Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-31278419-20170331010234/@comment-734582-20170426214144

Dimension Creator wrote: I agree the whole Rasenshuriken thing should have been earlier but isn't shortly after the Chunin Exams a bit too early? Naruto only learned the Rasengan after the Chunin Exams after all. I meant the exposition part. IE learning about the elements, their weaknesses and how kekkei genkai worked.

It makes no sense that we went half the total manga without knowing how, well, half of all ninjutsu works. It's even worse since Naruto is taught wind Release and Kakashi's like "even if this doesn't work you can still use Wind ninjutsu" and then Naruto proceeds to never ever use Wind jutsu beyond Rasenshuriken.

IMHO this should've been fixed in Part I: We the audience are informed of the elemental wheel. We learn about Haku's Kekkei Genkai and how Sasuke uses two elemental natures for Chidori. Where exactly naruto learns Wind Release i'm not sure, but it should've been the Time Skip at the latest, so we return with Naruto having discovered his Wind Affinity.

This is important because Sakura should've been included in the elemental themes. Give her Earth affinity (seems to fit her personality going by elemental stereotypes) to be a support (Earth is very versatile). Basic Earth Wall and Earth Spear would make her a 100000x more useful character early on, without requiring her to be either a fighting genius or a ninjutsu goddess. It would make her weak to Sasuke (fitting the story) and impartial to Naruto (also fitting the narrative). Kakashi apparently knows 5 elements, so he could've taught them all whatever element they needed in their arsenal.

Sage Mode training is the point where Naruto should've had enough chakra mastery to use Rasengan alone. Boruto uses two hands, Naruto should've been using two hands by then. Maybe not immediately, but if memory serves it took till the 4th war before he used it one-handed.

Have Naruto switch to Wind Release Rasengan around the Gokage summit. Regular Rasengans are nice and versatile, but after the whole "wind strong against lighting, use it, great against sasuke" etc foreshadowing, there really should've been a payoff where Naruto uses a Wind Style Rasengan against the Chidori.

Lastly, after Naruto nearly gives his life to Kurama, that bond should've been used to let him learn Kurama's elements (my preference is fire+lighting = explosion, though there are also strong wind+fire=scorch arguments) to develop at least one new elemental Rasengan that he can use for variety. To this day i feel cheated that we got no proper other-element rasengan (adding a flavor to Rasenshuriken isn't what i meant, since Rasenshuriken operates on Wind Style principles).