Orochimaru: Worst Change of Mind in Writing Ever

Orochimaru was Too Powerful

Orochimaru of Naruto Anime

For those who do not know what Naruto is,... well have you been under a rock?  Ok seriously.  Naruto is a Japanese anime.  It is a run away smash hit in Japan.  It is watched during prime time t.v. in Japan and entire families sit and watch it.  It had a brief airing in America.  But, due to the Americanization of the anime and the horrible,  HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE voice acting and script rewrites, it was nearly immediately ditched to overwhelming audience backlash.  In fact, while the American version of Naruto was completely shut out by fans, views of the Japanese version of the series nearly doubled.  Apparently anything Americans touch is crap, is the message I guess.  That aside, let's assume you are an avid watcher of the Japanese version of the anime.  We will be discussing the ultimate villain in any anime ever: Orochimaru.

The author of the series wrote Orochimaru to be the complete antithesis of Naruto.  Naruto is:

• kind
• believes in the goodness of everyone
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons he has
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons in others
• believes that everyone can be redeemed
• believes that one day everyone will recognize him as their leader and protector
• believes he can lead his village into peace and prosperity one day

So in the series, the author throws obstacle after obstacle at Naruto, which he overcomes.  He throws monstrous villains at Naruto, who either beats them up or gets them to recognize the goodness in their hearts.  Orochimaru was written to be the embodiment of complete malevolence.  His character has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Orochimaru Evil Incarnate

Orochimaru Snake Master

Where Naruto is ultimate goodness, Orochimaru is ultimate evil.  But, Naruto isn't just a kid with ninja fighting training.  In true Japanese larger than life, earth shattering fashion, Naruto has a demon trapped inside of him, that is on par with a force of nature.  It is named the 9-tailed fox.  This demon has the power to annihilate entire cities with its roar.  It can smash mountains.  It can engulf whole forests in flame.  All of this is trapped inside of Naruto.

So Orochimaru, who was originally written to be opposite Naruto, had to be equally if not more powerful than a force of nature.  How could that be accomplished?  Easy!  Orochimaru was written as one of the 3 legendary ninjas of all time.  On top of that, he was more powerful than the other 2.  He knew every jutsu [ninja power and spell] ever known [even the forbidden jutsus] and invented more powers on his own.  So where Naruto was sheer brute force, and an awesome force indeed, Orochimaru was the equal and opposite power of the mind.

The Beginning of the End

The Nine Tailed Fox

It often happens in writing.  The author dreams up the ultimate villain or even just a really good villain, then he realizes that the hero of the story cannot overcome him, because he did not make the hero powerful enough.  So they then set out to detract on the villain.

This is exactly what happened in Naruto.  Instead of building Naruto up, the author decided that Orochimaru would not be the focus of being the arch nemesis to Naruto.

Why?  Because of the way he wrote the Naruto character.  Remember the list above?  All of this is housed inside a little boy.  Even when the anime progresses and naruto is now 12 years old instead of 6 years old, he still has little boy qualities.  These little boy qualities cannot overcome an Orochimaru character.

You would have a scenario where the two would come up against each other and Naruto would have to transform into this logical thinking character, with a penchant to utterly destroy Orochimaru, i.e. Orochimaru would have to be killed.  Why?  Because, Orochimaru has no redeeming qualities and therefore would not ever be remorseful of the things he has done, i.e. human experimentation, torture, murder, mass-murder, etc.  Naruto does not kill people.

So the Orochimaru character was written too perfectly, as a villain.  And, instead of going back on the Naruto character and making him into more of an adult, with the ability to straight up kill someone, the author took the low road and just emasculated Orochimaru.  All of a sudden other villain type characters were able to beat the Orochimaru character and virtually take him out of the picture.

The idiocy of this bad writing is apparent from anyone's perspective.  Here you have a villain so powerful that he can beat the other 2 legendary ninjas singlehandedly, but two teenagers on separate occassions beat him without effort?

I despise this vehemently.  It happens in movies a lot: The Jackal; most vampire movies.. etc [ I can't think of more off the top of my head ]  They always start out with a super villain, but by the end of the movie he cannot tie his shoelaces correctly and a fluffy bunny attacks his jugular and he dies in 3 seconds.

This is what was done to this character Orochimaru.  Instead of making the series really interesting and making a coming of age story, i.e. we watch naruto grow up, train and become more powerful than the most powerful legendary ninja, Naruto instead, is kept acting like an imbecile and can barely beat Star Trek red shirts.  It is just plain awful.

Orochimaru: Best Villain Ever

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