IMO, reviews like that are even more annoying when they're from someone anonymous.
So I think early graduation is only an option in unusual circumstances, no matter how skilled the child in question. It has nothing to do with thinking Itachi isn't skilled enough. It has to do with questioning his father's parenting skills and his clan's overall priorities.
I've always wondered whether Itachi and/or Kakashi graduated so early because of wars that were going on at the time. The war with Iwa might have already started when Kakashi graduated, and based on Hinata's apparent age during the attempted kidnap scene, it seems like the peace with Cloud happened pre-Massacre. Maybe Konoha was so desperate for exceptional soldiers that Kakashi and Itachi were graduated long before they'd normally be allowed to even with their outstanding abilities.
Look. Even if Itachi was a good guy all along, he had to play the role of a bad guy in order to infiltrate Akatsuki. That means he had to do horrible things; you can't just wave a magic wand and say that he didn't do them. Even if it was for a good end, he still killed a LOT of people. (We will not even get into the shit he did to Sasuke later on -- I can kind of handwave that as Itachi breaking under the strain of prolonged undercover work, but it's not relevant here since none of that has happened during "Guardian" and may not happen in the future as changes spiral outward.)
I've always thought it would be interesting to see a story that covered Itachi's time in Akatsuki, particularly in the early years (perhaps when Ame's civil war was still going on). I've poked at the idea a little in a couple of my fics, and there's one in particular that deals with the psychological effects of having to go along with all the stuff that the other Akatsuki members do. I especially wonder about how Itachi would have reacted to the civil war in Ame and Pain's eventual coup--would he have seen all the destruction and had his belief that he made the right (or at least less-wrong) choice by preventing something similar from happening to Konoha, or would he have seen the original "good" Akatsuki triumphing and been like "Oh fuck, even if this whole civil war thing is awful it can sometimes bring about positive change, what have I done?"
no subject
So I think early graduation is only an option in unusual circumstances, no matter how skilled the child in question. It has nothing to do with thinking Itachi isn't skilled enough. It has to do with questioning his father's parenting skills and his clan's overall priorities.
I've always wondered whether Itachi and/or Kakashi graduated so early because of wars that were going on at the time. The war with Iwa might have already started when Kakashi graduated, and based on Hinata's apparent age during the attempted kidnap scene, it seems like the peace with Cloud happened pre-Massacre. Maybe Konoha was so desperate for exceptional soldiers that Kakashi and Itachi were graduated long before they'd normally be allowed to even with their outstanding abilities.
Look. Even if Itachi was a good guy all along, he had to play the role of a bad guy in order to infiltrate Akatsuki. That means he had to do horrible things; you can't just wave a magic wand and say that he didn't do them. Even if it was for a good end, he still killed a LOT of people. (We will not even get into the shit he did to Sasuke later on -- I can kind of handwave that as Itachi breaking under the strain of prolonged undercover work, but it's not relevant here since none of that has happened during "Guardian" and may not happen in the future as changes spiral outward.)
I've always thought it would be interesting to see a story that covered Itachi's time in Akatsuki, particularly in the early years (perhaps when Ame's civil war was still going on). I've poked at the idea a little in a couple of my fics, and there's one in particular that deals with the psychological effects of having to go along with all the stuff that the other Akatsuki members do. I especially wonder about how Itachi would have reacted to the civil war in Ame and Pain's eventual coup--would he have seen all the destruction and had his belief that he made the right (or at least less-wrong) choice by preventing something similar from happening to Konoha, or would he have seen the original "good" Akatsuki triumphing and been like "Oh fuck, even if this whole civil war thing is awful it can sometimes bring about positive change, what have I done?"