Naruto 449. A little bit of love, and a whole lot of what the fuck.
There are a lot of things that I need to write, and a lot of things I've been planning on doing but I just can't seem to work up the energy to do it. Mostly because I've spent so much creative energy building an entire new world, so I feel pretty drained at the moment.
But it's currently 5AM and I am wide awake because my sleep schedule is totally fucked, so I figure I might as well do something productive. So I'm going to do what everyone else on my friend's list has done: talk about Naruto 449. This is not a meta. This is a complete rant.
Now, there is a lot I love and absolutely hate about 449.
I love that Kakashi is alive. Love the parts with him. Kishimoto did do Kakashi justice -- the whole thing with Sakumo, and how Sakumo had been there waiting for Kakashi the entire time. He says that he can "finally" meet with Kakashi's mother, which means that he never moved on because he had been waiting for Kakashi to show up. It's really moving to realize that Sakumo couldn't/wouldn't let himself go onto afterlife and would stay alone in darkness to wait for Kakashi, even if it meant waiting for an entire lifetime. But at the same time, Sakumo left Kakashi in the first place to fend for himself at age 8. With what we know about Japanese culture and honor, it makes sense that he would've killed himself in order to restore honor to the family name so Kakashi wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. (But Kakashi ended up suffering, anyway, in the end.)
And so, I was really happy to see that Kakashi forgave his father, and they had this amazing father-son moment but my yayhappyshiny was kind of totally dampened by the massive storm cloud of ultimate FAIL that comes in the form of PAIN.
Okay, Kishimoto. What the fuck. What the fuck, seriously. This was just horrible, terrible writing. He spent the past god knows how many chapters building Pain up into this super powerful villain that had no problem killing entire villages, and families, and even babies, and all of a sudden, Pain is Uzumakianitied over with the reminder of some book his sensei wrote (the same fucking sensei he killed without blinking) and some encouragement from Naruto? What? And on top of that, Pain turns into Jesus and then Lazaruses everyone back alive! Wow, this is like the Bible on crack, and Konan is Mary Magdalene! Except Pain isn't going to come back to life three days from the time he transformed into Jesus, so Konan is seriously fucked over.
And on top of that, some of this shit just has massive logical inconsistencies. If Pain had the power to revive the dead, why didn't he use it on Yahiko? It is implied that Pain doesn't die from using the technique, but from chakra exhaustion -- Konan says that "at this level of chakra" Pain currently has, if he uses the technique, he'll die. So why didn't he use it before? Unless it was developed later? But even if it was developed later, what the fuck? Why would he use it after everything that has occurred until that point? He doesn't even know if Naruto really has a plan to change the world other than Naruto's own assertions, whereas in previous chapters it seems to be that Pain is methodical/logical/analytical? What the fuck? Since when does someone like that buy into sensationalist bullshit unless he was a de facto puppet leader who was controlled by Madara? Which Pain clearly wasn't.
But that aside, let's not even get started on the complete erasure and silencing of Konan's role in this particular chapter. Pain doesn't even address her before he dies -- he spends the entire time waxing poetic about death and war and pain at Naruto, but doesn't even say anything to Konan, who apparently just helplessly stands there and can't do anything at all? What? Seriously, can Kishimoto possibly genderfail and character assassinate them any more? (And let's remember again just how absolute fail Kishimoto made Konan out to be when Yahiko died -- or the fact that it's Konan's fault that he died. Oh yes, the woman must be the blame for everything. Not only is she to blame for Yahiko's death, but that ultimately leads to Nagato's transformation into Pain, all because she got kidnapped. It's always the woman's fucking fault. Just like how it's Rin's fault that Obito died and Kakashi was traumatized and guilted forever. Jeez. Come the fuck on. And now it's Konan's fault that she isn't capable of stopping Pain. I am really getting sick of this whole subtext of woman-blaming going on here. Does Kishimoto even realize the shit he's writing?)
I think most of us knew that Pain was going to die. But honestly, I expected something so much more compelling than this. I expected that he would die with his ideals fully intact -- at least Orochimaru had that respect even though his death was absolutely pitiful. But at least he died as Orochimaru, not as some strangely converted gullible idiot who has suddenly seen the Holy Light of the World that is Uzumaki Naruto. I mean, the complete erasure of everything Pain represented, everything Pain is, everything Pain had fought for -- and treating Konan as an accessory and not as her own autonomous person? (Seriously, the only good line she has is, "Yahiko and Nagato -- they were everything to me." If that is the case, Kishimoto, why did you not allow her to express it?)
I feel very sad for my friends who really loved Pain and Konan and had to see this absurdity happen to their favorite characters. Because honestly, reading this was like reading a very, very bad fanfic. And I am still aghast that it actually happened.
That aside, more fail can be said about the lack of Team Gai, the fact that Kakashi wakes up next to Chouza and Chouji and not Sakura, who was too busy looking at a dead frog to realize her SENSEI had died. I mean. God. What the fuck.
Overall, this was just bad. Really bad. I mean, it is great that Kakashi is alive (don't get me wrong, I am ecstatic about that), and that Sauce has finally returned to the action of the story, but god, this entire arc was a massive trainwreck and we were all trolled so hard by Kishimoto, it's not even funny.
But it's currently 5AM and I am wide awake because my sleep schedule is totally fucked, so I figure I might as well do something productive. So I'm going to do what everyone else on my friend's list has done: talk about Naruto 449. This is not a meta. This is a complete rant.
Now, there is a lot I love and absolutely hate about 449.
I love that Kakashi is alive. Love the parts with him. Kishimoto did do Kakashi justice -- the whole thing with Sakumo, and how Sakumo had been there waiting for Kakashi the entire time. He says that he can "finally" meet with Kakashi's mother, which means that he never moved on because he had been waiting for Kakashi to show up. It's really moving to realize that Sakumo couldn't/wouldn't let himself go onto afterlife and would stay alone in darkness to wait for Kakashi, even if it meant waiting for an entire lifetime. But at the same time, Sakumo left Kakashi in the first place to fend for himself at age 8. With what we know about Japanese culture and honor, it makes sense that he would've killed himself in order to restore honor to the family name so Kakashi wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. (But Kakashi ended up suffering, anyway, in the end.)
And so, I was really happy to see that Kakashi forgave his father, and they had this amazing father-son moment but my yayhappyshiny was kind of totally dampened by the massive storm cloud of ultimate FAIL that comes in the form of PAIN.
Okay, Kishimoto. What the fuck. What the fuck, seriously. This was just horrible, terrible writing. He spent the past god knows how many chapters building Pain up into this super powerful villain that had no problem killing entire villages, and families, and even babies, and all of a sudden, Pain is Uzumakianitied over with the reminder of some book his sensei wrote (the same fucking sensei he killed without blinking) and some encouragement from Naruto? What? And on top of that, Pain turns into Jesus and then Lazaruses everyone back alive! Wow, this is like the Bible on crack, and Konan is Mary Magdalene! Except Pain isn't going to come back to life three days from the time he transformed into Jesus, so Konan is seriously fucked over.
And on top of that, some of this shit just has massive logical inconsistencies. If Pain had the power to revive the dead, why didn't he use it on Yahiko? It is implied that Pain doesn't die from using the technique, but from chakra exhaustion -- Konan says that "at this level of chakra" Pain currently has, if he uses the technique, he'll die. So why didn't he use it before? Unless it was developed later? But even if it was developed later, what the fuck? Why would he use it after everything that has occurred until that point? He doesn't even know if Naruto really has a plan to change the world other than Naruto's own assertions, whereas in previous chapters it seems to be that Pain is methodical/logical/analytical? What the fuck? Since when does someone like that buy into sensationalist bullshit unless he was a de facto puppet leader who was controlled by Madara? Which Pain clearly wasn't.
But that aside, let's not even get started on the complete erasure and silencing of Konan's role in this particular chapter. Pain doesn't even address her before he dies -- he spends the entire time waxing poetic about death and war and pain at Naruto, but doesn't even say anything to Konan, who apparently just helplessly stands there and can't do anything at all? What? Seriously, can Kishimoto possibly genderfail and character assassinate them any more? (And let's remember again just how absolute fail Kishimoto made Konan out to be when Yahiko died -- or the fact that it's Konan's fault that he died. Oh yes, the woman must be the blame for everything. Not only is she to blame for Yahiko's death, but that ultimately leads to Nagato's transformation into Pain, all because she got kidnapped. It's always the woman's fucking fault. Just like how it's Rin's fault that Obito died and Kakashi was traumatized and guilted forever. Jeez. Come the fuck on. And now it's Konan's fault that she isn't capable of stopping Pain. I am really getting sick of this whole subtext of woman-blaming going on here. Does Kishimoto even realize the shit he's writing?)
I think most of us knew that Pain was going to die. But honestly, I expected something so much more compelling than this. I expected that he would die with his ideals fully intact -- at least Orochimaru had that respect even though his death was absolutely pitiful. But at least he died as Orochimaru, not as some strangely converted gullible idiot who has suddenly seen the Holy Light of the World that is Uzumaki Naruto. I mean, the complete erasure of everything Pain represented, everything Pain is, everything Pain had fought for -- and treating Konan as an accessory and not as her own autonomous person? (Seriously, the only good line she has is, "Yahiko and Nagato -- they were everything to me." If that is the case, Kishimoto, why did you not allow her to express it?)
I feel very sad for my friends who really loved Pain and Konan and had to see this absurdity happen to their favorite characters. Because honestly, reading this was like reading a very, very bad fanfic. And I am still aghast that it actually happened.
That aside, more fail can be said about the lack of Team Gai, the fact that Kakashi wakes up next to Chouza and Chouji and not Sakura, who was too busy looking at a dead frog to realize her SENSEI had died. I mean. God. What the fuck.
Overall, this was just bad. Really bad. I mean, it is great that Kakashi is alive (don't get me wrong, I am ecstatic about that), and that Sauce has finally returned to the action of the story, but god, this entire arc was a massive trainwreck and we were all trolled so hard by Kishimoto, it's not even funny.