[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by james0246

Honestly, I think you are confusing a dramatic situations with a mature story. You keep focusing on the shock value/potentially controversial moments, rather than how these moments reflect any sense of maturity in the characters or the audience. Death by itself is not mature. Politics by itself is not mature. Mystery for mystery's sake is not mature. Etc. It's how these moments are used in the series, or the events that surround them that reflect on the character's, story's or audience's maturity.

i disagree. take the politics at the kage summit for instance. or tobi's discussion with sasuke about joining akatsuki where he flatly asks sasuke's intentions knowing full well that they are opposite of what itachi wanted. those were thought provoking discussions about major players in an upcoming war. not exactly 12 year old material there

To give an example, I thought Shikimaru confronting the fact that he failed his sensei was very mature. Sadly, Kishimoto ruined the moment by making Shikimaru an Avenger just like Sasuke (which isn't necessarily a bad story, save for the fact that so much had been made about how bad it was for Sasuke to be an Avenger), even going so far as to try and abandon his village just to get his revenge. It reeked of childishness and not fully reflecting on his actions (as if, somehow, killing the man who killed his sensei would make up for his sensei's death).

i partly agree, but hidan and kakuzu made it clear that they were returning to konoha to not only put everyone at risk but to kill shikamaru and his team and steal asuma's corpse. it's not like they killed asuma and then retired to some distant country and shikamaru tracked hidan down and beat him. the best way to defeat someone so powerful is to ambush them which is the proper tactic in this case. going around the village and constructing a poor plan was dumb for sure, but i see no problem with the reflection of his actions. i didnt see it as shikamaru making up for asuma's death. it was shikamaru protecting "the king" (konoha, specifically the young) from a threat like hidan and kakuzu. and as someone with firsthand experience fighting them, he should have been on the team to ambush them.

Naruto is an immature story (or at least not a mature story), simply because the world the characters live in is childish and simplistic. And, truthfully, it works best this way.

all i can say to this is that you sure talk a lot about something that in your own words is childish and simplistic... to me, any form of literature that raises this much discussion simply is not childish and simplistic