Naruto Shippuuden Episode 96

[DarthEnderX]

What also I find weird is that every elemental user seems to have their own version of the shadow clone. From Water Clones, to Wood Clones to now Crystal Clones. It's alot of fancy words for what is essentially all thing-that-looks-like-me-and-dies-in-one-hit-jutsu. I wish they would explain differences between them because they always do that and I'm like "why didn't you just learn Shadow Clone?"

I wonder how clan members graduate from the Academy if they never bother to learn techniques outside their own clan.

And on that topic... how the hell did Lee graduate?

Kishimoto made a big thing of Naruto failing three times for not making a bunshin. The only other ninja to make Bunshins has been Sakura. None of the clan members have ever use them.

It's a pretty big plothole honestly. I mean, granted, graduation is pretty freeform and if a kid was obviously a taijutsu genius while being deficient everywhere else he could still probably get a pass.

But wasn't Lee shitty in everything before he got into Gai's squad? So like you said, how the hell did Lee graduate in the first place?

[Azonalanthious]

Sasuke also has the Sharingan. Presumably, he can learn any technique he's physically capable of learning (that is, anything but bloodline abilities and, possibly, elements he has no affinity for) just by watching someone perform it. Notice he's always got the Sharingan up when he uses Chidori? Probably because he learned it by watching Kakashi do it. Which is also how Kakashi "the Copy Ninja" apparently learned a lot of his tricks.

It was mentioned back when Sasuke first learned the technique that the core of Chidori was based around a straight thrust attack and sharingen was needed to read the enemy's responses well enough to get a straight forward attack to land. Which is why, I would assume, you always see Sasuke having it up when he uses Chidori. But certainly sharingen would have made it easier for him to learn the technique. However, to the best of my understanding, sharingen lets him see exactly how the technique is done - if he can't do the same thing though, he still isn't going to be able to copy it. Hence the fact that it can't copy bloodline limits. So if he had been unable to perform elemental manipulation, he would have had to master that before he could learn chidori even if he saw it with sharingen. As it was, even with sharingen, he still spent a month working on it before the fight with Gaara.