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Massive spoilers for everything up to volume 31, which is as far as I've read so please don't spoil me for later events.
1. I am still recovering from volume 31, which is why I have not, as yet, read any farther. Plus I am sad that I can now read up to the point where it's ongoing in a day.
2. It only now occurred to me that all three of Team Seven have now been trained individually by the three legendary ninja: Naruto by Jiraiya, Sakura by Tsunade, and Sasuke... well... presumably Orochimaru is doing something with him and I hope it's just training. I wonder if Sakura can now summon a giant slug.
3. I wish Kishimoto was... not better at female characters, exactly, I really like some of them... more interested in having more of them who are neither conspicuously weak nor obsessed with a particular boy. This is especially noticeable when Shikamaru is assembling his team to go after Sasuke. I could write it off as "Shikamaru is still in the 'ew, girl cooties' stage," but that does not speak well of his abilities as a leader, and his choices of kunoichi were Sakura (weak, at that point), Hinata (ditto), Ino (ditto), and Ten-Ten... have we ever actually seen Ten-Ten do anything?
It is also curious that we see ninja fathers but no ninja mothers, and female ninja are mostly medics. Kishimoto seems to have a lot of unexamined assumptions about gender.
4. I gather that there is a point at which the anime diverges from the manga. Is that because the anime had to continue past the point when it had been drawn? When does that happen? Has the Sand Village arc been animated?
5. Kishimoto's heroes are way more interesting than his villains, which is the reverse of a lot of Western action series. So far the only bad guy who I find at all compelling as a character is Uchiha Itachi. But I am longing to see more of the now-teenage Konoha ninjas. (OK, I did find Gaara intriguing even when he was a psycho killer, but I suspect that was because Kishimoto always intended him to become sympathetic, and so some of that, somehow, shone through.)
ETA 6. I got so caught up in what was happening to the characters on an emotional level that this slipped my mind-- but what actually killed Gaara was that Shukaku got sucked out of him, right? So... no, don't tell me, I assume it will be revealed... did reviving him also put Shukaku back in him? Or is he now without a demon? And if so, did he lose his sand powers? Or would he still have whatever he had without Shukaku, much as Naruto can draw on his own chakra without using the Kyuubi's? And if Shukaku is gone, is he loose, or out in the ether waiting for a new host?
Again, don't actually answer any of that unless it's still up in the air. I am only at volume 31, etc.
(This is actually what I meant to write when I started writing-- I am clearly losing my mind.)
1. I am still recovering from volume 31, which is why I have not, as yet, read any farther. Plus I am sad that I can now read up to the point where it's ongoing in a day.
2. It only now occurred to me that all three of Team Seven have now been trained individually by the three legendary ninja: Naruto by Jiraiya, Sakura by Tsunade, and Sasuke... well... presumably Orochimaru is doing something with him and I hope it's just training. I wonder if Sakura can now summon a giant slug.
3. I wish Kishimoto was... not better at female characters, exactly, I really like some of them... more interested in having more of them who are neither conspicuously weak nor obsessed with a particular boy. This is especially noticeable when Shikamaru is assembling his team to go after Sasuke. I could write it off as "Shikamaru is still in the 'ew, girl cooties' stage," but that does not speak well of his abilities as a leader, and his choices of kunoichi were Sakura (weak, at that point), Hinata (ditto), Ino (ditto), and Ten-Ten... have we ever actually seen Ten-Ten do anything?
It is also curious that we see ninja fathers but no ninja mothers, and female ninja are mostly medics. Kishimoto seems to have a lot of unexamined assumptions about gender.
4. I gather that there is a point at which the anime diverges from the manga. Is that because the anime had to continue past the point when it had been drawn? When does that happen? Has the Sand Village arc been animated?
5. Kishimoto's heroes are way more interesting than his villains, which is the reverse of a lot of Western action series. So far the only bad guy who I find at all compelling as a character is Uchiha Itachi. But I am longing to see more of the now-teenage Konoha ninjas. (OK, I did find Gaara intriguing even when he was a psycho killer, but I suspect that was because Kishimoto always intended him to become sympathetic, and so some of that, somehow, shone through.)
ETA 6. I got so caught up in what was happening to the characters on an emotional level that this slipped my mind-- but what actually killed Gaara was that Shukaku got sucked out of him, right? So... no, don't tell me, I assume it will be revealed... did reviving him also put Shukaku back in him? Or is he now without a demon? And if so, did he lose his sand powers? Or would he still have whatever he had without Shukaku, much as Naruto can draw on his own chakra without using the Kyuubi's? And if Shukaku is gone, is he loose, or out in the ether waiting for a new host?
Again, don't actually answer any of that unless it's still up in the air. I am only at volume 31, etc.
(This is actually what I meant to write when I started writing-- I am clearly losing my mind.)
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I've also written a bit about girls=healers fallacy in Naruto, but there's really not much more to be said about it beyond that it's disappointing. This is why Temari is important to have around, especially as she personally challenges Shikamaru's own attitudes toward women.
It's nice to take a break from the shonen-typical attitude with some "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (a currently running children's adventure show on Nickelodeon) where the main villain is a most excellently devious-- and genius-- younger sister, and her Clique From Hell (complete with throwing knives, fire throwing, and chi-pressure-point kung fu.) Sometimes I really appreciate American values.
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Also, flying bison. Which makes everything that much more awesome.
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When have I ever said no to a DVD? But no rush-- I am leaving for London on Monday, and won't be back till June.
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part 1!
2. A few characters in the series have drawn that parallel in the series as well, most notably Jiraiya when he tells an injured Naruto in the hospital that Sasuke is a lost cause and Naruto is a fool if he goes after him again, and then flashes back to his own youthful failure to get through to Orochimaru. To which Naruto defiantly replies that he'd rather be a fool, then. I think that is a theme that has been quietly building through the series as a whole: the sins of the fathers being visited upon the babyninja (Jiraiya's failure to stop Orochimaru leaving Orochimaru a considerable threat, the Sand and Leaf Village's decision to imprison demons in Naruto and Gaara ruining both of their lives and many of the people around them, Kakashi's guilt over Obito causing him to mismanage his young team, the entire Hyuuga Clan ever, etc.), and the babyninja being held to some kind of expectation/destiny because of who they are/who they resemble (the entire Hyuuga Clan ever, "Naruto is just like Yondaime!", etc.) and the babyninja then defying that destiny. I don't think the series is going to end just with Naruto becoming Hokage; I think it'll have a complete revolution of how the Kage / ninja village systems and alliances work.
Oh God Sasuke please have learned Rape Whistle no Jutsu. Kishimoto is probably going to take great delight in whipping out random new abilities from their three years of training for the babyninja, since he doesn't have to show us training sessions anymore. (I think I'm going to miss them.) So yes, I totally think Sakura can now summon a giant slug.
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Re: part 1!
I now have an entire album for Gaara, and nothing for anyone else. I must remedy that immediately. "Tubthumping" does nicely for Rock Lee... and also Naruto... and Hinata... in fact, that's the shounen anthem, whose motto was best expressed in Bleach when Ichigo declared, "Even if my legs fly off, I will continue to fight!"
2. There are an awful lot of dysfunctional clans, aren't there? I have to give Gaara's the Bad Parenting Choices Award, but the Hyuuga and the Uchiha are running neck-to-neck for second place. And Shino's clan's practice of putting babies in the hive is dubious in the extreme (and also, ewww), even if Shino doesn't seem to think so.
I agree that Naruto is going to change a lot of things when he becomes Hokage. I bet he remembers telling Neji he would change the Hyuuga.
3. I don't know exactly why Orochimaru gives me pedophile vibes since he's never actually done anything, he just does.
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Re: part 1!
2. I am nodding along to all of that and then I think And then even the nice families send 12-year-olds off to KILL EACH OTHER in the NINJA VILLAGE and this is the point for facepalming and alcohol.
I bet Naruto has a list hanging in his closet that he started when he was about five that says "THINGS TO DO WHEN I'M HOKAGE" and starts in five-year-old-handwriting with stuff like "Declare ramen official Konoha food with Ramen Day school holiday!" and continues all the way to "Outlaw genetic and chakra experimentation on unwilling subjects and subjects under the age of eighteen,
evenespecially if they are the chlidren of the experimenter" and beyond.It would be really nice for Hinata to step up as Hyuuga heir and make some changes from the inside, as well. It was very sweet to see the friendly politeness among Hinata, Hinata's father, and Neji in the last chapter before the time jump.
3. Orochimaru gives you pedophile vibes because he checks out the bodies of supple young boy babyninja and thinks, YUM, I want me some of that, gotta get in there before he's too old to be any good!
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Re: part 1!
Oh, yes, I would love a Naruto playlist!
2. There is that. When Shikamaru was crying in the hospital corridor, I thought, "That is way too much to lay on a thirteen-year-old... of course, so is going to war and dueling to the death."
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part 2!
We have seen Kiba's mother and sister as ninja, who are furry and badass and ninja-dog-wielding like he is, but they're certainly not prominent or frequently recurring characters, and there are definitely unexamined assumptions about gender (isn't there a flashback to the baby-babyninja girls Sakura and Ino learning ninja flower arranging?). I think the female-ninja-are-medics thing is both sexist and not as sexist as it could be, in interesting ways; good medic-nin are clearly expected to use their knowledge of the body to fight and kill as well as heal, which is what makes Tsunade and Kabuto so deadly. Tsunade herself is an interesting case: she's vain, hypersexualized in appearance, prone to vice, and literally afraid of the sight of blood; she's also smart, practical, and unequivocally one of the best and deadliest ninja in the world, has vices that wouldn't be out of place in a male counterpart, and is unanimously voted into the series' most politically powerful position, at which she is damn good. When she's not off being a brilliant ninja surgeon and saving Rock Lee in her spare time.
4. The anime went to filler after the "Naruto leaves the village" story right before the time jump. It has now done an entire season of filler, none of which I have watched, because ugh. The Kakashi Gaiden is supposed to be coming out in the anime sometime in May, I believe. No idea what's happening after that; I don't follow the anime regularly at all.
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So it's not all bad, though I admit I lost interest and haven't watched for quite some time.
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I am not allowed to proclaim myself a bastion of "Naruto" taste and quality, because I love episode 101 with a true, burning, unholy flame. MY ICON DOES NOT LIE.
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