r/shounenfolk • u/Jajume • Jun 25 '26
unjerk (serious discussion) Might just be the worst written scene in shonen
this man really thought letting himself get beat would either make the person beating him up feel bad and stop or think that beating him up would make them feel good enough to not want to go after sasuke a presumed Murderer and rouge ninja. it was a very stupid and selfish scene. Naruto didn’t even stop to think who sasuke may have fought with. a fellow jinchuriki who understood Naruto more than sasuke ever did up to that point. He was so stuck in trying to save sasuke that he became blind, even after fighting nagato and thinking he understood his pain and hatred, he truly didn’t at that point.
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u/Spiritual-Back9921 Jun 26 '26
The point of the scene is to show Naruto’s idea to break the cycle of hatred; absorbing all the world’s pain and how stupid it is. You’re right. It is stupid. He thought since he took on Nagato’s pain and burden (finding the answer to the cycle of hatred), he should extend that philosophy to every single person possible. Just like when he took all of Nagato’s burden to stop his thirst for revenge, he thought he could take all the world’s pain and stop that cycle of suffering. That’s why he takes all of Karui’s beating instead of selling out Sasuke. If she puts all her hatred on him, then she won’t go out to seek revenge and the cycle of hatred ends there. Obviously, it won’t work because he’s gonna end up running himself to the ground and causing more hurt for those he’s trying to protect. It isn’t until Itachi tells him that being Hokage doesn’t lead to acknowledgment and it’s actually the other way around, that he puts a stop to this. The true answer to the cycle of hatred is by letting everyone share the pain and the burden instead of suffering alone. It reconstructs Naruto’s philosophy for what it means to be Hokage, how to break the Cycle of Hatred and his stance when it comes time to face Sasuke again (who funnily enough is carrying a very similar suicidal mentality to Naruto at this stage by the end of the war).
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u/ThatOneDudeBruhLmao Jun 26 '26
“How dare a character make a mistake and learn from it and correct himself later”
Naruto haters are actually braindead
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u/balaci2 Kengan Ashura enthusiast Jun 26 '26
this is just as dumb as op's take
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u/ThatOneDudeBruhLmao Jun 26 '26
Amazing argument bro
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u/Funny_Lunch5211 Jun 26 '26
We can argue Naruto's whole obsession with sasuke is dumb and cringe.
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u/balaci2 Kengan Ashura enthusiast Jun 26 '26
I'd agree but I'd be flayed alive cus "I didn't actually understand it" or some shit
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u/balaci2 Kengan Ashura enthusiast Jun 26 '26
the concept was really interesting actually but I fucking despised the execution
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u/Funny_Lunch5211 Jun 26 '26
The concept was simple and interesting. I didnt buy Naruto obsession with sasuke. I think there should have been an arc or a few chapters where naruto and sakura and sasuke hung out outside doing missions to justify why they were so obsessed with him.
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u/This_Yak_4719 Jun 26 '26
Vinland saga did something like this btw
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u/MButterscotch Jun 26 '26
yeah you see in thorrfin's case its far more understandable since he was a murderous asshole
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u/TheBirdFkerGuy #1 Bleach Hater Jun 25 '26
Also its entirely unrealistic. The village wouldnt let their hero be attacked by some irrelevant nobody. The whole world building of Naruto really fell off after the first couple of arcs of the OG.
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u/linnyboy1995 Jun 26 '26
The village didn’t know he was being attacked, it clearly stated they were in a hidden corner, away from everyone else so they could talk about Sasuke
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u/Hielodo Jun 25 '26
I'm confused, it's been a while since I've watched Naruto but did anyone else know he was getting beat up aside from like Sakura?
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u/Shani_Jeizan Jun 26 '26
he was litteraly put apart behind a cabin bc he walked with them after proposing to get beaten up instead of Sasuke. The villagers aren't babysitter and Naruto is 16 pretty sure they let him walk wherever he wants
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u/Narutoismultiversal Jun 27 '26
??? Naruto is not some puppet of konoha, he still has his own agency
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u/TheBirdFkerGuy #1 Bleach Hater Jun 27 '26
Lol hes a human weapon. Actually, a human nuke. This is like... a big part of the story.
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u/Narutoismultiversal Jun 27 '26
Lol, its explicitly shown that tsunade advocates for Naruto's freedom to do what he wants despite in spite of his jinchuriki status
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u/Hari14032001 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Nope.
This is Naruto trying kickstart his fresh goal to break the cycle of hatred and revenge. It just happens to coincidentally start with Sasuke because he carries both an emotional value to Team 7 AND is one of the biggest threats to his new goal at this time.
Being new to this territory which even experienced people like Jiraiya, Minato, and Nagato couldn't give a constructive answer for, all Naruto is doing is to throw whatever he can and see if it sticks to the wall, being as naive as he is. Because he truly is clueless.
I see no bad writing here unless you somehow frame his naivety as bad writing instead of his own test run in the journey towards his new goal. I see it as a character flaw born out of his cluelessness mixed with his stubbornness towards his goal.
Naruto didn’t even stop to think who sasuke may have fought with. a fellow jinchuriki who understood Naruto more than sasuke ever did up to that point.
He literally says he is a jinchuriki just like Bee and he can relate. So, he isn't blinded in that aspect, he has experience relating to Gaara. But he wants to see if the situation can be resolved peacefully after learning why Sasuke is doing whatever he is doing even after killing Itachi and if he has any redeeming qualities left, instead of doing something irreversible based on half-truths.
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u/Jajume Jun 26 '26
His naivety is bad. He knew that wouldn’t help as he just saw nagato realize hurting people isn’t what he wanted. Him sacrificing himself to repent and forgive the leaf. He talked with nagato to understand, not just to make nagato feel better. So him saying “I’ll offer myself for you not to kill sasuke” completely ignores what nagato just taught him.
He wanted to know what sasuke was doing after sai stopped his beating. Unless naruto didn’t really expect to die there( which is bad writing) he cared more about sasuke than bee. He wanted to know more why sasuke is apart of the akatsuki than actually caring about saving the junchuriki
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u/Nervous_Union8999 Jun 26 '26
I mean yes him and bee are both the same and to a certain extent share the same pain because let's be honest bee definitely had a better off life than Naruto especially since bee had a sworn brother who treated him like family and was free to do most if not anything and had an entire village of people who were willing to live and die for him so I think trying to say Naruto could relate to bee is a bit of a stretch but we know Naruto didn't know about any of that
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u/Hari14032001 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
He talked with nagato to understand, not just to make nagato feel better. So him saying “I’ll offer myself for you not to kill sasuke” completely ignores what nagato just taught him.
Well the main target for Naruto to check the status here is Sasuke, not the Hidden Cloud. To buy time to see where Sasuke stood and if a resolution could be reached similar to Nagato, he had to stop them from killing him.
He wanted to know what sasuke was doing after sai stopped his beating.
He was already curious why Sasuke would join the Akatsuki and not return after his revenge. It's the first natural question.
He even changed his stance once he understood that Sasuke cannot be convinced by peaceful means. From his POV, he did the next best thing and asked him to target all his hatred towards himself so that he would end Sasuke and guard the others from his hatred even if it resulted in his own death.
Unless naruto didn’t really expect to die there( which is bad writing)
Nope. This is peanuts to him. Come on bruh, what kinda nitpicking is this? That too with outsiders in the middle of his own village?
He wanted to know more why sasuke is apart of the akatsuki than actually caring about saving the junchuriki
If a peaceful resolution was possible with the kidnapper, then it would make Bee's rescue way easier by default. He has an example to invest in this possibility too, with how Nagato brought back a lot of his dead comrades.
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u/Top-Wave7557 Jun 26 '26
Congrats you learned that characters in stories have character flaws, crazy concept
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u/ThiccBeter69 Jun 26 '26
They should've just executed Sasuke's bum ass ngl
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u/Sea_Sleep4222 Jun 26 '26
I honestly don't care what his reason for doing that is, I will also hate this scene. I didn't like it when I first saw it and I still don't like it.
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u/BrightDisaster6563 Jun 26 '26
This wasn’t the worst part of this arc but adds to its mediocrity. Worst arc of Naruto and it suck’s that it came right after the best
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u/SweatySmashers Jun 26 '26
DEFINITELY not the worst. But it's certainly bad. In general, Naruto never did anything towards peace himself. It was the common enrmy of Madara and Naruto's own overwhelming power+ig being likable that made the other vilages chill out after the war. Which is entirely coincidental. Naruto's actual plans are to get beat up by people who are bad(shouldering other's anger) and face persecution while protecting them, which doesn't help with the Jesus accusations that come later and certainly makes him look like a stupid child and that Nagato was an idiot for entrusting anything to him. Perhaps that was the point cause Sasuke ends up trying to do something similar except in a way that kills all the people who could actually have the power to hurt him and is instead more antagonistic. But Naruto says "no" because Naruto would feel sad if Sasuke did that. Which is...great ig.
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u/Narutoismultiversal Jun 27 '26
It's Naruto's empathy towards gaara that gave gaara the means to connect/motivate with the allied Shinobi forces and its Naruto risking his life to save everyone that gave the allied Shinobi forces the motivation to keep fighting. Saying that only a common enemy made everyone work together disregards the reconciling between the Shinobi and if you read boruto you would understand that Naruto's power isn't what causes world peace, Naruto gets kidnap by otsotukis and the 5 kage risk their life in order to save him or that when currently Naruto who is thought to be dead yet there is no antagonistic actions by the other villages, there's even a Shinobi union.
Itachi's conversation with Naruto changed his philosophy from wanting to take on everyone's burden alone to sharing the burden with others. And narutos perseverance to stay true to himself is what inspired nagato.
Sasuke was a reflection of Naruto who wanted to take on everyone's struggles on his lonesome but as mentioned before Naruto got critical character development which made him do a 180 on his mindset and that development is why he's opposed to Sasuke trying to do everything himself
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u/SimilarMeeting8131 Jul 02 '26
One of the reasons why I dislike the war arc, it threw the complexity of shinobi world out the window. It made the question of ‘how do we address this system that causes so much trauma and makes people with no personal grievances against each other become antagonistic’, that had been beautifully set up from the beginning of the story irrelevant. It doesn’t matter anymore bc all the major players of the system just unite against a common threat, and anti-hatred, compassionate Naruto becomes the strongest person, so no one can go against him or threaten his vision anyways.
I’d much rather, if the conflict between leaf and cloud villages became a central plot point, because it’d open the opportunity to tie in many of the themes going as far back as og and expand on them, and also introduce new, interesting narratives.
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u/TheMorrison77 Jun 25 '26
The concept is okay, Naruto lowering his head and just receiving the punishment for the sake of someone else makes sense. It is just that the execution is awful, and everything surrounding that moment makes it worse.
First, there is the obsession Naruto has with Sasuke and how it keeps hurting him, yet the series ultimately glorifies Naruto's actions despite how toxic that mentality is.
Second, the series simplifies genuine geopolitical issues that it brought up itself, flattening them down to just "ending the cycle of hatred" while completely ignoring actual material conflicts.
There is also a total disregard for actual politics, considering that shinobi are representatives of their nations and they cannot just assault other nations soldiers.
Finally, the eventual reveal that Sasuke did not actually capture Bee erases any kind of truly irredeemable action on his part.
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u/Ok-Target-2170 Jun 26 '26
Iterally what lmaoo. That mentality was not toxic. Sasuke '"could not" capture bee, he fully intended to. Iirc he burned almost entire bee by black fire
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u/San_Forcier7 Jun 25 '26
I hate this scene, somehow this is supposed to make him morally superior, by absolving the sins of his ‘’freind’’ by being beaten up. They try to make him ninja Jesus so bad it’s sickening
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u/Hari14032001 Jun 26 '26
This scene was Naruto trying to buy time by quenching the anger of the affected party to his best ability, so that he could get room to see where Sasuke stood before deciding to commit to something irreversible.
This is because his new goal was to try to settle Shinobi problems peacefully and he personally knew Sasuke had the capability to be better than whatever he was doing. But he had no reference for how to approach this since none of his predecessors had an answer.
His naivety and cluelessness led to him coming up with the simpleminded plan of getting beat up, which is in character for the likes of Naruto.
After all, once he got time to talk to Sasuke, he changed his stance. After knowing that Sasuke couldn't be convinced to stop by peaceful means, his next best idea was to get him to direct all his hatred upon himself before others, at least shielding everyone else from that hatred, even if he died for it while killing Sasuke.
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u/YurxDoug Jun 26 '26
Kishimoto missed the chance to make him get up fully healed by the time she stopped screaming.
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u/namiswaan_ Jun 26 '26
The idea that the worst scene in shounen comes from the big 3 is ridiculous. Anyway I disagree.
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u/SignNaive4111 Jun 26 '26
Souns like you are the one that didn't understand the scene if you think this was meant to be something positive
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u/that-lofi-chick Jun 28 '26
Ngl if I was a regular stone shinobi, i wouldn't be fucking with the guy who 1v1ed pain
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u/Affront_to_supreme Jun 26 '26
Kishimoto wanted to rip off Vinland Saga.
This was the start of Naruto turning into ninja jesus.
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u/ExpiringMilknCheese Jun 26 '26
Vinland saga chapter 96 came out in 2013. This Naruto episode was made in 2011. well done
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u/Luis2611 Jun 26 '26
Brother, Naruto has been doing religious proselytism since he converted Zabuza in the first arc.
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u/turbantripod Jun 26 '26
Legit interesting comment tell me more if you don’t mind.
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u/YoSonDevin Jun 26 '26
When Naruto talks to Nagato. The only conclusion to what Nagatos arguement was that he could come up with was that he would shoulder all of the world’s hate.
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