Title: The Perfect Jutsu
Author: serpentguy
Rating: Mature
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Status: In Progress
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings: Nothing yet
Summary: The Shadow Clone Jutsu had always been incomplete. It was meant to be the most unstoppable technique, but it had never been perfected. At least, that was until Naruto Uzumaki accidentally did something that should have been impossible... Strong, unique Kekkei Genkai Naruto.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10875873/1/The-Perfect-Jutsu

The premise of the story is that the Shadow Clone Jutsu was originally meant to create permanent clones, and on the night where he learns it, Naruto accidentally achieves that ideal. The start is a bit rough, but this isn't some flimsy excuse to create a Super Naruto story. The jutsu's potential is astounding, but Naruto is a 12-year old who doesn't understand the full ramifications of this technique.
It's an interesting concept, but what I think sets this story apart is the portrayal of Naruto. He's shown with depth, and acts appropriately for his age. In the latest chapters especially, he is forced to come to terms with his ideals vs the reality of being a shinobi very quickly. The characterization is great, not only for Naruto, but also Kakashi.
I give The Perfect Jutsu a 4/5.

 

Read what's there so far.

Some interesting parts, but there are also some that rub me the wrong way. The premise, while not entirely unique, is original enough to make the fic novel, but I still can't say I completely enjoyed it. Perhaps it's too early to completely judge. It probably is.

There's enough to rate by now though, so I'd give it a 3/5.

 

Naruto accidently perfects an incomplete jutsu through sheer determination and pure luck. This influences Naruto’s motivation and relationships with his teammates and mentors.

The author’s strengths lie in humor but at the cost of plot progression and character development. The beginning of the first plot arc is original, but not very interesting. This is partly due to team introductions where the dynamics among Naruto and the rest of Team 7 are developed. Despite this, the readers know very little about the motivations and background of his teammates and teacher. All the conversations and situations that could have been introspective moments for the team become humorous moments instead. However, we do get a glimpse of some of the quirks each character has from these situations. The humor makes up for the lack of interesting plot but the dialogue is awkward to read due to the avoidance of the word “said”. Since the story depends on the humorous dialogue for it be interesting, having clunky and awkward conversations is a major detriment in reading this story.

The set-up from the end of the first chapter makes it seem like the story will be serious. However, the next few chapters are completely different from the direction I thought the story would go (more explained in the spoilers section). This is not necessarily bad- just unexpected. The first half of the first chapter is more indicative of the tone of the story: humorous and light. Naruto’s seemingly care free and upbeat attitude contrasts strikingly with the serious implications of the “perfect jutsu” and is at times, morbidly humorous. This is a great setup for many of the humorous scenes but seems to gradually tone down as the story gets darker. The logistical issues from his perfect jutsu and the trouble Naruto gets into because of it are hilarious.

This story is a great read for humor, but do not expect intriguing plots or world development. Future plot arcs could have interesting developments and the current chapters could be a solid foundation for a longer story.

I will be withholding my vote until future chapters as the first plot arc has not been finished yet. But I do recommend people to read this as it is a decent time waster.

Spoiler

The beginning of the story does a good job in hooking the reader in. Portraying Hashirama as a womanizer and a narcissist is hilarious, especially due to some of the decisions such as building the Hokage monument that seem to support these claims (which the author also mentions).

But from there, we transition to Naruto, who is hiding with the Seal of Scrolls after Mizuki’s revelation that the Kyuubi was sealed into Naruto. Mizuki is about to kill Iruka in annoyance after Iruka proudly claimed Naruto was a member of Konoha. Naruto tries to save Iruka by attacking Mizuki and forms the cross seal. Unexpectedly, Naruto fails to summon a Kage Bunshin at the most crucial time. He continues to fail repeatedly, which builds up the tension as some of the readers may start to worry about Iruka’s death. In the end, he does manage to summon one Kage Bunshin but it is weak and unable to fight. Naruto is knocked out.

The serious nature of this situation is a complete reversal from the earlier segment with Hashirama and change from most usual canon rehash of Naruto kicking Mizuki’s ass. All of this leads up the scene where Naruto seemingly dies. This does take some suspension of belief as Kyuubi should have regenerated him. And then the major reveal happens where Naruto’s failure in producing the Kage Bunshin is actually a success in creating the perfect Kage Bunshin- a construct which is also alive and can take the creator’s place if the creator dies. You can almost view it as a Hocrux but without the insanity. Despite his death, Naruto’s clone (who is now the original) shrugs off his own death freakishly fast and starts up with his shenanigans that completely changes the mood of the story. This would have been a great time for introspection or character development but Naruto seems to be the same person he was before his death. This light mood might not persist in future chapters since it will be hard to write an adventure/romance story (the genre tagged by the author) if the characters are unable to change and be affected by their situations as there will be little character development.

 

I really like the premise of this story. It has so much potential to be a really intriguing political drama or "Naruto becomes the Emperor of the world" story or something. It reminds of another story in which Naruto creates clones that last forever and sends them all over the world to infiltrate other populations, thereby creating his own massive spy network.

The ability to create permanent clones is a pretty overpowered one though. It's actually a bit frustrating because Naruto appears to be holding the idiot ball in this story. I know that's pretty much canon, but it's annoying as hell when a character gets a ridiculous god-power and proceeds to do nothing meaningful with it. It reminds me of instant transmission; Goku gets it and forgets about it completely within a few episodes. I believe there are ways to balance a god-power without making it feel like you're completely squandering it though... Also, wouldn't Naruto be essentially living at a higher speed than everyone else? His mind is synchronizing with and gaining the experience of his many clones at the same time so you'd think that would give him a strange perception of time, or at the least make him age quicker mentally.

There are a few technical issues like misspelling names and way too many exclamation marks. I don't think Tobirama made a single statement that didn't end with an exclamation point. It was the first thing I noticed when I started reading and it almost made me close it. There are times where the author will say "it took a few minutes for this to sink in" followed by "but after a moment he was back at it" or something. I can't remember which chapter specifically but it made me do a double take.

Like Masterwill22 said, the dialogue is a bit strange, but unlike him I didn't really think it was all that funny. It has a strange vibe where you feel like things are going to get serious and then the author throws in some awkward humor.

I also don't see a good reason for Hinata being put on Team 7 other than favoritism. She seems even more annoying and withdrawn in this than usual.

It might be too early to rate but it's been 71k words and so far it's just "canon with a twist" so I'm going to rate it 2.5/5.

Edit: Found the line. Even worse than I remembered:
It took a few minutes for the statement to sink in Naruto looked confused for a moment, before his face twist in anger. "I'll totally kick your ass!"

 

Read this the other day. The premise is a bit worrisome, and the constant going on of how 'perfect' Naruto's jutsu is is kind of annoying. On the plus side, it did have it's drawbacks in sealing Kuama up even further. He must be even angrier than when Kushina had him crucified on that giant glowy orb. Also, keeps the insane amounts of Shadow Clones to something of a minimum.

Still, otherwise it's just not long enough yet to say it's better than a 3/5ths.

 

The start of this story is a definite 3/5 - interesting premise, but at first it's not taken seriously enough, and it looks like it's going to dissolve into meaningless crack. I'm glad to say that didn't happen - actually, the direction the story takes really impressed me.

Kakashi, after a few initial bumps with his characterisation, is pretty great here. He's portrayed as a career killer and it works because some of the stuff that goes down in this story is downright fucked up, and it's great for it. This premise spins off in an interesting way.

The writer may not be the best in terms of style, but every chapter builds on it and they only get better. Importantly, the writer isn't afraid to go off the rails from canon - from just this simple start it would be all too easy to churn out another canon rehash, but this story sidesteps that entirely and has been a rather refreshing tale, all told.

I'll throw my vote in at a 4/5, with a note that this is my second time reading. The first time, I never got past the mediocre beginning.

 

It's definitely solid enough as a premise, with a dash of originality in a fandom that is severely lacking in it. I actually liked the beginning, non perfect Hashirama always gets a tick from me. Saying that however the story has just barely gotten out of the introductory arc and statue shagging arc is fairly forgettable so far.

Naruto is characterised rather well, he's not a hopeless bundle of endless effervescence and limited intelligence as he is in canon, but he's still at his core a child coming to terms with the darkness in the ninja world and the author pulls it off.

Kakashi is about as badass as you'd expect a child prodigy who grew into his own with a world famous reputation. But there's nothing outstanding or unique about him yet. There's nothing that immediately gets me to think 'yup that's serpentguys Kakashi" nor is he quite at the pinnacle of refined fandom tropes the same way shezza's Sandaime is.

4/5 if it keeps up in this vein, but if he escalates the stakes as much as he does in his other story it could easily be bumped up to a 4.5.

 

The perfect jutsu ain't so perfect if you ask me. I'll admit I didn't read the whole thing and so don't know how it was addressed if at all.

Spoiler

The main issue with this technique is the pain transference. That veritable army that's being talked about becomes virtually useless the moment one captures a clone and starts torturing it without killing.

I will be withholding the rating till I learn more.

 

The story actually starts to go into some interesting things with the shared consciousness aspects, which I really enjoy. It's not too lacking when it comes to that, and I have hope that we'll get so see even more interesting/fucked up development in that area as the story progresses.

 

I believe it addresses that in one of the last few chapters, if you get that far. I agree with Palindrome's review, it's got a rough start, but it's not that bad a bit farther in.

 

Pretty damn good for now, I'd rate it 4/5.

People seem in character, it doesn't break SOD (besides the premise) and it's themes and feelings seem real. It's not very far along yet, still developing and I'm not confident on the pace, but we shall see.

The beginning was boring, I think the first three chapters could have been melt into a single one. But after the setups out of the way it get's more interesting. The fics still in the old early team seven setting, but has original moments. I loved the resolution to the bell test and Kakashi telling Naruto where he stands as a genin.

The summary gets a solid 10/cliched.

 

Okay, here is the biggest problem of a story with the premise of having more Naruto in it; it doesn't work out too well if Naruto is annoying.

But to be more fair.

The concept sounds like a story that should have been on Spacebattles, what with someone abusing a power such as this. Only, it is not written like that, instead it's an indyNaruto story.

It has all the elements, it has angry fuck Naruto who constantly demands, rants and lectures people, albeit not as bad as some other stories. The take on Sasuke is sub-par and Hinata is barely a character until now. A click on the author page reveals he has written several harem fics before, so, I think it is very likely that this will end up having at least shades of that.

One saving grace of the story is, that Kakashi, so far, is taking exactly zero of Naruto's shit, and is, in fact, doing his best to break him out of it.

It's a fun idea, have Naruto create permanent clones. Was not a fan of Kakashi not knowing who Naruto was, or the way Sarutobi feared what would happen. Honestly, that "Iwa must never know" mentality never really sat right with me. It seems very unlikely that Iwa would start a war or even send countless assassins to kill a 4 year old.

The whole take on the Genin Team dynamic is meh, though, what with Kakashi saying he is not their teacher and all, which doesn't really make much sense, all things considered. After all, they are calling him sensei and not captain or leader or whatever. He is there to teach at least something and to categorically reject that seems wrong, unless Kakashi is lying.

So, yeah. Granted, it has some interesting elements, but Naruto himself, so far, just isn't very likeable, Kakashi is weird, albeit still the most interesting character, Sasuke feels wrong and Hinata is barely existent and it has me confused as to why he made the decision to deny her the Byakugan for now.

The Zabuza and Haku stuff isn't too bad, and I quite liked both, the conversation and bonding between Haku and Naruto and the situation the two missing nin have found themselves in with regards to Konoha but the author bragged about avoiding the Wave arc and yet we still have to deal with Zabuza and Haku.

The Moose violating a horse statue is just bizarre. I got a chuckle out of Kakashi making moose jokes but that's it. Wish it would have been replaced with something else.

A generous 3/5

 

I give it a 3/5. The basic premise of permanent clones is interesting enough, but like Nemrut said, it's a premise that would have been quite interesting if the story explored how one might abuse the mechanics of it, rather than attempting at a story driven by character development of the main character.

It has some unique story arcs, so that's a plus, but the treatment of the jutsu as "perfect" seems at odds with central themes of the original manga, that every technique has a weakness, and battles between shinobi are not decided by who has the better jutsu or more powerful chakra, but tactical moves. In fact, this is even referenced by Kakashi in the fic.

There are issues that the story fails to explore, such as the need to feed, house, arm, clothe, these clones. And yes, Naruto himself is annoying. With the romance tag, I just hope the story premise doesn't become a tool to conveniently justify a harem that will become the focus of the story.

 

I'd have to say 3/5 as well. I like the premise and the writing, but honestly, the core idea could have been adapted in other ways.

The jutsu is not perfect. I find it ironic that in a show about ninja no one seems to recall the words of actual assassins -- the only perfect attack is the one that is neither seen by the victim until dead, nor witnessed by bystanders, that leaves neither evidence nor explanation.

I do like angry!Naruto, but only when he has a reason for him to suddenly mature, and for his anger to actually be justified. Go sit with Gaara for a while before you start up your emo whining.

And yet another 'miracleHina' fix fic where Hinata only needs his attention to improve. *rolleyes* The best part of the whole show for me was her pulling out that attack vs. Pain , something she came up with on her own without any magical assistance from Naruto -- or even encouragement.