Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-31278419-20170331010234/@comment-17623-20170413113737

Just to add a bit more.

I'd have the other 9 Jinchuriki have a much larger in pact in the overall Narrative. While that does stretch my desire for the Konoha 12 to have a larger focus in the story, like Akatsuki, the 9 jinchuriki were all unique and could have told interesting stories.

Speaking of the Tailed Beasts, I would go further in the differences between the 9 of them and I would keep their power scale somewhat close. For example, I'm fine with Kurama being the strongest, but not so stupidly so that he can fight 5 of them without issue. Then I would give Kurama his own special ability to separate him from the others beyond "He's super strong".

As a continuation of my "less Uchiha" thing, I would remove Obito from play entirely. Him and Rin's tragic deaths in Kakashi's path was great, a fittingly dark history of a shinobi who's been in a world war. Having Obito still be alive and super evil cheapens that quite a bit.

Madara is interesting because I liked the idea of the "Infinite Immortal, Madara Uchiha". But in practice, there's a reason Kaguya came out of bloody nowhere: Someone had to stop Madara because he was way way to overpowered. I'd tone him down considerably, make his true power his master manipulation of the world government.

AND just because this caught my eye.

I can defend killing Neji. His arc was over. As a character, his character arc was "I hate everything because my destiny is that despite how awesome I am, I'm basically worthless so I will use my power to beat the shit out of my 'superiors' to show them who really is the superior one. Oh crap Naruto just handed me my ass, because unlike me who was resigned to fate Naruto decided to fight fate head on and take it into his own hands. Wow I was really a dick I should do everything I can to fix this."

That's pretty much it. To raise the stakes of the World War, one of Naruto's close friends had to die. There are only 2 people who could have been killed for it to work in the slightest: Neji or Shikamaru.


 * Sakura and Kakashi are Team 7 and are immortal as far as narrative is concerned.
 * Hinata was planned to be Naruto's waifu so in hindsight, she was also immortal.
 * Sai literally just had his character arc finished (him showing actual emotion for the first time when he had to fight his brother) so he got a pass on focus.
 * The above applies to Rock Lee as well, but this is because his story is by extension Might Guy's story and that arc met it's end with Guy blowing up his leg.
 * Yamato was already basically dead as far as anyone knew.
 * Kiba, Shino, Ino, Choji, and Tenten could have been killed but it would have had absolutely zero punch in the narrative. In fact, the fact that people point at them and state that they could be killed and it would have been fine proves this.
 * That just leave Shikamaru, a fan favorite, and Neji, another fan favorite. And of these two, only Shikamaru got noticeable development in the last arc (this ensuring his further use) because his dad took a Tailed Beast Ball to the face (along with half of Kumogakure). Neji had none of this since Part I because, as stated before, his arc was pretty much over. Anything else related to him would ultimately be part of Hinata's story arc which already has Naruto in it.