I wonder what the effect would be if Naruto and Bleach switched writers. :smallamused:
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I wonder what the effect would be if Naruto and Bleach switched writers. :smallamused:
Naruto would get better art about 70% of the time, but Bleach would actually have a good story. I'll give Kishimoto this, he knows how to use side characters.
If Kubo was writing Naruto, Naruto would be fighting this entire fight againest Obito and Madara solo right now. And winning.
Eh, I wouldn't describe the reception to be that bad. Naruto's taken a hit, but it's a hit from being consistently in the top 5 of weekly Jump's polls to going anywhere between 3 and 9 out of ~20 series. That #9 placing was listed in issue 40, which means that was the placing for the chapter serialized in issue 32.... so, anybody remembers what happened 21 issues ago?
Also, recently there's been a new strong competitor for regular top 5 placement; Assassination Classroom.
As opposed to Bleach which has placed anywhere between 9 and 18 for the past 3/4 of the year at least.
Edit: For that matter, Naruto volume sales are still holding at the 1 to 1.2 million mark, looking at 2011 and 2012 top sellers lists.
Pain was going to use them as a nuclear deterrent he was just going to drop the bomb a few (dozen) times first so that everyone could feel his pain. Most likely on all the ninja villages at the least being a more extreme example of wiping out the bloodline abilities to prevent war. You aren’t supposed to like him but he was still a better villain than any of the Uchia.
Oh, yea, Bleach isn't so hot anymore. It's still fine sales-wise, but it's declining and hasn't been anything special* in a couple of years at the very least. I personally think that the main reason it's doing mediocre as opposed to flat out bad in the polls is that it still has inertia from its fanbase, thus beating out those poor newcomer saps who aren't instant hits.
*special being 7 digits, or at least being noticably ahead of the pack
'sfar as I know, Naruto continues to be ranked at #2 (rarely #3 at times) of the top-selling manga in Japan, and outside of Japan it ranks higher than One Piece. The only way in which it is not a top manga is if you compare it to how One Piece is doing in Japan, but no other manga ever would be called a top manga when compared to that.
I was primarily talking about just the writing, not the art, but thinking about it, if they'd team up after being done with Naruto and Bleach, with Kubo doing the art and Kishimoto doing the writing, things could turn out well. :smallamused:
Not just story- and art-wise, but also for themselves, because collaborations might not score super-high a lot, but they're always scoring pretty decently, and very few mangaka have managed to have that level of success with any work after finishing their one hit manga series.
Toriyama is, as always, one of these happy few.
Over the last couple of years, on a per-volume basis, Naruto's been flip flopping with Kimi ni Todoke for #2/#3. Close enough together that one can just say they tie.
I actually really liked his plan. Well, no. I hated it, but I liked it.
Because here you have Pain treating the Tailed Beasts like nuclear weapons. And in so doing, approaching them in a way that is not very much unlike how we treat them in real life. What you have here then, is some kind of cross between Adrian Veidt and RL Nuclear Deterrence: Demonstrate a weapon so terrible and powerful that people will stop fighting out of fear of it. The difference with Pain, is that he knows it won't work forever. And eventually it will be used again. Only when it is, people will learn to fear it all over again and peace will resume for a time.
Given that his home was perpetually war-torn, it's no surprise he might see brief flurries of destruction with intermittent peace to be an improvement.
It's not supposed to be a plan that makes you feel good. It's not supposed to be a path to peace. It's the path of someone so cynical that he doesn't believe it's possible to get closer to peace than that.
I liked Pain and I still think that he was the best villain in Naruto, Orochimaru coming close second. Obito's revalation was disappointment in retrospect. It was commented by Naruto how Pain wanted peace by any means nesseccery, and that Tobi was different. Pain's back story was that he was traumatized by his loss of parents, and later became bitter when Yahiko died.
For Obito, dead of Rin is enough to send him reeling to the dark side. To me both his motivation and plan seem like watered down versions of Pain's. Pain wants peace, Obito wants pleasant dreams, which can be seen to have similar effect.
We still don't know Madara. He's around by accident and still hasn't lost his calm, sardonic demeanor. There's plenty untapped potential there.
@Aotrs Commander
Pain's plan with the tailed beast is to make a nuclear wmd with that power. Have countries use that wmd to kill people and because the weapon is so horrible...
There will be finally peace due to MAD.
And with this peace the world will be good and it will heal. Pain though is so cynical of life that he believes this peace will not last forever and then that there will be death and destruction again and war will return. His plan is to teach the world enough about pain that there will be peace for some time at least.
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Now you have not see the entire history of Pain yet Aotrs Commander but seeing the **** Pain has gone through as well as his country of rain (a little country stuck between three different superpowers, thus the other countries wars become the country's of rain war) and you might understand why Pain is so cynical with life. Of course he could have always committed suicide and end his suffering for his life is so ****ty, but people with a god complex don't commit suicide
Spoilers
SpoilerActually the why Obitio turns bad is very well done, what happened to him with Rin's death literally breaks his philosophy extremely well.
He is left a broken shell of a boy, a boy who has his entire world completely broken and shaken.
What is not well done is showing how Madara then picks up the pieces and shapes Obitio into becoming Tobi.
- Pretty much Obitio's fall is well done
- Tobi's accession is not well done
- There is literally no explanation of what Tobi does for 15 years until part 2 of the manga.
- The explanation of Tobi/Obitio being the real Mizukage is not well done
- There is no good explanation why Tobi couldn't just kidnap a baby Naruto.
- There is no explanation on why Tobi was involved with the Uchihia massacre.
- There is a good flashback of Tobi fighting the fourth making the fight seem more poetic for you now understand why he attacked the villiage
I have a personal fan hand waving explanation on why Tobi didn't capture Naruto as a baby...it doesn't really work well but it works better than the current storyline. I am going to put it into a spoiler block for I know Aotrs Commander is not far enough in the story. Do not read this Aotrs Commander
SpoilerAfter the fourth hokage died granting Naruto the Kyubi, Tobi had no way to extra the Kyubi quickly from Naruto. Unlike Naruto's mom, Naruto a boy and thus could not get pregnant and have a child birth, thus if you wanted to extract the Kyubi you would need several S Class ninja and at least 3 day's time with the Gedō Mazō.
Well while Tobi can teleport pretty much anywhere at will at any time, even taking baby Naruto with him there was no way for him to extract the Kyubi without staying at one place for 3 days with several S Class ninja. Thus if anybody could find Tobi during those 3 days he was vulnerable to being attacked if he ever kidnapped Naruto.
No ninja that was normal could find Tobi, for pete sake he stay hidden as an unknown character for 15 years.
The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, is not a normal ninja. The Third Hokage had an incredible power a power so powerful that to my knowledge we have not seen anybody else in the manga with a similar power (besides the great toad sage). The power is known in D&D as
SCRY AND DIE
With his telescope technique (aka crystal ball) the Third Hokage can easily track the baby naruto if he was kidnapped. The Third Hokage may know nothing about Tobi who was the masked man that attacked the villiage during the night of the kyubi incident, but if the kyubi jinchūriki suddenly disapeared, then the third as well as teams of jonin could easily track Naruto down and deal with the kidnapper Tobi. By kidnapping Naruto Tobi would be reveling himself to the world, and revealing himself to the world would lead to Tobi's death.
The only way to survive as a missing nin even someone as strong as a Akatsuki member is to be either 1) non important 2) be invisible or 3) be constantly on the move. Even someone such as Orichimaru a sannin and a strong former Akatsuki member had to be moving constantly from hidden base to hidden base or else he would be assassinated. A couple of team of jonins can kill anybody in this series, the second hokage was killed by 20 jonin, this was the strongest (or second) strongest water user in the series as well as an expert at time/space ninjutsu and a practioner of edo tensai.
Thus there would be little reason for Tobi to kidnap Naruto if he couldn't get the Kyubi himself, there would only be risk without gain. This is one reason why Naruto's mom being pregnant was a perfect oppurtunity. Tobi could kidnap the Nine Tails, bind it to his will and then use it to destroy Konoha. Even if the nine tails couldn't destroy Konoha, in theory Tobi could retreat and he wouldn't be trackable (as long as he eliminates the fourth who has seen him) for the third hokage never saw the masked man and we don't know of the telescope technique can work on the Kyubi who is not like a normal human but instead is just a chakra beast. It is also possible that Tobi could just keep the Kyubi "in the void" that you appear to be able to do with the summoning technique (for example Sasuke was in the void after Manda was defeated until Manda was resummoned by Suigetsu).
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Furthermore even though Tobi knows of Gedo Mazo, Tobi himself doesn't sync with Gedo Mazo until after obtaining 1 of Pain's rinnegan. You need three things to sync with Gedo Mazo 1) Uchihia DNA, 2) Sensu DNA, and 3) a Rinnegan. Until after Pain's death Tobi lacked the Rinnegan.
Thus Tobi has to spend 15 years creating the organization Akatsuki. He purposefully befriends Yahiko for he needs Nagato for Nagato's Rinnegan is critical for the revival of the ten tails. Eventually Yahiko actions and eventually Yahiko's death causes Nagato to bind himself with the Gedo Mazo as well as become recepetive to Tobi's words.
Notice that Itachi and Kisame do not try to kidnap Narato until after the Third Hokage's death (Itachi is aware when the Third Hokage has died for his main reason of attending is checking up on Danzo and remdinding Danzo that he is still alive even though the Third is not so don't hurt Sasuke.)
Now I do not have any rational on why it takes 3 years before Akatsuke start tracking down the other tailed beast between years 12 to 15. I understand why they didn't go after Naruto since Naruto is almost always after Jirarya but you can't make the same excuse for the other Jinchūriki. At the end of Part 1 we see 9 Akatsuki members do their astral projection meeting stating Orochimaru has gotten the Sharingan but it is no matter for if they work together they can easily capture all 9 tailed beast in the next 3 years as well as elimiate orichmaru.
In retrospect, that might be a bad idea. Maybe just have Kubo do the characters, and have Kishi do the backgrounds. Because as we all know, Kubo isn't afraid of dipping an entire page in black and writing the title name on it and THATS IT for the page. Or leaving it entirely blank except for "THE HEART" written on it.
THE HEART!
You know, I did like Pain's plan back then but compared to the Uchiha's it's really stupid. You kill a few thousand people and hope the others will be too afraid to keep fighting? Mind-raping everyone into being peaceful seems to make much more sense within the story to me.
You are not thinking in the right scale, Pain's goal was to share the pain he had experienced with the entire world, thats not going to stop at a few thousand people, 20-30% of the worlds population is more likely.Quote:
You know, I did like Pain's plan back then but compared to the Uchiha's it's really stupid. You kill a few thousand people and hope the others will be too afraid to keep fighting? Mind-raping everyone into being peaceful seems to make much more sense within the story to me.
And thats whats suposed to scare people away from more war.
Yeah, and that was after most of the fighting was done, you cant really compare that situation to the one Pain was stuck in.Quote:
I dunno. Nuking two cities did pretty well in ending the Pacific front of WWII.
Mind controlling everyone into creating a lasting peace is the Deus Ex Machina solution, and a pretty stupid one at that, considering how unlikely it sounds.Quote:
And mind raping everyone keeps the damage to a minimum and supposedly works forever. Or until Madara dies, whenever that is.
Another major difference is that Pain would have control over what is basically a nuke that can recharge itself and be used again and again. After two uses and some spreading of the word, things would clear up well enough. After that his biggest problem would likely be his own death, since then there'd be nobody with control over the Gedo Mazo (at least, from his point of view; other than Obito maybe, who also isn't immortal).
Considering Pein's motivation for attacking the leaf in the way he did was literally "Jiriaya killed my DOG when I was little!", everybody runs around in snidely whiplash capes and twirls mustaches ominously in naruto when they are bad.
Okay, so this chapter was awesome.
SpoilerGreat work on part of Shikaku.
Ah, new chapter was good. I wonder how long this will work... (why not totally drown the juubi to begin with?) but it was a nice joint effort... and now can we get to the serious fighting, pretty please?
SpoilerI am surprised there are so many of the Sarutobi clan. I figured Konohamaru might have his parents still alive but that was much more then I thought there would be.
so now it's 2 ninjas against whole alliance of ninjas? Really? are these people dumb or something? Didn't they hear about inverse ninja law?
You have got to be kidding me. When was the last time any side character in Naruto did anything meaningful at all? Hell, we spent something like 10 chapters reading about the Five Kage fighting Madara, only for Madara to first pull out the Super Susano'o of Doom (thereby rendering the whole fight pointless, if he could have just mopped the floor with them anytime he wanted) and then, to add insult to injury, defeat them offscreen.
This is still better then what Kubo does with his side characters.
Also, to answer your question, this chapter. It was basically all side characters getting together to completely immobilize the ten tailed beast. It even had Shino's clan of bug dudes being specificly mentioned.
For crying out loud, Ino saved Naruto's life last chapter.
Freaking Ino.
Mind you, she is one my favorite characters (love her design), but she is very very minor.
Heck, it even introduces side characters that weren't even really significant enough to be mentioned as side characters before, in the form of the Sarutobi clan (that is, the members beyond Hiruzen, Asuma and Konohamaru), as well as other members of Darui's clan. Good thing about that, since there've been a little too many characters with Kekkei Genkai who were the only ones mentioned to have it. (Though in some cases that might've been unique jutsu instead.)
The guys from Darui's clan seem to be using a bloodline, since it's called Ranton instead of Raiton.
Yeah, and next chapter that will somehow be rendered null by Madara, Tobi or the Juubi.
Having a side character do something "cool" one chapter, only for it to be shown to have been completely useless the next one, isn't "knowing how to use side characters". See: Five Kage vs. Madara.
The latest chapters have been bloody -epic-. Best part of the new half of the series... the -ENTIRE- -Freaking- -WORLD- teaming up... that scene's going to be made of awesome in the anime.
I'm not even worried that there's a chance that, due to the whole hypnosis thing, Madara, Tobito, or the Beast might pull an Aizen on us.
I'm just worried that Kishimoto's gonna pull a Kubo and troll us with a chapter about Sauce-Boss and Pedo-Snake, right when we're in the middle of the good part....
Also, has anyone beaten me at this thread yet? Just out of curiosity.
Unfortunately, it seems highly likely to me that sasuke will get another chapter or two fairly soon. After all, it wouldnt make much sense to basically ignore his existence until after everything is over. If he was captured, or not involved with this battle then sure, but im picturing him possibly making an entrance and doing something crazy like using his own kamui to absorb a major juubi attack and save naruto or otherwise make a huge entrance. Maybe set the jyuubis face on fire with amaterasu to distract him.
I don't think Sasuke even has Kamui.
What? Of course Sasuke has Kamui. And the Rasengan. And Sage powers.
The phrase "Sasuke does not have..." doesn't exist in Kishimoto's vocabulary. (Well, except in "Sasuke does not have a family", but apart from that...)
*skullpalm*
So, watched up to the first half of Madara's rather dull monologue on Itachi. Sasuke is even more of a moron than I'd given him credit for. He even outright tells Madara he's completely untrustworthy, and then believes every word he says (despite Madara basically saying he wanted to rule the village when no-one else, not even the Uchiha, would back him and tried a single-handed coup).
I found Madara claiming his brother gave him his eyes willingly to be hilarious, especially as two minutes prior he copped to stealing them. And passing off the Nine Tail's attack as a natural incident was the icing on the cake. I can only assume Tobi/Madara/Obito went away after that little talk somewhere quiet and laughed himself stupid at all his brazen lies and Sasuke's complete gullibility.
Also, no amount of "he did it to protect his brother" is going to de-villainise Itachi, guys; he mindraped an already traumatised child into insanity twice, and thanks to making Sasuke quite legitimately insane, completely and utterly failed in his goals. Imbecile...
I can see Sasuke coming in and hugging Madara because that's his zombie-grandpa, and he might not get to say hi again. He's getting that insane. Or he'll break up the epic battle action with some random side-plot that takes two years. Could go either way.
As for the side-characters thing, yeah, this is a great moment to give a lot of the cast a showcase, because...a lot of them are about to DIE. It's a sendoff. They're mid-level characters up against a lich and a near-epic sorcerer standing on top of something like the Terrasque. Bad things are coming. >.<
I agree with the itachi thing. I could ALMOST buy it, if the supposed genius hadnt gone out of his way to shatter his little brothers mind on more than one occasion. The whole village coup story was a good one, and it really could have made sense, if instead of mind raping his little brother, he had just made a speech similar to the one in kill bill where the black woman got killed and beatrice spoke to the daughter. Something like, "The family was weak. I am leaving you alive on a whim. If you want to survive, get strong, then kill me. If not, I will come for you and finish the job." There, no mind shattering torture, give him a life or death goal to chase after, and an ultimatum that ensures he doesnt slack off.
That second meeting is a bit trickier though. How do you inspire him to keep on improving without taking a dive? Maybe let him land a very minor scratch before you beat him half to death? Just enough to let him see that the gap is closing, even if only slightly?
To be honest, I think it's just that Kishi isn't that good a writer. The thing is, it's hard to judge whether a bad part of a story is there because the writer retconned something for some reason or whether he's just not as good a writer. And few will come forward and admit "yeah, I should have done XY instead"... From what I know about Naruto I feel Kishi just doesn't think things through all the time... most of the time..
Naruto has quite a few of these things which seem really stupid for a character to do but if you just assume Kishi didn't plan it through to begin with they make much more sense. Like almost all of Naruto's backstory is as holey as a Swiss cheese but it was obciously planned from the beginning that his father was the Fourth etc.
Well, Kishi HAS gone on the record saying that he, himself, considers himself to be a terrible writer. So make of that what you will.
I think the problem is that he just needs to focus on the smaller, more personal things. The Zabuza arc is fantastic and if the rest of the series was of that quality it'd be more deserving of the spot it currently holds.
I think he'd do better if he stopped trying to make the bad guys sympathetic/tragic, because he just cannot do that even remotely well. His best bad guys weren't, or were until he went crazy with them. (Zabuza wasn't particularly sympathetic in backstory, but his relationship with Haku worked. Raiga, though, later... Not so much.)
And if he stopped trying to do so many retcon reveals; this thing with Madara seems completely unecessary; he could have left Tobi as Madara and it would have made much more sense. Less is more with that sort of thing. A small handful, really well done, would have been that what we appear to have.
I think maybe in that specific case it wasn't foreshadowed well, or, to be clearer, rather, it was foreshadowed too obviously. I clearly remember before the first Madara reveal, that one very popular fan theory was Tobi was Obito. So I may be doing him a slight diservice. Thinking on it, I now wonder if, if indeed this was the plan all along (and it might well have been, given Tobi/Obito's design), whether Kishi realised he'd just made it too obvious, so he threw in Tobi pretending to be Madara as a bit of a red herring to muddy the issue. Trouble is, that kinda backfired, so instead of having Tobi-is-Obito as an open secret, we get some narrative juggling around which doesn't work very well either, as it now seems more contrived. (Bit of a lose-lose situation, I fear.) I think he might just have over-played his hand a bit with Tobi (he probably should have been a touch more subtle), if this was his grand plan.
I'm thus willing to concede that it might have been coming from a somewhat poorly-handled attempt at narrative obfuscation rather than an M Night Shamallamaheynonnoyno Plot Twist pulled out of nowhere.