General & Others Naruto is HxH level quality if you remove the war arc and the Naruto vs Sasuke cringe

#1
What the title said. All of the arcs prior to the war arc were really good, but unfortunately, Kishimoto didn’t stick the landing with the last arc, which also happened to be the longest arc by a mile. Also, Naruto’s obsession with Sasuke wasn’t handled well. It felt very forced and makes me cringe whenever I’m rewatching scenes where Naruto starts acting emo over Sasuke. I wouldn’t remove the Naruto vs Sasuke plotline since it does give Naruto more motivation to grow stronger, but their bond could have been conveyed better
 
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RayanOO

Lazy is the way
#3
What the title said. All of the arcs prior to the war arc were really good, but unfortunately, Kishimoto didn’t stick the landing with the last arc, which also happened to be the longest arc by a mile. Also, Naruto’s obsession with Sasuke wasn’t handled well. It felt very forced and makes me cringe whenever I’m rewatching scenes where Naruto starts acting emo over Sasuke. I wouldn’t remove the Naruto vs Sasuke plotline since it does give Naruto more motivation to grow stronger, but their bond could have been conveyed better
Before Pain end, Naruto was good. The akatsuki plot was nicely done etc : Sasori fight was good, Orochimaru vs KN4 was good, Hidan/Kakuzu fights were good, Pain vs Jiraya was amazing, Deidara vs Sasuke was good, Sasuke vs Killer B was good, and Pain invasion arc was good. But when Naruto came to save the day everything became a lot messier and less and less good. Naruto became too strong too quick the power inflation became crazy and the plot became a lot less good. But prior to that yes Naruto wasn’t bad at all.
 
#4
Before Pain end, Naruto was good. The akatsuki plot was nicely done etc : Sasori fight was good, Orochimaru vs KN4 was good, Hidan/Kakuzu fights were good, Pain vs Jiraya was amazing, Deidara vs Sasuke was good, Sasuke vs Killer B was good, and Pain invasion arc was good. But when Naruto came to save the day everything became a lot messier and less and less good. Naruto became too strong too quick the power inflation became crazy and the plot became a lot less good. But prior to that yes Naruto wasn’t bad at all.
Kishimoto messed up with powerscaling Naruto at the start of Shippuden. Naruto didn’t get a big enough power boost after the time skip. Sasuke clearly got a much bigger power boost, and even Sakura seems to have gotten a bigger power post relative to her part 1 power level. It seemed like all that Naruto learned was how to make a bigger Rasengan and some basics about tactics and countering genjutsu.

In my opinion, Naruto should have learned the basics of chakra nature transformation during the TS, and then during the Kazekage Rescue Mission arc, he could show off some basic wind style jutsus, so that way Naruto now has some long-ranged moves and more to his arsenal than just Shadow Clones and Rasengan.
 
#5
I am struggling to think of any individual arc that stacks up narratively to Chimera Ant, Pein arc meets the criteria of having no Naruto vs Sasuke cringe and is widely considered the best arc in naruto and it's still filled with instances of low quality writing like reviving all of Konoha (really bad) and Naruto talk-no-jutsu'ing the main protagonist (which I actually quite liked personally, but from a writing standpoint it is kinda lazy and hamfisted)

Consider how much kino would have been missed out in HxH's arc if Kishi was in charge. He'd have Meruem and Netero have a long and drawn out dialogue at several points in the fight. He'd have Gon stop himself from finishing off Pitou to prove a point how he's better than the ants. He'd have gon go comatose for only a couple days after his transformation before Killua goes back to greed island to get another healing spell so that Gon can do his transformation again and challenge meruem. Hard to conceive of the komugi subplot even existing. Would be extremely corny
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Also Naruto vs Sasuke is basically what most of the series is about, with some minor breaks here and there. It's the central underlying conflict and all other conflicts tie into it or are reflected by it (Madara vs First Hokage, Kakashi vs Obito, etc.).

It's like saying "Naruto would be good if it wasn't Naruto". lol
 
#6
I am struggling to think of any individual arc that stacks up narratively to Chimera Ant, Pein arc meets the criteria of having no Naruto vs Sasuke cringe and is widely considered the best arc in naruto and it's still filled with instances of low quality writing like reviving all of Konoha (really bad) and Naruto talk-no-jutsu'ing the main protagonist (which I actually quite liked personally, but from a writing standpoint it is kinda lazy and hamfisted)

Consider how much kino would have been missed out in HxH's arc if Kishi was in charge. He'd have Meruem and Netero have a long and drawn out dialogue at several points in the fight. He'd have Gon stop himself from finishing off Pitou to prove a point how he's better than the ants. He'd have gon go comatose for only a couple days after his transformation before Killua goes back to greed island to get another healing spell so that Gon can do his transformation again and challenge meruem. Hard to conceive of the komugi subplot even existing. Would be extremely corny
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Also Naruto vs Sasuke is basically what most of the series is about, with some minor breaks here and there. It's the central underlying conflict and all other conflicts tie into it or are reflected by it (Madara vs First Hokage, Kakashi vs Obito, etc.).

It's like saying "Naruto would be good if it wasn't Naruto". lol
Not true. The “Naruto vs Sasuke” aspect didn’t happen until after the Tsunade arc, even if before then they did have a little bit of a rivalry. It was mostly absent in the Kazekage Rescue Mission arc. It wasn’t too prominent in the Hidan and Kakuzu arc outside of motivating Naruto to train. It also was nonexistent in the Pain arc. Sasuke was also on the back burner for a lot of the war arc
 
#7
Not true. The “Naruto vs Sasuke” aspect didn’t happen until after the Tsunade arc, even if before then they did have a little bit of a rivalry. It was mostly absent in the Kazekage Rescue Mission arc. It wasn’t too prominent in the Hidan and Kakuzu arc outside of motivating Naruto to train. It also was nonexistent in the Pain arc. Sasuke was also on the back burner for a lot of the war arc
Naruto vs Sasuke is still the central narrative of the story, literally the second arc of the series plants the seed for this conflict to take place with the curse mark. Part 1 ends with Naruto vs Sasuke. Shippuden ends with Naruto vs Sasuke. Major conflicts in the story are framed as parallels of Naruto vs Sasuke. Their conflict is written as basically destiny as reincarnations of the sixth path sages, just because they are not fighting literally for the entire story does not make this the case, as they needed to be separate at points for their own respective development.

If you take out naruto vs sasuke you have a bunch of isolated moments of side characters doing side character things.
 

Zolo

Cope Doctor
#14
Sasuke was so inconsistent he wasnt even character anymore just Odas wet dream... naruto went from never give up to depressed little shit... sakura allways useless... later villians didint make sense at all... war was just horrible... edo tensei sucked... orochimaru alive again.... Naruto become prodigy, when I liked him more to be failure who overcome all obstacles.... Neji was right , hard worker guy and leee got shit on them, two most dedicated and hardest workers.... naruto just ruined itself its awfull
 
#15
The War arc is fine on paper, the execution is bad.

Disagree with Naruto vs Sasuke. Only thing I'd have done differently is show off their friendship more in Part 1 to emphasize why Naruto is going to such lengths.
That was what was always weird to me about the series. Naruto "hated"/jealous of sasuke, trained with him for, what, a few months? Naruto then spends years tracking, fighting, draggin back, tracking down Sasuke again, etc. Like, god damn, dood, we dated for half a school year, 3 years ago, MOVE 0N. * Sasuke never even showed he liked VHITLeaves or anyone there, Naruto just came off as obsessive. As readers we "know" Sasuke needed saving, but from outside perspective Naruto was a frigging weirdo. "No means no, Naruto".

Even just a quick couple panels sprinkled throughout of Sasuke realizing that if he didn't desire Vengeance, that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to live life as a Leaf Shinobi with his friends Naruto & Sakura (gross pairing, he never showed anything towards Sakura) .


* i wasnt aiming for "lolz naruto & sasuke r butt buddeez", just that Naruto is that person from your past who thought you were best friends & has pictures of you all over the place, when you had lunch together a few times without incident.
 
#17
I thought that Naruto in its entirety was Top Tier up until the war arc and I do agree that it isn't far off from hxh in quality.

I also never got the hate for Sasuke tbh, I think he was consistently a good written character and I still stand by that.

Unfortunately the relationship and development between Naruto and Sasuke been ass. Hashirama/Madara was written a thousand times better even though it follows the exact same pattern.

The reincarnation plot was just horrible though
 
#18
Both are good. I dont compare just for the sake of comparing, I enjoyed both of these mangas and both are GOATED.

We also have to consider one author was to conclude his story, and the other didnt.

Attack on Titan was fan favorite, but ending didnt go well.

Would anybody care to explain why so many authors mess up the endings?
 
#19
I thought that Naruto in its entirety was Top Tier up until the war arc and I do agree that it isn't far off from hxh in quality.

I also never got the hate for Sasuke tbh, I think he was consistently a good written character and I still stand by that.

Unfortunately the relationship and development between Naruto and Sasuke been ass. Hashirama/Madara was written a thousand times better even though it follows the exact same pattern.

The reincarnation plot was just horrible though
Sasuke is by far one of the best written characters in the story.
 
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