NARUTO : EXIT THE NINJA

After 700 chapters, after 15 years, after nearly half my lifetime, it’s finally happened: Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto has come to its conclusion. Well, for now anyway. A sequel is practically inevitable, but with a finale like that I don’t really think one is needed. What was promised to us was what was delivered.

That’s important. Plenty of series have concluded unsatisfactorily with too many dangling plotlines, but Naruto couldn’t afford to do that without alienating a generation. When we talk about anime fans in the United States, we categorize them by the catalyst that made them selfidentify as “anime fans” in the first place—what I call their “gateway anime.” We speak of “the Star Blazers generation,” “the Robotech generation,” “the Pokémon generation” and so on. For the newly branded fans of the early to mid-2000s we have “the Naruto generation,” though perhaps you remember hearing or using a more derogatory term. Online and convention maturity levels aside, Naruto meant so much to so many people that it now stands as the third best selling manga series in the world of all time, surpassed only by One Piece and Dragon Ball. (But mark my words: Golgo 13 shall take back its rightful place someday …)

Naruto Uzumaki’s journey to become the greatest ninja in the land started off as the farfetched proclamation of some dumb brat, the kind of underachieving delinquent with a vastly overinflated sense of his own competence that old people on the news would say typifies the “millennial” attitude. I’ve certainly seen lots of anime where the main character was insufferable yet got to beat all the cooler, more interesting supporting characters solely because “he’s the hero.” Indeed, that was my assessment of Naruto himself and the series in general, and admittedly it’s not without merit. But, slowly but surely, that loudmouthed kid grew up and learned self-control for those willing to have faith and stick with him, be they Naruto’s teachers or us following along.

Like so many great shonen battle series before, the lesson of Naruto was that self-confidence alone is nothing if you don’t then also put forth the hard work, and even then you can’t do it alone. The difference between Naruto and Sasuke was never really a question of spirit animals, special eyes, or who had the most chakra behind their punches. It was that Naruto was willing to be supported and taught along the way by multiple mentors, some of whom weren’t all that willing to help at first until Naruto demonstrated his desire to learn. Sasuke may have the allure of a “bad boy loner” but we know he’s lost his way, first from a desire for revenge and ultimately from his concluding that “if you can never completely eliminate evil and the only way that people work together is to stop a common foe, it’s best to contain the evil in one place and have that place be me.”

The optimist in me wants to say that Naruto’s conclusion proves that nobody is beyond salvation, no matter what atrocities they’ve committed. That even if you literally have personal demons within you, you can overcome those to be a force for love and righteousness. (This being a fighting series, someone may need to punch you with massive force first before you wake up to that.)

But the pessimist in me says the cast of Naruto were just victims of their own popularity. The villains were just too charismatic and garnered too much sympathy to stay evil. Character popularity polls demanded that they either not be killed off or sacrifice themselves heroically with tears.

Kishimoto then had to create even badder villains who were really behind it all, until THEY turned good at which point the BADDER badder villains who were really REALLY it all got introduced, and so the cycle went for years such that the true, ultimate ninja enemy doesn’t appear until about the last 50 (or 100, depending where you want to count from) chapters of manga. Whoever you THOUGHT were the villains up until then don’t get their comeuppance, no matter who they gleefully murdered. In fact, every character who had previously died got (temporarily) brought back to life just so they could resolve any unresolved issues they had with the living prior to the last battle ... that gets followed by the REAL last battle!

And then, all the guys married all the girls and they all had babies at the exact same time. The final chapter sets up the groundwork for a possible sequel, as we’re introduced to the children of well, most everybody. For years fans have argued over which characters should end up together in relationships, and these “shipping wars” over “one true pairings” have sparked many fan derivative works. But now the final canonical truth is here, and everyone’s just going to have to accept it because it’s more a question of “when” rather than “if” as far as future adventures featuring this new generation of ninja trainees that look and act … well, pretty much exactly like their parents.

Still, when everything gets wrapped up in a neat bow like that, do we really want a sequel to Naruto? How much would we want to invest in these kids when the characters we grew up with are still right there? True, the final story arc put the brakes on all the supporting characters’ development since they completely didn’t factor into the last battle, and afterward everybody just decided to wander home such that there could be an “interquel” set between the timeskip to fill in the blanks, but there wouldn’t be that much suspense to it since it’s clear where most everybody’s ending up.

Perhaps none of that matters. Let’s not forget what drew so many to Naruto in the first place: Masashi Kishimoto made the idea of “ninja” modern and cool again. Extrapolating from the foundational supernatural elements that Futaro Yamada conceptualized in The Koga Ninja Scrolls so many decades ago, Kishimoto’s ninja were a colorful hybrid of tactical militarism, exotic weaponry, and American-style superheroes rolled into one. Sure, the fact that no two ninja looked the same flew in the face of the traditional ninja ideals of being an agent for stealth, espionage, and covert assassination. Heck, the only thing Naruto himself ever stood a chance of blending in with was if he had to disguise himself as a crossing guard in winter! But they sure were memorable, and when it comes to shonen action/adventure, memorable characters trump all.

Maybe you were once big into Naruto, then your interest lapsed over time. Maybe you moved onto other anime, and maybe you decided you’d check in on Naruto to see how things turned out, only to find yourself wondering, “Wait, who are all these people? I never saw them—hold up, is that one dude a black rapper ninja who also has a fox spirit? And wait, Rock Lee can open HOW many gates now?!” If that’s you, then I don’t want to spoil any details, but suffice it to say that every question you had about the world’s history was answered. You want to know how Kakashi got that eye, who Naruto’s parents were, or where chakra originates from? We found out, and then some. After all, Bleach is about to end, too!

HOW NARUTO REVOLUTIONIZED THE WORLD

No disrespect toward Ohtori Academy’s student council, but few single anime titles reshaped the anime industry to the extent of Naruto. Just think back for the last year and ask yourself: how do YOU follow Naruto? Do you follow the English-subtitled Japanese audio simulcast streams, which come out within hours of the episode airing in Japan? Do you wait for the English dub on Neon Alley, which comes out not four but SIX episodes a month? Did you read the individual chapters in the digital edition of Weekly Shonen Jump, released within days of new chapters being released in the Japanese edition? Perhaps you buy the collected volumes, which for a few months came out weekly just to catch up with Japan’s collected volumes? Well, all of the infrastructure for that didn’t just exist. It had to be created, and the driving force behind all of those measures was so that fans in America could legally get Naruto in professional quality as quickly, conveniently, and affordably as possible. 

Source Copyright : Otaku