Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-36394790-20180824122210/@comment-34194151-20180903071448

I wouldn't say naruto was a mess prior to the time-skip. Naruto's strength has always been his creativity and unpredictability (due to his background as prankster, he really is a fox). Naruto isn't stupid, he has stupid moments (alot of it PIS/comedic relief) and sometimes gets distracted or overtaken by emotions, and he is a different type of learner. he struggles with theoretical concepts, and is much more a practical learner with an abstract mind. But From tricking neji with kage bunshins, transforming into akamaru to confuse kiba, transforming into a shuriken to free kakashi from water prison, his mastery of the rasengan, tricking those genjutsu ninja in the chunnin exam forest with clones + transformation jutsu, naruto proved himself to be actually quite an adept ninja even with a severely limited arsenal of ninjutsu.

His training with Jiraiya allowed him to gain wisdom and experience and to mature as a person. people seem to look at the kakashi bell test part two as evidence he isn't jonin level. the book series was a tailored psychological attack that naruto engineered, and that showed naruto's increased ability to find different ways to win a fight, sometimes it not just about brute forcing the situation. Naruto definitely was approaching jonin level if you look at his overall improvement, which built up to him actually being able to outmanuever kakazu with his clone feints, an opponent kakashi probably wouldn't have been able to take out by himself. The rasenshuriken itself gave naruto a haxed finishing move, but it didn't suddenly give him the skills he needed to actually land the jutsu.