ReweR 1331 wrote: Do people have chakra now? For example, take the conditional Kakashi, does he have the chakra in his passive state? It's just that in my opinion, stirring energies is a feature of creating/shaping techniques.
According to Ebisu, no. People only create chakra when they are actively using a technique, and any leftover chakra they create is "wasted" (seemingly expelled from the body).
However, many other things in the series imply that people (and even animals) do have chakra in their passive state. For example, sensor types can detect people who aren't in battle, and the Eight Gates are implied to restrict the flow of chakra at all times. During Neji vs. Naruto, we see that people can't even stand if their chakra flow is blocked, implying there must be at least a little bit flowing through the body for it to function.
However, there are no explicit statements in the manga (or guidebooks as far as I can tell) that say humans or other living things passively produce chakra, so it's somewhat open to interpretation.
The biggest red flag is the idea that the God Trees now grow by consuming chakra. The anime version told us pretty much the same thing, but said the tree was sucking out the Earth’s natural energy (hence everything nearby wilting) in order to create chakra.
This chapter is either setting up for a reveal that humans actually had chakra all along (and thus Madara, Hagoromo, and the databook were all wrong) or it’s a sign that the people in charge of writing Boruto don’t understand the original story all that well. My concern is with the latter interpretation.
I agree that the “every thousand years” bit was likely just a legend though, much like Kaguya being a princess, which has never been mentioned again since Madara’s original telling of the story.
This whole Shinju/Chakra Fruit/Ten-Tails business just keeps getting more and more convoluted. So now we have:
Original manga: The God Tree grew on Earth thousands of years ago and bore its fruit every thousand years. It is the source of all chakra, which nobody else had until Hagoromo’s time. Kaguya ate the fruit, physically merged with the tree, and became Ten-Tails in order to fight her sons.
Anime: The God Tree arrived on Earth as a seed a little over a thousand years ago (during Gamamaru’s lifetime). Kaguya arrived later and ate the fruit, becoming the first on Earth to have chakra (even though senjutsu already existed somehow). Later on she battled her sons herself, causing the God Tree to transform into the Ten-Tails to assist her. When Kaguya was defeated, the Ten-Tails/God Tree rotted away.
Boruto manga: The Ōtsutsuki create Ten-Tails (plural) through unknown means. They send one to a planet, where it becomes a God Tree and sucks out all of the chakra that the planet already has to create a fruit. Then the Ōtsutsuki show up in pairs on the planet sometime later to harvest it before moving on to the next planet.
I don’t even know how the wiki is supposed to document this stuff at this point. It’s literally three different narratives, and that’s not even getting into the whole moon retcon.
The series arguably doesn't actually explain how the Mangekyō works aside from how to awaken it and the requirement for using Susanoo. For example, there isn't even any dialogue that says "each eye gains a single technique that's different for each person", it's just something we've picked up on through observation. Sort of like how people now theorize that each set of Rinnegan grants a unique ability to their owner, but there's less evidence to go off of for that. Back in the day, it was actually common belief among fans that every pair of Mangekyō could automatically use Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, whereas techniques like Kakashi's Kamui had to be gained through training, but that obviously didn't turn out to be right.
That said, I think Tobirama's explanation of how the (regular) Sharingan awakens in chapter 619 gives us a pretty good indication of how this all works: under certain circumstances, the Uchiha's brain releases special chakra that permanently transforms the eye, even if it's later removed from their head. Awakening the Mangekyō is likely caused by a similar reaction, so it would make sense that creating the EMS works the same way, effectively "overwriting" the eye's existing properties with new brain chakra, while still retaining its "ocular power" (indicated by the two patterns overlapping).
The real question is whether an Uchiha could awaken a new set of Sharingan or Mangekyō by transplanting another's eyes, or if each stage of activation can only happen once per person.
Seelentau wrote: Wasn't it also said that if a shinobi runs out of chakra, they die? xD
Yeah, though to be fair Ebisu says it’s when you run out of both chakra and stamina that you die. I think Kakashi is the one who says running out of chakra means death at some point (and then tests it out for himself later).
The explanation of how Naruto (and to a lesser extent, Sasuke) are imperfect at creating chakra makes sense, but the part about any extra chakra getting wasted doesn't really. Ebisu says the extra chakra is wasted because it can't be converted back into stamina, but there's no reason it can't just be used for another jutsu.
His whole explanation seems to imply that a shinobi's default state is having 100% stamina and 0% chakra, with chakra only getting created as needed, but there are a bunch of things in the series that show otherwise. Concepts like the Eight Gates, Gentle Fist, and sensing all rely on the idea that chakra is constantly being created and flowing through the body at all times, and there are even times in the war arc where we see characters build up their chakra in advance to have it ready for later. That's the part that never made sense to me.
ReweR 1331 wrote: Yeah, it's true.
But still, from your conclusion / assumption, it turns out that any mediocre shinobi who can't balance (50:50) energy is a Yin Release or Yang Release user.
I don't think it was ever stated anywhere that balancing the two energies is hard. According to Ebisu, the real hard part is creating just the right amount of chakra you need and then converting it into a technique, since any extra chakra is "wasted" (which doesn't really make sense either, honestly).
Another oddity is that Shikamaru treats Yin Release chakra like it's special and only used for rare techniques like his, but apparently it's part of every common genjutsu. This is probably just an example of Kishimoto not thinking things out in advance though, since he didn't actually mention the term "Yin Release" until years after the Tayuya fight.
Unfortunately, we never get a full-on explanation of how Yin and Yang work anywhere in the series, so everything we know about them is pieced together through the limited bits of information we've been given. We're told early in the series, long before Yin and Yang are even mentioned, that chakra is made by combining physical energy and spiritual energy, and during Naruto's senjutsu training it's implied that "normal" chakra contains an equal (or at least near-equal) amount of both. As for how this relates to Yin and Yang:
Putting all of this together, it seems that Yin Release uses "special chakra" made up of mostly spiritual energy, from which we can logically conclude that Yang Release must be the opposite.
I suppose it is somewhat open to interpretation, given how Kaguya "merging" with the God Tree is only mentioned those two times. However, even if they really were meant to be separate, we can say with certainty that Kishimoto intended for the Ten-Tails to be the one that got sealed in the moon and not Kaguya, since it's said explicitly in both the manga and several places in the databook. So if the anime's version of events got such a massive plot point wrong, among other things, I don't really see a reason consider the rest of what those episodes show as accurate, at least when talking about the manga. It's obviously still "correct" within the anime continuity, since we saw it happen and all.
If it helps clear anything up, here's everything we know about Kaguya being the Ten-Tails in the manga:
In chapter 681, Naruto is suprised when Black Zetsu says the Ōtsutsuki brothers used their seal on Kaguya, since he was told they used it on the Ten-Tails. We then get the truth revealed:
But then he starts talking about how the Ten-Tails was following Kaguya's will, leaving it unclear whether she actually was the beast or simply created it. However, the fourth databook's shinobi compendium clears it up:
This backs up what Black Zetsu says in the manga. After he reveals that the Ten-Tails was trying to reclaim all chakra for Kaguya, he says that even Hagoromo himself was unaware of this fact, which would be impossible if he saw Kaguya create the Ten-Tails like he did in the anime. The anime's writers apparently noticed this problem too, because they slightly altered Black Zetsu's dialogue so he doesn't say this part. They also added extra dialogue where Sasuke says Hagoromo must have known his mother would return, but then... why wouldn't he just tell them that? There's no reason for him to hide the truth and pretend Ten-Tails was just the God Tree if he knew better.
The other key piece of evidence that Kaguya actually is the Ten-Tails is how she was revived in the first place. Apparently, the only way to revive her is to restore the Ten-Tails and then have it absorb an enormous amount of chakra, allowing her to turn back, which would be weird if the Ten-Tails was a completely separate being. Plus, when she turns into the unstable rabbit Ten-Tails, Black Zetsu is surprised because it wasn't a willing transformation, implying she has willingly become the Ten-Tails at least once before. There's also the fact that the anime shows Kaguya getting sealed in the moon rather than the Ten-Tails, but then in the present the beast's husk is somehow in there instead.
It's easy to see how the anime writers got things mixed up, since this information is presented in such a confusing manner, but it's also important to remember that those Kaguya episodes were filled with tons of other mistakes as well, including really obvious stuff like Hagoromo creating the tailed beasts before Asura was born and toads somehow using Water Release before they even had chakra.
Vladosaurus wrote: Did Sarada display 3 tomoe sharingan until this chapter? I can’t really recall.
She randomly pulled it out last chapter without explanation. Hopefully the anime at least does something to show her getting it.
Pretty enjoyable chapter. Felt like it was more in the spirit of the original manga than usual, with a couple of classic ninjutsu and the main characters attempting to figure out their opponent's abilities and whatnot.
Also, I really appreciated the explanation about pre-existing substances not being absorbable. I always wondered how something like Preta Path would handle absorbing actual physical water or earth.
So, for clarity, this is the exact sequence of events:
Based on this alone, it does seem like Madara considers both forms to be "Complete Body Susanoo", but the problem is what comes after. Sasuke obtains the final armoured form without displaying any evidence of an unstabilised version like Madara's, plus we never see Madara use anything else that could be equivalent to Itachi and Sasuke's third (armoured) forms. Lastly, the databook has an entry for Complete Body Susanoo that only shows and talks about Madara's final armoured stage, specifically noting the wings as special features of the form.
That's really all the evidence we have to go on. Everything else comes down to interpretation.
I agree that the whole sequence with Madara's Susanoo is weird, but we don't really have a lot to go off of here. At the time these chapters were released, the wiki (and fanbase at large) actually did assume these new Susanoo forms were meant to be two different versions of the same thing ( a "stabilised" form and an "unstabilised" form). But then as time went on and other users started using the stabilised form without showing an unstabilised form, everyone started assuming that the big cloaked form was actually just Madara's third stage ("armoured") form and the samurai-esque form was an entirely new fourth stage. This is backed up by the databook, which only shows the stabilised version in its "Complete Form Susanoo" entry, though it has other issues like only listing Madara as a user.
It's worth noting that in the next chapter, right after Madara announces he'll use his Complete Form Susanoo, Mei asks if "that" (the unstabilised cloaked version) is the "true Susanoo", and Madara tells her "not yet" before stabilising it. So this could be interpreted as Madara merely saying he's about to use his "Complete Form Susanoo", but not actually doing so until the next chapter.
Of course, none of this explains why Madara's third form is so different from other users, especially with its colossal size. But then again, later on we see Sasuke increase the second form's size to rival Kurama, so it's possible Madara was just choosing to make it that big both times he used it.
Really disappointed Jigen seemingly wants to grow another God Tree and drain the Earth, I was hoping we were done with that already. That aside, I continue to be surprised with the pacing of this series. This would normally be an appropriate place to have some down time between arcs, but we're already jumping into battle with another Inner. It's no wonder the anime doesn't want to touch the Shojoji stuff just yet, once they do they might get locked into following this continuous battle with Kara until the manga's end (or at least the inevitable time skip). But I suppose that's the price that comes with this being a monthly series, since it's a lot harder to justify using a chapter on anything but the main plot.
Still, I'm getting more and more concerned that the manga is rushing through things, and we'll never actually get to see the side characters do any of the crazy stuff mentioned in their character profiles (like Moegi's Wood Release) outside of maybe the anime.
The whole muscle memory thing is something fans came up with to explain Kabuto's comments after Nagato's defeat, so it may or may not be correct. Kabuto doesn't actually say why Nagato still lacks mobility, just that he does. An alternate explanation could be that the Eight-Tails' chakra only healed the damage done by the Gedō Mazō sucking his life force and using Rinne Tensei, and not the damage caused by Hanzō's attack.
I'd argue the frustration comes more from characters not using all of the abilities available to them, rather than them losing. Naruto arguably gets it the worst out of anybody, since he hasn't displayed any of his end-game "god powers" like flight, Truth-Seeking Balls, and Yin—Yang Release since the end of the original manga. But it's not like the original series was free of this kind of stuff either, just look at all the times Obito and Madara could have saved themselves with Shinra Tensei, for example.
Anyway, I was pretty surprised to see that Isshiki is already inside Jigen, since that earlier chapter made it seem like the mystery Ōtsutsuki was actually that mini Ten-Tails. Maybe the process of growing God Trees somehow starts out with them as a "Ten-Tails" before they actually become trees, unless Sasuke's theory of it being a juvenile was totally off-base.
I've always wondered about this too. I'm pretty sure Fukasaku explaining how the senjutsu chakra goes back to Naruto is the only time in the series we're told that chakra goes back to the creator (previously we're only told that experiences go back), but the way it's written, it's almost like we're already supposed to know that it's a thing. I figure actually creating the clone might use up some amount of chakra aside from what gets shared, and like Squinty said there's also the issue of people like Naruto wasting a lot of extra chakra when using a jutsu.
It's also possible that shadow clones are only considered dangerous because most people have too little chakra to begin with. So when they divide their chakra two or three ways, they become too weak to fight effectively, and when they divide it more than that they risk dying from lack of chakra. A careless person might split themselves into three clones that each use up a lot of their total chakra without realizing it, then even when the technique is ended and the remaining chakra goes back, the original will be left severely weakened. This explanation works even if creating shadow clones spends literally zero chakra.
Well, this was certainly the most interesting chapter we've had in a while. Not going to lie, it's nice to see them tackling the lore we actually care about from Naruto, rather than more scientific ninja tools and such.
I'm cautiously optimistic they can expand on the Ōtsutsuki and Ten-Tails stuff without making an even bigger mess of it. At the very least, they seem to be ignoring that anime filler arc, since the projection the clan has of Kaguya is her in her post-fruit form (according to filler). I'm also really hoping they can finally explain why exactly Kaguya turned into Ten-Tails in the first place. Black Zetsu implies it was voluntary, but it apparently made her weaker, a much bigger target for sealing, and she didn't seem to have control of its actions in any meaningful way. Plus she apparently needed an enormous amount of chakra to turn human(oid) again, which doesn't make it seem any better for her.
Sai was called Sai Yamanaka in the novelisation of Boruto the Movie (and probably other places, but that was the first). Characters are never given surnames on the wiki unless they have explicitly been called that in some official media, hence why you don't see things like "Tsunade Senju" or "Karin Uzumaki".