straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2018-04-02 02:34 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2018-04-02 02:34 pm
Entry tags:
186
► I’ve reached volume 48 on my Naruto reread. That was the last of the volumes that I actually own, which means that I’m moving on to my brother’s Shounen Jump copies next—they’re already sitting on my desk. In this update, I’ve...also hit the point where I stopped reading regularly back in the day? And after this post I’m getting into territory where I mostly knew what happened through osmosis, which...is kind of embarrassing to admit, considering how important the Naruto fandom is to me, but oh well—I’m fixing that now.
And now I’m going to step away from the bullet points, because I… have a lot to say about the Pein invasion. Mostly in regards to how angry it made me. Just. I felt like it was an arc that had a lot of potential? And then how it actually played out was just agh. Maybe it’s because I never actually managed to get my hands on the whole thing when I was younger, but I really thought that it played out better than it did.
The first thing that pissed me off was Sakura crying out for Naruto to come save them and then immediately being sidelined???? SAKURA WOULD NEVER. She trusts Naruto, yes, and she knows what he could do. But a big part of her character is that she wants to keep on fighting by her team’s side and not be left behind, and there’s nothing in her character development up to this point that would suggest that she’d ever just throw her hands up in the air, hoping to be rescued. Just. No. I’m so angry.
And then the Hinata fight, which. I’d seen the panels with Hinata’s confession so many times, but not the aftermath, and I’d always assumed that, you know, Hinata actually got to fight with Pein before being defeated. But no—she just rushes forward and is immediately nearly killed in one hit. It’s so incredibly anti-climatic. Just. Would it have killed Kishimoto to have let her fight him at least briefly? I don’t mind it being over quickly—Hinata was outclassed—but the way that it played out was so unsatisfying and, honestly, kind of insulting to Hinata.
Pein’s plan for how he was going to achieve world peace made no sense to me, but whatever, I could roll with it. What broke my suspension of disbelief was his conversation with Naruto—I just don’t understand how Naruto convinced him to even stop attacking Konoha, let alone decide to give up his life to revive everyone / pass on the torch to Naruto himself. Up to this point, Naruto’s speeches always worked fine for me, but I couldn’t buy this one at all. ...My suspension of disbelief for Naruto’s power-ups also broke during this arc, but whatever. I’m going to try to stop lingering on it.
...I did like Kakashi getting a chance to talk with his dead father, though. That was sweet. And Danzo finally labelling Sasuke as a rogue missing-nin was so satisfying, even if it’s made clear by the narrative that it was supposed to be a how dare he moment.
► The other day my brother sent me this interesting interview from 2010 about actual yakuza playing and commenting on the accuracy of Yakuza 3. (Note: there is a brief bit of anti-Semitism on the part of the interview subjects near the end, in case you’re wanting to avoid that.) I haven’t actually played the Yakuza games myself, but I still found it really interesting, mostly because of the insight it gave into the perspectives of the actual people in the yakuza.
This made me laugh, mostly because I first read this just after watching Yuri on Ice. Yuuri and the yakuza have something in common!
This part really interested me. I know that people believing in the rose-tinted nostalgia of an imaginary past is pretty common...everywhere, basically, but the idea of yakuza reminiscing about a time (which probably never existed) where they were the “good guys” still fascinates me.
And this just amused me—not much more to say about it.
- Naruto learns about the rock-paper-scissors nature of elemental chakra affinities, which, iirc, was never mentioned before, but ends up coming up constantly after this. It works out basically as: Fire is stronger than Wind, which is stronger than Lightning, which is stronger than Earth, which is stronger than Water, which is stronger than Fire.
In the canon scene this comes up in, Naruto mentions how his Wind affinity really makes him and Sasuke the perfect pair. The other character (Yamato, I think it was) initially thinks that he’s talking about how his Wind beats Sasuke’s Lightning—but Naruto corrects him, pointing out how his Wind is also the only thing that can make Sasuke’s Fire stronger.
Which made me actually think about Sakura and Team Seven as a whole. I know from the Naruto wiki that Sakura’s affinities are Water and Earth, which… well, first, that makes Team Seven a really well-balanced set, which is probably intentional.
But it also means that both Naruto and Sakura can beat, and are beaten by, Sasuke, in terms of their affinities. And whichever of Sasuke’s element Naruto or Sakura are weak to, can be beaten by the other. Which could have been a really interesting direction in which to take a Naruto & Sakura vs. Sasuke battle in. - The Kakuzu and Hidan arc gave me such a rush of fond feelings for them both. ♥ The night I finished reading it, I then ended up staying up way too late rereading Tozette’s Dirt and Ashes, or: The One-and-a-Half Body Problem because I love her Hidan (and Kakuzu) characterizations an awful lot.
...Honestly, this Naruto reread would probably go faster if I didn’t keep taking breaks to reread my favorite fic; I’ve actually been rereading pretty much all of Tozette’s work lately. (Forty Percent gives me a lot of Hidan and Kakuzu feelings, though it’s tagged as Kakuzu/Tenten). - Speaking of Akatsuki-related pairings, my Itachi/Kisame feelings were very well-fed. That page where Kisame asks if he’s crying over the report of Sasuke’s supposed death… <3
- Jiraiya’s death...actually really works for me? I can’t warm up to him as a character because of the lechery thing*, but that whole bit about how he feels like he’s failed at everything he’s done in life (despite becoming one of the legendary Sannin) because of all the people he failed in life worked for me, and I loved what his final choice really ended up being.
...The prophecy stuff’s total bullshit, though.
*I know it’s meant to be a joke. It’s not funny. My brother and I actually had a conversation about this the other day, about how our tolerance for that sort of “humor” has pretty much completely vanished over the years. (It was actually a conversation about Miroku from Inuyasha—both of us really liked him when we were teenagers and feel really uncomfortable with certain aspects of his character now—but rereading Jiraiya’s death a few days later made me briefly revisit that conversation with him to talk about Jiraiya too.)
And now I’m going to step away from the bullet points, because I… have a lot to say about the Pein invasion. Mostly in regards to how angry it made me. Just. I felt like it was an arc that had a lot of potential? And then how it actually played out was just agh. Maybe it’s because I never actually managed to get my hands on the whole thing when I was younger, but I really thought that it played out better than it did.
The first thing that pissed me off was Sakura crying out for Naruto to come save them and then immediately being sidelined???? SAKURA WOULD NEVER. She trusts Naruto, yes, and she knows what he could do. But a big part of her character is that she wants to keep on fighting by her team’s side and not be left behind, and there’s nothing in her character development up to this point that would suggest that she’d ever just throw her hands up in the air, hoping to be rescued. Just. No. I’m so angry.
And then the Hinata fight, which. I’d seen the panels with Hinata’s confession so many times, but not the aftermath, and I’d always assumed that, you know, Hinata actually got to fight with Pein before being defeated. But no—she just rushes forward and is immediately nearly killed in one hit. It’s so incredibly anti-climatic. Just. Would it have killed Kishimoto to have let her fight him at least briefly? I don’t mind it being over quickly—Hinata was outclassed—but the way that it played out was so unsatisfying and, honestly, kind of insulting to Hinata.
Pein’s plan for how he was going to achieve world peace made no sense to me, but whatever, I could roll with it. What broke my suspension of disbelief was his conversation with Naruto—I just don’t understand how Naruto convinced him to even stop attacking Konoha, let alone decide to give up his life to revive everyone / pass on the torch to Naruto himself. Up to this point, Naruto’s speeches always worked fine for me, but I couldn’t buy this one at all. ...My suspension of disbelief for Naruto’s power-ups also broke during this arc, but whatever. I’m going to try to stop lingering on it.
...I did like Kakashi getting a chance to talk with his dead father, though. That was sweet. And Danzo finally labelling Sasuke as a rogue missing-nin was so satisfying, even if it’s made clear by the narrative that it was supposed to be a how dare he moment.
► The other day my brother sent me this interesting interview from 2010 about actual yakuza playing and commenting on the accuracy of Yakuza 3. (Note: there is a brief bit of anti-Semitism on the part of the interview subjects near the end, in case you’re wanting to avoid that.) I haven’t actually played the Yakuza games myself, but I still found it really interesting, mostly because of the insight it gave into the perspectives of the actual people in the yakuza.
M: I like the fact that you power up by eating real food. Shio ramen gives you a lot of power — CC Lemon, not as much. It all makes sense.
S: The breaded pork cutlet bento box is like mega power. More than ramen. That's accurate.
This made me laugh, mostly because I first read this just after watching Yuri on Ice. Yuuri and the yakuza have something in common!
S: There are a lot of guys whom I feel like I know. The dialogue is right too. They sound like yakuza.
K: Braggarts, bullies, and sweet-talkers. I agree — it feels like I know the guys on the screen.
M: Kiryu is the way yakuza used to be. We kept the streets clean. People liked us. We didn't bother ordinary citizens. We respected our bosses. Now, guys like that only exist in video games.
S: I don't know any ex-yakuza running orphanages.
K: There was one a few years ago. A good guy.
M: You sure it wasn't just a tax shelter?
K: Sure it was a tax shelter but he ran it like a legitimate thing. You know.
This part really interested me. I know that people believing in the rose-tinted nostalgia of an imaginary past is pretty common...everywhere, basically, but the idea of yakuza reminiscing about a time (which probably never existed) where they were the “good guys” still fascinates me.
M: Except for Kiryu's shirt, good. And his tattoo.
S: Not much of a tattoo.
K: Only on his back as far as I can tell. Maybe he ran out of enough money to get it finished.
And this just amused me—not much more to say about it.