[Manga] Naruto Chapter 553 Discussion

[HasuMasu]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

ahhh pain...yes, i have some complaints about his godly powers too. same with sasuke and madara. i didn't like how kishi portrayed them. i guess it's his way of hyping up characters, like the way he hyped up the akatsuki. but the truth is the akatsuki, as powerful as they were, had weaknesses that were exploited by their opponents and that's how they were defeated. i don't think deidara and sasori overpowered suna though, rather they outwitted everyone including gaara. they laid out a well-crafted trap and the people of suna didn't know what hit them.

now naruto, like what kishi did to his villains, is being hyped up as well. but you see, most of the complaints stem from the fact that kishi attempted to get naruto to let go of his hero complex by having itachi lecture him about relying on his friends and not getting too full of himself. and yet in this chapter he went on and played the savior anyway. so what was the purpose of itachi's lecture? i don't mind him playing the hero but he doesn't have to fight every battle and win them for his allies. let the others fight and win their battles for themselves. it's not like they're not capable. but i guess kishi is concerned that if he doesn't have naruto in every chapter the manga sales would drop again. probably why he brought back sasuke. he needs to increase sales.

It's...a clone?

It...didn't hear Itachi's lecture?

Nobody listens to me.

[Ero-Senn1n]

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

You often like to bring up this "Shounen Law" business, but really, not every manga must follow it to a T, it really doesn't have to be that way. The author doesn't have to dumb the story down to that level.

It's how you make money, because the audience like these things, the audience likes happy endings, the audience likes the main character kicking asses and being the strongest. Kishimoto delivers this, it's not what you make but *how* you make it. In my opinion this manga stands out of all the other action shonen mangas is not because of the main character but because of all the side characters. The main character just does what he is supposed to do, he fights, he levels up, he is becoming the strongest, nothing too special about that. But there are some really cool side characters, both their personality and their story, just to mention a few side characters who had important roles in the recent chapters: Itachi, Nagato, Gaara. You don't have to have a super-interesting main character to have an excellent manga, Naruto is a good example for that.

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

Once again, the main gripe here is Naruto being everyone's superman, jumping in their battles and pretty much taking the glory. He is the main character, most of the glory is going to be his in the ending anyway, but this war effort was a great chance for some other players to get some burn. And what happened? Naruto literally appears out of nowhere in everyones fight essentially wins it for them and flys away.

Wasn't it enough for you that Naruto was saved by Itachi? He didn't shine there, and Itachi was even teaching him life lessons. And now you talk as if Naruto singe-handedly won the war, but this is not true, he only joined Gaara and old kage to shine, then instead of making a kage bunshin to help both the kages and Temari he left half of the job to the kages and went for the place where a wind element user can help and there are not kage level guys to save Temari's ass. And of course he took the leading role there since Temari and random ninjas are far from kage level. Why do you expect that every chapter from now on shows Naruto jumping in and winning? Do you really expect such a boring war from Kishimoto? I don't think so, the author is showing both teamwork and superior power, showing what Naruto can do now, and how he relates to his friends and allies, but this is just an introduction of the new Naruto, from here on things will get more troublesome and Naruto won't just shine as easy as he did in this chapter.


People who complain about Naruto doing the opposite of what Itachi said to him didn't read carefully that chapter where Itachi talks. Itachi didn't say that Naruto should not lead the battles, he said he should not fight alone. Naruto didn't fight alone in this chapter, he is fighting as the leading team member. At this point it's hard to understand why some people are angry, but maybe the reason is that they still can't accept that Naruto is stronger than Gaara and is far stronger than someone like Temari.

[Artimus_Prime]

whether a clone or not, or whether the speech was heard or not…this didnt read like a single handed victory for naruto to me.

Muu declared his jutsu was really fast, thus a quick opponent was needed to counter it. enter superspeed naruto to deal some damage, old man geezer immobilizes him, gaara seals him…thats the definition of teamwork.

i expect him to work with temari as well…they are the only two wind users…they will work together

[Hanzoman]

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

It's how you make money, because the audience like these things, the audience likes happy endings, the audience likes the main character kicking asses and being the strongest. Kishimoto delivers this, it's not what you make but *how* you make it. In my opinion this manga stands out of all the other action shonen mangas is not because of the main character but because of all the side characters. The main character just does what he is supposed to do, he fights, he levels up, he is becoming the strongest, nothing too special about that. But there are some really cool side characters, both their personality and their story, just to mention a few side characters who had important roles in the recent chapters: Itachi, Nagato, Gaara. You don't have to have a super-interesting main character to have an excellent manga, Naruto is a good example for that.

Its interesting that you bring up the point of this not being an average manga, and that the side characters are part of what make it exceptional, because the side characters are also my concern here. Mainly, some of these elite allies should be able to finish their own battles, especially those not from Konoha. I've repeated this already, so thats really all I have left to say about that.

Wasn't it enough for you that Naruto was saved by Itachi? He didn't shine there, and Itachi was even teaching him life lessons. And now you talk as if Naruto singe-handedly won the war, but this is not true, he only joined Gaara and old kage to shine, then instead of making a kage bunshin to help both the kages and Temari he left half of the job to the kages and went for the place where a wind element user can help and there are not kage level guys to save Temari's ass. And of course he took the leading role there since Temari and random ninjas are far from kage level. Why do you expect that every chapter from now on shows Naruto jumping in and winning? Do you really expect such a boring war from Kishimoto? I don't think so, the author is showing both teamwork and superior power, showing what Naruto can do now, and how he relates to his friends and allies, but this is just an introduction of the new Naruto, from here on things will get more troublesome and Naruto won't just shine as easy as he did in this chapter.

You are saying things I never said here, and taking the extreme, creating a strawman to attack.

People who complain about Naruto doing the opposite of what Itachi said to him didn't read carefully that chapter where Itachi talks. Itachi didn't say that Naruto should not lead the battles, he said he should not fight alone. Naruto didn't fight alone in this chapter, he is fighting as the leading team member. At this point it's hard to understand why some people are angry, but maybe the reason is that they still can't accept that Naruto is stronger than Gaara and is far stronger than someone like Temari.

Your claim of "people" not willing to accept Naruto surpassing Gaara in power is ridiculous, as he's defeated Gaara hundreds of chapters ago, and has been given significant upgrades since then. I would have been just as dissapointed if he jumped into any other of the Kage's fights, they're ninja world leaders, let them fight their battles, Naruto is already guarrenteed the best fight in the end anyway, he doesn't need to save everyone. There may be a situation that parrallels this, where Naruto is the one who is on the short end of the stick, and I'm sure you will not be happy about it. I will make sure to point out to you your double standard if I'm around. Whenever Naruto is concerned you don't even seem to try and understand or even consider the other position, you are simply in favor of whatever makes him look good regardless of what happens... In this case even if he looks bad, looking good if you understand what I mean.

[octaviahawk]

lol, you definitely have a point there aliasxn, except that I have this weird suspicion that Madara likes to just mess with people, you know? And honestly, it seemed like he wanted to kill off some of his own men until only the top remained- I'm not sure Madara really trusts anyone very fully besides Zetsu, whom he helped to create himself.
I see Madara as one of those evil villains who likes to move people around like pieces on a chess board; his main objective is not the bijuus, so to speak, but wrecking havoc and confusion.

Anyway, that's just my opinion

[Midnight Commander]

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

At this point it's hard to understand why some people are angry, but maybe the reason is that they still can't accept that Naruto is stronger than Gaara and is far stronger than someone like Temari.

Perhaps if you were to try and view things objectively and place your bias for Naruto aside, I don't think it would be difficult to understand the readers' frustrations. I also don't think you should be dismissing legitimate complaints from people as them simply not willing to accept that Naruto is stronger than Gaara or Temari, especially when there is no logical basis to do so at this point of the story. Someone could just as easily dismiss your argument as you simply being such a big fan of Naruto, that your bias for him simply doesn't allow you to care about him being overpowered (just for example), or how his allies are portrayed, just as long as he is portrayed strong and victorious. (which your previous posts and discussions actually do serve as a logical basis for, yet I don't think anyone here has dismissed your statements this way, instead focusing on the argument)

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by Detective-san

It's...a clone?

It...didn't hear Itachi's lecture?

Nobody listens to me.

regardless of whether it's a clone or not, the point is kishi gave us a chapter that talks about naruto relying on his friends and about him not being burdened by the responsibilities of a messiah. i was expecting a much more level-headed naruto (clone or not) willing to trust his comrades to win their battles and going after the big guns himself. he doesn't need to bother with these side battles, his friends could take care of that. that's what a lot of people have been complaining about, including myself. i was hoping for kishi to give us some awesome side battles from minor characters and some panels showing naruto going after madara or something like that. but he didn't. instead he showed us naruto jumping in to save his friends which defeats the purpose of the previous chapter.

[Ero-Senn1n]

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

Mainly, some of these elite allies should be able to finish their own battles, especially those not from Konoha. I've repeated this already, so thats really all I have left to say about that.

I don't see a problem there, they were able to do so for a lot of chapters, and the complaints there were:
1, the zombies are made too weak, because the alliance is winning too easy even without Naruto. Sure they didn't complain that the alliance named characters (kages or Choji/Temari/etc.) are weak.
2, complaints about all that being too boring because Naruto and Sasuke are absent, therefore people just don't care about their fight. As you see Kishimoto had to bring in Naruto into the battles because people were complaining that the main hero of the manga is absent.

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

You are saying things I never said here, and taking the extreme, creating a strawman to attack.

I was answering to this:

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

... Naruto being everyone's superman ...
... appears out of nowhere in everyones fight essentially wins it for them and flys away.
... Naruto getting a piece of everyone's spotlight ...

You say "everyone" each time, as if this one chapter where we had Gaara, old kage and Temari will go on until the end. Not to mention that the alliance was beating the shit out of the zombies from the beginning. Now 2 kages, Temari and some random noname ninja face 4 legendary kages and you complain that they can't beat them, we knew from the beginning that this 4-kage-team was the strongest zombie team (except Nagato-Itachi team but they were never beaten) and that the main hero was brought back so early exactly to help the alliance to beat them (of course they were introduced because Kishimoto wanted to bring back Naruto, because the audience was losing interest if the hero is absent).

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

Your claim of "people" not willing to accept Naruto surpassing Gaara in power is ridiculous, as he's defeated Gaara hundreds of chapters ago,

That was when Gaara was the evil guy, he changed then and became a kage, while Naruto remained a genin. Here we talk about a genin who is a "fool" (to quote Jiraiya's words) becoming stronger than a cool and smart kage who actually is the leader of the army.

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

he doesn't need to save everyone

I think that the conclusion of our little debate has to be that this is a matter of taste. For me and for the vast majority of the readers the hero suddenly entering the battlefield where his allies are losing and saving them is a very good story. This is what we expect and we would be disappointed with this manga if it does not happen. For you it's the opposite. We all know that this is a cliche, but we still want to happen. This is what we expect from an action shonen manga, and this is for what i used the "average" word, but this cliche is also what makes such manga so successful.

[DeathStrike]

Originally Posted by Nite-Wing

It felt amazing reading this chapter
Sasuke is back!

Poor white zetsu though

i just want him to meet itachi and learn the real truth and knock some sense into him

[james0246]

Originally Posted by DeathStrike

i just want him to meet itachi and learn the real truth and knock some sense into him

I really don't see that happening. Itachi left it to Naruto to beat some sense into Sasuke, and since Itachi is not seeking out Sasuke, I really do not think they will encounter each other.

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

For me and for the vast majority of the readers the hero suddenly entering the battlefield where his allies are losing and saving them is a very good story.

I don't think a "vast majority" wanted Naruto to do much of anything...

[iBeast]

Looks like the fillers are over... Sasuke's back.

[yakumo-chan]

I really dont like Itachi's lecture to Naruto,

It just makes that

Naruto = still a kid after all

also Itachi said that "If you become arrogant and forget others, you will one day become like madara"

I was like... WTF... how can I trust naruto now? so he didnt grow up after all? is that it?

Originally Posted by ronin myael

luffy may be super luffy now but the rest of the straw hats are not so weak that they needed to be saved, they can fight their own battles, not to mention he teams up with them to defeat really strong opponents.

I also think that Zoro, one of the members of straw hats, can beat his captain,, Luffy

Its just that Naruto is kinda Imbalance, its like no one can beat him now

sorry for double post

Originally Posted by GusGus

Naruto is the only extremely-annoying-goku-wannabe.

actually Goku dont defeat his enemy all by himself, remember Gohan? Cell Saga?
Gohan was the one who saved the earth not Goku...
Also, in the Buu Saga...
Goku didnt defeat Buu all by himself.... He was powered up because the others wished something to recover Goku's power... I kinda forgot what they wished though... As far as I remember it was to power up Goku...

Naruto is not a Goku wannabe... he's like a superman or something

And dont forget, Goku's Team mates is also strong too,
And Vegeta's Strength is not far as of Goku

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by yakumo-chan

I also think that Zoro, one of the members of straw hats, can beat his captain,, Luffy

Its just that Naruto is kinda Imbalance, its like no one can beat him now

actually Goku dont defeat his enemy all by himself, remember Gohan? Cell Saga?
Gohan was the one who saved the earth not Goku...
Also, in the Buu Saga...
Goku didnt defeat Buu all by himself.... He was powered up because the others wished something to recover Goku's power... I kinda forgot what they wished though... As far as I remember it was to power up Goku...

Naruto is not a Goku wannabe... he's like a superman or something

And dont forget, Goku's Team mates is also strong too,
And Vegeta's Strength is not far as of Goku

i actually don't mind naruto getting all these power-ups as long as his allies get them too. the disparity in their strengths now are so far that they all seem like damsels in distress waiting for him to rescue them. i don't think he's the most powerful ninja in the alliance right now but i do think he's the most powerful konoha ninja alive save for sasuke who has gone rogue. but my main complaint comes from how kishi hypes up his character by getting him in all these side battles that should be taken care of by his allies.

i also don't like the way he portrays naruto as the savior when the kid hasn't grown up at all. compared to luffy he's just a toddler. luffy may be "retarded", yes i think he has a few loose screws, but he turns into a capable captain when push comes to shove. his friends could rely on him and he relies on them in return. that to me is a mark of a good leader. he takes charge but he doesn't steal anything away from his comrades. he usually chooses the strongest opponents and then lets the others take care of the rest. his crew is not so weak either that they couldn't hold their own against him. luffy powers-up but then his friends get their power-ups too. and even though luffy has grown quite powerful since the time-skip, he is not the strongest one in the world of one piece. there are several others who are far stronger than he is and that's why you can't help cheering for him. he is still the underdog compared to the others.

i want naruto to grow up, to let go of his desire to prove himself and become the hokage that he's supposed to be. he has already been accepted and loved. now he needs to take charge and become a leader. he doesn't need to take all the burden to himself, he has friends and allies willing to support him. he needs to realize that. a hokage is not a hokage if he has no one to lead. to become a good leader you need to utilize the abilities of your subordinates and trust that they will do their part. but right now naruto doesn't seem to want to include his friends. he thinks that saving the world is his duty alone. and that's what really ticks me off.

[Ero-Senn1n]

Originally Posted by yakumo-chan

I really dont like Itachi's lecture to Naruto,

It just makes that

Naruto = still a kid after all

also Itachi said that "If you become arrogant and forget others, you will one day become like madara"

I was like... WTF... how can I trust naruto now? so he didnt grow up after all? is that it?

He's 16 years old and the type of personality who is driven by emotions, what did you expect?
The "lecture" was a very good part of the manga, for both Itachi's and Naruto's characters. After all what happened to him Naruto has too much self confidence, it's almost arrogance. One could say that the hero, the good guy, cannot be arrogant, he is the good guy who is saving the world. But the hero can have bad traits too, and these bad traits can grow to be even worse, to the point where he either is not the good guy any more or he fails.

When we saw Itachi in the flashbacks being questioned by 3 members of the Uchiha police force, he beat them down and gave them an arrogant speech, we could see how as a genius of ninja arts Itachi has become arrogant, he wanted to do everything by himself and he failed. But Itachi was a child back then, but later as a grown up he realized his past mistakes, but it was too late then, but now at least he could give a life lesson to Naruto. This "lecture" was one of those things why i like this manga better than others.

As for comparing Madara to Naruto that's kinda interesting, maybe the author wants that in the end Madara has a flashback about his childhood, where we see how he became from a good child an evil adult. Kishimoto likes to show similar life story patterns for different characters and then compare them in different situations.

[yakumo-chan]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i also don't like the way he portrays naruto as the savior when the kid hasn't grown up at all.

^This...
I also think that its much better if Naruto was the one who give us lessons instead of Itachi. It only makes Naruto pathetic or something

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i also don't like the way he portrays naruto as the savior when the kid hasn't grown up at all. compared to luffy he's just a toddler.

i want naruto to grow up, to let go of his desire to prove himself and become the hokage that he's supposed to be. he has already been accepted and loved. now he needs to take charge and become a leader.

he thinks that saving the world is his duty alone. and that's what really ticks me off.

You're SO right about wanting Naruto to grow up, but the point of this manga is, he is still growing up. Naruto is growing up little by little. Still, he's a teenager now (16, 17?), of course he's still a bit rash, inexperienced and psychologically immature. In reality, it's reasonable or even natural. That's why Itachi, who is a grown-up, lectured him. He's never been a leader of anything besides Konohamaru's group long ago . So, it's obvious that he lacks the traits of a leader. Thus, comparing him to Luffy is really not fair coz Luffy is a leader since the beginning. Their backgrounds are so different. As a main character, Naruto won't be like Kira Yamato, Gon Freecs, Amuro Ray or Lelouch who's smart and reached their psychological maturity at teen age. He's a slow learner with some good points. Maybe, people should learn to accept that or they should learn to avoid this manga.

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i guess it's his way of hyping up characters, like the way he hyped up the akatsuki.

I don't think Kishimoto hyped-up Akatsuki. He just portray them as what they are: dangerous ninjas with great abilities. We never met a lot of characters that hail them or cower in fear once they heard the 'Akatsuki' word. In fact, Akatsuki always have to deal with tough fights whenever they encounter enemies. They don't win easily. The one(s) that hype them up is probably the anime and some fans. If you want to know mangas which characters are hyped-up by their authors, try read Claymore, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Saint Seiya (original series) or Black Cat for example. That's where characters are being hyped up to the extreme and some even get a full narration or mentioned every time (by a character and whatnot) even before he/she/them appear.

[yakumo-chan]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

You're SO right about wanting Naruto to grow up, but the point of this manga is, he is still growing up. Naruto is growing up little by little. Still, he's a teenager now (16, 17?), of course he's still a bit rash, inexperienced and psychologically immature. In reality, it's reasonable or even natural. That's why Itachi, who is a grown-up, lectured him. He's never been a leader of anything besides Konohamaru's group long ago . So, it's obvious that he lacks the traits of a leader. Thus, comparing him to Luffy is really not fair coz Luffy is a leader since the beginning. Their backgrounds are so different. As a main character, Naruto won't be like Kira Yamato, Gon Freecs, Amuro Ray or Lelouch who's smart and reached their psychological maturity at teen age. He's a slow learner with some good points. Maybe, people should learn to accept that or they should learn to avoid this manga.



I don't think Kishimoto hyped-up Akatsuki. He just portray them as what they are: dangerous ninjas with great abilities. We never met a lot of characters that hail them or cower in fear once they heard the 'Akatsuki' word. In fact, Akatsuki always have to deal with tough fights whenever they encounter enemies. They don't win easily. The one(s) that hype them up is probably the anime and some fans. If you want to know mangas which characters are hyped-up by their authors, try read Claymore, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Saint Seiya (original series) or Black Cat for example. That's where characters are being hyped up to the extreme and some even get a full narration or mentioned every time (by a character and whatnot) even before he/she/them appear.

hmmm I guess youre right

[Sabaku Kyu]

Originally Posted by Artimus_Prime

whether a clone or not, or whether the speech was heard or not…this didnt read like a single handed victory for naruto to me.

Muu declared his jutsu was really fast, thus a quick opponent was needed to counter it. enter superspeed naruto to deal some damage, old man geezer immobilizes him, gaara seals him…thats the definition of teamwork.

i expect him to work with temari as well…they are the only two wind users…they will work together

Yeah, I would think even if this was the real Naruto who heard Itachi's words he would react the same way. Itachi told Naruto not to try to do everything alone, not that he shouldn't help others at all. The point was that Naruto should allow himself to rely on the same people who rely on him. Which he did do this chapter.

But that doesn't really matter. People thought Itachi's words were Kishi's promise that Naruto would go on vacation and the spotlight would move to Gaara, Shika, Kakashi or anyone not named "Naruto" the very next chapter. I don't blame them. Teamwork or no, Naruto's new rasengan-frenzy style is incredibly boring and Muu's battle was disappointingly easy. I almost hope that few of the zombies that were quickly sealed end up getting freed again, but that seems kind of pointless now. Better to just move along...

Originally Posted by ronin myael

but my main complaint comes from how kishi hypes up his character by getting him in all these side battles that should be taken care of by his allies.

Name the side battles in this war Naruto has taken from his allies besides the ones this chapter. All I've seen him do is save some nameless fodder.

[Hanzoman]

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

I don't see a problem there, they were able to do so for a lot of chapters, and the complaints there were:
1, the zombies are made too weak, because the alliance is winning too easy even without Naruto. Sure they didn't complain that the alliance named characters (kages or Choji/Temari/etc.) are weak.
2, complaints about all that being too boring because Naruto and Sasuke are absent, therefore people just don't care about their fight. As you see Kishimoto had to bring in Naruto into the battles because people were complaining that the main hero of the manga is absent.

You may not agree with this, however I believe it is entirely possible to have an exciting, competitive fight without Naruto, indeed, some of the best fights of the manga didn't include him(and the same goes for Sauske). I don't believe their absences are the main cause of the manga's relatively boring feel during his war either, instead I blame:

-The fight choreography: Were weren't shown anything relatively new and interesting, especially from the rookies which was what was heavily expected after such a long time away from the camera.

-The characters involved: We were shown a fight with cloud nin we barely know, and by extension most of use likely didn't care about so this isn't the best way to create an engaging fight. I'm sure the readers would have much rather watching Sakura, Shikamaru, Neji, or Lee, etc. fight a strong opponent and show off what they've been supposedly doing off camera.

-The zombies shouting out instructions on how to counter their attacks: The reasons they did this are obvious, however the fact remains that this doesn't make for a very exciting, and competitive fight. We saw once notorious ninja give half-assed performances, and we were yet again, fed these cliché lines as they were defeated.

-The pacing (which I think James briefly touched on earlier)... We were focused on specific aspects for too long at a time, and better timed transitions between these aspects would have added both some suspense and variation for the readers.

Regardless of whether or not Naruto is present, these elements will strongly contribute to, and create an pretty uninteresting fight. Don't blame Naruto's absence for the boring fights, instead, blame the boring fights. I said what I had to say about the elite allies being aided.

I was answering to this:

You say "everyone" each time, as if this one chapter where we had Gaara, old kage and Temari will go on until the end. Not to mention that the alliance was beating the shit out of the zombies from the beginning. Now 2 kages, Temari and some random noname ninja face 4 legendary kages and you complain that they can't beat them, we knew from the beginning that this 4-kage-team was the strongest zombie team (except Nagato-Itachi team but they were never beaten) and that the main hero was brought back so early exactly to help the alliance to beat them (of course they were introduced because Kishimoto wanted to bring back Naruto, because the audience was losing interest if the hero is absent).

Ah, my mistake. When I stated “everyone” I had the chapter's context in mind, and didn't really mean to say literally everyone, sometimes I forget to fully express my train of thought. I see your point about the 4-Kage team being the strongest team besides Itachi and Nagato, however, there is still stronger opposition out there, that Naruto will be the one to face and receive the glory for(or he could have been given a fight seperately with be perhaps against those twins, or something to that effect). With that said, this 4-Kage team (indeed a strong team whose techniques are either unknown or unseen to us) was a great opportunity for some of the elite allies to show off, however their fight too, was essentially stale(for one or more reasons stated above), and to add insult to injury, Gaara and the Tsuchikage didn't even get to finish the fight themselves. We will already be seeing Naruto in the best battles, so I thought this was unnecessary and disappointing.

That was when Gaara was the evil guy, he changed then and became a kage, while Naruto remained a genin. Here we talk about a genin who is a "fool" (to quote Jiraiya's words) becoming stronger than a cool and smart kage who actually is the leader of the army.

Titles ( i.e. Kage, leader of an army) and morality (i.e. good, evil, neutral guy) in this context are essentially meaningless, and I believe my previous point still stands since neither of them necessarily contribute to strength.

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

I think that the conclusion of our little debate has to be that this is a matter of taste. For me and for the vast majority of the readers the hero suddenly entering the battlefield where his allies are losing and saving them is a very good story. This is what we expect and we would be disappointed with this manga if it does not happen. For you it's the opposite. We all know that this is a cliche, but we still want to happen. This is what we expect from an action shonen manga, and this is for what i used the "average" word, but this cliche is also what makes such manga so successful.

Then I'll agree to disagree. You feel that this manga strictly conforming to the “traditional shounen way” that has been done to death is the best alternative, where the gap between the protagonist and allies is enormous to the point that they have absolutely no chance without him, where mostly everything is easily predictable (indeed, you do seem to enjoy making predictions and calling out “plot-holes”), etc. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm reading the wrong type of manga for my tastes, but I feel that some variation in this manga from what has been done over and over would be more interesting.

[Ero-Senn1n]

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

You may not agree with this, however I believe it is entirely possible to have an exciting, competitive fight without Naruto, indeed, some of the best fights of the manga didn't include him(and the same goes for Sauske).

It's obvious that side characters can have very interesting fights, but there has to be a balance, many readers probably felt that this war was going on for too many chapters without Naruto and Sasuke. Sure if Kishimoto made a chapter every day then it would not feel such a long time

Originally Posted by Hanzoman

instead I blame:
...

I mostly agree with the points, however in the defense of the author: it seems to me that he wanted to make something that is impossible, that is have most of the side characters, even those who are already dead, have their fights, have their story progressed and ended. And on top of that he wanted to show the whole alliance, all 5 ninja villages, every ninja that matters, and then as zombies introduce a lot of great ninjas from the past too. Sure he made mistakes, it was unavoidable with all these characters and stories connected into one big mess of a war. Considering all this i think the war until now is not that bad as it could have been