Naruto and Sasuke

[Don]

I saw this in the Chinese Naruto forums and will paraphrase here. The key motivation behind Sasuke joining up with Orochimaru is for power. It was never described what he did but presumably it involves drugs, forbidden nijitsu, and whatever, and the end result is you become a lot more powerful. You do dangerous stuff but in exchange you get mega powers. So far, so good.

Now Naruto is training hard on his own to prove that you don't have to do the kinds of forbidden/dangerous stuff that Sasuke is doing to become more powerful. So what does he do? He goes on some training that is only doable by people with an obscene amount of chakra, i.e. something only he can do. At his growth rate he'd be able to take on all 5 nations of the Naruto world at the same time in about a week, but where did the power came from? Was it because he was determined to save Sasuke? Nope. It's stated many times that no one else could possibly train like he did because no one else has the chakra to do it. It is hinted that he is training faster than normally expected because of his determination, but when you can train about 1000 times harder than anyone else thanks to Nine Tails, does it really matter?

So in the end Sasuke is right after all. He sure doesn't have Nine Tails bailing him out and providing endless chakra on demand, so going with Orochimaru was the best thing he could have done if he was to get his revenge. If Naruto doesn't have Nine Tails by his side their team probably would've been crushed 100 times by now already and Sasuke would have gone nowhere. Friendship sure doesn't get you very far in Naruto, unless you have Nine Tails with you.

I'm curious how everything turns out. At some point presumably Naruto's going to be beating a whole mess of people (some combination of Itachi/Sasuke/Orochimaru, probably all 3), except him winning has nothing to do with friendship or conviction or anything else. It is because he is special and gets to power up in insanely fast ways that no one else can even attempt.

I also really like all the times Nine Tails bail Naruto out of certain death, only to have Naruto say he is powerful now, no need for his interference. You can at least be nice to the guy that just bailed you out of certain death before declaring that everything is under control...

[Eric]

Nein, Naruto's stamina is his own.

The Nine Tail's stamina kicks in when Naruto is worn out, which he uses. Most of the time it's just him though.

[Don]

His chakra is only like 2X that of Kakashi, would not have been nearly enough to do the training he was doing.

[Eric]

His chakra is only like 2X that of Kakashi, would not have been nearly enough to do the training he was doing.

You're making a pretty large assumption there.

Spoiler:

Kakashi can do the Rasengan, but he made it clear he can't do it like Naruto because he doesn't have half of Naruto's stamina to keep doing it.

Naruto has a very large amount of chakra, when he was doing the training he was doing, and started running out of stamina, then you started to see the Nine Tails emerge.

His completed new jutsu is something that only he can do, and he does it without the Nine Tails.

[Chris]

personally I could beat the shit out of em all if you just get me near a pile of potatoes for my potato hurling jutsu.......who needs ninjas when you have potatoes

[Don]

Err you need to reread the part where Naruto asked Kakashi how much chakra he has, and Kakashi says 'about twice as much, but if you count Nine Tails, it's about 100X'.

The whole point of the training was using Nine Tails chakra in a relatively controlled environment.

There's no way he could've done that without Nine Tails. It may not be like the usual oh Nine Tails bail me out kind of situation, but he was definitely getting his chakra from him. Or are you saying that while at Naruto's normal chakra level you can do like 3 years condensed into 3 days, but at half the chakra Kakashi can't do half of that?

Edit: I checked the manga, Naruto is 4X Kakashi normally, but Kakashi said his chakra is considered 'low', though maybe that was relative to Naruto. With Nine Tails it's still 100X.

Throughout the training he was talking about how they have to harness Nine Tail's chakra to do this, making it very clear that it's not possible to do it without.

[Zeus]

Mind you, I've not yet read the manga, so I'm going by the anime stuff

Naruto is not Dragonbore. It isn't about becoming super, duper, insanely, ridiculously, planet-destroying powerful. Naruto would have died already had it not been for Tsunade. Even with the Nine-Tails bailing him out (which has only happened a couple of times, BTW, not every single time he gets in trouble, like you seem to think; the guy beat Gaara without the Nine Tails), he still essentially lost to Sasuke when they fought. He only has the POTENTIAL to be strong in the first part of the anime, he's not nearly as strong as others, like Kakashi or Itachi.

And it's Itachi that's the reason that Sasuke wants power. He's completely consumed by revenge against his brother for his clan's death. That's the reason he goes after Orichimaru (that and the fact he couldn't bring himself to kill Naruto).

Naruto's stamina is his own. Whenever the Nine Tails comes out, it was completely uncontrollable for him. And that only happened a couple of times. It's like a reserve tank, it has no effect on his normal chakra, which is insanely high. During the Chuunin exam when he fought off the Sound ninja all night as the entire party using Kage Benshin no Jutsu, it was all him, no Nine Tails.

The training was to give him protection against the Akatsuki who were coming after the Nine-Tails. Not yet, but later when he's older. Not sure why, but that's the reason they didn't snatch him yet. They include Itachi and others, each of whom are more powerful than Naruto. The training involves the use of the Nine-Tails in a controllable manner, yes.

Naruto's strength and ability to do stuff comes from his innate ability and his creativity. He learned Rasengen in a weird, fucked-up way, that's why he was able to learn it in 3 days. He didn't learn it properly, he used his shadow clones as a roundabout way of doing it. So, even though he learned a technique in 3 days that would take a jounin 3 years to master, he didn't actually master it. He just found a roundabout way of doing it.

You really have to stop comparing Naruto to Dragonbore in terms of expectations. Naruto would die - easily - if he were to face off against any one of Itachi or Orichimaru. And, not having read the manga, I would assume that Sasuke's abilities would exceed Naruto's initially after the skip ahead as he had been essentially cheating using forbidden jutsu and such and his increased learning due to the Sharingan. There is no indication that Naruto is ever going to be powerful enough to crush every single super-powered evil guy with one hand tied behind his back. If anything, the series has proven that it won't go over the top in that way. If Kabuto could kill Naruto (he would have had Tsunade not saved him), MANY others could as well.

I haven't read the manga, but from what I hear from my cousins (I do try and avoid listening to anything as much as possible), it's not like he comes back from his training a god. Sure, he has ability, but that don't mean he's the most powerful.

I don't know why you keep coming to the conclusion that Naruto is going to become a god, there's been zero indication of that. If anything, it appears that even if he does become the most powerful ninja eventually, he won't be by much.

[Don]

Maybe you need to see part 2 where even the firmest backers of Naruto are saying he is on the way to become a god. In fact his latest unofficial title is "Wind God", to correspond with Sasuke the Thunder God. When you look at Naruto's Wind Spiral Shuriken there's no question he is the most powerful Wind nijitsu ninja just like Sasuke is the most powerful Thunder nijitsu ninja. Not bad for 3 days of intense training since he started not knowing how to use elemental anything.

The funniest thing is that the time compression training technique Naruto uses actually doesn't age him by a corresponding amount of age. So if he's now the top Wind nijitsu ninja after roughly 3 years of training compressed into 3 days, what happens a week later? A month?

For the most part you're right about Naruto except I'd say he's going to become the most pathetic most powerful ninja ever. That is until he started doing time compression training and it's pretty clear he's going to completely blow entire nations away after a week or so of training unless they decided to retroactively put a restraint on his training methods.

[Eric]

Meh, we can't really discuss this in detail until the rest of the non-manga readers are caught up heh.

[Zeus]

The fact that he's the most "pathetic" powerful ninja ever is what I've always liked about the show.

[Don]

Except now he is just plain overpowering.

[Eric]

Nerf Warlocks.

[Zeus]

Except now he is just plain overpowering.

When the anime gets there and I see what you're talking about, we'll continue this argument.

I was arguing the points above as they were the exact same points you've been making since before the end of part one. Then, you conclusions were based on erroneous deductions from facts (not opinions but deductions). But for right now, I just started with the second part.

I would expect him to be extremely powerful, he always had that ability and a direction the show would eventually have to get to. I have to see what your "plain overpowering" actually means in the anime itself before I can agree/disagree with you.

[Nev]

I watched the first episode of Naruto some time ago and rather enjoyed it...

...then I read this thread and started to hate it again. You guys are brainwashed!

[Zeus]

I watched the first episode of Naruto some time ago and rather enjoyed it...

...then I read this thread and started to hate it again. You guys are brainwashed!

Watch the first 15 then you'll become an addict ;-)

Just make sure that you stop after 135 and go on to Shippuuden

[Nev]

Zeus, I need a new media addiction at this point like I need a gaping tissue opening into my guts on the inside of my colon.

...you're going to have to do better than that!

It's going to take more than your cursory say-so to make a Rutard out of me, by God!

[Zeus]

Look, all you need to do is watch the first 15, tell us how much you didn't like it, then you'll have all the ammunition to dis it for the rest of time. At least you would have given it a shot. Then you can be absolutely certain it's not worth you time.

Heck, I'm actually gonna give Dragonbore a shot so I can truly have a leg to stand on when I'm dissing it endless for Eric. 25 eps for an honest shot for what Naruto improved on dramatically :-)