Naruto Manga Progression *Spoilers!*

[Southern Cross]

Naruto is now up to chapter 502 on Onemanga. The last few episodes have been flashbacks to Naruto's birth and the release of the Kyubi, with the current episode showing us the epic battle between Naruto's father and Uchiha Madara.
And while Naruto may be a descendant of the Sage of the Six Paths (just like Sasuke) there is no evidence he's the Sage's reincarnation.

[Zwzn]

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we are just now hearing about how close the Senju and Uzimaki clans where, and yet no one seems to know anything about the Uzimaki clan. It should have been taught at the academy. Naruto should have known it because he is so interested in the Hokage. It should have been stuff Naruto learned pre-time skip at latest at Tsunade's intro given her Uzimaki blood.

The first Hokage's wife was an Uzimaki.

I'm really getting tried of all this information that was never even hinted at before appearing.
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Is anyone else wondering if the Byakugan has some higher form like the Sharingan? It seems like everyone has forgotten about the Hyuga clan.
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Is anyone else getting sick of the Sharingan seemingly having no limits as to what it can do?

[CRBWildcat]

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we are just now hearing about how close the Senju and Uzimaki clans where, and yet no one seems to know anything about the Uzimaki clan.

Not really, no. The way I figured it, it's not the sort of thing people would talk about in everyday conversations within a ninja village. "Hey, Sakamoto, what's this about the Senju and Uzumaki clans? How come I didn't hear about that before? Maybe it's a secret of some sort, you think?" "That's nice, Koto. Now give me some more sake before some missing-nins come along and kill us. No one lives forever, you know."

Really, I can't see conversations of the sort happening.

Is anyone else getting sick of the Sharingan seemingly having no limits as to what it can do?

Again, not really. As the expression goes, "there's always a bigger fish"; the Sharingan's not unbeatable by any means.

I love having a detached attitude towards all this.

[truedemonicfire]

The only thing I'm annoyed about is how much Sasuke has become a selfish, whiney bastard.

[Southern Cross]

Actually, Sasuke has always been a whiney selfish bastard- it's just that he's gotten a lot worse recently.

[Zwzn]

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we are just now hearing about how close the Senju and Uzimaki clans where, and yet no one seems to know anything about the Uzimaki clan.

Not really, no. The way I figured it, it's not the sort of thing people would talk about in everyday conversations within a ninja village. "Hey, Sakamoto, what's this about the Senju and Uzumaki clans? How come I didn't hear about that before? Maybe it's a secret of some sort, you think?" "That's nice, Koto. Now give me some more sake before some missing-nins come along and kill us. No one lives forever, you know."

Really, I can't see conversations of the sort happening.

An Uzumaki was married to the First Hokage, and the Fourth Hokage, and there does not appear to have been any secrets about it. They are a famous ninja clan, and have a colorful past that is very important to Konoha. Yet no one talks about them, and that includes Tsunade who is for all practical purposes an Uzumaki herself.

It seems like something that Naruto should know given his wish to become Hokage.

Up until the latest chapters we had been lead to believe that the Uzumakis had been nobodies, but now we know that Konoha was so friendly with the Uzumakis that they added the Uzumaki family crest to the Konoha leaf.

It seems like Tsunade or Jiraiya should have at least thought something when they when Jiraiya was trying to get Tsunade to become Hokage.

Is anyone else getting sick of the Sharingan seemingly having no limits as to what it can do?

Again, not really. As the expression goes, "there's always a bigger fish"; the Sharingan's not unbeatable by any means.

I love having a detached attitude towards all this.

We have yet to see any sign of that bigger fish, and the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan seems to be unbeatable. There are just to many power-ups after power-ups.

[Konsaki]

Really, the manga has become a yawn-fest for me... It's suffering from DBZ syndrome.

[CRBWildcat]

Up until the latest chapters we had been lead to believe that the Uzumakis had been nobodies, but now we know that Konoha was so friendly with the Uzumakis that they added the Uzumaki family crest to the Konoha leaf.

It seems like Tsunade or Jiraiya should have at least thought something when they when Jiraiya was trying to get Tsunade to become Hokage.

It wouldn't be a ninja village without the secrets, would it?

Anyway, considered that we're the audience and not the playwright, who are we to second-guess what the actors are doing? (Unless we're sitting at the Globe, in which case we're obligated to mock the cast at every turn.)

We have yet to see any sign of that bigger fish, and the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan seems to be unbeatable. There are just to many power-ups after power-ups.

Yes, we have. Unless I miss my guess, it entered the game within the last chapter or so. No matter which way things go, a clash between Naruto and the emo-duck is more or less inevitable. Otherwise, people are going to complain that it's not what the millions (and the millions!) of the manga's fans had in mind.

[Zwzn]

It wouldn't be a ninja village without the secrets, would it?

If it's out where everyone can see it, it isn't much of a secret. It at least seemed well known Naruto's mom was with child, and who the father was to me.

If enemy villages know it, and try to steal it, it isn't a secret. Mist tried ti kidnap Naruto's mother, and everyone who was in the village the night the Nine Tailed beast got loose has a pretty good idea as to what happened to it.

The name Uzumaki is like putting a bull's eye on Naruto.

Yes, we have. Unless I miss my guess, it entered the game within the last chapter or so. No matter which way things go, a clash between Naruto and the emo-duck is more or less inevitable. Otherwise, people are going to complain that it's not what the millions (and the millions!) of the manga's fans had in mind.

You are sort of misunderstanding, me, and I'm sort of not being clear. The Uchiha clan is being made out to be so powerful that there would have to be a large number of ways to over come their power that are not being implied or shown. It took near 5 kages to put down a nearly blind Sasuke.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the characters getting power-up after power-up just kind of breaks SOD. At least in DragonBall the characters had to train like crazy to get their power-ups.

[Southern Cross]

You're forgetting that the reason Sasuke was nearly blind was because he was overusing powers that the rest of the Clan doesn't have, as they damage the eyes. If any of the other Uchiha had the Mayenko Sharingan, Sasuke wouldn't be the sole survivor of the massacre.
And Naruto & Sasuke DO train- we only see the parts of the training that are plot-relevant.

[Zwzn]

You're forgetting that the reason Sasuke was nearly blind was because he was overusing powers that the rest of the Clan doesn't have, as they damage the eyes. If any of the other Uchiha had the Mayenko Sharingan, Sasuke wouldn't be the sole survivor of the massacre.
And Naruto & Sasuke DO train- we only see the parts of the training that are plot-relevant.

Sasuke's most powerful abilities are only because of his bloodline, and basically just appear. He isn't a good taction. He is only above average in his other skills. It is his eyes that make him so powerful.

The base Sharingan is extremely powerful, and wakens from what seems life and death combat. A ninja should see this a lot.

Mangekyō Sharingan seems to awaken from the lose of someone you care deeply for. This should happen often in times of war.

Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan is created by merging to sets of Mangekyō Sharingan eyes together. It appears to be nigh unbeatable by even the best of the best ninja, and is easy to create.

There should be a large number of nigh immortal and nigh unbeatable ninja running around with the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

[Zwzn]

I'm glad someone finally pointed out how silly and stupid the really powerful characters are.

I hope things stop working out perfectly for Tobi.

[toushin]

you're forgetting that prior to becoming a ninja most of the village only saw naruto as a demon vesssel, not as minato's and kushina's son so while it may have been common knowledge no one aknowledged it as such, plus kushina's chakra seems to be a unique trait to her not a Kekkei Genkai so that point is mute.

as for sasuke he is not very strong and he never was, even when he was still with konoha you could see it if you looked close enough. nearly every major battle he has had he has won either because his opponent has let him win or they were playing around with him and he capitilized on it. let's look at his battles, he beat the demon brothers' but was nothing to haku, and the only reason he beat the Sound Genin was because of the curse seal, which was also the only reason he beat naruto.

let's move to the second act, this is where sasuke changes from an all right fighter to a bum, he does fine with people who are weaker then him, but when they are stronger then him is a different story. both orochimaru and itachi let sasuke win. while sasuke wasn't really going all out against him he was fighting the hardest he ever had against itachi who was basically dead from an illness and he couldn't do anything. killer bee made sasuke and his entire team look like weakling. if deidara had gone all out instead of playing with him which gave sasuke time to form a strategy he would of won. the five kage summit was itachi plan and simple you can't give sasuke credit for that, the only thing he did was use either Amaterasu or Susanoo none of his skills went in to that. finally every victory after that was becuase he used his teammates as cannon folder which distracted his opponent long enough to win. i justt can't see sasuke surviving much longer especially know that he's thrown away karin who let's face it was the only reason he beat Danzō.

sasuke is a horrible charecter one of the worst i've ever seen mainly because he has nothing to fight for anymore.

[Zwzn]

Well we now know that that combined Leaf, Cloud, Rock, Sand, Misty, and Iron have about 80,000 combatants they can throw at Madara. It kind of makes me wonder what the population densities are like in the Naruto setting.

It would be nice if Madara's plans would stop all going just as planned. I find it very SOD breaking if every part of someone's extremely complex plan always work without anything seeming to go wrong.

[camk4evr]

Pretty low if it takes six nations get 80,000. If you assume that that 80,000 represents approximately 5% of the population then the combined population is ~ 1.6 million for the six nations. Even though Konoha is probably the largest village that we see and that we see fair amount of unpopulated land that seems a bit low. Of course, in the real world only about 40% of a nation's military is combat personel (the rest being support roles such as medical, logistics, command etc.). If you apply that you get about 200,000 military personel and a total population (of the combined 6 nations) of ~4 million people (averaging out to a little over 666,000 per nation). I'd say that Metro Vancouver has a higher population density than what we've seen of the Naruto World