Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-31278419-20170309233927/@comment-9782468-20170310050353

If you remember, basically every named Shinobi in the series was on some level "better."

Like, you'd always have people in the background going, "wow, to be at this level at this age..." or "how did he get to this point?" or "what? He can already use that jutsu?"

This happened for nearly everyone who's name we heard. So the characters we've seen are at pretty darn high levels for where they're at, compared to the average. What you can gather from that is that the actual norm for Ninja is lower than what you're used to seeing.

Anbu aren't chosen if they have high combat abilities. They're chosen for having an aptitude towards the Black Ops type missions. So Gai and Asuma not being in the Anbu is normal.

Shikamaru got through on basically smarts alone. His ability for battle wasn't high at all, he was just good at thinking through situations and making the most out of his limited physical abilities. That's what got him Chuunin. Other Chuunin who pass may not be as smart as Shikamaru, but they also had better combat abilities too (probably). So it balanced out.

In the end, the only thing we know for certain is that the most of the main supporting characters were leagues ahead of the Shinobi standard, and the main characters are even further than that.