Spoiler WHY Major Character's Must Not Die Yet ; contrary to popular demands (Case For Kishi)

[kalmeast]

We have a lot of people complaining about why Kishi isn't killing off major characters...
well, i wonder how many artist there are among "you"...to understand what it means to create something as valuable and destroying it without much of a substantial reasoning... doing it for the sake of requirement (in this case WAR) won't suffice.
Before reading, Keep in mind that Naruto Manga is an "art work" - a masterpiece!


* Yes! in a war, there should be major casualties. I agree. But this impatience is unjustified, especially since we don't know how many more chapters there are.
Whether a Major character dies now or later is absolutely relative - In a war requiring say 150 more chapters (3 years from today's chp 557), verses that requiring say 50 more chapters would have different approaches to the frequency of major deaths, correct...?

** The Death Of a major Character Needs just as much development as the intro to the characters when we first met them
The Major Naruto character's have been so highly developed that killing them off would require just as much effort as creating them - A fare-well should be presented in the highest order of creativity that should carry both nostalgia and an endless feeling of sadness and distraught...in the likes of Asuma, Hiruzen, Jiraiya, and sometimes Nagato and Deva Pein. Such feats are difficult to accomplish and needs time to develop. NOT in the current moment of war when there's too many DIFFERENT battles happening at once. An attempt to do so in the mist of this chaos would create an imbalance in harmony and pace - possibly leading to sloppiness and misfeasance. The many DIFFERENT battles need to narrow down first.

***The Death of any major character equals an end to a piece of "artwork".
Understanding what it means to create and destroy would bring anyone into terms with Kishi's current decisions. Kishi like any great artist places fans and patrons (in Kishi's case, Editors) as secondary (as he was even shocked Naruto was popular in North America).
Kishi isn't doing this for you or me but for himself. He is creating a masterpiece that will be unparalleled now and eternally to any manga of its kind - in terms of intensity, plot and massiveness of content. Creating plot for a war with so many known shinobi and variety of jutsu that are all explained is no joke. He is insane already for attempting this. With all this comes amazing characters with their individual personality, back stories and above all unique jutsu. Killing off even one of them must be painful indeed...so much that he sometimes has to bring them back. For this matter, consider the artist and understand that it has to take a little more than a mere consequence of war to destroy one of these "art pieces"... I don't oppose killing them off - it's necessary - but it must be done in a majestic/effect manner, not what some people are proposing.

****Too Many knots to tie; Little time for Death development of Major Characters at this moment.
The Pace as which Kishi is working is incredible. It could break down most people... This war needs to come into focus and all the different subject of the series need to be harmonize... Let me remind us about the different subjects of the series of which taking ONLY one of these would be enough to make a successful manga in itself.
- There's Uchiha Massacre with Itachi/Sasuke & hate, intertwined with Naruto trying to save his friend who's gone rogue.
- There's the Rikoudo Sage who's decision has "spawn" rivalry between two groups, Uchiha and Senju of which two best friends belong to either of the two sides
- There's the Kuubi, (evil) sealed within a guy who wants to be acknowledged and overcome difficult huddles to accomplish this.
- There's the guy usurping (or not) someone else's character who was once despised by his own and has supposedly lived over hundred years and seeks revenge on the world...(this too is a fine story on it's own).
- And many more...
But no, kishi is combining all these into one story and when it's getting to the peak of it, instead of harmonizing all these different issues, some people are only concerned with "Major" death counts.
(see, i'm not taking shots at any body)

Let's appreciate the work rather than throwing off mindless opinions like "ordinary" people do. And have faith in the artist rather than the art...knowing that he wont disappoint us...So yes, killing off major characters is inevitable and important but must be done in the artists' own time...

[Vornmusion]

Forgoing depth and emotional value for the sake of "art" and overly grandiose romanticizing of character death is what happens when writers of talent forget to check their ego. A good writer doesn't need to force the emotion on the reader. A good writer provokes the emotion from the reader. It's also tied in with a concept Kishi has very little understanding of--subtlety.

And no one is impatient. Naruto has been going on for 12 years and not one of the main cast has died. The closest person to being a main character that died was the J-Man. Not killing important people off creates emotional detachment to their relevance. Kishi has already ruined himself by waiting this long, anything now is simply last minute patches, and not killing any of the main cast off will look just as bad. J.K fell into this trap with her final book when she killed off a large portion of the main cast simply because she didn't have the spine to do it before. Critically this was frowned down upon, it's an insult to the reader and the story.

It's all really irrelevant anyways, Naruto isn't special and has left no impact because Kishi lacks the ability to write his manga in that fashion. In 20 years it will not be remembered as a timeless classic like Akira or any other legend of manga is. Classics have depth and emotional meaning, they almost universally talk of the nature of humanity and many of what it encompasses. Most of the time, it's simply the writer using art as the medium in which to send their message about some issue with humanity, be it culturally or socially. Classics set themselves apart by doing it with class and emotion that the reader can connect too, especially with relevance to the real world.
All Naruto does is preach about unrealistic friendship with unrealistic people having unrealistic emotions. With a dash of free will Vs. fate thrown in, which carries no weight whatsoever since Kishi completely destroyed anything and everything about that when he made the prophecy child plot device.

Naruto is average at best, as is Kishi. There's nothing wrong with that since the standard for manga is already bottom tier in the literary world. Let's not even try and pretend Naruto is something special in the medium of literary art though. And as far as visual art goes, Naruto is one of the poorest manga I've seen. Hint to Kishi: shading and depth perception, learn it.

[Jakropha]

Sadly, I agree with Vorn more than Kalmeast

Kishi has blown this off for too long.
And he just ruined it basically.

[Kimimaro Kaguya]

agreed this anime died long ago imo >_>

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by kalmeast

We have a lot of people complaining about why Kishi isn't killing off major characters...
well, i wonder how many artist there are among "you"...to understand what it means to create something as valuable and destroying it without much of a substantial reasoning... doing it for the sake of requirement (in this case WAR) won't suffice.

Read George R.R. Martin's series. His characters are much better developed nor are bland one-dimensional cliches. Kishi can really even make decent standard archetypes most of the time.

Still, Martin kills off his characters with wild abandon because, you know, everyone is fighting in a war. The result ever chapter has tension. Thus, the reader cares what happens, and the characters are appreciated.

I could say more, but Vorn already did.

[Rasen_Chidori]

Vorn brings up a soild point and for the most part I agree with him.

I find, as a reader rather than the creator, the way to best enjoy a series is to just read and enjoy it as it comes rather than to overly analyze it and find how it can be made better, because more often than not, doing so will only bring on disappointment that the story didn't go in certain directions.

Some might say that my attitude is a very 'you'll be satisfied by anything' attitude and you'd be forgiven for saying so, however I like to think of it more as a 'enjoy what you get instead of complianing over what you could have gotten' attitude.

[Squall]

I'm glad the following response was in debate. Both have their opinions to show...both make good points.

Originally Posted by Vornmusion

... Classics set themselves apart by doing it with class and emotion that the reader can connect too, especially with relevance to the real world.
All Naruto does is preach about unrealistic friendship with unrealistic people having unrealistic emotions.

Hmmm, untrue. Heaps of people in the 'real' world could resemble this manga, specifically the characters. People wanting to aspire themselves - called the Humanistic Perspective (psychology - focuses on the uniqueness of the individual - it assumes that people are motivated to become self-actualised (reach their full potential)). I see a lot of other stories in this manga relating to people and how they feel, their ambitions etc. I think it does connect with the reader... it is definitely something a majority of the average person could too, I believe.

But good points though too. We'll leave it in Kishi's hands and be patient.

[NagatoGod_of_Pain]

Vornmusion said it best.

Every shinobi is and should be exhausted. They're facing immortal zombies that, when alive, were one of the strongest characters.

Yet, the only named characters to die or are incapacitated are Anko, Yamato, Samui, Atsui, and Muta.

Do we actually care for any of these characters besides Anko and Yamato?

Samui is essentially fodder. She uses a sword and has shown nothing with it. Atsui was introduced the chapter he died. No emotional appeal at all.

Anko and Yamato are still in a position where they can be saved. Itachi is currently heading towards Kabuto, who still hasn't extracted Anko's powers.

Onoki's death would've been perfect. He finally managed to destroy the biggest problem dealt by the 2nd Mizukage. As a result, he couldn't move. Sacrifice in order to win.

[Flying Fortress Skyfire]

The series would take a huge leap in quality if Naruto, Sasuke and Madara were killed off.

[mrsticky005]

I think it's like this.

WHICH main characters should Kishi kill off?

It's easy for me to say Tsunade because I hate Tsunade.
But it's not easy for Kishimoto since for some strange reason
people like her character. I dunno. Then again some people
enjoy C-Span. To each their own I guess.

But imagine if say Hinata died.

You KNOW people would be sending Kishi hate mail and death threats.

Peoples are CRAZY about Hinata. CRAZY I TELL YA!

I mean just look at all the outrage from when Danzo died.

It was like a lynch mob! I swear!



Not saying Kishimoto shouldn't kill off any main characters.
But just that it's not easy to do.

And all in likelihood they will die when the Sauce sauces.

[JazzJunkie4]

Wow you guys, and vorn especially, it seems like you guys don't realize what manga you are reading and where it is! The message kishi has been writing with the ETs so far has no reason to kill off main characters and if he did earlier it would be an utter waste to the plot. I mean this whole first part of the war for example has been dedicated to showing that naruto's generation is ready to take over.... if he killed the members of that generation then this current arc wouldn't make sense at all. Kishi is above killing people just to hopefully trigger some emotional attachment to the reader, that is not what naruto is about. Kishi knows the story he is writing and if you want characters to just randomly die for no reason what so ever, then just read the last harry potter book. Killing off you're main characters frequently does not give value to a story and especially THIS story if you ask me. When some of the OLDER characters start dying later in the war, it will NOT be against edo tenseis. Naruto's generation needs to live for the sake of the plot kishi has created and if you disagree then you basically disagree with the plot. In which case just go read something that you do agree whether it be akira or dragonball z. The value of literature is all subjective anyways.

[Wind Style Naruto]

Originally Posted by Vornmusion

Forgoing depth and emotional value for the sake of "art" and overly grandiose romanticizing of character death is what happens when writers of talent forget to check their ego. A good writer doesn't need to force the emotion on the reader. A good writer provokes the emotion from the reader. It's also tied in with a concept Kishi has very little understanding of--subtlety.

Kishi doesn't try to force or provoke emotion. He just tries to make the reader understands each character and in cases like Hiruzen's, Jiraiya's, and Minato's and Kushina's death make them really emotional/meaningful so he could draw reader sympathy. I don't cry to fiction writing but scenes like those made me feel real sad inside. Even Itachi's death.

And no one is impatient. Naruto has been going on for 12 years and not one of the main cast has died. The closest person to being a main character that died was the J-Man. Not killing important people off creates emotional detachment to their relevance. Kishi has already ruined himself by waiting this long, anything now is simply last minute patches, and not killing any of the main cast off will look just as bad. J.K fell into this trap with her final book when she killed off a large portion of the main cast simply because she didn't have the spine to do it before. Critically this was frowned down upon, it's an insult to the reader and the story.

You left out Asuma, Jiraiya, Hiruzen, Danzo, Chiyo, and a few other characters. Kishi never waited this long for nothing hes been killing off major characters since the beginning of day one. Out of the HST Kishi did the best killing off major characters so far(Kubo has yet to kill anyone off major and Oda only killed like 2 guys in the entire series and after 13 years but he got a lot of praise for just killing off 2 major characters something Kishi been doing since he started his manga). I may not be a big Harry Potter fan or read/watch the movies that often but J.K. did pretty well as she did a lot of built up to that last book in the series. I may not like HP but J.K. as an author has garnered a lot of respect and her series sold insanely well and as an author she did pretty well in IMO. Everyboy has critics.

It's all really irrelevant anyways, Naruto isn't special and has left no impact because Kishi lacks the ability to write his manga in that fashion. In 20 years it will not be remembered as a timeless classic like Akira or any other legend of manga is. Classics have depth and emotional meaning, they almost universally talk of the nature of humanity and many of what it encompasses. Most of the time, it's simply the writer using art as the medium in which to send their message about some issue with humanity, be it culturally or socially. Classics set themselves apart by doing it with class and emotion that the reader can connect too, especially with relevance to the real world.

Akira Toriyama??? You gotta be kidding. Yeah some of the characters have depth and meaning but whenever a major character dies and there are a few that have had emotional deaths like Vegeta's but that don't mean crap when they are brought back. DragonBall went down in history as the first Shonen manga ever and introduced the concepts that most Shonen series follow. It was never famous because it was that good. I consider DragonBall mediocre as best. It was great in Part 1 but in Part 2 it was a new bad guy pops and its up for the good guys to stop them after training. Only a few designated characters had meaning like Vegeta, Gohan, and so forth and there were a few emotional deaths but that doesn't matter since the dead are always ressurected. So your saying NARUTO is just an regular manga with no meaning or understanding of the real world or humanism. I call BS on that claim. Characters like Sasuke, Nagato, Gaara, Orochimaru, Sasori, and Neji are characters who were screwed by society and turned out the way they were due to factors just as war, prejudism, loss of a loved one, betrayal, and malice towards them. Sasuke and Naruto emphasizes the parts of society, the part where people can overcome adversities and obstacles like prejudism, being orphaned in a society were your hated for what you are, and lack of people to teach you things(Naruto) and the part where people give in to the faults of society and become hardened criminals(Sasuke). I've read stories of real people who've lived a tough life but that never stop them from reaching their goals and have seen stories of people who lost everyone due to how their society screwed them over and became hardened criminals. I really can't go into much details now.

All Naruto does is preach about unrealistic friendship with unrealistic people having unrealistic emotions. With a dash of free will Vs. fate thrown in, which carries no weight whatsoever since Kishi completely destroyed anything and everything about that when he made the prophecy child plot device.

Naruto deals with how people who are evil aren't evil without a reason, how its society that spawn criminals sometimes take the Akatsuki, which is a group of S-rank terrorists in which almost everyone of the members were evil for an good reason or an intense hatred towards society(Sasori who lost his parents at a young age due to war wanted to throw emotions because he felt that it would only hurt him in the end so he became an puppet and due to not having emotions killed people endlessly and experimented on them, Orochimaru same case but he wanted to become immortal because he feared death due to that losing his parents he through away all moral for the sake of achieving this dream, Nagato no need to go there, and Kakuzu he was an byproduct of a poor village trying to become powerful and he was turned into a killing machine). Plus villains like Kabuto, Kimimaro, Haku, and such were people who saved by evil people and were in their depth no matter what(Kabuto's home was destroyed and he was found by Orochimaru and same goes for Kimimaro, losing everything and felt the pain and harshness of society and saved by someone they felt was a good person or reasonable like how Haku lost his home and family due to prejudism and lived homelessly until he founded Zabuza who took care of him and would do anythin for him since he was the first and only person who ever care about them in a dark, violent, corrupted, and cruel world.

Naruto is average at best, as is Kishi. There's nothing wrong with that since the standard for manga is already bottom tier in the literary world. Let's not even try and pretend Naruto is something special in the medium of literary art though. And as far as visual art goes, Naruto is one of the poorest manga I've seen. Hint to Kishi: shading and depth perception, learn it.

I find Kishi's shading as original(although I've seen it used in OP too) and his depth perception is rather good as he manages to make each page(especially in fights) seem 3D as the best he can. Hs art may not be the best but he manages to show an background and make it look cinematic and panel management is great too and doesn't waste panels and unlike most mangas 1 panel pages are very rare. His artwork just wins for being creative and rare not just looking good. He can have well drawn and cool looking character designs(Bleach/Kubo) but I'll rather have backgrounds, panel management, cinematic feel, and pacing over nice looking pages of nice looking characters with no background.

In red.

Besides manga is fiction and Naruto isn't only just a story but its a comic about action and adventure geared towards teenagers. You may be an adult who reads mature adult books and look at NARUTO as an average action series but since its aimed towards teens you don't have to like it.

You are an adult right.

[mrsticky005]

Originally Posted by JazzJunkie4

Wow you guys, and vorn especially, it seems like you guys don't realize what manga you are reading and where it is! The message kishi has been writing with the ETs so far has no reason to kill off main characters and if he did earlier it would be an utter waste to the plot. I mean this whole first part of the war for example has been dedicated to showing that naruto's generation is ready to take over.... if he killed the members of that generation then this current arc wouldn't make sense at all. Kishi is above killing people just to hopefully trigger some emotional attachment to the reader, that is not what naruto is about. Kishi knows the story he is writing and if you want characters to just randomly die for no reason what so ever, then just read the last harry potter book. Killing off you're main characters frequently does not give value to a story and especially THIS story if you ask me. When some of the OLDER characters start dying later in the war, it will NOT be against edo tenseis. Naruto's generation needs to live for the sake of the plot kishi has created and if you disagree then you basically disagree with the plot. In which case just go read something that you do agree whether it be akira or dragonball z. The value of literature is all subjective anyways.

i don't expect any of Naruto's generation to die.
However someone like say Might Guy or Kakashi...older generation...

[Wind Style Naruto]

Originally Posted by mrsticky005

i don't expect any of Naruto's generation to die.
However someone like say Might Guy or Kakashi...older generation...

Its been stated since the very beginning of Part 2 that its the older/current generations duty to protect the next generation.

[JazzJunkie4]

Originally Posted by mrsticky005

i don't expect any of Naruto's generation to die.
However someone like say Might Guy or Kakashi...older generation...

And when a reason to eliminate them appears in the plot then they can die (which I am confidant will happen later on). I don't doubt that those kinds of characters will die eventually, but some people have been saying that kishi has waited "too" long to kill them off when saying that contradicts the plot.

[Flying Fortress Skyfire]

Kishi doesn't try to force or provoke emotion. He just tries to make the reader understands each character and in cases like Hiruzen's, Jiraiya's, and Minato's and Kushina's death make them really emotional/meaningful so he could draw reader sympathy. I don't cry to fiction writing but scenes like those made me feel real sad inside. Even Itachi's death.

Then he's doing a piss-poor job of it. Jiraiya's death? Not emotional. Minato and Kushina's deaths? Not emotional. Hiruzen's was kinda emotional(key word kinda) if you squint a little, but that was probably more by accident than design.

Itachi's death was complete horseshit.

You left out Asuma, Jiraiya, Hiruzen, Danzo, Chiyo, and a few other characters. Kishi never waited this long for nothing hes been killing off major characters since the beginning of day one.

None of whom are even remotely close to major characters outside of Jiraiya who is the J-man. They were shallow, one-dimensional garbage that Kishi made no real attempt to flesh out.

I consider DragonBall mediocre as best.

If you can't recognize quality like DB, you'll never see that Kishimoto's a hack so you might as well stop now.

It was great in Part 1 but in Part 2 it was a new bad guy pops and its up for the good guys to stop them after training. Only a few designated characters had meaning like Vegeta, Gohan, and so forth and there were a few emotional deaths but that doesn't matter since the dead are always ressurected.

And yet, still better than Naruto. Fancy that.

Sasuke and Naruto emphasizes the parts of society, the part where people can overcome adversities and obstacles like prejudism, being orphaned in a society were your hated for what you are, and lack of people to teach you things(Naruto) and the part where people give in to the faults of society and become hardened criminals(Sasuke).

No, they emphasize the parts of society where you can accomplish anything as long as you're related to famous people and/or good looking.

Overcoming obstacles and having everything handed to you on a silver platter are not the same thing.

Naruto deals with how people who are evil aren't evil without a reason,

No it doesn't. 99% of the villains in Naruto are evil because they want to be, not because "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW"

Orochimaru and Nagato leaned in the direction you're suggesting at first, but when push came to shove they both failed to pass the buck and Kishimoto immediately killed them off in a completely absurd way.

[Super Sanin 3]

Who's for Guy dying after going 8 gates to save Rock lee?

[Flying Fortress Skyfire]

No, that would be idiotic. He needs to die for a situation that actually warrants the use of the Eighth Gate, one that's more serious than just saving Lee.

[Super Sanin 3]

Why? he would go into the eighth gate if he has to, especially if they're cornered and it's to save his pupil (or a portion of the army at least)

[Rasen_Chidori]

Originally Posted by Flying Fortress Skyfire

Then he's doing a piss-poor job of it. Jiraiya's death? Not emotiona. Minato and Kushina's deaths? Not emotional. Hiruzen's was kinda emotional(key word kinda) if you squint a little, but that was probably more by accident than design.

Itachi's death was complete horseshit.




None of whom are even remotely close to major characters outside of Jiraiya who is the J-man. They were shallow, one-dimensional garbage that Kishi made no real attempt to flesh out.



If you can't recognize quality like DB, you'll never be smart enough to see that Kishimoto's a hack so you might as well stop now.

And yet, still better than Naruto. Fancy that.

No, they emphasize the parts of society where you can accomplish anything as long as you're related to famous people and/or good looking.

Overcoming obstacles and having everything handed to you on a silver platter are not the same thing.




No it doesn't. 99% of the villains in Naruto are evil because they want to be, not because "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW"

Congratulations, you've just earnt the award for sarcastic tosser of the day. Any valid point you might have made will be out and out ignored because anyone reading your post will dismiss you as the rampant knob you are and would be forgiven for wanting to powerbomb your face into the nearest bollard.