only person in the entire manga to do, and he is the kind of person who had to hide his combat abilities as medical abilities for quite a long time).
 * Why do so many people want Sakura to grow out her hair when she's older?
 * Because she looked good with long hair, and since some people regard her as useless anyway, they think she doesn't have to worry about becoming useless.
 * This troper actually disagrees with this idea. Sakura looks great with short hair, imo, but I believe a lot of people want her to grow her hair out again because longer hair is womanly and mature. It seems to be a matter of personal preference anyway.

Jiraiya

 * It really bothers me that Jiriya was able to memorize EVERY SINGLE WORD of his books, in order to write that code on the back of that frog. Most people don't have that kind of crazy memory.
 * It was his last book, he wrote it in a strategic way just because of that, who knows if he did that with all his books, but since he always won he didn't needed to use them.
 * Why didn't Jiraiya use Naruto's multi-clone training thing during the Chuunin exam arc? He has the key to clamp down on the fox afterall. Only thing I can figure is that he wanted more time to ogle women.
 * He didn't think of it. Kakashi's pretty much a genius you know.
 * What the hell was Jiraiya doing while Naruto was growing up? Did it never occur to him that he should train and take care of his most brilliant student's son so that he doesn't end up becoming a sociopathic monster (like Gaara) or being killed by a villager? Or what about Kakashi? I mean Naruto is his sensei's son. I can understand that he would be busy with missions, but he never occasionally checked to make sure he was okay? For that matter, you'd think the Third Hokage could find someone to take care of him! There had to be someone who would be willing to do it. In fact, you'd think protecting the son of the former leader and most powerful ninja produced by Konoha who just happens to have the MOST POWERFUL BEING IN THE WORLD sealed inside him would rank as an S-rank mission. I bet if Konohamaru had Kyuubi inside of him he certainly wouldn't have been treated like that.
 * No kidding, they just threw him into the acadamy as young as possible (he's referred to as "the kid" by some of the other Konoha 11 however he had already failed the final year twice (which doesn't stop him from not having ever have seen Rock Lee, Neji or Ten Ten before by the way).
 * Nowhere is it ever stated that the final exam can only be taken once per year, and it can apparently be taken early seeing as how Kakashi graduated when he was only 5. For all we know he kept trying to graduate early or all 3 attempts took place within a month.
 * Maybe the whole village was having a giant, collective, 12 years long What an Idiot moment.
 * Kakashi was like 14 when Minato died, and between Obito and whatever happened to Rin, musta had one hell of a complex about how everyone he got close to died, and would be afraid.
 * Jiraya was Walking the Earth as per the Old Toad's prophesy, and didn't want Naruto to grow up on the road. He probably never checked in due to doing recon on Akatsuki in his spare time, and not wanting to lead them to Naruto.
 * The series never really goes into any detail about Naruto growing up, except for his mischief-making and constant loneliness. One interesting fanfic I read suggests that Naruto lives on a stipend from the Hokage (but not much, which is why he's always eating ramen like a poor college student), and another mentioned that he lived at an orphanage for some time, but the operators aparently kicked him out at some point.
 * Well considering Konoha's a military community they'd have provisions for orphaned children of Shinobi. Also I don't think Jiraiya wants to be in Konoha much if he can avoid it. He'd have had Minato's memory haunting him and the Third pleading with him to become the Fifth.
 * Don't forget, Naruto actually likes ramen; he doesn't really care that it's cheap college student food.
 * Maybe the fact that Naruto is the Fourth's son is only now to the Third and maybe the elders. He may have wanted to keep Naruto's existence low key, to prevent potential enemies for kidnaping him to obtain the Kyubi's power. Is not necessary to make Naruto famous by revealing this fact, as he was not created as a weapon. Without that, Naruto is just a kid with a serious potential of becoming a demented psicopath, so it is not surprising he was shuned.
 * And how do you know that the Third Hokage didn't have him taken care of? For all you know he had a caretaker until just before the start of the manga. I like to think that he had a bunch of them and he kept driving them all away with his pranks and bad attitude, and the Hokage finally threw his hands in the air and said "Fine! You're old to take care of yourself now,and besides I can't find anyone else willing to take the job of watching you. Here's the key to your new apartment."
 * If Jiraiya is so strong, how come he's only been shown using a handful of techniques? Actually, the same could go for Kakashi. The "master of a thousand techniques" prefers a few water-based attacks and Raikiri, and that's it.
 * Lack of imagination on the artist's part
 * Could just be advertising; it is sort of fitting that Jiraiya would encourage rumours and speculation, especially if it would make his job easier. Plus, he's shown to have been like Naruto when he was younger e.g. naturally strong, but not good at learning, like Negi's father being called 'The Thousand Master' when,"...it's more like 5 to 6 techniques,tops," but still strong enough to level a mountain.
 * Kakashi's natural elements may be water and lightning, so it'd make sense to use the Sharingan as little as possible, to avoid tiring himself out.
 * Also, just because he can copy most techniques right after seeing them performed by others doesn't mean he actually remembers them for very long. Copying isn't the same as actually learning and practicing said techniques.
 * Additionally, he probably can't use them as well as the original user could (like with Shikamaru's Shadow Possession Jutsu; Kakashi is quite intelligent, but without specializing in the jutsu, he probably couldn't know all the nuances like stretching his shadow or moving it from one shadow to another).
 * Third option: as the saying goes, "There's old pilots, and there's bold pilots, but there ain't no old, bold pilots." They're old soldiers; they know their limits and what will get the job done.
 * Most of the fighting we've seen has shown the situational nature of any jutsu. Even if Kakashi remembers every technique he's seen, can use all of them, and has the understanding to apply them sensibly, he hasn't lived long enough to have experienced the kind of fight each one leads to. It could be the same reasoning which leads chess players to specialize in two or three opening combinations, even if they've studied a couple dozen. Kakashi's style is effective, and he does use his knowledge to predict what an opponent is likely to know for strategic or intimidation value (such as that copy-the-jutsu-before-it-starts trick he used on Zabuza). Given how intellectual his combat tactics really are, it might be very difficult to integrate random jutsu into his style... and certainly not a thousand of them.
 * Keep in mind that Jiraiya has never been seen fighting at his true potential, against an opponent who seriously threatens him. His appearance during Destruction of Konoha is extremely brief, he's drugged by Tsunade at the end of Search for Tsunade, and Itachi and Kisame try deceptions and flee rather than directly fighting him, and he's off gathering intelligence about the Akatsuki for almost the entirety of part two. Itachi -- who is no pushover -- points out that if he and Kisame had tried to go toe-to-toe with Jiraiya, there would have been no doubt about the outcome. The Akatsuki leader, Pein, is supposedly going to attack Jiraiya soon in the manga, so we'll probably see the true extent of his abilities then.
 * That was what i was about to point out, we will be able to see his power soon. What worries me is that this is going to be a worf situation since he has already set up plans in case of failure and he doesn't know they know he is in the country. At the very least he can't win this battle.
 * He puts up a pretty damn good fight, and apparently manages to kill one? of Pain's 6 forms. We still have no idea what on earth those freaky eyes do, but Jiraya apparently knew something before his death, and sent off a messanger. Count me as confused.
 * Actually he managed to kill three of them and I bet it would've been a pretty close fight with all of them if he had known that there were six of them total and he had conserved his energy.
 * The techniques are typically used out of tactical necessity, and since conserving chakra is a large part of most of the series' fights, the ninjas only use their best and most effective moves at the right moments.
 * If Jiraiya had known there were six of them and known their powers, cus lets be honest "Hey didn't I already kill you?" is a pretty big surprise mid battle. That coupled with Pein was trained by Jiraiya so one guy went into the fight pretty much blind while the other had at least a basic knowledge of who he was fighting and what they might try.
 * Jiraya is one of the secondary character we've seen the most jutsus of...
 * Why didn't Jiraya tell Naruto about his parents and how proud of him they would be? Even if you assume that nobody ever bothered telling Jiraya the details around Minato and Kushina's deaths he still personally knew them. I can get strategically leaving out the whole "I'm your Godfather but decided it was more fun wandering and boozing it up to coming back to raise you." part but telling him that his father was Hokage would have been massive.
 * He may have felt it wasn't his place to do so. After all, Naruto's heritage was kept secret for a reason.
 * Jiraiya as Naruto's godfather. Was Jiraiya the wandering spy master of Konoha before Naruto was born, or did he become it after? The difference is that either Kushina and Minato were idiots for naming him as godfather if it was before, or that Jiraiya is a horrible prick if it was after.

Jonin

 * After watching Shippuden 120-121, I wonder WHY didn't Kakashi use his Chidori to crush the stones that landed on Obito, instead of just punching?..
 * Well, it was too late to do anything for Obito at that point. His entire right side had already been completely crushed. And even though Kakashi is a jonin a this point, he still seemed rather immature and impulsive. It's perfectly likely that he wasn't thinking clearly while one of his teammates slowly died in front of him.
 * What's up with Kurenai's eyes?
 * What specifically? That they are red, or that they superficially resemble the Rinnegan in Black and white?
 * I was referring to the fact that they look like Sharingan without the tomoe, so the redness.
 * The Rinnegan thing bothered this troper. It wasn't until we finally got a color picture of Pain's eyes that it was clear Kurenai didn't have the Rinnegan. And every other character with such unusual eyes has them because of a kekkei genkai.
 * Well Kisame(white on black) and Kakuzu(red on green) had pretty weird for eyes for no really reason too.
 * Kisame and Kakuzu are both character designs left over from when every Akatsuki member was going to be freakishly inhuman (You can also see this in Zetsu, Sasori and sort of Deidara). So their eye colors are probably supposed to make them look weird.
 * And Hanzo also has weird eyes (something light on black, though only in the manga) and unlike Kisame or Kakuzu there isn't even anything weird about his body.

Rock Lee

 * Okay, so Rock Lee can't use Ninja Arts or Illusions because he has a stunted Chakra coil, correct? Then how can he generate the chakra necessary to unlock his Inner Gates?
 * I always took it that he can generate chakra just fine and that is problem is getting it outside of his body, hence why he can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu. He is, however, able to use it to affect the stuff on the inside, such as the Gates.
 * I always thought about it as you didnt need to use chakra to actually open them, just training and a shit ton of concentration, hence the DBZ stance and the ocational "scream of rising power"
 * I also thought that it wasn't necessarily a defect of some sort, he just wasn't smart enough or interested enough in ninjutsu or genjutsu to learn it.
 * Nope. Lee's chakra coils (as far as I can tell, the 'lines' that Byakugan users can see) are malformed. He still produces chakra, but he can't externalize it in any way.
 * Theres even a defect in the Naruto D20 about the whole chakra coil defect...thingy
 * There's... nothing wrong with Lee's chakra coils. I don't know why people must keep bringing it up, but Gai specifically says, during Lee's fight with Gaara, that he has no talent for Genjutsu and Ninjutsu. He can walk on water and walls, and even gets a Battle Aura when unleashing the gates. That's chakra, folks. Not sweat.
 * When did he ever walk on water or walls? Granted, it is only ever said he "had no talent" for ninjutsu or genjutsu (reflected by his listing in those skills for the databooks being very low instead of zero and him making a very minor improvement in genjutsu over the Time Skip, likely reflecting his ability to counter genjutsu), but it's just odd that it's always spoken of as if him learning them was physically impossible instead of just too difficult to bother with.
 * He walked on water in the early episodes of Shippuuden, the rescue Gaara arc.
 * Walking on water and walls means focusing chakra at your feet. So, like the Gates, he can do it just fine.
 * OK, Rock Lee's power goes like this: think of Chakra in the same way you would think of Mathematics. Everyone on Earth has the capability to be good at maths; we all have brains, eyes and the ability to learn... but so very, very few of us could be considered anything beyond above average and even less are brilliant - this is because even though, on paper, all thing ae equal many of us simply don't have a talent for it. Chakra is the same thing; everyone in the Narutoverse has a chakra network and the ability to learn or go to the Academy, but many like Rock Lee simply have no aptitude for it. Remember how many powerless civilians we've seen? given how everyone would learn how to use it if they could... Rock Lee would have been one of these faceless mooks who work as shopkeepers if it wasn't for his determination and for the training of Might Guy. Rock Lee has been shown to open his chakra gates, walk up walls and across water and use his chakra to amplify his speed and strength; the chakra coil idea is simply incorrect.
 * If Rock Lee has weights on his feet that weigh a ton, how come he doesn't liquify people's heads when he kicks them in the face? If he can move that much mass that quickly, it should be fairly detrimental to the target's health.
 * Logically, yes. But would that be as fun to watch? He probably has remarkable self-control (since he can easily move around, he'd probably be good at making sure the weights were kept under control too), and he seems the type to enjoy the fight as long as he can without letting hell break loose.
 * I can accept that he's good enough to not splatter opponents, or when he's going all out that the opponent(s?) are good enough not to be splattered, but how does he keep from breaking whatever he's standing on/lands on?
 * That was what caught me a bit off-guard before the Chuunin Exam. He launches a weighted kick at Temari, and is surprised when she stops it easily (and she herself notes that it was "nothing special"). I mean, his kicks certainly would lose power compared to unweighted - you get more kinetic energy from velocity than from mass - but considering how much those things weigh, it should still have been a pretty hefty shot to be called "nothing special."
 * Looking at the weights, they have writing on them very similar to that found on explosive tags. It's highly probable that they're not ordinary weights. In other words, A Ninja Did It.
 * Lee was introduced as someone that attacks Sasuke for reason other then his clan and that he's not stronger then him like Neji is. After completely wiping the floor with someone that's three momths out of the Academy he gets on his high horse about how hard work is better then natural genius, which might appease the Sasuke haters but coming from someone that never met Sasuke in his life it doesn't come off as nice at all.
 * Neji is not stronger than Sasuke, even in the Chuunin Exam phase. At no time did Neji rival Sasuke or Naruto in terms of brute strength, and I doubt he even rivaled Lee in brute strength. What Neji had on his side was the force-multiplying effects of the Byakugan and the Gentle-Fist style. Skill, not strength. Without that advantage, Neji wouldn't have simply lost to Naruto; it wouldn't have even been a contest.
 * Lee heard about the supposedly most talented ninja at the academy, and decided to test his skills against him, Lee had the disadvantage of not being able to use anything but taijutsu, so its understandable that he was happy to see that hard work pay off.
 * Okay one thing has always bothered me, in the chunin exam arc Rock Lee is put against Garra who was built up to the point we all sort of knew he didn't have a chance even before watching. That's not what bothers me, infant I'd say the this fight remains possibly one of the best fights in the show, either the original and shippoden. What has always peeved me off to no end is other characters reactions to the fight naruto even stating in the dub (I kid you not) "he beat bushy brow (Rock Lee) without even breaking a sweat!" Okay I'll grant you that the match ended abruptly because Garra broke an arm and leg and even tried to murder him,forcing Guy to intervene. but WITHOUT A SWEAT!? Garra was in control during the start of the match and he did end the fight, but Rock Lee controlled the middle of the fight, in fact he dominated it, Lee was in control until the end. Garra who seemed to switch between stoicism and homicidal mania expressed one clear emotion. fear.the look in his eyes was clearly fearful, and Rock Lee was the first character on screen shown to hit Garra(Sauske was later the first to make him bleed on screen) So basically, in what universe is that "without a sweat"?
 * Two words for you: blind translators.
 * Here's one related to the above. Rock Lee has several hundred pounds of weight strapped to each leg, he fights with these weights on more often than not. When Rock Lee performs one of his spin kicks, how does he stop? The momentum generated by his weights should send him spinning out of control. Ignoring that, if he follows through properly with his kicks, his leg should be torn from his body, or at the very least dislocated. How does Rock Lee keep all his limbs attached?

Shikamaru

 * This doesn't bug me per say, as Shikamaru's my favorite character by far, but it was immensely amusing to watch the latest filler episodes: "We're in trouble! We need a plan! Where's Shikamaru?!" I'm sure that would bug people who don't like him, but honestly, who doesn't like Shikamaru? It seems that ninja are incapable of coming up with a plan on their own, and they need the resident super-genius to bail them out.
 * People want to be around Shika? He must've quit smoking then.
 * He only smoked for a short time while
 * It just bugs me that he stopped smoking now. But that probably would scare the kids away, right? Right...
 * They could show him trying to quit and struggling with it in the anime, all it would take is more Filler screen time than he's had in the whole series so far...
 * It's physically impossible to get addicted to nicotine after a few smokes. Nicotine addiction takes years to develop.
 * I don't like Shikamaru. In part 2 he just comes across as a douche to me. Ninja war or not, he was an asshole in telling Naruto just to 'get over' the death of Jiraiya.
 * And how'd he do that? By telling Naruto that he understood what he was going through, but they've got a responsibility to step up and do something about all the crap that's been going on in the world so that it'll be better than they left it. Naruto's a nice guy, and it hit just where it needed to.
 * Urm, the smoking part comes after the filler arc. My beef is that after hyping Shikamaru's brilliant planning he just comes up with "We'll let Naruto handle it." Anyway, maybe in part 2 Shikamaru acts like a jerk but he, Hinata and Chouji were the only three originally nice people in the Konoha 12.
 * This Has been bugging this troper for a while but why was Shikamaru promoted?
 * He didn't win the battle but you don't have to. He proved what a brilliant strategist he was by planning out every move and dominating the battle. He also sensibly quit when he knew he couldn't win instead of recklessly going ahead which, in real situations, would just get him or his teammates killed which was probably why Naruto wasn't promoted. Plus can you imagine getting him to enter another exam?
 * Yeah but it's more because of what the third stated at the beginning of the preliminaries, that the exams were a substitute for war, call me a nitpicker but would you want a guy who gives up in charge of troops? Since in a ninja war I'm assuming that the enemy would torture and interrogate him for information on their troop placements and such.
 * He didn't just quit because he was scared or sick of the fight. He quit when he had no more chakra left and, knowing his limits, knew that nothing good would come in continuing. The real-life equivalent to that isn't surrendering but rather retreating and trying the mission again later when you might actually succeed. What would be gained by a ninja in war charging ahead recklessly like Naruto always does but who isn't as overpowered as Naruto is? That's a far better way to end up killed or captured than retreating is.
 * You're looking at it the wrong way, if Temari was hurting him over and over until he gave up, and then he quit, then it applies, but that wasn't the situation. "A good leader knows when to retreat", He showed that if he were leading a squad, he is capable of coming to the conclusion that they are incapable of completing the mission successfully, where the best solution is to flee, possibly getting as much information as possible before leaving. As in no being suicidal hoping your mayor character powers save you.
 * Furthermore, the fight was one-on-one, which is not realistic for a Chuunin being deployed. In a real mission, he'd have teammates to back him up, most likely Ino and Choji, given the experience and clan relations. So while he was unable to keep Temari under his control for very long, in a real battle he wouldn't have to, because Ino would take advantage of the enemy being caught in Shadow Possession to execute a Mind Transfer and seize control of the target. Thus, not only has he shown good judgment, but also good field tactics. They were okay with him losing without backup, because he proved he would win with backup that would be provided to him in the field.
 * What was the point of Shikamaru's water scroll in the anime?. While it was useful against Kakuzu to a limited extent,he had no clue that Kakuzu could produce those thread beasts so what the point of bringing it.
 * Many ninjas use at least one elemental power, maybe he always has scrolls with him to counter every element just in case?

Konohamaru

 * Konohamaru's scarf. It's quite long, how is he supposed to go on missions? It can get tangled easily and the enemy can grab it (as Naruto did in one of the endings).
 * Because it's part of his look. There are plenty of characters with clothing items that would be a hinderance in the real world, but aren't one in the Shonen world. Neji's long sleeves, the Akatsuki cloaks, Bee's belt strands, etc.

Tenten

 * exactly where are Tenten, Lee's, and Sakura's parents? With all the other characters we've seen at least one parent or we know that both parents are dead, the exception being Shikamaru who has both. Yet those three are never shown to have onscreen parents and there's really nothing to indicate they've died. In fact, in all three of their cases it appears they don't belong to shinobi lineages at all given that all the other characters have either a bloodline limit or a secret technique passed down through their clan.
 * Kishimoto actually states that Tenten was just created as a filler character so that he could have the 2 boys, 1 girl pattern complete.
 * That being said, is there an internal justification for the 2:1 gender ratio pretty much throughout the ninja corps?
 * Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls lets them do MMF threesome shipping.
 * Other than aesthetic reasons, probably not, unless it just happens that kunoichi are better at medical ninjutsu and all the teams have to have a medic nin. As to why teams always have more males than females, I'd say chalk it up to good old fashioned sexism.
 * To quote a certain other action anime, "A system in which all the parts react the same way is a system with a fatal flaw." Sexist or not, the fact remains that most girls are still raised differently than most boys, so a lot of them end up with a thought process that's totally different. And as much as the two twelve-year-old males on a kunoichi's team may grumble about the "stupid girl who doesn't 'get it' or make any sense", the fact that she's on the team at all means that the administration takes into consideration the fact that successful brainstorming in a group is a hell of a lot easier when there's three people who think nothing alike in the first place; you've got the Cold Sniper guy, the Hot Blooded guy, and a girl, who no matter what her personality seems to be able to keep the other two focused on the task at hand simply by telling them in various ways to get a grip. As for the reason we never see the reverse, if Naruto's class is anything to go by, a lot fewer girls attend the Ninja Academy than boys (probably due to over-protective parents - and considering what these kids get up to, can you blame 'em?). Plus, y'know... consider the personalities of the young lady genin. Can you imagine a productive team in the first season with both Ino and Sakura on it? Or Hinata and Ino? Or Sakura and Hinata?
 * Sakura and Hinata is plausible to this troper, especially with Sakura post-time skip. They could have some nice bonding scenes together.
 * You just know someone stole that line and used it to write a fanfic.
 * Seems like any of the girls could work together as part of a team, although it probably wouldn't happen since they seem to have been picked for potential skills to fill a certain role in their groups.
 * Before everyone jumps to the sexism accusations, you gotta remember that there are a lot more male soldiers, firefighters and cops than female ones, this doesn't mean that women aren't equally good or at times better than men at these jobs, simply that those are jobs that interest a greater number of men than women, some girls will want to be policewomen, but almost all boys wanted to be a cop at some point in their lives. I always figured that there were simply more male leaf ninjas than female ones and that's why the pair was made that way, since as seen by Kabuto's group among others, there can be a 3 male squad, and even 2 females and 1 male squad like Team Samui, which shows that they try to have at least one female in every team.
 * Even without her just being a filler character, with so many characters it was bound to happen that someone got shafted. Still, one can hope that eventually she'll get some development, since the series is already a long runner and seems to have the potential to turn out incredibly long. Plus, she uses a freakin' knife bomb! There's just so much potential kickassery in that character.
 * and what about shino no one seems to remember him.
 * Maybe not, but we've at least seen one of his parents and we know he comes from a pretty good clan.
 * Sakura has at least a mother; her voice is heard off-screen in a few episodes. I figure her parents are civilians, which is why they haven't shown up much.
 * That makes sense; we don't see much of Ino's parents either and they're quite explicitly civilians (operating a flower shop that's only open between ninja missions being pretty much impossible).
 * Actually it's Ino's mom who owns the flower shop, her dad is shown to be a ninja. He forms another trio with Choji and Shikamaru's dads.
 * I just thought it was because of the war and stuff that a lot of characters are orphans. I can also imagine that it'd be kind of awkward to put in some mention/appearance of parents, particularly of so many supporting characters.
 * I think it was Tenten during the Chunin exams that used an elaborate system of mirrors to cheat off the others(mighta been anime only). How in the name of Oprah could she have A: Set up and B: used those mirrors without anyone noticing? Especially not the professional espionage agent proctoring the bloody test?
 * It's likely said professional espionage agrents did notice, they just didn't care. Remember, the goal of that exam was to creatively cheat.
 * Also, her battle technique has her turning symbols on a scroll into weapons. She may have simply done something similar, substituting mirrors for weapons and paper tags for the scroll, which she could have thrown into position.
 * I think it's quite blatant that the officials were only told to check for conventional cheating. Lets look at the other methods of highly obvious cheating they missed: Gaara's large and very visible floating eye, Neji near enough shouting the word Byakugan to spy on someone else's work, Sasuke with large red eyes hungrily staring forward as he copies pencil movements, Akamaru noisily barking the answers to Kiba... realistically speaking, if this wasn't the case we should seriously consider buying the shinobi of Konoha some glasses.
 * It was about the ability to gather and transmit information. Gaara I'll grant you should probably have failed but Neji and Sasuke could have been doing anything. Same with Akamaru. If I'm the locking my safe and I hear a yappy dog I think yappy dog, not he's telling someone the combination to my safe.
 * Looking back and knowing what we know about the incredible observational powers of most seasoned ninja, it seems likely that the instructors were going easy on the genin. It's more than a little ridiculous to ask rookie ninja to completely fool multiple seasoned jonin, especially in that setting, where the jonin know to look for something fishy.

Guy

 * Whatever happened to Guy's tortoise summon?
 * It probably only existed because the author hadn't decided Mighy Guy would almost exclusively use taijutsu yet.
 * Summons don't seem to be universally practical, as apart from Kakashi's dogs (which are summoned to track scents), most summoned creatures are brought in when someone else summons creatures. Unless Guy faces an opponent with a summoning jutsu, he probably won't use it again.
 * That tortoise didn't really look to useful, anyway.
 * It actually reappears in Shippuden in Guy's final fight against Kisame. The tortoise is deservedly pissed that Guy hasn't summoned him in years.
 * Question regarding Team Guy as a whole: when the Leaf genin were originally divided up into teams, Iruka answered Naruto's complaints by claiming that they had put each person on each team to ensure that the teams were all balanced and capable of handling any situation. For the most part, it seems like they did a good job (Kiba's team may specialize in tracking, but they're pretty diverse when it comes to combat). Until we meet Team Guy: Three incredibly strong taijutsu users and a weapon expert (so really, another form of taijutsu). None of them appear to be capable of using traditional ninjutsu or genjutsu at all. Why would you put the village's three best taijutsu users on the same team? How the hell is that balanced?
 * It's a team specialised in taijutsu that is well-rounded in that aspect, with Lee being a short-ranged warrior, Ten-Ten capable of providing heavy firepower at mid and long distances, and Neji being able to hit whatever would be protected well enough to resist their attacks. So instead of being just a balanced team, they are a balanced strike team. They don't need ninjutsu because their wide repertoire of taijutsu is a viable substitute, and they do have protection from basic genjutsu in form of Neji (add to that the fact that the only form of genjutsu they surely wouldn't be able to resist comes from the Mangekyou Sharingan, which they can defend against by not looking their opponent into his eyes [which is made easier because they can throw strikes/weapons blindly, but wouldn't be able to do so with most techniques]).

Kakashi

 * How does Kakashi accurately throw shuriken, jump from tree limb to tree limb, etc, with no depth perception?
 * Considering that most of those actions defy the laws of physics, I'm going to go ahead and say chakra, just like any other ninja.
 * He does it the same way that Leela manages to pilot a spaceship. How she does it is still a mystery.
 * Let's just say that Mask Power lets just putting his headband over the Sharingan eye act as a seal that makes it function like an uncovered normal eye.
 * He's the Copy Ninja - upon realizing his lack of depth perception, he carefully observes with the Sharingan other ninja doing these activities, and then uses those muscle patterns to fall back on.
 * There's also the fact that when people lose an eye the other has to develop stronger sight in order to compensate. It takes time, obviously, but it happens or one eyed people all over the world would still be running into things. Don't forget it's been near a decade since he lost his eye. Plenty of time to adjust in a world where people seem to have stronger senses anyway.
 * Previous poster is right. Depth perception is a subject you should look up on The Other Wiki (or Schlock Mercenary)Vivi Fizgig. It's done in more ways than just use of two eyes. What I'm saying is that depth perception is too particular for this problem. Try "How does Kakashi accurately throw shuriken, jump from tree limb to tree limb, etc, without the use of both of his eyes?"
 * I blame the Sharingan. It's capable of seeing chakra through solid objects. Since's Kakashi's normal sight with that eye is obstructed with the headband most of the time, this would cause some "aura sight" as the view of Chakra is super-imposed over the actual image he sees with his good eye providing some form of depth perception.
 * Yeah, there really has never been any proof that Kakashi's headband blocks EVERYTHING the Sharingan can do. It blocks most of it sure, but when you consider how stupidly powerful both he and it is, there is probably some form of Chakra Aura perception he is capable of. Also, pure WMG territory here, but maybe he has punctured a small hole into the headband that allows him a small amount of vision but isn't enough to drain his vast reserves of chakra.
 * speaking as someone with only one eye, two eyes is not the end all of ranged ability, I can throw, drive, and even shoot just fine, you learn to judge distance in other ways, two eyes just makes it easier.
 * I agree with this one (though I still have both eyes) - it's possible to learn how to perceive depth with just one eye, it's just a little bit more difficult because we have less data to process. It's the same thing as basic echolocation used by people who are blind, or lip-reading done by those who are deaf; not impossible, but most people just don't bother. And if one really wants to ask how is Kakashi able to perceive depth with just one eye, he should ask a sniper, for none of them uses two eyes when looking through the scope.
 * There's one other thing that bugs me. When Kakashi had the chance of ambushing Kakuzu with a well-timed Raikiri, why aiming for his heart? Kakuzu has five of 'em! You gotta shoot 'em in the head! Go for his brain, dammit, it's not like Kakuzu can replace his own head!
 * If you're talking about the Raikiri he used to take out the first heart, he did that before he was aware that he had more than one heart. And anyway, given how strange Kakuzu's biology is, there's no guarantee that taking out his brain would kill him, or for that matter whether his brain is actually in his head or somewhere else. His hearts, on the other hand, are big targets that are guaranteed to kill him if he loses them all.
 * Deidara's arms. Specifically, how the hell he managed to find, fix and reattach his left arm after his battle with Gaara, after getting it crushed and torn off by sand. Also his right elbow, it looks like it's decaying or something. But I suppose a dramatic battle with Sasuke wouldn't be as dramatic if the enemy only had one arm. (On a side note, this troper now harbours a strong dislike for Sasuke for killing both her favourite character and her favourite summon, Manda.)
 * I don't think he reattached it, I think he regrew it. Something like putting special clay on the stump and it turning into his new arm.
 * It's explicitly stated that Kakuzu used his thread to reattach Deidara's arms the same way he managed to reattach Hidan's head. That still leaves the question of how he managed to recover his crushed left arm from the Sand Village, though.
 * The left arm never got detached in the first place.
 * Which doesn't do much to explain the stitches there...
 * It was crushed.
 * Maybe it was actually someone else's arm, with the same modifications?


 * Kakashi's dad killed himself when he was six and mom was dead before that, so who took care of Kakashi when he was a child? Even if he was the genius he is, Unlike Naruto, the village had no reason to let him live alone.
 * Kakashi probably lived alone like Naruto and Sasuke after the Uchiha Massacre. I don't think being a genius comes with privileges regarding caring for orphans. The Third Hokage seemed to be the one who spent most of the time with the orphaned ninjas as seen from the flashbacks during his funeral, however. Even so, Kakashi didn't have a very happy childhood, even if the village had no reason to let him live alone. I think he was similar to Sasuke when he was a kid, only he probably didn't betray his village. He also had very few friends, maybe just Obito, and he died too (and they only became friends before that). So, bottom line is that I don't think anyone made much of a fuss about raising Kakashi Konoha being a military village and all.
 * Did Kakashi, by proxy, face or recieve any kind of bullying, prejudice, or abuse from people because of the villages feelings toward his father? It could explain why he never talked about Sakumo after his death.
 * Not sure about bullying, but it seems like Kakashi was embarassed by him and put missions before teammates, and apparently Sakumo was still well respected and feared by a lot of people.

Minato

 * Why did Minato put Kyuubi in Naruto, anyway? There are tons of ninja who would've made better candidates. Did he foresee the future?
 * yeah he did, plus its a nice way to annoy Madara by making kicking Madara's ass a family trait
 * It's not like you can ask somebody else for their kid. I bet the Fourth's mindset is that he won't do to somebody else what he's not willing to do to his own flesh and blood...
 * I also think they're about to give an explaination
 * And Now I'm having horrific flashbacks about Gaara and the reasons why his parents end sealing Shukaku into him...
 * "Hey, wanna lend me your newborn baby so I can turn it into a container for the Kyuubi?" Not gonna go over well.
 * Naruto's umbilical cord had just been cut... I don't suppose there are enough babies being born every minute to give Minato a whole lot of choices.
 * Gaara's case was bad because they already had the Shukaku sealed, and they just wanted him as a weapon, not to save the entire village.
 * There probally wasn't a large group of babies to chose from. Konoha probally has around a hundred births a year, which is about fitting to keep a decent fighting force when looking at Konoha's grading system, and the child had to be young enough to not have fully formed chakra coils yet, which is hinted happens shortly after birth.
 * Jiraiya suggests that Minato was preparing for something, and also to make Naruto more powerful (for all the drawbacks, the fox's chakra proved useful on several occasions in Part I).
 * Latest chapter confirms that Minato was aware Madara sent the fox against the village and sealed the Kyuubi into Naruto in order to combat Madara. Minato assumed that Naruto as his heir would have the skill to eventually control the fox.
 * Naruto's mother had special "Kyuubi-suppressing" chakra and he hoped Naruto would have it too. Also, Naruto's having just been born was not a coincidence.

Tsunade

 * Why isn't Tsunade, with her world renowned medical abilities, actually doing something useful like, say, healing people. Instead she's just sitting around snarking at the Raikage when he decides he wants to contribute unlike Tsunade.
 * A couple of points:
 * 1) Tsunade's status: You have to remember that she's the Hokage now. As in the leader of the whole Leaf Village, not only it's strongest/best ninja. The role is as much political as it is military wise, so she can't just run into any old fight. If she died on the battlefield then the Leaf Village would be without it's leader. Remember when the Third Hokage died and what a hassle it was to find Tsunade to replace him? That would happen again. Sure they could just make Kakashi the Hokage, but that probably wouldn't be preferabbble, since he isn't exactly as legendary as one of the Sannin and he probably still has a couple of haters of the Hatake family. Not to mention the morale of the whole Leaf faction of the army would drop if they learned Tsunade had died. They wouldn't be able to fous on the battle properly and the army's tactics could faulter.
 * 2) The other Kages: Sure, Gaara is out on the battlefield, but he is the youngest, fittest member and since he is a 'Regimental Commander', he should be doing more commanding than actual fighting. The Mizukage is currently protecting some Daimyo (which is not the main focus of Madara's army) with elite ninja on her side - not very dangerous. The Tsuchikage is on his way to fight the Second Tsuchikage, only because he is the only one who has moves to counter the Second Tsuchikage's, whereas there are many medical ninjas that may not be as particularly great as Tsunade, but are still good enough to provide treatment. The Raikage is with her, obviously. - As you can see the other Kages are not needlessly thrusting themselves into danger either.
 * 3) What she is actually doing: You say that she's just 'sitting around'. Correct, when she is on panel she is mostly sitting and/or talking, but it would hardly be worth showing her devising military plans or checking on the status of the teams or getting information. We can't say whether or not she is actually doing these things but as she is a Kage we can only assume she is.
 * Overall, Tsunade doesn't need to go on to the field and shouldn't go onto it anyway.
 * Also, she might still be recovering from being in a coma, and thus unable to take the field.
 * Why was Tsunade not hunted down for desertion/treason after she abandoned Konoha or not marked as a missing nin? Or Shizune for that matter? Konoha is not a coddle home where you can just up and leave if things don't go your way. What makes it more unbelievable is that Tsunade left after the Second Great Ninja War and did not set her foot in Konoha until Naruto won their bet. It gets worse because she was absent during the Third Ninja War and that alone would be high treason as someone of her skills would have been vital. I don't think the Elders or Danzo would have just sat by without doing anything and I don't think even Sarutobi would sit by idly and let such a powerful ninja desert/abandon their village even if she was a Senju -descendant. It's really unbelievable Tsunade and Shizune were still considered loyal enough that Tsunade was considered for Hokage position. And then there's the whole hemophobia-issue, which seems to be wildly known, why would they consider someone like that to be suitable to be a Hokage?
 * The reason for not hunting down Tsunade may have been for the same reason as why all of those gambling debt collectors couldn't find her: she just kept changing her appearance. Jiraiya has mentioned that he hasn't seen her in twenty years, and keep in mind that Jiraiya is one of the greatest trackers and spies of all time. Also, Tsunade never officially declared herself as a missing-nin and relinquished Konoha citizenship. Instead, she just upped the village and left for a long period of time. Jiraiya did something similar. After this, the Elders and Danzo may have realized that she wanted nothing to do with the ninja life and left her alone and Sarutobi seems like a softie anyways if we go by his interactions with Orochimaru. No one considered her for the position of kage except Jiraiya who made a pretty convincing case. With her fear of blood, Jiraiya mentions her unbending will several times, so maybe he figured that if she took up the position she'd get over it. It's also not a very well known thing. Only Orochimaru and Jiraiya seemed to know about it, though maybe Hiruzen knew about it as well. Finally, they didn't have much of a choice. Jiraiya seemed adamant on her becoming Hokage and there were no other candidates aside from Danzo, which very few people would like if he became Hokage.
 * Maybe she had officially resigned as a shinobi or her hemophobia left her considered mentally unfit for duty. As for being suitable for Hokage, her skill and intelligence is obvious, but why they'd choose her despite her hemophobia...well, with Jaraiya refusing they didn't have much choice, did they?

Konoha In General

 * What kinda crappy Ninja Academy does Konoha have? Aside from throwing kunai, shurikens, physical training and a couple of odd justu like subsitite and shadow clone, it doesn't seem like they learn an awful lot. Why the heck don't they bother teaching them elemental jutsus and stuff?
 * Because you have to learn the basics first if you wish to learn the more advanced techniques. If your name is not Naruto or Sasuke, it takes years of practice to master just one element, being able to use 2 elements is considered to be one requirement for becoming a jonin.
 * Yeah that's two elements but how bout teaching just one element first? At least the Uchiha had the sense to try teach their kids fire style at a young age. A lot of ninja from outside Konoha of all ages happen to be proficient with elemental jutsu and yet the Konoha 12 are ridiculously lacking in widely used elemental styles. What excuse does the village academy have?
 * Most of the K12 use secret clan techniques and thus don’t need elemental jutsus. Moreover as far as I remember, there were actually very few shinobi in the chunin exam who could use elemental jutsus to a certain extent and all of them (like Temari) were older than the K12, which means they had far more time to master their elements.
 * The Chunin exam was open to any genin so technically you could have a 30 year old epic ninja who was just really lazy in it so thats not a great example. I think that Kishimoto was more interested in the life of naruto after the academy so he didnt bother elaborating on the workings inside the school. I'm sure they learn much more then that.

The Third Hokage

 * Was the Third Hokage stupid or something? Why didn't he just banish the Uchiha clan? Or publicly expose them? Or publicly execute them? And wouldn't their loss weaken Konoha seeing as how they're losing a lot of powerful police force? And if Itachi is such a nice guy, why did he stand by and let Gaara and other innocent people die? And why couldn't he have just killed his father (as he was the ring leader) and leave it at that? And why would he get help from a person (Tobi) who was so evil? And why did Tobi want the Uchiha clan dead seeing as how they were planning an attack and he could have helped them? I thought the clan abandonded his ideas? WTF?!?!?!?!?!
 * The Third was against slaughtering them, but Danzo and the other Elders out voted him. If he had just banished them, they would be able to join with one of Konoha's enemies and be an even bigger threat. Publicly exposing them might've forced them to do something desperate that could hurt innocent people. A public execution of an entire clan might have made the other clans (especially the powerful ones like the Hyuuga) nervous, possibly leading to another situation like the plannned Uchiha coup. The loss of the police force wasn't a big deal because it was just a sham created by the Second Hokage to appease the Uchiha, Konoha didn't really need it. Itachi let innocent people die because it suited his needs. Also, calling him a good guy is a bit of a stretch, I wouldn't say he's completely evil, but he's pretty far from being a good guy. Just killing the ring leader wouldn't have been enough to stop them. Think about it, would killing Hitler have stopped the Nazi Party? I doubt it, someone else would've come along and taken his place. Plus if Konoha had made Itachi kill just his own father, the clan would've been even more pissed off. He got Tobi's help because Tobi was strong enough to get it done. Tobi hated the Uchiha for turning against him and allowing themselves to be put in their current position.
 * As far as Itachi goes, he's definitely a "good guy" in the sense that (despite his long list of epic screw ups) he's on the Naruto's side and is now trying desperately to make up for said screw ups. Why he allowed Gaara (and the other hosts) to die was probably because he was so deep undercover there was nothing he could do. Same thing tragically happens in real life, he just couldn't risk blowing his cover.
 * I have to take issue with you there. You don't automatically become the good guy because you're on the hero's side. You become the good guy by not doing bad things. He committed the mass murder of the Uchiha (It absolutely stretches credulity that they were all guilty), mind raped Sasuke at least twice and joined an organization dedicated to killing other people in order to extract their demons. Your explanation as to why he joined doesn't make any sense whatsoever in crediting him because he didn't just help them capture the hosts - he was an active and willing participant. Do you honestly believe that, in real life, a CIA agent could murder US citizens in the name of being undercover in an Al Qaeda terrorist cell and still be considered by everyone as the good guy?
 * Personally I think that your good guy/bad guy point is a bit too black and white, but that's just me. I have no trouble at all believing that everyone in the Uchiha clan (save of course Sasuke and Shisui, who we know actually helped Itachi out) was guilty. I've seen enough of cults in my life to understand that people are disturbingly easy to control. He didn't help capture the hosts, in fact he deliberately avoided capturing Naruto when he had the chance. Yes, he delayed them from rescuing Gaara but A) he could've put even more effort than he did into it and B) it was plot relevant. And in the real world there's only one rule for those undercover: don't blow your cover. Whether or not everyone could still call them "good" is irrelevant; they do what needs to be done, no matter how difficult it is.
 * Well, it's more like Madara, who was clearly biased and had left the village by that point anyway, was under the impression that the police force was a sham. The Uchiha had clearly been fine with it for decades and weren't exactly forced to join it. And, of course, Madara has no particular reason to be honest if the truth won't help convince Sasuke. Also, since when can the advisory council outvote the Hokage? The Third wasn't happy about the massacre, but he did sign off on it. No one went behind his back.
 * People should stop with the Black and White Morality, there was a group of people who were gonna start a civil war and giving that it was the 3rd who came to the decision, they probably were not up for negotiations, so it was either, go into a more leveled civil war (the Uchihas had already lost the element of surprise) which would damage the village greatly as does any civil war since it's an we vs us battle, or do a reverse sneak attack and kill them all discretely and quietly avoid all the issues with the public knowing the government had something to do with it.
 * Iruka said Naruto is like a "little brother" to him.. Huh? I thought they had a father-son relationship.
 * Iruka was 11 or 12 when the Kyuubi attacked. Even though the father/son relationship may be accurate, he's too young to be admitting to it.

Danzo
Danzo is desperate for power and control of Konoha. Okay. He's struggled for years, hidden out of sight, to develop the power and resources to take control when the time comes. Pretty standard fare so far. Except...he has a mind control eye. He has had a mind control eye for something like seven years by the start of the series. In all that time, did he never realize he could just walk up to the third Hokage and say "Sup, dude? You should totally work to make my the Hokage from now on."
 * It would be terribly inconsistent with the Third's known personality or what have you. He suddenly decides to elect Asshole Mc Douchebag as his replacement, even though he's passed the guy over twice, first in favor of Orochimaru, then Minato. His jonin would say "Gee, that's sorta weird. Let's check to make sure he's not being genjutsued or anything. Plus, Shisui's eye jutsu isn't permanent, so Hiruzen would realize the second it was over that Danzo had put the wammy on him.
 * If Danzo could have gained the Hokage's seat at any point in time through his mind-control jutsu (even to the extent of fooling all the Kages) and the only reason anyone ever found out was because someone with a Byakugan had fought Shisui before and the fact that Danzo had a Sharingan was a secret, why didn't Danzo become the Godaime in the weeks it took for Naruto and Jiraiya to go on what was thought to be a wild goose chase to find Tsunade?
 * Because Ao found out only because he had a Byakugan eye implanted, and the Hyuga's are from the Leaf, he probably would had been found out, plus he was probably still making preparations with the Senju DNA since that's what made it possible to be used once a day instead of once every decade.
 * Why would there be a Hyuuga present when Danzo was influencing Homura and Koharu into making him Hokage? It only had to be done once and it's not like the Byuukagen allowed Ao to be check after the fact to see if someone had been manipulated by the Sharingan...which no one knows Danzo even has.
 * Even if he had everything set up 3 years ago, he still can only use the technique once a day on one person, he would need to use it on Homura, Koharu (who had years of experience and would probably notice something odd in the other's change of mind) and possibly the fire daimyo, all of which showed preference to choosing Jiraiya (who was offered the position of 4th, 5th and the fire daimyo even said he would had liked him to be 6th if he weren't dead) not to mention that they only elect the Hokage, he still needs to be approved by the Jonins who probably would had notice the shadiness if it got to that point.
 * Simply put, Danzo never shows that level of ability using Shisui's eye. Shisui or Itachi might have been able to pull off something like that (if they could use it as often as Danzo), but the Sasuke vs. Danzo fight explicitly established out that Danzo wasn't even as good as Sasuke with his Sharingan, much less Itachi. Danzo was only able to subtly manipulate Mifune (who was leaning toward picking Danzo anyway), and the effect wore off as soon as it was pointed out to him. Danzo had to wait until the conditions were right to use Shisui's eye effectively.
 * There is a pretty simple explanation for that - as much as Danzo wanted to be a Hokage, he didn't want to trample on Hiruzen, who was his "rival" (we can assume that they were friends when they were younger). Heck, he even went as far as to create ROOT, which he used not to take over the village, but to support Hiruzen's rule. And to be honest, their relationship kind of reminds me of the relationship Naruto and Sasuke had about the time of their chuunin exam.

Nagato, Konan and Yahiko

 * In chapter 446, where was the gang that Yahiko formed when him and Nagato went to the assigned place? What kind of a leader would go to a negotiation without their gang to back them up? And as a matter of fact, how or when did Konan get taken away? Was it before or after they got to the assigned place? And would it have been that hard for Kishimoto to add some panels showing any of this?
 * Maybe they all got killed/kidnapped on the way to the negotiation point and Konan was the only one spared, because it be even more of a Deus Angst Machina. There probably was a fight, Yahiko and Nagato were standing in a giant crater. Konan could have gotten taken then too. What bugs me is if Nagato had that Rinnegan thing and trained to use it properly, why didn't he just kill everybody. Like how he saved Yahiko the first time.
 * If all of what you typed is true, they why didn't Kishimoto just add a couple of panels to show it? Or at least have Nagato SAY that the rest of the gang got killed, and him and Yahiko found out that Konan was taken away? It wouldn't have been that hard to put that in the chapter. It just jumped from "Yahiko forming a gang with Konan and Nagato and discussing some future peace negotiations" to "Yahiko and Nagato arrive at the assigned place without the gang for no reason whatsoever and Konan was somehow captured" all within 3-4 pages.
 * Because it's Nagato telling us this, and the narration was likely too lengthy for his weakened (dying?) form.
 * So two sentences like "Our gang suddenly got attacked, and in the middle of the scuffle, Konan was captured. We searched for her but found a note telling us to meet them at the assigned place if we wanted to see her alive again." would've been too lengthy, but him going on for about 5 pages talking about how Jiraiya was teaching them to fight and him talking to Nagato about protecting his friends and how he wants peace in the world isn't?
 * Well, after reading chapter 447, Nagato says that he took over the gang after that huge fight. Which means that the gang didn't die. Which now means that Yahiko not bringing his gang with him to the assigned place pretty much makes this a wall banger moment because  HE WOULD HAVE HAD A BETTER CHANCE AT SURVIVAL HAD HE BEEN A COMPETENT LEADER AND JUST BROUGHT THE GANG WITH HIM.
 * Given that Konan was held captive by being attached to a fairly complicated looking paper bomb, it's seems more like she was caught earlier and Hanzo told them to come alone to get her... but Nagato just said that was when Hanzo called them for a meeting. Given that the first thing we see of this "meeting" was Nagato and Yahiko meeting the enemy party with Konan, it seems as if Nagato skipped something with his narration that lead to that situation.
 * That still doesn't answer the question, because this all leads back to the question of why Kishimoto didn't just add this in Nagato's narration? You'd think that he would seeing how he had Nagato be so in detail with everything else he was telling Naruto. This isn't one of those things where a writer can just show something and have people assume what happened. He literally made Yahiko stupid on purpose by not bringing the gang he formed with him just so that Yahiko could die. AND HE DOESN'T EVER EXPLAIN WHY THEY'RE NOT WITH HIM WHEN HE LEAVES. It's not like he couldn't add a little part in the flashback showing why Yahiko left his gang or even have them find a note telling them what to do if they want to see Konan alive (Like I typed earlier up there). Do you see how easily you assumed and typed what happened? Do you see how easily everyone up there (Including myself) made some assumptions and typed it up there? Now tell me, why couldn't Kishimoto just do that; something as easy as explaining why the gang wasn't there and how Konan was captured in just one or two sentences?
 * Actually, it is fairly obvious why Yahiko didn't being his gang to a peace negotiation. The answer being, of course, that it was supposed to be a peace negotiation.
 * Well, if that's true, then he'd go to the negotiation by himself, instead of bringing Nagato along seeing how it was a peace negotiation and that he was the only one that was needed to go there. Besides, this is Naruto. There have been tons of times where someone would meet someone else at a place for a simple discussion, and still bring backup as something to fall back on because they know that anything could happen (Like Yamato bringing Naruto, Sakura, and Sai when he was disguised as Sasori and was meeting with Kabuto). Then there's the fact that we'll never know what happened to the gang, seeing how the only time they were mentioned was when Nagato told Naruto how Yahiko quickly formed one, and how Nagato himself took over it after he finished raging. They could've been attacked and were too injured to come along, or Kishimoto could have made Yahiko too stupid by having him trust Hanzou too much, thus making him decide to not bring the gang with him. Kishimoto could have shown at least one of them in a panel.
 * In the meeting with Sasori's spy, Yamato brought Naruto, Sakura and Sai to capture the spy, while Orochimaru came to kill Sasori, so both sides had devious intentions. The problem is that Yahiko's group didn't realize that Hanzo wasn't being honest.
 * Is anyone else bothered by the recent manga? We know the real identity of Pain now, but the fact that Jiraiya also had it figured out (chapters ago) but couldn't write it on the frog's back is ridiculous. The entire world (unless I'm mistaken) runs on some kind of One Steve Limit, so "Pain is Nagato" would've made worlds more sense than simply "The real one isn't here" (the latter of which lead to chapters on chapters (until now) of people trying to figure out what the hell that meant). What gives?
 * No one but Tsunade would know who the hell Nagato is and even she only knew of Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan as "those kids from the Rain Country that Jiraiya trained for a while" so she might not have known which one was which and assumed that Deva Realm/Yahiko was the real one.
 * Also that according to recent chapters, she and Oro didn't give two shakes about war orphans. Only Jiraiya was even willing to give them half a chance.
 * It also wouldn't say anything about the NATURE of the powers, which is more important than the name of the person when you're trying to defeat them. Plus I think Jiraiya didn't want Pain to realize he'd figured it out/was sharing the secret.


 * Nagato has the Rinnegan, which makes him the most powerful person on the planet and probably the destined child. So why does Jiraiya leave him behind, unsupervised, in the middle of what is essentially a war torn third world country? Instead, after 3 years of training, he leaves Nagato and the others, then doesn't tell anyone about Nagato, not even the frog sages or Tsunade.
 * Just because Nagato has the Rinnegan doesn't mean he's the most powerful person on the planet. To quote Zetsu "The Sharingan" [or any other bloodline] "is just another tool that a ninja can use. A tool is only as powerful as the shinobi who uses it. An expert with a stone can still beat a novice with a shuriken. All he needs is more skill and power."
 * Still, the only other person with the Rinnegan founded the ninja world and made the moon and somesuch. That might be a hint that he's the destined child, and at least worthy of long term observation.
 * The Rikudo Sennin is said to have done all of that, just as it is said that the Sharingan mutated from the Byakugan. It may be true and it may not be. Konoha was in the middle of war and Jiraiya, being as valuable to Konoha as he was, probably spent as much time as he possibly could with the kids and didn't have time to worry about unconfirmed legends.
 * Nagato gave every indication, at least on the surface, of being reluctant to kill, even to save his friends. He and Konan were assumed to have died at some point in the past (and Yahiko really died), so Jiraiya may well have assumed it was no longer important and decided to forget about it.
 * It may also be another set up for Naruto, as it's revealed that Nagato was a member of the Uzumaki Clan.
 * Is there any reason Kakashi didn't just Black Hole the Deva Pain? He ends up using it twice anyways, once to block a nail, and another to take out a small projectile, both of which seemed like a waste of an incredibly deadly ability. Two times wouldn't even disable him if he hadn't used other powers as well.
 * Because it takes time to work, something Pain would not be giving them.
 * Given that he can Black Hole a nail being thrown at him, a moving target that he is chasing, and an explosion, that isn't entirely convincing. Granted, Pain might just wise up and Shinra Tensei him into paste.
 * Besides, Pain controls gravity. Trying to use a black hole against someone who controls gravity is a very bad idea, and far more likely to blow up in your face than to actually work. Imagine, Kakashi uses his black hole technique, and Pain turns it around to suck up the entire village and crush it into a singularity.
 * Why was Yahiko so sure that Nagato could have been "the bridge to true peace" instead of himself? Just because Nagato had the Rinnegan?
 * No, I also think he thought Nagato was a better person, who, with his strong desire to protect his friends, could lead them to peace, probably. I don't think Yahiko thought too highly of himself, to be honest. And his goal to acquire world domination in order to change his country and the world for the better wasn't exactly a good way to bring about world peace, either. That doesn't mean that Nagato would stay on that road, though: he was easily corrupted when Yahiko died, but Yahiko couldn't have foreseen this, of course. On the other hand, the Rinnegan gave Nagato huge power that, along with his dedication to his friends, was more than enough to convince Yahiko that Nagato was (or could have been) "the bridge to true peace".
 * After Nagato is ressurected by Kabuto, and after his Curb Stomp Battle against Naruto, Killer Bee, and Itachi, Nagato is defeated and impaled by Itachi's Sword of Totsuka; as we learn earlier during Sasuke's fight against Itachi when the latter uses the sword to defeat Orochimaru, that whoever is impaled by the blade is entrapped within an inescapable jutsu for eternity. However, within Nagato's final moments, he mentions that he will join Jiraiya in the afterlife. Maybe Kishi simply forgot, or maybe Nagato wasn't aware of the sword's properties, but this could have been explained a little more.
 * Why didn't Konan destroy Nagato's body? It was the only way to ensure that Tobi/Madara/whoever he is from getting the Rinnegan. She claims she knew he was coming (Issue 508) and he would have come anyway. What's more is it would have ever so slightly improved her chances of living since he might have spared her once he found out there was no more Rinnegan for him to steal. Probably not but he's been shown to be if not generous terribly random. The important part being stopping him from getting something she knew he wanted very badly.

Kages

 * Okay, I admit, I haven't read the actual chapter itself, but I read somewhere else on this site that Minato considered the village over his family, and thus, sealing Kyuubi into baby Naruto and condemning himself and Kushina to death. Fine. But I wondered why it bugged me so much, I mean, yeah, the thought's uncomfortable, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Then I realized, why the fuck did this man decide to have a family in the first place if he was so willing to give it up? Especially considering that he was the frickin' Yellow Flash and would have numerous enemies coming after his loved ones. He obviously wasn't ready or responsible enough to start a family.
 * Not even close, he sealed Kyuubi into Naruto specifically to give Naruto a weapon to use against Madara. He said that sixty chapters before the flashback even started. And he was responsible, he brought Kushina to a secret location guarded by ANBU so she could give birth. This measure would have worked perfectly had they not been attacked by one of the most powerful ninja who ever lived, a man he had absolutely no possible way of knowing was a threat, since, you know, everyone thought the man was dead. Not to mention how he had worked his Flying Thunder God seal into the seal keeping the Kyuubi inside Kushina, it's not exactly unreasonable to assume he'd figure out a similar way of getting to his son. What the hell man? how can it bug you if YOU HAVEN'T READ IT?
 * When I was reading Kushina's account of Minato telling her his plan, he seemed to be telling her that he could use her life to seal the Kyuubi in Naruto (and since she was dying anyway, it wasn't a moral issue) but that if he did that then Naruto would only grow up having a loving legendary father who could protect him and care for him but never meet his dead mother and so instead it was better to get them both killed so that Naruto grows up alone but can have one single conversation with both dead parents. I get that mothers are important and whatnot but it really doesn't seem like one conversation with Kushina was worth forever without Minato.
 * Could just be BS Minato was telling Kushina to comfort her about himself needing to die to seal the Kyuubi. If the Kyuubi died it A. Would have upset the balance of power between biju, weakened Konoha B. The thing would have resurrected even if it died, meaning another disaster was likely, Madara could make another grab for it, and this way they were able to contain it again C. This is all he could do for Kushina as he didn't save her in the first place.
 * But we know that the sealer doesn't have to die. Gaara's mother didn't seal Shukaku inside of him and yet she was the sacrifice. Why couldn't Minato have just used Kushina as the sacrifice? Under ordinary circumstances, I can absolutely understand why he wouldn't sacrifice his wife but since she wasn't going to survive anyway...Can you just not use a dying sacrifice?
 * Normally, you would be right about the sealer not necessarily dying, but I believe the Shiki Fuujin, the jutsu Minato used requires the user to offer his/her soul in order to seal something away. Minato didn't die because he sealed the Kyuubi into Naruto. He died because he sealed half of it into himself using Shiki Fuujin. Of course, he used another jutsu on Naruto, that's why he didn't die. This way, half of the Kyuubi could never, ever return, so in the long run it is better than the whole Kyuubi returning at a later date, and Naruto has to deal with a weaker Kyuubi as a Jinchuuriki. Still, the greatest shinobi died, but Minato believed that Naruto would surpass him.

Gaara

 * There is one man who is (mostly) single-handedly responsible for Gaara growing up a murderous psychopath like he is. Yashamaru. Okay, so Gaara's birth killed his sister. Whom he loved. WAS IT GAARA'S CHOICE?? NO!! Why doesn't he go and hate the Kazekage, who made the choice to seal the Shukaku inside his son? Moreover, if he just hated Gaara to the point that he would agree to assassinate him, fine. He should have told Gaara that it was the Kazekage's orders, pulled out his exploding tags, and died. What is the POINT of traumatizing the poor six-year-old even further by telling him that he hated him all along? Didn't Yashamaru even consider the fact that it has no function except to make this already suicidal kid even more dangerous? People really shouldn't burden young children with such disturbing facts. This is further proved by Naruto, who grew up isolated and not knowing the truth but kind in general, as opposed to Gaara knowing everything and going psycho because of it.
 * The way this lurker sees it, Yashamaru also hated the Kazekage for it, but wouldn't dare attack him because he's the Kazekage. So, he aims to cause as much trouble for the man as possible, along with displaying his sister's hatred of the village in possibly destroying it via her son, since Karura hated Suna too. Plus Gaara wasn't exactly stable from the beginning with the insomnia and all - you ever tried keeping a toddler awake? He'd have snapped pretty soon anyway, be it from the rest of the village, or his father telling him what Yashamaru said afterwards.
 * Gaara: Daddy, why did Yashamaru just try to blow me up?!
 * Kaze-Daddy: Because he hated you, I hate you, your mother hated you and so does Suna, and you mean nothing to anyone. I told him to btw. Bye bye!
 * Actually Yashamaru was forced by Gaara's father to say those horrible things. He made him do it to see if Gaara could handle the trama and control the Shukaku. He sure ain't gonna win the father of the year award!
 * In the explain-Gaara's-background-in-mid-fight-flashbacks during the Chuunin Exam arc, a big deal was made of Gaara not knowing what pain was (because the sand protected him from injury). So did he never think to bite his tongue? It HURTS. One hopes the sand doesn't get inside his mouth, too. And even if it does, what about stomach-ache? He's six, for crying out loud!
 * Gaara never saw his own blood, it was never about pain, even though he won Lee beat him up pretty good, but that brings the question as to what the hell is the love for oneself kanji on his forehead? I thought it was a scar, is it made of sand or what?
 * Gaara oddly underuses his own powers. He bizarrely uses his sand as a bludgeoning tools of sorts, instead of taking advantage of that it flowing and abrasive. For instance, he shouldn't have had all that trouble with Kimimaro. He might have been a tough nut to crack, but all Gaara had to do was to stuff sand into every orifice and wait for him to suffocate. He never thinks of using it for blinding his opponents or hurting them with the friction.
 * I know that Gaara's mother said that he was really small but the picture of baby Gaara being maybe a fourth the size of her head is absolutely ridiculous.
 * It's mentioned (or at least heavily implied) in the chapter that Gaara was a premature birth. Premature births really can be that small, though I imagine the perspective makes baby Gaara look even smaller than he should be.
 * Regarding the Ret-con if both The Yondaime and Kurara loved Gaara why would they name a child a self loving carnage?. I could see the Kaze Kage doing it in a fit of rage at having lost his wife but if so it's never mentioned that he did so.

Raikage

 * Sorry if this has been answered already but the current Raikage,is he the one who was in office when Cloud tried to kidnap Hinata for the byakugan,I know that they guy who was killed was a leader but I thought that hat meant a general for the ninja on the field not kage, and I remember Yamato said something about Kohona's sacrifices for you when talking to the current Raikage but I couldn't tell if it was you as in Cloud or specifically him?
 * This Trpoer thinks it's the same one, but isn't sure.
 * Really, it's never been addressed. Certain statements imply that he was Raikage at the time, but it's never been outright stated. Ultimately, it's probably not going to be addressed within the story itself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up in a databook or something eventually.
 * It's possible, because he seems to remember it, and the Tsuchikage calls him out for amassing jutsus in peacetime (which might explain the attempt to get the Byakugan).
 * The trailer for the next episode says that he was in charge when it occured, but whether thats canon or not is unkown, my guess is yes
 * Well even so, the Raikage before him was his father.
 * Pretty much confirmed now, since we've seen Minato fought him and referred to him as the Raikage
 * Raikage cut off his hand. Doesn't that mean he can't perform ninjutsu anymore? He's more of a Taijutsu person, but he doesn't seem to care in the least. Then again, he is the only one Killer Bee ever listens to. But it still bugs me.
 * There have been instances where people could manage without having their hands free. Jiraiya can make barriers, for instance. He could always get a new arm grafted onto the stump.
 * Haku did most of his jutsus with one hand.
 * The Raikage uses a lightning punch on some falling debris after losing his arm, so his lightning technique is not dependent on handsigns.
 * Chapter 451: I am going to ignore the major plot points and pick this little quirk; why the hell did the Raikage send "two" messages? What was the point of sending Samui and co, when an eagle could (and did) also deliver the message? And why the hell did the two messages reach at the same time? I thought the birds were much faster, otherwise, what's the point of using them?
 * The bird's message was about the emergency meeting of the Kages. The team's message was about Sasuke. Incidentally, the bird was probably confused by the obliteration of his destination. Either that, or the Konoha birdmen only just check their b-mail.
 * The team was also sent to retrieve information about Sasuke and bring it back to the Raikage, which would necessitate sending ninjas out.

Orochimaru

 * Is Orochimaru really dead?
 * Given how we're not definitely told whether Sasuke managed to kill him before he completed the soul transfer, just given strong hints, the possibility of an "Orochimaru all along" reveal is strong.
 * There's also Kabuto, whose body is being taken over by the piece of Orochimaru he implanted into himself. Not quite the same -- you'd be left with a copy with Kabuto's memories of ol' Snakey; natural ability only; none of the thousands of jutsus he's supposed to have learned.
 * And yeah,I thought that was strange and out of character for Kabuto too.
 * The way i see it, Orohimaru is dead, his power and personality are infecting Kabuto, his abilities have been absorbed by Sauske.
 * I'm betting on alive. Look at the fifth panel here to see the snake slithering away.
 * And then burning alive...
 * While there hasn't been an update on Kabuto!Maru, Sasuke!Maru is definitely dead. At least he died by one of the few techniques that he couldn't master.
 * Why didn't Orochimaru just have his arms amputated after Tsunade refused to heal them? They were causing him intense pain and he couldn't use them anyways.
 * Why did Orochimaru train Sasuke instead of just taking over straight away? he didn't need to have a body that can control the curse seal completely and the few extra techniques he would've obtained are just ranged versions of the chidori, doesn't seem worth it.
 * He couldn't take over straight away, not anymore. Living Corpse Reincarnation can only be used once every three years and Orochimaru's decaying body forced him to perform the technique before Sasuke's late arrival, so he had no choice other than wait three more years and Sasuke would rebel if he didn't train him during said time.

Kabuto

 * What the hell is going on with Kabuto anyway? Who is he loyal to, if anyone?
 * Kabuto is a villageless assassin who became loyal to Sasori of the red sands, Sasori is shown to have a number of mind control Jitsu so that's how he did that. He was placed as a mole within Orohimaru's sound village and quickly fell into the same thrall most of Orochimaru's servants are. At some point Sasori's mind control technique was discovered and removed leaving him loyal to Orochimaru, but more of a man loyal to his god than a military sense. When Orochimaru died (who Kabuto sees as a god) he went a little skits and absorbed what was left of him, initially to try and revive/preserve him he then (as he told Naruto) found himself (to his own surprise) wanting to preserve his own personality rather than roll over and let Orochimaru come back. In short he was loyal to Orochimaru until the point where his own personality was at stake, and his survival instincts kicked in. Combine 1- a parasitic entity of pure malice and power 2- having lost the only man he was ever loyal to and worshipped as a god and 3- years and years of performing really messed up human experiments Kabuto is now utterly nuts and loyal to no-one.
 * Yeah, but in the first series Orochimaru implies that Kabuto isn't completely loyal to him (when he sends him to retrieve Sasuke after the chunin exam preliminaries). As far as I know, this occurs after Orochimaru breaks Sasori's mind-control, so...
 * When Orochimaru's arms were paralyzed after the fight with the Third Hokage, someone had to wipe his rear for him. Chances are it was Kabuto. That certainly could've strained his loyalty...
 * The suspicion was due to him initially being a spy for Sasori, and a villageless spy who had no home and thus no true loyalties, and while it was unfounded, Orochimaru did know of a reason why Kabuto might betray him.
 * Incorrect. Kabuto was under the control of Sasori. The same jutsu he used at Gaara's village to get in. Once the jutsu was broken there was no reason to suspect him of being anything but loyal.


 * Kabuto does a mass summoning of dead people which irritates my suspenion of disbelief. There should be some drawback behind jutsu violating the laws of nature.
 * Um...it does have at least three drawbacks. The first is that the target has to be dead first, the second being the target's soul has to be accessible, and the third is that it kills whomever gets turned into the formerly dead person. Also, Kabuto mentioned he was more skilled with the jutsu than Orochimaru (Possibly because he's a Medic-nin) and that may relate to being able to summon more. Honestly, I had been complaining that Orochimaru hadn't done just this. $5 says Jiraiya will appear for Naruto to angst over.
 * Well they just spent a chapter explaining it, and it seems like the only drawback is the amount of chakra needed to fully control someone. Seems like Kabuto just skipped over that with some handy-dandy brain control talismans though. On the other hand, Sasori and Sai's brother died again when their souls were at peace, so I guess there's some drawback even Kabuto doesn't know. Also, they discussed bringinf Jiraiya back and noted it was unlikely (unless we assume Pain's paths never bothered cleaning).
 * The problem with the explanation given is that Kabuto is demonstably smarter than that. He needs their DNA not their body. If you read chapter 520 where the edo tensai is described he's heavily insinuating that the DNA from the weapons of the Peins have enough DNA to bring back Danzo. Unless the first step cannot be taken until the person is dead he should have one of those contracts for every worthwhile ninja he ever fought. On the flip side if he didn't collect the majority of his DNA like this then his collection makes no sense.
 * Of course they need to be dead first. Their soul is summoned from wherever it is once they die (including inside of a Shinigami it looks like as Sarutobi had to actively work to stop Minato returning, he wasn't ruled out because he was stuck somewhere) and it can't be summoned from their living bodies.
 * Why would they need to be dead before you collected the DNA? That's like saying someone needs to be dead before they write a will because you can't execute a will while the person is alive. If they have to be dead before you can get the DNA then some like Deidera make NO sense at all. Nor does Sasori.
 * Also, all of this is assuming that Kabuto was telling Madara the truth, and seeing how he knows that Madara is probably planning on backstabbing him and using the jutsu himself, Kabuto probably just neglected to mention a drawback or two in the hopes that those drawbacks would get Madara killed if his own double cross was unsuccessful.
 * There is a very major drawback: Itachi. Or, to be more precise, if someone is able to override Kabuto's control over one of the summons, and turn them against him by genjutsu, Kabuto's screwed.
 * When Kabuto finds himself in a confrontation with Sasuke and Itachi why doesn't he simply unsummon Itachi? It seems to me that even if you are the baddest man on the planet (and he very well may be) going two on one when all it takes is a snap of your fingers to make it one on one is stupid.
 * Either Kabuto cannot unsummon Itachi because he cannot control him anymore, but that would mean that it is unclear how Itachi would finally be able to return to the afterlife, or he's summoned too many ninjas and if he unsummoned one, all the others would disappear, but this is just speculation on my part. I believe Kabuto's not stupid enough to let Itachi be summoned if he can unsummon him. Personally though, I'd prefer the first solution.
 * Given how badly Kabuto is showing them up, unsummoning Itachi really wasn't necessary.

Tobi

 * WHO THE HECK IS TOBI?!
 * Lets see he has a sharingan and the camera zoomed on him when they were discussing Madara Uchiha... He is probably the fourth hokage./sarcasm
 * Haha. He was said he had "the power of sharigan, the power of Uchiha Madara" since Madara is the orignal Uchiha he was just being redundant, also if he was Madara he would be older than 90 years old.
 * Which wouldn't be that odd looking at his teammates
 * That's a mistranslation, as I understand it. In the original Japanese, the only way that line can be interpreted is as Tobi referring to himself as Madara Uchiha, which is why Wikipedia, of all places, says that. So he's Madara, one way or another. Whether he's literally Madara, or Madara's consciousness possessing someone else (Obito?) is still up for grabs.
 * He would be far from the only character in Naruto who managed to attain immortality by sacrificing their human appearance. And Madara's battle with the first left him exiled not dead. Rule of thumb, everything is possible in Naruto, magic Ninjas are magic.
 * It appears that when someone with the Mangekyo Sharingan takes the eyes of their sibling, in addition to curing their blindness they gain the "Eternal Sharingan", which may make them immortal.
 * As of right now, he's described himself as "a nobody."

The Demon Brothers

 * Am I seriously supposed to believe that the Demon Brothers were good enough to make Chuunin, and Kirigakure Chuunin at that? They got shamed by pre-Sharingan Sasuke, and they were idiot enough to use a puddle for disguise on a hot day. Have Kirigakure's standards dropped since Zabuza left?
 * Well, considering that Zabuza killed all the other potential kids, they were probably short staffed and had to keep up with lower ranked missions somehow - would you put ANBU on C-Ranks? As a result, ninja who shouldn't make the cut do. That or the Chunin exam for their year group was much easier then usual.
 * Keep in mind that the Chuunin Exams we saw had the toughest batch of candidates in the last 4 years (at least) and of these we focused on the top 21. And among these particapats Sasuke was baffling everyone with his skill without the use of Sharingan or any Ninjutsu. Sasuke was already at the top of the Rookie Nine before Sharingan so relatively it's not so bad.
 * The Brothers recovered from Sasuke "shaming" them like bosses, and would have accomplished their goal with very little trouble were it not for Kakashi stepping in again.
 * Is it just me, or is the Fourth appearing in Naruto's mind remind this troper of Peter's battle against the Symbiode in The Spectacular Spiderman, when Uncle Ben appears in his mind?
 * This kind of thing is pretty common in a Journey to The Center of The Mind. The key difference though, is that that Ben was a manifestation of Peter's memories, but the Minato that is appearing her is some remnant of his mind/soul the actual person left behind as Naruto has no memory of him and he's stated that he was always there as part of the seal and was happy to meet his son.
 * This troper is pretty sure that the Minato seen there is the real one, and that his soul was sealed with the Kyuubi's.

Madara Uchiha

 * Madara Uchiha...is it a guy's name, or is it just a title given to the most fearsome Uchiha?
 * If I rember correctly it was the first Uchihas name so its a guys name.
 * What exactly are the rules for the transplant of a siblings Sharingan work? Does it have to be a Mangekyo Sharingan to restore your vision? Also why did Izuna need to go blind to save Madara's eyesight? Couldn't they just swap eyes?
 * Maybe they did!
 * I always assumed that transplanting another Mangekyo gave you immortality/powers like Madara's, but transplanting a regular Sharingan just made your own Mangekyo permanent.
 * They couldn't have swapped eyes, because it seems that the two pairs of eyes are somehow fused when transplanted or something like that seeing as the Eternal Mangekyou's pattern is a mixture of the siblings' sharingan pattern, which means only one of the siblings end up with the new, "combined" sharingan, the other is left without eyes. I think that Izuna didn't lose his sight; he lost his eyes. So it's not as much restoring sight than creating new eyes with better sight, I think. I also think that it has to be a Mangekyou Sharingan, because a regular sharingan wouldn't change the pattern, and stopping the Mangekyou's sealing itself has something to do with the new pattern in my opinion, and it has to be a sibling's, because I think the others are incompatible.

Kisame

 * Manga Chapter #522: The Seven Swordsman of The Mist. Where is Kisame?
 * Kisame died within the past few hours. and Kabuto wouldn't have had time or know about his death to do anything about it. also These are the previous SSS of the mist,probably from the Yondaime Kazekage's rule before Kisame had taken his predecessor's position.
 * Woah-kay. So Kisame and Zabuza are of different generations? Regardless, why does Zabuza have his sword...while Samehada is nowhere to be seen? Plus, it's not some mystic soul-copy of Zabuza's sword...it's missing the half that got sliced off by whoever when Suigetsu was using it.
 * Yes, Kisame and Zabuza are of different generations in the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, it has nothing to do with age. Given the apparent way a member is promoted to the group, all this means is that Zabuza probably killed his predecessor before Kisame offed his. Also Samehada is currently with Killer Bee, while Suigetsu lost track of Zabuza's sword when the samurai took it from him.
 * Does anyone else think that some of the sword designs are hilarious? I mean, a needle and thread? A bunch of explosives on a stick?
 * This troper thinks that Nuibari is one of Kishi's best ideas.
 * You know how long the Nightmare Fuel page for Naruto is? This troper can honestly say that throughout the entire series, the Nuibari is the only thing he has found genuiely scary.

Kyuubi

 * Wow, in recent chapters, compared to the other Tailed Beasts, the Kyuubi is friggin' weak. He's been defeated and sealed away three times, he can't handle a couple of measly rouge ninja, and his chakra has been split in half, more of it being spread throughout the air or implanted into other people, and even more taken away by Naruto when he defeated him, nearly reducing him to his 8-tailed state.
 * Well, literally all the other beasts were imprisoned too, implying that they've gotten their asses kicked just as much as Kyuubi. Hachibi in particular was taken down multiple times by a bunch of ordinary shinobi using chains. And i'm sorry, but Kyuubi went down easily? When?
 * Also, the whole "Getting his chakra stolen" thing might be connected to him being weaker than he should be... And at any rate, it's possible that, as the strongest bijuu, the Kyuubi merely attracted more opponents strong enough to defeat him than any of the other tailed beasts did.
 * When you look at the size of Kyuubi's paw print and the size of its paw during Kushina's flash back, after Minato uses the Dead Demon -seal Kyuubi's paw is actually over five times smaller than the print. That is a lot of power lost. And it is lost permanently, which is what Minato says. The Death God -summoning seems to be used to permanently consume things and make them unrecoverable, nothing more. Minato then sealed what remained with an 8-point seal and a 4 -element seal into Naruto. That fact alone should actually prove the undoing of Tobi's plan to revive the Juubi since the Kyuubi is incomplete and a large part of it can't be recovered. Unless of course the Kyuubi has somehow siphoned Naruto's own power to rebuild its reserves, but that seems unlikely as it is still so small.
 * It is actually implied he doesn't need the Kyuubi as a whole. When he retrieved Kinkaku and Ginkaku he said he was going to use them to fuel his plan, only for Kabuto to say he had so few of Hachibi's reserves for his plan. I presume he can revive the Juubi with only a fraction of the Bijuus, but the Hachibi portion he has (only one tentacle) is just that small for it to work properly. By the way, feeding himself with Naruto's chakra reserves could really replinish its powers, it recovered quickly from the drained state Naruto left his body this way, so it may not be lost forever, Tobi could find a way to buff it again.

Kakuzu

 * How is Kakuzu still the same person after replacing his heart? Wasn't the whole idea of Sasori's puppet body that his heart was the center of his consciousness?
 * Sasori's technique is different from Kakuzu's, so it also works differently. Sasori didn't have a heart in a sense Kakuzu had many, since Kakuzu's hearts are the pumping kind of heart real people have which has absolutely no impact on his personality whatsoever, while Sasori had something that was more of a bundle containing his personality or essence or whatever in the same place where one's heart should be. It also looked nothing like a heart, so I think we should assume it didn't really work like a heart; remember, he was no longer a living person, so he didn't need to have a heart to pump his nonexistent blood. Kakuzu's personality, on the other hand, was stored in his mind, since he was still something considered a living being, just with the ability to assimilate multiple hearts in his body. It's not the "bundle" Sasori made out of his "essence" or whatever.

Pain/Pein

 * Why does Pain feel the need to collect the tailed beasts for WMD purposes if he already has the power to destroy a several-mile area on his own?
 * It shortens his lifespan.
 * And because he want's people to nuke themselves after he's gone so there can be long periods of peace.
 * He's also stated that the weapon he plans to make with the tailed beasts is much, much bigger; like capable of devastating a country with one shot. I guess 'just' destroying one city at a time wouldn't frighten people enough.
 * It's possible that he can use more chakra from the tailed beasts, and thus make a stronger jutsu, or maybe make some variant of the beam that the Kyuubi and Hachibi use.
 * Chapter 407- Dammit, how did Pain get all six bodies back? The code obviously has something to do with "the six faces of Pain" or whatever, but it looks like they won't get a chance to really use it. I must say I'm pleased that Shikamaru's back. His presence has actually made me look forward to reading this again.
 * Maybe he has several reserve bodies, but he can only control six of them at a time.
 * It's explicitly shown that one of his bodies has the ability to resurrect the others. Which, in retrospect, we probably should have taken as foreshadowing.


 * Okay... so Pain relies on Naruto to complete his plan on making a WMD. If that's the case, why did he enrage him by hurting Hinata? To prove a point? Okay, but he can't really accomplish his plans if he's dead. He's going to let himself be killed by the key component to his plan just to prove a point?
 * Did Pein realize that Naruto would freak out that badly when he attacked Hinata?

Deidara

 * If Deidara tried to eat M&M's with his hand-mouths, would they melt?
 * OK, wow. I just got a mental image of a one man Lady and the Tramp Spaghetti Scene.
 * I don't think Deidara can eat with his hand-mouths. Two reasons - that would mean throats in his arms, which if nothing else would make moving them and reattaching them more difficult, and it's been shown at least twice that he has to chew and swallow clay with his actual mouth (or the other one) to absorb the propeties of the exploding chakra into his body. And M&Ms melt in your mouth anyway, so isn't that kinda moot?
 * Guys, Accidental Nightmare Fuel much?
 * Is Deidara still alive? I mean, he wasn't killed in the Black Ant/Black Crow Puppet Dance of Death Iron Maiden thing, but Sasori was .. disentegrated from the event (due to his soul finally resting in peace and blah blah blah). He didn't die right? But where is he?
 * Probably trapped like most of the other zombies who haven't been mentioned in a while.

The Uchiha Clan

 * When the Uchiha clan was massacred, how come none of the other clans seemed particularly concerned about it? I mean, this is a major event and yet no one seemed to want to do any investigation on it and it's not even really mentioned by anyone but Sasuke?'
 * The Uchiha clan was respected, but it was never very politically loved. There was a reason it was segregated, after all. The other clans probably shrugged it off, besides which everybody thought Itachi did it.
 * In a scene after the massacre, two classmates are seen talking about it. It's likely that the clans were concerned about it, but there wasn't anyone able to go up against an S-class criminal.

The Senju Clan

 * Whatever happened to the Senju clan? From what we've seen, it most likely consists of a grand total of three people. The Shodaime, the Nidaime, and one of Tsunade's parent. I doubt they managed to completely die off in less than three generations, and you'd think that Tsunade would remember the murder of her entire clan. Which means that, essentially, that the Uchiha clan's greatest nemisis was three guys. And only one of them could use mokuton jutsu.
 * There were more than three guys. But yeah, it doesn't make sense that such a powerful and important clan would disappear in less than 80 years. Maybe Kishi will tell us what happened to them later.
 * I thought what happened to the Senju clan was that after the village was founded they split apart and are the ancestors of Konoha's current clans besides the Uchiha (and probably most of the village, unless they allow immigration). Though you're 80 years is a pretty short time for that to happen. Perhaps they disbanded as a formal clan at some point for some as of yet unknown reason to simply become the citizens of the village (non-clan members like Sakura, Rock Lee, Tenten, and Naruto), and the non-Uchiha clans were pre-existing and choose to join the village for stabler lives. Or may some combination of the two
 * Perhaps adding support to this we know that the Uzumaki clan was an offshoot of the Senju clan (the manga just says that they are related, but it also clearly calls Naruto a Senju, which could mean a few things, but probably means that the original Uzumakis and the Senju interbred to the point that all Uzumakis share Senju blood, though not the reverse).
 * This troper always thought it was fairly obvious what happened to the Senju clan. The Senju and the Uchiha went to war over which was the greatest clan. Even though the Senju won, both sides probably suffered a great deal of casualties on both sides which lead to an extremely small remaining population. Couple this with the dangerous missions that shinobi are sent on and the fact that the Senju (being the strongest in the village) would be sent first to deal with the worst problems, means that the remaining clan members probably died in incredibly dangerous missions and in the various wars between the different countries. For another example just look at the Uchiha, they were also considered a great clan but there weren't that many left by the time Itachi comes around.
 * Which helped make his job that much easier
 * Alternately, if you take into account Tobi's assertion that the Senju clan started with the son of the Rikudo sage and he can see that the fire of the Senju clan dwells within Naruto (yet Naruto goes by Uzumaki Naruto rather than Senju Naruto), it's possible that the Senju clan is so numerous (due to being started so long ago) that there are so many Senju descendants that the name becomes fairly useless in differentiating families.

Hyuugas

 * Is it ever explained why Neji keeps his right arm bandaged pre-timeskip?
 * Does it seem odd that Hinata is the only Konoha 11 member besides Choji who has never spoken about the order to kill Sasuke? It might be interesting to see what her opinion is, as while she's not especially attached to Sasuke, she could have doubts about it due to it interfering with Naruto's personal quests, support it to take the burden off his shoulders (she intervenes against Pain despite his personally ordering everyone to stay out), or merely unconditionally support him and trust him to do what's best, and I wonder if her opinion on it is being saved for a future scene with Naruto.
 * Well, I doubt she intends to just let Naruto get himself killed.
 * Does it bother anyone else that 15-year-old Hinata has approximately half to one-fourth the power and skill of 13-year-old Neji? Of course, Neji is a genius, but this power gap is just ridiculous.
 * Hinata lacks confidence and therefore has trouble progressing. Plus her dad appears to be exclusively training Neji and Hanabi, leaving her to Kurenai. Kurenai is a genjutsu specialist and the Hyuuga seem to solely use their own taijutsu, so that could explain some of the disconnect. And don't forget, Neji is outright stated to be one of the most naturally talented Hyuuga ever.
 * But... Eight Trigrams Thirty Two Palms... It's just ridiculous.
 * Wasn't that a filler jutsu?
 * I think they wanted to have her use the technique without going so far as to suggest that she learned it herself or was taught i by her father (which would mean he recognized her as heir, something that has not been officially stated in the manga yet, as Kou calls both her and Hanabi "-sama.")
 * Neji is THE most naturally talented Hyuuga, period. Also the official databooks have Hinata as ~4/5 of 14 year-old Neji's level whatever the fillers have to say about it.
 * According to the third databook, Hinata's skills grew significantly faster than Neji's did over the timeskip, to the point where she's smarter than he is and better at genjutsu (which could be because of Kurenai's training), compared to her unimpressive growth between "pre-chunin exam" and pre-timeskip, showing that she believes in herself and her hard work is paying off. There's also the issue that we don't have any "normal" Hyugas besides the "genius" Neji and the "failure" Hinata with whom to compare the two.
 * More than likely, the 4/5th part refers to skill and techniques, not total power. The Heavenly Spin and the Sixty-Four Palms are the epitome of the Hyuga Clan's techniques, and Neji taught himself these techniques. While Hinata has indeed grown faster than Neji, it is possible that she has not fully mastered the Main Clan's secret techniques.
 * How does the whole Hyuga main/branch family thing work exactly? Neji's dad was a branch family member because he was born second. Okay, by that logic Hanabi should be a branch family member and there should be only a handful of main family members. Even if there are multiple nuclear families that make up the main branch, there could only be at most four, maybe five people (one from each generation) from each of those who are actually main brach. Also, if we assume that Hiashi and Hizashi were a special case because one of them would be the heir, either Hinata or Hanabi should be branch family members. So what's the deal?
 * Maybe Hizashi was branded to prevent fighting between twins over the position of head (similiar to the Man in the Ironmask), as well as provide a perfect decoy in case of assassination attempts on the next head.
 * Of course, everything falls into place if you assume that the branch family members aren't branded until the new clan leader is selected. Thus, Hizashi would not have been branded until Hiashi assumed the post. At that point, any of Hizashi's children (i.e., Neji) would also receive the seal. As for Hinata and Hanabi, both are still main family members until such time as Hiashi steps down and a new leader chosen from his descendants. At that point, assuming Hinata was chosen to become the new leader, Hanabi and any of her hypothetical children would be sealed, while any of Hinata's similarly hypothetical children would be left alone. This partially solves the issue directly below of main branch family members exposing themselves to danger. True, under this system there would only be a handful at any given time, but there would remain room for flexibility in choosing the next clan leader from the current leader's offspring; thus, main house descendants would not be quite as irreplaceable. This also solves the dialogue issue during the Chunin Exams, where Hiashi tells Hanabi that he believes that she is stronger than her older sister. Therefore, the line of descent is not strictly limited to the eldest sibling, but whomever the clan leader feels would do the best job in his stead. As for how this would effect Hiashi and Hizashi's selection way back when, all things and factors being equal (and they being twins, they probably were), then age was probably used as a kind of tiebreaker. Hizashi would then have been doubly pissed; not only had his brother been chosen above him because of a few seconds, but there was every possibility that he would have been chosen instead. And down the line, Neji would also be doubly pissed for being in the branch family not only because of his younger-sibling father, but because of his younger-sibling-but-equally-qualified father..
 * This is assuming that whole bit about Hiashi being the first born is even actually TRUE. Remember, the only one who ever mentioned that being the case is Neji, who only had his father's word to go on. For all we know, the story is a lie designed to help Hizashi cope with being the Esau to Hiashi's Jacob.
 * It's possible that Hanabi was not branded so that in case Hinata died on a mission, they would still have an heir (The only person we see being branded is Neji, and we know that his branding would be inevitable because he was born to a branch house member, and the reason why he would be branded when Hinata turned 3 is unclear).
 * On the Naruto Wiki, one proposed theory is that Hinata and Hanabi, being female, cannot start a branch family, and thus, neither would get the curse mark at any point, regardless of who inherited the clan.
 * As for why Neji wasn't branded right away, they probably don't brand young Branch family members immediately for fear that the head family would not produce an heir. Although the Naruto world seems to have fairly advanced medicine, the age of 3 might be a leftover from a time similar to our own world's past where most children died at a very young age. Once the head family heir turns 3 they can be fairly certain she will succeed the clan. That actually would explain Neji's flashback where his father suddenly expresses murderous intent for a young Hinata, if the head family produced no heir Neji wouldn't have to be part of the Branch family.
 * If the branch house of the Hyuga are supposed to protect the Main House and the secrets of the Byakugan, then why is Hinata allowed to go off, separate from any branch members? Given that the seal on the branch members is supposed to do something to the eyes (the whole reason the elders wanted to send Hizashi's body instead of Hiashi's) isn't Hinata being by herself, without other Hyugas, and without the seal, a cause for concern? She was almost kidnapped once, so one could assume that without the seal the eyes remain intact after death. Or is the whole branch house thing just the elders continuing to be massive dicks? (Which is what it seems like. Didn't seem like Hiashi actually had a whole lot of power over his family. He didn't want to send his brother to die in his place.)
 * This has never been adequately addressed in the series. My theory is that Hiashi decided that the eye skills weren't worth a whole bucket of spit, certainly not worth his brother's life, and since then he's disregarded all the limits and worries about main family lives. We even see him fighting alone during Oro's invasion of Konoha, which he wouldn't do if he was worried about the secrets getting out. So if he doesn't care about Hinata, and he doesn't care about the eye jutsus, then it makes sense that he would let her go off on dangerous missions by herself.
 * Come to think of it Neji doesn't seem to worried about Byakugan secrets leaking when Hinata gets decimated against Pein. They've all probably realized that the rest of the world doesn't give a fig about Byakugan any more. It has its uses, but for sheer damage you can't beat Sharingan.
 * Then again, she is lying there in the middle of the giant Konoha crater, while the typical fear is that if ninjas die on a mission, the enemy will retrieve their corpses and study them for details on village secrets, as well as their bloodline traits. Since Pain flees six-tailed Naruto shortly afterward, and is mainly concerned with capturing him, there's far less risk of Hinata's body being taken.
 * If pain had won, he would've just made 6 paths again and had the ability to see from multiple viewpoints, which makes the byakugan kind of useless to him, plus most of his abilities seem to come from Rinnegan which means he probably can't swap one eye for something else.
 * Exactly, Hinata's body would have been more valuable to him as a replacement body than for her eyes.
 * And now that we know some guy from another village (Ao) did get a Byakugan from one of their memebers this all seems even more pointless and ineffective.
 * As Madara has displayed there is nothing stopping you from having eyes from different sets. It's true that shared vision is great but as both Naruto and Jiraya displayed that just means I have to get you away from your friends.
 * Is it ever expressly stated that the Rinnegan's POWER is shared sight? Cus that just doesn't sound likely since the Sage of Six Paths (to the best of our knowledge) wasn't called that because he had six bodies and Nagato figuring out that if he animated corpses it would let him use his funny eyes doesn't sound plausible either. It makes as much or more sense that whatever justu he used to create the Peins simply shared the vision amonst them all.
 * Shared sight is one of the abilities, the six paths are the powers that Nagato used through the dead bodies, not the bodies themselves.


 * Something that occurred to me while planning a fanfic: since part of the Cage Bird seal's function includes being able to cause pain, could it be finely tuned enough to cause pleasure?
 * It appears to work specifically on the head physically, not in the head, so it would probably range from a mild throbbing sensation to head-splitting agony. Could someone get off it? Probably. Is that a likely use? Probably not.

The Yamanaka Clan

 * Why do the Yamanaka clan own a shop? true they aren't as prominant as the the Hyuga or the Uchiha but they're still a very powerful clan... I guess what I'm really asking is where do all their Ninja wages go? Ino is a Chunin, Inoichi is a Jonin and Fu is a Root; they should have more than enough money. And yet - this warrior clan have to sell flowers in order to make ends meet. Huh?
 * Not all of them are ninjas? also money might not be shared between family members, so they would all need to have some sort of job
 * I thought it was her mother's- since, you know, it'd be silly to think that all the people in a clan marry their cousins. Inbreeding works with dogs, not with humans.
 * Who says they need the shop to make ends met? My grandfather kept working after he could have retired simply because he didn't want to sit around all day. Even after he retired and went to a rest home, he kept a garden to occupy his time. So the shop could be both money maker and hobby thing.

The Leaf Village

 * Why is it that most members of the Leaf village (whether or not they are part of a clan) have surnames, but Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Rock Lee, Tenten, and Shizune (am I missing anyone) don't?
 * You're missing Gaara (though you might consider his title a surname) Temari, Kankuro Jirobu, Tayuya, Kidomaru, and Sakon/Ukon (actually Kimimaro is the only one of the sound '5' that has a surname)...but that's just semantics.
 * Because they do have surnames? Rock -is- Lee's surname and Tsunade's is Senju for example.
 * Tsunade apparently doesn't have Senju as part of her name: even after revealing her grandfather's surname, she's still listed in the databooks as just "Tsunade".
 * Maybe it was Tsunade's mom who was a Senju and she married a surname-less character. Or maybe the shinobi countries have some strange naming conventions...
 * Oddly enough, Kimimaro is from the Kaguya clan, and he's just "Kimimaro" in the databooks.
 * Or maybe it's not mentioned because Kishi-san never invented ones. It's hard enough to make up first names for that many characters, take it from this writer.
 * Well, the reason Tenten doesn't have a last name is because she's quite literally a filler character in canon. Kishimoto said that she was only created because he wanted to keep with the "2 male, 1 female in each group" theme going on in the series. It does explain a lot of things...
 * For Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya, it can be argued that, being known all over the (Naruto) world, their surnames (or maybe they're first names?) are enough to know who you're talking about.
 * There's just one problem: the readers don't live in the Naruto world, so that's not a good enough excuse. It just seems like Kishimoto couldn't think of a last name for them and decided to leave it unknown in hopes that no one would realize it. Hell, most of the characters in the story barely have their last names spoken out loud anyway, and some of those we wouldn't even know if it wasn't for the databooks...
 * Yeah, and...? I meant that maybe WE, the readers, don't know the names of these three because they're so much known in the Naruto world everybody says "Look, it's Orochimaru!" and not "Look, it's Orochimaru Hebikage!" (for example), like IRL we'd say "Look, a picture of Gandhi/Hitler !" and not always "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" or "Adolf Hitler". Of course, the real reason is that Kishimoto couldn't think of a name for them, that's why I said it can be argued.
 * If the last names aren't important, why bother naming them.
 * This could be a cultural thing; in ancient Japan, commoners (i.e., not part of samurai clans, nobility, etc.) weren't allowed to have surnames. One of the reasons that Naruto is so huge about announcing himself as UZUMAKI Naruto every chance he gets, is that his surname means he's got some sort of social status. By the same token, Kimimaro may have renounced his surname as a sign of his subservience to Orochimaru. And since the Kage title is earned by being the biggest bad-ass in the village, not through status or social connections, the Sand Siblings may be technically commoners, even though their father is Kazekage.
 * It could very well be that the people of Sunagakure simply don't use surnames. There isn't a single character from Suna who's been given a surname, so that would be a very reasonable theory.
 * There's also the possibility that certain surnames haven't been revealed because it might spoil something.
 * As for the idea that some surnames might spoil things if revealed too soon...well, for whatever reason Kishimoto didn't want to say that the Third Hokage was Asuma's father until well after the Third died. And while he didn't hide either character's surname, he did nothing to make it clear that Sarutobi was the Third's surname. Orochimaru called him "Sarutobi-sensei", and since every other character in the series had referred to their sensei exclusively by their given name, it was widely assumed that was the case for the Third. So Kishimoto didn't so much hide the surname in that case as hide the fact that it was a surname.
 * The series tends to be somewhat inconsistent as to who gets surnames and who does not. (For example, Akamon Manabu, a Chunin examinee who's noteworthy for nothing other than having been stuck at Genin level for a long time at 39, has a surname, as do some minor ninja like Izumo and Kotetsu, while the Sannin, Tenten and everyone from the Sand Village do not). Most of the main characters got their surnames through their association with a clan, and it's possible Sakura and Kakashi got them by virtue of being main characters.
 * Isn't it perfectly possiible that he didn't think of surnames for those characters because we didn't need one? Case in point: If someone say's "it's gaara", we don't need to know which gaara it is. On the other hand, we generally need to know someone is an Uchiha, or a Hyuga.
 * When have we ever needed to know if someone was a Haruno?
 * That's an interesting question. Likely answer? given how Sakura is one of the main characters, the Haruno clan was originally meant to be revealed to be something special. But, in exactly the same way the Hyuga were introduced as a badass warrior clan only to be nearly forgotton about by the end of part 1, the Haruno clan were pushed to the side by the author's growing affection for the Uchiha, the Akatsuki and the Tailed beasts. After all, this clan is apparantly very secretive given how we have only ever seen Sakura and could very well have a dark/interesting past... although given how eclipsed Sakura was in terms of power until she was personally trained by the Fifth Hokage, it's equally likely she is the only Ninja to ever to come from a family of civilians.
 * What's with the Springfield-like growth of the Hidden Leaf Village? In the sixth season intro it looks like a small city. Getting a bit too big to hide, no?
 * I always got the impression that "hidden village" was something of a misnomer. I mean, just look at the damn things. Sunagakure is a giant fortress in the middle of the desert. It's not exactly hidden. I think that since people need to find the ninjas to hire them, the cities are really just cities with cool names.
 * You have to take into account population growth as well. Consider that Suna is surrounded almost entirely by huge cliffs and that Konoha is in a densely forested area those places might well have once been very well hidden. But people, you know, breed, and and well protected places tend to attract immigrants and such.
 * That begs the question; if the Hokage is the leader of Konoha, and is only ever seen operating the ninja service, who's in charge of all the Boring but Practical stuff, "getting the water in and the trash out" as Terry Pratchett once said?
 * And while we're at it, how come the Third Hokage was never seen doing any kind of mundane paperwork, while Tsunade's simply buried in the stuff?
 * Because it's funny. Alternatively, the Third had, by that point, learned to get paperwork out of the way and Tsunade just likes to avoid the boring parts of work when she can. (There's also the fact that we see more of Tsunade than Sarutobi.)
 * It's been shown (though I don't think in canon) that the villages have basically the same government system as a non-ninja village, only the military branch and _____kage always outranks the local executive branch.
 * We see the series through Naruto's eyes, so we only see his interaction with Tsunade when she's giving him missions or debriefings on said missions. So its unlikely we'd see anything like that.
 * We have now, after Tsunade's falling into a coma we follow Shikaku, the Head Jounin as he, the ANBU Commander and the Hokage's council attend a meeting with the Fire Country's Daimyo and his own staff. There's your non-ninja government.

Land of Waves Arc

 * At the end of the Land of Waves arc, Kakashi and Naruto conjure shadow dopplegangers to scare off Gato's thugs because they're too weak to do anything else. But wait a second! Kakashi states that he doesn't have enough chakra left to do anything to actually fight the thugs... and then proceeds to use the solid kagebunshin, one of the most chakra-consuming moves in the series, instead of the illusory regular bunshin. Have I been reading the wrong translations or something?
 * I was under the impression that Kakashi did just make regular bunshin, but claimed that they were kage bunshin. Or something. It's been a while since I've read that part.
 * Yeah, Kakashi was definitely bluffing. Remember, the morons he was up against weren't ninjas. They couldn't tell the difference.
 * In Part I, we're told that Sakura is perfectly suited for being a genjutsu user. The Third Databook stats put her genjutsu skills as second only to Sasuke among the Konoha 12. So why have we never seen her use genjutsu ever?
 * Maybe it's just her skill at working around and with genjutsu. Remember how she was one of the only two three non-jonin to recognize and reverse Kabuto's Temple of Nirvana? (the others being Shikamaru and Shino) It probably means that if she ever did try and use genjutsu, she'd be incredible at it. However, her training so far has consisted pretty much entirely of chakra control and Super Strength.
 * Why, despite his pretty huge contribution to Itachi's power, have we not seen a single image of Shisui? He's described as Itachi's best friend; surely we'd have had at least one flashback to him by now. On another note, anyone else find it hilarious that the Uchiha Clan owed debt to an old woman who wears false cat ears?
 * We probably haven't seen Shisui for the same reason we didn't see all of the jinchuriki until recently, why we still don't know the names of four of them, why we don't know what kinds of animals bijuu 4-7 are, why we only know the identities of three members of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist (not counting Raiga since he was filler so probably isn't canon and his name doesn't even fit the theme naming of the SSSM anyway), why we don't know the names of Minato's teammates from when he was a genin, etc. Either Kishimoto is holding out for a reveal or he just doesn't care.
 * Notice that the entire flashback is viewed from Sasuke's perspective (as a way of showing what he knew about the massacre and how it affected him), and conceals information that Madara and Itachi later mention to him, so maybe Itachi only interacted with Shisui at clan meetings or in places where Sasuke wouldn't have come.
 * Regardless, we've gotten a glimpse of Shisui now.

Curry of Life Arc

 * With the revelation that Mangetsu Hozuki uses the exact same swords as Raiga Kurosuki, doesn't that by default also make the Curry of Life anime filler arc official (manga) canon?
 * No, it just makes his swords canon. Raiga is still a non-official character filling the black space of Ringo's sucessor, at least until Kishimoto decides to create one.

Secret Wars

 * During the fight with the second mizukage, why didn't any of the ninjas try to dispell the genjutsu created by the clam?
 * I guess the genjutsu was just too strong to be able to be dispelled. Itachi's Tsukuyomi is too strong to be dispelled, for example, so why wouldn't the mizukage's be that strong, especially since Gaara had a hard time fighting him, even with his "absolute defence", so he must be pretty strong.

Misc

 * Okay, so Tayuya is apparently 38.2 kg. Sasuke is 43.5 kg. Tayuya is able to catch the barrel containing Sasuke in midair and also run through trees with it held in front of her. For just about 8 hours. And she still has enough power in her hands left to play the flute and wrestle with Shikamaru... How's that for superhuman strength?
 * Dude, they're magic ninjas and that's hardly the most surprising thing we've ever seen anyone do in the series.
 * Alternatively focusing chakra in ones limbs is a standard technique used by all ninjas explaining the many feats of strength we've seen, Sakura and Tsunade just use it to a much greater degree.
 * Surprisingly enough, she only has 1/5 strength in the databook. Then again, Sakura, who can do the same feats of superhuman strength that Tsunade can, has 3/5 strength.
 * I think that's regular strength not counting chrakra enhancement.
 * What bugs this troper is that the sand siblings blood types don't make sense. Kankuro is type B positive, Gaara is type AB positive, and Temari is type O negative.Considering that Gaara is AB, one of the parents would have to be A and the other B, or both AB. In order for Kankuro to exist, at least one of the parents would have to be B. And in order for Temari to exist, at least one of the parents would have to be type O negative, and the other parent some other blood type negative, considering O negative is a ressesive trait. My mind is boggling. Was Temari adopted or something?
 * While we know Gaara's mother is Karura, I don't think it is ever stated that she is the mother of Temari and Kankuro. It is not entirely unlikely that Kakura was the former Kazekage's second wife (who he might have married for the sole purpose of impregenating and sacrificing her to produce a super weapon.)
 * Genetics. Fun stuff. It is possible that their parents had A and B blood (one of each), and were both carriers of the recessive 'o' gene (AO and BO). That way, there are four possible blood types for any children of their to have: AO, BO, AB and OO. Because the O gene is recessive, the A or B gene overrides it, so it isn't expressed. So it is possible for Temari to have inherited O type blood from her parents. Not so sure about the inheritabce of positive and negative blood types, though. ((This troper is still in high-school, so feel free to correct this if it's wrong.))
 * Nope, you're spot on, and it even works for positive/negative. That's a separate, independently assorting trait. Standard dominant/recessive- positive is dominant over negative. So their parents' blood types were [A,O][+ ,-] and [B,O][+ ,-].
 * Besides, Temari looks too much like Karura. Although it is weird how Kankuro's a carbon copy of his father.
 * Does the whole element system seem a little messed up? Shouldn't Earth be strong against Lightning and not weak against it considering rocks don't conduct electricity? Wouldn't it make more sense for Lightning to be strong against Water because it actually does conduct electricity?
 * It needs to be that way so Naruto can deliver his line about defeating Sasuke's lightning but not "snuffing out his fire". The elemental system was made just so Naruto can beat Sasuke's lightning jutsus.
 * It still seems more logical to create the character's affinities based on the elemental system and not the other way around. I mean the symbolism is pretty good: lightning Sasuke is evil and fire Sasuke is good(ish) and Naruto needs to "kill" lightning Sasuke to save fire Sasuke, but still...
 * Sorry to restart an old topic but why would fire represent the good in Sasuke and lightning evil case in point, fire is the Uchiha's natural element, acces to it seems the only power they have which requires no sacrifice and Sasuke and lightning is from his good aligned mentor Kakashi,the only differnce I see is that his ligthning tehniques more powerful and not stereotipicaly Uchiha plus both fire and ligthning have an equal reputation as destructive elements.
 * On that note, I would like to add that wind is the element of creation, associated with life, breath and spirit.
 * They do actually make sense in a lot of ways. Water beats fire and fire beats wind are fairly logical. Wind beating lightning makes sense, as lightning itself only exists because air doesn't conduct electricity, and the electrons in the clouds are trying to get to the ground, which supports lightning over earth. Also, whether or not rocks conduct electricity depends on which rock you're talking about. As far as earth over water, I guess it sort of makes sense, but mostly it just seems to be the last link.
 * From a Earth view the element system of Naruto is pretty messed up, and we should first and formost (in my oppinion) consider it a different world that adheers to a different set of rules. That said Lightning>Earth actually makes some sense, giving a physics experiment I ones saw. If you take a powerfull enough current of electricity it will vapourice anything it comes into contact with, which is more or less what Kakashi's raikiri is shown to, although it should also cauterize the wound. An even better explenation could have been made if Kishi hadn't decided to make magnetisme a Bloodline Limit, as a powerfull enough magnetic field can rip things apart on the atomic scale (which would explain the blood when people get Raikiri'ed).
 * Umm... An elemental system is supposed to be based on what happens when two elemental bodies/attacks/manipulations of EQUAL STRENGTH interact. I'm pretty sure your "powerfull enough" description means it would take the jutsu user in question WAY more power to use the obliterating lightning attack than the one who put the rock/earth object in its path.
 * The Magnetism bloodline limit would have made more sense if he had explained it as being, say, an elemental combination of earth and lightning. Running electricity through metal would create an electromagnet, so it would be fairly logical.
 * Being able to use two or more elements is a Kekkei Genkai. And is apparently the most common one.
 * I don't get why fantasy seems to think that because something conducts electricity that electric attacks hurt it more. Think about lightning, when lightning strikes a lake the lake doesn't get hurt because it just channels the electricity into the ground, but when lightning strikes a brick the brick F*** ING EXPLODES! Thus supporting the theory that lightning beats earth
 * The amount of energy it would take to conjure said lightning bolt FAR outclasses what would be required to conjure the brick... Enough to make it more of a case of overpowering the elemental weakness rather than taking advantage of it.
 * Actually, the brick could be more advanced than the lightning bolt. Think about it: a lighning bolt is pretty much the most basic form of lightning you can get, but brick could be seen as a very advanced form of earth. In this way the scale holds true. If you think of a "blast" of ecah element the scale holds true e.g. If a blast of water hits a blast of earth, the earth would overpower it easily. Earth v. lightning: the earth would explode, as was said. It actually works for every element (except maybe wind v. lightning, but that's already plausable).
 * To be fair, the whole 'Which Element Beats Which' thing is obviously done in order to preserve the balance between them all. Earth features most of the best defensive techniques, so only an element that can straight up overpower it, like Lightning, makes sense to be its counter really, otherwise it'd pretty much be a Game Breaker. Then of course, Water HAS to beat Fire. So you end up with pretty much two possibilities: 1. Fire->Wind->Lightning->Earth->Water~^ (Canon), or 2. Fire->Lightning->Earth->Wind->Water~^ (Not canon). Trouble is though, you don't tend to see anywhere near as many Lightning techniques as Fires ones in the story, so the 'Not canon' option I listed would result in Lightning users getting Curb Stomped.
 * I myself thought that it's how it's used, take for example, water is weak to lightning because Pokemon are not made or water so they take the amplified lightning to their physical bodies, kinda why lightning was never used against sloth in Fullmetal Alchemist, or how in Zatch Bell the lighting protagonist had a hard time fighting against the water enemy because she was savvy enough to never come into contact with the water that was electrified. In the Naruto universe Earth is used mostly as defense and the basic attacks are akin to the ones used by earhbenders in Aang The Last Airbender, so it makes sense that it's weak to lightning, who's basic power is enhancing the piercing capabilities, a great example is Sasuke with Chidori, his lighting enhanced blade, his lighting spear attack, etc. this still poses the problem of why lightning prevents Deidara from activating his explosions.
 * So how does wind trump lightning exactly?
 * Okay I keep seeing a theory banded around as fact, the Sharingan "evolved" from the Byakugan. I don't remember that being covered in the Manga at all, so I'm a little confused as to where this came from. Is it an Anime deal, or did I just miss that page in the manga?
 * This (that the Sharingan is a genetic off-shoot of the Byakugan) was stated as a possibility/rumor when we first saw the Byakugan. The way it's stated is clearly left open to be untrue, which recent manga chapter seems to support as they state the village was founded by the Uchiha clan and the Senju clan then all current Konoha clans but the Uchiha are derived from the Senju.
 * Except that the Sharingan has abilities that are widely different and more general than the Byakugan. It would make more sense if the Byakugan was created from the Sharingan by focusing exclusivally on the chakra sight ability of the Sharingan. As for all the clans of Kohona being related to the Senju or Uchiha clans: Uchiha and Senju were the focus of Madara's story, he wouldn't have mentioned others.
 * The implication seems to be that the Uchiha and the Senju were simply the most powerful of the many clans in the Fire Country at the time of Konoha's founding and when they formed an alliance, the others followed suit.
 * exactly, Madara said that before the formations of the hidden villages, ninjas were divided in clans and often fought each other and that the strongest ones were the Uchiha and Senju, besides there are clans that could had existed even before the Sage of Six Paths came and thought the world about chakra, like Kiba's clan using ninken, Shino's clan with their bugs, clans that could had existed without chakra unlike Ino's clan an the human puppet masters since they need it.
 * Lets point out the obvious real world reason why it was claimed the Sharingan evolved from the Byakugan - its a plot thread that went nowhere. At this point (Neji vs Hinata) there was no Mangekyo Sharingan, no Rinnigan, no Madara, Itatchi had only been seen in flashback, we only knew of two Jinchuriki and the only reference point we had for the Sharingan's powers were Kakashi and Sasuke - as far as we knew at this point all it had was hypnotic and copying powers. Nothing more. Neji, with his vast array of Gentle Fist techniques, x-ray telescopic and Chakra point vision, seemed like and was most likely intended to be, the superior set of eyes. If history had been different I am willing to bet the Rinnegan would have been the Byakugan's equivalent of the Mangekyo Sharingan.
 * On that note, why is it that in the leaf village while the Uchihas had a prominence for fire, it isn't the defining element of the village as shown by the hokages, kakashi, etc. but pretty much all the cloud ninja are so fed up with lightning attacks, the stone with earth and the mist with water? if you see a stone, mist or cloud headband you have the advantage of knowing what is the element they'll most likely have, but if you were a mist ninja going against Saturobi thinking you have an advantage with your water jutsus you'll be cough off guard when he uses earth style: earth dragon bullet on you. It just seems like a huge disadvantage specially at war.
 * Perhaps that's why Konoha does it and why they are the top village. This can only be an advantage for them.
 * I thought the same, that the wide assortment of elements gives them the advantage. And then it hit me, Hashirama and Madara did fight because Madara disagreed with the Senju suddenly being more important, so it's very possible that Konoha would've been more fire-themed if Madara had won and Uchihas ruled the village.
 * What exactly are we supposed to take away from the two Secret Tests of Character in the Chuunin Exam and Tea Country arcs? Putting your life at risk for the team is fine, but expecting your teammates to do the same makes you an irredeemable failure? All the more frustrating due to the fact that either test could be interpreted in exactly the opposite way: Morino's group could have coordinated their answers to avoid having a "lowest score," while anyone in Naruto's class could have pressured a low-scoring teammate into risking themselves so their team could pass.
 * It's actually pretty simply - choosing to risk your life was something you had to do, but you shouldn't force others to risk their lifes, since it's a decision everyone has to make on their own. It's like forcing somebody to become a soldier during a war - it might be justified, but it's not the correct thing to do.
 * Question: Why does Manda 2.0 have legs?
 * It's a shoutout to the toho kaiju named manda
 * Is it just me, or did those special body-destroying Ninjas mentioned waaay back in the Zabuza-arc suck at their job? If they soley exist to make sure no corpses falls into the enemies hand, how did Kabuto get his precious DNA? Did they never hear of burning corpses?
 * Well the Hunter-nins were exclusive to the Hidden Mist, so that wouldn't stop Kabuto from gathering the corpses of ninjas from other villages. Plus, who said any of the revived were targets of the hunter-nins? They operated as a squad that had to be deployed, so it wasn't like they just went around disposing of whatever corpses they could find.
 * What was with all that sneezing back in the beginning of the Retrieval of Gaara arc? I thought it was Foreshadowing, but there seems to be no reason behind it.
 * Sneezing in East Asian Culture was suspected to mean someone`s talking about you.
 * Does the Transformation Technique physically transform you into a duplicate of the person you're copying or is it merely an illusion? I ask because this presents problems on both fronts: if it changes your body physically then this jutsu rates as one of the most horribly underused jutsu's in the entire series. Why would someone who was as weak at part 1 Sakura not go into battle with the physique of someone like Bruce Lee? why wouldn't this be a completely standard method of defence given its many advantages? (makes the entire battle in the Forest of Death during the Chunin Exam laughable as instead of just pathetically plopping to the floor when Kin Tsuchi grabbed her by the hair, she should have given herself a male body and actually punched Kin Tsuchi in the face). How about age? is Tsunade genuinely reducing her age by using her advanced form of this jutsu? because if she is what exactly was stopping Hiruzen Sarutobi, who is explicity stated to be as strong as Tsunade and weakened by age, becoming a young man in his fight against Orochimaru? and couldn't we take this concept further and say that someone who was truely powerful (for the sake of argument the 4th Hokage) couldn't he transform into Kakashi and use his Sharingan? If, on the other hand, it's simply an illusion doesn't that make it nothing more than a simple genjutsu? if Deidara can train his eyes to see through Sharingan level Genjutsu surely anyone above Genin should be able to see through a technique so simple a child can perform it.
 * Neither. It does'nt just let you transform into a person, it lets you transform into anything,the only limit being the size of what you transform into. In other words, it's even worse. Heck, Naruto transformed into a Rasenshuriken against Pain. It never actually hit, but still, how hard is jumping onto someone and transforming into an anvil? So the entire shinobi world is Too Dumb to Live, for not using an Academy-Level technique, to its logical, beyond Kage-Level results.
 * Assuming Sakura had turned into Might Guy or something during the Chunin Exams, she wouldn't have had any of his training or techniques, plus having to move around in a body she isn't used to. Not sure how much of an advantage that would have given her.
 * It must be a physical transformation; otherwise Sasuke couldn't have thrown shuriken-Naruto like he did in the Wave Country arc (surely Naruto's not that aerodynamic naturally). But then, the fact that he knew it was really Naruto as soon as he grabbed the shuriken is evidence that the transformation does have limitations. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what they are.
 * the transformation technique is the most difficult technique taught at the academy because it requires constant release of chakra, so I guess it's just that they are hardening the chakra into that shape, maybe that's why it's easier to transform Gama Bunta into the Demon Fox (since they're both about the same size) than to transform themselves into something bigger, and they can't turn into something smaller than themselves since that would crush them, and as shown by Zetsu they probably don't use it as much because of sensor types.
 * Its possible that the Transformation technique taught in the academy is different from what Naruto performs. If it's a low-power jutsu, it stands to reason that Naruto has trouble performing it. And yet, he performs it flawlessly. Also, as it's unlikely (though admittedly possible) that every ninja in the series ever is a total retard to the potential power of the Transformation jutsu, it's more likely that the bog-standard transformation is pure illusion, while Naruto's is a more advanced version that actually causes a transformation.
 * I think that it's been mentioned that only the First Hokage (and thus Yamato and Zetsu) is able to copy one's chakra pattern, so while any kind of Transformation jutsu is capable of copying the target's physical appearance completely, any kind of ninja that's specified in sensing chakra (which seems quite common) will see through it unless it's the kind of technique used by the First Hokage. That means that Tranformation techniques are not too practical, and there are more useful techniques in Naruto, e. g. Kage Bunshin, which is really underused, I think. Then again, that technique requires an awful amount of chakra. Not to mention that the hand seal for the Transformation technique (the one the kids from the Academy use) is really obvious, so even if you try to surprise someone by transforming before they can sense your chakra, if you cannot hide, the opponent has time to defend themselves. This means that there are limitations to the technique, and one should only use it against a single opponent and without the opponent seeing it being executed. By the way, Tsunade's technique isn't a Transformation technique, it's a special technique that sacrifices part of one's potential lifespan in order to remain young, I think, since the creation of new cells is accelerated. Tsunade doesn't feel the adverse effects because she probably has an immense amount of chakra, probably since she's the granddaughter of a Senju (First Hokage) and an Uzumaki. However, Hiruzen, since he was old, probably wouldn't have had the necessary amount of chakra to use the technique, and he might not have had enough chakra when he was young, either.
 * Tsunade's appearance is the result of a transformation technique, just an incredibly simple one. The accelerated cell division only comes into play when she releases the seal on her head, and that's meant for accelerated healing, not slowed aging.
 * I think the problem is that a) the Transformation Jutsu takes a constant flow of chakra to use, which puts a mental strain on a ninja and b) its probably difficult to have the mental will and capacity to just completely change your physical body into whatever you can imagine. Notice the few people who do use the Transformation Jutsu for combat (Kiba and Akamaru, Gamabunta and Naruto when fighting the Shukaku) transform into things that they intimately know: Akamaru turns into Kiba, the ninja that he's been training with since almost birth, and when Gamabunta asks Naruto to turn him into "something with fangs and claws" (which leaves a huge amount of possibilites) Naruto turns into the Nine-Tailed Fox, the Eldritch Abomination he's been carrying with him since he was about six months old. Based on this and the fact that besides these people, we've only seen this jutsu be used to fool others, my theory is that the mental strain of maintaining the Transformation Jutsu only gets tougher when using it in combat or turning into something unfamiliar. Sure, people could use it to become massive monsters or grow Combat Tentacles, but that falls under Awesome but Impractical.
 * The Tsuchikage tried to erase Sasuke from existence simply because other people want him dead, then Madara shows up carrying Sasuke so he isnt intangible, the Tsuchikage just stands around and doesn't try the attack again?
 * He just showed that he can become intangible, so the Tsuchikage has to think of a strategy, and then Madara said he wanted to just talk to them, they're the military leaders of entire countries, even more, said leaders are together, if he went ahead and attack without giving talking it out a chance he would had seem like war monger, specially to the other kages.
 * Why do so many people stick to clan techniques even when they're useless in many cases? Some people might have an excuse, like Shino, who feeds his chakra to the bugs (making using anything else be at the bugs' expense). But what about people like say, Ino? Her contribution to the fight against Hidan and Kakuzu amounted to surveillance through a hawk, then standing behind a tree for the rest of it. How do people that are so specialized stay alive in a world that's well populated with monsters like Orochimaru? Why doesn't Shikamaru learn Doton techniques to create extra shadows where needed?
 * Well, forgive the length but here's a few things to consider. First, it could be simple pride. If your family has fifteen generations backing up its techniques, a personal honor comes into effect. Second, THEY DO WORK, it's just in a combat oriented series, you don't often see the true utility. Ino's family techniques are information gathering tools. Taking over the body of your target to more or less seamlessly infiltrate organizations, poking around the target's mind, etc. Jutsu like these are extremely useful in the spying these ninja so often do. It's behind the scenes her clan shines. And just to note, Shikamaru has a hard enough time managing his chakra without other techniques. You don't typically see swordmen carry around maces just in case it can help get a better cut in this fight. They would just train themselves to make better use of their blade, which is exactly what he, Ino, and several other characters have been doing to their techniques.
 * But it still makes no sense for Ino. She might be an awesome spy and interrogator, but she's going into a fight she's entirely unsuited for. At that time they know Hidan is a crazy immortal guy who stabs himself (about the worst possible target for Ino), and Kakuzu is a hugely strong and fast guy who can launch his arms (not that great either, he'll kill her before she can do anything). Her only hope to be useful is to heal somebody while everybody else is busy or after the battle. The most reasonable theory I've seen in a fanfic (so not canon) is that villages got paranoid due to people like Orochimaru and fresh genins are supposed to know the bare minimum, and only receive additional training only after doing a few missions and proving that they're not crazy and loyal to the village. So people only get real training when the clan deems necessary, they obviously need it (during the Zabuza mission) or for the Chuunin exams (which need teacher's approval).
 * I talked about this somewhere else but doesn't it seems really inconvenient that almost all of them don't try to learn anything outside their clans techniques, specially since some, you can identify what clan they belong too just by how they look. Like the battle between Neji and Kidomaru, if all your clans fighting techniques are short range, maybe you should learn at least one long range attack.
 * How does chakra work? Is it something that the body generates, or is it fixed and non-replentishable? The series generally suggests the former (people run out of chakra, it can be replentished faster by eating), but in that case, how can the Fourth seal half the Kyuubi's charka permanently, as if he physically ripped off a body part? Later in the series, Naruto manages to rip off most of the Kyuubi's chakra, which leaves the Kyuubi heavily weakened. Naruto can reach the resulting ball of chakra and use it. Except that while he does, the Kyuubi takes Naruto's own so that he can recover. So does this mean that now Naruto doesn't take charka directly from the Kyuubi, but from the ball he made earlier, and that it might run out at some point, forcing him to beat the Kyuubi again to get some more?
 * Also, since half the Kyuubi's chakra is sealed, does it have any consequences for Madara's plans?
 * Chakra is just a natural energy generated by a form of circulatory system in the body - in a sense it makes Chakra far more realistic than Ki from Dragonball for example. This is why eating, drinking, training etc will replenish Chakra and over time will make it stronger; this also is what separates a Ninja from a civilian; a Ninja has trained over many years to utilize it effectively just as a martial artist has trained over many years to utilize their hands and feet effectively. Presumably it would be possible to cut off half of somebody's Chakra by employing a similar technique to the Hyuga Gentle Fist that blocks or diverts energy via the points along the system.
 * Ch 545: so apparently Zetsu is a plant guy made up of cells from the First Hokage. WTF?! Plant cells have a different set of DNA from humans: they code for plant growth hormones and chlorophyll, enzymes for stimulating the growth of cell walls and other such proteins needed by plants. Last I checked, the First did not have any leaves growing out of him, and if he had sex and reproduced to create one of Tsunade's parents, he must have been human, otherwise his wife's gametes would never have been fertilised due to genetic incompatibility (unless there was a bit of incest going on). So how did his human cells, with all it's codes for human proteins like those found in friggin hair and bones, turn into a plant cell? Chakra? If you're going to make such a scientifically impossible plot point, Kishimoto, please don't use science to explain it. Unless this somehow makes sense scientifically and I haven't realised it? Anyone?
 * Zetsu's debuted 311 chapters ago, he looked like a Venus Flytrap all this time and you didn't find it weird then, so why now? Besides the first Hokage's Kekkei Genkai was the Mokuton (Wood Release) at least the White Zetsu has the Mokuton, that he uses to manipulate his own body and replicate (as seen in the Kage sumit). White Zetsus are sentient plants that were mix with the DNA of the First Hokage to give them the Kekkei Genkai, see Plant Person.
 * I was wondering (read: getting more and more incredulous) about it for a while, to be honest. Thanks for explaining.
 * Would that explain the same thing for Yamato, then? I was always a bit surprised about how most of his Wood Jutsu come out of his arms and such.
 * So do you think that if someone told the minor villages, especially Takigakure and Amegakure, they'd immediately join the allied powers to help fight Akatsuki? I imagine that some might have had a bone to pick with them since Fu was from Takigakure, after all. Unless say, nobody from Takigakure cared about Fu despite that she was the seven-tailed beetle host.
 * What do the people of the world of Naruto do when they want to listen to music? Do they have music players, or can they only hear music when an actual performance is done? The Schizo Tech makes it difficult to figure out.
 * Are we ever going to find out why those Akatsuki rings were so important? When Deidara got his arm ripped off by Kakashi's Kamui jutsu, he was more worried about losing the ring rather than his own arm.
 * I don't know for sure, but I've had a theory about that for a while: the rings are what allow them to all "meet" for the three-day jutsu that seals the tailed beasts. Notice that each Akatsuki member wears his ring on a different finger, which corresponds to the giant finger he sits on for the jutsu.
 * Why is the fact that Kabuto has gotten DNA of some people like Deidara regarded an asspull?, he could have gotten it while they were still alive.
 * The assumption many are under is that it had to be obtained after death. It's not stated nor suggested by anything in the manga nor the anime but it does seem to be the only logical reason why Jiraya is absent since a legendary warrior who served with Oorochimaru who was also a bit of a perv should have been insanely easy to get DNA from. Find attractive girl, send to him, extract essense, or you know scratch him or pull his hair.
 * Personally I think they are saving him. Jiraya was Naruto's friend and mentor. He'll either introduce him as a curve ball to shake Naruto's confidence or introduce him just prior to the potential return of Orochimaru - Kishimoto is a BIG fan of the Chekov's Gun, that DNA of Orochimaru in Kabuto will play a part somewhere down the line I guarantee it.
 * When exactly in the Hidden L Eaf village did it become vogue to hate on the jinchuriki? There have only been three in history and two of them were the wives of the Hokage. We don't know anything about the first's social life but it's clear that the second was teased for her hair color not outright ostracized like Naruto and all the other signs suggest that if she wasn't outright popular by adulthood she certainly wasn't treated poorly.
 * Probably right after Tobi used the 9 tails to attack the Hidden Leaf, and their Hokage died because of it.
 * Where are these Summoning scrolls coming from? Where do these animals live? Were these scrolls just scattered by there respective owners? Do these animals give the scrolls to whoever they want? Do you have to find the animals' hideout? Are all of these animals on some different continent or something or are they just very well hidden?
 * I presume that the animals live in very hidden and difficult places to get to but on the same continent since Jirayai simply stumbled upon the toads during his journeys. The animals clearly can voluntarily enter into these contracts but I think once the scroll exists they don't have a choice since nothing suggests that Manda even liked Oorochimaru.
 * If the Sage of the Six Paths created the moon, how did the world have tides until that point?
 * It probably didn't. It would be weird, though, but it might be possible. Or maybe it was the power of the juubi that created the tides, and that's why the moon causes tides...
 * Granted this is a world where all sortsof weird stuff might be true I'd taken that particular statement as just a fairy tale.
 * The sun causes tides, too. It's just that the Moon's influence is much greater because it's so much closer (tides are proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the cube of the distance.
 * I know Itachi is talented but how did he actually kill of the entire Uchia clan over the course of one night. This requires two things that are improbable. The first is that everybody was in town and nobody was off on some mission. The second is he has to be so much better than everybody in his clan that not only can he defeat them all at once but also that escape was impossible. If you look at the village this doesn't look like he did this quietly one at a time. It looks like a hurricane of Kunai slaughtered them. I just fine it hard to believe that he could accomplish that by himself.
 * Tobi was hanging around at that point so he could've lent a hand, tracking down any Uchiha outside the town isn't a challenge for him and the sharingan would be next to useless against someone who can become intangible and teleport at will.

Fanfiction

 * So, just out of curiosity- I've heard it in Fanon many times that Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro are siblings, to the point where I accept it, but I'd like to know where exactly this was stated?
 * You missed all the bits where Kankurou keeps referring to him as his little brother?
 * Evidently. Color me stupid.
 * Maybe not. Konohamaru calls Naruto "big brother" (niichan) and they aren't related.
 * That's because Konohamaru sees Naruto as a big brother figure. I doubt during the Chunin exams Kankuro felt that way about Gaara and Gaara referred to them as his family and he even said he wanted to kill them.
 * They are definitely related. Kankuro tells Gaara in the Forest of Death to "do what your big brother tells you!" Gaara replies that he's never thought of Kankuro as a brother. Also, they all appear together as kids in flashback, and Kankuro looks a lot like their father (to a lesser extent, so does Gaara), while Temari looks more like their mother.
 * The common plot device of making Naruto not just not liked, but actively and constantly abused by most of the village up to having people try to kill him and come close on a regular basis. This makes absolutely no sense for at least 3 reasons: 1. The Hokage personally cares for Naruto. He knows him and is probably something of a surrogate father. It makes no sense for him to allow this kind of crap to happen. 2. Naruto's status as Jinchuuriki makes abusing him very dangerous (just look at Gaara) not just for the attacker but for the village itself. He might go on a rampage and do serious damage, or turn against Konoha. Either way, even if nobody likes Naruto, it's a very bad strategic mistake. 3. The promise to the Fourth that Naruto would be seen as a hero. Add that for instance Jiraiya would be expected to be interested in his wellbeing. Occasionally there is a mention of Naruto being expelled from the orphanage and living in the streets. This would make the Hokage into a complete failure. He makes the law in the village, and Naruto ought to be one of his top priorities for the above reasons. Additionally, this doesn't make for a good parallel with Gaara, because when he was little, Gaara was well meaning but with big control problems. He had a tendency to easily and very gorily kill people without meaning to. Naruto never had that kind of problem.
 * Minato wanting Naruto to be seen as a hero seems to be worth nothing. Unless that is the only thing stopping Hiruzen from cheerfully handing Naruto over to Danzo (which is highly unlikely), then what good came out of Minato's wish? His wish that he never actually was able to tell Hiruzen and so he must have just sort of assumed or known that Minato wanted his child to be a hero before the Kyuubi attacked. If anything, Minato's desire might be why everyone knows about the sealing in the first place. The civilians, at least, would have totally bought that the Yondaime killed the Kyuubi and they seem to be the ones with the biggest problem with Naruto.
 * I understand Sturgeons Law, but still, why is it that the Gray and Grey Morality parts in Naruto are often changed into Black and White morality in fandom? E.g. Itachi is either a monster who killed his family For the Evulz or was framed by someone else. As opposed by canon which states that Itachi choose to kill his family on the Hokages order because they were planning a coup.
 * Because when people do not like a character, they are often not inclined to be sympathetic to them and so it's easier to just make them a complete monster. Similarly, if they are especially fond of a character then they might not want to face what that character has actually done. Plus, if they want, say, Itachi accepted back into Konoha or to end up in a relationship with a non-missing-nin then it's easier if they were framed.
 * Which is really aggravating, since Black and White Morality is rather boring and unrealistic, the middle audience that doesn't love or hate a character think that the grayer the character the better, since it makes them more human.


 * The Clan Restoration Act. Let alone the fact that medic-nin should be able to extract the sperms/ova from the potential victim, why would clans even agree to this? Because the last remaining clanmember is far more likely to be a woman.
 * If the clans don't want to die out even after they themselves are dead, I doubt it would matter that the last remaining member was a female. I can see that using surrogates might offend some of them because they wouldn't be "real" clan members or even possibly raised by "real" members. Do the clans have to support it? If they did then that would force the sole remaining member's hand even more. And if it's a case of "Why don't the Hyuuga have an issue with Sasuke being forced to restart his clan when they themselves are a clan" then it's important to remember that the only time this would ever affect the Hyuuga is if they were all killed save one person and this isn't very likely to occur, particularly in times of peace.

Artwork

 * Was the manga always supposed to be written the way it was now? Looking at the early artbooks and such, it seems like it was supposed to have a completely different feel and plot. It seems like the manga changed midway when Sasuke left. Or was this all according to Kishi's plans?
 * Well, this is Kishimoto's first big work. Everything is very rough in the first ten manga volumes, because as a starting manga artist with a huge storyline, it takes awhile for someone to get the hang of drawing so-and-so and to draw this body pose or movement like this. Looking at the early artwork, it was pretty simple and a little amateurish, but with time, Kishimoto stepped up to the plate and developed his own style. That's what happened; Kishimoto finally grabbed hold of his own style of manga drawing when the story was getting serious. Because it takes skill to properly execute the pages upon pages of future unavoidable skirmishes and plot development. If the art sucks, then the story, no matter how good or well-thought out, will suck.
 * Ino's eye color. Blue Eyes or Green Eyes? The anime has her with blue, and originally the manga did too, but in mid Shippuden (manga-wise) they changed to green. Blue to weird, glowy green.. Why do her eyes have a glow effect now anyway?
 * I understand that Gai and Lee commonly refer to themselves as "The Green Beast" in the anime, and are often shown to wear green in the colored pictures that come in the manga. So why does Lee call himself "Blue Beast" in the manga? I think Gai does it earlier, too. Is this some strange translation error?
 * Green is sometimes referred to as blue in Japanese. In traffic lights, for example.
 * Still, it does seem odd, especially when their jumpsuits are green on the covers. Additionally, Choji's spinach pill is called blue in some fan translations.
 * The kanji for green (?) usually means green, but it covers the spectrum from green to blue.
 * I believe it is the opposite. It is the word for blue that can mean both. Even though it usually means 'blue', sometimes it is 'green'. The confusion comes that although the usual translation would be 'blue beast', Gai's and Lee's usual attire indicates that 'green beast' would be more appropriate.
 * Gai's "blue beast" name actually comes from what he looks like when he opens 7 gates. The excessive amount of sweat and heat causes him to glow blue, apparently.