I used to be an avid naruto fan, but I admittedly fell off during the pein arc. I loved the series a lot more back in the beginning and wanted to recapture that feeling again. So for this rp I wanted to revert the power scaling back to the basics and see where it develops afterwards. The reason being summarized in three main points…
1. Ninja were superhuman, Emphasis on HUMAN
So in the zabuza arc we got to witness a lot of what made the series great early on. We learned about chakra being internal energy that can allow normal people to do extraordinary things such as lifting boulders, climbing up walls with no extra tools, and walking on water. It showcased a man who wielded a massive 10 foot sword with one arm and a copy cat ninja who could hypnotize you with a single glance and create a tsunami to sweep you away. However on the flip side, both men despite their superhuman feats…were still very much human. Both needed days to recover from a fight that compared to the later fights in the story, was really low on chakra use. It only took 1 A rank jutsu to put kakashi out of commission when he was spamming mangekyo dojutusus over and over later on.
Another showcase of this human aspect was in how kakashi blocked his giant sword with a kunai. Back then I thought kakashi was so cool for pulling that off, but in retrospect, it’s a small feat compared to monsters like gai. But you gotta remember, Gai came as a result of the overall landscape of naruto and was missing in action for many years. But this moment was important because it showed that a man capable of wildly swinging that blade could not do so when he was tired from using the water prison and clones. Fatigue, a rare thing in most mangos, but it was something kishimoto weaved into his early stories in naruto.
2. THE GREAT CON
The greatest moment Kishi ever pulled off was when naruto and sasuke tricked zabuza with the shadow shuriken jutsu. Compared to the way itachi could wield shuriken and kunai, it may seem like nothing, but to me itachi is the nothing. Oh boy a dime another dozen monster that 1 shots everything? No what made this moment great was the amount of cons that had to be pulled off to make it work.
First was the smoke from naruto’s jutsu. At first I thought it was just some stylistic choice by kishi to give us a visual cue that his jutsu were dispelled. That iconic dust and “pew” whenever a clone popped still resounds clearly in my head nearly 20 years later. However in this moment when clones were popping all over the place, naruto use a transformation jutsu and tossed the fake shadow shuriken to the sauce. This combined with his own smooth moves to pull out his own made the scene extra nice. However just when it seemed like it was all for nought, because zabuza saw through it like an expert would…naruto pops out to toss a knife at his jugular.
The super human that until seemed invincible, lost his cool because a kid tricked him and almost took him out. The amount of work that went into this con was great and it showed just how cool actual ninjas could be.
3. The fact that all the villages were in fact, in a cold war with eachother
Although it was never said, did it need to be? Two opposing side, maybe more, were working against eachother at all times. A simple escort mission turned into an A rank battle for their lives because another village’s ninja were targeting the bridge builder. Now compound this with the fact that Kunoichi were basically being groomed for espionage and infiltration from a young age. Although it didn’t pan out, ino and sakura’s childhood clearly showed them being trained to use their beauty later on in life…something you’d expect a CIA agent to pull off to incriminate a person of interest. And then you add to the fact that Kakashi was probably assassinating people daily when tsunade took over…and you can see that there’s a vast world to explore with the hidden villages that wasn’t touched until sasuke went off the rails in shippunden.
Unless you guys think the raikage or the real sand village kage was just going to turn a cheek from other villages murking his people. xD Hell Danzo, despite not being a super saiyan ninja, was proof that everyone is probably jockeying for king of the hill within their villages and as threats to other nations.
How I’ll handle the three jutsu:
So Tai jutsu will be treated as a mere technical martial art. Taijutsu was relegated to simple being hand to hand combat with the exception of Gai, but it could be so much more. With the addition of chakra, one could pool chakra in this arm’s chakra points and release it all at once in a single punch. Or one could make entire martial arts around flowing chakra through their weapons. Something asuma showed naruto in the time skip, but was short lived cuz he just went back to using the rasengan and kyuubi powers. So with this mind I’d imagine power scaling would go from kicking a guy into the air, to making yourself super buff, to unleashing elemental punch and kicks casually…in general.
Genjutsu is the real problem child that needs attention though. What could have been a great jutsu tree turned into a giant mangekyo sharingan…(obito) or mere illusions. However kabuto showed you can literally affect someone’s biological state of consciousness if the target doesnt notice. Thus I’d expect early genjutsu would have short range and require contact to slowly weave control over their consciousness(making fake noises a schitzo would hear for example). While a medium user would be like kurenai and kabuto would could invade your mind or affect your bodily functions. And the top tier would be a fighter who can affect one person from far away or eliminate entire garrisons by themselves with one genjutsu. I think there’s a lot of potential if people are creative enough, but it would have to be well thought out!
Ninjutsu is ninjutsu..it is the jack of all trades and a master of all. Doesn’t need an reimagining as it was and still is the most iconic fighting style in the series.
I’d like to go further, but I just wanted to gauge interest first and show off my thought process on some things first before thinking about progression and the world building aspect of the rp. This is intended to be an advanced rp, so while a lot of it requires combat…you can do entire missions using stealth alone. The content of the rp will require a lot of set up to make ambushes work such as reconnaissance, gathering intel on the subject, infiltrating cant forget that, and actually executing the plan. Ofcourse at the end of the day it’s up to any potential rp’ers that take interest in this to decide what to do and how far to go…I’m just giving an example of what i’d expect from this narrative/battle rp. <3 If anyone gives a hoot, I’ll continue on with the development of this idea(progression ideas, world building, starting characters etc)!
believe it :checkmark: