thoughts about Naruto, volume 1

[edenfalling]

So I am embarked upon my great and epic quest to read and/or reread all the volumes of Naruto currently translated into English and published in America. (Then I will get around to scanlations of more recent chapters, most likely.)

I do not intend to review each volume individually -- I will probably post randomly as the mood strikes me -- but I thought I would remark on a few points from vol. 1, which I have just finished.

First, you can tell that Kishimoto is still figuring out his characters and world, because some things that happen make no logistical sense and/or are off-key compared to ideas established later on. Like, if jinchuuriki are a known concept, why does everyone keep talking about Naruto as if he is the Kyuubi? The fox's container, sure. Possibly corrupted by the fox, sure. But he's not the fox itself, and that should be known, at least by the ninja.

Hmm. Also, it's really weird that Sakura doesn't know that Sasuke is an orphan. You'd think gossip about his family tragedy would have been all over the village, and also, being a tragic orphan would just make him more attractive, so his fangirls really ought to know. But for character revelation purposes, she must be ignorant. (Just like for character revelation purposes, Naruto must be able to rig up that harness he uses to paint the Hokage monument, and be up there for at least half an hour without any ninja stopping him... when ninja can, you know, walk straight up walls if they feel like it. *sigh*)

Kishimoto is very upfront about what Naruto wants, and what his obstacles will be. He wants to be acknowledged by people -- he wants both respect and a sense of belonging to a community. Initially he wants to become Hokage because he thinks that's a way to accomplish his main goal, but his meeting with Konohamaru, I think, exists to show that Naruto does realize that being Hokage is an important role in its own right; that will be stressed more as the manga continues. Naruto likes Sakura and wants her to like him; he doesn't respect her at this point, though. He dislikes Sasuke because Sasuke seems to have everything Naruto wants -- popularity, strength, skill -- and yet Sasuke doesn't seem to care. Also, Sasuke doesn't respect Naruto, and Naruto hates being disrespected. (Tellingly, though, he only seems to want affection from Sakura, not respect.)

Kishimoto is also very upfront about what Sasuke wants, though he obfuscates the details at first. Sasuke is driven by revenge and a need to be strong on his own. He appears calm and cool not because he actually is, but because he thinks he needs to. And he is very talented, but he is also very young and inexperienced, and prone to overestimating himself and neglecting to consider the people around him. He mostly ignores Sakura, and would very much like to ignore Naruto, but he does acknowledge that Naruto has some similarities to him -- it's telling how much emphasis and panel size the page where he chews Sakura out for making assumptions about orphans gets. But he would never, never say that to Naruto, because that would be, I dunno, showing weakness. It's okay to tell Sakura, though, because she won't understand and won't realize that he's revealing a vulnerability.

Sakura... well, Sakura always gets defined in terms of the boys. Which I hate, because she has such potential for awesome, but if her tendency to define herself in relation to other people were actually explored as something specific to her rather than just "oh, that's what girls are like," I would not mind so much. I mean, people who need to be needed can be interesting, but not all girls are like that. It is not a default position; it's a character trait, and should be explored and explained as much as the boys' traumas and monomanias. *makes face at Kishimoto* Anyway, at the end of chapter 3 she's already talking about being nicer to Naruto (she does not carry through on that immediately, of course), and in chapter 7 she talks to Sasuke about working together with him. These themes will come back over and over.

Also, Inner Sakura both cracks me up and fascinates me. I love how sometimes there is a complete disconnect between what Sakura thinks inwardly and outwardly -- as with her reactions to Naruto's prank on Kakashi -- while other times her inner and outer selves are in agreement, but she can only be open about her thoughts and feelings inside her head -- as with her feelings for Sasuke.

...

Mostly, I am amazed at how relatively non-angsty the first volume is, despite the early reveal of Naruto's backstory. I think that effect is helped by the sheer youth of Team 7 -- they are very, very true to life as twelve-year-old kids, and therefore both extremely funny (often inadvertently) and extremely annoying.

Actually, everyone in this volume is annoying, except Iruka. Who is principled, caring, longsuffering, and just adorable. I am reminded all over again why he's one of my favorites. *hugs Iruka and buys him ramen*

And now to bed.

Comments

[iponly.livejournal.com]

Hey, talking about Sakura, there's a series I read now called Liar's Game (http://www.onemanga.com/Liar_Game/) which impressed me by taking the usual 'strong of heart' shonen excuse for the girls to wait around while the boys have action scenes and making it awesome. It really made me feel better about the constant downer which is the shonen female lead. Also, an awesome trans character and a tournament which isn't a lame excuse for lots of 1v1 battles. Maybe you'd be interested?

[edenfalling]

*googles for summary* Hmm, possibly! I usually like more of a fantasy/sci-fi gimmick in my fiction, but mysterious corporations and mindgames are unusual enough to also be intriguing. :-)

[hamiechi.livejournal.com]

reminiscing my high school life, teachers always love to raid our mangas at school, haha T.T

[edenfalling]

My teachers would probably simply have been pleased that students were voluntarily reading something to care much about what that something was. At least so long as we weren't reading during class. :-)

[askerian]

Man, you make me want to read it over too. XD Love your comments.

Also, it's really weird that Sakura doesn't know that Sasuke is an orphan. You'd think gossip about his family tragedy would have been all over the village, and also, being a tragic orphan would just make him more attractive, so his fangirls really ought to know.

Yes, but it's revealed later that Sakura didn't know he was popular and had other fangirls -- she was surprised when people went "let me guess, it's Sasuke, everyone likes Sasuke". My headcanon is that before she started crushing on him, since she was still new to the "part of a group" thing and still young, she just wasn't invited/didn't bother with/just happened to miss those "huhuhu who do you liiiiike" discussions -- apparently she didn't even know INO liked him, and Ino was her best friend. So she would feel like she discovered Sasuke's inherent awesomeness on her own, and not through gossip.

[edenfalling]

Fair points! Still, you'd think her parents would have said something about "Oh, all the Uchiha were murdered last night, isn't it awful?" And since Sakura should have already met Sasuke at that point (same academy class and all), I'd think it would be hard for her not to know his story, whether she liked him already or not.

I just write that an other inconsistencies off as Kishimoto A) making things up as he went along and then B) ignoring anything he said that didn't match up with the ideas he eventually settled on. (He couldn't exactly go back and edit, after all. *wry*)

[crystalheaven.livejournal.com]

*snorts*

This post = win on so many levels.

One, YAY!! You read Naruto also!

Two, I happen to be playing Naruto: Rise of a Ninja RIGHT NOW on the 360. Getting my ass handed to be by Kiba, but trying none the less. *grins*

Three, Iruka = Major reason why I want to become teacher. Just saying.

[edenfalling]

I write Naruto fanfiction, which would be rather tricky if I'd never read the manga at all. :-) I am refreshing my memory up to volume 32-ish, and then it's all new to me, because I quite reading for a few years and missed out on recent canon.

I started reading Naruto in... 2004, I think? By which point I had already been teaching religious education for several years, and had taught homeschool for a year. So I really sympathized with Iruka. He's amazing.

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

The early volumes of Naruto especially are Kishimoto finding his feet - Sasuke wasn't invented until after the volume began, so unlike writers like, say, Kube Tite, the series didn't have a groundwork. As the series became more popular, Kishimoto expanded and started to find his feet.

The thing about Sakura is that Kishimoto has admitted he didn't know how to write women. It's a thing that drives me bananas because he's so close to having great female characters, but he always falls just a bit flat. I mean, I could totally love Tsunade if it wasn't for her angsty angsty past.

[edenfalling]

I like how the little one page sketch and explanation of Kishimoto's original idea for Kakashi shows that he was essentially making shit up as he went along. I think that also explains the randomness of the chapter with Konohamaru, though that chapter does also explain more stuff about what a Hokage is, and show that Naruto takes the position seriously instead of just using that goal as a pretext to make people notice him. (Amusingly, I think that original idea for Kakashi's character is what Gai thinks Kakashi really is like. *grin*)

It's like... he has these great female characters and then won't go the final step and let them be the heroes of their own stories; they may get a showcase moment here and there, but they always have to be subsumed into male characters' stories. Or something like that.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

Retcon justification since clearly kishimoto had no clue what he was doing anyway, but I'd wonder if Sakura's parents would have said something like that about the Uchiha to her.  I mean, all the villagers (I'm assuming non-shinobi, but who knows) were apparently suspicious of them over the Kyuubi anyway, so maybe they were actually relieved about it, instead.  Afterwards, though, I guess you can speak better of the dead.

(I didn't just reread this, but I don't know that she didn't know he was an orphan?  I thought she knew but wasn't sensitive enough to connect the dots between him and Naruto when she wanted to deride Naruto.  If she knew Sasuke was also an orphan it also has a sense of "and look how well you turned out compared to him!")

I honestly kind of preferred the earliest naruto.  I mean, I was suckered into reading it because someone described it as being about these ninjas whose ultimate skill was turning into a naked chick, so I thought it would be hilarious.  And then it turned into standard shounen (not that I know who's setting the standard.)

[edenfalling]

Sakura to Sasuke, about Naruto, as translated by Katy Bridges (each paragraph break is a new panel):

"He doesn't have to answer to anyone, ever, and it's made him completely selfish! If I did the kinds of things he gets away with, my parents would ground me for life!

"Don't you envy him being alone, not having parents nag at you all the time?

"Kids without families always grow up selfish."

So no, it doesn't seem like she knew Sasuke was an orphan. Which is just bizarre.

I love the goofiness of the early arcs. I like the serious stuff too, but even though there are still comedic bits in the later arcs, the balance definitely shifted from comedic with serious undertones to serious with comedic grace notes.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

... the least self-aware/observant ninjas ever!  Guess she can't criticize Naruto for that, anyway. >.>;;;

Eh, well, I'm assuming Sasuke's special bloodline ability wasn't even revealed as a possibility till the Wave mission, or—was this conversation with Sakura before or after the initial "interview" with Kakashi when Sasuke reveals his life ambition?  Like, it had better be before, or you can't even justify it as Kishimoto not having thought of Sasuke's backstory yet; it would just be... Sakura would have to be dumb. ^^;;;;;;;

[edenfalling]

Yes, this conversation is from the lunch break before the new teams are supposed to meet their respective jounin-sensei, so Sasuke has not gone all ominous foreshadowing yet.

[leahnari.livejournal.com]

Re Jinchuuriki: My take was that while the other villages clearly use them regularly (IIRC, Madara says at one point that the Shodaime had sealed all/most of the beasts and used them as peace offerings), the Leaf had abandoned the practice some time after the village was founded. Unethical maybe? *shrug* So I could buy that a lot of the newer generations of Leaf-Nin didn't know about them, or heard vague rumors. It's a gross lack of education regarding their history, but I could buy it.
What bugs me more is that the other villages don't seem to understand or treat their Persons of Mass Destruction any better, despite having had this practice for at least half a century and that the Jinchuuriki are usually well-connected politically, according to 493.

Oh Sakura. I like Askerian's take, that she would try to find out about him by herself, but yeah. Someone must have mentioned the massacre, and it's not like that's a common surname.
And I really wish Kishimoto would give his girls more to do. Especially the medic-nin.

I am refreshing my memory up to volume 32-ish, and then it's all new to me, because I quite reading for a few years and missed out on recent canon.
Oh God 80 Um >_>; Have fun.

[edenfalling]

I guess we write the jinchuuriki mess up to A) Kishimoto making shit up as he went along, and B) people hating/fearing anything they perceive as a potential threat, and also just cultural habit.

I wish so many creators would give female characters more to do. *sigh*