[Manga] Naruto Chapter 621 Discussion Thread

[Artful Dodger]

Originally Posted by mrShady

It's pretty lame though how Kishi has retconned Hashirama these last few chapters. He just upped his strength by a 1000 compared to his first edo summoning. Current Naruto (who's a Jinchuuriki) would be creamed by him.

Why is this a problem? We've been reading regular ninjas taking out Jinchuriki's all manga long. Deidara even managed to do this on his own.

Originally Posted by Kenu

Who knows.. probably just another arse-pull no jutsu.

It's impressive no doubt. But the way the jutsu's are pulled out of thin air one after the other without real meaning is where the story is let down.

Other than his Mokuton style, we actually don't know much about Hashirama's arsenal of jutsu. I don't see how these are "asspull moves" if you don't have much of an idea of his limits in the first place.

If Hashirama was wounded and at a severe disadvantage, by giving Madara all benefit of the doubt that he no longer treasures their friendship, then after all that pulls out the Thousand Palms of Budda no jutsu, I'd be happy with that.

Ah I see. So, what technique would you recommend he use against a full-powered Kyuubi in Susanoo armor charging at him?

I think its funny that certain people are complaining about legendary figures being "overpowered", yet the recent slew of ridiculous powerups and fanservice Naruto's been recieveing apparently caused no need for concern from these people. Apparently power-ups and fanservice are only valid if they're given to Naruto.

[Dengar]

You know, I don't think anything actually "happened" to the Senju. Nothing seems to imply that anything "happened" to them.

Like I said, maybe the NAME is just a bit rare.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by The Small One

Was it really retcon? Its been a long while since I watched it, but didn't God say he didn't know where he came from, when he was first introduced.
Oh, off-topic.

If it hadn't been for King Piccolo spitting out dinosaur-like demons, I'd say it was merely a reveal. But since there was never any explanation for that, and no other Namekian did it, it's definitely a retcon. Not as bad as Danzou's, but still.

[blackwhite67]

Does nobody here realize the funny reference in this flashback? In the second flashback, Hashirama skips his stone to the other side first. In the first flashback, Madara hurls a bijuu ball to another shore across the sea.

[kk2extreme]

Originally Posted by DoubtGin

a flashback IN my flashback?!

lol, soon we won't know if the current events are part of a larger flashback

[Alchemist007]

Young Madara looks like if Sasuke was as emo then as he is now.

[Taco Bell]

jeez we get it. The first steals madara's ice cream and he gets all emo and wants to destroy the village. We've seen this story told like 5 times now.


The fight was really cool seeing the armor kyubbi, bijuu bomb+susanno sword, and 1000 hands attack. Hopefully the flashback is only 1 more chapter before we get to see the current battlefield again.

[yogotah]

Honestly, I don't see the big deal with the power and strength that Mardara and Harishima has.

I was a little bit shaken when I first heard how strong Mardara was making Harishima to be (based on the first description of him when Oro summoned him) but I got over it.

Naruto is an action show...not in the philosophy/logic genre. I don't expect Kishimoto to never commit fallacies. To me, as long as the story is still ENJOYABLE, then I will still read it. That's the point of manga, right....to enjoy it.

I don't want to be a prick, but I'm just a little disheartened when people take the events so seriously when the main point is just to be entertained. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with not liking a particular angle that the story took..but in reality if you're that bothered by the manga or show, then why bother watching it.

In any case, I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I always thought that after Naruto, there would be a spin off series explaining the stories of Harishima and Mardara....but I get something even more instant, so I'm liking it. There power strengths are a beauty to watch...you can't tell me that it is not BOSS to see legendary fights of this nature.

I can't wait to see this animated.

Harishima would surely crush Naruto in a fight, in Naruto's current state, but I think that's a great thing. This shows that Naruto still has a long way to go. If he became Hokage now, wouldn't he be the youngest to do so?? I mean Naruto's strong, but he isn't a genius like his father and the other Hokages..I expect him to not break any records. So to show the true power of the most epic Hokage kinds of put Naruto's power into perspective. Also, this makes the notion of Kakashi ever becoming Hokage almost delusional...would he really be fit to be Hokage?, I don't even think he would agree with that. He would be the weakest Kage in the history of Kage lol

lol fun for everybody

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Retconning doesn't always mean plot hole though.

So far him having Senjutsu does not conflict with the facts.

I’m sorry, is this a reply to my earlier post? If yes, then nowhere in my post I ever said that retcon = plot-holes. Also, I never said that Hashirama’s senjutsu is conflicting with any facts (so far).

Originally Posted by GDB

You can attribute Vegeta's thing to arrogance, and even if not, changing something like 10 chapters later isn't that big of a deal. 300 chapters, yes; 10, no.

Retcon is still a retcon no matter how many chapters it takes.

[Sabaku Kyu]

Originally Posted by Taco Bell

jeez we get it. The first steals madara's ice cream and he gets all emo and wants to destroy the village. We've seen this story told like 5 times now.

Yeah, seems like every single rivalry begins with childhood friends. I would've liked to see Hashirama and Madara first meet as enemies -- maybe as young soldiers before they rose though the ranks of their clans. Them playing together as children seems weird. I thought the Uchiha/Senju feud went back generations before Hashirama and Madara. Why would the two kids both be playing in the same area?

Also, I'm unsure how Hashirama is telling this story. Did he actually describe the entire battle only to abruptly start talking about how he first met Madara

Anyways, there we were, Madara and I, charging towards each other in the climatic final attack in our duel to the death---wait, did I tell you how we first met? Ok, it started when we were boys skipping stones at the creek...

Originally Posted by blackwhite67

Does nobody here realize the funny reference in this flashback? In the second flashback, Hashirama skips his stone to the other side first. In the first flashback, Madara hurls a bijuu ball to another shore across the sea.

Yes, I thought it was kinda clever.

[Sasukemaru]

Why are ppl complaining about how strong hashirama is? It's been a well known fact for 2-300 chapters that him and madara are heads and shoulders above anyone who came before or after them (excluding so6p)

So how is it a retcon that they are so strong? When nearly half the manga has been about how godlike they were?

Besides is it even a retcon? Kakashi said the 3rd was the strongest hokage, he also said the sharingan came from the byakugan....Maybe ppl shouldn't believe everything that comes out of his mouth, he didn't even think the so6p was real.


Just because you don't know the whole history to a story, or the characters in it doesn't make it a retcon. It means the story is incomplete. Orochimaru used to be the baddest thing to ever walk the earth at one time....and you know what? We were like 100 or so chapters in.

So quit calling things a retcon because you didn't know the whole story of what is going to be a 700+ long manga after the first page of the first chapter.


You know...Jesus didn't come till the very end of the bible...I think God did a retcon.

[Lunarskylar]

I don't see any retconning at all.
Aside from the fact that Hashirama didn't display this strength while fighting the 3rrd, honestly did he really need to?

First we have the fact that Orochimaru was controlling their actions, which left their skill upto his own knowledge of their abilities , and secondly there's the whole "skill of edo tensei determines how much power they are brought back with (this is a retcon, but not the current topic)

Hiruzen wouldn't say the first was underpowered, because regardless against the two of them he was already being severely overpowered. At hiruzen's age, combined with facing both tobirama and hashirama, why would Hashirama need to use even a fraction of his full power?

Also, concerning the comment about land changing monster techniques.... Since the naruto vs Sasuke fight it was said that the valley of the end was a fight so monstrous that it split the land in two

I don't see Hasihirama as being too overpowered because of the Gojuu Rashomon technique. Using it as a measuring stick, yes he's stronger than oro who only summoned 3, but it's not like he summoned 20.

Yes the thousand hands technique is hugeeee, and probably devastating, but not to an extent that retcons hashirama's strength, since he was also state to have built all of konoha with his mokuton. Size isn't everything, since the kyuubi0-susanoo probably destroys most of 1000 hands, despite the size

[Artimus_Prime]

it was argued here a while back that Senju and senjutsu were not synonymous. is this still the case?

also i think whatever this deity is that hashirama has summoned, the juubi is kin to it

[Luminion Lancer]

You know, you could make the argument that back during Orochimaru's invasion, he was the one controlling the 2 Hokage. Thus their abilities were limited to what Orochimaru himself knew them to be capable of. Since their personalities are intact right now, it is entirely possible they obtained their full power. There are also translations of the previous chapter where Tobirama (Niidaime) claims Orochimaru improved on Edo Tensei since last time so there is that.

To be honest, this is starting to smell all too perfect for a set-up. Come on, you can't tell me that you don't see the Hokage breaking free, then joining the Alliance to go and wreck Madara's day.

Though, I am honestly not that impressed with how we're getting a flashback only to go to an even further flashback. Would it not have been better to start when they were kids and then slowly build up their fight? Eh, oh well. I suppose I can't complain if it keeps Sasuke's mouth from flapping for a while. And I don't mean that as an offense to any of his fans. I'd just have much rather seen the war end with the Alliance first and then lead into this new development. Have the Alliance all weak and weary, only to encounter another threat on their way home.

[mrShady]

Originally Posted by Artful Dodger

Why is this a problem? We've been reading regular ninjas taking out Jinchuriki's all manga long. Deidara even managed to do this on his own.

And yet Jinchuurikis are supposed to be WMD's. Especially Naruto with having the strongest beast of them all.
Any way Deidara taking down a Jinchuuriki can also be seen as using smart tactics. We've hardly seen any of the Jinchuuriki Akatsuki fights so we can only speculate. But besides that most people under Akatsuki are Kage level fighters, so them being that strong isn't that weird. Also their abilities were hardly documented making any surprise attack pretty devastating.

However about the current Naruto being so grossly underpowered compared to Hashirama and Madara (flashback versions) is just retarded. Where do they get the chakra from? The chakra the beasts have was a supposed balancing thing with the rest of the world. Yet here's a kid who controls the strongest of those beasts (yes at half the power) outmatched by people who lived almost a hundred years ago without them.
The same kid that basically ended half of the 4th ninja war on his own with just his clones. That's a ridiculous power gap and I personally consider it a huge decrease in story telling. I still want to know how the story ends just because I've been following it for such a long time. It's just annoys me that these super OP characters are continuously being introduced which only leads to the main character having yet another huge power boost. An unneeded power boost since he can already solo the world on his own.
Besides Sasuke was supposed to be a threat.... the hell he can ever be 1 after all these ridiculous power jumps. There was zero point in him having the EMS since he has already been dwarfed by Madara before he get's to show it.

And I can enjoy a story with massive attacks using loads of power that decimates the surrounding, but Naruto used to be a smarter manga, mixing tactics and big attacks and making it a proper match. Yet all of this has been thrown away to just use DBZ's the strongest is the one with the bigger stick "story" telling.

I know this has been an ongoing trend in Naruto for the last 100 or so chapters but doesn't mean I have to like it or make excuses for the author for why he's downgrading his own work.

[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by The Small One

What exactly about Itachi was retconned?
I remember that when he first appeared, I and a few others already mentioned the possibility of him beeing a spy inside Akatsuki and working for Konoha, which turned out to be true.

it's possible to guess anything. see the definition of retcon below:

Originally Posted by mrShady

Retcon: Adding or altering information regarding the back story of a fictional character or world, regardless of whether the change contradicts what was said before.

it seems to me that a lot of people are assuming retcon means something else. it's important to know the definition of a word before you argue against its use.

Originally Posted by Luminion Lancer

You know, you could make the argument that back during Orochimaru's invasion, he was the one controlling the 2 Hokage. Thus their abilities were limited to what Orochimaru himself knew them to be capable of. Since their personalities are intact right now, it is entirely possible they obtained their full power. There are also translations of the previous chapter where Tobirama (Niidaime) claims Orochimaru improved on Edo Tensei since last time so there is that.

this is actually kishi's argument. kabuto says exactly this to edo-deidara to explain the difference in power between orochimaru's first use of ET and kabuto's improved version with personalities left attached. this however, doesn't make hashirama's power less of a retcon. let's face it, in his fight vs. hiruzen he made some trees grow and wrapped them around hiruzen in an effort to constrain him and that was very impressive. now it looks like something below child's play compared to what hashirama can actually do at full power

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by Sabaku Kyu

Yeah, seems like every single rivalry begins with childhood friends. I would've liked to see Hashirama and Madara first meet as enemies -- maybe as young soldiers before they rose though the ranks of their clans. Them playing together as children seems weird. I thought the Uchiha/Senju feud went back generations before Hashirama and Madara. Why would the two kids both be playing in the same area?

i totally agree. i thought they were rivals from day one. i got the impression that they supposed to have met on the battlefield during one of many senju and uchiha face-offs. we really don't need another childhood-friends-turned-enemies story. that has been played too many times in this manga. that part really disappointed me. that's really my only complaint about this chapter.

i don't really have a problem with a super-powered hashirama, that's to be expected since madara is ridiculously powerful. if he were less powerful then the supposed rivalry between them would be BS. besides, i've stopped thinking of them as humans a long time ago. the ninja in naruto are not really ninja but saiyans.

Originally Posted by itachi-san314

this however, doesn't make hashirama's power less of a retcon. let's face it, in his fight vs. hiruzen he made some trees grow and wrapped them around hiruzen in an effort to constrain him and that was very impressive. now it looks like something below child's play compared to what hashirama can actually do at full power

i can say the same thing for a number of other characters in naruto, namely jiraiya. when we first saw him fight oro he could barely hold things together. he didn't even use sage mode even when tsunade and naruto were being dominated by kabuto. but several chapters later we see him using senjutsu in full strength against pain. now why didn't he use that badass ability against oro? my guess is kishi hadn't really figured out what sage mode was even though he already wrote that bit about jiraiya being a sage from the beginning. i guess his reasons for giving hashirama god-like abilities are similar. he made madara so freakin' badass that he just had to give hashirama an upgrade if he wanted to back up the idea of them being rivals. i doubt he knew how powerful his ninjas will get. back then, he relied solely on strategy and smart ninjutsu techniques, none of the saiyan stuff we see now. i'm not defending his writing though, i'm just saying that with the rate he's going with this manga, he just needed to go with it. as you said in your earlier post, he wrote himself into a corner.

[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i can say the same thing for a number of other characters in naruto, namely jiraiya. when we first saw him fight oro he could barely hold things together. he didn't even use sage mode even when tsunade and naruto were being dominated by kabuto. but several chapters later we see him using senjutsu in full strength against pain. now why didn't he use that badass ability against oro? my guess is kishi hadn't really figured out what sage mode was even though he already wrote that bit about jiraiya being a sage from the beginning.

i agree with what you said about madara and hashirama, but i'm not so sure about this jiraiya part. the point of that sannin battle was that none of them fought at full power. kishi purposely made him poisoned so that he couldn't use his best powers. like you said, he was a sage from the beginning and he was also involved with the toads from the beginning. i'm sure kishi added powers to him as the story progressed like i'm sure he does with every character who will fight down the road, but i don't think there's a way to know if he intended jiraiya to have sage powers from the getgo or not. something can be a retcon and still be planned form the start of the story. in hashirama's case, he was clearly not intended to be this powerful from the beginning of the story. at least not the way i see it

[GDB]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i can say the same thing for a number of other characters in naruto, namely jiraiya. when we first saw him fight oro he could barely hold things together. he didn't even use sage mode even when tsunade and naruto were being dominated by kabuto. but several chapters later we see him using senjutsu in full strength against pain. now why didn't he use that badass ability against oro?

Hadn't Jiraiya been poisoned or something? Kind of hard to fight at full power when you're debilitated. In real world terms, we know Sage Mode hadn't been made yet. However, it isn't truly a retcon, since there's a valid in-story reason for it.

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by GDB

Hadn't Jiraiya been poisoned or something? Kind of hard to fight at full power when you're debilitated. In real world terms, we know Sage Mode hadn't been made yet. However, it isn't truly a retcon, since there's a valid in-story reason for it.

i agree with what you said about madara and hashirama, but i'm not so sure about this jiraiya part. the point of that sannin battle was that none of them fought at full power. kishi purposely made him poisoned so that he couldn't use his best powers. like you said, he was a sage from the beginning and he was also involved with the toads from the beginning. i'm sure kishi added powers to him as the story progressed like i'm sure he does with every character who will fight down the road, but i don't think there's a way to know if he intended jiraiya to have sage powers from the getgo or not. something can be a retcon and still be planned form the start of the story. in hashirama's case, he was clearly not intended to be this powerful from the beginning of the story. at least not the way i see it

seems like a convenient reason for his lack of power, don't you think? poisoned or not, if sage mode had been invented already then he should've at least tried to use it but he didn't.

jiraiya always claimed to be a sage master, i believe he called himself gama sennin or frog sage, so i believe kishi had planned on using frogs to enhance jiraiya's abilities. he used to tell naruto that whenever naruto would call him ero-sennin. and later in the series sage masters were known to use sage mode like kabuto with his snake sage abilities. so why would jiraiya not have sage mode then? anyway, we're going off topic here. my point is, this sort of thing happens in naruto. retcon or not, there are some things that simply don't add up.