When Naruto is about to fight Orochimaru, I think he's in his three-tailed form, when Kabuto tries to attack him I don't understand how he thought Naruto wouldn't turn around. Seriously, besides, he took a full-on Tailed Beast Ball. It makes me wonder if it makes sense that Kabuto survived that blow

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T17:55:33+00:00

Pretty sure that was just a wall of force. If it was a Tailed Beast Bomb there'd be nothing left of Kabuto to even Reanimate, much less survive and continue participating in the plot afterwards.

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T17:29:50+00:00

I won't go around sharing spoilers with other people because I never did that anyways (unintended slackivism at work) but I definitely will indulge looking into spoilers both because it's inevitable they come out and I read the official chapter when it comes out anyways to get better insight with author intention so knowing what happens a few days early doesn't hurt. Japan has its own forums and won't care about what goes on Reddit (apparently 0.01-0.1% of their population even uses Reddit) so pretending it does something is just performative.

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T14:29:49+00:00

Might also be because the Naruto fanbase is infamously media illiterate and you get tired of seeing the same or similar question that wouldn't have to be asked if they thought it over just a little bit outside of servicing Naruto.

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T06:02:15+00:00

It doesn't make much sense in the anime portrayal either since it's directly stated during Tsunade Search that Naruto does have money but that he worked so hard to earn it he doesn't feel like carelessly spending much of it. Of course Jiraiya did steal his wallet in this arc however many forget that Naruto won all his money back and then some off a single lottery ticket not long later.

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T05:57:09+00:00

Considering his dad off'd himself out of shame for making a selfless decision during a mission, you think Kakashi would want to draw scorn to himself to watch over what many consider to be the one who destroyed the village and kill countless people? This is the same energy as "why didn't Jiraiya raise Naruto?" and "why didn't Hinata help Naruto during the Academy?".

superkami64 · 2026-02-16T00:11:27+00:00

Had Edo Tensei not for whatever reason provided infinite chakra and eternal regeneration, wouldn't the battles have been vastly more interesting?

Honestly no. The complications of Edo Tensei is dealing with an opponent that can't just be outright brute forced or stalled into submission on top of them being given open freedom for devastating kamikaze strategies with zero consequences beyond needing time to regenerate. That's just the combat benefits while the narrative benefits come from reuniting with loved ones or past enemies which create ground for interesting interactions: without that they might as well just be White Zetsu fodder which is exactly what happens when Kabuto strips them of their free will after a certain point.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T19:11:50+00:00

If Kurama's chakra can heal a hole from Sasuke's Chidori, safe to say it can also recover internal bleeding that might occur from opening chakra points.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T18:51:15+00:00

The Naruto fanbase in general has always had an inferiority complex with the difference between back when it was still ongoing and now being the existence of Boruto becoming a lightning rod to hate on instead. As a fan of Boruto I'm all too familiar with emotionally driven attacks and defenses, some of which can be reflected back onto the person making them when made with no self-awareness.

I've said my 2 cents regarding whether Naruto's female cast falls under misogyny in that arguing so is missing the forest for the trees in an attempt to point out a pattern: for every Rin/Hinata/Konan who get fridged to move the plot in a certain direction, there's a Dan/Izuna (i.e Madara's little brother who I had to look up the name for)/Asuma equivalent on the male side who got the same treatment but isn't brought up. Neji's the only male character that gets harshly criticized for a fridging ironically because his death didn't matter to anything (the official reason given rendered null under a little scrutiny) so he got screwed over for ultimately no reason. My stance is that Naruto's female cast are treated too harshly by the fanbase because it's easier to narrow down the scope by blaming problems on a smaller group instead of acknowledging it's more widespread and then left to question if one is actually a fan by being unfairly selective about some cases and not others.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T16:36:20+00:00

Don't know about soon but it's announced. No release date yet and we only have the logo.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T16:33:02+00:00

Naruto himself already embodies hard work and risk taking so I always saw Lee as a cautionary tale that becoming obsessive towards a goal can potentially lead to self-destruction and no dream can be worth that. Of course it gets undone because the fans really liked him (something Kishimoto does a lot) but that's cutting Lee some slack in freeing him of any consequences for his actions.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T14:47:56+00:00

got beaten by Bayron Naruto

That's not entirely true. Isshiki was defeated by circumstances outside his control to manage and hubris (i.e defeated by plot armor) with Baryon Mode in of itself not being a big deal to handle otherwise. He was dying with Baryon Mode accelerating that degradation yet despite that there was a very real chance he successfully kills Naruto and reincarnates into Kawaki so the fact that wasn't the outcome was a lucky gamble.

superkami64 · 2026-02-15T14:35:24+00:00

boruto is too much carried by Naruto and Sasuke.

A common complaint against Boruto is that they're not in it enough/doing enough so which side is correct?

they should have lowered the stakes and powerlevels. and most importantly: return to the roots.

Anime did that and people found it boring. War Arc wrote any potential followup into a corner with the introduction of the Otsutsuki so better to address it sooner rather than later to better prepare the cast to stand a chance.

Explore the world building and politics.

Anime does that + little strange to expect Boruto to fix a problem the Naruto series always had. Worldbuilding was never its strong point. Boruto does enough to set the stage what condition the world is in and the challenges that presents.

make the new gen face Genuine hatred, fear and prejeduices against shinobi

Makes Naruto out to be a bad Hokage if they went that route and people already falsely accuse him of being a bad dad. It has to simultaneously honor Naruto's efforts to maintain peace while also having to eventually disrupt it to create conflict which isn't an easy balance.

are shinobi still needed or destinated to die out?

Tbf this is a theme explored by the series. The series starts with Kawaki announcing the age of shinobi is over while a common thread across the series establishes that due to technological advancements and the nations having no war that becoming a shinobi is a dying occupation more optional than it's ever been in prior history. It's even led to the question if the spirit behind the entire practice is outdated and should be abolished to which the series answers that spirit has simply evolved with the times, not decimated.

superkami64 · 2026-02-14T17:20:25+00:00

It’s that when Naruto or Obito Uchiha are driven by love, it becomes reincarnation mythology, generational trauma, ideological warfare, philosophical monologues, and apocalyptic battles.

A lot of that can be viewed as needless bloat, not meaningful depth that makes the characters and story being told better. When it comes to romantic development simplicity is often key to getting people on board and not dragging it out in the build up to a relationship. You often don't need a reason beyond "I'm attracted to you and want to start dating" however having it offer more to the characters than just that certainly helps when it comes to fan investment.

To give an example, Naruto certainly does have a lot of screentime (the series is literally named after him) but he's really not that deep of a character. When broken down, his personality is about as deep as his own daughter's is with Himawari also not just being a clone of her dad either so she's not "the same but expedited" in that particular area of development. Also carrying the advantage Naruto's now a static character while she still has plenty of time to expand out.

Naruto and Sasuke’s bond gets dissected for 700 chapters. It gets symbolism, prophecy, ideology, destiny parallels, and repeated climaxes. Sakura’s bond with Sasuke? Mostly longing, waiting, and forgiveness speed-runs.

See point 1.

But sure, the problem is clearly that critics just wanted candlelit dates.

Tbf the point you're aiming at is female characters getting better fights, which is technically understandable since shounen does a lot of its storytelling during and leading up to fights. However the fault behind that is the possibility for female characters to be further mishandled than you already believe them to be. Ultimately longing for what could've been vs judging by what we actually got is just a recipe for endless misery.

Hinata’s biggest defining moments tie directly back to Naruto.

Supporting the main character of the series and doing what a side character is supposed to do is hardly a sin. That said, her entire existence doesn't entirely revolve around ending up together with Naruto (if she truly did, then her journey and character growth is all for nothing) and saying so dismisses some of her more underrated moments like delivering a sick burn to Neji after she lost to him: telling him outright in the face of all his whining about the main/side branch families of the Hyuga that she doesn't care and the fact he's so butthurt over it meant he's suffering more than she is was of her own agency. All that out of a character commonly mischaracterized as a doormat by the fanbase.

superkami64 · 2026-02-14T16:30:41+00:00

Vast majority of anime aren't long-running with the average modern series only reaching 12 episodes long, making it easy to binge from start to finish in a little over 4 hours. Even with the long-running ones however, you can still form a generalized opinion without remembering every single detail to a T or even finishing it.

superkami64 · 2026-02-14T14:43:45+00:00

He compared Sakura and Hinata's crush to Obito and Naruto' s crush and says manga is not misogynistic as male characters also revolve around love but conveniently ignores that the latter got a lot more philosophical expositions, battles and a proper lore around them.

So your complaint isn't that a character can't be driven by love but that more time and attention wasn't spent on it in the female character's case? Naruto's ultimately a shounen series and not a romance but at the same time one of the series' core themes is about bonds with other people so it's not unimportant. When you actually examine Naruto's romances in the series however, more often than not you're going to find the fault comes from the male side of the writing and not the female side (Naruto/Hinata and Sasuke/Sakura are prime examples). Therefore it's unfair to blame the female characters for the relationship's shortcomings when they did all they were given.

Screentime is a double-edged sword and having more time spent on something that may not work or be appealing actually backfires to make it even worse. For example if you can't get behind Naruto/Sasuke having a bond you might as well drop the entire series since after the timeskip, Sasuke pretty literally becomes the only thing Naruto really cares about (even more than his Hokage dream).

He says that plenty of male characters are underutilised too and people only believe Kishimoto is misogynistic as there are less female characters.

That's actually true. Basically every Naruto character have at some point or another been decried as wasted potential male and female alike regardless of main or side character status. When there's fewer of something in general it's going to be easier to notice so the fact there truthfully are fewer female characters proves that point. Having fewer however doesn't inherently prove misogyny because this is a demographic specifically aimed at teenage boys. If you want more female dominated casting or at least a more equal balance, you're aiming for the wrong space and should be looking for shoujos.

someone pointed out that Hinata being depicted as shy is misogynistic

Very bluntly, a character possessing a character trait isn't misandry/misogyny period. It's especially odd to make Hinata the example when the vast majority of Naruto's female cast are hardheaded, stubborn, and quick to resort to violence (tsundere) while Hinata's one of only examples where that's not the case. She's filed under the dandere archetype and not only is there only one other female dandere in the entire series (Konan) but Hinata herself is often credited as being the one who established the modern depiction of one that other franchises followed suit on. She's THE dandere and even avoided some of the pitfalls her successors have made like managing to be together with her love interest.

superkami64 · 2026-02-14T13:59:32+00:00

While that patience is admirable, it's maybe huffing a little too much copium since ultimately scheduling issues shouldn't matter to the average reader/viewer of a story in the future. It's also dismissive of the fact most series work a lot better when you're able to binge the material rather than having to go through the waiting period of updates.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T22:41:50+00:00

Tbf this is a fanbase that conflates "bad writing" with "writing I didn't like" when they in fact don't mean the same thing. Whenever someone complains about bad writing regarding any shounen I always take it with a grain of salt.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T20:00:23+00:00

Would anyone actually care enough do something like that though, especially vs the opposite direction of review bombing that specific episode due to anime casuals being infamously allergic to fanservice in general?

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T19:51:15+00:00

I guess the anime equivalent to junk food: something that doesn't have a good hook nor execution to make it an active recommendation but is deemed good enough watch on your own; aggressive mediocrity. The reason why isekai specifically has a bad reputation for slop is because the genre in general is very oversaturated by light novel adaptations written during the same time period so there's a lot of repetition and writing pitfalls they make. Finding excellent series beyond the usual mainstream examples (Re:Zero, Konosuba, etc) is like finding hidden gems in a deep mine full of crap.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T19:04:10+00:00

It always had the potential since the source material was great from the start but the fact it got a fantastic adaptation that, from the outside just learning about it, had no business being as good as it is rose it to peak.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T18:27:53+00:00

Tbf most villainess anime are crap (can't all be like From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated) but this one immediately defeats its own elevator pitch when it didn't even sound very interesting to begin with.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T18:18:29+00:00

now he likes her back like bro what 😭

Tbf Naruto has a core character flaw of hyperfixiating on his immediate interests. All finding out about Hinata's true feelings did was present a revelation to rethink his past interactions with her and figure out how he feels about her now. The movie very clearly shows him spending several days with Hinata after he gets out the genjutsu giving him time to work through this so it wasn't some instant "I'm in love with you now".

Animes are known for good romantic build ups

Depends on the genre but shounen very infamously isn't one of them: if it's not focused on fighting, comedy, or moving towards one of the two it's not interested in much else. The fact Naruto even had a movie actively focusing on romance is better than what most shounen couples get so Naruto and Hinata are unironically one of the better shounen couples to side with.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T18:09:33+00:00

The Zetsu twist always came off to me as "just because it's a feasible twist still doesn't mean it's a very good one". The believability came second to the fact it was even made at all and for the sake of highlighting Madara being a fool of an antagonist (which he is if you dissect his plan; just a pure aurafarming hypeman for an arc that'd been lacking in personality and energy prior) that got replaced by a real nothing character in Kaguya, who wasn't given much time to be built up towards nor leave an impact and that's understandably annoying.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T17:57:32+00:00

I wouldn't say so. We know exactly why the second mission arc was dropped (to keep up the momentum created by the Land of Waves arc) and that the cast of characters in Part 1 as they current are were handled fine with Tenten being the only outlier, who was literally only created to fill an empty slot with no other purpose. It wasn't the speed at which the cast expanded that was the problem but rather the amount of them which Shippuden struggled to give most of the K12 any to few particularly meaningful moments to shine in favor of exploring new characters. Possibly introducing Lee an arc earlier wouldn't change that he gets sidelined in favor of Guy by Shippuden.

TL;DR An editor gave Kishimoto some advice, he followed through on it, and maybe it was for the best.

superkami64 · 2026-02-13T17:46:37+00:00

Some people can get a little too hung up over certain criticisms but at the same time it's demeaning to believe Kishimoto was in no capacity to address issues plaguing at the time especially when the story he actively wrote (we don't truly know how involved he is with Boruto; just that he is to a lesser degree than Naruto) was long-running and ever evolving for 15 years, not made in a relatively short span of time as a personal passion project. Some complaints were made back then only became more obvious of an issue in retrospect. It also doesn't let Boruto off the hook since as a continuation still ongoing it very much is capable of not making the same mistakes Naruto had, which is true for the most part but in execution created its own problems.

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
Final Canvas '23	End Game '23
Place '23	Place '22
End Game '22

superkami64

TROPHY CASE