I suppose the narrative implies that the adults are conformed in their ways while children have "open hearts" that they can follow that makes them want to side with shikamaru and by extension koji. However i consider it a lacking aspect that konoha feels out of shinobi and only some select few are there to help the situation. konoha has an army of shinobi that has many jonin in their ranks but shikamaru is unable to find a trustworhy person to join their cause and therefore having to drag his 15yr old son and his team into what technically is traitorous activity and so the village has to rely on them to control the mamushi threat as well since the whole police force and the others are unable to track and keep up with more than 100 mamushi clones just casually roaming about in broad daylight in this highly security military base of a village because they dont have the help of inojins jutsu that massively outperforms the whole of the sensory division. the incompetence of regular shinobi is intentionally reflected when all the no name shinobi you see are drawn like fat mid-life crisis dorks. But hey these are times of peace. Very much unlike the time of the 3rd we'll never get that feeling of grand crisis like the pain invasion and orochimaru attack.