Quote Originally Posted by Claudius Maximus View Post
Honestly I've always seen it as just a twisty attack to keep with his spiral theme. Naruto-shi is a city famous for its whirlpools, and there's a type of ramen kamaboko called narutomaki with a spiral shape. So naturally he needs a thematic attack. But I suppose Kishimoto didn't want him to have a drill, and thus made the slightly more creative Rasengan.
Also the first arc has them assisting the building of a giant bridge which gets named after Naruto.