Comments on: Mail Bag: April 15, 2009…

By: Arjuna

Arjuna — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:02:56 +0000

On the contrary i found that to be very interesting! I’ve actually watched youtube video’s of them levitating a frog with a crazy strong magnet. I think they also levitated water.

It was pretty cool…i wonder what the frog was thinking when it was floating….:D

By: shikome kido mi

shikome kido mi — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:54:12 +0000

I can’t remember where the discussion about Chidori and Rasengan was, so I’m posting this here. I finally got around to reading the later chapters of Naruto and I discovered that Kakashi knows the Rasengan. This makes his use of Chidori seem borderline insane, as the Rasengan has tons of advantages (it’s seal-less, has no charge time, has lethal and nonlethal forms, and Jiraiya demonstrated that it has a giant form that’s hard to dodge).
The only real advantages to Chidori as Kakashi uses it are that it has an elemental flavor (since I am forced to accept that it’s lightning, despite the fact lightning does not make large round craters) and it is implied to drag the target forward at high speed (which means Sasuke’s speed training might have been partly to allow him to keep his feet when that happened).
Elemental flavor is useful sometimes but a hindrance others thanks to the rock-paper-scissors elements of Naruto. Although, lightning does beat earth and Kakashi invented it in a war with Stone, so that also bears thought.
Being dragged into striking range at incredible speed is actually pretty handy for a melee style attack, though. Since most of it’s charge time is silent, I suspect the Chidori is a very useful ambush tactic, since you could do the seals in hiding (perhaps underground, since Kakashi likes that trick) and then slam into your foe at high speed before he figures out where the sound is coming from (perhaps before he hears it if you strike through a wall or the ground).
As to how that works, since the Chidori is not some type of kinetic force, my theory is that it is a railgun technique, ie it uses electromagnetism to accelerate an object (the user) to high speeds. Now, a lot of series will try to tell you magnetism is only good against metal but that’s woefully inaccurate. Ferromagnetism is simply the strongest and best known form of magnetism (and works only on certain metals). Water (which living things consist mostly of) is diamagnetic. This weak magnetic reaction can still be manipulated with powerful enough magnetic fields. Scientists have, for example, magnetically levitated frogs (why they did that, I can’t say, except that scientists get pretty wacky when left to their own devices). Google diamagnetic levitation if it interests you.

Well, hopefully that was more enlightening than mind-numbingly boring, since I do have a tendency to pontificate.

By: shikome kido mi

shikome kido mi — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:15:03 +0000

Well, that’s assuming that the swirl of leaves isn’t just a wind effect from high speed movement in a forest village known for having lots of them.
Also, if it is teleportation the Yellow Flash’s techniques look pretty useless, unless his advantage was not needing to make handseals or something like that.
As for doors: You may be right. I really do not want to go back through the series and check every use of shunshin indoors to see if the room contained a handy already open door or window (since as ninjas windows are always a viable exit regardless of floor) so they may or may not be able to open them. If they can? Plot hole.
But maybe the can’t.

By: The Unicorn

The Unicorn — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:07:37 +0000

That’s logical although not reasonable since it’s based on the very unreasonable assumption that shunshin is merely a high speed technique and nothing more. If that’s all it was then the swirl of leaves/sand/other stuff would be pointless and if it could be used in such precision as to get into/out of a room with a closed door it could be used extremely effectively in combat.

By: ArjunaAnja

ArjunaAnja — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:40:32 +0000

There’s also the irony in that she was a medic that was afraid of blood…-_-’ though that’s only after the death of both the brother and lover…that kinda sucks…

Then there’s the whole: snake beats toad, toad beats snail, and snail beats snake thingy…i totally forget where i heard that saying…if Kabuto was snake mans chosen right-hand man he’s got to be skilled in his abilities…

But ya if they’re suppose to be the legendary trio it sort of sucks that the girl in the group has stereotypically very emotional problems…

Black-Petal: Sakura was already living in the village during the massacre because Sasuke was around 8 at the time and already in the academy…but the indecent was probably hushed up to the civilian population at the time and only bits of information probably got to them. Sakura’s parents probably also didn’t want to say anything to her about it…though i don’t see how they made sakura totally forget that sasuke was an orphan when she was talking about Naruto in the beginning of the series…she would have still heard about it during her classes…*sighs* who knows…-_-

By: shikome kido mi

shikome kido mi — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:19:46 +0000

I went over the Tsunade fight again.
I think she lost less to Kabuto than to her own crippling emotional problems and then beat everyone else up after she got (at least partly) over those, so she’s not necessarily as weak as you were saying.
It’s still probably part of Naruto’s misogyny that it’s the female Sannin that has those issues, though.

By: Black-Petal

Black-Petal — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:38:12 +0000

As for why nobody noticed the massacre I think an explanation might the achitecturial. Not that I’ve ever seen a plan drawing of where the Uchiha’s lives, however I’ve heard it reffered to as the Uchiha district and once saw a documentary about asian (chinese?) architecture that showed the district/palace where the empereor and his family lived. The area where the clan lived was pretty much it’s own mini-community seperated from the rest of the community (both figurately and physically), with restricted entrace and leaving. I think this might also hold true for other less mighty clans.

If the Uchiha’s had a similar setup then the streets we see in the massacre scenes might have been inside this enclosed district. If everyone inside this isolated zone (including non-clan members and servants) was murdered and Sasuke out cold, then it would’nt be so suprising that it might not be noticed until the morning.

What I find much more unrealistic is that every single Uchiha (and carriers of the bloodline) except Sasuke was in the village, much less the same area at the same time. I don’t know how many they were, but they are refered to as a big clan. That must surley mean 50 people pluss? Even if they had some sort of clan gathering that evening/night it’s unrealistic that not at least one Uchiha was on a mission or police duty and/or out of Itachi’s reach that night. It would have been more realistic that he would have had to hunt them down over a period of time (or had help…) And even if all the village elders was in on it there should have been some unknown individuals carrying the bloodline that survived (illegimate children, outcasts living elsewhere ect.)

It wouldn’t suprise me if it turns out that Sai is a Uchiha bastard (a real ‘Teme’ XD)

If it’s true that the village was behind the massacre it would probably have been kept ’somewhat’ quiet.

Canon Sakura might not have have known about it since her parent’s are civilians (as far as I know) that might not know much about it. and it’s unlikely that that’s a theme they would discuss all that much at least in front of their young child. She was also bullied/ an outcast as a child and might not have had much contacts with other kids than Ino who knew and/or was willing to tell her.

Actually now that I think about it we don’t even know if Sakura was born in the village, she and her family might have moved there later on. We only that she took classes, was bullied and met Ino there when she was what? Five? Six? How old was she/Sasuke when the massacre happened? It was also probably an old topic and seldom talked about by the time she took an interest in Sasuke. She might have it mentioned but not the specifics and not made the connection. Who knows?

By: shikome kido mi

shikome kido mi — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:45:27 +0000

Speaking of shortcuts, I have thought of an expansion of my earlier idea that the shunshin technique is used because it’s easier to learn, despite being far more limited, than physical highspeed movement.
Gai and Lee’s training schedules are clearly viewed as abnormal even among ninja. They’re shown as devoting a lot of time to improving and even just maintaining their body. This becomes an issue when you consider all the things ninja have to know: not just taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu but also stealth, traps, tracking, codes, poisons, and so on. When you consider that they also have to eat, sleep, and go on missions, most ninja would probably take the faster route so they might have a little time to do something unrelated to their job (like read [usually porn it seems] or talk to their friends).

By: The Unicorn

The Unicorn — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:35:16 +0000

Very intresting responses and they’ve reassured me that the world you’re building is logical and well thought out. I’d like to clarify what I meant as you seem to have misunderstood some of the things I previously posted:

-Insults: I was answering another poster explaining why I saw Lord Harrano’s reaction perfectly reasonable, not criticizing your description of Kohona’s attitude.

-Beheading: I did not mean to suggest Kurenai could avoid the blow, however she would try to do so which since actually beheading a person with a sword requires the sword and person be almost perfectly positioned while her jerk of movement in response would not be enough to prevent her clone’s dispelling it would be enough to prevent her from feeling the sensation of being beheaded. Not that I’d expect her to find the sensation of having a sword chopping into the side of her neck, or cutting her throat or severing her spine , etc… much more enjoyable.

By: ArjunaAnja

ArjunaAnja — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:44:33 +0000

He also could be thinking outside the box.

Who better to have as a quard than than a person who thinks like a would-be attacker.