Naruto 694: Naruto and Sasuke (1)

[rouge_angle]

I'm later than usual, and there's no pictures this week (unless I find a moment to put them in later) but I will try to make up for that with the discussion, even though I feel like I'm rehashing a lot of old issues with it. It also might interest you all to know that Shonen jump has confirmed Naruto will be ending in 5 chapters, so this is

Comments

[senior_witch]

It's both rushed up and dragged out, that's the weird thing. And I fear that instead of a discussion of Itachi being manipulated and abused we will end with a message about friendship and comradeship being more important than anything else.

It's not just shitty fanfics where people are destined for each other. After I read your comment at the chuunin-thread I reread a quite well-known German play by an author who's part of the German "canon": "Käthchen von Heilbronn". It's set in the late middle-age, featuring the daughter of an armourer and a knight. One night both of them dreamt of each other even before they had ever seen each other in real life. The knight's prediction is that he will marry an emperor's daughter. When they meet in real life, because the knight needs his armour to get fixed, the girl starts to follow him everywhere until he realizes that she is the girl he has dreamt of, and it also turns out that she is the emperor's extramarital daughter.

There were a few weeks or months when they were really part of Team Seven and interacted, and we saw some of this interaction. It ended at the beginning of the third chuunin-exam, however, that is, at the end of volume seven and now we have more than sixty volumes. (I stopped to buy them.) There were a couple of important moments "onscreen", and I guess that the moment when Sasuke shares his food with Naruto in volume 2 makes up for several hours of hanging out together, but there should have been more of this. Such moments are important and meaningful and they can explain some of Naruto's persistence when it comes to saving Sasuke and wanting to keep him. Yet in the end everyday life and new friendships should become more and more important with the memories of Sasuke fading.

I guess the message will be that friendship will save the entire world. It's a bit simplistic, but at least it explains why instead of saving the world we now focus on the boys' friendship.