Naruto #34-64

Naruto #34-64

Originally released in 2000

Written by Masashi Kishimoto

Art by Masashi Kishimoto

As a result of the Zabuza arc, Kakashi feels that the trio of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are ready to take the promotion test to go up in rank, becoming chunin.  On one hand, this might seem sudden, but on the other hand, Kakashi was reaching higher ranks at a younger age.  The Chunin Exam arc is, I'd argue, Naruto at its best, and it significantly expands on the world and cast of Naruto, introducing a ton of beloved characters.  However, unlike the Arlong Park arc in One Piece and the Phantom Lord arc in Fairy Tail, it seems extremely unlikely that I'll be able to finish it in a single day.  It stretches from chapters 34 to 115 of the manga, though thankfully, it's clearly divided into sections.

Despite taking them on missions that Naruto dismisses as being "too easy" (though most missions would be a walk in the park compared to how the mission in the Zabuza arc turned out), Kakashi is confident that they can handle the Chunin Exams, even if Iruka (Naruto's former teacher) disagrees.  Naruto is annoyed that he's constantly in Sasuke's debt, though Sasuke throws out a remark that makes me dislike him more in hindsight.

Notably, once Naruto gets strong enough that it seems like he might have surpassed Sasuke, Sasuke proceeds to throw a fit and take actions that send him down a dark path. (the series' insistence that Naruto and Sasuke are the best of friends to the point that Naruto is willing to die for him feels odd to me) With the Chunin Exams beginning soon, people from other nations make their way into Konoha, including a trio of ninjas from Sunagakure, or the Village Hidden in the Sand.

The most notable member of the Sand ninjas is Gaara, who becomes one of the main antagonists of the arc.  Both before and after this point, the series makes a point to have Naruto realize that several of its villains are just like him, to the point where it can almost feel like a parody at times.  However, Gaara is probably the most effective examples of this - both of them have Tailed Beasts sealed inside of them, and were ostracized by their entire village as a result without knowing why.  However, Naruto had Iruka to support him, while Gaara truly had nobody - his own siblings are scared of him, while his father views him as a weapon.

Plenty of heroic characters are introduced here as well, such as Rock Lee, my favourite character in the series.  Unable to use the chakra that is needed for two thirds of a ninja's arsenal, Lee makes up for it by devoting himself to taijutsu/martial arts.  In a series with plenty of great underdog stories (such as Naruto himself, or Hinata, who's introduced later), Lee is the biggest underdog of them all... and it sucks that he basically never gets to win at any point in the series. As the series goes on, most of the supporting cast gets shoved into the background as the plot focuses more and more on the Uchiha clan to the detriment of basically everything else, but Lee gets hit by this particularly hard.

After Lee's sparring match with Sasuke, where he demonstrates that Sasuke's copying ability is ineffective if he can't move fast enough or hit hard enough to counter his enemy's techniques, we're properly introduced to other rookies from the Leaf village, who are all in three-person teams like Naruto's.  One team consists of Shikamaru, a lazy genius, Choji, who's energetic but constantly eating, and Into, with her and Sakura viewing each other as rivals for Sasuke's affections. (While Sasuke couldn't care less)

Another team consists of Kiba, an energetic dog lover, Shino, a passive ninja with a bug obsession, and Hinata Hyuga, who's severely lacking in self confidence and has a crush on Naruto that he completely misses. Hinata's cousin Neji, who has a massive chip on his shoulder, is on Lee's team, along with a girl named Tenten.  The series tends to stick to a pattern when it comes to teams, with an energetic boy, a stoic boy, and a girl who generally gets less focus than the other two.

Another villainous group that gets introduced is the Village Hidden in the Sound, who are looked down upon for being a small village in the middle of nowhere and are out to prove themselves in this exam. They serve as the more direct threat in the early part of the exam, though they wind up suffering due to being completely uninformed about key aspects of their master's plans.

The first phase of the exam is Naruto's worst nightmare: a written test dealing with problems so complex that experienced ninja would have trouble with getting the correct answers. Each student starts with ten points, with a point deducted for every question they get wrong, and they pass or fail based on the total team score. In addition, the entire team is penalized if one of its members is caught cheating.  While it's not mentioned by the examiner, the word "caught" is key there - the secret goal of the test is to cheat off of examiners who have been placed throughout the test takers without being caught in the act.

Of course, Naruto completely misses out on this hidden aspect of the test, only passing because of his refusal to give up. (Though some of the methods of cheating aren't subtle - Kiba's way of finding the answers is through a system that involves his dog barking, though his dog is intelligent enough to apparently do it quietly) Hinata offers to show Naruto the answers she got, as she's sitting right beside him, but he refuses since he doesn't want her (and both of their teams) to get in trouble for his sake.

Kishimoto does a good job at fleshing out the instructors in charge of each stage of the examination, despite them being minor characters overall.  The first stage is led by Ibiki Morino, an expert in torture and interrogation who designed this stage to weed out people who won't be mentally prepared to become full-fledged ninja, and he takes a lot of enjoyment out of psychologically torturing the rookies that he's testing. Kishimoto also does a good job at building the tension as characters decide whether they should accept or reject the question, as rejecting means you fail instantly while accepting and getting it wrong means that your entire team can never be promoted for the rest of their lives.

Stage two of the exam takes place in a massive fenced off area known as the Forest of Death.  With twenty-six teams remaining, the new examiner Anko Mitarashi intends to cut that number down by at least half.  Each team is given a scroll with one of two marks on it.  They need to defeat a team with the other type of scroll, safely get that scroll from them, and bring both scrolls to a building that's located in the center of the forest within a five day time limit.

It's anything goes in there, with even killing allowed, so after someone imitates Naruto when he separates from the group, Sasuke decides that they should have a password. (And he anticipates that Naruto definitely won't remember the password)

The next imposter proves to be much more effective, both at imitating Naruto and at defending himself.  This one isn't participating to get promoted to chunin, because he's far beyond that point already.  Instead, he's an experienced ninja who infiltrated the exam to learn new techniques, with his eyes on one up-and-coming ninja in particular.

His name is Orochimaru, the first overarching villain of the series, and he damages the Nine Tailed Fox's seal on Naruto and infects Sasuke with a curse before leaving. He wants Sasuke's Sharingan eyes for himself, figuring that they'll make him virtually invincible and able to master any technique that he sees, though he wants Sasuke to become more powerful first to make the Sharingan more effective.

Orochimaru is the leader of the Village Hidden in the Sound, though this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing - the Sound Ninja taking part in the exam are completely unaware of Orochimaru's direct involvement. With Naruto and Sasuke out of commission thanks to Orochimaru's attack, it's up to Sakura to defend their unconscious bodies - a task that she's unprepared for, which doesn't help her low self confidence.

Sakura's traps prove ineffective, resulting in Rock Lee having to jump in to save her.  This underlines a recurring problem with Kishimoto's writing - he's not good with giving women much to do or developing them as being able to defend themselves.  This is arguably a problem with the shonen action genre as a whole, but it sticks out because every team has at least one woman on it, and as ninjas, they all should be able to defend themselves in theory. (Lee's female teammate, Tenten, has a single fight in this arc where she loses off-screen with zero effort on her opponent's part, and it just goes downhill for her from there)

Sakura has a moment where she cuts her hair with a knife, sacrificing her looks to get out of an opponent's grasp after realizing that she's little more than a burden to Naruto and Sasuke, but the problem is that this potential plot point doesn't really go anywhere.  Despite realizing she's fallen behind her teammates and vowing to catch up to them, she never really does; they keep getting more and more powerful and while she learns some practical techniques over the course of the series, they're mostly healing abilities.  I get that she's the relatively normal member of the trio, lacking in any sort of legendary lineage or supernatural powers, but it's frustrating to see the potential for the plot to go a different way only to know where it winds up going.

The Sound ninja prove to be formidable threats, forcing Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji to jump in to save Sakura (Ino insists that she doesn't want Sakura to show her up in front of Sasuke, though the two girls were friends once), and the Sound trio only retreats when Neji (a prodigy among the Hyuga clan, one of Konoha's most prominent clans) shows up and Sasuke's curse seal from Orochimaru activates.

In this state, Sasuke is crueler to the point of sadism, breaking the arms of one of the Sound ninja in retaliation for what the three of them did to Sakura.  Despite being built up as a big deal, Gaara and his siblings have been noticeably absent from this part of the arc - that's because they completed the second stage a long time ago, with Gaara not having a single scratch or smudge on him.

The next few chapters flash back to how Gaara and company got to the central tower, with Kiba, Shino, and Hinata serving as observers.  We get a preview of what Gaara can do as he uses sand to shield himself, which is something that he does unconsciously.  It can also be used for offense, as he demonstrates on a ninja who's unfortunate enough to cross his path.

With time winding down, Naruto's team needs to find the scroll that they're missing, but their options are slowly dwindling as more and more teams finish.  Following the advice of Kabuto, a veteran ninja who's well-informed due to failing the exam seven times in the past, they go closer to the tower where other ninjas are waiting to ambush whoever gets close.  The ambushers use illusions and trickery to make up for being physical weaklings, while Naruto (after using some strategy with shadow clones and transformation jutsu) goes full Leeroy Jenkins.

With both scrolls in their possession, they enter the tower and open the scrolls up, which results in Iruka being summoned to their location.  If they had opened either scroll up beforehand, then he would have knocked them out, but as they made it to the tower, he congratulates them on passing before explaining to them what it means to be a ninja - to have a good balance of body and mind, and to focus on bettering yourself and improving qualities in areas where you lack.

Seven teams remain, so Naruto and company move on to the third stage of the exam, which is a good old-fashioned tournament arc, though I'm going to leave them here for now.  Going back to this part of the series reminded me of its high points and why I stuck with it even when some chapters weren't great, though it also served as a reminder of the flaws that the series had which stuck with it or were magnified as it went on.  The arc's not perfect (despite trying to make Sakura into more of a series lead alongside Naruto and Sasuke, nothing ever really comes of it), but it does a good job with fleshing out the setting, building up an amazing supporting cast, and establishing just how dangerous the life of a ninja can be.