N1 - Enter Naruto Uzumaki! - The Nine Tailed Demon Fox - 3%
What ever happened to the tidal waves?
One of the things which always stood out for me is the fact the narrative mentions this destructive force at the beginning of the series, yet I don't recollect a single time where Kurama actually did this within the series. However, more important here is the reason I bring this up – the fact the narrative surrounding Kurama actually changed as the series progressed with a lot of what went down being honest after thought.
When we were originally introduced to Kurama, he was presented as a random spirit with no connection to the village which all of the shinobi were sent to the battle which in turn resulted in the death of the forth Hokage when he sealed the beast. In fact, I also think one might argue it is fair to say the reason for his death was attributed to injuries sustained during the fight at this point in time, but more on that hopefully in an analysis of a later episode.
Then Kishimoto introduced the concept of the jinchuriki with Gaara conveniently becoming one of the other ones despite the fact his narrative also gave a different perception to those following the series than what ended up actually being canon. In Gaara's case, we can accredit this to him being an unreliable narrator – something I hope to dive into more later, but in Naruto's case, this was presented to us in the beginning. The Anime presents this through the voice of the third Hokage, but the Manga presents it as something everyone in the village knows.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying the jinchuriki idea wasn't a good idea. My point here is that this is one of those things Kishimoto definitely came up as an afterthought. One clue lies in regard to how late in the game the term jinchuriki ended up being revealed.
Q: When did the first mention of jinchuriki actually occur?
A: I believe that this occurred during Shippoden, but if it occurred sooner, Naruto was the only one being considered a jinchuriki.
The other issue is if this wasn't an afterthought, why didn't we get to see more of the jinchuriki than we did? Isn't the death upon removal actually a convenient way of not having to develop the characters of the other jinchuriki? I mean, by the time we learned there were more two were already conveniently captured and dead, which is far from being a good narrative. More importantly, when one introduces a "group" in a Shonen series, the said group is expected to be introduced.
Black Cat introduced us to all thirteen of the Chronos numbers. Fairy Tail introduced us to every member of the Element 4. In fact, the only time I've never, ever seen a series introduces the entire group is when a series say gets canceled, or the Anime catches up to the Manga and gets canceled. Yes, I'm talking about the original Anime adaption of Fullmetal Alchemist here. OF course, some will argue Shonen Jump forced the matter – but is this really true? Pay attention to the fact there were two already dead when we first learned there were more.
The jinchuriki weren't the only afterthought.
Kushina Uzumaki was also an afterthought, a character who came up within the narrative when the narrative conveniently needed her to drive the plot. While it is true Minato is the one to have sealed Kurama into Naruto, she was instrumental in what went down, yet right there on the first page of the Manga, she is not introduced. She – a female character – doesn't get treated like a heroine despite the fact her role was just as significant as Minato's, not to mention she's the wife of the fourth Hokage.
Q: How many times does Kushina get shafted prior to her character reveal due to the fact she was an afterthought? That, and a female character.
Of course, some might argue here this was done to make sure nobody figured out that Kurama was sealed inside of Naruto, which is why he carries his mother's name and not that of his father. The problem with this is – everybody knows what the Hokage looks like. Kishimoto may not have revealed Minator's face at this point, but there is something which indicates Naruto does indeed have to be his son to those following the series. The fact remains though – people should have known Naruto was the child of Minato, yet he's treated like dirt?
Q: When did we first see the face of the fourth Hokage in the Manga?
Of course, getting back to Kushina – while I'd love to attribute the fact she's not mentioned to the fact Kishimoto regulates females to domestic roles – this ended up in there because it was an afterthought. One, that, I might add, still ended up regulating a female to a role below that of a male character. Of course, I'm not saying Kushina is a bad character, more of her character ended up jilted by the narrative rather than treating her like she's the amazing character that she is.
It's also worth noting the Anime actually does some rearranging narratively. For example, we're tossed hints in the first episode that the forth is, in fact, Naruto's father, yet given the fact it wasn't evident in the Manga, it's also understandable why people didn't start questioning this issue at the beginning of the series – that people didn't recognize him as the son of a hero. The other change was to move the mention of the spirit being sealed into him as a baby forward. If it occurred at the same time as the Manga, we'd be getting that information in the next episode.
The better narrative ends up being the Anime on this one.
That said, there is also one more thing to be addressed – the fact the jinchuriki are supposedly ostracized in their villages. A lot of this is something we're told, not shown, yet there is good reason to bring into doubt the claim that the jinchuriki are oppressed, given first of all our limited knowledge. After all, one became the kage of his village, but Kushina didn't face the same ostracization as the others, though whether people knew she was the host is possibly unknown. The thing is – we never once heard of her losing control. Killer B also never lost control – that was the host before.
In other words, that isn't as black and white as Kishimoto tried to make it out to be.
