Ehhh. I think a bond formed between two orphans who are both pretty much alone in the world (Naruto because of the Kyuubi, and Sasuke because of his one track mind) can be just as strong as love. I have a lot of issues with the manga, but Naruto pursuing Sasuke isn't one of them.

 

Bromance >>> romance.

It's the execution of it that is lacking.

 

That's a matter of opinion. Don't get me wrong, a good Bromance is awesometastic. But Naruto/Sasuke is not a good bromance. It's a terrible one. The best rendition of it I've ever seen was in Reload by case13.

 

Agreed with WalkingDisaster here.

In canon, Naruto/Sasuke's 'friendship' feels less like a bromance and more like a symptom of Naruto's deep seated issues of wanting acknowledgement and companionship.

Naruto was lonely as a kid, he was jealous of Sasuke (who was everything Naruto wasn't, and someone Naruto probably secretly acknowledges as being above him) and at the same time, felt some similarity to Sasuke due to being orphans. Now enter Team 7, and he's suddenly a part of something, he feels like he belongs and then Sasuke even 'acknowledges' him as a rival - which means a lot to him. So when that threatens to fall apart he furiously protects it. In his head Sasuke is his best friend, but in reality, Naruto was probably more in love with the idea of Sasuke being his best friend.

That's definitely not what Kishimoto was going for, but that's what seemed to make more sense to me.

Nonetheless, I do love Team 7 fics in general, where all three of them bond as a team. And I love fics with a genuine Naruto/Sasuke friendship as a major part. An idea I've seen a few times is Naruto following Sasuke to Sound which is pretty interesting.

Regarding your Naruto/FemSasuke idea WalkingDisaster, I originally found myself a interested, but then I thought about how a similar idea would work - having Sakura (in love with Sasuke) trying to bring him back. And that sounded boring, so I can't help but feel your idea would be similar.


On a related note, am I the only one who is surprised that we're having a serious NarutoSasuke discussion on DLP?

 

A sure sign that the apocalypse is coming.

 

Eh, that's canon anyway. Even with them being similar ideas, the circumstances feel a lot different by having Naruto/Fem!Sasuke instead of Sakura/Sasuke. Without even hearing anymore details, I'd be far more interesting in the former than I would in the latter.

 

So, I can't help but feel people are cheapening the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke by only looking at one aspect of it. Most of you seem to be looking at it from Naruto's side of things, but are missing a few things too. Now it's probably true that Naruto is more in love w/ idea of being Sasuke's friend, but that doesn't mean he isn't. I always got the vibe, starting back from wave, that Sasuke was (reluctantly) forming bonds of friendship with his team. I'm fairly sure Sasuke saw Naruto like a brother too, and ultimately, I think that's part of the reason he left.

Yes, he wanted power to defeat Itachi, but that only seemed like a part of it. The other part is that somewhere, in his head, he was convinced that if he got close to anyone, they would die, and when he finally realized that yes, Naruto was/is his friend, he got afraid. Afraid that the same thing that happened before would happen, that he would lose his family, again. So he decided to cut those bonds himself, because at least then they'd be alive.

It was an irrational fear, but everyone knows Sasuke is a little messed in the head.

Naruto might have been afraid of losing his bond with Sasuke, because he was one of his only friends, but at the same time, I think he at least suspected (Afterall, if I remember right, Sasuke basically came out and said it) what Sasuke was doing, and knew that if it happened, his friend would ruin himself.

I'm with Menace, there are a lot of problems with the Show/Manga, but this isn't one of em.

 

Naruto thought of Sasuke as a brother, Sasuke thought of Naruto as his best friend and hey both thought of Sakura as a precious comrade. Sasuke left because he decided revenge was worth more to him than his friendships and believed he wouldn't have the strength to carry it out in Konoha. And because Naruto was his best friend, he chose to kill him for the Mangekyou though he (eventually) changed his mind there (until PTS).

Anyway, I'm good with both. I think Naruto pursuing Sasuke in canon works but I think there's just as much merit, if not more, of Naruto pursuing a female Sasuke. Dunno how I would have felt originally but these days I'd say it would have been interesting if Sasuke had been a chick.

 

I feel that people are slightly overlooking several aspects of Naruto and Sasuke's canon interactions. Yes, there was a definite rivalry and yes, eventually it came to a head and grew out of control--but that was only one aspect of their interaction and the interaction of Team 7 in general.

What happened when one of the Demon Brothers was about to kill Sakura? Sasuke jumped in the way to take the blow. What happened when Naruto was about to get killed (as far as anyone knew) by Haku? Sasuke jumped in and took the bullet. What happened at the start of the Forest of Death? Sasuke looked out for both his team mates, showing he knew them well enough to counter imposters and, in fact, specifically designing passwords to keep track of Naruto.

When Sasuke woke up under the Cursed Seal and a guy tried to blow away the entire area, what'd he do? Even maddened, he grabbed Naruto and Sakura and got them to safety. Hell, what was the first thing he thought of after waking up? 'What the fuck are you doing to one of my teammates, bitch?' And against Gaara, after all of them were on the ropes, what'd he do? He told Naruto to grab Sakura and get away, offering his life to protect both of them. And when he heard about Itachi, what was his first worry? 'Naruto's in danger!'

Honestly, a lot of people forget it, but Sasuke was a bro Pre-Timeskip. Not necessarily the nicest guy, but a lot can be forgiven when someone risks their life to keep you safe a bunch of times--just like Ron's screw ups in GOF can be forgiven since he stood on a broken leg to put himself between Harry and someone he thought was a mass murderer.

(Seriously, it's pretty miraculous he was anywhere near as good as he was. Itachi's retarded 'I'll make you are hero by taking everything from you and mindraping you repeatedly' plan was actually working up until that whole 'LOL, BRO, BLAST FROM THE PAST' thing which...was really, really stupid, given Itachi's supposed goals. Sasuke was doing fine up until then.)

 

I actually found some parts of that almost offensive. I'm usually not that sensitive to it, but the sexism was really obvious in that piece.

Why??? Why would she get closer to Sakura and why the hell would she be rediscovering her femininity?

Why should there be a difference in Orochimaru's treatment of Satsuki? Orochimaru doesn't care whether he takes over a male or a female body. If he only wanted to get some Uchiha-DNA, he could have gotten that from male Sasuke too.

This again... no reason given for Satsuki making that change. Is it just so that the author can imagine her being even hotter?


I'll stop here with the quotes.
If you change Sasuke's gender, but keep the canon personality, I don't see any good reason to include romance in the story. That's just not what s/he is about at this point in time.

 

I can't help but think you're just comparing personalities and nothing else. While it is a large part of it. You also need to understand that girls are fundamentally different from boys, especially during puberty when their hormones are flaring up more than ever.

Even Sasuke/Satsuki isn't immune to 'attraction'. Sakura, Ino and the rest of his fangirls were nothing Sasuke specifcally wanted or cared for. They were weak, mooned over him constantly, annoyed him and they just didn't have his respect.

Naruto is different though. He started out weak, but trained and trained until he bridged the gap between him and Sasuke. And he has put his life on the line multiple times to protect Sasuke just like Sasuke done for Naruto. So there was a mutual respect between them for each others abilities, and they put their trust in the other in multiple occasions.

From their interactions, we saw that Sakura never actually achieved her goal of being much of all significant to Sasuke. But Naruto did. Naruto challenged Sasuke as a rival, and that rivalry aswell as mutual respect from understanding the pain off loneliness blossomed into a friendship, that then evolved further and made them best friends.

If Sasuke was female. That respect, and friendship could have eventually evolved into an attraction or crush that given time if it was mutual could blossom into love.

But by the time Satsuki left, the best that could have been hoped for is a rather close friendship bond with a deeper attraction felt between the two.

http://dakkar-h.devianta******/art/Happy-Birthday-Izzyisozaki-200168629

This is kinda how I picture a female Sasuke. And in an anime way, she would be very attractive. And it isn't as if Naruto's character is designed as ugly. He's not designed as a pretty boy. But with the whisker marks and the like, and if he stopped wearing so much orange and toned it down a bit he would come off as kind of 'rugged' I guess? He's more of the wild good looking type, and I hear girls find that attractive.

But then, the dynamic of the series could easily be changed. For instance, if your going for an actual shinobi-like dominated world. Women who are captured by enemies would be raped. And if Satsuki was captured she'd be put into breeding program to breed a new Uchiha clan for whatever village she's captured by. And if you mature Naruto a bit, he would know this and could then dread that ever happening to her. Naruto's put his dream on the line plenty of times before for his friends. It isn't too much of a stretch that he'd leave with her to make sure that kind of thing never happens to her.

Many, many things would be different with a female Sasuke. And that one change could change almost everything that would come to pass in the future of the anime

 

Again, that seems incredibly sexist, because you could apply the same logic to male Sasuke. It would be more effective even, because a man can potentially have more direct descendants than a woman.

In the Naruto-universe shinobi are like gods among men, so it seems far easier to just capture civilian women, instead of trying to rape Kunoichi that can and will kill you if you make the slightest mistake.


You're also talking about changing Naruto now. He can dread Sakura being raped just as well. You don't need to introduce Satsuki to create that plot thread.


Overall, I still feel that this is just about having Naruto get together with a hot, competent, aggressive chick. The rest is just rationalizing.

 

Always strike me as strange when kunoichi rape comes up in Naruto discussions. Attempting it seems like a good way to get yourself killed.

 

How was it sexist? I never said it couldn't be. But females are always seen as weaker than males. And so, a young female would be preyed upon more vigorously than a male.

Easier to catch a civillian? Yes. But, you forget how many sick people there really are. In an actual world of shinobi, there would be many men who would take pleasure in dominating an enemy kunoichi.

Again your missing the big point. Sakura is just an average female ninja. 'Satsuki' would be running off to join an S-rank nukenin known for experimenting on people and for his lust of the Sharingan. But not only that, she would also be willingly chasing after a group of 9 s-rank nuke-nin aswell.

One who to Naruto's knowledge massacred 'Satsuki's' clan and basically mind raped her with genjutsu twice.

Sakura would be alot safer off than 'Satsuki' would be. Anybody with even a smidgen of intelligence could figure that out. And no self-respecting Fanfiction writer would write Naruto off as the same as in the anime where he never matures at all. So Naruto would know this, as it would be pretty much basic knowledge and deduction.

 

So, about the Kunoichi rape thing. I kind of have to agree with Jordinio here, if not to the same extent. Enemy Shinobi might not simply try to always capture a female Kunoichi, as it's simply safer to kill them in the middle of battle, but if in some big battle the possibility of capture was pretty much guaranteed (The Kunoichi is alone and knocked out) and I could easily see them being raped. It may not be the first thing on a Shinobi's mind when fighting a Kunoichi, but it's still perfectly possible.

Maybe not every Shinobi would go for it, and damn I hope they wouldn't, but reasonably there would be at least some in their forces who would. And even the thing about Civilian Women being easier to rape doesn't apply all the time, because I'm fairly sure one part of rape is that it's so the Rapist can feel dominance and assure themselves of it. And I can't help but think that to a rapist, doing such to a Kunoichi would do more for them than a civilian, simply because of the challenge.

And why can't Naruto fear that it could happen to both his teammates? What's stopping him from caring about that happening to Sakura, even if he was in love with a female Sasuke?

As far as the whole Orochimaru making Satsuki have children thing goes, well yes there's a point there. If Orochimaru were just after the DNA he'd have Sasuke impregnate a bunch of women. But at the same time, Orochimaru planned to take over Sasuke's body, and as long as his Possession Jutsu doesn't make the body he takes over sterile or barren he could do it himself. I also don't see Orochimaru as the kind of guy who'd want to give birth. And then there's the fact that Sasuke and Itachi are the last two Uchiha (As far as Orochimaru know) and Itachi doesn't look like he's having kids anytime soon.

So if Sasuke was female, and he DID want more Uchiha bodies to take over later? Then yeah, I can see him at least taking measures to insure such, though as a scientific genius he might not resort to something like Rape, if only to keep Sastuki happy.

I'd also like to note something on a difference in personality between Canon Sasuke and a Fem!Sasuke. As Jordinio has pointed out, Males and Females are biologically different, and the hormones that come with puberty could easily play a part in personality differences. But that's not all. The honest truth is that society treats men and women different. I'm not saying it's right or anything, but that's what happens. And our personality is shaped by how we interact with people. If the Uchiha were a patriarchal clan (As it is often depicted, and what seems to be the case) there just wouldn't be as much pressure on Fem!Sasuke as in canon, simply because there would be lower expectations.

That's not to say she can't be a tomboy, or still want to match her brother, but there would still most likely be differences. And as it has been pointed out, the relationhip between Sasuke and Naruto in canon could easily evolve to more if one of them was female, or even if they were both homosexual. (The latter of which neither has shown any signs of being so)

I know several tomboys, hell, my own Girlfriend is one. While they're all into things you'd expect a tomboy to be into, they all also have their feminine sides. It's there, you just have to look for it. I've also seen them all when they're in a relationship, and when you like someone like that, you think thoughts like, "Well, maybe they'd like it if I did this," or "I think hey like it when I wear this." It goes for both people in the relation ship too, at least a healthy one. But the point is, I've seen these women change a few things of themselves to be just a tad bit more feminine, because they think they're partner likes that.

It's also not so much that they're changing themselves, as it them showing other sides they don't show to people they don't know as well.

 

They're magic ninja who fight with dragons made of fire and can breathe acid and poison mist, bring back the dead, walk on water, teleport, shrink and change shape (henge), and make fire that doesn't go out for 7 days.

You really think hormones play a large role in those abilities?

Get real.

We don't see many female ninjas in Naruto compared to male ninjas, but there's no reason to think they're inherently weaker or significantly different in abilities overall. We've seen some indication if IIIRC that female ninja generally have less chakra and better control compared to males, but that's the only rule we've seen, I think.

There's definitely differences in behavior that might result from being female versus male, but I'd expect ninja society to be pretty free of sexism.

 

Agreed. When most kunoichi know several dozen different ways to kill you with just their hands, it really ups the stakes a lot.

 

What? I never said they were weaker, or anything about hormones playing a part in ability. I just said that raped would be possible, and a pretty real fear, even if it didn't happen all that often. It's much safer to kill the enemy than capture them, but as pointed out, if the opportunity presented itself to take them captive like that, there would be people who would take advantage of it.

Or are you saying the ninja villages don't take POW's? Because in my head, that's basically what I was thinking.

If you meant the sexism in regard to a Fem!Sasuke's abilities, I never mentioned anything about the village at large, just the clan. And it would make sense for for a patriarchal clan to have lower expectations of their females.

Your reading things I never mentioned.

 

The thing is: you could just copy the canon story and insert Satsuki instead of Sasuke without having to change almost anything. Only the Sasuke-fanclub by Sakura & Ino would have to be changed, but maybe you could just change it into an admiration.

So when I see the changes that you (and especially the author of the linked article) imagine, it comes across as pretty sexist.
She would have to worry about getting raped. She'd have to worry about being turned into a broodmare by Orochimaru. She might fall in love with Naruto and then try to seduce him, etc.

These are the changes you'd want to focus on?

There's nothing inherently bad with writing about the sexism in a patriarchal society and all the danger that comes with it. I'm just not sure that creating Satsuki is the appropriate way to do that. Maybe if it were a whole sub-genre, it wouldn't be a problem if some stories did that. But that those issues are the first ones that pop into peoples minds when thinking about a female Sasuke? That's problematic in my opinion.

 

@Garden

Yeah, I was pretty sure hormones was mentioned as towards affecting mindset and thus personal desires and goals and wants.

A lot of rape isn't about sex and pleasure, it's about power and control. Rapists generally are looking to reassert their dominance and power. The more 'prestigious' and 'beautiful' and 'powerful' a target is, the more it elevates them in their own eyes. For a ninja, raping a civilian is so easy it would probably have little affect towards sating his twisted need, but a real challenge? A kunoichi? Well now..

Besides, you're thinking about this logically. Do you really think Rapists are logical beings?

This, you may 'imagine a ninja village to be pretty free of Sexism.. but if so then you're being awfully starry-eyed about the whole thing. Sexism has existed for as long as human civilization has existed. Men, who ARE naturally bigger, stronger, and faster, have been lording their better physical abilities over women for countless centuries. It's wrong and it's unfair, but it's still the truth of the matter.

Furthermore, the culture is STILL based heavily around the ideas and preconceptions and philosophies of Japanese culture. You think SEXISM is RARE in a culture based on the Japanese?

ROFL.

Try again.

@Ayreon:

For some reason you're fixated on this 'keep the exact same canon personality' thing. Except, realistically, the biological side of psychology would almost demand some differences in personality and attitude and opinions. There's also the fact that they're not 'the first problems', they're just 'the most obvious ones'.

What are we changing? Gender. Male to Female. Well.. what're the problems inherent in being a female that most men think of? The sexism and discrimination they face. Sexism in the article or writing here would be insinuating she'd be less skilled or talented or intelligent or capable in some fashion because of her gender. Not just being treated as such because of her gender. It's a subtle but important difference.

You seem to be seeing sexism inherent in the article and opinions of others where it isn't there. I'm not sure I believe you about 'not being very sensitive generally'. You're totally ignoring the fact that yes, being a woman is different, and it makes society view you differently, and it makes your brain chemistry function FAR differently (note, not worse, I'm making no disparagements) than being a man. You can't just take boy's childhood, trasnplant it into a girl, even a girl of highly similar ancestry, and expect them to be the Exact Same People.

Hell, they can be highly similar about many things, but some details are going to be different. Even Sasuke mentions 'restarting his clan' during the introduction. But he's still a boy at the time, one hounded by annoying as hell fangirls with psychoses. Girl's mature faster than boys, psychologically and physically, one can thus assume that romantic relations with others might just be a stronger motivation for a Fem!Sasuke than it would for Sasuke himself.

Or you could make her similar to Sasuke, not interested at the moment, but pursued against her will. I kind of picture her as being harassed by some of the male students for dates. Making her view them much the same way normal Sasuke views his fangirls.

Nor can you realistically expect a society to treat a young girl the same they would a young boy. That's a damned important factor, and to overlook it is either unrealistic or willfully ignorant.