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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
Deidara: Um, ninja. Remember?
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I'm sure this came up recently, but it might have just been in the QM chat. If you accept that ninja are supposed to win by being smart, it becomes impossible to gauge their relative power. Jiraiya vs Pain is a great example. Jiraiya shut down Pain with a single technique. Pain recovered and killed him. What does that tell us about which one is stronger?

Compare Sasuke vs Itachi. "I use genjutsu." "I also use genjutsu." "I hit you with taijutsu." "I also hit you with taijutsu." "I zap you with ninjutsu." "I evade and zap you with different ninjutsu." "I use my trump card to blow you up." "I use my trump card to block it." An eight-year-old could work out which one is stronger, which is just as well because Kishimoto sometimes writes as if that's his target audience.

Shadowwarp said:
But the fact he was good enough that the bullshit that is Madara "smug dance" Uchiha considers him the greatest taijutsu master he's ever faced says a lot.
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It does. But all things are relative. He's the only pure taijutsu user other than Rock Lee. Even the Raikage uses ninjutsu.
 
Oh, yes. If anyone wants an accurate summary of the Sasuke vs Itachi fight, you can find it here.

(It's an imgur image, but for some reason it won't let me embed it inside spoiler tags.)
 
Velorien said:
Oh, yes. If anyone wants an accurate summary of the Sasuke vs Itachi fight, you can find it here.

(It's an imgur image, but for some reason it won't let me embed it inside spoiler tags.)
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To be fair, a substantial amount of that bullshit is...basically par for the course in high level wizard fights. If I recall there's several psychic powers in Warhammer 40k Roleplay that hide your actual presence then make it look like you're somewhere else, for example, and there's one that makes you incorporeal and lets you float through floors and stuff. Nothing that lets you pull a giant-8-headed-snake-peacock-hydra out of your ass, though.

Well, no psychic power, at any rate. Who knows what can be pulled out of asses when somebody rolls Perils of the Warp?
 
Velorien said:
Compare Sasuke vs Itachi. "I use genjutsu." "I also use genjutsu." "I hit you with taijutsu." "I also hit you with taijutsu." "I zap you with ninjutsu." "I evade and zap you with different ninjutsu." "I use my trump card to blow you up." "I use my trump card to block it." An eight-year-old could work out which one is stronger, which is just as well because Kishimoto sometimes writes as if that's his target audience.
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Doesn't Shonen Jump target boys? Eight sounds a little under their preferred demographic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like 10 to 16. A lot of the stuff that drives us adults crazy makes perfect sense once you know that's who the material is intended for. The shouting for no reason, the tag lines, Naruto acting like an imbecile, fights fights and more fights for the sake of having fights, all that.

Edit: Just looked it up, apparently the age range is more like 4-13. Surprising.

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Velorien said:
Oh, yes. If anyone wants an accurate summary of the Sasuke vs Itachi fight, you can find it here.

(It's an imgur image, but for some reason it won't let me embed it inside spoiler tags.)
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Wait, Itachi seriously just drops dead when he's about to win?

Edit edit edit: I should really be calling these ninja edits, shouldn't I? Opportunity lost.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
Doesn't Shonen Jump target boys? Eight sounds a little under their preferred demographic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like 10 to 16. A lot of the stuff that drives us adults crazy makes perfect sense once you know that's who the material is intended for. The shouting for no reason, the tag lines, Naruto acting like an imbecile, fights fights and more fights for the sake of having fights, all that.

Edit: Just looked it up, apparently the age range is more like 4-13. Surprising.

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Wait, Itachi seriously just drops dead when he's about to win?

Edit edit edit: I should really be calling these ninja edits, shouldn't I? Opportunity lost.
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More like Itachi was a secret Leaf double agent in the first place.
 
Velorien said:
Actually, that was the episode when I stopped watching Naruto. Gai has a wonderful, I would even say moving "death of major character" episode. Then at the end, Naruto turns up with his new messianic powers and just resurrects him.
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I stopped shortly after, with the "Naruto and Sasuke are descended from my kids so everything they've done had been part of Destiny rather than any agency or will of their own. Now take power up #17." But I also thought that about Gai.

Velorien said:
Eh. IIRC S-rank is a databook thing rather than something that gets used in the narrative anyway. And Kakashi is as strong as Gai, yet he has a really tough time against Kakuzu. Whereas Sasuke beat Deidara, and you can't tell me he was an S-ranker.
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It is worth noting that S- rank is the top, but because of that is very broad. The gap between a teenage demolitions expert and a hundred year old bounty hunter with a means to be invulnerable is large indeed. Plus, I seem to recall Sasuke having some elemental advantage. But more importantly, Kishimoto said so, rather than because sensible.
 
Velorien said:
Eh. IIRC S-rank is a databook thing rather than something that gets used in the narrative anyway. And Kakashi is as strong as Gai, yet he has a really tough time against Kakuzu. Whereas Sasuke beat Deidara, and you can't tell me he was an S-ranker.
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Halberdier said:
It is worth noting that S- rank is the top, but because of that is very broad. The gap between a teenage demolitions expert and a hundred year old bounty hunter with a means to be invulnerable is large indeed. Plus, I seem to recall Sasuke having some elemental advantage. But more importantly, Kishimoto said so, rather than because sensible
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I always assumed rankings weren't really a system you would use with your own ninja. You have the regular ranking system (genin, chunin, jounin) with the notable ninja at the top like Hiruzen or the Sannin being more hands on with running the village itself. Wheras rankings in bingobooks were about enemy ratings and how dangerous they are. For example Kakashi is a valued, notable jounin to the Leaf, but will be classified as an A or S-rank by Kumo with known information shared in their village's bingo book so that a kumo squad that may meet him on the field can assess whether they can take him, if diplomacy is possible, etc.
 
I stopped at, "here's a flashback to a previous flashback, because we can't allow more than three minutes of new material in a thirty minute episode", so I have no idea what is going on. I think there was something about a weird kid in a green suit kicking palm trees?
 
I tried to watch the anime. Unfortunately, the first episode I found was filler. I quit after maybe 5 minutes. The manga was enjoyable though, as far as I read.
 
Wonder if Jiraiya got a prophecy from one of the old toad about "child of prophecy". Maybe he did, but was entirely dismissive of it.

Or maybe he couldn't figure out who would bring revolution to the ninja world.

Minato? Dead.
Naruto? Not if he's dead. We also haven't seen any contribution from Naruto, positive or negative.
Pein? He's sure about to try? Even if he failed, he somehow united the world, even if it's against him. So maybe.
Hazo? Already did, but impact still unknown.
 
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Shadowwarp said:
I always assumed rankings weren't really a system you would use with your own ninja. You have the regular ranking system (genin, chunin, jounin) with the notable ninja at the top like Hiruzen or the Sannin being more hands on with running the village itself. Wheras rankings in bingobooks were about enemy ratings and how dangerous they are. For example Kakashi is a valued, notable jounin to the Leaf, but will be classified as an A or S-rank by Kumo with known information shared in their village's bingo book so that a kumo squad that may meet him on the field can assess whether they can take him, if diplomacy is possible, etc.
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I think they do need to rate their own ninjas with letters since otherwise they will have hard time assesing how many and which exactly jounins to send against a S-ranker.

But mostly these letters should mean a level of mission that a person can successfully finish on his own. It is also possible that assigning an A-rank in bingo book means that elimination of the target is considered an A-mission.

The problem with S rank is that it is not a power level per se; it stands for "anything above A" which could vary significantly
 
Shadowwarp said:
The only acceptable fill in Naruto was.....I can't think of any.

The only acceptable filler was Rock Lee's spin off
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The arc with Idate Morino and the Rain team was pretty good if I recall correctly, as was that one filler arc where Part 1 Naruto remembers he is a Toad summoner and so he can actually use the Toads in combat!
 
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