Monday, November 24, 2014

Naruto Shippuden Critique Chapter 2: The Gods of Bad Storytelling

                                                  


                    If you've read Naruto Chapter 682 you'll know why I posted this...

I've received a lot of positive feedback from my previous blog entry on Sakura compared to the first one. So I'll stick to critiquing rather than bashing the series, except when I touch on things that are extremely silly or flat out stupid. 

Now on to the Ootsusuki Clan which are the second worst characters in the series. I consider them one entity who are all equally bad and do an equal amount of damage to the series. But they don't do the same kind of damage Sakura's character does. They aren't offensive or send a morally bad message like our terrible female lead, but they do damage the narrative and destroy other characters with their presence. Also invalidating several themes in part 1, along with introducing many plot holes and retcons.

I'll be talking about Hagoromo, Ashura/Indra, and Kaguya. Explaining how they ruined this story, have nonsensical backgrounds, and are badly written character. I'll be excluding Hamura because he is irrelevant.

Hagoromo Ootsusuki

First off, The Sage of Six Paths completely destroys the theme in Naruto about how the new generation always surpasses the previous ones. No one in the later generations could ever perform a planetary feat like Hagoromo, unless he gave them the seals which is superior to any other seals. He can summon the King of Hell, which superior to Reaper Death Seal. No one can summon the souls of the dead like him, that is superior to Edo Tensei. No one can heal people like him(Naruto's Jesus powers came from him), that is superior to all medical ninjutsu. He can awake the Rinne Sharingan and be able to cast Infinite Tsukuyomi, which is superior to all other genjutsu. He can do all of this without being the Juubi's Jinchuuriki and he said his mother was stronger than him. Kishi clearly didn't put much thought in creating this character.

The story of Hagoromo is also poorly thought out, a retcon(the One-tails & Nine-tails use to be demons instead of chakra constructs), and makes him look idiotic. I mean, why turn the chakra of the Ten Tails into giant monsters instead of destroying it to prevent its revival? He told the tailed beast that its revival would mean the end of the world...so why didn't he completely eliminate that possibility? According to Sasuke the tailed beast can be killed if you destroy ever last bit of their chakra. Naruto was worried about Sasuke using Amaterasu on Juubi before getting the tailed beast out, and Hagoromo didn't refute him when heard of his plan. So it must to be possible. I mean, what was the point in creating in creating the beast anyway?

But the Character Induced Stupidity doesn't end there! As Hagaromo doesn't even bother to tell Naruto and Sasuke how to dispell Infinite Tsukuyomi before sending them off to fight Madara. If Sasuke had not cut Madara in half they would never found out how to stop the genjutsu.

Another example of Hagoromo's poor decision making skill is giving power to Sasuke after telling him his nonsensical "Revolution". He doesn't even bother to point out the flaws in his plan, he just puts all his faith in Naruto to talk him out of it. He doesn't even tell Naruto about it. What if Sasuke had chosen to kill the Kages before attacking Naruto? Seriously...

Sages are suppose to be wise. But Hagoromo has made the stupidest decisions in the entire series...

Ashura and Indra Ootsusuki


But there is a problem with that development. According to Hagoromo Asura chose Naruto to reincarnate because his of personality, meaning he knew what kind of person he was going to be before he was even born. Okay, so remember what Neji said about destiny? That talent and your path is decided before your even born? Well it looks like Neji was right and that is the reason why died obviously. Kishi clearly views Naruto and Sasuke's bond to be the most important thing in this series. To the point where he sacrifices side-characters.

This just hurts the idea that hard work can beat natural talent any time. Because Naruto rises to a level of power due to being an incarnation of Asura and no one can achieve that level through hard work, at least not for more than a few minutes. The 8th Gate is the only thing that has been proven to allow an individual to reach that kind of power, but they'd literally need to sacrifice their life for a chance at victory. So in the grant scheme natural talent beats hard work.


Kaguya Ootsusuki/The Ten Tails

One of the biggest problems with Kaguya is that she is so repetitive to the story. As it is a part of a chain of manipulation. I don't really want to dwell on this too much. So I'll will let this image explain it.



Kaguya's serves three purposes in the manga. Number one, tie up the loose end about the Hyuuga and Uchiha being related that was mentioned in Part 1. Number two, to be a cash grab for THE LAST as the movie focuses on the Ootsusuki clan. Number three(the biggest reason), to destroy the moral ambiguity of Infinite Tsukuyomi by turning it from a grey area to a black area.

CLICK HERE

As you can see in the link above, readers were larger divided with the notion of Infinite Tsukuyomi. The entire population living in a perfect dream world with all their desires granted and having their bodies preserved for all of eternity(shown by that tree that kept Madara from dying of old age), literally living happily forever. Also solving problems like famine, pandemics that could wipe out humanity, pain, and loss of loved ones. This was at worst a dark-grey area, even though it was lie. Which is ironic that Naruto uses that as a counter-argument, considering he wants to keep the truth about the Uchiha Massacre a secret to protect its reputation. But I digress and will get into Infinite Tsukuyomi's pros and cons in the next chapter about Obito.

Kishi knew Naruto's argument wouldn't have much of an impact on many readers. But instead of having Naruto face an actual moral conflict and ideological struggle, Kishi instead cops out by having Infinite Tsukuyomi actually turn people into Zetsu over time to put Naruto completely in the right. Revealing that Zetsus were not artificial humans/clones created from Hashirama's DNA but victims of a previous Infinite Tsukuyomi event. But there is tons of evidence saying that this is a blatant retcon. Like the fact that all the Zetsus were males, Shizune explaining they had DNA identical to Hashirama, and a group of Zetsu referring to White Zetsu as their "original" when they are among themselves(only Sasuke was around and they planned on killing him). This seriously came out of nowhere and creates plot holes.

Kishi tries to make it look like he has been foreshadowing this twist for sometime by having people hang from the tree like the "failed zetsu experiments" Madara was talking about. However, that was just a retcon to make it look that way. As flashback in chapter 671 shows the victims of the genjutsu were laying on the ground connected to the roots, rather than hanging from them. Nice try Kishi.

Now there is Black Zetsu being Kaguya's will instead of Madara's which is another obvious retcon. As we saw Madara create Black Zetsu on-panel with yin-yang release. There is nothing explaining this. This reveal just creates even more plot holes.

Kaguya's presence destroys Zetsu's character as they were a metaphor for Yin-Yang. Black Zetsu represented Yin, being made from Madara's essence. While White Zetsu was Yang, being made from Hashirama. However, they are both products of Kaguya now. This was disrespectful to the characters and their fans.

Kaguya's presence also ruins Madara's departure. He gets spat out like gum, says a few measly words, and dies. A character that has been hyped for years gets pathetic end. We didn't even get to see him use his full power after gaining it. Kishi totally made the hype of him gaining both his eyes pointless. He should have had Sakura just destroy his eye and have Madara cast the genjutsu with the tree instead. Again, disrespectful to a character and their fans.

Now on to Kaguya's personality which is very one dimensional, but that is consistent to what was said about the Ten-tails not having much emotions and its later said that she was heartless unlike the other enemies Naruto has faced. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing as there have been famous antagonists with little personality, but they made up for it by being menacing like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Kaguya starts out like this but Kishi destroys that having her get wet over the Sexy Jutsu along with Sakura in battle. That's why I posted the image you see at the top...

Kishi doesn't even try to make up for all of this with a good fight between gods. Its mostly just hide and seek between Kaguya and Naruto. Plus, there are massive plot holes that put the fight in Team 7's favor such as Kakashi and Obito moving through heavy gravity and Sakura having enough chakra to travel through Kaguya dimensions(as mentioned in the previous chapter). Another example is Kaguya being established to absorb chakra attack, yet she tries to avoid a regular chidori by Sasuke wasting chakra in the process and doesn't absorb Kakashi's attack. Even Naruto uses large chakra attacks against her in chapter 688 even though he wouldn't in chapter 684 because she'll absorb it. Its like Kishi forgot about her abilities.

This ridiculous level of plot armor is presence in Kaguya's defeat. First there is that asspull Kakashi power-up. Then Kaguya gets fooled by a transformation jutsu with her Byakugan activated. Which makes no sense since she has shown to be able to tell Naruto and Sasuke's chakra's apart in chapter 679. She doesn't even use her chakra claws to punch Naruto and Sasuke away which she had done three times before. Or use her hair to restrain which she had done twice. Then there is the BS Sakura punch which I already explained in the previous chapter and Kaguya not seeing her coming(the Byuakugan blind-spot is VERY tiny). Basically, Team 7 didn't defeat Kaguya because of teamwork but with tons of Character and Plot Induced Stupidity.

Hell, even the Sun and Moon seals that defeated her are unbelievablely huge plot holes. As chapter 690 shows a flashback where Kaguya's sons used the Chibaku Tensei seal against her in their battle,,. Okay, so when did Hagoromo get the chance to become the Ten-tails' Jinchuuriki if that happened? Kurama said that Hagoromo had the Gedo Mazo inside him, but even the databook supports this plot hole:

"Ever since "humans" were given form, they have fought each other and walked in a world of war. The earth was stained with blood, and as if it were absorbing that blood for nourishment, the Shinju took root in the earth. Eventually the Shinju beared a single fruit, and a certain clan came from another world seeking that fruit: the Ootsutsuki clan. Kaguya, leader of the Ootsutsuki, ate the fruit and became the progenitor of all chakra, and with her absolute power brought peace to the world in an instant.

After ending the turbulent era, she became known as the Rabbit Goddess and received the blessing of the people, giving birth to twins. But after that, Kaguya would occasionally use harsh means to rule the people as a dictator. The Byakugan, Sharingan, and Infinite Tsukuyomi - the people feared and respected the jutsu Kaguya wielded. Eventually, the "Rabbit Goddess" became known as a demon instead. And then, Kaguya became ruled by her desire to make all chakra her own.

To make all chakra one - Kaguya's desire eventually turned on Hagoromo and Hamura, her own twin sons with whom she had split her chakra. Kaguya formed a plan, and in order to take in all chakra, fused with the Shinju and battled against her twin sons.

The twins, assuming that the Juubi was a transformed Shinju attacking them in order to reclaim the chakra that was taken from it, faced off against it. And after a fierce battle, the activated Rikudou Chibaku Tensei. They turned it into the moon and sealed it away. 

Caption next to Hamura on the last page: The Gedou Mazou, the remaining shell of the Juubi, was sealed in the moon. Hamura took command of the clan to watch over the Mazou."

So Kaguya like the rest of her family made the story a mess. But the biggest damage this family did was retconning chakra. Instead of being energy made from spirit and physical energy to the energy of a tree, which humans originally didn't have. So they didn't have spirit or physical energy until Hagoromo gave it to them? Whatever...

See you sometime next week with my take on Obito Uchiha!



2 comments:

  1. It has been too long to see a good analysis... You should get a lot of credits for these critics.

    I'm looking forward to your next criticism about Uchiha Obito. I hope you've realized the differences between Tobi and Obito.

    Best wishes

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  2. one keep at this. two the Shinju was still around after kaguya was sealed as that was the tree holding everyone in cocoons for infinite Tsukuyomi. So he could have sealed that into himself instead of kaguya even though they are the same being. yep one was sealed and the other was still around. poor logic it must be rolling in it's grave.

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