EXTRA!!-- shipping in naruto, or why ino for shikamaru
by __honeysweet
in the middle of a naruto craze. will watch shippuuden this week. expect huge batch of icons @ wakizashi_. wrote this on sunday after watching a marathon and reading 974837278395783 fanfics.
SHIPPING IN NARUTO, OR WHY INO FOR SHIKAMARU
hmmm. romance in naruto. that's quite a topic to take on, but as i've been into naruto lately, i feel a bit compelled to talk about it. perhaps it's not as interesting at the moment, since we're all on the verge of our seats waiting for that one situation that OMG is going to be SO awesome (you know what i mean, i don't wanna spoil it for anyone), but heck, i've been watching a naruto marathon on cartoon network since 9 am-- they're airing the chuunin exams, yay!-- so i'm feeling pumped up and you have no other choice but to hear (read) me! mwahaha! *cackles madly*
now, before i say anything else, i haven't really been up-to-date with naruto. in the anime i haven't watched any shippuuden... i aim to soon, anyway! i just have to watch the last few eps. of the sasuke retrieval arc (i stopped watching when neji "died") and then i'll be ready to go because i don't care about the fillers. and the manga i read sporadically, though i do hear from my friends and such what's been happening. for these reasons, i may have some facts wrong down there. just remember that this whole thing is just my humble opinion, and it's more than likely that it wouldn't change even if the facts say otherwise, so really, it's my prerogative if i want to be exact to canon or not ^^;;;
well, if you think about it, naruto has a very romantic storyline, or at least as far as shonen manga go. i guess it's understandable that you'll have to deal with this issue if you're going to be dumb enough to choose pre-pubescent children as your main characters. but then again, can you NOT picture kishimoto-sama watching, say, card captor sakura and going "but awww, aren't they cute? syaoran should tell sakura that he likes her. though i do admit this would be much more entertaining if they had one or two kunai in there somewhere..." ^^;;; he is totally a sap and he should admit it xDDD what with all the infatuations and the love polygons that by now are bordering on 3-D figures and parallelepipeds... *sigh* jesus, how complicated.
as far as shipping goes, i go for what i've deemed "canon" couples. they really aren't canon, of course; not yet at least. in fact, it's likely that someone might jump at my throat and try to choke me for using the word when i'm supposed to say "mainstream." the fact is that they're, from my limited exposure to naruto fandom, basically the couples that any fan, shipper or not, can see from the actual series. now, said fan may not choose to support that couple, hence this whole "alt couples" movement-- and seriously, some people will ship anything, not that that's a bad thing. anyway, my point is that i support the four most basic het couples: sasusaku, naruhina, nejiten, and shikaino.
erk, let's go about that "mainstream" title, before someone runs in to shoot me.
basic premise for these relationships (or most of them), is that karma is a bitch, so you get the exact opposite of what you thought you were getting. for the boys, at least (seeing as this is shonen, i find myself taking the POVs of the boys, mostly, as they're the ones with the issues!). so in my head, sasuke and sakura work well because she is something he never wanted: a fangirl, the most annoying, emotional, weak girl around; but became something he needed: someone who truly loves him even with everything he's done, and who's stood by those feelings even after all this time, and who got stronger because of those feelings. she's there to prove a point; and to complete this proof, he has to reciprocate her feelings someday, someHOW. YOU CANNOT DENY THAT HE CARES. he doesn't want to, but he does! (hence the karma thing! isn't that clever ;3) perhaps it'll be in his own i'm-so-cool-and-i-pwn-you sasuke way, perhaps they'll spend the whole uchiha inheritance on the therapy bills, but there's no way (in my mind-- remember, this is all just me, even when i say "you") that, with all the history they have, they won't end up together somehow, or at least it be heavily implied. if kishi-sama suddenly decides to have sasuke and karin get it on and have twelve squealing uchiha babies, believe me, the scream of agony of half the fandom will be heard from here up to uranus. if there was any sound in space, that is. and besides that, the drama is too good to pass. where would naruto be if that relationship wasn't so messed up? they've been there since day one! (episode three, to be exact =3).
same goes for naruto and hinata. you see, of all the guys in konoha he's the one that most needs a good whap in the head most of the time. and hinata, out of all the girls in konoha, is the one that's least likely to whap him-- but he'll still learn the lesson somehow. they're just cute like that. simple, isn't it? out of all my four naruto OTPs, i'd like to think this is the least dramatic, more feel-good couple; at least as far as the canon, shonen storyline goes. of course, the fandom's something else entirely, especially since hiashi is usually involved xD but i can always count on naruhina if i want to squee a little. because even kishi-sensei made me squee with naruhina in canon. and gosh, wouldn't you just love to see, sometime in the future, a miniature version of hinata running around konoha like a squirrel on speed and pranking everyone? priceless!
nejiten is more what i'd call my fandom couple. because, other than tenten gushing about how awesome a fighter neji is during the chuunin exams, i haven't seen anything that might give me the impression that they might have a relationship. i do admit i hadn't really thought of them until i started reading fanfiction, but by now they've become a fixture in my mind. so, does it make me superficial that they get paired up by default? probably, yeah. but really, she's the only female that has any opportunity of even getting close to neji. they've worked together for a while, they obviously respect each other to some extent, even if it is to keep each other sane and away from the green beast duo (they train together, right?). who ELSE would neji be with? he's so... monochromatic. he won't let just anyone in, what with all the baggage he hauls around (you worry about the clan? worry about neji himself! he may not be spouting off nonsense about fate anymore, but he's still a freakin' snob!). there's just no one ELSE he can have-- so sue me for wanting my favorite character to have someone to be happy with! ¬_¬ i think tenten is strong enough to handle him, and strong enough that he may see her even with his nose in the air. strong enough that he doesn't see her as a plebe, but a comrade, you know?
and so we come to shikamaru. this is where the great fandom powder mound is ignited.
now, shika is my favorite character in the naruto universe, probably along with neji and sometimes sasuke. the cool thing about shikamaru is that he's a completely original character. i mean, no offense to neji & sasuke-kun, but the whole power-starved, socially-inept, elitist snob thing has been done before. however, a genius strategist that just doesn't give a shit? that's new. and as such, i guess shika falls away from the stereotypes left in place by other anime/manga. so do we know what shikamaru needs? i stick to the karma rule-- he gets exactly the opposite of what he wants. and since he's helpfully already let us know what exactly is it that he's expecting of life, we can easily say that he should get a bossy, loud girl who can shake him out of his lazy ways, or at least keep trying until the day one of them dies, JUST LIKE HIS MOMMA! (cheer, sigmund!) xDDD
shikamaru's list of troublesome women he wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole is... rather short, actually. kinda weird for a guy who finds everything troublesome. so anyway, two of the three women in his list are elegible single girls (& not related to him at all), and those two are, of course, temari-- the deadly flower of the desert (gosh, it's like i'm channeling gai O_o get the hell out of my head! *headdesk*) and ino, his trusty teammate.
i've already mentioned i lean more towards shikaino. not that i don't like shikatema; i think it's a perfectly acceptable couple, i just think ino fits him better. and it's nothing personal against temari either! in fact, out of all the kunoichi, temari is my favorite. she's totally kick-ass! maybe if tenten was given more of a background she could compare, but so far it's temari for me. i have no doubt that she could definitely make shika's life complicated enough to satisfy karma and also they have really good chemistry so she'd make him happy, no matter how bothersome/scary he might say she is.
another point for shikatema is that they've had a lot of interaction over the series. we've seen them fight against each other and how similarly they think, and we've seen them fight with each other and how they complement each other. they've had deeper moments, too. i think they understand each other and trust each other enough at the very least in an intellectual level. they know what the other can and can't do, there's no pretending there. not to mention that temari's temper, push-forward personality and her confidence that borders on arrogance can counteract shika's... apathy towards anything that's not cloud-watching.
still, i'm more into shikaino. there are reasons for that (that i've only just thought about, actually ^^;;;), but i'm going to have to go back a little and analyze a bit of their group interaction.
so the genin cells are supposedly formed so the three kids can balance each other's abilities while on missions. you know, i think that, out of all the rookie 9 plus gai's team, team 10 is the most balanced in a sense. oh, team gai will always be my utter adoration, and i do believe that when it comes to being a ninja team, they're the best one. i mean, there's tenten who rules on long-range combat with weaponry; lee is a taijutsu expert, perfect for close-range and hand to hand combat; and neji's byakugan is perfect for defense, allowing them to see their attackers no matter what, not to mention it's useful for retrieval, espionage and information gathering while his spin techniques work like a shield, his jyuuken can incapacitate enemies easily and he's probably rather good at every other thing ninjas do. him being a genius and all.
okaaaaay, time to stop gushing about neji & team gai!! *shakes head to clear it* ec-hem. as i was saying. then there's team 7, who are balanced at least in the beginning (with sakura being good in theory & chakra control, sasuke being good at everything else, and naruto being dead-last). as the series progresses, they become the team that are the closest to each other, no doubt about it. and then there's team 8. you know, i stil don't quite get that team. i mean, you bet your ass they're great at information retrieval and espionage (kiba can smell, hinata can see and shino can hear, via his bugs, to a great distance), but put them on the offensive and... well, they're not that impressive, to tell you the truth. i've no doubt they're good friends, but i don't think they compliment each other as much as have similar abilities. and their personalities are not very complimentary either.
what's special about team 10, IMHO, is that they understand each other better than any of the other teams do. team gai is full of misconceptions in-between its members; team 8 is just... they're just not close enough, i think. and team 7, as much as they love each other to bits (yes, even sasuke), they don't quite get where the other comes from until something HUGE happens. with team 10, we've heard, for example, two of them commenting while the third is fighting, and they seem to have a good grip on what their teammate can or can't do, as well as the state of their emotions. also, when they're fighting together-- they're the only team to have a planned group formation, which means that they know their teammates' specialty jutsus in-depth as well as their weakness. with one bellow of "ino-shika-chou formation!," the ball starts rolling (literally! lol, chouji's jutsu is just the cutest thing =3) and they're off, no need to review tactics because they know how well they can work together and they know they have each other's back, no matter what.
i mean, just look at their names! see any other team with puns? only the sannin. these three were a unit before the whole chuunin exam arc even started. it's no secret that chouji and shika are tight. chouji is probably the one person in the world shikamaru doesn't think is troublesome. and chouji knows shikamaru better than even shikamaru knows himself, quite probably. chouji and ino seem to have a rather cute brother/sister thing going on, to the point that ino's comfortable giving him nicknames (which we know is a show of affection, as she treats sakura exactly the same way and we know they're best friends underneath the whole rivalry thing) and he complains, but afterwards takes them in stride. i think it's nice that these three just know what makes the other two tick. how many times through the series do we hear (read) stuff like "shikamaru will only think it's troublesome," or "ooohhh, you shouldn't have said that about chouji!" or "ino's going to freak!" and then BOOM, whatever they said would happen, DOES happen? they know each other on a deep level.
now, at first glance, it might not seem like shika & ino understand (or want to understand, even) the other at all. we've heard it straight from shikamaru's mouth more than once that he just doesn't get her, and ino seems too wrapped up in sasuke and being pretty & popular to even give a drat about shika. as time goes by, however, they kinda start to understand each other by force. since ino's such a girly girl, and emotion-driven, i'm sure shikamaru still looks at her like he can never figure out what she's going to do or say. and i'm sure ino is a bit overwhelmed by shika's so-called genius, that she expects not to be right about what her instincts tell her he's going to do. but there are moments here and there that make me think that they do understand each other, at a very, very basic level.
i think that even if shikamaru can't quite predict her actions, he can look back after they're done and immediately know why she reacted that way, which is certainly impressive. for example, all through the second chuunin test, we hear him refer to ino as if she's the leader of the team. sure, it was because it's that was the path of least resistance (hell hath no fury like an ino who doesn't get what she wants); however, i think he's more the type to go along with the current, but not without complaint. in this case, he just put the leadership out into the open without much of a word-- especially when they were watching sakura's fight with the sound people... he knew what sakura meant to her, even under all the pretenses of a rivalry, and whatever she decided to do, he trusted her, and knew this was important to her. of course, chouji also did, but it's much more meaningful coming from the guy who claims to not get girls at all, right?
when he was fighting, she was always very supportive of him (who would've thought we'd get this from the girl who, come the third episode of naruto, said she could care less about them, and was only worried because sakura was in sasuke's group? she's come a long way!). she knows what he's capable of, but here's what's better-- she's the type to believe he can go beyond that, even when he doesn't. shika's the type to go to his limit and let go right there; she's the type to want to push him over that edge, and i think that's fundamental for his growth. he thinks his abilities are limited and that he can count them like one counts coins; when you get to the last one, there's just no more. she's more the type that keeps on walking, because maybe you'll find another penny down the road, you never know. and if she can push him to walk as well, he might find that the development of your abilities is not necessarily pre-determined and that it's not useless to continue trying. she feels disappointed when he gives up in the fight against temari; she obviously expected more from him.
shika's way of viewing her is just the opposite. i think he seriously underestimates her sometimes, and then she goes beyond and surprises him, then he realizes that the "moves" he'd seen in his head weren't necessarily correct. i don't believe that makes her feel put-down (that confidence sure pays off!), she'll just show him time and time again that life is not supposed to be a game of shougi.
so i think they do understand each other, regardless of what they say, and they complement each other enough that they can bring out their better sides. but ultimately, why do i like shikaino better than shikatema? well, for me temari's cool and all, but she's also a serious girl. maybe it's the fact that she's older, or that she's more arrogant than the others, but she's pretty mature and collected. any inbalance in her, as far as i've seen, goes back to the fact that she's gaara's older sister, but she doesn't really have any personal issues to deal with. she may be bossy, and she can kick-ass (which is why we love her!) and she can sure kick shikamaru's ass around for being lazy, but other than that, i just don't think that relationship would be terribly fun. comfortable for sure, probably closer to shika's ideal image than with ino, yeah, and probably more dramatic.
but in my mind, shikaino is just fun. i don't see temari dragging shika around a mall and making him pay for her stuff and then carry her bags, and yelling at him every time she asks him how she looks and he says "fine." do you? i personally think temari's more the type to ditch him and then have him in the doghouse for a while, until he gets frustrated enough to apologize. i just think ino's version would be funnier xDDD temari's more independent and wouldn't be hanging on shika as much. ino would, and even MORE so if he complained. i don't think temari would put all of her effort into being all housewife-like and then go all kunoichi on shika's tail when he doesn't even notice her effort. temari wouldn't keep prodding him about expressing his feelings continuously even though he won't EVER. fandom!temari might do these things, but not the temari i've seen, no. temari's all about being a strong girl; ino, even under the tough-chick façade she puts on while fighting, is a girly-girl (one who happens to want to be a great kunoichi, but still a girly-girl) and much more dependant on a man than temari is, and you KNOW shika has GOT to have a clingy violent girl at the top of his "troublesome" list.
shika and temari can have a comfortable relationship, in perfect companionship while she still bosses him around. but i've already decided that, according to fate, karma and sigmund freud, shikamaru should get together involuntarily with a girl who irritates him as much as his dear old mother does, and loves him just as much so that he might just find himself unable (and unwillingly unwilling) to live without her. that, for me, is ino.
because y'all know she can bug him so much more! shika goes down the road of life holding the hand of logic, and ino is girly enough (and thus driven by emotions) to be the unpredictable variable, the wildcard that throws his life off the road. what can irritate a strategy genius more than an unpredictable variable? that's the exact opposite of what he wants-- he wants it all to go by his plan, or as close to it as possible-- and so of COURSE he should get the exact opposite. and through all of this, even if he complains, he can come to understand what she does enough that it endears her to him. he can still love her; even though she drives him crazy, he can still be happy with her. i just can't picture shikatema being as hilarious as these two can be.
now, of course, i JUST thought of all this. i didn't go through all this reasoning and THEN say "hey, i think i'll be a shikaino shipper!" it was more of a gut reaction-- i was watching episode three, and ino was gushing about sasuke and shika goes "i just don't get what you all see in him!" and i thought, "awwwww, he's jealous! how cute!" that was how it started for me. THEN i started thinking that he seemed to be honestly curious about the whole ino-liking-sasuke thing, where shika is just never curious; he usually doesn't care about anything. that's got to mean something, right?
before someone screams at me that i'm shallow and that i shouldn't let myself be taken away with first impressions, i have to say that if i always did that, i would've gone the sasunaru way after chapter three (OMG the tension! the kiss! priceless!), but i didn't. so i guess i'm not THAT superficial? it just happened the once, with shikaino. and as you've seen, afterwards i still feel like the plot only supported my first impression, so i'm not sailing away from this ship anytime soon. even if shikatema happens. which, again, i don't mind at all-- i just like shikaino better.
and i WOULD like to see some more interaction between these two in the recent manga chapters... *coughcoughkishimotoooooocoughcough* oh well.
and thus ends my long rant about romance in naruto. hmmm, did any of that make sense?
next time we shall discuss if kishimoto has a fish fetish or not.
just kidding ^^;;;
did you know... that ino's name is the only one, out of the konoha 11 (+ sasuke) that is spelled in hiragana? i didn't. looking back i should've known, but i didn't until i saw it today @ wikipedia...