Tell me more Naruto set ups that never paid off

Guy not dying after going 8 gates was the final betrayal of everything I loved about the series. The fact that he was magically saved not long after Neji died to sticks was just the betrayal cherry on top.

The lack of focus on non-ninja world building is something that always annoyed me. Early Naruto heavily implied that ninja villages were fairly small fish in the wider world, utterly dependent on their nation daimyos for funding. Like hidden sand invaded konoha just to eliminate the competition cause they were broke. But then we find out in the war arc that no actually the villages have massive armies and the kages basically run their nations and the daimyos are complete losers utterly dependent on the ninja for protection. The daimyo don't even have samurai cause the samurai all suck and left to form their own nation. It was a weird shift with little explanation.

I love how critical of naruto you are. You clearly love the series but still give it that critical eye which I appreciate

some kid can probably obliterate that bridge with a simple juitsu why was he so worried about it lol.

I've always stated that Gai should have killed Madara in that fight and then die. I remember my best friend saying "it doesn't make much sense for a secondary character to kill Madara". I aswered him that Black Zetsu, up until that point, was a secondary character and killed Madara hitting him in the same spot, with just a penetration, while Gai basically evaporated his heart, lol.

Regarding the 8 gates: When they introduced and explained the gates, I predicted that Guy was going to die from using the 8th gate, and then later on Rock Lee would use it, but because of whatever it is that means Lee cannot use gen/ninjutsu, abnormal chakra paths or something, it means he can survive using it. His biggest weakness would be what Allows him to be the greatest Taijutsu user.

I know it wouldn't be that tactically useful, but at the time I 100% believed that Naruto was going to use his Truth-Seeking Orbs as the material to make super-strong black Rasengan without having to spend time charging up or shaping the chakra. Like a callback to his training with the ball and water balloon to learn Rasengan.

I think the lack of non-ninja worldbuilding as the series went on contributed to making it feel more Dragonball-esque -- that the entire universe comes down to a handful of super-powered martial artists and nothing else is really relevant. While Naruto's universe naturally inflates ninja's importance in worldbuilding and narrative, it goes to the point where you wonder who's paying for any of their mercenary activities when we barely see a real-world economy to generate wealth in the first place and why did these god-like shinobi submit to fuedal lords in the first place? They clearly have the monopoly on violence in this universe. Then it gets weirder in Boruto where hidden villages have been converted into essentially modern cities. Which, well, modernity isn't just about having new technology it's the associated political and trade enviroment They're "hidden" villages, yet they're positioned in places that would be advantageous as economic hubs? Who's building that infrastructure? They can't possibly have that much labour on hand. Wouldn't an era of prolonged peace mean a significant decline in mercenary work and thus revenue anyways? More to the point, even if Naruto and co beat Kaguya it doesn't then mean the feudal lords wouldn't vie for advantages over one another with warfare -- that's overwhelmingly what happens in reality. I guess I want Naruto to feel less like it's a world built entirely for the convenience of adventurers. I want to see it's Edo or Kyoto, and maybe have characters mention that they're important maybe.

Juubi jinchurikis becoming pseudo-otsutsukis is also a thing that got set up but didn't paid off

I would be heartbroken if Gai would be killed, but it makes so much more sense 🤔 It would be a strong impact

Been saying that: Madara had EMS/Rinnegan, 6 Paths, Storm Style, Wood Style, and had Juubi. Imagine Susanoo Clad, Sage powered Wood Golem. He'd be unstoppable.

13:08 While reading the manga chapter(s), my friends and I were speculating that Guy was going to DIE and not just from the build up from the 8th Gate but 1) his childhood was explored and showing his purpose of training and 2) His father name is Duy, we were saying “Guy will Duy”. Worse payoff.

This is one I always found funny, especially in the Naruto verse. Kishimoto needed a way to introduce characters during the Chunin Exams as a who we should look out for. Kabuto pulls out the "Ninja Baseball Cards" and they're literal stat sheets with Kabuto giving their strengths, weaknesses, and more. These cards are introduced and then immediately forgotten about. Just such a funny thing to exist in the Naruto world. Maybe Kabuto was the one who made the Shinobi Collector Cards we see in Boruto and that's how he keeps the orphanage open.

I think that worse than the truth seeking orbs, is the minato's kunai in his mouth. It implied that the was going to use minato's flying raijin. At the very least he didnt, cause that would have pissed me even more, that out of nowhere, suddenly, he knows that and is an expert on it.

Yeah, funny how Neji dies in a contrived and completely avoidable way, but Guy's setup to die in a deep and meaningful way with a lot of setup, yet lives.

They dropped Sai's set up of fascination to Naruto's peen size and performance

Instead of having white zetsu kill madara, have madara cast the infinite tsukuyomi on the world, but then as it works we realise the fatal side effect that was hidden from madara which could either be his own death or kaguya taking over his body. Dying by his own device makes more sense that having a literally almost god-like madara (with excess chakra & infinite healing) die to a puny black sludge.

What makes the Guy thing even worse is that the power Naruto uses to save him was a very literal Deus Ex Machina. As in, the closest thing the setting has to a god literally appeared to Naruto and gave him this power apropos of nothing. It's the dumbest way you could possibly handle this and Kishimoto did it intentionally. I think the reason people tend to give what comes after that point a pass is twofold: one, the fight that ensues is really cool, and two, it's not an instant win button for the heroes. That's all that saves this from being a catastrophic writing choice.

I think a way to make the other characters in konoha more important in the pain arc, would be if each team fought against one of the pain paths, then naruto fights the deva path, sakura would have her fight against konan (or rematch in the case of the rewrites)

Its honestly insane to think that mangekyou sharingan has susanoo if used by both eyes, and then different and often times, original abilities of left and right eyes But the rinne-sharingan dosent do shit other than cast infinite tsukuyomi, sure you can argue sasuke's rinnegan is technically a rinne-sharingan, but he is just an uber driver with 1/5th of a tank of gas at all times anyways

Crystal Release was a crazy one time setup, and it was never seen again after that

A set up that never happened was when Kabuto healed hinata and punched Kiba. He did this because Kishimoto had an idea for an arc where Orochimaru/Kabuto kidnaps Hinata to steal her Byakugan. But the editors told him not to do it. (This whole things Kishimoto had with his editors are a big ahh rabbithole.)

Guy should have died 100%. He would have had one of the most awesome and memorable deaths in manga/anime, but they took it away from him.

I know it only seemed to get mentioned in Sasori's backstory in the light novels but there's also all the other continents in that world. It would be pretty neat to see a new character's series about their adventures across such places but I get why Naruto or the average shinobi wouldn't do it.

Wht makes me hate about how they treat the uzumaki is on how naruto , karin, nagato dont even suprise or slight happy to see one of their own. We could argue tht being clan member as great as uzumaki would make their member proud ( like uchiha and also whrs senju are they extinct already ? ) but nah they just "oh its another uzumaki cool"

"Sakura has the most powerful summoning jutsu in the series" lmao you made my night, thank you

Nah bro really hired a demon to kill a construction worker is crazyyy

Glad someones going over these topics. They’re just not covered enough

Guy should've died that's for sure. The setup was there, the emotions were there, Lee fully aware of the fact that his father figure is making the ultimate sacrifice, Guy fully determined to see this through and accepting of his fate. Honestly, even if he didn't kill Madara, it would've been great if he just left him weakened so that Naruto can beat him now. This would remove any need for godlike abilities and most importantly, it would remove the need to kill off Madara in a dumb way because he's too powerful. Just make it so that Guy did so much damage that Madara can't fully recover.

If I were Kishimoto, I would've asked Oda for tips about World Building

My favorite thing about Dygoknight is that he clearly loves Naruto but he isn’t afraid to point out and even joke about it’s glaring issues. Other fans joke about it too, but they’re like insecure or something because they always feel the need to undercut their criticism by following it up with something Naruto is good at. I love Naruto too but we gotta be able to recognize the flaws with the series

I feel like the leaf was just OP

Damn y'all remember ninja missions? That was their ticket to progressing the world naturally and growing the characters properly. Now shit is about boruto sucking as a protagonist and skin walker aliens

When it comes to worldbuilding, no manga surpasses One Piece. We know their world as we never got to know Naruto's. The consequence is that it has hundreds of characters and thousands of chapters. It is a trade off.

You know, instead of Aliens, it would have been cool if the Ninja World united against some other major power. Maybe some nation based on European Culture lead into battle by Madara who convinced thisnother nation he was a god and lead them to battle. This naton could have their own unique powers and force the Ninjas to band together for survival.

This guy is No.1 fan of Naruto he finds every lacks about naruto series , I'm so appreciate that

If only Naruto awakened the god-like six paths power before Neji died.

I had that same misconception about the truth seeking orbs but you can actually see them on naruto's back later on the fight so he didn't waste them with the susanno arrows, they just kinda...disappear

Madara was too strong for Naruto and Sasuke who never got tired. wanted to bring everyone into a dream world

I've always thought the world of naruto felt so small compared to other shonen especially when compared to one piece or even isekais like mushoku tensei. the world building outside ninja villages and missions is barely explored at all. I'm not saying naruto should have the world building akin to one piece but perhaps we could've gotten more than we actually did. in shippuden it felt like the entire world is composed of only these ninja villages, especially during the war arc where it didn't feel like its only these ninjas fighting against each other but more like a world war although despite the major stakes, we don't really see any other military force than ninjas and a few fodder samurai.

Sasori’s “Hiruko” design was so much more interesting & original than ‘insert random anime boy with red hair’ smh

back when the manga was being published and Might Guy used the eighth gate in an effort to defeat Marada but Naruto just Jesus' away the impending cost of using the final inner gate, i was really pissed off about that decision, i do love Might Guy as a character but to just dismiss that particular fate was just terrible.

I feel like they dropped the wider world building that PTS was attempting because honestly it was probably out of Kishi's depth for both his ability and the environment he was being published in. Because as much as I would love Naruto to have the world building depth and absolute complexity like Onepiece... Naruto probably would of been canceled prematurely due to diminishing sales/ loss of interest by Kishi if it was executed as a poor man's Onepiece.

I love how many of these things you added then in your rewrite, especially the Sakura vs Konan

Can I just say I LOVE the Ragnarok OST in the background? Juno's theme is amazing 😍

Agree with you on everything except that small bit about how it might’ve been better if Shoji died in part 1. I agree Neji should’ve died, but not Choji, because it would’ve made Shikamaru’s arc in shippuden less impactful. One of the biggest reasons why his arc there was so good is because it’s the first time he lost someone really close to him. That wouldn’t work if choji died in part 1; since he would’ve known how to deal with the grief of losing his sensei if he had already gone through grief of losing his best friend. It would still hurt, but I feel like the emotions wouldn’t be there as much, he wouldn’t have as much of a vendetta, he wouldn’t have grown as much as he did, etc. The way shikamaru acted & the arc he went through is exactly the kind of things you go through when you lose someone you love for the first time(I know because I’ve experienced that myself). Neji is completely unimportant in shippuden tho, so I agree with the idea that he should’ve died in part 1. Also I think kishimoto should’ve killed half the named characters in the war arc imo. I know it’s a shonen, but I know other shonen that have killed a lot of characters off. That’s not a good excuse to not kill off characters.

What I never understood is if they were going to have Madara get killed in such a stupid way why not just have might guy kill him with night guy so that at least he gets that cool moment and then kokkia can come out of that somehow because it was stupid anyway at least give Mike guy something

There was a theory that Madara’s EMS specialty was Susano’o upgrades but idk much on that tbh

We also didn’t explore all kekkai genkai chakra releases

Well they did it in filler arcs but since it wasn’t “canon “ people ignored it. Though I will say had the filler been written well and deep and focused on lore then it would’ve been good

This is like Kishimoto dropped Naruto after the chunnin exams and was given a choice, you give your manga to Akira Toriyama or to Eichiro Oda. Then Kishimoto chose Toriyama and thus we have this underdeveloped story with tons of loose ends and setups that will never will be elaborated on.

The problem of Naruto was in the manga the world lacks world building, whereas the anime had side stories and new characters per each location that adds to the spice of its world away from the main story. But it's hard to take these filler arcs seriously since they are all non Canon with the manga. Most of them had really good stories as well so it's a shame that anime did a better job expanding the world than the manga ever did.

Should’ve done more with Tenten.

bro, there were a few set ups in Naruto that didn't pay off in Part 4, like the potential revival of the Akatsuki or further exploration of Kaguya's backstory. But hey, sometimes things don't go as planned.

Naruto’s worldbuilding and overall plot is so bad man… nostalgia really keeps this show alive

It always drove me insane they called it the rinnesharingan instead of the sharinnegan. Doesnt that just sound better?

It would have made more sense if Kakashi would have sealed the 8th gate so save gai, since he knew Gai can use it and. Kakashi preparing a sealing justu for this would not be a stretch

Plot twist, the Naruto verse is the one piece

So that is why you made the Stone Village Arc

It always bothered me... Where are Senju when Naruto was living? Did Hashirama only had wood style, no one else? Tobirama didn't have it, didn't had children? And during all this time, there wasn't any "Romeo and Juliet" type of situation between Senju and Uchiha?... Did really all Uchihas and Senju lived in one village and NEVER moved somewhere else? Like, it was said that they were traveling, who paid more got the clan to do the fighting, so never anyone stayed and have family? Did Madara really never had family? It was so bothering for me, because I can't believe that these two clans could be so easily wiped off

Naruto was always a rushed manga, but last 25% of it is just rushed gabrage.

wowww i never thought about how much larger the world could be, with countless interesting characters that could be on the other side of the world

its sad, not only are non ninja poltics and world building not shown, but we barely see much of some of the other non leaf villages.

Completely agree with the Might Guy payoff comments. Guy is my favourite character in the series, and the gate of death payoff was the thing I'd been most anticipating in the entire series since it was mentioned. Guy was always such a great mentor that I wanted to see how he would spend his final moments, and he did not disappoint in the slightest. He went out like a total badass and got one of the most memorable deaths in battle shounen history... or so I thought. Naruto's plot amp keeping him alive for no reason just completely ruined the moment. It was just so unnecessary. Guy had completed his character arc, and the will of fire was ready to be inherited by Lee. It doubly pissed me off that Kishimoto saved a character who was clearly set up to go out in a blaze of glory like Guy, but then he disposed of Neji in the most uninspiring way possible. Neji, who had already been criminally neglected in shippuden, chose to go out saving Naruto from a piece of fucking wood, which Naruto realistically wouldn't even die from due to his healing factor from the nine tails chakra, AND Neji has techniques that would allow him to destroy/divert the wood very easily. Yet he decided to put his body in the way and limp towards his conclusion. Very bizarre decision making all around.

Same whit Hokage Kakashi, Guy sould have died, and Tsunade sould have remained Kage.

3:25 I believe Kishimoto did want to explore more of the shinobi/nonshinobi world between Land of Waves and Chunin Exam arcs, but the producers wanted to move onto the Chunin Exam quickly to introduce more ninjas.

On that lil map part u showed with all the continents. I saw demons and neck…. I think ima head that way. 😂

I feel like some of the Naruto plot armour is the equivalent of stringing alone a dying dog with drugs

no one really knew about Hagaromo's full capabilities, so him giving Naruto some hax ability to keep people from dying when they surely should have isn't exactly unplausible.

This is not something that needs expanding on in the Naruto world but Killer Bee mentions “Texas LongHorn” in the fight with Sasuke meaning Texas is a real place in the Naruto world. We don’t know anything other than it excites and I just find that neat.

I was so psyched when Naruto gained Truth seeking orbs and even a staff because I was ready for him to incorporate a new style, instead of shadow clone and rasengan , it would just add something new and make him even more awesome… but nope comply waste all of them

basically what u are saying is that Madara was nerfed severely. the powers that they tell us he had were terrifying but ones that they didn’t mention(such as ms abilities) are unimaginable

Damn I never knew Sakura had the strongest summoning jutsu in the series lol (summoning Naruto himself haha)

Speaking of Rinnegan, I remember in the beginning when Rinnegan was new, they said it is the ultimate eye, which the sage of the 6 path possessed, that can give you control over all 5 chakra natures and you're able to use the 6 paths abilities. We have seen Nagato use the paths but not much of any elements. Obito with the Rinnegan only used his normal fire techniques and a very limited amount of path techniques (he used the edo jinchuuriki as paths but they used their own techniques instead of the paths ones). And then like you said in the video Madara and Sasuke barely use the path ability on top of the element abilities being neglected for the 3rd time.

Perhaps, just my thoughts on what he brought up. 1) I think the land of waves does a good job of showing the average duties of a ninja, wpuld it be nice to have an in between arc, sure but I can live without it. 2) Konan vs Sakura wasn't hinted at during the original run of the manga so not really a set up, although I'll agree that fight should have happened, Naruto and Sasuke had two Akatsuki fights, let Sakura have her 2nd fight. 3) The countries not being shown is fine, not that big of deal to me personally, never really set up as anything other than this is what a non ninja village is like. 4) Guy should have died, I'll agree with that, I go back and forth but him dying works just as well as him not dying and gives Naruto more reason to want Madara dead and moments later we get a good enough example of Naruto's new strength, the only thing saving Guy does is show Naruto can heal (Guy is saved, Kakashi's eye, Obito revvied). 5) The Rinne-Sharingan is just the Rinnegan with Sharingan prowess which, it can cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi and the databooks credits it to Kaguya's dimension summoning ability. Would love to know more about it and why it's different than a Rinnegan and why Sasuke's rinnegan is not a Rinne-Sharingan but yeah.

i never really understood the renisharigans purpose because the whole thing was to unleash the infinite tskyoimi to be able to create and collect the chakra fruit but when boruto comes around it turns out that you dont need a renisharingan to able to create a chakra fruit?

If the Naruto World isn't a supercontinent, why didn't obito just kamui away to the other side of the world, summon the statue there and to the Eye of The Moon plan undisturbed??!?!?

Sasuke uses quite a few rinnegan abilities when the budget allows for it. But they save that for big fights like he should theoretically just be absorbing jutsu to get his rinnegan back up and running whenever he dimension hops or something too much.

The DygoKnight talks about Naruto, the more I realize that the story would have suffered a lot with just killing off people because they didn't do much after their big moment in the narrative. If Neji or Choji died during the Sasuke retrieval Arc their deaths would have served no point outside of "well I'm not using them in the next leg of the story" and other characters would have lost the 'potential' of closure dealing with these characters. Guy dying during the Madara fight would have been poetic, but him living doesn't harm anything either

The rinnesharingan can use infinite tsukyomi and can switch demensions and can teleport.

Would have been cool if Sakura, hinata, ino, and ten ten fought konan together. Also having team guy there would have been cool. I understand that they couldn’t have guy(even lee) there cause of how strong he is, but they could have at least used Neji and ten ten. Have Pain be aware of guy and lee being 8 gate users, and show them being neutralized/halted in order to remove the only threat at the village. Then just have Neji and ten ten be there still. Would have also been a cool tease to guy sensei’s true power. I still find it super cool though that the writer had to leave a character out of a very important ask in the characters own village because of how powerful they were. Guy sensei was on the level of gods before we even knew what that kind of power was haha

My question for DygoKnight: Should the Rinne Sharingan ONLY belong to the Ten-Tails instead of Madara to avoid the silly appearance of it being a sort of Third-Eye? (I'm writing my own head canon.)

Fights happening in ops cant be considered in this context. They put random characters in them in order to avoid spoilers and MANY shows do this

I’m just here to say, it should have been Lee that pulled off the 8 Gates to battle Madara I’m not saying Guy shouldn’t be able to do it, I just think with Neji dying essentially Rock Lee’s Sasuke, and him not having a big moment after that feels like a missed opportunity Maybe Guy goes to do it, but then gets injured and then can’t, so instead Rock Lee pulls up and reveals he’s learned it as well, no one wants him to unleash all 8 gates and die but then he goes and does it anyway, Guy could cry proud tears on the sideline instead It has precedence with Kakashi saying no one can unlock 5 gates through sheer effort and that Rock Lee is a genius, he can be doing it for Neji, even if he doesn’t defeat Madara it would be a really satisfying moment for everyone that fell in love with him after the Chunin exams and an extra little bonus could be Garra helping distract Madara so Lee can get his opening And Naruto saving Lee would be a lot more meaningful than Guy, as they both started as underdogs Really all of the original Konoha 13 should have had a decent moment to shine beyond being pseudo shadow clones on the tips of Kuramas tail (Side note, why doesn’t guy just have his foot/leg replaced like Naruto? Do the senju cells not mesh with other people?)

Honestly, I think pretty much all the things pointed out here are repercussions of both Kishimoto's choices alongside the pressure to push out chapters. The best story we get after the time skip is the rescue gaara (forgive me if that's not what that arc is called) arc. Sakura actually gets to fight sasori, albeit with Granny Chiyo's help, but it just feels very thought out. It reminds me a bit of the fullbringer arc in Bleach after the Huenco mundo/karakura town arcs. More focused and thought out. Kaguya imo, is an anomaly in terms of being a mixture of unnecessary and really needing her own story arc instead of cramming it onto an already bloated story arc Plus, I always felt like explaining where Chakra came from, sort of ruined things a little, but that could also feed into what I just said. I get that kishimoto was probably trying to wrap things up, but this is a case where the payoff would have been more satisfying with them defeating Madara. That and I always thought it crap that Orochimaru just got to be "forgiven" and go on to do whatever. I think this is my own opinion, so I don't expect anyone to agree, but if a villain had to go into the gray, then it should have been obito or Madara. Both of them had tragic backstories that highlighted how horrible things gave them tunnel vision. I think Madara hanging around, even in prison or sealed, but seeing the world actually move forward past war, which was his dream, would have been interesting. Plus, it could work better since he did essentially become immortal to some degree and could have acted as a catalyst in a different way to Kaguya (not the weird one that was chosen!) coming back or drawing in the attention of the otsutsuki. But again, strictly my own thoughts. It could have fed into the discovery of the otsutsuki stuff being found around the world. Maybe even set up as appearing after Madara's defeat as foreshadowing/a way to bring kaguya onto the playing field but make her more of a valid threat without being in Madara's shadow unless a different path was chosen. Perhaps she comes back because she views their world as hers and doesn't want to share. Who knows?

in part 5 maybe speak about the dogs of kakashi

It feels like Kishimoto had a great idea and built on it in a great way, but didn't build on it as deeply or as cleverly as he could. A lot of plotholes or missed opportunities.

World building is a valid point but it ends up paying off in the end. Saying the show doesn’t satisfy building up the world in a meaningful way is like saying the original Star Wars movies didn’t build up the world enough for a pay off. Like Star Wars, Naruto is a self contained series and for the most part is paced pretty well. As someone who has seen every episode (including filler) looking at the canon content, the show moves at a good speed. It’s not too slow focusing on meaningless arcs with lateral progression and moves quick enough that it flows naturally and the story progresses in ways that makes sense. With the pacing, larger world building elements were better left out o secondary sources of media. Again, Star Wars, a franchise where most of what we know ab the galaxy, different planets, races and conflicts comes from secondary media like comics, mini series, and novels, most of the world building elements are Naruto can be found in light novels and other canon material which leaves the show with enough background and world lore for any viewer to watch, understand and even enjoy the show but allows more hardcore fans to read and learn about it without slowing down the show or adding unnecessary details

the best setup that never paid off NARUTO X SASUKE

The Susano'o arrows are insanely fast and Sasuke, just 1 page ago, had used them to get the one up on Naruto with his teleportation tech. He could've used them as more than just balls and rods, but to say that he "wasted" them against the arrows is just silly.

i hate it when a character gets never used again

I mean. The World Map and Civilian stuff does still happen. It just happened in the Naruto Fillers, Movies, and Boruto. I clearly remember at least the movie. Honestly losing Sasuke after only the wave and Chunin exams would've made me not care about Sasuke at all. The filler arcs made me actually care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto since it made me invested in the team.

Bro Kishimoto did a shit job at exploring the ninja villages themselves. There was no hope for him ever developing the outer world

I mean it didn’t make sense at all that naruto beats all the paths and then shows up to where nagato is and konan just stands there and let’s them talk and hang out lmao. It would’ve made way more sense if she was occupied by fighting Sakura while naruto and nagato are having they’re talk. Konan loses but isn’t like taken out, sees the rinne rebirth then peace’s out to take nagatos body cause she knows that obito will want it and then we get the Sakura Konan fight and still get the konan obito fight

Who else was fooled by an opening if not those who watched Boruto and saw that white Ice Kurama

The first time I watch it I wasn’t even that existed for the orbs themselves but when he used them for the arrows my immediate reaction was “OOOOOOO COME ON!!!!! >:(“

Tbf if Sakura fought Konan, she would have gotten absolutely violated. I have no desire to see that fight.

remake shout out subtly here we love it

kishimoto is like the exact opposite of araki, like in jojo every single damn enemy has their own full set of abilities just to never be seen again.