That, or working off the idea that jinchuriki are all utter weaklings who couldn't figure out how to go to the bathroom without help from their Tailed Beast. Because anyone who can beat an ancient and insanely powerful beast of legend in a contest of wills to steal its chakra is obviously a total pushover.

 

Let's say that Tobi actually does pull off his plan to extract the Kyuubi from Naruto, but he survives the process just as Kushina did.

That will leave him with Sage Mode and Rasenshuriken, pretty much. He will be utterly outclassed by any Uchiha, especially one with an EMS or Rinnegan. This is the problem I have with Naruto. Without the Kyuubi he is no match for Sasuke, despite being a Rikudou Sennin descendant, having been mentored by Jiraiya and having a HUGE training advantage in the Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Don't get me wrong, he's tough and not to be underestimated, but all his abilities have massive drawbacks and limitations (Rasenshuriken hurts Naruto when he uses it, and Sage Mode has a strict time limit).

So I repeat: without the Kyuubi, Naruto isn't all that impressive, except for short bursts in Sage Mode. His willpower is undoubtedly strong, but I don't see how that will save him from Susanoo, Blaze Release, or the multitude of powerful Rinnegan abilities.

 

And if Sasuke got his eyes ripped out, he'd be fucked just as badly. No Mangyeko, no copying, no genjutsu, etc...

And if Naruto did lose Kyuubi, he's still pretty good to go. His Sage ability can now be limitless with the toads on his shoulders providing chakra and that's the great equalizer.

 

"Oh, now he has to depend on the Toads, it's not his own power, blah blah fucking blah."

Hundreds of chapters ago, there was unchecked Naruto bashing. It became unbearably annoying. It still is. It's just like Hash said. Without the Kyuubi, Sage Mode is limitless, and thus he's right back up there in terms of 'power', because with Sage Mode, his 'reflexes' are better, and that's what really matters in a fight.

 

Didn't Naruto prove to be as much as a genius as every other genius on the show? I mean, Sasuke worked hard as a kid to get where he was at the beginning and Naruto, who did not really train or study and pulled pranks, caught up to him in months and was pretty much his equal by the end of Part I.

That's a few months of serious training vs years of serious training by a genius. Then of course things like learning the Rasenshuriken, Sage Mode and Kyuubi Mode (which still looks fucking retarded) learning in days or a week tops.

All that "Naruto is a hard-working loser" stuff is a complete bullshit. The only real reason Naruto started out as a loser was because he was fucking lazy and did nothing but pull pranks. He didn't know about basic ninja stuff because he didn't pay attention in class.

Too much chakra to control proved to be a problem that he, once he put his mind on it, solved relatively fast.

And right now, with kyuubi mode, he is nearly invincible and if that fails, he can access Sage Mode in which he is nearly invincible in another way.

Truth to be told, even if Sasuke were to shit Rinnegans, I don't see how he could really keep up with Naruto.

 

And if Naruto had all his arms and legs ripped out, he would be even more badly fucked.

I think the point of annoyance here is that with Sasuke, the sharingan is basically a part of him. He was born with it. That power is his by "right of birth" as it were. Something he inherited from the older brother and the original sage.

In case of Kyuubi however, Naruto was not born with it. It is a power source that is not really his, but was rather artificially implanted into him by his father. And unlike Sasuke, it seems that Naruto has not really inherited anything from the younger brother/sage. And this trend is true no just for Naruto/Sasuke, but for Uchiha/Senju&Uzumaki in general.

Thats the annoyance I think. Sure, he is good at sage mode and without the fox he would even be better (though he is pretty fast at entering that mode now so not sure he even needs the toads anymore), but again thats a skill he learned and which had nothing to do with the younger brother. So basically the power scales are indeed balanced in favour of the Uchiha, with the other Senju half having to work extra hard just to make up for the eyes. Now maybe that is indeed the point, and their "power" is strength of will and the fact they won't give up, but compared to the sharingan, thats not exactly earth shattering inheritance. And not a fair one.

So it annoys me a bit that even though there is now the hyped conflict of the two brothers descendants in play with Uchiha vs Senju&Uzumaki and Naruto vs Sasuke/Madara, that the Senju&Uzumaki were so gimped. Annoys my sense of fair play. I wish the children of the younger brother would have got something too. To give a potential example, I think I would have liked it far more if the ability to learn sage mode and draw on natural energies was something only the descendants of the younger brother could do. A unique ability to them, to balance the Uchihas Sharingan. Or something like that.

 

Ripping out Sasuke's eyes is not a good analogy for extracting the Kyuubi from Naruto. First of all, Tobi is planning to take the Kyuubi out of Naruto, but no one is planning to tear out Sasuke's eyes (at least it hasn't been stated explicitly, except back when Itachi was punking him). Secondly, and more importantly, Sasuke's eyes are his own eyes, that he was born with, that are a part of him according to his DNA. The Kyuubi is not analogous. It's a separate entity from Naruto. Its power is not Naruto's power. He's just leeching off it epically. Without it, yes, he would be strong. But he would not have survived his fight with Pain without the Kyuubi, so I doubt he could survive a fight with a Rinnegan-Sasuke or Rinnegan-Madara without falling back on it.

It's not even Naruto's fault. He's done really well given the circumstances Kishimoto set him up to deal with. The problem is that Kishi is a fucking Uchiha fanboy who hasn't done a damn thing to make the Senju/Uzumaki remotely impressive. Hell, we don't even know where all the Senju are! He hasn't even bothered to explain what happened to their once-formidable clan. The same goes for the Uzumaki clan. The Uchiha keep getting huge amounts of attention and ever greater abilities while their fated enemies, the Senju & Uzumaki, are totally ignored. What is so hard to understand about why this irks some of us?

 

It's not hard, and I partially agree that the Uchiha have been the Author Avatars for a long time now. I'm just disagreeing with you that taking the Kyuubi from Naruto automatically makes him a second-tier player in his own story.

 

I just realized something as I was looking through this thread. You are all basing you're opinions of the Uchiha on the three that we have seen. All three of which are incredibly powerful. You now automatically assume given that all three that we have seen are uber! then all others must have been uber! too.

As for ripping the Kyuubi out of him, why would that automatically make him weak? Or am I the only one who remembers chapter 495-499 when Naruto managed to fight against the Kyuubi successfully.

Not to mention, Naruto was able to single handedly stop Pein. Admittedly Pein was probably holding back quite a bit, however it took only one path to force Jiraiya into Sennin Mode.

There is no more Senju aside from Tsunade, who is the last person necessary for canon proof that there were at least three kage level Senju as well. That is probably why Kishimoto hasn't bothered to expand on them.

 

Bullshit. These are Itachi's eyes. Without them he would blind and useless. Right now Sasuke is no better than Naruto when it comes to an outside source of the power.

 

Didn't the eyes sort of merge?

 

You're assuming that the Sharingan is natural, or did you completely forget that the eyes are a byproduct of containing the ten tails?

Sasuke is as much amped on Beast abilities as Naruto. Just because it's passed down from his great*n Grandfather doesn't mean it still isn't a Beast ability.

 

Okay, this is really stretching it. Not to say that the existence of the ten tails is still more than dubious.

 

I agree with you. I never said that Naruto is a loser. He's just your average kid in that, aside from his strong character and the hard hand he was dealt in life (Kyuubi), he's no different from any other ninja in the
series.

What makes him special is that he used all the tools he was given - which was not much in the first place, a beast he had to lay his life on the line to overcome, no cool bloodline traits, no Sharingan/Rinnegan/whatever - and still managed to become one of the most powerful ninja around. He'll stumble, do stupid things get beaten down and still get back up and fight (Jiraiya said something like that - both about himself and about Naruto - during the Tsunade retrieval arc).

Would I be satisfied with a hero like that? Maybe not. I'd rather read about the Herculean heroes, you know. A hero who can crush the villains single handed, without having to depend on others.

Now, is he a genius a la Kakashi? Certainly not. Doesn't stop him from being orders of magnitude stronger, though. This is the same reason why Minato is such a great character. No bloodline, no fancy eye-techniques - just plain old hard work and a gift for solving the hard problems.

 

See, I don't think at all that Naruto is average. He may not have the intelligence or brilliance of someone like Kakashi but he has talent in spades. Naruto, to me, was never a true underdog who got by with hard work alone. That would be Lee and he still hasn't won a fight against someone decently skilled.

Naruto is some hard work (with lots and lots of shortcuts) and incredible talent in which he just didn't tap earlier.

Jutsu that even Minato couldn't complete? Lol bro, give me a week.

Sage Mode which Jiraya took a really long time to learn and which he still hadn't fully mastered in decades? Lol bro, give me a week.

"Taming" your inner tailed beast which Killer Bee took a really long time to fully master and control? Lol bro, give me a day or two.

He mastered extremely high level techniques too fast with too little effort to be an average joe.

 

Well, in theoy Naruto might even keep the Kyuubis powers if the thing was extracted. Bee implied during his explanation that the powers Naruto would take would be his permanently, and some have taken that to mean that Naruto would not lose those powers even if he lost Kyuubi. The fact that Gaara still controls Sand as well as he always did, and that Tobi made jinchuuriki (who have lost their Bijuu) his paths might suggest that. Sounds a bit odd to me though.

As for being able to keep up with Tobi&Sasuke without Kyuubi, not sure I really agree. Naruto would not become completely helpless ofcourse, he would still have SM, but its just not enough against Sasuke. For example, how would Naruto counter Amaterasu? Thanks to Kyuubi, he is now fast enough to dodge it the way the Raikage did. SM does not give that kind of speed advantage, so Naruto would be screwed without Kyuubi!mode here. And lets not even mention Susanoo.

Well, we know the Sharingan is an extremely powerfull ability. So the fact that the Uchiha had it but the Senju had nothing to match it is the reason that the whole thing comes off as unbalanced. Obviously not every Uchiha reached the heights that Sasuke&etc have, but they certainly had a better deck.

Its like this in a way:
Lets say the original sage had 100 billion dollars and two sons. He was a genius who had acquired that money all on his own, but now he was near death. Now imagine that when the time came to decide who would inherit the money the sage would go:
"For you, my older son I give 10 million dollars. The rest of the money I have put up in a trust account and any children you have will receive the same 10 million, as will their children. All your descendants will receive 10 million dollars from me as an inheritance."

Then lets say he turns to his younger son

"And for you, my younger son who I like more, I will give no money at all, but I do give you and your descendants my blessing. If you work extremely hard in life, as I did, you too will be able to acquire 10 million dollars".

Is that fair? Now lets say that the younger son really does work his ass off and does gain 10 million dollars. Does the fact that both brothers are now equally rich make the original inheritance fair?

I admit its not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

The basic Sharingan is already extermely powerfull. And MS, for a time gives you a huge boost(Sasuke was just an idiot who overused his and went blind in a month). Yes, right now Sasuke is using stolen power, but that just happened and we havent even seen him use his EMS yet in the Manga, while Naruto has been using Kyuubi from the start.

 

In my opinion the problem with Uchihas is that they have way too much power-ups. Sharingan is pretty cool, giving them edge in the battle, but without making them unbeatable. MS is very powerful, but it has a very big limits, so it works pretty well in the story. If that was all they have, then the difference between Uchiha and Senju isn't that big once you factor personal talent.

Now, EMS is a real game changer since now Uchiha can use MS powers all he wants without any repercussion. I suspect it also gives its user new, even more powerful powers. And then you have Rinnegan. Unless it will be confirmed that you need Senju's DNA to unlock it then yes, I agree that the younger brother got much worse deal in terms of power.

 

Expect a new 'ridiculous' power up for Naruto.

 

The raws were a day late this week, but never fear, Lutris is here!

I just sent off the translation 5 minutes ago, and the typesetters are hard at work now. Should be up in a few hours.

I've just started work on Bleach.

 

The chapter was good.

The "he" Madara refers to is getting a little confusing.

Spoiler

And the explanation about the First's power being transfered reminds me a little of the whole Harry-Parseltounge thing in book two.

Kyubi giving Naruto it's chakra was awesome, although Naruto ran out of it pretty quickly, but I suppose given what he did with it, it was expected...