Naruto IX: [Epilogue Intensifies]

[Traab]

Ok finally, you are reaching the epic. The epic which makes much of this slog (probably not all of it) worth it. And yes, Gais papa is best papa. Manly men who do manly things to protect those precious to them!

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

The Eight Inner Gates Formation

FRACK, YEAH!

Guy verses Madara!

This is ridiculously awesome.

Guy kicks the freaking crap out of Madara - punches him, like some tens of metres into a hole. Madara is like "oh, wow, that actually hurt, better not let him punch me again!" He's clearly loving every minutes of it, the crazy bastard. (How the crap did his descendants become such stick-in-the-muds?)

Gaara, Kakashi and Minato pull a hell of supporting move to Kamui away hlaf of Madara little Spheres of Annhilation, and then Guy punches him hard enough to BREAK his shiels and smash hm the FRACK half-way across the battlefield!Unholy crap, this is amazing!

Madara stands up, wiping the blood off his face ans is like "this is so cool let's dance agan!"

Ya gotta be sort of proud that Madara is as excited to Might Giuy as Hashirama.

And then...

...we swtich out half-way through the episode to cut to Naruto meeting the Sage of Six Path's ghost.

WHAT.

WHAT, NO SHOW, DON'T DO THIS TO ME!

All that build-up for half an episode, seriously!

Dammit.

So, after some communication difficulties (Naruto being Naruto and the Sage being several centuries out of touch), we gte the whole "you are the reincarnation of Indra's chakra" guff. Woo.

The Sage of the Six Paths

Sasuke is getting this all too, and there's more of this for the first half the of the episode, as they wake up and SYMBOLISM!!!11!!1!!

And then back to the more interesting thing, Madara verses Guy!

Oh, Madara, he's having the best time ever, really he is.

Guy sgoes down to his Even Laster Resort, the move that will kill him.

Madara sees this coming and he's geninuely giddy with excitement and all "Madara Uchiha official endourses you as The Best At Tatijutsu Ever!" (aw, bless) and then Guys turns into a freaking CHAKRA dragon-thing and warps space/time or something HOW EVEN THE HELL and smacks Madara so hard and freaking hell what is this bahahahahahahaha!



When the smoke clears - the blast knocked Lee out of Six Gates, haha - Guy is down, as expected. Madara, is staggering up, regenerating his arm (and all his ribs because WOW that was a Mortal Kombat rib-break right there!) And he's all like "aha, you bastard, I almost died!" He's so happy about it, it's wonderful. He decides to finish Gy off rather than let him bleed chakra out - at which point, Naruto shows up.

Apparently Naruto is a Cleric (or possibly a Druid) now.

(Huh, I guess me modelling my Shikue Ryushin the ninja (mechanically a straight cleric/monk) wasn't that far off...!)

Guy totally earned that last-minute, res though.

Still, you don't get much higher praise than Madara, freaking Madara Uchiha coming out being like "you are the best!" Madara's clearly having the best day ever he's ever had and he is amazing.

(You may thank me for the mental image of Madara singing SpongeBob's Best Day Ever. It's what I do.)

The Ones Who Will Inherit

Aaand we interrupt the proceedings for another filler episode.

*eyeglow twitch*

*eyeglow twitch*

Stop laughing, Zodi!

This time we get to see Naruto training Konohameru on the rasangan. He gets as far as the first step before Naruto is called off for the rescuing of Gaara.

The first round fails, so Udon enlists the help of Kiba, Chouji and then Hinata to flatten him with their spinning attacks (or just air-palm in Hinata's case, since she doens't know rotation). Well. That... Okay, then.

After these failures, Kono thinks that to make it work, it must be related to the sexy jutsu.

Wait, what?

So the three of them go and...

Steal Ebisu's entire soft-core porn stash...?

...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Nevermind, this is bloody brilliant! We're back into Rock Lee's Ninja Pals terrotiry again (right down to the "idiot, idiot" birds).

Wow, seriously Ebisu, that's... A lot of porn (and apparently no nudity involved...)

So Kono manages the first step by transforming into the form of one of the girls out of one of the aforementioned mags and hula-ing his way to victory.

Naruto touches in, slightly bewilidered, but game for the next step, before he pops off to deal with the Saskue retreival arc.

And Team Ebisu can't decide on which girl best exemplifies power. So they corner - in the middle of a park, the unfortunate Ebisu and the innocently-bystanding Iruka. Oh dear. Despite getting one group clonk from Ebisu for their public use of sexy jutsu (Moegi oddly seems to take it all in stride - should we be worried?), Ebisu makes the misake of saying something that Kono completely mis-interprets (cue explosive nose-bleeds again), but that puts him one step closer to Naruto.

...

And apparently, this is at least a two-part arc.

Ah, who cares, is bloody funny, so it gets a pass. (If not as much of one as Mecha-Naruto...)

[Rater202]

Here's the thing, that's really just expanding on a joke from the main thing--this might have gotten cut in the Anime, but in theManga at least whenKonohamaru reveals that he knowsthe Rasengan and itcuts back to Naruto teaching him, Kono literally thought that Naruto was teaching him a new version of Sexy Jutsu.

Even Naruto was like "God, what's wrong with you? I mean a real technique," to paraphrase.

[LaZodiac]

I still ****ing hate that Naruto shows up and jesus's Guy back to life after his really badass sacrifice.

Let war have consequences!

[Rater202]

I still ****ing hate that Naruto shows up and jesus's Guy back to life after his really badass sacrifice.

Let war have consequences!

The thousands of mooks, Ino's and Shikamaru's dads, Gai's foot, and Neji werren't consequences enough?

The fact that Guy was willing to die on this hill is meaningful enough: Requiring him to actually die is just begging for blood for the blood god and we worship the Emperor on this forum.

[LaZodiac]

The thousands of mooks, Ino's and Shikamaru's dads, Gai's foot, and Neji werren't consequences enough?

The fact that Guy was willing to die on this hill is meaningful enough: Requiring him to actually die is just begging for blood for the blood god and we worship the Emperor on this forum.

I mean on the one hand speak for yourself (The Imperium of Man ****in' sucks) but on the other, I feel like Naruto showing up with legit god powers and healing the "if you use this it will kill you" effect is cheap as hell, especially given the gates were hyped up over the whole series as "if you use the final gate you will near obliterate everything in your path but you WILL die from it" and then Naruto can just go "lol nope".

Ino and Shikamaru's Dad's dying was cool, though we didn't know them as well as Might Guy and that's the concern. Likewise, Naruto heals basically all the faceless mooks that I'm aware of, though yes some certainly died and none of them matter since they're faceless mooks.

Neiji is the only character with any sort of actual care behind them who dies and that's kind of my issue. No one really dies who is worth more than a footnote but Neiji.

[Rater202]

The gates kind of do live up to their hype.

After using the 8th Gate, Gai is covered in second and third-degree burns and the foot he kickedMadara with literally crumbles off of him like ash from a burnt tree.

Naruto's literal God Powers can only stabilize Gai--after being healed by Naruto, Gai is still missing a foot and covered in third degree burns, and as we seein the Epilog he's confiend toa wheel chair and no longer has the strength to use any jutsu.

It took literal Godlike healing powers to just barely save Gai's life.

Seems like the 8th gate is, in fact, that dangerous.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean on the one hand speak for yourself (The Imperium of Man ****in' sucks)

Agreed.

but on the other, I feel like Naruto showing up with legit god powers and healing the "if you use this it will kill you" effect is cheap as hell, especially given the gates were hyped up over the whole series as "if you use the final gate you will near obliterate everything in your path but you WILL die from it" and then Naruto can just go "lol nope".

Ino and Shikamaru's Dad's dying was cool, though we didn't know them as well as Might Guy and that's the concern. Likewise, Naruto heals basically all the faceless mooks that I'm aware of, though yes some certainly died and none of them matter since they're faceless mooks.

Neiji is the only character with any sort of actual care behind them who dies and that's kind of my issue. No one really dies who is worth more than a footnote but Neiji.

yeah, that was kind of cheap and kind of makes the messiah-nization of Naruto real obvious and stupid. and I dislike it when you start messiahfying your characters. it gets too close to mary sueness to my tastes.

though to be fair.....Eight Gates mostly just following in the footsteps of Dragon Ball's Kaio-Ken: strain your body for ultimate power! potentially die from doing so! dying from that technique never actually happens in either series. flaws like that run in the shonen series family, and Naruto is nothing if not Dragon Ball's poser ninja son.

[Traab]

I honestly disagree, the fate of Gai did a great job of demonstrating the 8 gates, both what it grants you, and what it does to you. For that brief shining minute, Gai truly was on par with, over-matching even, the great madera uchiha himself. If it wasnt for stupid hax level regeneration he would have been half obliterated by that last attack, if he hadnt been crippled by the earlier one. And then we see what it costs him as his body starts literally turning to ash. He didnt have to die to drive that home, we could see it quite clearly.

Also, aotrs, so what did you think? Was Gai/madera suitably epic for you? I feel its one of the big damn hero moments of the arc, the scenes that help to make up for the utterly absurd flashbacks and time wasters, though not entirely. The main other one imo was the whole "Ok everyone! lets show off how much we have grown against the ten tailed beast stuck in this cage!" Where team seven reforms, kiba refuses to let them hog the spotlight, choji turns into a yoyo, etc.

[LaZodiac]

I honestly disagree, the fate of Gai did a great job of demonstrating the 8 gates, both what it grants you, and what it does to you. For that brief shining minute, Gai truly was on par with, over-matching even, the great madera uchiha himself. If it wasnt for stupid hax level regeneration he would have been half obliterated by that last attack, if he hadnt been crippled by the earlier one. And then we see what it costs him as his body starts literally turning to ash. He didnt have to die to drive that home, we could see it quite clearly.

Also, aotrs, so what did you think? Was Gai/madera suitably epic for you? I feel its one of the big damn hero moments of the arc, the scenes that help to make up for the utterly absurd flashbacks and time wasters, though not entirely. The main other one imo was the whole "Ok everyone! lets show off how much we have grown against the ten tailed beast stuck in this cage!" Where team seven reforms, kiba refuses to let them hog the spotlight, choji turns into a yoyo, etc.

I'm not saying it's not suitably epic.

I am saying that in a series where one of the main themes is "the old must pass on their will to the new" having Naruto be like "yeah actually you don't get to die Guy" was kinda undercutting the moment. It was a really cool moment that I really liked, it just...didn't make the dismount, so to say. It'd be like if Asuma survived what happened to him.

[Rater202]

I'm not saying it's not suitably epic.

I am saying that in a series where one of the main themes is "the old must pass on their will to the new" having Naruto be like "yeah actually you don't get to die Guy" was kinda undercutting the moment. It was a really cool moment that I really liked, it just...didn't make the dismount, so to say. It'd be like if Asuma survived what happened to him.

Gai was crippled.

Afterward he was forced to retire.

You're overly fixiated on one form of passing on your will to the next generation and ignoring that this is exactly what happened in Gai's case.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'd have preferred to have been, y'know longer (I mean, Lee and Gaara's fight which stills stands out as being one of the best in the series, lasted a couple of episodes), but it was pretty epic.



As I have often espoused, character-death-overuse is a concept that can quite frankly, frack off and die in a fire. More dead characters does not make the emotional impact more, it makes it WAY LESS, because there comes a point where you go, "right, don't care about what story toyre telling then writer."

Naruto, though, as a series is by FAR the best piece of media I have EVER SEEN or read at handling character death. Not only does it know how to threaten it convincingly, it also takes pains to make sure that a) those deaths LINGER, by which they are not just used as a thrown-away ploy for emotional manipulation or to show how bad-ass some new retcon Summers Brother is supposed to be, X-Men, but they are remembered and the effects of the death motivate the characters and drive them forwards, b) death isn't the end, since raising the dead is an actual thing, so it's not a waste of any remaining potential the character had or any stories left you had to tell, and most importanly c) Not. Over. Used. Sarutobi, Asuma, Jirayai, Neji in the foreground most of all; Shikaku and Inochi a step behind, Minato and Kushina in the background (since we only met them AFTER their deaths); Itachi being a bit of a special case. That's PLENTY.

(Lord of the Rings only needed one. The Belgariad/Mallorian only needed one. Neither Young Justice nor W.i.t.c.h needed ANY, and Avatar only had one very heavily implied of a secondary character (unless you count Space Sword). Naruto is much longer than those, so it is allowed to do it very slightly more often. (Live-action shows have to be given slightly more leeway, because actors leave.))

So, yes, Naruto (both the show and the character) is absolutely allowed do just barely fix some lethal damage that could otherwise be repaired by any adventuring party of mid-level with a cleric. (Especially, y'know, when said bad guy reserrected HIMSELF a couple of doze episodes or something ago, and the major part of this was was fought AGAINST partially reserrected people, and they even brought back dudes who had their souls eaten by the Grim freaking Reaper.)



I mean, it's munckining of the highest degree, so why the hell would I disapprove? How is it any different than the necromancer who uses a suicide technique at the cost of his life-force and then snags the necrotic energy released on death (the thing, that, y'know, makes ritual sacrifices work, in reality) to transform themself into a Lich? It's a properly delived F-you to Reality, which needs as many F-yous in the face as it can be given.

(Seriously, freakin' LICH, I have OPINIONS on permenant death, and how it can go to a very special place and perform a particularlly implausible sexual act on it self with a rusty, spiked object covered in acid, lightning, fire, laser, plasma and retrocasual metaconceptual annhilation beams.)

[Traab]

About making the fight longer... Im honestly not sure. The main point of the 8 gates is that it is a very very temporary ultra boost. Maybe with a longer lead up as he goes 7 gates and busts out his other fight ending moves, playing on the time of day/seasons theme he has. "Morning Peacock! High Noon Hippo! Mid Afternoon Mollusk!" Only to have madera be like "B*tch please. Im madera freaking uchiha, dont bring that weaksauce kung fu here!" THEN bust out gate 8 and continue his escalating attacks from there till we get Night Gai! Where he kicks so hard it warps time and space! "Thats right, you wanted my best? Im a mutha &*^%*&^ sentient BLACK HOLE here to mess you the eff up, maddy mc chi chi!" 9 months later every woman in the elemental nations gives birth to babies with huge eyebrows. Nobody minds.

[LaZodiac]

Gai was crippled.

Afterward he was forced to retire.

You're overly fixiated on one form of passing on your will to the next generation and ignoring that this is exactly what happened in Gai's case.

Eeeh, I don't know. It just felt weak to me to be like "yeah but he gets to live because Naruto heals him". I AM more annoyed about the other healing things Naruto does, but fair.

And I forgot Guy was retired and crippled after this.

I just feel it's a little annoying that this massive Ninja War happens and the only real death we care about is Neiji and maybe two dads. I don't want it to be grimdark, I just don't wanta Naruto to show up and ninja jesus everyone who was hurt or dying because that's really dumb.

[khadgar567]

well, there are eleven arcs remaining for bleakbane to reach current arc good thing is we still have Madara caliber enemies in future and few intro arcs can be bypassed if you want only fights remaining on the schedule is bromans vs Madara and team 7 vs Kaguya then its basically boruto era. looks like bleakbane might reach us in hopefully in summer. besides looks like the third generation of sannin gonna still might inherit their teacher summoning contracts since borutos contract ended via fulfillment of its main reason. and let's not forget what bleakbane wants might be done in boruto era as one of the kages dies in one arc( just for safety i am not gonna name either arc or character). and there is bit of plot fixing going on boruto as kara's main toys slowly explained in current arc of anime. well all in all its good series to jump areas.

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

Naruto's Rival

Not much to say here really - more of Konohameru working his way through the Rasengan, culminating in him panelling Pain, and then revealing he'd carefully squirreled away Naruto's old jacket so it wasn't destroyed.

Major snerk was that Kakashi had clearly had Yamato create him a wooden bench to laze on.

Back to plot!

To Rise Up

Naruto saves Guy, and then goes on the offensive, starting off with a friggin' massive LAVA-chakra rasangan, that Madra fails to stop.

It also cuts the fracking TREE down.

Madra is looking up, "h, this is abd happen" writ all over his face as the tree starts falli' in his noggin. Then he hears a voice telling him to absorb the tree. So he does.

Naruto dumps Guy with Gaara and Lee and then heads back, in time to show up with Saskue.

And we are treated, for once, to no flashbacks, just Naruto, Saskue and Madara waling on each other (by which I mean carefully analysing each other's move and fighting smart). Madara's invisible ethereal shadow clone doofers turn out to be not that inivisble, since Naruto can sense then and Saskue his a rinnegan now (because sure, why not, but it's not like Madara pulled that stunt already, so fine).

After having to substitute his shadow when he's somehow yoinked between Naruto and Saskue's enhanced rasengan and chidori, Madra pegs it over to Kakashi and pulls his eye out and plops it in like is was a friggin' slooted item.

Does't stop Saskue from slicing him in half, but not fast enough for Madara to kamui away.

And we are treated to a complete de-rail and character assassination of Sakura, as at the moment, Obito is like "quickly, stab my left eye and destroy the rinngegan before Madara comes and gets it."

And.

She.

Doesn't.

She HESTITATES.

Fracking COME ON, she's a bloody MEDICAL ninja, she cannot POSSIBLY be squimish about this, especially on an enemy when the entire world is at stake. I stand gobsmacked at this bit of idiocy. It's even utterly unecessary narratively - they could just have Obito not having said it quiet fast enough; have him battle with Black Zetsu to get the words out, and Sakura only hears at the last second as he just wins - co-incidently just as Madara arrives. The effect would have been just the same, except it wouldn't make Sakura like a complete [copulation]wit who nearly got the world ended because she couldn't bring herself to stab a guy. I mean, she's a FREAKING NINJA!!!!!

*skulldesk*

The Infinite Dream

So, no. Obito kamui's her out of the way of Madara back into reality. Team Seven meet up; Naruto clearly just got Heal and Regeneration on his level-up since h just heals Kakashi instantly. (Really, now Sakura can't even have that...!)

Meanwhile, Madraa has a good old gloat (with flashbacks - well, we got one episode with out'em...) to Obito about how he set everything up and Obito was a hapless patsy who he picked simply BECAUSE he was too empathic. (Gotts love Madara, I really do. He's just great.)

Kakashi has some old "and now they all grew-up flashbacks, and then Madara pops back in, with both eyes this time, and Black Zetsu-controlled Obito in tow.

Sakura is a little shaken (I mean, who wouldn't be?) but then kicks off the Mitotic Regeneration and then charges right at him, to Naruto's surprise.

She takes a hit right through the chest, but when all three of them land their attacks... Madara had just got four shadows now.

Madara goes "right enough of this [excrement], time to go win" and just flies up.

Then he fires off Catastropic Planetary Devastation.

Which is frecking AMAZING attack name, the sort of thing I'D come up with myself (no, really, I have several spells I wanna create someday which have exactly that sort of cadance and impact). That has got to be the coolest jutsu name ever, I'm sorry.

It is also stupenously stupid, because it's like multple clack holes making massive asteroids to rain down on the battlefield.

Sakura is instantly useless again (SERIOUSLY show, you are all about, "look how she's grown" and the IMMEDIATELY sideline her after one failed attack, SURELY you could have let her bloody just punch one apart or something COME ON), while Naturo's shadowclones duel Madara's shadows and Naruto blows on up wth a beast-bomb rasashuriken and Sasuke just flies up with Susan and just starts cutting them apart.

But it doesn't matter, since Madara flies further up, rips his bone forehead protector demon thingy off to open a third sharigan/beast eye in his forehead to activate the Infinite Tsukinome.

Well, that went downhill fast. (Mind you, if Madara had not had his jollies first, we could have been here ages ago, but where would the fun in that be!)



Apparently the show and Kishi just really hate Sakura for some reason (probably why they paired her off with Saskue in the end, as a punishment - he didn't even blink when she got stabbed...); there seems an almosy preverse pleasure they take in going "right, now Sakura can do somethig incredible to be on a par with the boys - ahaha, fooled you, she's effectively just as useless as when she started, despite all her drive, determination and hard work! Serves her right for being a girl!"

It's kind of starting to frack me off in a major way.

[LaZodiac]

Sakura gets the shortest stick in the pile from this ****ing finale and I hate it.

Catastrophic Planetary Devestation is great because the first time it's used is against the Kage's and the Tsuchikage blocks it and in an LP of Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 one of the commentators says in a joking voice "And then I just summon another one" and the actual LPer busts a gut laughing because that's what actually happens and it's ****ing hilarious.

[Ramza00]

Fracking COME ON, she's a bloody MEDICAL ninja, she cannot POSSIBLY be squimish about this, especially on an enemy when the entire world is at stake. I stand gobsmacked at this bit of idiocy. It's even utterly unecessary narratively - they could just have Obito not having said it quiet fast enough; have him battle with Black Zetsu to get the words out, and Sakura only hears at the last second as he just wins - co-incidently just as Madara arrives. The effect would have been just the same, except it wouldn't make Sakura like a complete [copulation]wit who nearly got the world ended because she couldn't bring herself to stab a guy. I mean, she's a FREAKING NINJA!!!!!

*skulldesk*

Let's be honest even if Sakura did destroy the Rinnegan it would not be destroyed due to plot and the insane powers already introduced so far that can undo said damage. For example Madara could use one of the Kakashi / Obito Mangekyou Sharingan to Izangai / Rewind time and repair the Rinnegan much like Thanos did in Infinity War.

It's kind of starting to frack me off in a major way.

Yes.

Sakura is Told (but never shown) to be extremely intelligent, and to have excellent Chakra control that could make her do things like be an expert at Genjutsu. Do we ever see her gain such abilities, or use existing abilities in practice? The answer is no.

She should be as intelligent / crafty of fighter as Sasuke, or be able to pull off a surprise or two like Naruto, yet she never really shines. She is pure support or punching people, she is a walking object like she is an NPC instead of a main protagonist.

Sakura is a horrible character for she is everything wrong with bad show bad tell. She is a disappointment, and it is all the writers / storytellers fault for setting up expectations and then disappointing us again and again.

[LaZodiac]

In a proper and good world Sakura would of sliced out Obito's eye before he even finished asking her to do it.

[Ramza00]

In a proper and good world Sakura would of sliced out Obito's eye before he even finished asking her to do it.

Yes.

(Insert random words for I need 6 more characters)

[Aotrs Commander]

If they weren't being so grossly unfair, she'd have sliced it out before he even STARTED asking, the moment Naruto was alive and safe.

This is one of those moment so gratuitious, you can't blame it the character, because it's so blatently poor (and completely unexplained) that the other thing I can see is the man behind the curtain and completely obviates the immersion.

[Traab]

Forget slice, she can punch mountains, she could gooify obitos entire head so fast he doesnt even have time to register his new status as a two dimensional figure (literally, instead of figuratively) I mean, we have already seen bonkers regen by madera, for all we know a stabbed eye is meaningless to him, just cram both halves into his socket and let his zetsu bits heal the damage.

[Aotrs Commander]

Forget slice, she can punch mountains, she could gooify obitos entire head so fast he doesnt even have time to register his new status as a two dimensional figure (literally, instead of figuratively) I mean, we have already seen bonkers regen by madera, for all we know a stabbed eye is meaningless to him, just cram both halves into his socket and let his zetsu bits heal the damage.

Actually better narrative point you have - LET her stab him in the eye and thus not look imcompetant and then have Madara just frackin' HAX his way around that. I mean, he was floating in mid-air after literally being cut in half by Sasuke, some eye regen is hardly impossible (seeing as Naruto also LITERALLY just did that to Kakashi!)

[Traab]

Actually better narrative point you have - LET her stab him in the eye and thus not look imcompetant and then have Madara just frackin' HAX his way around that. I mean, he was floating in mid-air after literally being cut in half by Sasuke, some eye regen is hardly impossible (seeing as Naruto also LITERALLY just did that to Kakashi!)

Yeah there we go, thats the best of all worlds. Sakura doesnt look like a useless piece of trash, and her contribution still doesnt stop maddy mc trollface from achieving FULL POWA!!!

[Rater202]

I can't help but feel that if that had happened you'd all be complaining about her contributions amounting to nothing.

Also, preforming surgery is psychologically different from stabbing somebody in the eye. While Obito was their enemy earlier that day he was their ally then and "stabbing an ally int he faced" is one of the things Ninja are conditioned against doing.

[Aotrs Commander]

I can't help but feel that if that had happened you'd all be complaining about her contributions amounting to nothing.

You mean, like Guy's?

Because, let's remember, that IS all that amounted to.



So, me? No, I wouldn't have, because it would have shown a level of professionalism. Yes, we all know Madara is going to get it anyway; whcih would be true even if I already didn't know and it wasn't painfully obvious from the list of episode titles.

Her hestiating for NO GIVEN REASON is just utterly assinine story-telling that there is no justifying in universe, because it's an inexcusable, unavoidable WRITER frack-up.

[Traab]

You mean, like Guy's?

Because, let's remember, that IS all that amounted to.



So, me? No, I wouldn't have, because it would have shown a level of professionalism. Yes, we all know Madara is going to get it anyway; whcih would be true even if I already didn't know and it wasn't painfully obvious from the list of episode titles.

Her hestiating for NO GIVEN REASON is just utterly assinine story-telling that there is no justifying in universe, because it's an inexcusable, unavoidable WRITER frack-up.

Actually its entirely in character, its just that her character is TERRIBLE. She is NOT an experienced combatant. She is a former fangirl who got serious and became a doctor. A doctor who can punch things sure, but she doesnt have even remotely the same experience as naruto or sasuke have in making calls like that. Remember, this was the girl who, upon the reuniting of team seven and her declaration that she wouldnt be left behind to stare at their backs again... STAYED BEHIND STARING AT THEIR BACKS! Yeah it was so she could heal literally everyone still alive, which is awesome, but its not combat. I mean yeah it proved she wasnt just a burden, someone of no value just there to be protected, but it was done really stupid. This is sakura, she isnt a real veteran of life or death struggles. She is a field medic who spends 95% of her time healing injuries, not inflicting them, so its natural for her to hesitate when told to put out his eye like that. Yes it was the wrong move, yes there were options she could and should have chosen, but it was a part of her character. And... too be fair... naruto wouldnt have just gone "Ok" /SCHLUCK! either. SASUKE would have done it in a heartbeat. But he is a brain damaged ptsd suffering lunatic, so maybe not the best example of rational thinking.

[Ramza00]

Actually its entirely in character, its just that her character is TERRIBLE. She is NOT an experienced combatant. She is a former fangirl who got serious and became a doctor. A doctor who can punch things sure, but she doesnt have even remotely the same experience as naruto or sasuke have in making calls like that. Remember, this was the girl who, upon the reuniting of team seven and her declaration that she wouldnt be left behind to stare at their backs again... STAYED BEHIND STARING AT THEIR BACKS! Yeah it was so she could heal literally everyone still alive, which is awesome, but its not combat. I mean yeah it proved she wasnt just a burden, someone of no value just there to be protected, but it was done really stupid. This is sakura, she isnt a real veteran of life or death struggles. She is a field medic who spends 95% of her time healing injuries, not inflicting them, so its natural for her to hesitate when told to put out his eye like that. Yes it was the wrong move, yes there were options she could and should have chosen, but it was a part of her character. And... too be fair... naruto wouldnt have just gone "Ok" /SCHLUCK! either. SASUKE would have done it in a heartbeat. But he is a brain damaged ptsd suffering lunatic, so maybe not the best example of rational thinking.

We need to reintroduce the two sides of Sakura's personality again. While one side is fan-girl with her crushes and this side is also a combat medic / do not harm^{or try best to do not harm.}

The other side of Sakura would have tried to stop Obito and destroy the Rinnegan. I need this Sakura to take control and yell Shannarō followed by a Smash. Come on stop being a Dr. Jekyll unleash the Ms. Hyde!



Effectively we need a Captain America on Team 7 to tell Sakura (I mean Hulk) to Smash. Instead of a Captain America we instead get a Sasuke who is not a team player and he merely complains and states Usuratonkachi !

[Lord Raziere]

Honestly, while I like Naruto, in a good and proper world as some would say, so many changes would have to be made to make it better, that Sakura's little act there would be far too late to start.

Like I can't even list them all, because it'd be a very long list of changes. the setting of Naruto is good in broad strokes and when its not breaking the setting with its own in-universe optimizers/haxxers of Shippuden or the Otsutsuki clan of Boruto.

as far as fixing goes, it could go a lot of directions depending on what you want.

[LaZodiac]

We need to reintroduce the two sides of Sakura's personality again. While one side is fan-girl with her crushes and this side is also a combat medic / do not harm^{or try best to do not harm.}

The other side of Sakura would have tried to stop Obito and destroy the Rinnegan. I need this Sakura to take control and yell Shannarō followed by a Smash. Come on stop being a Dr. Jekyll unleash the Ms. Hyde!



Effectively we need a Captain America on Team 7 to tell Sakura (I mean Hulk) to Smash. Instead of a Captain America we instead get a Sasuke who is not a team player and he merely complains and states Usuratonkachi !

The reason why her Shannaro personality vanished is because she learned how to show her true self.

At least that was the intent. It never amounted to anything, sadly.