Don't make me regret this, Grimace.
Kenak said:
"Here is the youngest kage, with absolutely zero war experience and minimal leadership experience. MAKE HIM COMMANDER GENERAL!"
Stat Flow said:
Yes, I didn't understand this at all. I love Gaara and don't mind him being where he is but why shit on him at the Kage summit and then do this?
Angry Grimace said:
Because a large number of twits demanded Kishimoto insert old characters and have them get into fights, and he didn't want to have to invent a million new characters for them to fight, so a lot of implausible things happened to justify it.
Gaara's the most equipped to deal with aggro duties. He can fly, he can affect a large area and sense battle positioning with minimal risk to himself. Furthermore, his calm demeanor means he won't be likely to make judgmental mistakes or get confused. Who among the clans have these unique properties with the addition of large-scale war experience? I can't think of one. Tsunade would probably be the closest, but it's doubtful that her powers would be nearly as useful considering that it almost killed her to heal a fraction of the current army size and her offensive ability doesn't impact as many units as Gaara's would. That is if she could even generate another chakra diamond in time.
Angry Grimace said:
It doesn't make any sense he even has those abilities any more.
Then again, if they were trying their hardest, they would have not conveniently decided to not bring their strongest fighter by far. I don't know, I'm still pissed off that Naruto pops a huge power-up on top of a power-up that already had made him the strongest person in the entire world, and then we cut away to watch Sai and Shikamaru's dad fight dead people.
This arc is making me miss Sasuke. In my mind, it would be nice if we didn't have to resolve the series with a pointless Sasuke/Naruto battle with an obvious predetermined outcome. Just talknojutsu him back from the Dark Side now, and save us being forced to deal with it as a climax later (rather than an epic Naruto-Orochimaru at full power battle)
Gaara still has the abilities he has because Shukaku didn't give them to him. Shukaku didn't give him chakra. It twisted his personality and kept him from killing himself. That's it. Everything else, Gaara did on his own. You might even assume that he's much stronger without the one-tail because he isn't fighting insomnia or the beast's presence when he molds chakra, allowing him to use his techniques on a much larger scale. Which he has.
Assuming that Naruto is the Leaf's strongest fighter(which is probably true in terms of raw power), what do you really think would happen if he started fighting now? He's got a half-assed fox mode, and he'd probably be reduced to tears the instant he saw Haku. He'd probably kill a lot of shit, but whether he can beat the combined force of Kabuto/Madara/Sauke single-handed is up in the air. I do think that the entire training arc for Naruto should have happened before the war so that he could fight as one of the team generals against Sasuke, though. I don't agree with the current pacing of snippets when Naruto has always been best when Kishimoto focused on one thing at a time. It's like he's trying to show off 6 things at once like Oda when that style doesn't play to his strengths.
Angry Grimace said:
I don't know to what degree the beasts are weaker with less tails; the only thing we really know is that the 9 Tails is stronger than the others, seemingly by a lot. I'm still disapointed that Naruto just had a stupid mind fight to subdue the Nine Tails instead of doing what Bee did and partnering with it so he could not have a stupid handicap.
I think it could have gone either way. Talk no jutsu into partnership would have fit the theme of the manga just as well as his domination over hatred does. We still haven't seen much of what the results will be, so it's still up in the air. I'm still waiting for the rage sage after that tease during the Pain talk.
Stat Flow said:
:lol I think the exact opposite. The Sauce actually did **** that mattered (like fuck up the Kage Summit/kill Danzo/capture fake bee, in turn alerting Raikage/hooking up with Madara). Up to this point none of these fights have even mattered in the big scheme of things. Or at least that's how they feel. Maybe that's because of Edo Tensei. Naruto hasn't done shit since he talknojutsu'd pain, unfortunately.
Kakashi looked boss with Zabuza's sword, but I hope he gets another fight...but knowing Kishimoto that's his big fight :|
Sasuke didn't do jack shit. He got tricked into taking on all the kages and got his ass kicked. He got tricked into killing Danzo so that he'd sympathize more with madara, and he got fucked up by Bee who left on his own accord. bee could have just walked away at any point and the result would have been the same. All Sasuke did this whole time is get everyone royally pissed at his ass.
You know why the zombie fights matter? Because it gets everyone one last chance to have a battle with some personal connection before the story ends. During the pain fight everyone was bitching because we didn't get to see the side fights. Well guess what we get to see now?
Wanna hear something funny about why fighting Pain was the last thing Naruto did? BECAUSE IT WAS LITERALLY THE LAST THING THAT HAPPENED.
Of course Kakashi's gonna get another fight. He hasn't used Chiho's revival jutsu yet. If you're worried about his paper cut, he could always use the gates.
Angry Grimace said:
He had obviously figured out how to control Shukaku by the time Part II rolled around though.
Sure, but everyone was still scared that he could go apeshit at any moment if Shukaku had a bad headache. That won't happen anymore.
Trojita said:
Kakashi was already at his prime when he fought Zabuza. He hasn't gotten marginally stronger since then. He gained the Mangekyou Sharingan which allows him to use a move that sends him into the hospital for a month and possibly more moves he's copied since then that haven't been shown yet.
Every single fight since Zabuza, Kakashi's shown an increased chakra level from his ability to hold the sharingan for longer and do more lighting birds. On top of that, he's shown off new powers including the strongest ninjutsu shown to this point in the manga. Not to mention that if you pay enough attention, he's been slowly adding new copied abilities to his repertoire.
brotkasten said:
The better question is: what the fuck is he doing?!
And man, even Bleach was better than Naruto this week.
Don't say things you can't take back.
Stat Flow said:
I think it's because most on GAF are not partial to the zombie no jutsu and the fact that the manga is boring if Sauce or Naruto aren't on screen
I think you guys just don't like liking things. Whenever Sasuke or Naruto are on, everyone's bitching about never seeing side characters.
Relaxed Muscle said:
Actually Bleach is better than Naruto right now.At least has NEW characters.
This is the most fallacious argument I've ever seen. Up until now, every time Bleach introduced new characters, it's been universal groans. Now they're awesome because Bleach isn't out this week and you don't have anything to shit on. Bleach is probably the worst manga in Shonen Jump, but Kubo can draw pretty pictures, and if there's anything GAF likes, it's something shiny.
Stat Flow said:
Gonna have to agree with this by far. There's actually some intrigue thanks to the mystery. The only thing I can think that Kubo is doing wrong right now is pacing, which has been crawling really badly. Everything else is fine with me...and the last chapter improved the pacing/info-per-panel problem compared to the prior chapters.
It's just unfortunate that Kishimoto went with the zombie route, as I was looking forward to the war (Not that I still don't think it can improve). Like, wtf was the point of giving Neji that one panel and Kiba that 1/8th of a panel? Was it just a cocktease? It's not whining as much as it is disappointment. That's not to take away from anyone else's enjoyment.
Kubo could shit on your face for 30 chapters, and then say "But WAIT! There's another type of ghost behind one of these 5 doors! Which one will Ichigo open next chapter?" And you'd all be slobbering again. If you really think there's anything substantial to the way Bleach is written other than retarded amounts of Pavlovian response mechanisms, you're probably part of its target audience.
