eidolonlathi

Once in a while I come across a reminder that initially the Akatsuki were planned to be full scale monsters and instantly feel glad this concept got dropped. What we've got with making them humans possessing strong monstrous traits was already more than enough: It’s already a contradiction the writing wants to show since most earliest chapters that the ninja system is flawed -because it goes against basic human nature- just to backpedal once stakes rise by literally robbing the newly arriving antagonists parts of their humanity.

It was a convenient device to keep the main characters' hands clean, but grew downright bizarre once the war arc had arrived and instead of showing a conflict based in the flaws the ninja system held, we got the "good guys" going against a mass consisting of nothing but zombies and plant blobs. Letting popular old characters return as zombies more often than not ended up cheapening the impact they've had when still alive, in some cases even retconning the entire point their character and death had held. (Sasori not being allowed to hold on to the grudges that had ruled the better part of his life? Due to some off-brand talk-no-justsu that was not even delivered by the orange ninja messiah himself? Really?)

And don’t get me started on the entire mess that were the Zetsu clones. After the Immortals arc it had already become more than obvious that whatever backstory had been planned out for Zetsu was going to be retconned, but not even allowing Zetsu to be human anymore? Certainly one way to avoid all the uncomfortable questions a character like his was raising.

With this point I’m biased, I admit: It’s an odd experience, having Zetsu as one of your faves and seeing how his characterization developed (declined) while the manga was still ongoing.

Looking at his introduction panel, it was implied he was a missing nin from hidden grass, the forehead plate with the crossed out village symbol recognizable enough around his neck. Then the story goes on and you get crumbs of information, like the fact he’s having the habit of disposing of some of Akatsuki’s targets by eating them. And then the story keeps going and you keep witnessing how his mind is very obviously split into two parts. And you see this and think, alright, that’s actually a nice way of “show, don’t tell”. How here the writing is showing what outlandish tasks the ninja system keeps demanding of its people, and the effect committing these atrocities can have on their minds: Another example enforcing the early theme of the manga that demanding people to act as nothing but human weapons while shaming them for showing emotion is just not going to work out in the long run and is doomed to create conflict.

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So, now that I have set up this account I figured it’s time to finally start using it.