My theory on the manga's short term future

[RamenNoodles]

So I read 196 and was blown away by how awesome it was and I really can't wait for the next one. Anyway, I was thinking about it after I finished and my theory is that all of the Genin's will either be incapacited by the sound nins or they will die, like it seems Chouji did. It is very clear that Neji is not going to be able to pull off any type of win against this guy he's fighting at all without killing himself by extracting too much chakra or at least being left nearly dead. Whether he defeats the guy is still up in the air to me. If he does lose however and he does die, I really don't think it would be so bad because it would be a step away from going down the DBZ path. Basically I'm thinking that In the end it will be a bunch of dead or immobile genins and a bunch of dead or immobile sound nins and Sasuke and Naruto will be left to square off in a (to quote Bill and Ted) most excellent battle (possibly with the Orochimaru watching over it).

Well. either my theory will be confirmed next manga or it will be denied. I just though you'd like something to scratch your brains with until next friday.

[Insomniac]

i strongely believe that Naruto and the genins will fail this mission, it'd be stupid if they dont. They will get far but it definatly wont be a victory for them.
if it ends up being Naruto vs Sasuke - Sasuke either wont lose or will escape, theres no way Naruto will kill him or even bring him back to the leaf.
Also it seems that there are much stronger members of the sound team to contend with which brings up the issue of even if Naruto does catch up with Sasuke theres a big chance of everyone being too wounded to even do anything about it.
i wont mention anything but look closely at the last page of the recent manga, look at the stance and where a certain object is - its obvious that theres going to be a turn around in the next chapter

[KevKoN]

well he did say "naruto ... if you were me ... what would you do." so maybe neiji used bunshin no jutsu, or maybe he even learned kage bunshin. but of course he also said "since i can't avoid these attacks anymore..." which made me beleive he was gonna do something desperate like get hit on purpose, but somehow not make it kill him, then surprises the enemy somehow. i dont know, im all confused and i just wanna see 197 http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/sad.gif

[Mut]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (RamenNoodles @ Dec 6 2003, 02:24 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> So I read 196 and was blown away by how awesome it was and I really can&#39;t wait for the next one. Anyway, I was thinking about it after I finished and my theory is that all of the Genin&#39;s will either be incapacited by the sound nins or they will die, like it seems Chouji did. It is very clear that Neji is not going to be able to pull off any type of win against this guy he&#39;s fighting at all without killing himself by extracting too much chakra or at least being left nearly dead. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
your theory fails cuz it isn&#39;t clear that &quot;Neji is not going to be able to pull off any type of win against this guy he&#39;s fighting at all without killing himself by extracting too much chakra or at least being left nearly dead.&quot;

what makes you think that this will happen when naruto and sasuke were both basically in the same situation with haku?

even though neji isn&#39;t a main character, i strongly believe that none of the genins will die cuz of the fact that they are there to support the growth of naruto&#39;s characteristics, personality, etc...naruto wouldn&#39;t be the same character if neji, shika, chouji, or whoever wasn&#39;t presented in the story.

[Chi Chi]

I&#39;m thinking that they&#39;re all going to win but be very wounded except Naruto. Kiba deals with the last of the Sound Nins while Kabuto arrives. Kiba wins but is wounded badly. Kabuto and Naruto start a fight and Naruto has to go full out (with as many Fox Chakra as in the Neji or Haku fight) The fight is even but using the ransengan, Naruto gains the upperhand. Kabuto heals himself and flees with Sasuke. Naruto then finds Kiba dying, then suddeny out of nowhere, a Konoha Medic nin appears. He heals Kiba and they track back to find all of their friends. They take them to Konoha hospital because the medic-nin doesn&#39;t have enough chakra to heal them completely. Meanwhile, Tsunade is operating Lee.

A couple of days pass and the normal life returns to Konoha. Tsunade, Kakashi, Jiray and the other jounins are studying data from what happened to Sasuke. Then we go to Kabuto and Sasuke training while Itachi is watching. He then thinks about why Oro left the Akatsuki (sp?), he goes to see him and sees that he can&#39;t do a thing. He decides not to kill him, the friendly guy he is. Then we see Lee and Neji wake up, then after a few minutes they see each other. After that it turns out Lee is okay and Neji and Lee talk about their rivalry.

That is why I think and it would give us another 30 chapters at least.

[RamenNoodles]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> your theory fails cuz it isn&#39;t clear that &quot;Neji is not going to be able to pull off any type of win against this guy he&#39;s fighting at all without killing himself by extracting too much chakra or at least being left nearly dead.&quot;</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

I don&#39;t know why everyone is always out to disprove everyone elses theory. What you wrote above claims to disprove my theory. However, What you wrote doesn&#39;t disprove it. Neji says that his &quot;chakra is nearly depleted.&quot; It is repeated a few time throughout the course of the series and the manga that when a ninja uses up all of his stamina and turns it all into chakra he will die. Neji is currently getting the crap kicked out of him and unless miraculously he manages to pull of a move that can stop the sound guy without using too much chakra, the only way he can defeat him is by using up a great deal of chakra.


</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>i wont mention anything but look closely at the last page of the recent manga, look at the stance and where a certain object is - its obvious that theres going to be a turn around in the next chapterra then he will die.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

I did look at that last page again and I see what you mean. He&#39;s definitely about to pull out some nice moves, but I think it will kill him.

[jing]

hm... if neji dies, i quit reading naruto.

[RamenNoodles]

some fan you are.

[Mut]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (RamenNoodles @ Dec 6 2003, 04:14 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I don&#39;t know why everyone is always out to disprove everyone elses theory. What you wrote above claims to disprove my theory. However, What you wrote doesn&#39;t disprove it. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
GG HYPOCRITE.

[Jiraiy4]

i think Neji has a too much of an important role to Naruto&#39;s (the ANIME not the kid himself) future, so i dont think he will die. I mean cmon now...Neji is the reason Lee got so strong, Lee had a person to chase after which led him to working hard and achieving those accomplishments, and obviously...he will fulfill Hyuga Hizashi&#39;s dream. I bet Neji will be the one who ends the Hyuga hatred and bring a new system thats better and stuff. Thats why i dont think Neji will die, and after that Naruto flashback...i think he&#39;ll fight his ass off like naruto, lee, and hinata did. I bet he&#39;ll be knocked out after he wins but he wont DIE...if he does..den dats juss way too gay.

[RamenNoodles]

You know what Jiraiy4? You&#39;re probably right. He is an integral part of the plot and they&#39;ve invested way too much time describing his past just to kill him now. I don&#39;t know. I just wanna see a good anime where they aren&#39;t afraid to kill off a main character, like Bebop and Hellsing. Sure, they aren&#39;t even in the same genre but it sure would help it from going down the DBZ path which everyone is so afraid of.

and I&#39;m a hypocrite Dazzz? I just told you the facts man. what I said before is true, if Neji uses much more chakra he&#39;ll die. that&#39;s a fact. I certainly think it&#39;s possible that he&#39;ll survive and win, as I just wrote. I also think it&#39;s possible he&#39;ll die and win. I also think Chouji is dead, but we&#39;ll just have to wait and see if I&#39;m right. I just think people should be more open to main characters dying. You were talking about how the other characters help develop Naruto&#39;s character right? Well, Neji dying could also help develop Naruto&#39;s character by making him into a martyr. Im not trying to say you aren&#39;t right. You very well could be and are pretty likely to be. Im just trying to defend my position and say that I could be right as well.

[Nine Tailed Demon]

For a show, DBZ, to be soooooooo bad. A lot of people have watched it.....

[jing]

Why would Neji using up chakra kill himself? We <u>had</u> seen Naruto in the anime wear himself out until he has no chakra. However, he didn&#39;t die from that.
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>some fan you are. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Dude, im Naruto fan. But it doesn&#39;t mean I always have to like what kishimoto gives me. I don&#39;t like it when everybody freaking dies all of a sudden. For me, Choji&#39;s death is good enough, he proved a point. Didn&#39;t have to go as far as Neji. Thats TOO far.

[Dragonblade]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Nine Tailed Demon @ Dec 6 2003, 08:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> For a show, DBZ, to be soooooooo bad. A lot of people have watched it..... </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
It&#39;s not about being bad. It&#39;s about what is cliche, over done and predictable. Or otherwise out-right boring.

[Jiraiy4]

you dont die from wasting chakra...we&#39;ve seen many ppl use up all their chakra and not die. Naruto wasted his chakra MAD TIMES, especially wen he was working on the rasengan, also Sasuke with Chidori, and Itachi with his menge sharingan. Im pretty sure Neji won&#39;t die from wasting chakra, but he can die from all that puncture on his body. Using up all ure chakra doesnt mean its over, chakra is juss inner energy, you can still use taijutsu with it.

[Immortal Boner]

If Neji dies it would just plain suck. But I could also see the point of Kishimoto doing that. By having Chouji and Neji dead (perhaps even Kiba), it would help shut the door on Sasuke&#39;s choice. Leaving him further away from any possible form of redemption.

Also, there can be a big development when Naruto learns that his companions are dead for trying to save somebody who doesn&#39;t even want to be saved. Will his vow for keeping Sasuke safe for Sakura be broken? Big drama can take place with the death of a few side characters.


And things are continuing to look grim for Neji. Somebody mentioned this on another forum but I&#39;ll state it here. The fact that the seal on Neji&#39;s forehead is revealed, could be to show him finally being free of it when he dies. That&#39;s a very clever way of making death his death seem meaningful.

Though let&#39;s say he survives. He&#39;s still going to lose an arm which would suck just as bad (how can you even heal from a big hole like that on your shoulder? Tape? Play dough?).

[RamenNoodles]

Well Jiraiy4, Since I&#39;m home from college this weekend and I have all the manga and anime there and I have none of those things here and a 56k modem to cap it off, I can&#39;t find the example I was thinking of, therefore I can&#39;t come up with a rebuttle to your argument. So... until monday.

[Delirium]

All I know, is it&#39;s a good thing Neji doesn&#39;t know about the Nine tails. Because what Naruto would do is use the Nine tails to keep going. Neji doesn&#39;t have access to that http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/wink.gif

As for Neji&#39;s arm, he won&#39;t lose it if he survives. Medic nins can heal that type of stuff. If they can heal a half paralyzed Lee, I&#39;m sure they can patch up a small hole in the arm.

Personally I thought that showing the mark was meant as more of a reminder of what the Jounin guy told Neji after Naruto beat him, and so that at the same time Neji could see the leaf forehead protector and remember stuff about his dad. The forehead mark is a great way to show if he&#39;s dead, or near enough to it to be freed of his cage though.

I want Neji to win, if only because I really don&#39;t like this spider guy, he just seems kinda stupid.

Though with the deaths of characters, what would happen to Sasuke if him and Naruto are fighting, Naruto is using the Kiyubi chakra, and then hears about Neji, Chouji, and maybe Kiba/Shikamaru&#39;s deaths? He thought Sasuke was dead and he flipped, what if he thought all of them? Would he be able to retain enough control to NOT rip Sasuke to shreds?

Oh, and the comparisons to DBZ, DBZ is a fairly good and decent show. It&#39;s major fall back is how slowly thinsg move at times, and the fact that Goku is the only one who can win apparently, but then again it&#39;s a kid show. DBZ does however have some of the BEST character development in it of all time, and it&#39;s the char development and going along the journey with them that kept a lot of people coming back for more, not the fights. Sure they wanted to see Super Saiyan Goku beat Frieza, but they wanted it as much because it looked cool, as they did because of how Frieza just wiped out Krillin (or Kuririn in japanese version). There&#39;s something to be said about connecting to characters.

Naruto is doing it to, the Neji fans really want Neji to pull through. A lot of people are pissed off at Sasuke for taking the easy way out. And so forth. Random relations to DBZ, I&#39;d say Naruto is the equivalent of Goku (Fun loving guy, eats a lot, and is able to draw on lots of strength from his convictions and desire to defend his friends.), Sasuke is Vegeta (Arrogant, thinks he&#39;s the best and has trouble getting over the fact that someone (Goku/Naruto) is better than him). Neji would be Future Trunks (doesn&#39;t really play around, just tries to end the fight. Able to realize when he&#39;s outclassed and tends to give up there (though he is fighting on now).Kiba, Shika, and Chouji would match up with Tien, Krillin, and Yamcha in that order (Though Shika obviously has advantages over Krillin, and the power-scales are a lot more balanced in Naruto).

Finishing my DBZ rant, Kishimoto has already claimed to be a huge fan of Toriyama&#39;s work and Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z. And frankly, I don&#39;t see anything wrong with him putting his own twist on a story heavily inspired by it. Lots of good in DBZ, it&#39;s just funny how many american anime fans hate DBZ because they still want to be different (not saying anyone here is like that. But I know people who hate DBZ because it&#39;s &quot;main stream&quot; they never seem to get that most anime that make it over here, is/was &quot;main stream&quot; in Japan for a while, why a company took a chance on it http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif

[Mut]

if you don&#39;t like dbz, it means one of two things, or even both:

you are like 14 right now so you haven&#39;t watched it when you were little and your view on current anime ruins how cool dbz is (cuz dbz is so out of date).

or

you are just straight up homo.

i mean cmon, dbz has done more for this world than what you and your family did, is doin, or could ever do.

[DeathscytheVII]

If neji dies, chalk up another reason for hating Sasuke http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/mad.gif

[Gabriel Angelfire]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Delirium &#064; Dec 7 2003, 01:40 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Sasuke is Vegeta (Arrogant, thinks he&#39;s the best and has trouble getting over the fact that someone (Goku/Naruto) is better than him). </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Lol except almost everybody liked Vegeta. Im saying this cus everybody that I met that watch DBZ liked Vegeta as theire favorite character. Thats from high school all the way to college and my workplace. I dont know about this forums though.

The people that I know that watch Naruto either dont like Sasuke for what he did or they always hated him from the begining. That includes girls to, well i only know 8 girls that watches and read the manga though.

[Stoopider]

People like Vegeta because he&#39;s a bad-ass. Thats all. He&#39;s the too cool for school kinda character. One who would either be lucky and be a somebody or a nobody.

But at the end, all bad-asses usually turn out alright.

[SirCharlesIII]

enough db-bloody-z talk. back to neji sacrificing himself. it&#39;s gonna be like naruto v kabuto...except this time we&#39;re in tsunade&#39;s position, i guess..

[Noonan]

Personally I think that Neji is going to go down - and possibly the seal will fade away (which would be interesting)

But I bet long term Neji and Chouji do survive heres how -

Shikamaru got this job directly from The 5th Hokage -

The 5th Hokage&#39;s apprentice as shown much earlier has run into the sound 4 and knows how dangerous they are - at about the time of the chouji battle she or one of the other members of that jounin mission could have reported to the Hokage what happened.

This would hopefully lead to the Hokage realizing how outmatched the Leaf 5 were and sending jounin/anbu/medical ninja backup (or maybe coming herself)..

Given the hokage&#39;s focus on healing and regeneration techniques, its possible that chouji and neji could &quot;die&quot; and still be barely kicking at the end of the storyline.

Done that way the characters could survive without it being too cheezy -

Noonan

[Uchiha]

I think neji will do something naruto like....something really unexpected that&#39;s why he took that last arrow to trick the sound nin or something by maybe playing dead so he would get closer to neji. Anyway I think something like that anyway but neji must win, they can&#39;t make him lose it would be awfull. Neji is for hyuga as Itachi were for Uchiha, they both were really genius even among their clans. And hinata&#39;s father even said that Neji maybe supassed himself and he is still a genin. So if neji would lose it would make the Hyuga seem weak and if the hyuga is weak then konoha would seem weak because hyuga is the strongest in konoha.....

[Zuttasoxx]

If you look closely to the picture you will see that that arrow is connected with the spider his tong so neji can force spiderdude to come close and neji will us ehis badass gentle fist and pow spider dude down. 2 for the leaf 0 for sound

[RamenNoodles]

Im not saying DBZ was bad. It was a great concept and besides the slow moving plot it was pretty good at first (You could actually see the characters fighting). However, after a while things just got way too repetitive and boring.

[Mut]

that cuz the whol dragon ball (db, dbz, dbgt) series had like 500 eps total.

[Stoopider]

The medic jounins are nearby.. just a reminder though. I&#39;m sure they can do something. Like Whatsisname getting punched a big hole in his stomach by Naruto.

[Immortal Boner]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Stoopider @ Dec 7 2003, 01:29 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> The medic jounins are nearby.. just a reminder though. I&#39;m sure they can do something. Like Whatsisname getting punched a big hole in his stomach by Naruto. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Oh yeah now I remember. It&#39;s Kabuto. But what&#39;s different about that time and now is that not only did Kabuto gather chakra to lessen the impact, it wasn&#39;t really shown as a see-thru hole. For Neji, it&#39;s a clearly a painful chunk of flesh ripped from his shoulder.

I sure hope you ppl are right. An armless or dead Neji would surely piss off most Neji-holics.

[narutosharingan]

Will someon explain something to me? Is chouji alive or dead? It seems to me that he is still alive but very tired....

[Elessar]

Maybe Neji will get into a near-death state, teh seal triggers, seals up the byakuugan and then he survives. Free.

We know that Neji can destroy kidoumaru&#39;s undestroyable spider web by releasing chakra into it. We also do know that he can extract that stuff from his whole body, as his body seems to produce it &quot;naturally&quot; or consist of it. So Neji sending some chakra big pack up the thread to him should be a serious problem for this guy.

[Immortal Boner]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (narutosharingan @ Dec 8 2003, 02:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Will someon explain something to me? Is chouji alive or dead? It seems to me that he is still alive but very tired.... </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
It indicates that he&#39;s likely to be dead since the butterfly is suppose to represent death or something like that. The flashback and finished life goals, add to the clues (though we did see Sasuke go through the same thing.)

It&#39;s anybody&#39;s guess whether the medic-nins can do something in time or not.

[Death BOO Z]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Elessar @ Dec 8 2003, 01:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Maybe Neji will get into a near-death state, teh seal triggers, seals up the byakuugan and then he survives. Free.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
which leaves hinata as the only genin with Byakougan and opens her an oppertunity to ditch Kiba and Shino, and will let her get some spotlight of her own.

i think the problem was that chouji had a too &#39;stupid&#092;easy&#39; fight and Kishomonto had to make up for it in the next fight, but becuase Kiba still needs 15 min of fame and he can&#39;t kill Shika (cuz he&#39;s too popular), Neji had the luck to be the one to die and suffer.

the &quot;sending chackra through the theards&quot; thing sounds too much like shino VS kanakruko or an electircal overload (think every ep of pokemon, or DBZ goku vs Yarkon&#092; Goku + Vegita VS cooler at movie 6). i would much rather have Neji get spidy with a comibination of Bunshin Henge (he was impressed when naruto done it) and have an anti-climax vicory than see how kishomonto struggels to keep this battle making sense.

it&#39;s pretty obvious by now that the&#39;ll fail, but we still need to know how close will they get to Sasuke, and if Sasuke will see how his new friends kills his old ones (not like Sasuke has friends, but you know).

[kaigan]

it&#39;s likely that they will fail this mission. I really hope that sasgay go to join the sound village. that would open a lot of doors for our hero(es). i think that at the climax, something to happen and it will be stop. like itachi shows up and kidnap naruto or something like that cause they want the kybui

[NaokiSama_5]

I must agree, there has to be some sort of failure to this mission. It&#39;s their very first huge one, and failing will have a very harsh reality to it for all of them. The points brought up in the beginning replies were awesome, I&#39;m agreeing with them. It just makes sense from a storytelling POV, there can&#39;t only be victory, there has to be some sort of failure for the eventual victory to seem that much greater.

[Uchiha]

I agree that they need to fail somtime but why againts some stupid soun nins that are leaching on cursed seal....I hate that&#33; they should all die&#33; stupid 4 sound&#33;&#33; caurse them&#33;&#33;&#33;

[Noonan]

I&#39;ve been Watching too much get backers lately I think - I keep expecting this story arc to end whith the Konohana five holding sasuke-in-a-bucket and Shikamaru asking the 4 gates of sound if they had a good dream.

... or not.

[jing]

Oh how about Neji&#39;s seal triggers, and then when they meant &quot;Seal&quot; they meant explode, so he Neji sacrificed his life and took down kidoumaru? =P

[Noonan]

or maybe now that Neji has a hold on the chakra line he&#39;ll just go into a rapid series of Kaiten spins and reel the spider into himself .....

[Assertn]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Zuttasoxx &#064; Dec 7 2003, 06:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> If you look closely to the picture you will see that that arrow is connected with the spider his tong so neji can force spiderdude to come close and neji will us ehis badass gentle fist and pow spider dude down. 2 for the leaf 0 for sound </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
yeah i noticed that same thing
im guessing neji will use that long cord to either pull kidoumaru towards him or run chakra through it or something, and the naruto-ness in that would be like those other times when naruto would just allow himself to be hit by an attack in order to counter.

As for chouji and neji dying.....well im not sure about chouji, but i&#39;d bet that at least neji will be discovered by that assistant of tsunade&#39;s who can heal...dont forget that she was around where the sound nins were earlier

edit: oh yeah, and since they&#39;ve frequently referenced the ability of neji&#39;s to &quot;enhance&quot; chakra flow by hitting his tenketsu, im sure they will have him use that in order to execute his attack on kidoumaru......they&#39;ll have to make use of that SOONER or later......

[Mut]

i&#39;ma just say. sasuke better come out of his basket and start fighting by ch 205 or i&#39;ma be pissed.

[kage_kun]

i believe neji will beat him. when that guy shot the second arrow threw the tree, neji noticed that there was a string attached to it, so he may have a plan to use that string to beat him by purposely getting hit.

[Nine Tailed Demon]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Death BOO Z @ Dec 8 2003, 02:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Elessar &#064; Dec 8 2003, 01:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Maybe Neji will get into a near-death state, teh seal triggers, seals up the byakuugan and then he survives. Free.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
which leaves hinata as the only genin with Byakougan and opens her an oppertunity to ditch Kiba and Shino, and will let her get some spotlight of her own.

i think the problem was that chouji had a too &#39;stupid&#092;easy&#39; fight and Kishomonto had to make up for it in the next fight, but becuase Kiba still needs 15 min of fame and he can&#39;t kill Shika (cuz he&#39;s too popular), Neji had the luck to be the one to die and suffer.

the &quot;sending chackra through the theards&quot; thing sounds too much like shino VS kanakruko or an electircal overload (think every ep of pokemon, or DBZ goku vs Yarkon&#092; Goku + Vegita VS cooler at movie 6). i would much rather have Neji get spidy with a comibination of Bunshin Henge (he was impressed when naruto done it) and have an anti-climax vicory than see how kishomonto struggels to keep this battle making sense.

it&#39;s pretty obvious by now that the&#39;ll fail, but we still need to know how close will they get to Sasuke, and if Sasuke will see how his new friends kills his old ones (not like Sasuke has friends, but you know). </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Shika more popular than Neji? http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/mf_dribble.gif You must be kidding....

[Nuts]

I don&#39;t think any of the genins are going to die. The reason I believe this is because thematically Naruto is not a dark manga. It&#39;s a lighthearted coming of age story centering on a ninja boy and his fellow classmates. Think about it, how many well-developed &quot;good&quot; characters have died? The 3rd Hokage. How many well developed villians? Haku and Zabuza. The only reason the aforementioned characters died is because their narrative purposes were fufilled. This whole one-on-one fight sequence fits the &quot;anime battle format&quot; perfectly. Each of our heroes are getting seperated, they fight a losing battle, but eventually win by the skin of their teeth. They are made to look like they are going to die, but the audience later gets some scene showing our heroes being healed moments before they bite the big one.

[Chi Chi]

Don&#39;t think Orochimaru would appear. He would get wiped out. Naruto just has to summon Gama Bunta and we can say, bye bye Orochimaru.

[Elessar]

Sure, 5 genin taking out 4 sounds that almost killed two jounins. Sure.

Sasuke&#39;s betrayal resulting in Choji&#39;s death and Skiamaru having to take responsibility for his death also has a narrative purpose in developing the characters. The world isn&#39;t nice with many many cute little thingies running around.

If Choji survives the story progress is somewhat around 0. There is no need for a second death of Neji or Kiba, but I regard choji&#39;s as mandatory.

[Come Come Paradise]

neji could use the kidoumaru&#39;s weapons against him...i think
kidoumaru should lose cuz if he doesn&#39;t he&#39;s gonna catch up and prolly fight another genin or so and i don&#39;t think kishimoto is gonna show all of kidoumaru&#39;s moves again and such and we won&#39;t be able to see tayuya and sakon in action

[Nuts]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Winged Dancer @ Dec 10 2003, 12:16 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> [QUOTE=Gabriel Angelfire,Dec 7 2003, 02:51 AM]
Regarding the other, lets remember that Shizune (Tsunade&#39;s lieutenant or second in charge) is close, along with other three jounins. I&#39;m sure that they were following the Sound Nins to a distance just to see what did they want to do - it&#39;ll be a matter of time before they find dead?Chouji, Severlywounded&#33;Neji and so forth.

SO my theory is;
Shikamaru leaves, fights, kills and almost dies,
Kiba leaves, fights, kills almost dies,
Naruto and Sasuke fight,
Orochimaru and/or Kabuto appear and take Sasuke away,
Naruto goes back, finds Kiba, drags Kiba back, finds Shikamaru, drags Shikamaru back,
Jouning team finds Naruto and the other two, they already have Neji and Chouji with them.
Shizune says that mostly everyone&#39;s condition is critical, they hurry back to Konoha, everybody ends up in the hospital except Naruto, who only spends one night there.
Lee gets his operation,
Naruto finds Sakura. He apologizes for not bringing Sasuke back, but promises he will do so one day - soon, of course.
Sakura cries, hugs Naruto.
End of Story Arc&#33; Introduce new storyline&#33; </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
That&#39;s the way I see it too. Everybody *almost* dies, but someone saves them. Hey, can you see into the future?

[kAi]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Noonan)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>or maybe now that Neji has a hold on the chakra line he&#39;ll just go into a rapid series of Kaiten spins and reel the spider into himself ..... </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

i think this would be a great way to get kidoumaru right up to him and suprise him...

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Elessar)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If Choji survives the story progress is somewhat around 0. There is no need for a second death of Neji or Kiba, but I regard choji&#39;s as mandatory. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

i agree i think one death out of them is enough...and that is to be chouji
not neji...
As we only know little of chouji it would be better to get rid of him now.

[Winged Dancer]

Perhaps. I&#39;m not telling you&#33; Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/wink.gif

Anyway, I don&#39;t think Orochimaru could be wiped just by Gamabunta. He&#39;d escape, and besides, he wouldn&#39;t be alone - Kabuto _has_ to be there. Oro just doesn&#39;t go on his own since he got his arms sealed.

Well, my main point is that I don&#39;t think all of the genins will die. Perhaps only Chouji, but not all the others. Medical ninjas are capable of doing almost the impossible, so I don&#39;t see why must the genins die.

I know I can&#39;t see the future or anything, but I bet we&#39;ll have at least one shot of Shizune thinking/saying something like &quot;His condition is terrible... we have to get him to Konoha soon or he&#39;ll die.&quot; while analyzing either Chouji or Neji... or Kiba or Shikamaru, since they are going to end up pretty beaten up too.

[Nuts]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Elessar @ Dec 10 2003, 01:59 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Sure, 5 genin taking out 4 sounds that almost killed two jounins. Sure.

Sasuke&#39;s betrayal resulting in Choji&#39;s death and Skiamaru having to take responsibility for his death also has a narrative purpose in developing the characters. The world isn&#39;t nice with many many cute little thingies running around.

If Choji survives the story progress is somewhat around 0. There is no need for a second death of Neji or Kiba, but I regard choji&#39;s as mandatory. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
You give great supporting evidence as to why some of the characters might die, and I whole heartedly agree with you. The genins are seriously outmatched and it looks like not all of them are going to come back, but I still don&#39;t think that&#39;s going to happen. Reason: I don&#39;t think Kishimoto has the balls to kill off one of his young &quot;hero&quot; characters. Yes, Haku was young, but he was a villian. The 3rd Hokage was a hero, but he was old. Keep in mind Kishimoto is writing for a Japanese audience and one thing I notice is that they hate to see their heroes die (unlike us here in the US who love to see our heroes go out in a blaze of glory).

[Winged Dancer]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Gabriel Angelfire &#064; Dec 7 2003, 02:51 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The people that I know that watch Naruto either dont like Sasuke for what he did or they always hated him from the begining. That includes girls to, well i only know 8 girls that watches and read the manga though.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Another girl here who also dislikes Sasuke pretty much. I don&#39;t hate him only because I know that the show, frankly, needs him for some drama to take place. On the other hand, I highly dislike him and hope Naruto will kick his ass at some point ^^

However, such ass-kicking will not happen now. Even if Naruto fights Sasuke, at some point (whether Naruto is winning or losing) the fight will be stopped by either Orochimaru or Kabuto, who will take Sasuke away.

Regarding the other, lets remember that Shizune (Tsunade&#39;s lieutenant or second in charge) is close, along with other three jounins. I&#39;m sure that they were following the Sound Nins to a distance just to see what did they want to do - it&#39;ll be a matter of time before they find dead?Chouji, Severlywounded&#33;Neji and so forth.

SO my theory is;
Shikamaru leaves, fights, kills and almost dies,
Kiba leaves, fights, kills almost dies,
Naruto and Sasuke fight,
Orochimaru and/or Kabuto appear and take Sasuke away,
Naruto goes back, finds Kiba, drags Kiba back, finds Shikamaru, drags Shikamaru back,
Jouning team finds Naruto and the other two, they already have Neji and Chouji with them.
Shizune says that mostly everyone&#39;s condition is critical, they hurry back to Konoha, everybody ends up in the hospital except Naruto, who only spends one night there.
Lee gets his operation,
Naruto finds Sakura. He apologizes for not bringing Sasuke back, but promises he will do so one day - soon, of course.
Sakura cries, hugs Naruto.
End of Story Arc&#33; Introduce new storyline&#33;

[newport]

it would suck in the long run......if naruto,sakura, sasuke were the only genins that survive later on http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/ohmy.gif

[PatternGhost]

Hmm... predictions&#33;

Chouji: Most likely dead. I think the butterfly and Shikamaru&#39;s reacton to it seal the deal there, and it serves a purpose in the story. OTOH, the series is, depsite its reminders of this being a pretty harsh world, fairly light-hearted. The Third just bought it, so it may not be time for another character death so soon, as those seem to be pretty well spaced out. Near-death may be good enough. If he does live, though, I&#39;ll consider the butterfly thing a bit of cheap trick.

Neji: Not likely to die. If Neji dies, that&#39;s a huge failure for Naruto, because Neji has repeatedly embraced Naruto&#39;s philosphy in this arc. He&#39;s going to do something unexpected (and hopefully less obvious than either yanking spiderguy out of the trees or sending chakra up the line) and pull off a victory. He&#39;ll probably collapse after that and be unable to continue. The story will probably show what happens to the rest of the gang, and not cut back to Neji&#39;s fate until the second Leaf team catches up to him. He&#39;ll be in for some down time, for sure. I&#39;m hoping at some point for him to develop a better relationship with Hinata, and to give her the help with her skills that her father wouldn&#39;t because he was too impatient to deal with his non-genius daughter. Hinata with confidence could be quite scary. And if she ever wants to have a romance with Naruto, she&#39;s going to need some assertiveness to keep him in line.

When the group catches up with the remaining two Sound nins, I think it won&#39;t go to one on one fights. After they lose half of their team, they&#39;re going to take things more seriously, and settle in for a serious fight. So, it&#39;ll be Shikamaru, Naruto, and Kiba verus the remaining Sound nins. I think the foul-mouthed female will end up being the matchup with Shikamaru in the smarts department, and the transvestite matched up with Naruto and Kiba in the power department. Since we don&#39;t know much about the powers of the last two Sounds, it&#39;s tough to call, but I&#39;m thinking Kiba will be taken out fairly early in the fight, with serious injuries. If Shikamaru doesn&#39;t use his shadow bind jutsu so Naruto can take out someone with his Kamehameha, I&#39;ll be a little disappointed. Something like that could get them to go into curse seal level two, which is bound to happen. Without one of Naruto&#39;s power moves combined with Shikamaru&#39;s strategy, I don&#39;t think they pose much of a threat, and seeing these guys at stage two seems to be the theme.

Sasuke: I predict...he stays in the barrel. I also predict an escape for the barrel.

Long term predictions:

I think Orochimaru may be Naruto&#39;s biggest personal battle. No matter what Naruto pulls out, he just refuses to acknowledge him, and beating an acknowledgement out of guys like that is what Naruto lives for. Something of the same could be said for Kabuto, but I think he&#39;ll live on past Orochimaru as an enemy.

The Sand genins: I think we&#39;ll see a lot more of these three in the future, probably near the end of the Orochimaru story arc. Gaara seems like he&#39;ll be the ultimate challenge to Naruto&#39;s philosphy, and not quite so easy as Neji to convert to his line of thinking, if it&#39;s even possible. Temari seems like an interesting character, and although she has a pretty wide mean streak doesn&#39;t seem to be completely evil. She has some potential as an ally of the Naruto gang. Kankuro will probably be along for the ride if there is any alliance, but grudgingly at best. As allies or enemies, these three will be back, because Gaara&#39;s story definately isn&#39;t over.

Naruto becoming Hokage: I predict that at Naruto&#39;s current level of wisdom, it will take approximately 19,458 more chapters for him to reach Hokage. Guess they intend it to be a long-running series. http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Chi Chi]

Gaara has already changed. The &#39;Thanks&#39; he said to Temari and Kankuro are a sign of that. He changed. I think he&#39;ll make a kameo reapparance after the Shuusaki is sealed better as Kazekage to help Naruto.

[PatternGhost]

I agree that the &quot;thanks&quot; was a sign of change. Good point. Of course, Sasuke said thanks to Sakura too, which was a sign of change, but then headed off to Orochimaru. It could be both of them have a bit more work. But you&#39;re right, he had won a significant part of the battle with Gaara already.

[AlbinoFury]

I think you guys are way too optimistic about sasuke hopping out of that bucket ready to fight for two reasons; just because it gives him the ability to go curse seal 2 he wont necessarily be able to just do it right outta the bucket. More importantly though remember how badly fubared the process put him in, they have to get him to orochimaru or he might die, its incredibly optimistic to think hes gonna pop out all healthy powered up and ready to fight. Other than that craploads of possibilities are available, they just better not kill neji or ill be hella pissed, they spent all that time developing his character for nothing if they kill him, they can kill chouji for all i care though, he had his cool moment, but he wasnt a key character, kinda like a krillin.

[Nine Tailed Demon]

in 143 jiraiya said the real chuunin exams are soon, maybe that&#39;ll happen...

[Insomniac]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Don&#39;t think Orochimaru would appear. He would get wiped out. Naruto just has to summon Gama Bunta and we can say, bye bye Orochimaru. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Orochimaru has his snake and is alot more powerful then Naruto, he can just seal him up again.

for those that said that its unbelievable that the genins are beating the sound nins after they beat 2 jounins - the sound nins all went level 2 to beat those jounins, and the jounins were out numbered.
If the sound nins had just stopped as a team they would have easily taken out the genin team (which is why they&#39;re probably making it 1vs1 to make it more believable)
also the sound nins are tired from fighting the jounins.

[Chi Chi]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Insomniac @ Dec 21 2003, 08:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Don&#39;t think Orochimaru would appear. He would get wiped out. Naruto just has to summon Gama Bunta and we can say, bye bye Orochimaru. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Orochimaru has his snake and is alot more powerful then Naruto, he can just seal him up again.

for those that said that its unbelievable that the genins are beating the sound nins after they beat 2 jounins - the sound nins all went level 2 to beat those jounins, and the jounins were out numbered.
If the sound nins had just stopped as a team they would have easily taken out the genin team (which is why they&#39;re probably making it 1vs1 to make it more believable)
also the sound nins are tired from fighting the jounins. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Orochimaru&#39;s arms are still sealed.

[Insomniac]

not for long http://www.gotwoot.net/forum/html/emoticons/tongue.gif