It was only a few months ago that I
took to this page to vent about the many problems- both long-term and
recent- that begun to have a seriously adverse effect on my ability to continue
enjoying Naruto, which, up until the
war started to get really bogged down, had continued to be one of my all-time
favorite manga and animes. It was
already known at the time that Naruto
was entering the final stretch, but I was not aware of just how soon the ending
would come, and in early November, the series did indeed come to a close with
its 700th chapter. I won’t go
back over the issues I discussed then, but given my still very deep feelings
for the franchise, it would be remiss of me to not at least try to collect my
thoughts about the final chapter.
If I had to be as concise as
possible, I would probably say that the final chapter was good, but not nearly
enough to close the story properly. Naruto was always at its best when it
was able to balance out the storylines and group dynamics of a large variety of
the very colorful characters the story brought us, and in a way, that almost
guaranteed from the start that the final chapter could never be truly big
enough to feel fitting. This was a grand
tale set within a world of unique and fascinating powers and rules, where the
history and nature of the ninja world was often as deep and mysterious and
fascinating as the individual characters themselves. One chapter set in the future could never
have been enough to give us all the answers we wanted, covering all the
characters that so many fans have grown to love.
That said, there are some loose ends
that really are inexcusable. The biggest
and most problematic one is the completely unmentioned fate of Orochimaru,
Karin, Jugo, and Suigetsu. Both Jugo and
Suigetsu had certain aspects of their backstories built up and referenced very
consistently after they were introduced, and neither of them are addressed
after they free themselves from the samurai.
Not that that’s such a bad thing, since neither had story focus long
enough to really stick as parts of the overall narrative. Karin was an awful character almost from day
one, so there is no real loss in not having her brought back. And none of them were ever powerful enough to
pose any real threat to the world, even as a team. But Orochimaru? The man who had found so many ways of
avoiding death that even some of the strongest characters could not permanently
kill him? It’s been easy to forget in
recent years just how large Orochimaru loomed over the series for the first
several hundred chapters (and episodes).
Until Tobi/Madara/Obito was shifted to main prominence in the second
half of the series, it was Orochimaru whose actions and motivations drove whole
reams of the plot, the most important of which was his convincing Sasuke to
abandon Naruto, Sakura and the Leaf to go rogue. And even after he was moved to the
background, he still remained one of the creepiest and most identifiable
figures of the franchise. Ignore Hawk,
by all means, since no one ever cared, but we friggin’ NEED to know what
happened to Orochimaru, if only so that the nightmares of his arm-snakes coming
to eat us can end.
The refusal to address or even hint
at what happened to him is a massive whole in the chapter, but at least it’s
the only major character ignored. There
are other, smaller figures like Yamato (always a favorite of mine) that go
unseen, but in such cases I can understand leaving them out for the sake of
conciseness. So many minor or side
figures were brought in at various points that it was inevitable a great
majority would be left by the wayside. So
much, then, for what we don’t get, but what about what we do get?
As is typical in a great many
stories like this, the vast majority of the final chapter comprises of
establishing who married who, what their kids’ names are, and which parents the
kids resemble most. Most of the pairings
are as expected, and it was especially healing to see that Naruto finally did
return Hinata’s love, even if it did apparently occur off-panel. I would expound on that, but the Weekly Manga
Recap guys have already done a far funnier and more extensive job of that than
I ever can, so I will leave that as it is.
I suppose the only surprising one would be Choji and Karui, since there
were never really any hints those two knew each other at all while the war was
going on, but they were smaller characters of relatively lesser
importance, so there relationship was never something that needed expounding
on.
That said, their marriage, along with
that of Shikamaru and Temari, is a great indicator of the new interconnectedness
of the world Naruto and his companions fought for- early on in the series we
know only of the Leaf village, with the other major ninja nations shrouded in
mystery. It is a world so scarred from
past wars that the only real interaction between the ninja worlds is the
Chunin exam, which is itself fraught with tensions that turn deadly with
sickening ease. Most ninja would be
born, live, and die solely within their respective villages, knowing shinobi
and leaders from other villages only through clashing with them on the
battlefield. The sense one gets is that
marriages between warriors from rival villages was something either unheard-of,
or shunned as traitorous if it did happen.
Now though, it seems clear that more
shinobi than ever before are traveling and marrying outside their traditional
lands. In the final shot of the chapter,
we see the old village surrounded by tall skyscrapers that take up what used to
be a thick forest occupied solely by soldiers defending the village from outsiders,
buildings that seem to stretch on endlessly.
This probably means that the old practice of effectively sealing each
village off from the outside world, with entrance permitted only through select
gates, has been done away with, and that each land is now open to the others,
allowing for a boom of prosperity never before seen. A world of true peace has been
established. It was probably this aspect
of the final chapter that affected me the most, the final assurance of the
series that the yearning for peace we saw in Naruto himself is something that
can be realized.
Sadly, while I wholeheartedly
enjoyed these various smaller aspects of the final chapter, my feelings are
much more mixed concerning the fate of our three main characters, Naruto,
Sakura, and Sasuke. I said in my last
post, and will reiterate here, that the greatest failure of Naruto as a story
was its inability to develop Sakura and her role on an equal footing with that
of Sasuke and Naruto, and my impression of that was only worsened when all we
see of Sakura afterwards is her being a housewife. Not a leading doctor within the village, not
someone who, like Tsunade before her, revolutionized battlefield and surgical medicine,
just a housewife, dusting the bookcase. The
girl who could literally punch through a mountain, and who was trained just as
intensely by one of the Sannin, is dumped into the most stereotypical female
role imaginable. What did she end up
doing after the war? For all we know,
jack-all. This, on top of the fact that
she was given absolutely nothing to do story-wise after defeating Sasori at the
start of Shippuden, and could not even get equal footing in the fight against
the Demonic Lady in White in the big final fight, was the 10-ton ACME weight
that shattered the camel’s spine for me.
Sad to say, that was not the final
insult given to the once-promising doctor- the last and worst offense was the
reveal that she did, in fact, marry Sasuke, and had children with him. This is wrong on a great many levels, but
primarily because it means that, ultimately, Sakura failed to grow or develop
in any way as a character over the course of a 700-chapter epic. When the series began, Sakura was a bratty
teen obsessed with gaining the attention of a boy. Sasuke was her be-all-and-end-all. And, according to her handful of lines in the
last chapter, nothing about that really changed by the end. No real alteration of her goals, or of her
self-image as a shinobi, woman, or individual.
No real exploration of her character other than, “Oh dear, how do I
reconcile loving Sasuke with the fact that he’s now the most genetically evil
person in the world?”
Let’s leave aside the fact that he
tried to kill her several times, although that in and of itself should be
enough to damn this union to eternal Hell.
Even if none of that had happened, and even if Sasuke had not been a
terribly written character with no believable development after his fight with
Itachi, there is the unavoidable fact that he never showed the slightest
romantic interest in her. There is not a
single moment at any point of the series where you could credibly argue Sasuke appears
to be developing anything approaching emotional love for Sakura. For that matter, I don’t recall him showing
romantic or even sexual interest in, well…anything. As soon as he leaves the Leaf, he ceases to
function as a human and looks, talks, and acts like a robot. Nevermind Sakura, ANY pairing of this asshat
with someone would have made zero sense.
It is shipping for shipping’s sake, doing the obvious thing just because
it will please whatever twisted, demented sector of the population that managed
to retain interest in Sasuke as a story presence.
Sasuke himself is, of course, the
other major issue with the end. His
marrying Sakura is bad enough, but then there’s the fact that, as far as we can
see, he never had to face any sort of reckoning whatsoever for his crimes. This is a terrible betrayal of what had
always been one of the series’ strong points- that crimes must and will be
accounted for, and that the ninja world was one of death and hard sacrifice,
and any use of power came with costs. He
never loses his sight or physical health from overusing the Sharingan. He was, for some insane reason, actually
offered a replacement arm for the one he lost fighting Naruto. He was apparently never jailed or imprisoned
in any manner. And he never
changed. He never grew, and his parting
words to the contrary, we have zero evidence he actually does feel any scrap of
sorrow or regret for being a complete, amoral tool.
This is all exacerbated by the fact
that Sasuke became a terrible character from the moment he finished fighting
Naruto. His motives became so blurred
and confused by the end that he literally needed to resurrent Orochimaru and
have him resurrect the Hokages so that THEY could tell him what to
believe. I have ranted about this at
length before and do not have the strength to do so here. Suffice it to say that it is the end for
Sasuke that comes the closest to breaking the chapter for me.
And yet, it doesn’t ruin the
chapter, and neither did it ruin the series as a whole for me, and the reason
for that is simple; Naruto himself.
Naruto’s ending is the perfect one, the one the series built itself up
to the entire time, and seeing it in actuality was enough satisfaction to
smooth over nearly all of the flaws of the last few hundred chapters. Naruto started out the least powerful, most
annoying, and least compelling character in his own story, which would in many
cases have been the death of it. And in
a way, that has made the growth he has undergone all the more compelling to
see. Even at his silliest, stupidest, most
immature moments, there was always an authenticity to him as a character that
shone through. The focal point of the
series, at least at first, was about the power of choice to shape destiny, and
it was always Naruto’s choices that set him apart from the rest of the cold,
brutal, and cynical shinobi world. It is
his choices that allowed him to reach world leaders and the Tailed Beasts in a
way no one else could, and that made his progress from an in-over-his-head
little kid to a truly powerful fighter not only emotionally satisfying, but
believable as well.
This long journey of growth ,
surrounded as it is by outlandish character and villains, superpowered battles,
and an endlessly detailed fantasy world, has been a treat to watch, and it
really did hit home hard with the last few panels just how much we’ve
experience with this story. Its loop
back to the start of the story closes in the proper fashion of a great
legend. For all its flaws, at least our
title character got a fitting send-off.
-Noah
Franc
**Note:
I plan to revisit Naruto in a few months to expound on some of my favorite
moments of the series as a whole. I
cannot right now, due to the crush of end-of-the-year listings and Oscar
viewings I am trying to cram into a small window of time. Once the busy time dies down, check back for
more Naruto.**
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