Naruto--The Final Chapter!

[skjam]

Hi folks!

After fifteen years and 700 chapters, Naruto finally ended. Like the Harry Potter series, the actual plotline ended a chapter earlier, but you can read the collected volumes for that. Naturally, if you've skipped the last couple of years of the manga on the grounds that you'd catch up when the dang thing finally ended, this post will have heavy SPOILERS for things that happened in the last arc.



Seven pages of twenty-three.



At the ninja academy, Master Aburame lets the kids go home early because--






Uncles Gaara and Kankuro are visiting.

Nearby, Kiba explains that he turned down the Hokage job; Akamaru is looking a dog's age.

Ino, Sai, Choji and Karui are waiting to start training with their kids; they're going to have a long wait. I gotta say that Choji really grew into his weight.

Kurenai and Asuma's daughter is assigned to bodyguarding the former Hokage.



Bee is doing waterfall meditation and worries that he's getting out of shape.

The current Hokage is trying to finish up paperwork so that he can go to the summit meeting when some underling burst in. It seems that a certain someone has been defacing Mount Hokage.

Naruto (for it is he) teleports up to scold his son. Konohamaru has become something of a stickler for proper behavior over the years, and Iruka teases him that he too was once a brat.



The dark-haired girl with glasses was watching, and seems to be thinking deeply as she returns home.



Sasuke, off somewhere on his journey, senses he's being talked about.

The Gokage Council meets, and Naruto is the host. Nine-Tails drools in its sleep.


There's evidently a short sequel series planned starring the kids.



So, what's going to replace Naruto in Shounen Jump? The series that seems to be poised to be the next "cool-looking battles" hit manga is Boku no Hero Academia, which is about kids at a superhero school. Think of a cross between House of M and Avengers Academy, but played for optimism.

The series literally taking Naruto's space in the magazine is Takujo no Ageha, which is about table tennis. I'll be posting that sometime next week.

Your thoughts and comments?
SKJAM!
http://www.skjam.com

Comments

[superfangirl1]

As a Naruto and Hinata shipper. I was very ecstatic they ended up together. I'm also happy that Naruto knock some sense into Sasuke, even through both of them lost a arm in the process.

I wonder if Rock Lee got into a relationship with Tenten?

[q99]

No sign of it. Though Tenten does run a nice store.

[shadowpsykie]

... it looks like naruto still has an arm...

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I lost interest in Naruto a long time ago, but it's nice to see that it ended with him and Hinata together.

[veleda_k]

Wow, it feels like the end of an era. Or maybe that will be when Bleach ends. I'm pretty sure that's still going. I stopped reading that one a couple years ago.

[sagrada]

Oh it's still going. Ichigo's half-Reaper and half-Quincy, apparently, and those Quincy Nazi ghosts are still making a mess.

Though yeah, wow. Fifteen years. And the other Big Two still going. One Piece seems like the more likely for the age-ender, though, still got a few years left in that thing while they scour the New World for wackiness, and its been like THE kids comic over there for more than a decade. It has cultural cache and to spare.

[skemono]

Bleach is still going, but it was announced a while ago that the current arc will be its last. Though with how long Bleach arcs last, who knows how long that'll take.

One Piece, meanwhile, only reached its halfway mark with the timeskip in 2010.

[sagrada]

Fifteen years. Wow. Time sure has flown. I remember still when there were all thos obnoxious wars between all those comic fandoms about which series was the best were going on, all the rampant speculation about motives, about what X's Real Plan was, what this or that meant for interpersonal relations(usually it ended up meaning nothing, because what matters to an adult telling a story is very different from a loony kid looking in from the outside), the endless Godforsaken squabbles over who 'deserved' to end up with who...I can't bring myself to miss ANY of that, but it is strange to know something I just took for granted as being part of Internet Nerd Culture has finally ended.

There's a lot of complaining about stuff being canceled "before its time", and understandably so. How many stories like this, long-running and far-reaching, actually reach the kind of ending their author(s) want? Not all of them, and that means disappointment. It's probably why there's so much desire in fandom circles that things go on and on forever, because so long as it doesn't end it can't risk disappointing the audience, and it can always have the promise of getting better. Endings, real endings, are friggin' hard to do as well, I don't begrudge people putting it off and putting it off for whatever reason, because that's that much more time to work things out and try to make things perfect.

I never gave any damns for this comic, but apparently a lot of other people did, and saw something they liked and enjoyed in its story and characters and style. I'm glad that they got an ending for it after all these years.

Also, SKJAM, that Hero Academia series looks like PS238, as in very super like PS238. Nothing really meaningful, I just think it's kind of funny. Hopefully it will be at least half as fun as that other comic. And maybe not forget its characters so much, maybe...

Thanks for posting this.

[skjam]

I'm hoping Hero Academia does well too. Not posting it at the moment because there's no English edition.

[sanctaphrax]

For what it's worth, Boku no Hero Academia is very good so far. Does a lot of character development in a hurry without making the story slow or uninteresting.

And I really like the hero's mentor, All Might. He's great.

[big_daddy_d]

Only thing that bothers me is that Sakura and Sasuke ended up together. Kinda hoped she got over that.

[leoboiko]

Well, I was annoyed at the handling of all female characters (except perhaps TenTen), but Housewife Sakura was particularly egregious. I'm unsurprised, though, given the author's choices the last few hundred chapters or so. I still wish Sakura had just chackra-punched the hell out of Sasuke's face when he said "sorry for everything", and then she'd go out on solo adventures or whatever, but that's the same as wishing for another manga entirely; Kishimoto doesn't work that way (consider that even the (SPOILERS) important resurrection in the last battle had to be performed not by Sakura but by Naruto, who had zero medical training, and who acquired this power because the Ninja God literally popped out of nowhere and gave it to him). Of course the best medical ninja in generations would stay at home dusting stuff and taking care of the kids, while an unpunished Sasuke travels the ninja world like some mystery hero..

[q99]

Indeed. It's the weakest of the relationships. Heck, Choji/Karui arguably beats it ^^

[night4345]

After reading as many fanfiction of Naruto's ending as I have this isn't that interesting. I'll just say that they shouldn't have forgiven Sasuke but Kishimoto loves him so whatever.

[q99]

To be fair, he did play a very large role in saving *everyone on earth*.

His actual crimes, in comparison, are killing some samurai, attempted kidnapping of Killerbee, conspiracy with known criminals, and a few counts of inflicting grievous bodily harm to Naruto.

[terrykun]

Not just author favoritism. Did you see how well that little psychopathic narcissist did in the popularity polls, even after his face he'll turn? The Japanese fans just adore him for some reason.

I chalk it up to some measure of cultural values dissonance; approximately on the same level of base breaking as Momo from Bleach.

[damar148]

As a Naru/Hina shipper, it's amazing to have ten years of shipping finally pay off.

Looking forward to the final movie where the actual romance will be shown.

[janegray]

I don't personally ship that (mostly because I've never been involved in Naruto Fandom), but I'm happy for you. If one of my pairings became canon, I'd be practically SOARING over clouds. "The day my OTP became canon" should be a national holyday <3

[q99]

Ino and Sai's kid, Inojin, is the cutest!

[draganoche]

I find the contrast between his hair and skin tone jarring, Cho-cho is most interesting to me because the pairing came straight out of left field and implied the very strong connections between villages plus she has a nice design and character.

[md84]

In an era of peace, you gotta wonder if ninja even have a place in the world anymore. Then again, there are arguably more civilian applications for their special abilities than wartime ones.

[q99]

In this time, they seem to be still around, but less busy with the war stuff at least. Tenten's shop has trouble selling weapons.

Oh yea, and the area around Konoha is *way* more urbanized than it was.

[shadowpsykie]

hahah that look on Sakura's facewhen she is talking about boys is hilarious it's like "NO SHE'S TOO YOUNG!"

[terrykun]

I'm willing to bet that's not even Lee's son. Just like Gai, he found a generation xerox without needing to reproduce on his own.

[kd_the_movie]

while the generation xerox ending is annoying, it doesnt bother me more than a lack of resolution on certain themes. Personally I thought the best ending for Naruto woulda been Naruto NOT becoming Hokage.

From our first introduction to the character, it was his desire, or rather obsession to become Hokage that drove him. This is familiar territory with heroes of Shonen manga; they ALL typically want to the best fighter/duelist/pokemon master/mech pilot/etc. as these types of lofty goals are not only plot drivers, but usually frame the protagonist as hardworking idealist that are crazy/driven enough to see it through.

Naruto's dream of becoming Hokage always had a poignant side to it however. Becoming Hokage was being unequivocally the best and most powerful ninja in Konoha, sure, but for Naruto, the unloved, despised orphan with a demon inside of him, becoming Hokage was the greatest way of justifying his own existence to the village. Who could deny the greatness of the Hokage, after all? For Naruto all the hate and apathy he faced growing up would be wiped away or just wouldn't matter anymore once he became Hokage.

So Naruto becoming the 7th did bring the plot full circle, mind you. And it is a rarity in anime/manga to see a hero actually indisputably achieve the lofty goal that they set out to do (18 years later and Ash Ketchum is still chasing that dream).

However, within the story, Naruto no longer needed to be Hokage anymore. His personality and determination had won over pretty much every ninja in existence and his victory over Pain/Nagato cemented himself as a beloved village legend. Not to mention, he and Sasuke both had experienced HUGE power upgrades...When its all said and done, Naruto might very well be the most powerful ninja to have ever existed.

But more importantly, given the themes that have been presented, it THEMATICALLY couldve worked if Naruto hadn't become Hokage.

The major themes of Naruto are legacy, the endless, tragic cycle of war, and finding something of substance to fight for.

But one of the more powerful and underrated themes of the story is "lost children" and the need for teachers. Most every antagonist that Naruto had faced was someone who had been abandoned. Left for dead. Thrown to the wolves. Naruto himself was close to being one of these types of people had it not been for Iruka, Kakashi, and Jiraiya.

So to me, i'd rather see Naruto not become Hokage, but rather becoming a teacher/sage figure ala Jiraiya. I think Naruto would realize that being Hokage is great, but that he could a lot more good for the people who REALLY need it, as a mentor figure. Hokages have too much to worry about to really perform this role to the fullest.

And shit Sasuke (as much as I hate him) coulda been Hokage just to round out the theme of the Uchiha finally being fully accepted within the village.

[silverzeo]

Now if only the simpsons get a proper ending... everything they have recently just seems like bad fanfiction made cannon...