I had a small rant regarding this technique that will lead into an idea that I wanted to run by this forum. I attempted to thread jack the other thread of the same name, but I wasn't able to as the thread was more than thirty days old. Now onto the question.

I've never liked how the manga presented Naruto's clones with regards to all the information they give about how the technique supposedly works with its splitting of chakra. They never really show the clear drawback this should have in the manga. Naruto just spams clones all over the place. And I'm not even referring to when he's using Nine Tails or Sage Mode. This technique literally halves your reserves with a single clone created, and fourths your reserves with three clones created. This seems like a massive drawback.

Now, I would be willing to run with that rational if the clones themselves weren't so flimsly. If they were actually one for one clones that only dispelled when they were directed to or when they were killed, then I would be fine with the chakra halving. And when I say killed I mean being hit with an attack that would have killed the actual Naruto, not just a few punches to the gut. Now I know that this has been shown maybe once or twice in the manga, but I just have never gotten the feeling that the jutsu actually works as they claim it does. To me it seems like Naruto just spends some fixed rate of chakra per clone, not actually dividing his reserves by the number created. I mainly say this because there are fights where he creates two clones, thereby thirding his reserves, and then when they are dispelled he creates two more, leaving him with only a ninth of his reserves. And they have never said that Naruto regains any chakra that was in a clone when it dispelled.

So, all of that ranting was to get to the idea I had. Which was that I feel that the Shadow Clone technique should create a one for one copy of yourself. It is just as difficult to kill it as the original, it has all the same mannerism, and it knows everything the original knows. Creating one Shadow Clone literally allows you to double the number of capable fighters at the cost of the fighters only being at half tank.

Does this sound reasonable?

(Sorry if the rant isn't the most coherent thing written.)

 

The simple explanation for this is that Naruto has fuck tons of chakra. Enough that he could keep halving it for hours if need be. There'll likely be a minimum amount of chakra necessary to form the clones, but Naruto very rarely has that little to use.

 

Even so, my main sticking point is my dislike of how flimsy the clones are when taking into account the heavy cost of the jutsu.

 

I've always thought of it like this: The clones are so flimsy because the chakra has to spread itself thin creating every aspect of the human body.

Think about it. Chakra is only a single part of a shinobi. But when you're making a shadow clone, you're not just making a chakra network. You're making limbs, blood, organs, all that stuff. So I figure a lot of the chakra used to make them is lost in transit. And then when you finally get the clone, it's all around a lot flimsier than you are, because the energy you put into it has been stretched so thin making the damn thing.

Let's compare the shadow clone to, say, an earth clone. Earth clones are a lot sturdier than shadow clones, and can even regenerate from fatal injuries, but they also have a ton of drawbacks. They don't have any of the little bonuses that shadow clones get. Things like thinking on an advanced level, casting jutsu, hell- I don't even think the fuckers can talk.

And that's not even getting into the whole memory transfer thing you get with shadow clones, which alone makes them the most broken technique in the whole damn series. That's gotta cost some chakra.

When you get right down to it, I don't even think shadow clones are made for close range combat. They function so much better in recon and training and flinging jutsu like automated ninja turrets that it's basically a waste to use them in a brawl. Naruto makes up for that by making so many of the damn things that it doesn't matter, but yeah.

 

Pretty much this. Shadow Clones are meant to be a recon tactic. You can create disposable spies to infiltrate a building and get the info you need, and if they happen to get caught, they can dispel themselves before anyone knows who they are, etc. It was almost certainly meant to avoid direct combat as much as possible.

Naruto just has stupid amounts of chakra and can thus make up for the deficiencies by sheer volume, the quality of quantity and all that.

Also, I was always under the impression that each clone cost a specific amount of chakra to make, but they shared a communal "pool" of chakra. Like, it doesn't actually split the user's chakra X ways, it simply creates the bodies (which is where the cost comes from), and then every copy has access to the same store of chakra.

This makes more sense to me because it explains how the memory transfer works. The clones are dispersed into the chakra pool and imprint their memories into it, which the original then absorbs, or something along those lines.

 

The kyuubi's chakra gets pumped through the seal, topping off his chakra reserves at an insane rate. Chakra exhaustion should be impossible for him, but Naruto is a shounen manga so any solid facts introduced are completely forgotten by the author a few chapters later.

If Naruto's clones weren't fragile, his fights would be even more boring and predictable than they already are. I suspect that this is why he is unable to perform genjutsu, because he'd win every fight by summoning thousands of clones and trapping his opponents in an endless sea of e-ranked genjutsu. Even Itachi would have trouble breaking through such a disgusting amount of illusions before a kunai pierces his heart.

 

The reason shadow clones don't cripple Naruto (or any other character who uses them for that matter) when they're destroyed is that the unused chakra remaining with the clone when it is dispelled reverts back to the original.

This is the only explanation that makes any sense, given what we know about the technique. It would explain both why memories are transferred to the original (because they return with the chakra) and why Naruto was able to gather Sage Energy with a clone but didn't actually receive it until the clone dispelled. The Sage Energy returned to Naruto along with the clone's unused chakra.

The danger of using the Shadow Clone is that while clones are active, the true ninja's chakra is split. I also assume that at least some amount of chakra is used up when the clone is created and/or dispelled, meaning that the chakra recovery from losing a clone is not perfect.

Really this is the only way I've been able to rationalize this move while keeping it within the context of how it is shown in the manga.