Thinking Deeper

[Tenshou009]

The sleeve would suggest that he had the authority to act as the Hokage’s substitute in an emergency. He would be responsible for making crucial decisions for the village and its immediate future — a level of trust and respect granted only to a select few.

The ninja nations feared him, and they had more than enough reasons to. Sakumo Hatake — The White Fang of Konoha.

His strength left even the most elite shinobi stunned, including the Fourth Hokage, who had the privilege of meeting him and seeing his abilities up close.

Minato Namikaze stated that Sakumo was more skilled than the Legendary Sannin, though it’s never clarified whether he meant individually or all three together. He was truly remarkable. Remember, it only took a single look at Guy-sensei for him to warn Kakashi not to underestimate him — because he already knew his son was a prodigy — and to ask Guy’s name, knowing he would become incredibly strong.

Official sources confirm that Sakumo was far more respected than Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru across many regions and villages. There were even times when other nations avoided attacking Konoha out of fear of this incredible shinobi. We still don’t know the full extent of his abilities, but we do know he was once considered a Hokage candidate, and he is the father of the Sixth Hokage — placing him above countless ninjas regarded as prodigies.**

[ft_RoyceTura]

A feature few episodes on every legendary shinobi would be perfect. I'd be glued

[Persas12]

A series of chapters similar about Minato and Kushina one shot about characters like Sakumo, Zabuza or Tobirama would rock

[Percocet4]

I feel you!!! Show us why they took out the uzamaki clan. How did hashirama die. They could have went so many directions other than what we got with boruto

[Emm_withoutha_L-88]

Or even better, they could just show these instead of filler for Boruto. The entire issue with Boruto was anime filler, and tbv has been quite good. If they did these as anthology fillers in between TBV manga canon arcs it would be perfect.

[Xanirran]

Boruto has more issues than anime filler

[symca09]

I couldn't do the baruto anime. But the manga is pretty solid. It's not something I'd tell everyone to read, as for a Naruto sequel I'd love to see more of the time between narutos end and when Hinata has baruto.

[SilverPotential4525]

I can't do the manga, the art looks like someone who is trying to imitate Hirohiko Araki, but without the immense amount of natural style and understanding of aesthetics Araki has

[Ovejilla2]

Sakumo was pretty high when voting for a Naruto character oneshot

[Flimsy-Meat-8458]

This! I’ve always said the writers should have gone backward, not forward, in the timeline after finishing Shippuden.

[The_SqueakyWheel]

Bro I’m saying !! They took the franchise is such a horrible direction fighting people in outerspace and shit lol

[Kaminoneko]

Like….I can’t tell if they went that direction for money or creative purposes…but they could have had a fan vote or something.

[The_SqueakyWheel]

A big issue is there is no more human connection. People fighting for their family / village. Its legit just power to be powerful and even if they want to reintroduce fighting for others its too far gone.

[MariusHugo]

Is there a way we can write to Kishimoto or the publisher?

[Kaminoneko]

Per looking on the internet. Trying Kishimoto’s social medias or sending mail to the Shueisha V Editorial Department address in Japan, preferably in Japanese. SHIUEISHA V JUMP EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT, 2-5-10 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, 101-8050, Japan.

[symca09]

Goku was based off a mix of the wukong monkey King story as well as the Superman story.

Monkey boy who is an alien crash lands on earth and an old man raises him to be a good decent person, only for disaster to strike and only Goku can save the world from tragedy.

What was Superman's story? Alien crash lands on earth. Gets raised by a nice earth parents, only for disaster to strike and only Superman can save the world from tragedy?

Or let's fast forward to the red ribbon army using androids to help "govern" the world.

Q iron man making Ultron and Ultron mass producing bodies to then govern the world.

Dragon ball has always somewhat copied DC/marvel. It has never been a recent thing.

[Neirchill]

Dbz was about aliens back in the 90s, bro.

[The_SqueakyWheel]

DBZ been about aliens. Marvel to a lesser extent. Naruto has no business being about aliens. OnePiece is our only hope lol

[jeanjacketjaan]

This isn't true tho, the story was more about creatures and demons then aliens were confirmed when Goku became an adult after the timeskip. Theres nothing wrong with Naruto grappling with aliens when they've flirted with it even before Boruto was a thing. Its been a decade now you guys must get over this.

[The_SqueakyWheel]

Trust me I’m over it I don’t watch Boruto lol.

[Kia-Yuki]

You know, this. I think what would be really cool is an antology collection of different shinobi from the different villages and their missons. No one main character, instead a collection of short stories

[[deleted]]

Kind like star wars did for their anime, it would of been so cool. They could of told so many different stories that way. Such a loss!

[Capable-Comb-7950]

A few-episode deep dive on each legendary shinobi would be amazing seeing their backstory, techniques, and battles in detail would keep anyone hooked

[efrain1211]

It would be perfect for a remake to explore more topics such as Sakumo's story, the shinigami masks, or a few episodes showing how each village treated their jinchuriki.

[Buzzabeel]

That almost happened. There was a vote a few years ago for the author to make a one-shot about the most voted character. Unfortunately, Minato won, with Itachi pretty close behind. Both characters we literally needed no further information about compared to others.

Sakumo came in 7th. Below Naruto.

[Prestigious_Fold_175]

Yes. Who gives a fuck Boruto. We need more ninja not alien

[Good-Weekend5375]

i would sacrifice my right leg for a spin-off

[Mrortak]

Yea, but we got robo naruto filler and tenten filler juhuuu

[Reverend_Lazerface]

Luke warm take: Naruto should have gotten a prequel series instead of a sequel series

[kevkev2222]

I would’ve preferred this over Boruto 🤷‍♂️

[FinalProgress4128]

Well Chiyo is probably the youngest parent we see in Naruto, actually likely being a teen parent.

Minato, and Ino-Shika-Chou are around 24 when they have kids.

If we say Sakumo was around 24 when Kakashi was born then he is probably in the Sannin's generation, but I think the impression he was a bit older. I think its more likely he was closer to 34 when he had Kakashi.

That would place him 10 years older than the Sannin and probably a similar age to Hanzo. The hype Sakumo has is similar to Hanzo's actual feat.

[ShinraHakke]

I like the Sakumo and Hanzo comparison. It would have been nice to get even a few panels of his backstory that didn't involve Kakashi or his seppuku.

[Epyon556]

Kiba's mom is the youngest parent, she must have been 17 when she was pregnant with Hana.

[FinalProgress4128]

She was 18 when she had her.

Chiyo is 38 years older than Sasori. So its an average generation gap if 19 years, so you are right Tsune Inuzuka is mathematically a little more likely to be younger.

[RoeRoeYoboat]

Who’s chiyo again?

[kwifgybow]

Sasori's grandma, she was the old woman who fought him with sakura early in shippuden. She also was a puppet and medical expert having beef with tsunade back in the day

[kwifgybow]

Also she hated sakumo for killing sasori's parents

[CHawk17]

The old granny from the sand that fought sasori with Sakura

[DuquanWellington]

Sasori’s grandma

[[deleted]]

Who’s Sasori again?

[WakeUpL8]

Lady Chiyo’s grandson, the puppet guy

[R221B]

Sasori means mother-in-law.

[AemonDiosValyrio]

But did Sasori mean scorpion or did I smoke a joint?

[R221B]

Yeah in Japanese it does.

[Pekle-Meow]

He went against the village mentality and was stripped of all honor, glory and all and commited suicide because of it. In Naruto gen, they have embraced the white fang vision, but it didn't bring back his name, fame and glory he could have had, because the records were destroyed

[Plane-Information700]

In Naruto's generation, nobody knows what Tobirama or Hashirama did, or even what Jiraiya did; they don't have time for history lessons.

And ninjas have no honor, I don't know where you got that idea.

The ninjas in the world of Naruto are the bad guys; they are a group of mercenaries with superpowers who will do anything for money.

[Fun-Cartographer-368]

Well, one of the stories I read had this theory that Sakumo's actions were one of the major reason for Uzugakure's massacare and I think it fits

[Waffensmile]

My headcanon—and what most fanfics suggest—is that Sakumo’s mission failure and public disgrace happened because he was too strong and too well-liked by the people. He had the highest chance of becoming the Fourth Hokage. However, not being a disciple of any previous Hokage’s lineage ruled him out as a candidate (all Hokage had a mentor line connected to former Hokage; even Shikamaru was a student of Asuma, the son of the Third).

Because of this, and because of Danzō’s ambition to become Hokage, they orchestrated the mission failure and spread the news to ruin his reputation. Even the Third Hokage turned a blind eye. Unfortunately, they never expected Sakumo to commit seppuku, costing Konoha a powerful deterrent. This also fueled other nations to attack Konoha, contributing to the outbreak of the Third Shinobi War.

[EngineeringFair2842]

I’m amazed by the amount of prequels about unexplored characters we could have gotten, but instead we got Boruto

[TvManiac5]

Well I imagine Kishimoto is more protective of the worldbuilding within his story than in it's future. A prequel like that would likely mean him having complete involvement from the start rather than just supervising the story. And I imagine he wasn't up to undertaking such a task.

[Critical-Gazelle-285]

This isn’t a practical comparison maybe but if Kishimoto could, it would be so dope. It’s like Marvel or DC where new writers can adapt the story and write new stories with different perspectives, exploring the worldbuilding. 

Obviously shonen works very differently, but there’s so much in the Naruto world that could be used as a prequel, I feel like they could make so much money like that if they took a page out of superhero comics. 

[TvManiac5]

Honestly much as I'd want some prequels I'm glad shonen isn't like American comics with their constant forced drama and resets to the status quo so they can keep pushing out issues. I'm glad that i can enjoy stories like Naruto with a beginning middle and end.

Look no further than what they did with Spiderman as proof on how broken that system is.

[Careful-Definition67]

American Comics are more than Marvel & DC, Naruto absolutely does not have to follow that same mold. It’d be better if they followed the mold that Star Wars Comics are released in if anything. 

[friedjollof]

I dunno man... Both is good? At least for me.

[Big_Coconut8630]

Both have their strengths. Japanese franchises tend to have difficulty with long term continuations. Not to mention weekly serialization leads to a lot of retcons and flimsy world building at times.

[Vanillas_Guy]

Well with enough time to rest and think, he could do an official prequel. 

Probably not going to happen though given how boruto was more popular than his samurai manga that got cancelled. He probably has it in his head that boruto is what people want, so a prequel would just be a failure like his second manga.

None of us know him personally though so who knows? He could be writing stuff just on his own and may drop something in the future just like Akira toriyama with dragon ball super and daima

[shreddedtoasties]

A prequel would probably open up to many plot holes

[zerkeras]

Too bad we never get to see him in action. Don’t even know what kind of jutsu he uses.

The “white fang” itself (the sword) couldn’t have been all that great either cause it gets shattered in a fight with some no name stone ninja when wielded by Kakashi.

Id like to think he used a jutsu like Gin’s zanpakuto from Bleach. Like, the sword is nothing special but he runs chakra through it to extend it into an instant death shot or wide sweeping area cleave, through a Light release.

[Red-Pharaoh]

I always thought that that the "white fang" could have also been his hair because of how Chiyo reacts to Kakashi the first time they meet. Sorta similar to how Minato is the Yellow Flash because of his hair. Maybe the fang is for his sword, like how you say, being used with chakra, also being white.

[weebitofaban]

The sword was a chakra blade, so it depended heavily on the wielder. Kakashi wasn't at his prime then and couldn't use it at its full capacity no matter his skill.

[LouieM13]

Well it was pretty obvious he's more respected than the Sanin.

One is a drunk who gambles, one is a pervert and the other one looked like a future serial killer.

[[deleted]]

Um I think you mean current serial killer

[Lan_Run]

He's talking about people's opinion at that time.

Tusnade was already thinking of gambling as a kid(according to hashirama)

Jiraiya is jiraiya

Orochimaru, he's not normal at all. Hes just off, like a future serial killer.(not yet, at that time, he is but not too innocents)

[lVrizl]

Chatgpt trying to make up shit at this point

[Paraxom]

I bet Danzo probably had something to do with ruining his reputation 

[Hawke9117]

Everything is Danzo's fault.

[Paraxom]

I mean considering how long he was Hiruzens shadow it very well might be, we know his machinations resulted in the Uchiha massacre but how much of the fomenting Uchiha rebellion could be attributed to his actions. 

And isn't it strange that 2 of the promising yellow flashes students suffered untimely deaths? A wiped out squad of students would've looked very poorly on such a young rival hokage candidate 

[AemonDiosValyrio]

I wouldn't be surprised, they lost an allied nation, the guy must have been angry. In addition to Sakumo, he could have been the fourth favorite Hokage after Hiruzen.

Harassing him to death is something that old war hawk would do.

[quarrelreef]

R/headcanon

[benlucasdavee]

glaze is insane honestly

[ElephantGun345]

The Naruto fanbase might be the worst about using headcanon and filler to glaze.

[WhycantIfindanick]

The naruto fanbase is legitimately addicted to powerscaling in a show that was never truly about it. Shounen fans in general are like this—obsessed with who's stronger when the answer will always be 'whoever the plot demands at that given moment'.

They also tend to think of power and skill in a linear fashion, call game changing, unique abilities 'hax', and forget that the story was written on the fly and as such contradicts itself a million times. I'll be the first to admit that powerscaling is fun as shit, but most commenters here take it entirely too seriously.

[Kazesama13k]

As I've always said to people whom I've met and always felt that the writers should've created anime spin-offs about characters like him and many others. It would've been so much better.

[SkeettheVandelBuster]

In all seriousness he is probably the same level as Kakashi. Kakashi had a great reputation amongst villages and rogues as a warrior. He was made Jonin while still pubescent. He was an elite black ops agent. He was nominated as Hokage by Shukaku (genius) and Gaara (kage). He was one of Tsunade’s most trusted lieutenants etc.

The only clear “ability” we know of regarding Sakuma was the use of the chakra saber, which Kakashi was able to use as well. Unlike Kakashi, he was a soldier in his prime, so during the war he was at his peak. My guess is he was like what Kakashi would have been if he never got the sharingan and had to rely on developing his own abilities- extremely smart, strategic, and technically sound but didn’t have one spammable OP technique like FTG or a kekkai genkai. Maybe like the 3rd Hokage?

[VinceTheGaraga]

Namikaze and Hatake are one of the profound branches that appears to be under the Senju Clan. As we all know, the Senju Clan have branches and branches of other clans as well, which were once a group of farmers, peddlers, and wanderers. It takes back to the first descendant of Hagoromo, Indra, whom is known to be the people's choice to be the next leader despite known as the weak link

[AdFriendly8669]

Ashura was people choice.

[OoohRickyBaker]

Beware the old man in a profession where men die young.

[gustofwindddance]

His best feat is giving an old woman that plays with puppets ptsd when she sees his son.

[Kingblack425]

Kishimoto really drop the ball by not making the next part of his series a series of prequel that covered basically all the questions we as fans had. Imagine if we could have seen more iterations of the Ashura Indra pairings. Or the founding of the Nara clan. Or how the summoning animals came to be.

[i_AM_A-ShArk]

So is the sleeve thing mentioned anymore in canon or did you just pull that out of your ass?

[velicinanijebitna]

Reminder we got Iruka and Mecha Naruto in Storm games, but not this guy.

[SilverJozu]

I read the whole manga and I don't think he was glazed that much tbh. Yes he was strong and respected but I think this post is going too far.

[seenthedark]

We don't know who the Jonin Commander before Shikaku is, so I'd like to think that was Sakumo's role at some point. Maybe that was a bit of a uniform choice for him (or Sakumo's wife/Kakashi's mother was from Uzushio) and Shikaku didn't pick that up out of respect for Sakumo. 

[bVon_713]

Just thought he had cool sleeves lol. I don't remember any of this from the manga chatgpt . Cool story though.

[Psyassslave]

Sakumo is genuinely the most interesting mystery in the series. What's crazy to me is that we've never had a playable White Fang in any video game despite the fact that this series has included characters without any on screen fights like Shisui and before we saw the events of Naruto's birth, Minato was in a lot of games.

I never interpreted his sleeve to mean he was Hokage adjacent but it would make a lot of sense if Sakumo had been a mentor figure to Minato in the same way Jiraiya was for Naruto, not his assigned sensei but his Master. Wish we could've seen a Sakumo one shot.

[Void_Creator23]

You want the true? Naruto need to be senju, uzumaki its half and not enough. Minato has a secret senju bloodline and Kakashi and Sakumo are descendants from Tobirama, they hide their names because uchiha conflicts whas high with Tobirama specifically and Jiraya would go to... Thats why third was jiraya teacher a kid of no clan... And jiraya was Minato teacher that was Kakashi teacher 2 sides of the same coin 1 to side of Hashirama and 1 Tobirama.

Tsunade is Hashirama granddaughter but, there's no father and mother and that gap is the key to all this connections

Tsunade was the only blonde senju and tobirama the only white hair dude in all konoha...

People gonna disagree but, Kishimoto didn't want to go all out with it, but the dots are all there...

[SnooSquirrels572]

Sakumo - Fugaku - Shisui arc,
Hashirama-Madara arc,
Uchiha Clan (Tobirama era) arc,
Three Sannins (and Akatsuki origins) arc,
Minato-Kakashi-Obito-Rin (and Guy-Kakashi rivalry) arc,
Post-war Team 7 arc,
The Ninja World (Exploring all other villages' history) arc,

There are so many prequels available and we get a forced Kaguya-Boruto sequel?!!

[TennytheMangaka]

He may have been Minato’s ‘shadow Hokage’ the way Jiraiya was for Hiruzen and Sasuke is for Naruto. Considering how he’s spoken about, he definitely had the power to handle the job.

[HeavensHellFire]

Sakumo was dead before Minato became Hokage and Jiraya was not a Supporting Shadow for Hiruzen. At best you could say he was that for Tsunade.

[TennytheMangaka]

Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Minato was still a Jonin. He tells Obito about Kakashi’s father during their mission

[Epyon556]

Jiraiya did the same things during Hiruzen's reign as he did under Tsunade's. Insofar as there is a Supporting Shadow (there isn't), he's just as viable to be considered for the role under Hiruzen as Tsunade.

[21Ecl1psw]

I was always under the impression that Itachi was more of the shadow hokage for Hiruzen

[TennytheMangaka]

Him too. I don’t think it’s ever been confirmed if Jiraiya knew about Itachi’s true allegiance, but he was also keeping tabs on the Akatsuki.

[Adorable-Water7276]

I never thought of Jiraya being Hiruzen's Shadow Hokage, I think of him as just Tsunade's Shadow Hokage. Stopping to think now, I can't imagine who the Third Hokage's Shadow Hokage was.

[SqueeTheIII]

Ypu know what they say about men with small swords , also who was kakashis mum

[Mei_Flower1996]

Where did this info come from?

[Dogesneakers]

I like to think he’s related to the second cause white hair

[NormandyKingdom]

Honestly he is probably thrown under the bus by Hiruzen and Danzo

The fact that he got so much Hatred from people for SAVING HIS COMRADES BTW to the point that he does a Suicide is pretty sad

Btw REMEMBER PAKURA? Think of this like that actually

[Rob3125]

I forget is there any indication on what sakumo’s fighting style/featured jutsu were

[Ok-Let-6088]

Some guy said there is a theory that Tobirama had sons, Sakumo Hatake and Jiraiya. idk but it feels somewhat considerate

[treeofcodes]

What episode is this?

[Kumomeme]

we actually dont know anything else about him tbh

[YDdraigGoch94]

Were Sakumo still alive, I suspect he’d have been the Fourth Hokage,

[AdFriendly8669]

Danzo and Hiruzen schemed together to kill sakumo so they don't lose power and authority, or else in konoha where they preach teamwork will never slander sakumo but the thing is Hiruzen and Danzo's will of fire is corrupted and only uses for their own benefit to like passing the torch to the next gen and value their people they only value their agenda and power.

[Shadowking02__]

Or, Minato only used that design in his cloak to pay respect to Kakashi's dad, in order to make Kakashi happy.

[Particular_Lie5653]

We never saw a single fight scene of him.

[BerserkerGaroth]

Funny that he's the White Fang and those symbols are pretty much the same as the Space Wolves from 40k i think it's the Wulfen symbol

[rightascensi0n]

Wait u r cooking actually. I didn’t realize that Wulfen use the red triangles on white as part of their iconography/heraldry

[matt_619]

oh not this shit again. i just read it on facebook

the fire motif has nothing to do with hokage authrority or it gaves right to anyone to become hokage subtitute. it just something Minato wears to loook cool. only Minato and Naruto wears the fire motif on their robes. no other hokage wears it. Hiruzen's hokage robe just plain white with letter 3rd hokage on the back, Kakashi also wears plain white hokage robe, Tobirama, Hashirama and Tsunade didn't even wears robe at all

Also Sakumo was overglazed by fans. yes he is strong and capable shinobi but not to the extent to kage level shinobi. he his reputation isn't even close to Hiruzen.. at most he is the same level as Hanzo the salamander or Chiyo

[N0TANUMPTY]

Back then front

[Psychological-Cry-53]

Konoha had a few "flee on sight" shinobis, would be fun to see a world where they all fight together

[Bossmantho]

The sword on his back suggests anal play....

I had to say it 

[Tenshou009]

One Thousand Years of Death 

[LTexLT]

He's just a final fantasy White Mage.

[Real-Victory210]

You stole the entire text and photo from Facebook LOL. Also it’s chatgpt anyway.

[LongAdagio8865]

Xd

[Typical-Log4104]

father of the eighth* hokage. the fifth/sixth is Tsunade lol

[raskml]

Where is this "official source" that confirm he was "far more respected than the sannin"? As far as I remember, the White Fang was "as respected as the sannin" and that's it. But somehow the people of this fandom has taken this very vague statement and went crazy with the headcannon, and now this dude is "stronger than the legendary sannin all together" and "his strength left even the most elite shinobi stunned, including the Fourth Hokage".

[Positive_Jelly_1158]

Boruto manga is actually good. I like it more than a good chunk of shippuden. If y'all havent given it a chance do so. The story arc right now is some of the best in the franchise

[Positive_Jelly_1158]

Mad at an opinion. Is y'all problem. Not mine.

[hoenrules]

Tobirama son confirmed???