There are several fics where this is the case, and it is quite decidedly fanon. There is no way of knowing, so far, if it might be canon as well, however.

As for the accusation of favoritism, I am not sure it is entirely correct. Iirc, Iruka had taken a liking to Naruto before the Mizuki incident, and would have at least held him to the same standard as everyone else. Unless you mean to say that Lee, for reasons unknown, received blatant favoritism and passed when he didn't deserve to, rather than saying there was a clear bias against Naruto? I suppose that is a possibility, though I cannot think of any reason why the teachers would favor Lee in such a way.

 

Keep in mind that the academy test varies from year to year. Naruto does not go into to the test expecting to fail, but once he realizes that the practical portion of the exam will be the clone jutsu, he knows that he's screwed.

Thusly, we can assume that the practical exam does not cover all of the academy skills but only a small portion of them - possibly only one. It's just Naruto's bad luck (or sabotage) that it is the jutsu that is chosen in his third and final test.

Also, Naruto was awful at henge in his third year at the academy, and was supposedly pretty poor in other areas as well, so it's not a given that the practical portion involved the clone jutsu all three times that Naruto failed.

 

I think that about destroys the first argument.

As for your second, see the next few pages of the chapter that Chengar linked to. Gai observes Lee while he is in the Academy, and could have possibly shown favoritism towards Lee and even done something that would put his rank as a Jounin on the line should Lee fail to be a competent ninja by the time he was a Chuunin or some such nonsense.

As far as there being a clear bias against Naruto, should I point out the fact that all of his basics are atrocious? His taijutsu is horrendous, and shows clear signs of him observing older ninja and mimicking what they were doing. He has no aptitude for genjutsu, and the only jutsu he reliably knows by that point is a jutsu that is completely useless in combat, the Orioke No Jutsu, which is simply a variation on Henge.

 

Actually, it did. Having the same jutsu for his final all three years seems a bit too convenient to be coincidence, but it might be that any ninja who fails the final just has to pass the final they failed last year, which would explain things without needing to have a massive, evil conspiracy.

Personally, I tend to imagine that, while not actively sabotaged, Naruto probably would not have had much luck trying to get any tutoring or extra help when he had trouble with a jutsu like clones. Naruto's grades also probably suffered from passive bias; there was no active sabotage like a lot of fans say, but with any sort of subjective evaluation the fact that most of his teachers dislike Naruto is going to hurt his grades.

On the subject of Lee, it's possible that he graduated due to Gai; Gai was interested in Lee before he graduated, so perhaps Gai asked for an exception to the normal rules. It seems like one of the better explanations for how Lee could graduate at the horrible level he was at in the Academy.

 

Read a couple more pages of the Naruto wiki to see why it is not quite the sort of source you should be quoting canon from. That said, I do recall some sort of explanation for Naruto's pranks being that he wanted attention, no matter what kind it was.

 

Good find.

This does lend some credence to the "Naruto was sabotaged" argument. On the other hand, we don't know who did the sabotaging. We know that Iruka took a liking to Naruto and wanted him to succeed, so it's possible that he was the one that forced Naruto to fail in the event that he didn't master the clone jutsu for fear that without knowing it Naruto would be at a disadvantage out in the field.

 

I don't really mind the fanon idea that Naruto was sabotaged in the academy, as long as it is minor and isn't overt and in your face. A lot of fics have teachers being blatantly biased against Naruto and giving him wrong tests, faulty hand seals, calling him 'demon' to his face, etc. I generally skip past those parts and even sometimes stop reading the fic, because that idea has been done to death and really isn't interesting to me.

One of the main problems I have with fanon right now, that seems to pop up in every fourth fic or so, is Naruto constantly being beat up by drunk villagers/ninja and fearing for his life every time his birthday comes around. Such gross exaggerations like this really turn me off, especially if there is a lot of emo/drama nonsense. I feel about this the same as I do of abusive!Dursley's. It's cliche, been done thousands of times, has no originality, a turn off, etc. There also seems to be a correlation between abusive!Villagers/Dursley's and slash and being written by teen fan-girls with no aptitude for writing. I almost always skip over these fics.

 

Naruto might have be sabotaged in the Academy, but even so Naruto isnt known for being particularly bright or book smart so Im not sure how much they would even need to sabotage him.

 

lol burn, but true.

To say that Naruto has ADHD would be an understatement.

You can't really fault him too much though; intelligence level is due to both genetic and environmental factors, and Naruto's environment in his critical developmental years wasn't exactly conducive to intelligence or book smarts. He was most likely ignored as a child in the orphanages, and children need significant stimulation, attention, and social opportunities for cognitive development. Compound that with the fact that he had no parents or adult figure to instill values and behaviors, as well as the fact that he started living on his own at age 6 or 7 (IIRC), and you can see why his emotional, social, and cognitive development is somewhat lacking when compared to his peers.

 

Demons is right, honestly it's amazing that Naruto turned out as good as he did, although I'm sure that the Third Hokage is responsible for that.

 

I don't mind the abuse plot device, but like Demons said, authors seem incapable of making it subtle. This is a NINJA village; if someone is going to sabotage Naruto, or beat him up, it's going to be anonymous and low-key, not angry drunk people screaming poorly thought slurs. It's never actually stated, but the manga suggests that it's treason to do anything overt like screaming "Die filthy demon fox brat ", which is all the more reason to keep things quiet.

Neglect? Sure. Subtle sabotage? Probably. Assassination attempts? It makes sense. Naruto getting smacked around in a village monitored by invisible patrols at all times, who report back to the upper crust of the village, many of whom are under direct control of the Hokage? No.

 

With the right enviroment its entirely possible that Naruto could have easily been the next Itachi or Kakashi. Naruto might be very book smart but it is very apparent after the time skip he is no idiot. He is a genius in battle.

 

The fact that Naruto went from the dead last to even with geniuses like Sasuke and Neji just in the course of the pre-Time Skip plotline does seem to indicate that Naruto has a ton of natural potential when he's properly trained.

On the issue of Naruto's treatment, I agree that screaming mobs and other blatant types of abuse are an idiotic fanon cliche. Simple neglect is enough to account for Naruto's issues at the Academy; for all his natural talent, sometimes he needs a helping nudge in the right direction to figure things out. Also, in all likelihood after the first month or two at the Academy with no help or encouragement Naruto stopped focusing on his studies and began pranking and other activities to try and get attention.

 

I thought Naruto had been pranking even before he entered the Academy. I could have sworn I remember reading that somewhere in the manga. It doesn't really matter though either way.

As much as I don't want to bash Iruka, perhaps some blame for Naruto's pranking and slacking can be attributed to him. IIRC, he didn't acknowledge Naruto to his face until the fiasco with Mizuki and the scroll. If Iruka had paid more attention to him, and perhaps showed some of his signature kindness to Naruto in his earlier academy years, perhaps Naruto would have taken his studies more seriously and tried harder to master the academy skills.

 

Kishi's stats for Lee show him to have an Academy-level control of genjutsu. So he passed on Genjutsu.

 

The new chapter is up. Another trick pulled out from no where from Danzo but atleast the batle is over. And I still find the fact that Sakura believes she could stop Sasuke on her own or with the team she has with her laughable.


Sadly still no Naruto.

 

I'm sure Kishi is proud that I can tell just by looking at the first page of the chapter that Naruto will once again, not be featuring in the manga named after him.

 

At this point I'm assuming Sakura knows that her plan to kill Sasuke is, at best, a suicide mission. It's the only explanation I can come up with for why she's trying to get rid of the team she has with her and Naruto; she knows she's going to die going after Sasuke, and doesn't want anybody else involved.

 

If she believes she can kill Sasuke period, suicide mission or no, it shows just how inferior she is to Naruto and Sasuke. Among the ninja of their age Naruto and Sasuke are in a league of their own and have been since atleast the time skip and its debatable if Gaara could have matched up with either one of them in the end of part 1.

Although there are plenty of comparisons between Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru; and Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke; Sakura may be strong and be good at medical justu, but she is no Tsunade. So far I have never got the impression that Sakura is nothing more than an average ninja with talent for medicial justu. Sasuke and Naruto on the other hand rank among the most powerful and dangerous ninja in the world. I personally say that a fully healthy Orochimaru would give atleast as good as he got with Sasuke and Jiraiya would knock the shit out Naruto. The only real advantage the older ninja like Kakashi and the Kages have against Naruto and Sasuke is experience and plenty of times thats is all thats required.

 

I agree that Sakura definitely has not demostrated anything like the skills needed to beat Sasuke, even if she is willing to kill herself in the process. The only way she could stand a reasonable chance of winning is by pulling a new skill out of nowhere, and I really hope Kishimoto doesn't go down that route yet again.

However, it is entirely possible that Sakura doesn't care about the odds; even if she only has a .00001% chance of killing Sasuke through pure luck and at the cost of her own life, that might be enough that she feels like she has to try. Her plan being a suicide mission is the best explanation I can think of for why she's been doing things like her odd confession to Naruto and her attempt to knock out the rest of her group once she knew Sasuke's location.