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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Anime Rant: Why I Hate the Writers of Naruto Punking Orochimaru

Creating the Fall Guy



In America, because Americans are all children and have the brains of infants, Hollywood tests and tests and tests and come up with the same result, "the bad guy can never win." Regardless that congress rapes us daily. Regardless that Wall Street pillages the land of tax payer dollars and we take it, day in and day out, we can never be presented with even the hint of reality in a movie. Test groups can't even tolerate the bad guy even getting the upper hand during the movie. They are so childlike that it is enough that you say "this is the bad guy" and then proceed with the movie.



In Asia it is no problem to present a movie where the bad guy walks away scott free. However their reality is quite different. Over there bad guys don't get away with it. So to see a bad guy win, IS the fantasy. Over here, we are surrounded by incompetent police incompetent leaders, incompetent military. They lock up regular citizens and give the excuse that they broke the law. The actuality is that 75% of the time the law was an infraction that is so inconsequential that locking a citizen up for it, IS the crime. But, they do that to hide their own incompetence, their own inability to stop real crime.

For 50 years they have claimed they needed to lock up 20 times the Americans they used to lock up, all in the name of our safety. When in fact 90% of those they locked up were no evil to begin with and the real criminals are free to do whatever they please. The police know they can't get to them. The criminals know the police are incompetent, and no one can change that.

Knowing this then, why can't Americans tolerate seeing a bad guy win? Because they are children and can't handle the truth. The people they pay to keep them safe have failed and they do not want to be reminded of it. And, the powers that be will not show it to them and avoid it, al all costs.

So what's my anime rant about? In Naruto they presented the ultimate bad guy as Orochimaruo. Orochimaru was the most powerful ninja. He knew every jutsu there ever was. He even invented his own. He even knew the forbidden jutsu. He used to belong to the all powerful band of outlaw nijas known as the Akatsuki. In fact he was so beyond them that he left them and truely went on his own. He was so powerful that he attacked a country, with his army, all by himself, something normally a whole country would have to do, to even be assured of success. He also was and is one of the 3 legendary ninja in all of the world of Naruto.

With all of that said why oh why would they all of a sudden make him look like a chump? I mean, the guy can bring people back to life. The guy discovered the immortality jutsu. His own retainer even said he could literally take over the entire Naruto world.

Now my problem isn't that the author wants to all of a sudden go with a different bad guy. My problem is, don't build up Orochimaru to not just be a powerful bad guy, but build him up to be a god and then make the new bad guy just have an illusion power.

The problem is they already explained in the series that one illusion user cannot ensnare another illusion user. One would have to be superiorly more powerful to best another illusion user. Now, under normal circumstances that wouldn't be impossible, but we're talking about Orochimaru vs and Uchiha.

Yes, it's great that the Uchiha have an illusion power, but Orochimaru is now on his 3rd body. The other 2 legendary ninja are also facing the ravages of time. The female legendary ninja, now the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, has been shown to use potions to keep herself looking young well beyond her years. So all 3 of them have lived probably 2 generations of a normal human, if not 3. Also, Orochimaru put an entire country under his illusions. He defeated ninja leaders of multiple countries, all at the same time, single handedly. So excuse me if I think it's ridiculous that some 20 year old and his younger brother, 14 years old, put the legendary ninja Orochimaru under an illusion. It's like Hitler or George W Bush fighting Jesus. I mean, they're both bad guys and super powerful, but ... come on, it's Jesus we're talking about.

I thought the Japanese wouldn't fall for the "the bad guy loses" shtick. First of all we're talking a world filled with nothing but ninjas. None of them are "good guys" in any objective sense. There are countless ways to write out and all powerful character anyway. They could simply say he got bored of the world and went somewhere else. Isn't that what gurus do anyway?

Just stop it with the "Bram Stoker's all powerful Dracula is killed by a toothpick from some 3rd rate cop that can barely read". The world doesn't work like that and don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, just no. This rant is dated and all, but even at the time my reaction would be 'no, just no'. You are wrong, Oro was never supposed to be the 'most powerful'. He was powerful, but it was always clear that there were people equal to and stronger then him (such as the other sennin for the equals, and Itachi was always stronger. Sarutobi was stronger). He was only the main villian for part 1, but was quickly replaced by the Akatsuki. And, seriously? Oro took on a VILLAGE (not a country) single-handedly? In the very same sentence you say 'and his army'. And somehow you forget the Sand's involment as well. @.@. And @.@ again at the America rant as well.

Anonymous said...

Quote: "In Asia it is no problem to present a movie where the bad guy walks away scott free. However their reality is quite different. Over there bad guys don't get away with it. So to see a bad guy win, IS the fantasy."

This is extremely false. Corruption is everywhere, no matter where you go. Don't be ignorant.

I don't live in Japan, but my country is in Asia, and it's listed as one of the most corrupt countries. Sad.

Anonymous said...

Well, I agree. I didn't like the way Orochimaru've been put aside all of a sudden by an emo boy.

Shakaama said...

@Commenter#1 I am a writer and I know when I have written something that is beyond me. Orochimaru was the be all end all of bad guys. A ninja that knew every jutsu. You cannot go beyond that. The stuff that came later aside, in any story where a guy holds ALL the cards, cannot be beaten. It is the classic Achilles theme though, he has to have a weakness, otherwise why does the hero exist. That aside, the later stuff doesn't have a weakness. If the Uchiha clan limit break is as powerful as they present it, no matter what naruto does it cannot be broken. Why? Because, the Uchiha limit break destroys even the 9 tailed fox. That's pretty much the end of the story.

The Author had presented Orochimaru as the ultimate bad guy first though. But, I'm sure his sub-writers took him aside and said, "you know we'll have to come up with about 100 jutsu of all sorts, just to make him look powerful." You can see the transition away from Orochimaru when they started presenting all sorts of weird family limit breaks.

Perhaps Orochimaru was, in fact, a too powerful of an enemy. Remember in the fight with the hokage, he practically did nothing. Here's a guy that can summon the 3 demon gates and instead he summons 3 undead kage? Hell the fight against Jiraya and 5th Hokage was more epic than that. Every time he fights he does nearly no jutsu. And, let's go back to the Naruto vs Orochimaru fight. He summons the demon gates just to protect him against Naruto, then unsheathes his sword, which was what ... 10 miles long?

And, Sasuke has what? A limit break. Sure, it's genjutsu, but it's just a damn eye.

@Commenter#2 Well specifically I was talking about Japan, since the anime is made in Japan. I've seen many documentaries where the Japanese police have a philosophy that criminals want to be caught. I don't know what country you live in, but ... if you say it's rife with corruption... ok, you're corrupt. I don't know how your country being corrupt makes me ignorant, but ... ok.

@Commentor#3 I know right? I was waiting for all these justu to pop out and then... nothing. We're not going to write that any more, we're going with Naruto meets Twilight. *sigh*

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