Humble Shinobis: A diligent Hard-worker or a Hidden Genius

Part II

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No part on the over-estimation of one's talents can ever be complete without talking about Shikamaru: utterly ineffective in the manga, he's yet another character whose genius "sticker" is the endless source of my amusement. Basically, "Dunning Kruger Effect, the character", he flops all over the place with whatever nonsensical voice of reason he's . . . supposed to be in canon; he's basically another one of those "if I just try, I can be a genius like Shikamaru, too; but I'm just lazy!" character types that people assume to illustrate "humble beginnings" of a character whose arrogance is justified, apparently. The problem is that Shikamaru is none of those things and many of other . . . unsavoury things.

The first issue that began with Shikamaru is that he was introduced as this impossible prodigy (who, by the way, by his own admission, looked up to Sasuke for just about everything—I'm not even making this up as these are his exact words) whose strategizing was out of this world—so out of this world that many would stop in awe that how could any mortal come up with fucking two-hundred steps to get ahead of the enemy? Sadly, Shikamaru barely exhibited five per battle and, even then, he created about half of those mid-battle, and still every little detail blew up in his face—quite spectacularly. His talk on politics is even less intelligent than what he brings to his horrendously strategized battles.

The only time that Shikamaru actually put forth something of value was against Team Dosu's Kin. There, he won fair and square against a young girl of fairly mediocre intelligence. What else did he do? Nothing—no really, I'm speaking the truth. Rattle your brains a bit and you'd see that the "big-todger-energy" that he's supposed to bring to canon is non-existent. Oh, and that one time he devised a plan whilst being inside that big fat Sound Four's member's boulder trap that sucked the Retrieval Team's chakra, but Neji was the one who noticed everything first. See what I mean? It's hard to think of anything impressive that this guy's done. Against Temari, he was promoted to Chūnin just like that when his promotion makes no fucking sense; since, the Chūnin Examinations were designed to vet the best candidates, there's no reasonable rationale for anyone to pick this guy as a Chūnin whose poor strategy led him to not only forfeiting the match but also not coming up with a proper counter to not prolong the battle; but not only did the judges deem it fit to raise this guy's rank, which people like Neji and Sasuke were literally robbed of, but he was also selected as the mission leader—the same guy who can't strategize effectively and ends up forfeiting battles? Why would any individual invest money in this guy? He'd be like, "my body's Judas—a slave to leisurely pastime. I'd be a genius in another time!" And everyone's jaw, tit, and prick would drop to the floor, because he's just that fucking cool!

However, lo and behold, it came to no common-sense holding individual's surprise when he ran out of counters (only after eight mind you, not two hundred—screw you, Asuma; how does that rod feel?) against a far better opponent like Tayuya, and Temari had to step in to end her. (What a fucking kick in the bollocks that battle was?) And from here on out began Shikamaru's "impressive" streak of failures from beginning till the end—with a foot in the mouth for his quotable lectures on politics. I do like Kishimoto (in fact, I may even love him—no, not like that, because he's not my type), but, sometimes, the man makes it kind of hard, you know?

The first time we're introduced to Shikamaru in a serious light, beyond his tedious sexism (which he exhibits with great liberty), is that he's shown playing Shogi with Asuma, because playing that means that you obviously must be a genius, even though playing these "thinky-brainy" games, which might include lego for all we know, is the oldest trope in the book that's meant to show that the character in question is "very smart". What it means is that he'd instantly tell you that where his arsehole is—that kind of smart—without a Shinobi flare in sight!

Then Asuma went and got himself . . . err rod-ed (?) and Shikamaru fell off the cliff alongside him—in great depression, of course. First, it makes no sense for this guy to take this shit that personally. Asuma died on active duty. That's what he signed up for. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? The whole drama surrounding this was inane as Chūnins disband immediately after attaining the ranks, which means that he'd nothing to do with Asuma after he attained that rank. What was Shikamaru going to do if it wasn't Akatsuki? Would he have taken out another Shadow Village's Shinobi for daring to kill his former mentor? Would he have carried out an unauthorised espionage act against another state-actor over this? What then? Incur a counter-aggression in response? You see, when people claim that Shikamaru's revenge was justified and within reason (lol?) compared to Sasuke's, it's a very stupid suggestion as Asuma's a soldier, and that's the part and parcel of military life. You can get killed on duty, but that doesn't invite a state-level response. A victim of a state-sanctioned act of violence isn't the same as a young man who lost his teacher to random violence against a rouge shinobi (he was literally on a mission). It's very absurd to compare the two. Shikamaru should've sucked it up and dealt with it. It isn't as if that violence forced him to ponder on the Villages' hegemon (he's not that bright), so the "point" of the revenge arc is . . . well, there's no point beyond the fact that Naruto had learnt a bigger Rasengan—only now, it was windy, too. He just wanted to say, "my Will of Fire dogma is greater than your Jashinism, so I'm your God." No, that's what he said.

And that's what brings me to the infamous battle against Kakuzu and Hidan, which was built through this long-winded collage of scattered scenes that told us that Shikamaru was this out-of-this-world prodigy that you wouldn't believe, who was so fucking righteous that the Lord himself shone out of his hindquarters with extra shine on his robes; yet you tentatively touch that short arc and it falls apart piece by piece; it just tells you as to how petty, stupid, and egoistic Shikamaru is; and there's no characterisation to back up any of that pomposity.

That battle between Kakuzu and Hidan against these rag-tag idiots (save Ino, whom I actually like) was so fucking stupid that I question anyone's intelligence, who took it even remotely seriously, let alone being the defining example of "morally sound decisions". You people crack me up! All lot of misconceptions are spread about the battle in this regard, so let's break them down:

- Asuma and Kakashi were never close friends. Not even fucking close. This is absurdly made-up. People should put an end to their desperation to grant Kakashi some modicum of characterisation when he has very little of it beyond his circular-caricature antics.

- Shikamaru was pretty much content with dragging along a three-team unit (when a four-team unit is the minimum requirement for missions) to take on Hidan and Kakuzu when he had no fucking clue about the latter's abilities save that he's capable of using threads. Literally. That's all he knew. Fucking genius!

- It was by a sheer coincidence that Kakashi intercepted the team, and that's purely because Tsunade was smart enough to actually stop this fucking lunatic, which would be Shikamaru, at the gates. Kakashi never intended on joining them. This was never a planned battle. (People poke fun at Sasuke's decision to take Taka along to Bee's battle when that's actually genius strategizing as all his Team-Mates offer a plethora of advantages; get back to me when any of Shikamaru's team-mates can deflect a Bijū-Dama and heal mortal injuries, including completely blown-to-bits organs.)

- Now, here's the real kicker: Hidan and Kakuzu had sealed two tailed beats for six straight days and nights (that's the sole reason why Asuma's idiot brigade survived as the two were called back to Pain's hide-out to seal right after killing Asuma—and when I say right after, I literally mean a moment after); and as soon as they got out, Ino found them via her mind-transfer technique on a bird! There was no resting for Hidan and Kakuzu between killing Asuma, sealing two tailed-beasts, and their battle with this troupe of jesters. So, basically, they were beyond exhausted when the Team decided to take them on as they'd been sealing all this time while Shikamaru thought of his "genius" strategy that'd put an elementary school child's plan to shame. You go, Nara!

- Right before this, Shikamaru thought over this idiotic "simulation" of his when he had, as I mentioned before, no fucking idea about Kakuzu's entire skill-set, save the threads!

- As their kiddy plan went, Kakashi aimed at Kakuzu from behind. He went at him with the intent to kill. Now, here's where everything falls apart: why did he use the blood-capsule on a guy he knew he was killing? He literally took his heart out. Why would he use a blood capsule at all? And that's why I find Shikamaru's character deeply obnoxious, absurdly stupid, and just full of hot air when he's delivered nothing (literally nothing) of even a little value since that one time against Kin from Team Dosu: it's almost as if Kishimoto wrote Shikamaru with the secret knowledge of the hearts; otherwise, why'd Kakashi take the blood when he was shocked (after getting his ass drilled into the dirt) that Kakuzu survived? He could've been killed! Kakuzu could've gone for Kakashi's heart right off the bat and killed him there and then. He got insanely lucky that Kakuzu didn't do it, or it's his usual impenetrable immortality in the narrative. After all, this idiot died against Deva and was brought back, so his immunity in the narrative is quite satirical.

This turning point in the battle is so out there that it's beyond senseless. I get shocked by people who think that this fight is even remotely strategic. It's not. It's a one long list of very idiotic decisions, a senseless juncture which the narrative itself had to solve. (It's like that decision by Hinata against Pain that made it way too obvious that, somehow, she knew that Minato would reverse her colossal fuck-up.) Really, as thick-headed as Kakashi is in almost all of the battles, why would he put himself in a compromising position that could prove to be highly fatal if he knew about the hearts and the fact that Kakuzu can take them out—just like that? This manga isn't that deep, but do the readers ever bother rubbing their two under-worked brain-cells together? Really, to overlook something so simple is . . . impressive!

- And so Kakuzu pops out his remaining hearts, and it's Kakashi that analyzes almost all of the ability, not Shikamaru; and he's so fucking smart that this is point where he decides that they should split up Hidan and Kakuzu. When you learn that, it forces you to think: what was this buffoon's simulation about, anyway, if he's thinking of doing this now, in the middle of the fucking battle? Christ, he's so offensively stupid. (Now you guys know why I can't stand his character.)

- And what was his "grand" plan? The Raiton mask launches Raiton, and he starts pulling out scrolls to cancel it! Scrolls! Against Akatsuki! Choji and Ino would've fucking died several times over had Kakashi not stepped it to cancel that and his other Jutsus. What the fuck was this guy thinking? He only took scrolls with him to battle one immortal and the other guy who he knew almost nothing about (he didn't think of anything even slightly intelligent to counter the two)? Is this the guy people fanboy as being smarter than Sasuke, whose Strategic Feats are literally the best in the manga? Christ on a unicycle! You people aren't even subtle about this stupidity, are you?

- And Kakashi himself died twice, but he was saved, because . . . reasons. And the second time he nearly got killed? Had Naruto not shown up, Kakuzu would've butchered all of them and taken their hearts; but, hey, let's forget about all of this and pile on Sasuke!

- And what was Kakashi's plan in all of this "I'm going to help this pitiful doofus get his revenge"? None that I know of. It isn't even a matter of moral quandary; he had no foresight to handle this situation. No, he tagged along like a fucking child in Shikamaru's plan; so the excuses that play the "he's a depressed guy" and "he was looking at matters in a level-headed, cool, and mature manner over that Sasuke incident as both of these revenges aren't the same" games are very desperate in their reach. Very sad, too. They couldn't be further from the truth or this guy's actual portrayal in the manga: a blundering fool who's not very good at assessing even slightly complex situations; he's more along the lines of a "sic 'em!" Leaf's guard-dog who's got very little idea about most things, which would explain his dismal performance in the Third Great War as a newly appointed Jōnin. Boy, did he get his arse flattened at every turn in Gaiden!

And this has nothing to do with the over-played "he's emotionally stunted" bullshit that's seldom backed up by the manga. He literally had no plan, and by agreeing to accompany Shikamaru, he got the whole team slaughtered (if we take his sheer dumb-luck out of the equation when Naruto showed up in the nick of time while Kakuzu had his threads stuck up his arse). Really, his lack of plan and foresight have nothing to do with his "depression" or "wow, so sad" past; so why do you people even make this connection? He was nearly just as stupid as Shikamaru whom he chose to aid on his suicide mission. Let's face it, Naruto saved all of them. Kakashi doomed them all. So I'm going to say this here: I'm glad that this jackass didn't let Sasuke get his revenge or didn't help him; because if this is what his "help" looks like, I think Sasuke was better off without it.

I went on a tangent on Kakashi there, but what did Shikamaru himself learn? Oh, he can expand his shadows a bit—how cool—something which only came in use once when he decided to split them up! That and he smokes now, which is a very, very, very . . . very deep metaphor for the fact that he's taken on Asuma's Will of Fire. Boom! Who saw this coming? And when he blew up Hidan, he declared himself to be a God . . . over this dreadfully conceived strategy: his ego and pomposity are inversely proportional to his IQ—I can't stress this enough! Why? Well, we didn't learn anything grand from this battle; we didn't come away with any narrative aspect; this wasn't even an effective portrayal of a Shōnen battle. We just learnt that Naruto's new Rasengan is really fucking huge and it's really fucking windy and it makes really fucking big holes—literally. That's it, and I'm shocked that people think that Shikamaru had anything decent to add to any of this.

The thing is, Shikamaru's praise as a "level-headed genius" that's rife in this fandom is an anathema to me. He's one of the few characters that have been bungled beyond belief as Kishimoto wrote him with the intention of "character depth", not this.

A part of this Fandom, as I've repeatedly noticed, has a lot (and I mean a lot, like "Sasuke pissed into my eyes" lot) of issues with Sasuke's prodigious status, and their issues are expensive to the point that they're blind to the superficiality of other characters. They, with glee, enjoy taking any moron that presents himself as Sasuke's antagonist; and Shikamaru is a fantastic illustration of that stance.

And while there are quite a few examples of his complete short-coming as a character, thematically or narratively, none highlights it more than the Kage Summit Arc, during which Shikamaru endeavoured to bring Sakura to his side in regard to ending Sasuke's life.

That isn't something that I have any issue with. Within Shinobi-creed, that'd be an expected outcome; but what I don't understand is his faulty reasoning: why would Kumo attack Leaf in the wake of Sasuke's "transgressions"? He's a Missing-Nin, remember? And, furthermore, why Sakura or any other active Leaf Shinobi ought to shoulder the responsibility of hunting down Sasuke when it's the duty of a Special Ops (Anbu) Branch that exists specifically to eliminate Rouge-Nin and to engage in covert operations?

This leads to a very odd juncture that's as preposterous as it's farcical because, by turning this into a "moral quandary", Shikamaru has created a strange premise that's outright paradoxical to what's been written in stone: we must hunt Sasuke as it's our duty as Leaf Shinobi because he's gone rouge; and we must hunt Sasuke as Leaf Shinobi because, if we don't, that'd lead to serious consequences.

These two present a contradiction to the Shinobi mores that Kishimoto had established since Part I: if it's the duty of every Shinobi to hunt Rouge-Nin, the purpose of the Special Ops Branch is purposeless; and if serious repercussions would occur in the wake of the Missing-Nins' "escapades", it'd have been political suicide for the sitting Kages to hire them, even though that's never been canonically proven, or it'd have resulted in many wars between Shadow Villages in the aftermath of their so-called "terrorist" activities (Akatsuki didn't amass this much capital out of the thin air; they were repeatedly hired by the Kages for this). Only one of these can be true, yet Shikamaru tries to bring these two together, and I found it very absurd that this was taken as something "remarkable" by the Fandom. Why? Well, he dislikes Sasuke, so he must be a fucking "gee-ni-us!", dotchya know?

And while we're at it, I want to make one thing crystal clear: Raikage's purpose when it comes to the meeting wasn't to gather together a squad and hunt down Sasuke; it was to collectively deal with Akatsuki as a threat; Sasuke was but one aspect of it. That's the reason why Samui, Omoi, and Karui took Sasuke's details directly from Leaf in lieu of a surprise military aggression. (Are basic politics beyond you people?) That means that everything points in the exact opposite direction in regard to what Shikamaru established before Sakura. There's nothing even remotely intelligent about what he stated and whatever "urgency" he created was entirely preposterous.

People enjoy attacking Sakura's poor decisions (in fact, they take excessive pleasure out of this) to ad nauseam and beyond (heck, I've done that myself, but that's done within another context to take a piss at her diehard Fandom who, somehow, blame Sasuke for her mishaps in this arc!); but what do you expect from her? She hasn't been trained in tackling the Missing-Nin business. She just took this responsibility upon herself because of Shikamaru's childishly pedantic moralizing that had nothing to do with the realities of Shadow Villages' Shinobi-Creed. Shikamaru simply pushed quite a few of his Team-Mates into death's maw without any sensible plan in sight. How did he plan on subduing Sasuke, let alone killing him? Did he forget that Madara (yes, I know that that was Obito, but it wasn't brought to light at that point in canon) was with Sasuke? Knowing that Sasuke moved with Akatsuki, what was he planning to do about Kisame who was very much alive at this point? Nothing? Brilliant! What a remarkably intelligent guy, because he doesn't like Sasuke, a true Scholar among mere mortals! (Not that that's anything new as any half-decent reader can easily recall the few simple facts about his previous endeavours!)

Keep that in mind that the characters that decided to tag along with Shikamaru didn't read the manga, so they don't know that how his defeat of Hidan and Kakuzu was due to Kakashi (who, by the way, was never a part of Shikamaru's oh so awesome "simulation") and Naruto and a hell lot of pure dumb-luck; and during the battle, it was because of Kakashi that Shikamaru didn't die twenty times over, along with his friends; therefore, all these naïve characters placed their trust in him based on his "illustrious" performance against the Akatsuki. They genuinely believed that he was some kind of "expert" on taking them down. Because, let's be honest, who else from Leaf had taken down Akatsuki before Shikamaru? No one! (Yes, I know that you'd bring up Sasori, but he took his own life and Sakura was backed by an experienced Puppet Master bar none; so let's not try and think that every situation which involved the Akatsuki was the same, especially since that was a Joint Operation in which seasoned Shinobi like Chiyo, Kakashi, and Gai were involved; it wasn't akin to a couple of naïve rookies taking on colossal threats.) An experienced Jōnin (Asuma) died horrifically in battle against them; and to top it off, he was Shikamaru's Squad Leader; hence, in their eyes, Shikamaru triumphed where Asuma failed. That'd … truly be a big fucking deal, and it's shocking that this aspect is wholly ignored in this Arc's or Shikamaru's contextual criticism. That's why I always advise people to not analyse content in bits and pieces, cherry-picked chunks, and complete isolation. If you do that, you'd miss the rhythms and beats each actor and event being to the narrative's overall value.

And, frankly, you can attack Sakura all you want in regard to her Fandom's vapid stance on many aspects, but that doesn't change the simple fact that Sakura was never trained for this situation; and it isn't unrealistic that, faced with a high-risk threat like Mangekyō Sharingan (MS) Sasuke who's a force to be reckoned with, she panicked and made very poor decisions. That's fantastic writing that's rooted in verisimilitude as a person who's untrained for hair-trigger situations would fumble, panic, and make extremely terrible choices. A good illustration of this would be Test Pilots versus Commercial Pilots response in the event of an emergency; the response to active action between the two is about 5 seconds too late for the latter, which in life-threating situations is a fucking life-time; so you don't allow a commercial pilot to flight-check newly purchased air-crafts; no, that's a test pilot's job!

In the light of the above example, Sakura, along with the other rookies, would be like a commercial pilot who's unceremoniously thrust into a test pilot's situation when she shouldn't be; and all of the blame lies with Shikamaru; and you can't brush it off with some wildly foolish statement that her training as a medic, which allows her to keep a cool-head in case of patients with life-threating injuries, would magically translate into tracking down, tackling, and taking on S-Class Missing-Nins. That's an incredibly stupid claim! (It isn't a surprise that Sai was the only sensible individual out of them all; it's that he's killed plenty of targets before on Danzō's orders, so he's aware of the risks involved.) Then why's it shocking to people that Sakura's plan was poorly thought-out and she hysterically veered between conviction to kill and confusion to desist? I didn't see any "sexism" in any of this, just an untrained individual who was in well over her head. This wasn't the sort of situation that Sakura or the other Rookies ever should've been in. It was legitimately beyond her capabilities, and there's no "misogyny" in suggesting that. Now, you can claim that Sakura and others shouldn't have taken up Shikamaru on his offer, and really, it doesn't work that way: for one, he's a Jōnin at this point who's presenting a very threatening scenario that could potentially affect Leaf's sovereignty; two, Shinobi sort of jump into any opportunity that'd bring their village prestige; and three, with Tsunade in coma and Danzō taking charge, Sakura was between a rock and a hard place, as he could've passed any order against Naruto in Tsunade's absence in regard to his obsession with Sasuke (he would've outright taken Naruto's freedom!); so keep everything within the picture when you analyse this Arc.

To digress here a bit, everything Shikamaru stated to Sakura can be applied to himself, as well, when he took on Hidan and Kakuzu; his flippant attitude could've resulted in anyone's death and a "cycle of vengeance" would've been created between his friends' families and Akatsuki and the people (which are almost always from Shadow Villages) who hired them; however, the narrative absolutely fails to frame this in a neutral manner as Shikamaru's shown to be a voice of reason when he's not. He hasn't said one intelligent thing in the entire manga—not a single one.

My point is, Shikamaru's capacity to blunder even in the most straight-forward situations is impressive! Here, he concocted a reasoning that's bereft of any code of conduct that's known to Shadow Villages' Shinobi. What was Kishimoto's purpose in showing that? That's hard to suggest, but what I see is a gargantuan military mishap from a rookie whose unearned arrogance got the best of him all the fucking time; and Sakura, or any other Shinobi, wasn't responsible for that. She simply received the brunt of his profoundly stupid logic.

And that's not the only time he was utterly clueless. During the Pain's arc, he had little idea how to piece the codes together; Sakura figured that out quicker than him, and I don't consider her to be a prodigy. She's superficially intelligent, but nothing to write home about. The figuring out of the fact that the real body that's controlling all the bodies is somewhere close by due to the chakra-signals' range (like signal-boosting towers)? Ino's father, Inoichi, laid out the whole thing in front of Shikamaru, and the dude was still clueless. During the Fourth Shinobi War, he decided that it was a bad idea to make the Jūbi lose its balance, apparently, by making someone raise a wall under one of its feet (it'd have toppled it instantly; and we've seen a Shinobi, Onoki's son, from Rock completely immobilize it between two stone-walls) and a great idea to put walls in front of mini-nukes that wiped out two islands. Had Minato not shown up, he'd have only killed . . . everybody!

People think that this fool's some sort of actuary who can predict not insurance risks, but battle risks; but, you see, he doesn't like Sasuke, so he's obviously a very smart guy!

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EN: The points are picked up from a discussion with a friend.