Rocci It Franchise Original Sin: "is a flaw that in earlier, good installments was kept under control to the point of not really being a flaw, but goes out of hand and becomes apparent in later installments."
The fight was great in of itself. BUT! It lead to the problems that would eventually plague the fights in part two.
Yes to be honest the balancing between Naruto and Sauke that Kishimoto did in part two is one of the problems the led to the problems in those later fights.
Kakashi and Zabuza was to show us and team 7 this is what a real battle between high class ninja look like. The other two are fight that are clearly suppose to be consider "battles of legend" because of the level of the combatants.
Looking back on it, I have to agree with this. I used to really like the first VotE fight, but in hindsight, it was basically a big power fest. It wasn't about who was the better shinobi, but rather who had the most hax abilities. Going all the way back to the first bell test and the Zabuza fight, Naruto's strengths was his trickster mindset. All of his immature pranks led up to him being able to outwit otherwise superior foes. If the VotE fight were to have served any purpose, it ought to have been that blind brute force is useless and that Naruto ought to stick to his strengths. Then, come timeskip, Naruto comes back more mature but with his prankster tactics taken to a whole new level (i.e. explosive tags disguised as shadowclones via subtle use of the transformation jutsu, immunity to sneak attacks via secretly having multiple observant shadowclones in hiding at all times). When you can hide and make an army of yourself at the drop of a button, there's no limit to the number of tactics you can employ.
And so I'm amazed that Kishi could not think of anything beyond endless rasengan spam over the course of 400+ chapters. The first post-timeskip arc should have ended with Naruto outwitting and beating Deidara outright and establishing himself as a unique and serious powerhouse. Instead, readers like myself sat there wondering whether he had been sitting on his ass for the last 2.5 years.There are so many ways Naruto's fights could have been written that there was never a need to give him back to back powerups. Full control of the kyuubi's chakra should've been the limit as far as upgrades were concerned.
As others have pointed out though, even Naruto vs Kakuzu was kind of lackluster. I mean yes, Naruto did use his head, but it was just the basic shadowclone switcheroo. Something he had already been capable of doing as far back as his fight with Neji. For a fight against a guy who had fought the first Hokage, I think we could've gotten something a little more robust as far as strategy goes. Like maybe the real Naruto had never even stepped foot on the battlefield, was using clones the entire time to bait Kakuzu into thinking he was facing the real deal. Even the people on the sidelines (Kakashi, Sakura, Ino, Chouji and Yamato) think Kakuzu is fighting the real Naruto and we as readers think so as well. Then, just as it looks like Kakuzu has won, the real Naruto appears out of nowhere and scores the finishing blow.
Like I told rocci the fight wasn't bad in of itself, but that praise for it led to the problems with the later fights. The thing is we already going into that fight knew for the most part how their abilities worked since we been seeing them use them throughout part one. Even the Chakra cloak and Sasuke level two form were hinted at.
But the topic was when did the fights start to go downhill. Each person going to have their own opinion when that happened in part two, but the source of it starts in the "power fest" that was the "valley of the end" fight.
Kishimoto for the most part did come up with some neat powers in his story and more importantly was able to give them strengths and weaknesses that were very logical. The problem came in when he needed to balance Naruto and Sasuke. He knew and always planned a second fight where Naruto would win this time. But to make sure that the fight would always be interesting he need to balance Sasuke power which we don't see him gain with Naruto's that we do see him gain. I thinking of the sudden hawk summon right now, for an example of Sasuke sudden and unexplained powers. Now kishimoto did try to balance the two when ever Naruto or Sasuke by giving their new abilities limitation. The big rasengan drained Naruto for some reason v. Sasuke new lighting abilities (bad example.) Rasenshuriken's initial limitation v. Kirin's incredible amount of set up for an ultimate attack. Sage mode time limit v. Magekyo Sharingan's blindness. but eventually Naruto was able to gain Kurama friendship and gain full control of his chakra, which gave him a major boost (also who honestly did not see Naruto eventually gaining control kurama's power in some way shape of form?) Which kishimoto had to make the new Sharingan abilities to cancel it out.
Another problem is how kishimoto does fight for Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto is the dead last of his class so he always less then his opponents in someway. So kishimoto knew that Naruto would have to use trickery an his tremendous endurance to win. Sasuke is an gifted prodigy an elite by birth. So even when he is fight opponents that should be superior to him, he just so gifted that he will win simply because he that gifted. That causes all his fight to be a lot more straight forward with only a minor amount of trickery that would be more accurately be called skill. So when Naruto became stronger and more a match for Sasuke in part two. Kishimoto made him fight more and more like Sasuke to show his growing strength, at the cost of the fight actually being interesting. Also the fight became a "look what I can do now."
Sakura's fight against Sasori is honestly the best fight in part two since it was the closest to fight in part one were like.
Naruto & Kakashi v Deidara was more about showing off Kakashi's new ability, and the dangers of Naruto using the chakra cloak
Naruto v. Orochimaru was a "power fest," and honestly the most important things about that fight was to show the weight Naruto was putting on himself to save Sasuke, further show the dangers of Kurama's power. and some NS scenes.
Shikamru and Hidan was just a copy of the other two fight Shikamaru, which did make it one of the better fights of part two.
Naruto v Kakazu was more about showing off Naruto mastery of his improved shadow clones and his new ultimate attack
Naruto and Pein was great because kishimoto once again made it clear that Naruto was completely out match. So he had to restore to trickery again. Also since the village had been fighting Pein's Six bodies learning what each one of them does and their limitations. Allowing Naruto to show off his sage mode, his work around, and the limitations of both the mode and the work around.
I forgot one Naruto v. the Third Raikage which was the last good fight of Naruto. That was because Naruto in that fight was a shadow clone, so he literally could not take a hit. The fight required him to try and find out how to beat the strongest of the Raikages when his ultimate attack didn't have an effect. So it was back to trickery and trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of his opponent.
Edited by Bail o' Lies, 27 February 2017 - 01:29 PM.
