Naruto IX: [Epilogue Intensifies]

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

'Kay let's do this!

Naruto and Sasuke

Sasuke uses the tailed beats chakra up upgrade the susanoo even more, and proceeds to kick the crap out of Naruto and his three clones, leading to a battle high in the air. But as Sasuke prepares his last strike, surprise! Naruto had Kurama store up a crap-load of nature chakra and then giant colliding nuke jutsu which takes the heads off the Madara and Hashirama statues.

Bye-bye cool fighting!

We are "treated" then to several minutes of Naruto and Sasuke flailing at each other, which is like the ninja equivilent of a limp-wristed slap-fight. This goes on for a long time passed the point of "yeah, we get it," and into "can something happen now, please, I'm bored."

FINALLY, Kurama attempts to give Naruto some chakra, which Sasuke steals with the rinnegarn to charge a chidori. He goes infor the kill, perhaps stupidly opening his mouth at this point to say farewell to "my only friend," so of cours that gives Naruto the motivation to dodge under the attack (Sasuke's sharigarn futzing out) and upper-cutting him into a cliff.

Sasuke is, at this point, at the "just let me kill you, you bastard!" stage, which is always a bad sign.

Kurama gives Naruto that last of his chakra - so he goes into shut-down.

And we get that last dramatic leap. Naruto's rasangan is charged up by what appears to be all the hands of everyone of his friends and allies (that? Nice touch. See, Shippuden, you CAN do clever abd meaningful symbolism if you just don't try and beat it into people.)

And the big collision and - Japanese text! Boy, sure wish I knew what that was, it's probably be really dramaic or something! Good job, localisation team once again! There is never ANY need ever to do subtitle for speech and script seperately, is there? No, sirree!

*eyeglow roll*


The Unison Sign

Shippuden? What did I JUST SAY about symbolism?

So yeah, this episode is sort of a delusional half-trance as Naruto and Sasuke slip in and out of consciousness as they slowly bleed to death. Really nothing to say, really about this, it's sort of just one more talk no jutsu, only with series flashbacks. (And, again, boy, you sure can see where the Sasuke/Naruto shippers are coming from,ye gods...)

Sasuke is exposed apparently somehow to Naruto's entire memories. Followed by a Sasuke alone in darkness/Naruto with more and more people, culminating with a pan shot of basically every important character in the show.

At the point Sasuke sees himself standing next to Naruto looking at himself in the darkness, I could hear the poor boy's sanity and will finally break and the Stockholm syndrome come in... I'm not sure Sasuke ever got redeemed as much as just gave up.

And we pan out, finally showing the whole arms-blown-off and the dripping throughout the episode is their blood. And, of COURSE, they are lying on top of Madara and Hashirama's blown off stone hands that convenianctly form the unison sign, a mark of great symbolism that completely obliterates any level of credibility...

But it is, essentially, over.


Naruto Uzumaki!

Sakura finds the pair and stops them bleediing to death, Sasuke laughs a bit (and it is creepy) and Sakura cries (just like old times *sigh*) and then we have a big long montage of them releasing the infinite tsukyomi and the aftermath. (Which includes a brief funeral scene (again, panning over graves with names and no photos, meaning I can only postulate whose graves we're looking at *sigh*.) Bye, Hinata, that's all you get to be involved in!

Kakashi is made Hokage, Naruto is now super-famous (that makes sense, I mean, dude's been saving land after land after land before the entre world...) Tsunade's growing arms for him with Hashirama's cells, so that's okay.

Kakashi doesn't quite promote Naruto, becaue he has the skills, but now he has to do ALL the learning ahahahahaha!

Aw. Iruka's voice changed at the last minute. That sucks after 15 years. (It's just not as good, but that could be just the jarring change and unlike, say Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth, the new VA isn;t very sound-alike unfotunately.)

And Sasuke is released. We end on Kakashi and Sakura seeing him off. Sakura has been growing her hair again, and honestly, it looks terrible on her. She's also regressed back to pre-chunin Sakura with regard to Sasuke. Character development! Sakura's gets to be marginalised and then completelty reverted! Yay!

Sasuke is off to wander the world as he tried to work out his place in it, and as he leaves, Naruto shows up to hand him his headband.

SYMBOLISM!!!!111!!!1!!

After credits, we have Hiruzen bookend us with the tale of Naruto in the legend form that... I think we started with, but it's been, like a decade (*checks amazon* Actually twelve years) since I saw the first episode, and that itself some time after I caught the start of the Forest of Death on telly that got me into it).



So, the last stretch with Naruto and Sasuke. Well, it was certainly much better than the last bit with Kaggy, can say that. They tried really hard with the first two or three episodes, and then let their sumbolism fetich get a little carried away. Not QUITE enough to be actively bad, just heavy-handed, and to be fair, not as bad as they have been at their worst. (But compared to say, FMA Brotherhood, it falls quite short; though that's probably holding it up to what is probably the gold standard, (shonen) anime's Baybylon 5.)



But that, as they say, is that. End of the main plot, just the epilogue (21 episodes) ft.

On the one hand, I am really quite eager to see the epilogue, and particularly the Naruto/Hinata stuff which was completely ignored more or less throughout, unfortunately, and also we might get to see more of the main cast. As I've said many times, Naruto is at its best when it is using it vast array of characters. (I suppose I should be grateful that at least it was a Team Seven takedown of the final boss, even if we went back to mano-a-mano at the end there...)



On the other hand, to be fair? You could have ended Naruto on that note. If this was the very last we ever saw of Naruto and his world, it wouldn't have been a bad send off.

[LaZodiac]

So your joke about Sasuke not being redeemed so much as put into a state where it's either give up or die... that's canon. Sasuke's not ACTUALLY redeemed in any real sense, but they beat him to within an inch of his life and he just spent an entire day bleeding out next to that annoying bastard of a person who insists he's a good person and... Sasuke just gives in and lets Naruto win. It's one of the worst redemption arcs I've ever seen in a series.

some Symbolism you missed is that, while on the hands, their arm stumps are connected via blood splatter.

[khadgar567]

well it took nearly two or three threats to you guys to reach the new era looks like around thread number XV: bleackbane reaches us threat when we can talk chapters regularly.

[Lord Raziere]

Raziere Watches: The Last Naruto the Movie
In other news, I've decided to finally watch this piece of Naruto media, and I thought: Aotrs over there probably won't ever cover this, so why not do it myself?

I went into this knowing what it is: its peak Naruto Ball Z shenanigans, its a love story, and it involves even more hax eyeballs, so you don't like any of those? too bad.

Spoiler: The Last:

Show

Basically the story starts off in the winter near something the Rinne festival, which is probably the closest Naruto's japanese setting will ever get to christmas, how oddly fitting for this time of year and what this story is about. and we know its something close to equivalent to christmas because it turns Naruto after becoming a war hero and saving basically everyone is now the popular guy among all the girls and gets a lot of presents from them. wheres Sasuke all this? oh thats one of the best parts of the movie: Sasuke is barely in this movie. he only like shows up to do like, two things that are only tangentially related so don't worry about him.

We get scenes like Hiashi Hyuuga getting trounced by the movies villain somewhere and this is how we know its starting off strong because Hiashi Hyuuga is getting exactly what he deserves for mistreating Hinata. Speaking of Hinata, this is basically her movie, sure its also Naruto's but this is like, her one time to be a main protagonist and much of the focus is on her and her actions. We get things like flashbacks to Naruto standing up to some bullies for Hinata when they were young and getting his scarf ripped apart for it, and another flashback where Iruka asks his class who they would spend the last day with before the world ended in a oddly specific hypothetical question relevant to current events that seems out of place for a ninja class, but perhaps its to help indoctrinate the kids into the Will of Fire propaganda/tradition/mindset/ideology of sacrificing oneself for your loved ones like a martyr because they are a military state who has experienced three world wars at this point, any of them could grow up to fire ninja nukes at people and Naruto already IS a ninja nuke so its best to have as much motivation to keep them all on your side. Needless to say, naruto can't think of anyone to spend his last day on Earth with, while everyone knows Hinata writes down Naruto. Sad.

Back in the present, love confession drama happens. In the sense that Hinata tries two times to confess to Naruto but loses confidence easily because y'know, Hinata, but she has knit this replacement red scarf for one he lost during that flashback, showing that she remembers and cares about him. Sweet. Meanwhile Konohamaru shows stuff to Naruto that Sarutobi kept in a scene that is cut off, this will be somewhat important later. anyways Hinata tries to give the scarf and confess her love, but she sees other girls trying to vie for his love and him wearing this green striped scarf as well and which combine into her just walking away quietly. A combination of factors like that, understandable. Naruto is of course dense as a rock, Sakura berates him and follows after Hinata, telling her to be more confident but of course, Hinata has social anxiety in spades especially when it comes to the blonde orange-wearing idiot. Naruto catches up to her and Hinata is about to confess when they're alone.....but then the movies plot happens, Basically Toneri shows up and takes both Hanabi and Hinata. chase scene happens, scarf gets ripped, Hinata saved, Hanabi not taken.

Meanwhile Kakashi, now the Sixth hokage as well as the other kages receives reports that the moon is coming closer to Earth. oh. thats not good.
*MAJORA'S MASK INTENSIFIES*
anyways, the nice analysis lady whatever her name is, explains that as the moon comes closer, the gravity will break off parts of the moon and make comets come crashing down to Earth until the whole thing breaks apart and just destroys all of civilization. and life as we know it. realistic and terrifying. so Kakashi calls up Shikamaru, Naruto, Sakura, Sai and allows Hinata to join the mission as a five man team to basically find and retrieve Hanabi. Kakashi then gives Shikamaru this handy-dandy jutsu clock on his palm that basically somehow detects how fast the moon is coming closer to the planet and estimates how much time they have left to stop it. useful for this kind of mission if vague on his this jutsu works. all the kage have the same jutsu on their palm so it can't be anything secret.
*72 hours remain*
(the timeline of this movie is not exactly clear but at least a few days pass during it)

anyways, they go to find Hanabi, find her stupid kunai with a little toy pink ninja attached to it and use it to track her to this weird pool place where they jump in and go right out the other side into this place full of green orbs, but they all fall under this weird genjutsu that make them experience memories of their lives, focusing on positive ones it seems. and this is only important because the blend in with one another and Naruto and Hinata's memories somehow get connected by the scarf? its not exactly clear. but basically the tidbits are:
-Naruto proclaims that of course he loves Hinata but Sakura says he says that the same way he loves ramen.
-dream-Sakura then says to dream-Hinata which Naruto hears that Naruto wouldn't understand the difference of being in love with Hinata and loving ramen and Naruto has a moment where he is like "wait there is a difference?"
-basically the entire genjutsu sequence is to show that Naruto is so dense, that while he has a great idea of things like friendship, agape and familial love, he somehow has no idea about romantic love. go figure.
They break out, we a get a scene of Toneri showing up with a puppet, proclaiming Hinata is his "Byakugan Princess" making it sound more possessive and creepy every time its used, holding things up until naruto comes to stop it and breaks the puppet.they go find abandoned stone towns where shinobi used to live in a world inside placed where there is an ocean above the sun (spoilers: they are inside the moon and it is an artificial environment) they wonder what happened here (spoilers: moon hyuugas killed each other) and we get a couple scenes of Naruto and Hinata fretting over one another (spoilers: this is a Naruto/Hinata love story in case you have no caught on to the blindingly obvious yet) so yeah, feels, supposedly, I'm not good at those, but I recognize when they are supposed to be there.

Anyways then they come across this guy who lurches forward says something about "Byakugan Princess" vomits up a violet sphere thats makes Hinata see a thing then crumbles to dust, Hinata clearly saw something but doesn't say and no one bothers to ask. this time another attempt at romance happens and because of the earlier genjutsu, Naruto confesses his love for Hinata first. Yaaaaaaaaay. it only took years and a weird genjutsu to realize it, ya blonde fox-box But Hinata doesn't speak up and Toneri arrives again to get his Byakugan Princess and for some reason Hinata goes with him willingly with a sad face, Naruto is the heartbroken and confused, they chase after Toneri and her, Naruto trying to get her back but Toneri fires a chakra ball that enters Naruto and somehow pulls out his chakra then causes an explosion to blow a hole in the moon, to reveal that GASP! they are on the moon and it is hollow! wow Moon hyuugas must've had really advanced tech to terraform the inside of the moon. naruto gets near-deathed and basically needs medical treatment from Sakura, whom she spends three days healing while recovering from their loss.

*DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY*
We cut to Hinata living in Toneri's place and its revealed that he is basically holding Hanabi hostage, took hanabi's eyeballs so he can have the Tenseigan which is basically the byakugan equivalent of the Rinnegan, so he can like carry out this stupid bull decree Hamura who was the Sixth Path Sage's brother put out that was like, to protect Earth or something but a branch family kill the main took over because they misinterpreted the decree to DESTROY the world if the ten-tails ever got released and it....did. Oops. Hinata turns out, went with him willingly to like a real ninja, spy on him to figure where the location of the source of all his power is because the byakugan princess is the only one who can destroy it for some reason. Hinata rightly points out toneri's misinterpreted decree is stupid and that why not try getting to know people down there or something and he is like "no, its my ancient clan duty even though I'm literally the last one left, all these things you see around me are just puppets I'm controlling and I'm all alone! Be my Eve to my Adam! we must repopulate when Earth is livable again." Toneri, not the smartest guy around.
also Toneri doesn't treat women well, he basically uses Hanabi to get eyeballs, doesn't listen to anything Hinata says only seemingly wanting her because she has the byakugan and...is not Hanabi? he spies on her thoughts and basically treats her as an object or puppet in his plans. When Hinata figures out the actual location of the power source and artificial sun of the moon, this gets pretty literal when he shoves a chakra ball into her to puppet her with his chakra. Toneri is a guy who literally treats women as objects. heck, he didn't even know anything about Hinata because he was asking her what her life was like during the dinner and thus literally only wants her because "ByAkUgAn PrInCeSs". Fitting villain for a romance.

Meanwhile the moon has gotten close enough that meteors are falling on Earth and the kages are doing their best to protect their villages in various ways using the usual jutsu, the two notable scenes being that Sasuke shows up to the meteor heading towards Konoha and also brought Hiashi Hyuuga back in time to receive medical help because plot, and thats literally all he gets to do.
then Hidden cloud pulls out this super chakra cannon that seems like "okay this can probably take out a meteor or two, why not."
Then it fires.......AND DESTROYS ALL THE ASTEROIDS HOVERING AROUND EARTH IN A RING AND ALL THE METEORS FALLING TO IT IN A CASCADE EFFECT LIKE FREAKING FIREWORKS OR SOMETHING.
And according to the Raikage they plan to DESTROY THE MOON ITSELF WITH THE NEXT SHOT.
what the frell Raikage!? Two questions: 1. HOW did you build this? How did you make a cannon that can DESTROY THE MOON by being powered by a bunch of no-name ninja from cloud? hoooow? and 2. WHY DID YOU BUILD THIS!? You already have a chakra nuke in form of Killer B, the Eight Tail Jinchuuriki, RIGHT THERE aiming it and he isn't even POWERING THE THING! which he logically should be powering it! Who would you use this chakra cannon on, Freaking orange glowing teddy bear Naruto!? there is just so many questions....
question 3: if you had something like this in development, why didn't you use it during the Fourth ninja War!? we could've used at least used some prototype or miniature version to take out all of Obito's forces all at once! could've saved a lot of time! How recent is this invention!? I thought this was Naruto Ball Z, not Mobile Naruto Gundam.

Meanwhile Naruto is moping around thinking that Hinata broke his heart when she was just being a good ninja and the entire world's safety was taking priority over her love life. ARE YOU TAKING NOTES SAKURA? You better be. They then storm Toneri's castle on Sai's ink birds in an awesome sequences, also Naruto's rasenshurikens are orange and they just straight up cut through all the puppets and cause them to explode as it passes through, he just cuts them down mercilessly like nothing, if Naruto was fighting real people- which these hyuuga puppets look exactly like- his kill count would rapidly start rising.
so they break in, Toneri tries a weak attempt to convince Naruto that Hinata is his but Naruto sees through it and does a weird chakra palm thing where he just pulls the green sphere controlling Hinata out of her and breaks it, freeing her without much trouble. meanwhile Sakura and Sai go try and rescue Hanabi.
Toneri of course doubles over in pain from tenseigan starting to awake and Naruto and Hinata go to destroying the artificial sun thing powering the moon, after a failed attempt at Hinata doing it herself, that share their chakra to do a lover's rasengan together to destroy the moon hyuuga sun (BTW, they're actually called Otsusuki's but they are about as Otsutsuki as Hinata herself is, so I'm calling them Moon Hyuugas for sake of clarity given that they are an entire civilization that has lived on the inside of the moon for thousands of years.)

at some point Hinata gives Naruto the remnants of a second red scarf she made for Naruto that Toneri destroyed because it proved that she is an actual person with desires outside his own and therefore he didn't like that because he likes his women like he likes his puppets: mindless and obeying his every whim.

This stops the moon from getting closer....for about two seconds before Toneri awakens his tenseigan and makes it start getting closer again. Raikage wants to shoot down the moon but Kakashi and other kages says to hold off for an hour and to trust in Naruto and Raikage reluctantly agrees to hold off on causing massive environmental damage to the entire planet.

Of course we tune back into the moon to see Naruto and Toneri going at it in at full power, Toneri whipping out his big Moon hyuuga statue, Naruto responding with Kurama and the two duking it out on the moon's surface (how can they breathe? Moon Hyuuga magic, doesn't question it) in what is a full on Naruto Ball Z fight with Naruto glowing orange, Toneri glowing Teal, Toneri firing green and teal beams and multiple black orbs of hax all over the place, cutting the moon in half, literally putting Hinata in a cage he created from thin air (real classy, Toneri). Naruto responding with his usual army of clones and rasengan spam until he punches Toneri with the red scarf remnant while shouting about how Hinata spent a lot of time on it which makes toneri crash into a wall, its over right?

Not really: Toneri tries one last desperate attempt to win, which is somehow summoning all the moon hyuuga eyes used to make the artificial moon-sun and attach them to himself to try and power himself up somehow (Ew) and begins into the air and goes from disgusting and disturbing to outright OHGODWHYBODYHORRORTETSUOFLASHBACKSAAAAAAAAAAH!!! but don't worry, Naruto saves him from the fate of Akira offscreen.

Meanwhile Raikage thinks too much time has passed and orders them to fire the cannon. Killer B of course doesn't do it because Naruto is on that moon somewhere. Then they spot a kanji written on a moon crater saying "MISSION COMPLETE" with Kurama grumbling about it. thus saving the day not only from Toneri but also from the Raikage screwing things up again.

Then the Hanabi retrieval team goes back through the weird green ball passage before it collapses, but Toneri decides to stay on the moon instead because he feels bad about literally treating women as objects oh and also that whole decree thing and promises never to throw the moon at the earth again......even though that impossible now that Hanabi has her eyes back, the artificial sun is gone and he will probably spend the rest of his days still lonely, and probably die now that his artificial environment and any portal to Earth has shut down to his own actions. Yeah he basically consigned himself to a slow painful death in loneliness to atone for his sins. Ouch.

Anyways now that Toneri is gone and good riddance, Hinata and Narut have Moments where Naruto says that she is the one he would spent the last day of Earth with, Hinata asks why he had that green stripped scarf and why it means so much to him and he explains the scarf is his mothers- he got it from Konohamaru's storage of Sarutobi's stuff, the old Sandaime had been keeping something of Kushina's for him, so no Hinata that gift WASN'T from some random fan girl in the beginning of the movie! D'aaaaaaaaawwwww. and then they travel back as the passage collapses behind in the most weirdly beautiful fashion while memories of their time together appear in the bubbles around them, then Naruto, being the smooth romantic operator that he is carries Hinata bridal style, then uses the rasengan rocket them to the surface of the portal water- then go the extra mile and break through the ceiling underground to go flying into the air so they see Earth from the sky while the moon is behind them.
Roll credits!

and yeah I really liked it. for any Naruto/Hinata shipper it does EXACTLY what you need, and if you don't mind the more ridiculous Naruto Ball Z and power scaling aspects its a pretty awesome bunch of fight scenes with a good dispersal of slow moments to focus on the romance aspects. Honestly its just Naruto's luck that finding his true love involves saving the entire world from the moon crashing into it before one of the world leaders can fire a moon-destroying cannon out of ignorance. the more meaningful the relationship, the more of the world is in danger it seems. Toneri as a villain is a good mix of "following what I was raised to do since forever" and "women-objectifying jerkbag because he is literally surrounded by puppets all his life" and Naruto spared him, his fate is pretty bleak given what happened to his source of power and even if he lives he will be trapped in darkness and cold all alone with no way back to Earth, not a good recipe for a happy ending for him.

Any after the credits which is basically a bunch of images of their wedding with people being happy for them, we see the stinger of Naruto, Hinata, Himawari and Boruto all being a family during the winter season with a little naruto snowman outside and pictures of Naruto and Hinata's marriage on a drawer. Best End. If you ended Naruto on this note? it would've been GREAT sendoff,
showing Naruto having something that he didn't when he started: a family of his own and romantic love with the girl that has been cheering for him from the very start. this movie is one of the better Naruto stories out there in my opinion, it has Hinata doing her best to save the entire freaking world, even putting her love life aside to do so, it has Naruto finally realizing what we've been yelling at him for years, very little Sasuke at all, the relationship development is very natural for how short a time it is, and if nothing else it has cool anime fights and I do likes me my cool anime fights.

But still Raikage WHY THE GIANT CHAKRA CANNON!?

[Rodin]

Speaking of The Last, this is the point where I would recommend Aotrs watch it if he's going to. I believe everything from here on out assumes that you've watched it, and now that you've hit the end of the manga (barring the last episode of the anime) there are no longer any spoilers. I still find it kind of incredible that they released an anime movie that spoils the ending of the manga 3 years before the anime got there.

If you're not going to watch it, you should read the summary at the very least. The events are all canon, and will be important later.

Speaking for myself, I find hax eyeballs annoying and hate Narutoball Z shenanigans. I still loved it.

Of course, I am a hardcore NaruHina shipper, and the love story here really worked for me. Far better than Sasuke/Sakura, where it was a miracle they wound up together. I think I would have given up after the first murderous rampage he went on, but that's just me.

[Traab]

Raziere Watches: The Last Naruto the Movie
In other news, I've decided to finally watch this piece of Naruto media, and I thought: Aotrs over there probably won't ever cover this, so why not do it myself?

I went into this knowing what it is: its peak Naruto Ball Z shenanigans, its a love story, and it involves even more hax eyeballs, so you don't like any of those? too bad.

Spoiler: The Last:

Show

Basically the story starts off in the winter near something the Rinne festival, which is probably the closest Naruto's japanese setting will ever get to christmas, how oddly fitting for this time of year and what this story is about. and we know its something close to equivalent to christmas because it turns Naruto after becoming a war hero and saving basically everyone is now the popular guy among all the girls and gets a lot of presents from them. wheres Sasuke all this? oh thats one of the best parts of the movie: Sasuke is barely in this movie. he only like shows up to do like, two things that are only tangentially related so don't worry about him.

We get scenes like Hiashi Hyuuga getting trounced by the movies villain somewhere and this is how we know its starting off strong because Hiashi Hyuuga is getting exactly what he deserves for mistreating Hinata. Speaking of Hinata, this is basically her movie, sure its also Naruto's but this is like, her one time to be a main protagonist and much of the focus is on her and her actions. We get things like flashbacks to Naruto standing up to some bullies for Hinata when they were young and getting his scarf ripped apart for it, and another flashback where Iruka asks his class who they would spend the last day with before the world ended in a oddly specific hypothetical question relevant to current events that seems out of place for a ninja class, but perhaps its to help indoctrinate the kids into the Will of Fire propaganda/tradition/mindset/ideology of sacrificing oneself for your loved ones like a martyr because they are a military state who has experienced three world wars at this point, any of them could grow up to fire ninja nukes at people and Naruto already IS a ninja nuke so its best to have as much motivation to keep them all on your side. Needless to say, naruto can't think of anyone to spend his last day on Earth with, while everyone knows Hinata writes down Naruto. Sad.

Back in the present, love confession drama happens. In the sense that Hinata tries two times to confess to Naruto but loses confidence easily because y'know, Hinata, but she has knit this replacement red scarf for one he lost during that flashback, showing that she remembers and cares about him. Sweet. Meanwhile Konohamaru shows stuff to Naruto that Sarutobi kept in a scene that is cut off, this will be somewhat important later. anyways Hinata tries to give the scarf and confess her love, but she sees other girls trying to vie for his love and him wearing this green striped scarf as well and which combine into her just walking away quietly. A combination of factors like that, understandable. Naruto is of course dense as a rock, Sakura berates him and follows after Hinata, telling her to be more confident but of course, Hinata has social anxiety in spades especially when it comes to the blonde orange-wearing idiot. Naruto catches up to her and Hinata is about to confess when they're alone.....but then the movies plot happens, Basically Toneri shows up and takes both Hanabi and Hinata. chase scene happens, scarf gets ripped, Hinata saved, Hanabi not taken.

Meanwhile Kakashi, now the Sixth hokage as well as the other kages receives reports that the moon is coming closer to Earth. oh. thats not good.
*MAJORA'S MASK INTENSIFIES*
anyways, the nice analysis lady whatever her name is, explains that as the moon comes closer, the gravity will break off parts of the moon and make comets come crashing down to Earth until the whole thing breaks apart and just destroys all of civilization. and life as we know it. realistic and terrifying. so Kakashi calls up Shikamaru, Naruto, Sakura, Sai and allows Hinata to join the mission as a five man team to basically find and retrieve Hanabi. Kakashi then gives Shikamaru this handy-dandy jutsu clock on his palm that basically somehow detects how fast the moon is coming closer to the planet and estimates how much time they have left to stop it. useful for this kind of mission if vague on his this jutsu works. all the kage have the same jutsu on their palm so it can't be anything secret.
*72 hours remain*
(the timeline of this movie is not exactly clear but at least a few days pass during it)

anyways, they go to find Hanabi, find her stupid kunai with a little toy pink ninja attached to it and use it to track her to this weird pool place where they jump in and go right out the other side into this place full of green orbs, but they all fall under this weird genjutsu that make them experience memories of their lives, focusing on positive ones it seems. and this is only important because the blend in with one another and Naruto and Hinata's memories somehow get connected by the scarf? its not exactly clear. but basically the tidbits are:
-Naruto proclaims that of course he loves Hinata but Sakura says he says that the same way he loves ramen.
-dream-Sakura then says to dream-Hinata which Naruto hears that Naruto wouldn't understand the difference of being in love with Hinata and loving ramen and Naruto has a moment where he is like "wait there is a difference?"
-basically the entire genjutsu sequence is to show that Naruto is so dense, that while he has a great idea of things like friendship, agape and familial love, he somehow has no idea about romantic love. go figure.
They break out, we a get a scene of Toneri showing up with a puppet, proclaiming Hinata is his "Byakugan Princess" making it sound more possessive and creepy every time its used, holding things up until naruto comes to stop it and breaks the puppet.they go find abandoned stone towns where shinobi used to live in a world inside placed where there is an ocean above the sun (spoilers: they are inside the moon and it is an artificial environment) they wonder what happened here (spoilers: moon hyuugas killed each other) and we get a couple scenes of Naruto and Hinata fretting over one another (spoilers: this is a Naruto/Hinata love story in case you have no caught on to the blindingly obvious yet) so yeah, feels, supposedly, I'm not good at those, but I recognize when they are supposed to be there.

Anyways then they come across this guy who lurches forward says something about "Byakugan Princess" vomits up a violet sphere thats makes Hinata see a thing then crumbles to dust, Hinata clearly saw something but doesn't say and no one bothers to ask. this time another attempt at romance happens and because of the earlier genjutsu, Naruto confesses his love for Hinata first. Yaaaaaaaaay. it only took years and a weird genjutsu to realize it, ya blonde fox-box But Hinata doesn't speak up and Toneri arrives again to get his Byakugan Princess and for some reason Hinata goes with him willingly with a sad face, Naruto is the heartbroken and confused, they chase after Toneri and her, Naruto trying to get her back but Toneri fires a chakra ball that enters Naruto and somehow pulls out his chakra then causes an explosion to blow a hole in the moon, to reveal that GASP! they are on the moon and it is hollow! wow Moon hyuugas must've had really advanced tech to terraform the inside of the moon. naruto gets near-deathed and basically needs medical treatment from Sakura, whom she spends three days healing while recovering from their loss.

*DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY*
We cut to Hinata living in Toneri's place and its revealed that he is basically holding Hanabi hostage, took hanabi's eyeballs so he can have the Tenseigan which is basically the byakugan equivalent of the Rinnegan, so he can like carry out this stupid bull decree Hamura who was the Sixth Path Sage's brother put out that was like, to protect Earth or something but a branch family kill the main took over because they misinterpreted the decree to DESTROY the world if the ten-tails ever got released and it....did. Oops. Hinata turns out, went with him willingly to like a real ninja, spy on him to figure where the location of the source of all his power is because the byakugan princess is the only one who can destroy it for some reason. Hinata rightly points out toneri's misinterpreted decree is stupid and that why not try getting to know people down there or something and he is like "no, its my ancient clan duty even though I'm literally the last one left, all these things you see around me are just puppets I'm controlling and I'm all alone! Be my Eve to my Adam! we must repopulate when Earth is livable again." Toneri, not the smartest guy around.
also Toneri doesn't treat women well, he basically uses Hanabi to get eyeballs, doesn't listen to anything Hinata says only seemingly wanting her because she has the byakugan and...is not Hanabi? he spies on her thoughts and basically treats her as an object or puppet in his plans. When Hinata figures out the actual location of the power source and artificial sun of the moon, this gets pretty literal when he shoves a chakra ball into her to puppet her with his chakra. Toneri is a guy who literally treats women as objects. heck, he didn't even know anything about Hinata because he was asking her what her life was like during the dinner and thus literally only wants her because "ByAkUgAn PrInCeSs". Fitting villain for a romance.

Meanwhile the moon has gotten close enough that meteors are falling on Earth and the kages are doing their best to protect their villages in various ways using the usual jutsu, the two notable scenes being that Sasuke shows up to the meteor heading towards Konoha and also brought Hiashi Hyuuga back in time to receive medical help because plot, and thats literally all he gets to do.
then Hidden cloud pulls out this super chakra cannon that seems like "okay this can probably take out a meteor or two, why not."
Then it fires.......AND DESTROYS ALL THE ASTEROIDS HOVERING AROUND EARTH IN A RING AND ALL THE METEORS FALLING TO IT IN A CASCADE EFFECT LIKE FREAKING FIREWORKS OR SOMETHING.
And according to the Raikage they plan to DESTROY THE MOON ITSELF WITH THE NEXT SHOT.
what the frell Raikage!? Two questions: 1. HOW did you build this? How did you make a cannon that can DESTROY THE MOON by being powered by a bunch of no-name ninja from cloud? hoooow? and 2. WHY DID YOU BUILD THIS!? You already have a chakra nuke in form of Killer B, the Eight Tail Jinchuuriki, RIGHT THERE aiming it and he isn't even POWERING THE THING! which he logically should be powering it! Who would you use this chakra cannon on, Freaking orange glowing teddy bear Naruto!? there is just so many questions....
question 3: if you had something like this in development, why didn't you use it during the Fourth ninja War!? we could've used at least used some prototype or miniature version to take out all of Obito's forces all at once! could've saved a lot of time! How recent is this invention!? I thought this was Naruto Ball Z, not Mobile Naruto Gundam.

Meanwhile Naruto is moping around thinking that Hinata broke his heart when she was just being a good ninja and the entire world's safety was taking priority over her love life. ARE YOU TAKING NOTES SAKURA? You better be. They then storm Toneri's castle on Sai's ink birds in an awesome sequences, also Naruto's rasenshurikens are orange and they just straight up cut through all the puppets and cause them to explode as it passes through, he just cuts them down mercilessly like nothing, if Naruto was fighting real people- which these hyuuga puppets look exactly like- his kill count would rapidly start rising.
so they break in, Toneri tries a weak attempt to convince Naruto that Hinata is his but Naruto sees through it and does a weird chakra palm thing where he just pulls the green sphere controlling Hinata out of her and breaks it, freeing her without much trouble. meanwhile Sakura and Sai go try and rescue Hanabi.
Toneri of course doubles over in pain from tenseigan starting to awake and Naruto and Hinata go to destroying the artificial sun thing powering the moon, after a failed attempt at Hinata doing it herself, that share their chakra to do a lover's rasengan together to destroy the moon hyuuga sun (BTW, they're actually called Otsusuki's but they are about as Otsutsuki as Hinata herself is, so I'm calling them Moon Hyuugas for sake of clarity given that they are an entire civilization that has lived on the inside of the moon for thousands of years.)

at some point Hinata gives Naruto the remnants of a second red scarf she made for Naruto that Toneri destroyed because it proved that she is an actual person with desires outside his own and therefore he didn't like that because he likes his women like he likes his puppets: mindless and obeying his every whim.

This stops the moon from getting closer....for about two seconds before Toneri awakens his tenseigan and makes it start getting closer again. Raikage wants to shoot down the moon but Kakashi and other kages says to hold off for an hour and to trust in Naruto and Raikage reluctantly agrees to hold off on causing massive environmental damage to the entire planet.

Of course we tune back into the moon to see Naruto and Toneri going at it in at full power, Toneri whipping out his big Moon hyuuga statue, Naruto responding with Kurama and the two duking it out on the moon's surface (how can they breathe? Moon Hyuuga magic, doesn't question it) in what is a full on Naruto Ball Z fight with Naruto glowing orange, Toneri glowing Teal, Toneri firing green and teal beams and multiple black orbs of hax all over the place, cutting the moon in half, literally putting Hinata in a cage he created from thin air (real classy, Toneri). Naruto responding with his usual army of clones and rasengan spam until he punches Toneri with the red scarf remnant while shouting about how Hinata spent a lot of time on it which makes toneri crash into a wall, its over right?

Not really: Toneri tries one last desperate attempt to win, which is somehow summoning all the moon hyuuga eyes used to make the artificial moon-sun and attach them to himself to try and power himself up somehow (Ew) and begins into the air and goes from disgusting and disturbing to outright OHGODWHYBODYHORRORTETSUOFLASHBACKSAAAAAAAAAAH!!! but don't worry, Naruto saves him from the fate of Akira offscreen.

Meanwhile Raikage thinks too much time has passed and orders them to fire the cannon. Killer B of course doesn't do it because Naruto is on that moon somewhere. Then they spot a kanji written on a moon crater saying "MISSION COMPLETE" with Kurama grumbling about it. thus saving the day not only from Toneri but also from the Raikage screwing things up again.

Then the Hanabi retrieval team goes back through the weird green ball passage before it collapses, but Toneri decides to stay on the moon instead because he feels bad about literally treating women as objects oh and also that whole decree thing and promises never to throw the moon at the earth again......even though that impossible now that Hanabi has her eyes back, the artificial sun is gone and he will probably spend the rest of his days still lonely, and probably die now that his artificial environment and any portal to Earth has shut down to his own actions. Yeah he basically consigned himself to a slow painful death in loneliness to atone for his sins. Ouch.

Anyways now that Toneri is gone and good riddance, Hinata and Narut have Moments where Naruto says that she is the one he would spent the last day of Earth with, Hinata asks why he had that green stripped scarf and why it means so much to him and he explains the scarf is his mothers- he got it from Konohamaru's storage of Sarutobi's stuff, the old Sandaime had been keeping something of Kushina's for him, so no Hinata that gift WASN'T from some random fan girl in the beginning of the movie! D'aaaaaaaaawwwww. and then they travel back as the passage collapses behind in the most weirdly beautiful fashion while memories of their time together appear in the bubbles around them, then Naruto, being the smooth romantic operator that he is carries Hinata bridal style, then uses the rasengan rocket them to the surface of the portal water- then go the extra mile and break through the ceiling underground to go flying into the air so they see Earth from the sky while the moon is behind them.
Roll credits!

and yeah I really liked it. for any Naruto/Hinata shipper it does EXACTLY what you need, and if you don't mind the more ridiculous Naruto Ball Z and power scaling aspects its a pretty awesome bunch of fight scenes with a good dispersal of slow moments to focus on the romance aspects. Honestly its just Naruto's luck that finding his true love involves saving the entire world from the moon crashing into it before one of the world leaders can fire a moon-destroying cannon out of ignorance. the more meaningful the relationship, the more of the world is in danger it seems. Toneri as a villain is a good mix of "following what I was raised to do since forever" and "women-objectifying jerkbag because he is literally surrounded by puppets all his life" and Naruto spared him, his fate is pretty bleak given what happened to his source of power and even if he lives he will be trapped in darkness and cold all alone with no way back to Earth, not a good recipe for a happy ending for him.

Any after the credits which is basically a bunch of images of their wedding with people being happy for them, we see the stinger of Naruto, Hinata, Himawari and Boruto all being a family during the winter season with a little naruto snowman outside and pictures of Naruto and Hinata's marriage on a drawer. Best End. If you ended Naruto on this note? it would've been GREAT sendoff,
showing Naruto having something that he didn't when he started: a family of his own and romantic love with the girl that has been cheering for him from the very start. this movie is one of the better Naruto stories out there in my opinion, it has Hinata doing her best to save the entire freaking world, even putting her love life aside to do so, it has Naruto finally realizing what we've been yelling at him for years, very little Sasuke at all, the relationship development is very natural for how short a time it is, and if nothing else it has cool anime fights and I do likes me my cool anime fights.

But still Raikage WHY THE GIANT CHAKRA CANNON!?

Well they did kinda forget

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to include literally anything that would imply naruto and hinata would get together and it would ever be more than a one sided crush on her part, so i guess they kinda had to do this movie. Its like they went, "Oh crap, forgot to setup the happily ever after romance, we only had 12 years after all. Lets toss out a moon hyuuga plot movie and have them fall in love!"

Also, just watched final fight. Yep, dragonball.

[LaZodiac]

Well they did kinda forget

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to include literally anything that would imply naruto and hinata would get together and it would ever be more than a one sided crush on her part, so i guess they kinda had to do this movie. Its like they went, "Oh crap, forgot to setup the happily ever after romance, we only had 12 years after all. Lets toss out a moon hyuuga plot movie and have them fall in love!"

Also, just watched final fight. Yep, dragonball.

This reminded me that during the ending, both the actual like Ending-ending and the epilogue, despite the fact that they have children together, Hinata and Naruto do not share a single PANEL together. They're never seen in the same place at the same time, are never even so much as on the same page of manga. It's ridiculous! It took like, seven months of Boruto's manga for them to be in the same room together!

[Aotrs Commander]

Speaking of The Last, this is the point where I would recommend Aotrs watch it if he's going to. I believe everything from here on out assumes that you've watched it, and now that you've hit the end of the manga (barring the last episode of the anime) there are no longer any spoilers. I still find it kind of incredible that they released an anime movie that spoils the ending of the manga 3 years before the anime got there.

Of course, I am a hardcore NaruHina shipper, and the love story here really worked for me. Far better than Sasuke/Sakura, where it was a miracle they wound up together. I think I would have given up after the first murderous rampage he went on, but that's just me.

I have it (I bought it on DVD ages and ages and ages ago), I will of course cover it - spoilering appreciated Lord Raziere, ta - and that was going to be my next question, as to watch it now or after the next episode Naruto and Hinata et al.

[Rodin]

I have it (I bought it on DVD ages and ages and ages ago), I will of course cover it - spoilering appreciated Lord Raziere, ta - and that was going to be my next question, as to watch it now or after the next episode Naruto and Hinata et al.

I believe that there is some wiggle room, as there are a few filler episodes followed by a couple of canon short stories that followed the manga. I can't remember whether those short stories are explicitly after the events of The Last or not, or whether they are beforehand. However, at some point you will hit "we're preparing for Naruto's wedding!" episodes that come right the bleep out of nowhere if you weren't aware ahead of time.

I suggest it now because you're at a good point to do so, but you may want to push through some of the other episodes and then use the movie as a palate cleanser.

[Kantaki]

some Symbolism you missed is that, while on the hands, their arm stumps are connected via blood splatter.

So they're holding phantom limbs?

That explains why Sasuke didn't accept the protestic.
He is like Sigdi!
He doesn't want to replace the Hand that still holds his true love's.

Just kidding. But it's kinda sad that those two morons make a better, more believable, pairing than the one we got for them.
I mean, at least with Hinata there's the battle against Pain, but Sakura? The only explaination I've got is that it's part of Sasuke's self-inflicted punishment.

[Lord Raziere]

Just kidding. But it's kinda sad that those two morons make a better, more believable, pairing than the one we got for them.
I mean, at least with Hinata there's the battle against Pain, but Sakura? The only explaination I've got is that it's part of Sasuke's self-inflicted punishment.

Spoiler: Boruto: On the Status of Sasuke

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Eh, doesn't really hold water since he spends all his time away from Sakura and to the point where he doesn't recognize his own daughter, because Sakura just lets him avoid her for twelve freaking years for some spying mission to find out stuff about Otsutsukis (which, y'know isn't really reasonable considering they're FROM SPACE SASUKE, HOW DO YOU FIND INFO ON THEM WHEN THEY ARE FROM SPACE WHILE YOUR ON EARTH!?) with nothing to show for it.

though I do admit, some of the best comedy in Boruto is Sasuke basically getting his comeuppance of years of edgelord villain behavior in the form of things like Sasuke being forced to say he is a fan of Jiraiya thus completing his journey to becoming the new Kakashi, or not knowing how to spend time with his child. unlike Naruto any shots the Boruto show takes at Sasuke are entirely deserved.

[LaZodiac]

So they're holding phantom limbs?

That explains why Sasuke didn't accept the protestic.
He is like Sigdi!
He doesn't want to replace the Hand that still holds his true love's.

Just kidding. But it's kinda sad that those two morons make a better, more believable, pairing than the one we got for them.
I mean, at least with Hinata there's the battle against Pain, but Sakura? The only explaination I've got is that it's part of Sasuke's self-inflicted punishment.

Sasuke rejected his replacement arm because he's a bastard who should never have had it be an option.

Also yeah the rivalry they have comes off as way, way more romantic than anything they've ever done with their noted love interests. Sasuke leaves the village by doing his brotherly forehead tap thing to Sakura and if that's supposed to be romantic that's a real bad sign given the origin of it.

Spoiler: Boruto: On the Status of Sasuke

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Eh, doesn't really hold water since he spends all his time away from Sakura and to the point where he doesn't recognize his own daughter, because Sakura just lets him avoid her for twelve freaking years for some spying mission to find out stuff about Otsutsukis (which, y'know isn't really reasonable considering they're FROM SPACE SASUKE, HOW DO YOU FIND INFO ON THEM WHEN THEY ARE FROM SPACE WHILE YOUR ON EARTH!?) with nothing to show for it.

though I do admit, some of the best comedy in Boruto is Sasuke basically getting his comeuppance of years of edgelord villain behavior in the form of things like Sasuke being forced to say he is a fan of Jiraiya thus completing his journey to becoming the new Kakashi, or not knowing how to spend time with his child. unlike Naruto any shots the Boruto show takes at Sasuke are entirely deserved.

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Sasuke's ultimate punishment for being the worst human in the ****ing world is having to deal with a ****tier version of him in the form of Boruto and that's actually pretty great.

[Rodin]

Spoiler: Boruto: On the Status of Sasuke

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Eh, doesn't really hold water since he spends all his time away from Sakura and to the point where he doesn't recognize his own daughter, because Sakura just lets him avoid her for twelve freaking years for some spying mission to find out stuff about Otsutsukis (which, y'know isn't really reasonable considering they're FROM SPACE SASUKE, HOW DO YOU FIND INFO ON THEM WHEN THEY ARE FROM SPACE WHILE YOUR ON EARTH!?) with nothing to show for it.

though I do admit, some of the best comedy in Boruto is Sasuke basically getting his comeuppance of years of edgelord villain behavior in the form of things like Sasuke being forced to say he is a fan of Jiraiya thus completing his journey to becoming the new Kakashi, or not knowing how to spend time with his child. unlike Naruto any shots the Boruto show takes at Sasuke are entirely deserved.

Spoiler: Boruto

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I actually liked what they did with both of them.

Sasuke is a terrible father because DUH. Once he realizes this and starts trying to correct it he's still terrible at being a dad, so he falls back on being a sensei. This he is actually good at, since he's spent his whole life being a ninja and this is just more of the same.

Naruto though...Naruto would have been very easy to write as generic hero-goodguy-man who is the beloved leader of the village, great father, yadda yadda. Instead we get much more realistic look at it. Naruto is a war hero who is very good at fighting but not very big on details. Or education. In short, he makes for a terrible peace-time Hokage, with the sole exception that he's good at diplomacy because of his Talk No Jutsu expertise. The result is the piles of paperwork on his desk and his being constantly behind on everything, unlike his predecessors. And to be fair, the village is a lot larger now.

Naruto winds up torn between responsibilities. His worldview has always been "save EVERYONE", but that leads you into problems when balancing "the good of the village" with "the good of my kids". He tries to do both, fails at this, and in general the greater good wins out over his relationship with Boruto. From his point of view, Boruto is going to be okay in the long run no matter what - if he's derelict in his duties in Hokage, that can have serious consequences for many people in the village.

We get this reinforced on the rare occasions we see Naruto fight. Naruto the Ninja Warrior is still a remarkable man, able to face down a chakra bomb capable of destroying a stadium with a smile.
When he's actually being a ninja, he's happy an extremely effective. When he tries to be a civilian? He's the goofball screw-up that he was as a kid.

I like my characters to have flaws, and the original Naruto anime often ignored the flaws of its main characters. Acknowledging that the former protagonists are human is the best thing that Boruto has done.

[Kantaki]

Spoiler: Boruto: On the Status of Sasuke

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Eh, doesn't really hold water since he spends all his time away from Sakura and to the point where he doesn't recognize his own daughter, because Sakura just lets him avoid her for twelve freaking years for some spying mission to find out stuff about Otsutsukis (which, y'know isn't really reasonable considering they're FROM SPACE SASUKE, HOW DO YOU FIND INFO ON THEM WHEN THEY ARE FROM SPACE WHILE YOUR ON EARTH!?) with nothing to show for it.

though I do admit, some of the best comedy in Boruto is Sasuke basically getting his comeuppance of years of edgelord villain behavior in the form of things like Sasuke being forced to say he is a fan of Jiraiya thus completing his journey to becoming the new Kakashi, or not knowing how to spend time with his child. unlike Naruto any shots the Boruto show takes at Sasuke are entirely deserved.

I was going to say marrying Sakura was cheaper than hiring some cleaning staff to keep his place livable while he's gone, but the punishment line sounded more amusing.

Sasuke rejected his replacement arm because he's a bastard who should never have had it be an option.

I know. I prefer my version though. Is funnier.

[Lord Raziere]

Spoiler: Boruto

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I actually liked what they did with both of them.

Sasuke is a terrible father because DUH. Once he realizes this and starts trying to correct it he's still terrible at being a dad, so he falls back on being a sensei. This he is actually good at, since he's spent his whole life being a ninja and this is just more of the same.

Naruto though...Naruto would have been very easy to write as generic hero-goodguy-man who is the beloved leader of the village, great father, yadda yadda. Instead we get much more realistic look at it. Naruto is a war hero who is very good at fighting but not very big on details. Or education. In short, he makes for a terrible peace-time Hokage, with the sole exception that he's good at diplomacy because of his Talk No Jutsu expertise. The result is the piles of paperwork on his desk and his being constantly behind on everything, unlike his predecessors. And to be fair, the village is a lot larger now.

Naruto winds up torn between responsibilities. His worldview has always been "save EVERYONE", but that leads you into problems when balancing "the good of the village" with "the good of my kids". He tries to do both, fails at this, and in general the greater good wins out over his relationship with Boruto. From his point of view, Boruto is going to be okay in the long run no matter what - if he's derelict in his duties in Hokage, that can have serious consequences for many people in the village.

We get this reinforced on the rare occasions we see Naruto fight. Naruto the Ninja Warrior is still a remarkable man, able to face down a chakra bomb capable of destroying a stadium with a smile.
When he's actually being a ninja, he's happy an extremely effective. When he tries to be a civilian? He's the goofball screw-up that he was as a kid.

I like my characters to have flaws, and the original Naruto anime often ignored the flaws of its main characters. Acknowledging that the former protagonists are human is the best thing that Boruto has done.

Spoiler: Humanity of Boruto

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Yeah sure thats great and all and I get where your coming from....

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.......

Naruto can multi-shadow clone jutsu, like in much bigger numbers than Boruto portrays him doing. he could literally just have his clones do all his paperwork for him while spending time with his family with no discernible reason why not. he is so powerful he arguably is technically beyond human in some capacity that allows him to basically become an all-knowing all doing god with all the energy and ability and capacity to learn anything in the world. the humanity aspect only makes sense if you ignore that he has has done far greater things with his clones while younger and less experienced.

Its like feeling sorry for Batman moping about not having any family or friends while he is surrounded by Alfred, Robin, Batgirl, the entire Justice League, Commissioner Gordon, various senseis while being richer than god and so on. he has already solved his problem he just doesn't apply enough of the solution to get out of the problem he is in. sure its human but that doesn't mean he isn't ignoring something y'know obvious and easy to do.

[Rodin]

Spoiler: Humanity of Boruto

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Yeah sure thats great and all and I get where your coming from....

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.......

Naruto can multi-shadow clone jutsu, like in much bigger numbers than Boruto portrays him doing. he could literally just have his clones do all his paperwork for him while spending time with his family with no discernible reason why not. he is so powerful he arguably is technically beyond human in some capacity that allows him to basically become an all-knowing all doing god with all the energy and ability and capacity to learn anything in the world. the humanity aspect only makes sense if you ignore that he has has done far greater things with his clones while younger and less experienced.

Its like feeling sorry for Batman moping about not having any family or friends while he is surrounded by Alfred, Robin, Batgirl, the entire Justice League, Commissioner Gordon, various senseis while being richer than god and so on. he has already solved his problem he just doesn't apply enough of the solution to get out of the problem he is in. sure its human but that doesn't mean he isn't ignoring something y'know obvious and easy to do.

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I hear ya. I never liked the massive power upgrade Shadow Clones got (where the info magically teleports back into your head when the clone poofs) in the first place, and Naruto's later ability to have Shadow Clones separated by many miles was also pretty silly. The Shadow Clone Jutsu should have been an absolute game breaker that every Jonin is required to learn as quickly as possible, because they can then train 3-4x as quickly, read books and gain knowledge way more quickly, send out zero risk spying missions, etc. Instead Naruto is the only one who seems to use it, and we never see anyone use it for training except for Naruto when he learns Rasenshuriken.

Shadow Clones shouldn't work for Naruto doing paperwork because he would struggle doing the paperwork by himself, and dividing his attention maintaining a Shadow Clone while reading a second paper would be even harder. It doesn't work that way, but it should.

In general, I think Naruto dropping the Shadow Clone spam was just part of Boruto's overall slashing of the power levels. Outside of the first Otsutsuki fight, the power levels shown by both Naruto and Sasuke are significantly lower than at the tail end of their story. This is a good thing, because otherwise we wouldn't have a story. Naruto would just send a Super Shadow Clone to go wipe out whatever threat instead of sending a squad of Genins to handle it.

[Rater202]

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I'm Sorry, but if I remember Naruto Gaiden properly, Sasuke was on a mission for those 12 years. In a part of the continent where he couldn't easily charge his cellphone.

Not writing is one thing, but it's not really his fault that he didn't see his daughter in that time. Unless Sasuke was literally the only one who could do it, Kakashi should have given it to someone who didn't have a wife and newborn at home.

[Ramza00]

Naruto Shadow Clones doing Hokage work. It is not clear that this would work and thus we need author clarification. We know a lot about how Shadow Clones work but not all the ambiguous test cases.

We know Shadow Clones can speed up learning if they are performing a similar task, and the task is things involving muscle memory and basic sequential skills like molding chakra.

But not all human skills work like that, perhaps the working memory, attention, and long term memory storage is too disharmonious if one was doing Hokage paper work to the point of being intellectually exhausting and non productive. For example framing before a test has a point of diminishing returns, and is sometimes negative returns. Perhaps having a dozen or a 1000 shadow clones returning information to the main person in a 24 hour period would produce mental garbage. The work may get done but the Hokage has such a headache afterwards.

[LaZodiac]

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I'm Sorry, but if I remember Naruto Gaiden properly, Sasuke was on a mission for those 12 years. In a part of the continent where he couldn't easily charge his cellphone.

Not writing is one thing, but it's not really his fault that he didn't see his daughter in that time. Unless Sasuke was literally the only one who could do it, Kakashi should have given it to someone who didn't have a wife and newborn at home.

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It wasn't that he had difficulty charging his phone, it's that according to Naruto he's just really bad about remembering to charge it. Also he HAS LIGHTNING POWERS, given the level of tech in Naruto there is literally no excuse for him not to call. And given that the fruits of his 12 year mission ended up being "they're more moon rabbit aliens" which is a thing they already knew, it was definitely not worth it and shouldn't have been done. Additionally, being on mission or not, he DID return to Konoha every once in awhile. He NEVER went to see his family during this time AT ALL.

So yeah, it's directly his fault. Mission or not, you basically are obligated to take breaks some times! The fact that whenever he did, he only went to meet Naruto to report on things, charge his phone, and then immediately leave is a choice he made. Because remember, it was a mission Naruto put him on, not Kakashi. Either way, they should not have given him the mission because he has a daughter at home.

A daughter, I remind you, that is an Uchiha, which need I remind you is genetically predisposed to becoming a hyper powerful tyrant if they ever feel bad. So having her have a NOT GOOD childhood is um... a bad idea just in general. If you're part of this family your primary mission is simply to have a good life. Luckily Sarada has turned out pretty good (even if it is REALLY sad for her to say to Kawaki she's jealous of him since she's always wondered how good her life would be if Naruto was her dad).

[Lord Raziere]

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It wasn't that he had difficulty charging his phone, it's that according to Naruto he's just really bad about remembering to charge it. Also he HAS LIGHTNING POWERS, given the level of tech in Naruto there is literally no excuse for him not to call. And given that the fruits of his 12 year mission ended up being "they're more moon rabbit aliens" which is a thing they already knew, it was definitely not worth it and shouldn't have been done. Additionally, being on mission or not, he DID return to Konoha every once in awhile. He NEVER went to see his family during this time AT ALL.

So yeah, it's directly his fault. Mission or not, you basically are obligated to take breaks some times! The fact that whenever he did, he only went to meet Naruto to report on things, charge his phone, and then immediately leave is a choice he made. Because remember, it was a mission Naruto put him on, not Kakashi. Either way, they should not have given him the mission because he has a daughter at home.

A daughter, I remind you, that is an Uchiha, which need I remind you is genetically predisposed to becoming a hyper powerful tyrant if they ever feel bad. So having her have a NOT GOOD childhood is um... a bad idea just in general. If you're part of this family your primary mission is simply to have a good life. Luckily Sarada has turned out pretty good (even if it is REALLY sad for her to say to Kawaki she's jealous of him since she's always wondered how good her life would be if Naruto was her dad).

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Lightning powers that can literally empower THE WEAPONS THAT HE IS HOLDING. ninja should not HAVE to charge anything with outlets! They could just y'know......do it with their hands! just literally pick up phone, run lightning chakra through phone, not hard! he does that with his SWORD! running it into a battery is probably only a little more complicated given that its smaller and involves complex computer stuff, but surely his genius Uchiha brain and the TWO MOST FREAKING HAX EYEBALLS IN THE SERIES can figure something like that out!?

like this kind of thing is literally just a matter of chakra control and holding the thing, and Sasuke's chakra control is pretty darn good last I recall, considering he can use one-hand seals.

this is the problem with a magic system as flexible and complex and Narutos: there is literally easily done solutions to all their mundane problems that aren't even major leaps in how it works and the only reason they aren't done is because people writing it don't think their world through. Ramza ain't making a case for his pet theory about multi-shadow clone jutsu's effectiveness, he is just digging the writers deeper by pointing out that there is a lot of implications of the power system in this world that are just ignored and that with something like shadow clone jutsu, the konoha jounin ninja at the very least should be masters of scouting and such.

and speaking of lightning jutsu, do they ever think to throw some ninja who decides to exploit lightning chakra +internet in some way for a whole new way of battle tactics to catch people off guard? apparently not, because some guy figuring out something like "Leap Through Internet" jutsu to teleport or fire lightning blasts out of peoples phones at long distances I guess is just not as cool as more moon rabbit aliens.

[Rodin]

Ninja not using technology is more of an artistic choice, I'd say. Just look at the Rescue Gaara arc. The Konoha ninjas are equipped with wireless radio headsets of the same quality we use today. How does the Sand Village use this level of technology to send an urgent message to the Leaf Village? They strap a message on a hawk's leg and wish it the best of luck.

[Lord Raziere]

Ninja not using technology is more of an artistic choice, I'd say. Just look at the Rescue Gaara arc. The Konoha ninjas are equipped with wireless radio headsets of the same quality we use today. How does the Sand Village use this level of technology to send an urgent message to the Leaf Village? They strap a message on a hawk's leg and wish it the best of luck.

Rodin the author couldn't be bothered to come up with a timeline for a world whose people has flashbacks to earlier parts of it all over the place, "artistic choice" is a poor excuse when we don't even know the freaking date. even Toriyama told us the year in dragonball. thats not artistic choice thats the world being underbuilt.

[khadgar567]

for asmedeus sake guys you already made that f ing discussion in the past read the f ing lore damn it scientific ninja tools was newest thing in boruto where multiple nations trying kidnap or genjutsu the scientist so they get their paws on newest concept. that's why boruto kinda focuses on kara plot more then ootsuki plot due kohana sitting on revolutionary concepts watch the first boruto movie when boruto sneaks in the kote in exams naruto forced to disqualify him not because he worked harder then his peers( since kote needs you to know the jutsu and seal in way before use to work) but him using military tech with out asking which forces naruto's hand on peaceful negotiations when his son busts out never seen concept weapon in non military event. anime kinda explains in same arc that boruto actually did learn to perform each of his kote techniques and load the jutsus by himself just choose to take bit of shortcuts on stressful situations due his trust issue which still getting addresses until the current arc. for sasuke not being with sarada every damn second she is kinda grown past that already as most of the time she cooks her own meals. and sasuke cant step in kohana in peace before boruto demands him to train him at every damn chance he gets when bleakbane catches the one tail arc you kinda understand what i am saying. as boruto ditched his parents just to chase a gossip on sasuke gonna appear on sand nations so he can train more with him. plus with second set of jinjuriki on the sasukes mission list do you guys think dude has time to scratch his head.

[Traab]

Ninja not using technology is more of an artistic choice, I'd say. Just look at the Rescue Gaara arc. The Konoha ninjas are equipped with wireless radio headsets of the same quality we use today. How does the Sand Village use this level of technology to send an urgent message to the Leaf Village? They strap a message on a hawk's leg and wish it the best of luck.

Short range headsets dont mean they have international phone lines. Its also likely that even if they DID have international phone capability, they wouldnt automatically have it between village leaders who have had three world wars between them during one mans lifetime, with a 4th starting 3 years after he died. Even as allies they arent exactly close. Not too mention that communication was really complicated during the 4th war, requiring an awful lot of effort in both tech and specific ninja abilities if a simple phone relay system would have worked as well.

And as for earlier the shadow clone thing. We see they have narutos personality, heck, we even see them all act exactly the same as him when doing the bell test and kakashi tricks them into fighting each other instead. There isnt any in universe reason they wouldnt be fully capable of transferring his office to an empty classroom, splitting the paperwork into a dozen or 50 piles, and getting it all done at once. The closest thing to an actual objection is, I dont think we know how specific and complete the transfer of knowledge would be. Would he actually remember all 50 pieces of paperwork he and his clones just read through and signed? (As much as that idiot remembers anything that is) There is no in universe information to say it either way. And its SO HARD to try and separate my years of reading fanfiction where this is treated as either a great revelation or a blinding flash of the obvious to focus on what actually happens in canon. It was and probably still is, a running gag where naruto or whoever goes, "hey third hokage, why not use a couple shadow clones to hurry up the paperwork?" /third hokage head desks.

[Rodin]

Short range headsets dont mean they have international phone lines. Its also likely that even if they DID have international phone capability, they wouldnt automatically have it between village leaders who have had three world wars between them during one mans lifetime, with a 4th starting 3 years after he died. Even as allies they arent exactly close. Not too mention that communication was really complicated during the 4th war, requiring an awful lot of effort in both tech and specific ninja abilities if a simple phone relay system would have worked as well.

I started to respond to this, looked up the distance between the villages (3 days running speed), and saw a huge argument about just how superhumanly fast ninja run, and decided to give up. When the first estimate is 27,000 KM (more than half the circumference of the Earth), what's the point?

Suffice to say that with the level of technology displayed I believe they WOULD have have had long range communication capability of reaching the sand village without requiring a hard cable connecting the two villages. And certainly there must be faster ways than sending a bloody bird.

[Ramza00]

Maybe there is no Kennelly–Heaviside layer in Naruto? What is the Heaviside layer, besides a weird thing in the CATS movie and musical?

Normal radio waves in a non ionic ionosphere would only travel 30 or so miles because of the curvature of the Earth. (Assuming Naruto Earth is similar size as our Earth which is making a very big assumption.). Literally radio waves can not penetrate very solid objects, and the earth’s crust is a very think and very solid earth object.

Yet certain frequencies of radio waves bounce off the sky if you have an ionic atmosphere (the Heaviside Layer) allowing long distance communication with radio waves (no cables) if you know how to bounce the signal just right. Of course what frequency and other science stuff matters, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Oh this is also why radio, especially AM works better at night. The ionosphere works slightly different when it is dark out (far less sun rays) than during the day.

—————

Of course none of this matters for this is fiction and almost all writers do not care to make their works scientifically accurate especially in a fantastical magical setting. Why the tech works or does not work does not matter. Just surrender and enjoy the flow.

—————

“Surrender Stephen” I mean Naruto. Jirarya aka The Ancient One throws Naruto off the side of a cliff.

(Leap of faith, tapping into something greater than your senses during a moment of crisis.)

[Traab]

I started to respond to this, looked up the distance between the villages (3 days running speed), and saw a huge argument about just how superhumanly fast ninja run, and decided to give up. When the first estimate is 27,000 KM (more than half the circumference of the Earth), what's the point?

Suffice to say that with the level of technology displayed I believe they WOULD have have had long range communication capability of reaching the sand village without requiring a hard cable connecting the two villages. And certainly there must be faster ways than sending a bloody bird.

Its possible, they clearly have electricity and power lines and such, so at the very least in village phones are easily within the lines of possibility, but as I said, during the 4th war, the most effective method they had for army communication revolved around psychic ninjas and giant water bubbles linking people together, or whatever the heck that whole deal was. Also yeah, its REALLY hard to judge distance travel speed when even as a rookie genin naruto is outrunning a train with a grown woman on his 12 year old back in a sprint. And he wasnt exactly known for his speed back then. But despite being able to dodge at near light speeds its not reasonable to extrapolate that they can marathon run at similar speed levels and even if they technically could jog at bullet train speeds 24/7, such as rock lee or might gai, they have to move as slow as the slowest member of their party can maintain and still be capable of battle at any given point on the trip. As for sending birds it is a funny mix of old and new tech isnt it? Trains and airships mixed with scrolls and messenger birds.

[Rodin]

At any rate, we've gone rather far from my original point. The schizo tech is clearly intentional, since we're in a universe where they apparently have made it all the way to miniaturized radio without discovering the wheel. Sasuke doesn't carry a cell phone with him because none of the ninja do, as that would break the medieval tech level the ninja fights are kept at. The level of civilian tech we see is totally incongruous with the military tech, all to justify one-vs-one wizard-ninja combat in an otherwise modern age setting. Exploiting high tech breaks that illusion.

[LaZodiac]

At any rate, we've gone rather far from my original point. The schizo tech is clearly intentional, since we're in a universe where they apparently have made it all the way to miniaturized radio without discovering the wheel. Sasuke doesn't carry a cell phone with him because none of the ninja do, as that would break the medieval tech level the ninja fights are kept at. The level of civilian tech we see is totally incongruous with the military tech, all to justify one-vs-one wizard-ninja combat in an otherwise modern age setting. Exploiting high tech breaks that illusion.

He canonically has a cell phone and doesn't charge it because he just forgets, though. Like, we can't just ignore that this is the reality of the world.

[Lord Raziere]

Of course none of this matters for this is fiction and almost all writers do not care to make their works scientifically accurate especially in a fantastical magical setting. Why the tech works or does not work does not matter. Just surrender and enjoy the flow.

no stop with that. I don't watch for the same reason as you, and I'm not going to be converted to your way of watching it.

I watch because I partly study to make stories and worlds myself. and thus I evaluate what makes worlds work and what doesn't. as well as to better understand these worlds for roleplays I conduct in them. I can't just ignore these things for your own preference of analysis. sure I like the cool shonen anime fights but if I want to understand them, I also need to understand the surrounding structure- and how it can be done better so I can do something similar to them to the best of my ability.