Naruto Post; In Defense of Ino Yamanaka
In Defense of Yamanaka Ino
Okay, so I've been wanting to post this for a while. After a comment in the last Naruto post, I decided that I have enough ammo to make this.
I see this quite often as a complaint. That Ino is useless. That she should be buttkicking because she's in Naruto. Quite frankly, if you think Ino should be an action hero, you obviously know little about tactics.
Ino is a support character. I don't mean in that she's not the main character, but I mean how she is in battle. Other support characters include Sakura (healer), Shikamaru (tactician/capture), Kiba (tracker), and Shino (tracker). Though some of these characters can be used offensive wise, their main purpose is defense, tracking, and capturing. Ino is not the type of character that should be rushing headlong into battle.
This has to do with her clan. If you haven't noticed, her father is part of the Torture and Interrogation Force. This is because a lot of her clan techniques involve invading someone's mind and nervous system. While it is useful for interrogation, it's tricky to do this in battle. When taking over someone's mind, Ino's body is left open to the enemy. You have to be precise because if you miss, your body is open as it takes a while to get back to your own body. Most of the stuff she's strong in is not good for "hit 'em" combat. Ino is not good fit for an action girl.
"If she's not an action girl, then clearly she's not a capable ninja and useless!"
Bullshit.
You know how the teams were divided? It was essentially one of the better students with two of the more academically weaker students. Considering her two other teammates did poorly, guess where that puts her? She graduated in the top of her class with the best overall grades. She shows to be capable academically.
But, as we know, academics don't mean much. Her teammate Shikamaru had terrible grades yet he is a genius. But I'm going to go over some stuff that shows she's a capable ninja.
First major one is her fight with Sakura. Now, as much as I love Sakura, if she didn't have the Inner Sakura, she'd be screwed. Ino essentially fakes a break down, cuts her own hair, and uses it as a Charka rope to bind Sakura. To do the binding, she fakes doing the Shintenshin (Mind Body Switch) and limps her body. This gives Sakura a false sense of security that Ino failed before Sakura realized she couldn't move. Ino then proceeds to use the actual Shintenshin.
That's a good tactic. And if it wasn't for Inner Sakura pushing Ino out, Ino would have won that battle.
Okay, so that's one on one battle. So let me give an example outside of her normal team. Where she is out of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation. This is because Ino-Shika-Cho is a well oiled machine and it's best to assess out of that element.
Land of the Sea arc in the anime had a formation of Anko, Naruto, Shino, and Ino. Not the greatest team, but it works. You have Naruto has your main offensive person and two pretty good support characters as your backups. The mission was also an escort and capture/find out about/stop a sea monster. This arc has some very good highlights of Ino being affective.
Ino shows pretty good gather information skills. This is one of those times you needed to ask random npcs for knowledge of the area. Since Naruto was absent for half of those and Shino is not the most talkative person in the world, Ino is shown taking the task of collecting information from people. They get some good intel.
When they finally find out it's Isaribi the fish girl and she attempts to escape capture, Ino throws an explosive tag above an archway, causing an explosion. This blocks the passage and allows for the capture of Isaribi. That's another good tactic, especially if you're suppose to capture.
“But this has nothing to do with combat! She gets knocked out in the first fight!”
Okay, so I will admit, the first big fight she gets knocked out. She failed a spot check and that sucks. However the times she fights in this arc make up for that.
Against Misumi, she ends up using Shinranshin (Mind Body Disturbance) to tie him up to some pillars. Then the entire team leaves him while the place is collapsing. Lovely, but it helps with a quick escape that if Naruto was just fighting, would have probably not been possible.
So the big battle happens and Ino is helping the sailors. Let's get out of the way that's their job; escorting them. Be pretty shitty to leave them to drown. And through this she can guard as well as be back up when needed.
And behold, she is needed. Shino's fight with Yorio did do some damages to Shino. Enough to floor Shino long enough for an opening. Yorio using this opening and attacks. Ino uses Shinranshin again, giving Shino the opportunity to punch Yorio away. And yeah, she screamed when Yorio proceeded to attack her, but that moment was pretty bad ass overall and quick thinking on her part.
“But she was utterly useless during the battle with Hidan and Kakuzu. And when sealing the Three Tailed beast.”
Wow, way to not blame the commander of the mission. I love Shikamaru, I do, but the near failure of Hidan and Kakuzu pretty much rests on his shoulders as team leader. He went into battle with two supports who are meant for capture and one offensive member. An offensive member who is short ranged attack based. That's terrible against Hidan. Hidan needs to cut you to activate his jutsu. Then there was the unknown factor of Kakuzu. He knew nothing about the guy and based his strategy around Hidan.
That's terrible. They could have waited until more information was collected and having a larger squad to take them out. But no, blinded by the rage of the death of their sensei, they went off to battle. Shikamaru leading. If it wasn't for Kakashi, they would have probably died. The leader is the one who should take responsibility. The buck stops here, so to speak.
So yeah, those were two ninjas their team were not meant to take down. Ino-Shika-Cho can only go so far combat wise as they're more meant to capture and integrate an enemy. This does not make this team useless all together but they were not a good fit for the mission. Don't judge her based on that and judge the fact that Team Ten shouldn't have done this. It was their collective failure: not just Ino's for being useless and not just Chouji's for the same reasons.
As for the sealing of the Three Tailed Beast in the anime. That had to do with Charka control. You had Shizune and Sakura who were Tsunade's apprentices and top medical nins. You had Hinata Hyuga who is a Hyuga. Gentle Fist requires you to have excellent charka control in order to use the technique. Against those three, despite her having good charka control, she's going to be a weak link. This doesn't mean, however, she is a useless character; she just wasn't on par Charka Control wise with the others. That's not a flaw. Naruto would have probably been a worse choice because his Chakra control is terrible.
“But the Shinobi War, she doesn't go and kick some ass! She just helped out her fat idiot teammate!”
Yeah, because I mentioned before she's a support character. Going out and being Leeory Jenkins is not her forte.
In the Shinobi War, she is showing her strengths. Her own father compliments her on the use of Shintenshin. When Chouji was BSODing, she shoves him out of the way of an attack and then takes over his mind. Why? Because she doesn't want to see another person she loves getting killed on the battle field. Shipping arguments aside, you can tell Team Ten love each other. They're a family. Would you watch a family member die in front of you or would you save them?
I won't get started on the Chouji hate there. I think kankurette has done a good job of that in the community. But I will say “ARGG!!”, this is one of my berserk buttons.
She's been overall amazing in this arc. She's showing good tactics, bravery in the face of danger, and a new technique (Shinten Bunshin). You're going to tell me she's useless because she's not in the front lines killing stuff with her bare hands? If anything, she's been a key person. She's helping out. She's being a good support.
Support, which is what she is as a character. Not Leeory Jenkins. Not Naruto. Not an action girl.
In conclusion: Just because Ino is shown not to be a combat ninja doesn't mean she's a useless character and an incompetent ninja. You don't need to be an action girl to be a kunoichi.
Holy crap, didn't mean to go that long but it's been building up inside for a while. Kind of had to let it out. *breathes*
Okay, so I've been wanting to post this for a while. After a comment in the last Naruto post, I decided that I have enough ammo to make this.
I see this quite often as a complaint. That Ino is useless. That she should be buttkicking because she's in Naruto. Quite frankly, if you think Ino should be an action hero, you obviously know little about tactics.
Ino is a support character. I don't mean in that she's not the main character, but I mean how she is in battle. Other support characters include Sakura (healer), Shikamaru (tactician/capture), Kiba (tracker), and Shino (tracker). Though some of these characters can be used offensive wise, their main purpose is defense, tracking, and capturing. Ino is not the type of character that should be rushing headlong into battle.
This has to do with her clan. If you haven't noticed, her father is part of the Torture and Interrogation Force. This is because a lot of her clan techniques involve invading someone's mind and nervous system. While it is useful for interrogation, it's tricky to do this in battle. When taking over someone's mind, Ino's body is left open to the enemy. You have to be precise because if you miss, your body is open as it takes a while to get back to your own body. Most of the stuff she's strong in is not good for "hit 'em" combat. Ino is not good fit for an action girl.
"If she's not an action girl, then clearly she's not a capable ninja and useless!"
Bullshit.
You know how the teams were divided? It was essentially one of the better students with two of the more academically weaker students. Considering her two other teammates did poorly, guess where that puts her? She graduated in the top of her class with the best overall grades. She shows to be capable academically.
But, as we know, academics don't mean much. Her teammate Shikamaru had terrible grades yet he is a genius. But I'm going to go over some stuff that shows she's a capable ninja.
First major one is her fight with Sakura. Now, as much as I love Sakura, if she didn't have the Inner Sakura, she'd be screwed. Ino essentially fakes a break down, cuts her own hair, and uses it as a Charka rope to bind Sakura. To do the binding, she fakes doing the Shintenshin (Mind Body Switch) and limps her body. This gives Sakura a false sense of security that Ino failed before Sakura realized she couldn't move. Ino then proceeds to use the actual Shintenshin.
That's a good tactic. And if it wasn't for Inner Sakura pushing Ino out, Ino would have won that battle.
Okay, so that's one on one battle. So let me give an example outside of her normal team. Where she is out of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation. This is because Ino-Shika-Cho is a well oiled machine and it's best to assess out of that element.
Land of the Sea arc in the anime had a formation of Anko, Naruto, Shino, and Ino. Not the greatest team, but it works. You have Naruto has your main offensive person and two pretty good support characters as your backups. The mission was also an escort and capture/find out about/stop a sea monster. This arc has some very good highlights of Ino being affective.
Ino shows pretty good gather information skills. This is one of those times you needed to ask random npcs for knowledge of the area. Since Naruto was absent for half of those and Shino is not the most talkative person in the world, Ino is shown taking the task of collecting information from people. They get some good intel.
When they finally find out it's Isaribi the fish girl and she attempts to escape capture, Ino throws an explosive tag above an archway, causing an explosion. This blocks the passage and allows for the capture of Isaribi. That's another good tactic, especially if you're suppose to capture.
“But this has nothing to do with combat! She gets knocked out in the first fight!”
Okay, so I will admit, the first big fight she gets knocked out. She failed a spot check and that sucks. However the times she fights in this arc make up for that.
Against Misumi, she ends up using Shinranshin (Mind Body Disturbance) to tie him up to some pillars. Then the entire team leaves him while the place is collapsing. Lovely, but it helps with a quick escape that if Naruto was just fighting, would have probably not been possible.
So the big battle happens and Ino is helping the sailors. Let's get out of the way that's their job; escorting them. Be pretty shitty to leave them to drown. And through this she can guard as well as be back up when needed.
And behold, she is needed. Shino's fight with Yorio did do some damages to Shino. Enough to floor Shino long enough for an opening. Yorio using this opening and attacks. Ino uses Shinranshin again, giving Shino the opportunity to punch Yorio away. And yeah, she screamed when Yorio proceeded to attack her, but that moment was pretty bad ass overall and quick thinking on her part.
“But she was utterly useless during the battle with Hidan and Kakuzu. And when sealing the Three Tailed beast.”
Wow, way to not blame the commander of the mission. I love Shikamaru, I do, but the near failure of Hidan and Kakuzu pretty much rests on his shoulders as team leader. He went into battle with two supports who are meant for capture and one offensive member. An offensive member who is short ranged attack based. That's terrible against Hidan. Hidan needs to cut you to activate his jutsu. Then there was the unknown factor of Kakuzu. He knew nothing about the guy and based his strategy around Hidan.
That's terrible. They could have waited until more information was collected and having a larger squad to take them out. But no, blinded by the rage of the death of their sensei, they went off to battle. Shikamaru leading. If it wasn't for Kakashi, they would have probably died. The leader is the one who should take responsibility. The buck stops here, so to speak.
So yeah, those were two ninjas their team were not meant to take down. Ino-Shika-Cho can only go so far combat wise as they're more meant to capture and integrate an enemy. This does not make this team useless all together but they were not a good fit for the mission. Don't judge her based on that and judge the fact that Team Ten shouldn't have done this. It was their collective failure: not just Ino's for being useless and not just Chouji's for the same reasons.
As for the sealing of the Three Tailed Beast in the anime. That had to do with Charka control. You had Shizune and Sakura who were Tsunade's apprentices and top medical nins. You had Hinata Hyuga who is a Hyuga. Gentle Fist requires you to have excellent charka control in order to use the technique. Against those three, despite her having good charka control, she's going to be a weak link. This doesn't mean, however, she is a useless character; she just wasn't on par Charka Control wise with the others. That's not a flaw. Naruto would have probably been a worse choice because his Chakra control is terrible.
“But the Shinobi War, she doesn't go and kick some ass! She just helped out her fat idiot teammate!”
Yeah, because I mentioned before she's a support character. Going out and being Leeory Jenkins is not her forte.
In the Shinobi War, she is showing her strengths. Her own father compliments her on the use of Shintenshin. When Chouji was BSODing, she shoves him out of the way of an attack and then takes over his mind. Why? Because she doesn't want to see another person she loves getting killed on the battle field. Shipping arguments aside, you can tell Team Ten love each other. They're a family. Would you watch a family member die in front of you or would you save them?
I won't get started on the Chouji hate there. I think kankurette has done a good job of that in the community. But I will say “ARGG!!”, this is one of my berserk buttons.
She's been overall amazing in this arc. She's showing good tactics, bravery in the face of danger, and a new technique (Shinten Bunshin). You're going to tell me she's useless because she's not in the front lines killing stuff with her bare hands? If anything, she's been a key person. She's helping out. She's being a good support.
Support, which is what she is as a character. Not Leeory Jenkins. Not Naruto. Not an action girl.
In conclusion: Just because Ino is shown not to be a combat ninja doesn't mean she's a useless character and an incompetent ninja. You don't need to be an action girl to be a kunoichi.
Holy crap, didn't mean to go that long but it's been building up inside for a while. Kind of had to let it out. *breathes*