Orochimaru vs 3rd hokage. Damn that fight was funny,I was waiting for when will they finish it? They turned a 1 or 2 episodes event into a f#cking 20 episodes.
From my point of view, the chuunin exam should be something more within the villages themselves than something from several villages together. It makes much more sense for villages to test their ninja themselves and see if they are fit for the next level than risk letting intruders with ulterior motives enter the village or letting other villages discover weaknesses.
That makes sense, but the Chunin exams are meant to Foster peace and trust between the villages. Its also meant to gauge the future strength of different villages.
It's explained that the chuunin exams also act as a sort of diplomatic event for the different villages (sort of like the Olympics). At the beginning of Naruto, the villages are still rivals but gradually moving towards peace. They showcase the abilities of their ninja as a show of goodwill. Also, several potential clients attend the chuunin exam tournaments to see how the various villages' ninja compare against each other. Villages that do well in the exam tournaments will drum up extra business.
I don't remember if it was mentioned, but for me chuunin exams were something like a small war between the villages. They didn't openly fight for many reasons (for example tailed beasts) but they liked to compete and test the strength of the other ninjas. It was a smaller war to avoid a bigger one
3rd hokage mentioned that the exam was meant to bring out other spies from other villages. While at the same time keep friendly relations, so it was somewhat of a win win for Konoha.
I think you’re missing a few things here. Though I agree throwing away man power does seem senseless but in the world of Naruto it’s quality over quantity. We see that in the shinobi in Boruto vs the shinobi of Naruto. Konohamaru vs kakashi for example completely different quality of ninja jounin. Also this version of the chuunin exam only existed after the third great shinobi war. It’s more of a political tool first and promotion exam second. As the selection criteria doesn’t necessarily depend on if you win or lose. You just have to show the qualities of a chuunin. This is why shikamaru was the only one to be promoted in the og arc.
I just realized that the leaf village sent 2 of their most powerful "weapons" to die. Naruto (Jinchuriki) and Sasuke (Uchiha). Just imagine if instead of being attacked by the sound guys they were attacked by Gaara first. Literally Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura die.
Isn't there always a chance that Naruto would go berserk and rage murder everybody ? Imagine a scenario where Team 7 encounters Gaara first. Gaara kills Sasuke and Sakura to taunt Naruto who then goes berserker 6Tails and starts to rampage. He'd wipe out the entire forest. Nobody there stands a chance against him. Sure, Might Guy, Hiruzen, Kakashi and the other Jonin are able to kill 6Tails Naruto eventually (if he'd go 8Tails Minato would come and be like: yoyoyoyo chill mate the plot wants you to survive), but it would be a catastrophic event for sure.
@@r4nd0m1zer2 He wouldn't unleash the six tails as the Seal progressively unravelled through the series. At that point at most he will unleash the one tail cloak from his fight with Sasuke in the Final Valley
According to an interview with Kishimoto, he wanted to have Team 7 go on more missions and meet other teams from other villagers, but his editors told him there was no time for that and to do a tournament arc to introduce all these characters. He also said he wanted to have Shikamaru win the tournament, but then his editors told him to create a villain to interrupt the tournament, and that's how Orochimaru came to be.
Interrupting the exams would be a common trope. The filler arc that interrupted the war where the Konoha 11 became chunin. Boruto, the chunin exams can never just come and properly finish can it.
It’s funny how openly the Chunin exam is flawed. We’ve seen Gaara kill people in cold blood in the forest and he could have kept doing this and reducing every villages military power. We’ve also seen the waterfall village sneak in two Jonins to protect Fu while she was taking part. And in this same exam Nagato sent in his own squad.
Oh yes, the second chuunin exam filler is so underrated. It was in a weird spot in the middle of the war but it's still my favourite Naruto filler and more people should watch it
It's implied the other villages had even more brutal systems than Konoha's chuunin exams. Hidden Mist literally had their ninja kill each other in death matches to determine who graduates (We find out their Kage was being manipulated by Obito during this time, but the fact that the village still apparently permitted it without resistance demonstrates just how mundane this practice is in the Naruto world). Also, keep in mind ninja in the Naruto world aren't strictly a military force. They also act as assassins, spies and mercenaries for their nation's daimyo and other clients. They need capability, not just quantity. Ninjas tend to work in small units. A single weak/incompetent ninja can cost the success of a mission and in the worst-case, the lives of the entire team. The effectiveness of a villages' shinobi determines their whole economy and ultimately the survival of the village as a whole so they need a system that thoroughly tests their abilities as much as possible.
The Hidden mist did that because Obito was controlling the village and he obviously didn't care at all about their welfare. After Obito stops controlling Yagura and Mei takes over the methods of the Mist Village become much more like the Leaf
@@DygoKnight I dont think, that Obito was truly behinde it. Remember. Zabusa is around the same age as Obito and Kakashi. And he "canceled" this genin exam, by attending it, when he was a kid. It ended, after he killed a full year of students, even, when he wasnt even old enough to go to this exam. Mean: Obito can not be maked this exams. Aside of that, make puplic events not much sense, because, it would make it so much harder for the ninja, to go to other villiages after that for spying missions. Because: The chance is there, that someone noticed the ninja from this exam (good, it is allways 2 times in a year, it is easy to forgett someone later again). But, whe saw in the Obito flashback, that they maked the exam solo, when they had war`s. And this exam`s are war`s in small format.
@@DygoKnight I did acknowledge that the system was practiced while Obito was controlling the Mizukage. I'm not sure he was the one who actually established it though. However, the fact that the idea wasn't _outlandish_ enough for the Mist Village to immediately outright refuse it still speaks volumes about what's considered acceptable in the ninja system. Imagine the mayor of a town decrees "Hey, we're going to start having the students kill each other to determine who graduates from high school". I would imagine the reaction from most towns would be "You're out of your mind. That's INSANE." Not the Mist village. Apparently, they just ran with it. Early Naruto painted a much more brutal, Darwinian ninja system where shinobi lives were considered fairly disposable even in the villages where the good guys are from. I agree, it's not really optimal when you think hard about it, there's definitely better ways to determine who's fit to serve without killing your candidates, but the reasoning does make sense on a surface level. This is a world where six-year olds could be sent to battle frontlines.
@@DygoKnight Its still shows how accepting shinobi are of social darwanism I know that the mist eventually rebelled but they still accepted that for many years because shinobi do not see the lives of shinobi as valuable they are taught time and time and again that they must die for the mission I feel in part one their was a greater emphasis on quality of shinobi then number of shinobi. (Makin naruto and his shadow clones a fun inversion) The shinobis being a complete army was also very weird to me. I feel with retcons the scope of the ninja villages just grew larger and larger
Everyone wants to always forget how the White Fang got treated in the leaf when he put his squads lives over the mission. So much hate he self deleted. Reason Kakashi is the beast he is now. His whole bell test is a result of how absolutely brutal the previous era had been.
I think this is a victim of the tonal shift and power creep of the Naruto series. Originally ninjas were portrayed as a kind of faceless thankless solider who is used as an expendable resource for the nation rather than the weapons of mass destruction that they ended up as. The forest of death was supposed to paint them as disposable and easily replaceable. Additionally there was a burden of performance basically telling them "if you can't survive this you aren't worth anything as a shinobi in the first place". But as the story went on and the ninja got stronger we went from risking a couple tanks and maybe a fighter jet or two in the chunin exams to risking a couple nukes in the nuclear arms race.
@@Doflaminguard Both of yall have terrible takes this common notion needs to die It was already stated that ninja in the past were WAAAAAY stronger than current ninja and dudes were throwing magic uh i mean "ninjustsu" around better than most magic based shows from the get go. The power ceiling was established to be extremely high of course the protagonist was gonna reach it eventually
Kurama and Gamabunta were literally in the first episode. Its like yall forget that on purpose so you can have these takes. The weapons of mass destruction been there since the beginning.
This video just reminded me of how unique Kishimoto's early art was! Considering how Shippuden ended up looking at the end of its run, the development of Kishi's art is wild. Bro completely changed up his style!
Honestly i enjoyed his art more back then. I am not sure why but it has more "edge" to it? I also think that in shippuden everyone kinda has the same face xd yeah art looks more clean and yada yada but zabuza/chunin egzamin art had such unique feel to it. Villains were drawn more scary i think
@@oooonoooo3807 yeah there was definitely more eagerness and personality when he started, was improving as it went on but it's clear that by the end it more turned into a style he could pump out quickly. But i can't fault him for that too much, what was it, 15 years making one of the most successful manga series weekly? I'm glad man didn't go mad or get terrible health issues knowing how the industry can get on these artists. And just tonally, things like the covers became a lot more subdued. I remember early Naruto covers would show the characters in whacky but really cool poses, with like these dope ass weapons sometimes, very dynamic. But he made them a lot more grounded over time.
He actually loved the character design done for the anime and went on to emulate it further on. I think hes lowkey a god when it comes to things like hangs, feet and depth (the characters feel like theyre 3d) but my favorite is the inbetween from his old style into his new one that started in the later stages of chunin exam up early sasuke retrieval arc. -
Hell someone like a young Kakashi or Itachi could have been sent. They were both ANBU as like young teens/pre teens. By the logic naruto was running off of, no one would question them being there despite them being high level threats lmao.
When the Chunin exams were presented it made sense as you had the impression (vanished from that point in forward) that the ninja villages had a servant relationship with their respective nations and nation's leaders and they NEED to display their power and prestige for the Nation/Leader themselves. Also the non-ninja related missions were something presented as if it was the most of the stuff the Villages worked with... But from here to the rest of the series, everything not directly related to Ninjas vanished, the Villages themselves seem to became the "great power of the land" no more subservant to other istitutions.... So in the new frame, wasting young talents for meaningless showoff seems madness
yeah it's very well documented the writer didn't expect the series to ve serialized for so long... basically just winging it early on, then having to change things down the line
yeah, look how much it deviated that i didnt even through that there was more to the world of naruto that the villages, were are those "nations" the villages are supposed to be subservient to mentioned? because let me tell you i dont remember them ever being mentioned
It is very likely that the villages promote most its chuunin ninjas due to performance in regular missions, they send the most skilled genins to the Exams to show off to potential clients.
It was stated that even if you lose a chunim exam ( third and last part of it) you can be promoted to chunnin. And there can be a siyuation where no one get chunnin rank. In tournament gennin advertise they village and bring in potwntial customers and investors
@@patrykzajac4961 That and it's clear that Naruto's generation of genin are fairly exceptional on average, and that probably ultimately lead to their mindset of simply plowing on ahead instead of actually properly assessing situations. Which is why Shikamaru passed.
One thing that would have been a good twist, was to keep the start of the forest of death the same, but to have the Jonin keep watch over their squads. Each squad already had a shinobi assigned to them to knock them out in case they opened the scroll and fail them, so that Jonin would use genjutsu on their squads' opponents and knock their squad out in cases where they would have died, leaving their teams scroll behind and failing them. It would give the illusion of death and keep the same tone of the exam until the end, making sure that the genin were willing to die for their village but without the risk. Also, the forest of death and the written exam seemed to weed out the shinobi that were not strong enough for the rank of chunin and then the 1 on 1 fights were more for the display of power, having the best of the candidates display their capabilities for a crowd
Yeah, and then snake boy would seem much cooler if he then had to take out whoever was keeping watch over Sasuke without the judges wising up to it. Plus, it'd fit with the theme of the previous exams being based around the supervisors being deliberately misleading.
yes this would be far better solution in a real sense for the leaf village but for us viewers it would be much more enjoyable seeing the risk of danger and death that characters would be in
Something like this happens in Hunter X Hunter: They should have done something like the Island Phase of the Hunter Exam in Hunter X Hunter where every participant had a Hunter asigned to keep them on watch while using Zetzu (not the akatsuki member, a nen technique to conceal the presence from other people) to not get detected and watch over them not get killed (though in HxH murder is allowed too during the phase). So then in Naruto they would be Jonins watching over and due to their skill they would be able to hide without being detected by the genins. And also only reveal this at the end to keep the ilusión of danger on the exams.
It is so over the top, Lee was the greatest Taijutsu trainee and he was literally paralyzed in the exams 😭I do love it though its the best I love all the teacher like "oh well, I guess they could all die🤷♂️"
Such a great moment. Guy became so awed by Lee's tenacity and hard work that he lost sight of the kid's limits and taught him a technique far beyond his ability and ended up crippling the boy. What will this do to Guy? What happens to Lee? It had so much emotion and weight. ... Too bad it was ruined and made hollow by Lee recovering.
@@corruptangel6793 lee became crippled because Gaara crushed his legs with sand, he wouldn’t be crippled but would have to recover for a while. That’s how the gates work, only 8th gate is death.
People, it doesn't matter if it was Gaara or the gates did the deed. Things progressed that far because Lee was able to use such a devastating ability. This means that the true fault of the injury is Guy's for not only teaching Lee the technique, but also encouraging him to use it and push beyond his limit. "Lee...I never let myself think that you could lose. I wanted to help you achieve your shinobi path. Please forgive me, Lee...for not stopping you before it was too late."
@@mr.bibinho8528 Well Their parents should know what their kids are getting into. They signed up to be a NINJA. That’s like signing up to be in the military bro it’s a brutal job, killing people and risk of being killed. You can argue it’s unethical to let kids be ninjas that’s a different topic but in the naruto verse at least, the kids are soldiers so they gotta get a taste of what their job is gonna be like.
The Chunin Exams are a bit crazy ngl... It's not even a thing of "only the strong survive" because you can still lose strong and valuable ninjas. Imagine if Sasuke died in the exams, that would be horrible for the village, he's the last Uchiha and losing him would mean that they would completly lose Sharingan users in the future
It's almost like it was a literal plot point that all those kids were too young and inexperienced to take part, and they only joined in because their teachers, who are obviously trying to kill their students, pushed for it.
@@corruptangel6793 what teachers wanted to obviously kill their students? Guy even had has students not participate for years till he thought they were ready no one wanted their students to die.
@Michael Joseph they're kids with midling levels of skills and experience. The fact that none of the kids were ready to be fully independent also proved they weren't ready to be Chunin. Any adult with even a smidgen of common sense would see none of them were ready and that there was a high risk of death. Between that and Kakashi's mentorship in the first arc, how could they not be trying to kill their students? These are situations in which the KIDS are blatantly not ready for, and it is the ADULTS that are allowing and even pushing for the situations to occur. The fact that any Genin survives to adulthood is nothing short of a miracle.
@@corruptangel6793 yeah I just don’t get how kakashi sent Sakura to the exams. She was not ready at all, she was the weakest Genin out of everyone. Sure she was determined and had some ok chakra control and was smart but it wasn’t enough to take the exams.
The fact that no one except the leaf, sand, and sound village passed the forest of death is telling. I’m surprised no one says anything about konoha rigging the chunin exams in their favor.
@@fatboysergio737But even then konoha was at its weakest in all of its history and far past its heyday and the height of its power under the 1st Hokage .
Another big problem I have with the chunin exams is that clients don’t even really show up afterward, attracted by the performance of certain ninja. That whole part of ninjas being killer mercenaries is dropped for most of the series even though ITS THEIR VERY JOB.
@@casualcookin3893the show well not be as popular as it today and shonan well not hesitate to cancel it and kishimoto wanted to have more arc before the chunin exam but the editor forced him to cut down there is a reason why we don't see the other village
@@dylanbuchanan6511blame the editor because kishimoto wanted to have more arc before the chunin exam but the editor forced him to cut down shonan forced kishimoto to introduce kagua to set up for boruto
One of the most hilarious things is that after the Genin survive in the forest of death, the Jounin's first reaction is: Too much Genin passed, let's do an elimination round and eliminate half of the candidates. What they were essentially saying was: A lot of kids survived this year, let's get rid of them.
@@TalkativeHands and who's fault is that? They didn’t even bother noticing that one of the students used a morse code dog, one had a literal sand eyeball floating over his head and one of them somehow put mirrors on the ceiling..
@@Wolltazar It's Naruto's fault for being totally un-ninja-like and inspiring everyone of his competition to not raise their hands in the tenth question lol Or did you not get the test was just a ruse for the actual hard part, which was answering the 10th question? The people that were caught cheating 5 times would make no difference in the forest of death and would probably just lose to the wildlife there, so they were free eliminations basically.
And there is also sasuke and sakura who aloud bring attention to others competitors about genjutsu so they are all on second floor instead of third floor. If they kept their mouths shut, they would have even less rivals.
My biggest issue with this is that naruto didn’t get promoted. He demonstrated the strategy needed to beat neji and outsmarted him quite a few times and proved himself. Yet shikamaru gets promoted because he’s smart even though it’s clear he lacks the motivation by literally quitting at the end of the match.
The explain this in the show that neji and Naruto would be terrible at leading and high stakes missions. You need someone with high strategy that won’t get the whole team killed.
Naruto did not have any strategy against neji whatsoever he just ran in got his chakra sealed then used the nine tails and one shotted neji by going underground
I think there is a more critical consequence of these exams that people overlook, the blood feuds. Those contracts are not gonna stop their families and clans desire for revenge. This could start a ninja war or lead to internal instability.
@@boredomkiller99 god I never thought about that, bro imagine going to war with your ally village for decades, just because of a exam going wrong, and there really wasnt anything about any sensei going "Hey Gaara, try not to mess the leaf up, they're our allies" bc it was orochimaru controlling the village, and literally nobody bothered checking who it was, you know, ninjas who are supposed to gather intel? someone could legit pretend to be a important figure and just not prevent bad shit from happening and war would break loose... thinking about it I guess the forest of death could be a very good exercise to give kids insight in their political stat(kinda?) for example, people from the leaf being adviced to rely on those from the sand for support, since they killing each other could be bad for their alliance and helping each other could make the alliance stronger once they become adult ninjas, top it all off by sending a few Jonins in together to make sure there are no impostors and important people (or better no one) gets killed, to avoid political problems (like the stone village claiming genins from the leaf village are being told by their parents and senseis to target only those from the stone, thanks to their long past of hating each other, I damn bet that would happen considering how the Tsuchikage is) but noooooo people from the same village are actually encouraged to kill and fuck each other up, imagine someday you have to go on a mission together with someone who almost killed you in an exam for the shits and giggles of it, even if it's a test people hold grudges against each other... I mean *Sasuke* held a grudge against Naruto for being stronger than him and being the one targetted by Itachi, which led to him developing a inferiority complex that just got worse when Naruto got even stronger leading to him abandoning the village and eventually fcking everyone up
@@Drip_Wooper Jeez you know I didn't even fully think about how effed people from the same village could be especially in the Leaf where it seems everyone knows everyone. Like imagine seeing your neighbor who's son maimed or killed your son for a exam. Sounds like a bad time.
The more I think about it the chunin exams seemed more like ninja population control rather than a series of tests to see who’s cut out to get promoted
To be fair, most of the danger team 7 faced was from orochimaru and his henchmen. Nobody that strong was really supposed to be there besides Gaara. While they could die, it's probably pretty rare Edit- Wasn't Anko actually in the forest too because they got word of orochimaru being there? It's been awhile since I watched the chunin exams lmao but it's definitely not as dangerous as the jonin make it out to be. They wanted them to feel like they could die but they weren't about to let anyone get killed that they could help. Gaara is the only exception because they didn't know how dangerous he was but no other genin actually killed someone prior to or in the exams. That I can remember
Sounds about right. I remember for a lot of my training in the military they LOVE making it sound like you could get yourself or someone killed, but to be quite honest, you genuinely would have to try in order to die. Everything was so regulated that the act of accidentally hurting someone was damn near impossible. That don't mean it was 100% safe but you weren't at huge risk of dying. The chunin exams were probably just like that, except at this point, anybody there should be more than capable of not dying towards anything that lived in there.
@@marxist-leninist-protagonist I'm not denying it was bad, it's just given how the villages were structured those kids were going to die soon anyway, eg Orichamaru's friend who died on the very first mission.
I mean, I think the whole point is that the ninja world is fucked up beyond repair. The arc before the Chunin Exams features an antagonist whose *graduation exam* was murdering his entire class. So I think the life threatening nature of the Chunin Exams is on brand with the world.
Brutality for brutality's sake is stupid as shit though. Take the hidden mist graduation exam where you have to kill your whole class. That means if you have 5 of the most top tier, grade SSS best ninja you have ever seen you will end that class with 1, who might just be permanently injured before they EVER did A SINGLE THING for the village. Thats absolutely fucking stupid. Years and tens of thousands of dollars wasted on fuck all.
@iamcool544 from a logical standpoint it is stupid. True. But the chunin exams seems culturally consistent with how violent and expandable the ninja world is. It is like how we have dumb rules and customs in the real world that are consistent with just how things are.
The whole point of sending Genin to other villages for the Chunin Exams was to try and grow positive relationships between villages, if I recall correctly. I agree with your thoughts on the Forest of Death, though. But I do think it's a lot more fun to watch, logic be damned. lol
But they didn't just let them die, it was all optional they could choose to remain a Genin forever and do only low risk missions, they even gave them another out before the forest of death, Kakashi, Asuma and Kureani all truly believed their teams are more than capable of surviving, otherwise they would of not recommended them to participate. Hiruzen states that the whole tournament aspect is just a sideshow that the chunin exams true purpose is a real mini battle between ninja villages and their nations, otherwise it has no meaning, a shinobi can only show his true abilities when he or his teammates life is on the line, the chunin exam is made to see if they have what it takes to be tools for war to lead others into battle, to make difficult decisions and face the unexpected, it cannot be tested if the risks are fake. In the universe they live in it made perfect sense, it's Boruto capture the flag games that make no sense in universe.
Forest of death should have surveillance for check and they are checking their ability to keep valuable information a secret, adaptability according to circumstances and coordination in dire situations. Also, the ability and resilience to survive and While surveillance insures that the instructors can intervene if someone tries to kill others. There should be guard around the forest to insure no invasion occurs as well
Aside that, I also find the display of shinobi prowess in the final churning exam is also kind of unnecessary. One of the biggest advantage a shinobi has in battle is having their abilities unknown to their opponent.( for instance, pain vs jiraya). If the ninjas are openly displaying their abilities to the whole world, its easy for spies and enemies to gather intel that will easily shift the tide of battle. The exams should be done in secret instead
As far as I understood, those exams were supposed to prove their will to keep peace among the nationts by exposing their power by showing their abilities etc. via this exam
What you have to consider is that the forest of death is mild compared to what previous generations of shinobis had to deal with: war. It was also explained if I recall that nations were using the chuunin exam as a way to gauge each other's power. Finally, it is arguably very difficult to infiltrate a hidden village. Orochimaru and Itachi knew how to do it because it was their original village, but Pain for instance had to invade from the sky and summon the 6 paths from inside
About Hirozen, I think you need to loose this kind grandfather image of him. He is a ninja and it was made clear in the beginning of the series that ninja accept all kind of missions. Even assassination. Never once morals were thing. Ninjas would kill innocents to get money for the village. And Hirozen being the Hokage was assigning the missions. We see story from Naruto's lens who let's be honest too moral to give us a real picture of the village.
I don't know about killing innocents. The only ninjas that immoral (at the start) were the ones hired by Gato. I suppose there's a chance they are tasked with killing innocent runaway ninjas. But we never explicitly see that. I certainly don't think any of the Leaf ninjas would be chill with killing innocents.
@@SonGoku-bg1fr the reason is that because the show can't show you audiences our main characters killing innocents but it's just a background fact. Naruto never even killed any bad guy. Rogue Ninja aren't that common and a village only kills their own, I would assume. Why kill other villages ' rogue ninjasvif you can capture them alive. The village would accept any mission, for example killing businessmen etc. Hirozen said they accept all kind of missions. Also it's a well known fact that Kishimoto's editors wanted him to move to a tournament arc and from there the story took it's course, Missions had became a background thing. People had thus disillusion that leaf village hold some kind of moral compass. No they don't.
@@muhammadzeagham4092 Even if the Leaf has no moral compass, the Forest of Death makes almost no sense. There's very little moral benefit, but more importantly, there's just as little practical benefit. All you're doing is wasting valuable military power on a test that could have easily been fixed by just adding hidden adult supervision. Literally no one wins in this type of game, all you do is get your young talents butchered.
@@blazefactor6849 I was just replying to his argument that if I can imagine Hirozen sending children to their deaths. The forest of death is a completely different argument
@BlazeFactor have you forgotten about the Spartans. And there 300 who held back xerxes and the Persian army. For more then a week. Have you forgotten how sharpening your spears makes breaking defense way better. Especially if that defense is held up by weak chain links. The idea is that the few who make ot through will be thousands of times better
Tbh you can’t compare the Naruto and boruto chunin exams because they both served different purposes to their respective stories Also for as kind hearted as lord third was never forget he wasn’t against the uchiha massacre he just wanted to find a peaceful solution, if it came down to it hiruzen was just as prepared to kill his own villages children as much as danzo was, but Naruto is to kind hearted and wouldn’t even consider doing such a thing so of course the chunin exams in boruto aren’t as dangerous because the world isn’t in a kill or be killed mentality anymore
Yup. He was against it but not unwilling. Like dude, YOU allowed the elders and Danzo to ostracize the Uchiha. You allowed (I think) for 24/7 spying. Hiruzen seeminly never thought about the potential actions that led to that point.
@@minnaing5970 again it’s about perspective, if you watch the boruto chunin exams with same mindset as the Naruto chunin exams then you miss the point, the Naruto chunin exams was a way to flesh out the ninja world and various characters, powers, abilities and concepts. When you look back at it the two major fights Naruto had are ultimately an afterthought when compared to other fights like lee vs garra and even shikamaru vs temari is more engaging to me. My point is that Naruto isn’t the main focus of his own chunin exam Now look at boruto, his exam makes you focus on him and only him because the story was written that way. Remember borutos goal was to make it far in the chunin exams so that his father would acknowledge him because the hokage would be paying attention to the chunin exams the only place boruto felt he could be seen, even leading up to the finals the farther boruto got the more Naruto went out his way to talk to him. If boruto got bounced early then Naruto’s focus remains on the exams and his son wouldn’t be there so that’s why he cheats that’s why the focus is on him because the chunin exams in Naruto told a large story with smaller stories inside it while borutos chunin exam was a story specifically for boruto
I agree with you, I remember watching Hashirama and Madara back story the scene where they were young and sitting on the cliff saying they dream of building a village where children don't have to fight wars and die, and I was so touched with that for a moment then I thought "they would die in Chunin exams though 💀" lol xD I loved that that story though of founding the village and the Chunin exams is ideed one of my favourite arcs, but I see your point 😂
Well, then Tobirama came and fucked up the system so badly they had to set up the chuunin exam. And then Hiruzen continued his teacher's tradition, resulting in Kakashi becoming a chuunin at 6. Not exactly what Hashirama and Madara had in mind with "Ok, how do we prevent literal kids from risking their lives and becoming cold-blooded killers"
@@rosehill7919Well desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose .Hashirama should have done much much more than simply creating the ninja or the village system .He possessed all the power in the world and yet allowed feudalism and other unsavoury practices to continue to exist and persist in the world .
I'm 95% sure Danzo proposed the forest of death idea to be able to abduct and kill potentially dangerous genin from other villages. Sounds on brand for him.
@@268dbs Just because he didn't appear until part 2 doesn't mean he didn't exist. In fact we know he likely did exist as a concept in Kishimoto's mind from the first manga chapters since he builds up Itachi being forced to kill the Uchihas very early on with Sasuke mumbling about remembering him crying and thinking he imagined it, in very early chapters
What doesn’t make sense is keeping people that should be higher than genin to be genin. Also I didn’t see any Cloud or Rock village shinobi so it makes you wonder how Orochimaru was able to sit alone with Hiruzen.
What’s even crazier is they go through all this shit just to promote ONE ninja to a Chunin. But then later villages have thousands of Chunins and Jonins to spare so I guess these exams are held like everyday
It's like the Olympics but extreme. If you can't survive in the exam, you wouldn't make it as a ninja. It clears out your weak ninjas and makes the gene pool stronger
Thats pretty flawed thinking tbh. Sometimes the actual rank doesn't even match the characters skill level. You could have an army of 5 Minato's but you'd be sending them on missions WAY below their skill level or only on high ranked missions, neglecting basically every other duty your village might have. Then there's the ninja who have very specific specializations. They might not be super good in combat but they're much needed experts. Then there's the fact that ninjas get old and out of their prime. Are you just going to run your 5 Minato's into the ground? You're already saddling them with tons of missions that could have been assigned to different squads. Killing off your new recruits just seems stupid.
Thats terrible thinking. Your best strategist and battle planner gets murdered on a 1 on 1 fight? lol Oh well tough shit. The two weakest ninja both pass cause they got carried in the team sections and only fought eachother in the battles like Sakura and Ino? I guess they deserve it cause they are clearly better than the others. Your strongest ninjas get paired up randomly and one gets killed and the other gets crippled? Well those losers defiantly didnt deserve to make it.
Man, I haven't read the Manga, but I was laughing my a** off watching this in the anime. Iruka shows worry about the 9 rookies and the Hokage's response is to hold a preliminary to ease his mind... meanwhile the preliminary contains the forest of death. Yeah thanks lord 3rd, really put my mind at ease knowing all of them could die very easily.
@@DygoKnight Hey man you have great content, also a request what you do for Naruto, can u make similar types and quantity of content on samurai 8 series by kishimoto and his assistant as artist. No one makes good content on samurai 8, maybe u can be the one. Anyway great videos, u earned a sub.
I think the best write around for this would be to have Orochimaru present himself as the 2nd Tsuchikage like he did in the final exams but earlier and present Hiruzen with the concept of the forest of death as his way of testing his ninjas back in his village. This way the forest of death becomes a one time thing where it’s under heavy supervision but because orochimaru snuck in with his team no one spotted anything irregular and after this the forest of death exam is discontinued and replaced with the 3 on 3 fights like back with Kakashi’s and obito’s era
The Leaf Village ninjas were exceptional that year. Basically every squad we saw from the Leaf made it out of the forest. But think about this for a second: they could've been sent in at the level Sakura was at back then. She was a top graduate and was doing ok at the low rank genin missions they were supposed to be doing. Ninjas on her level would've been slaughtered out there.
Back then when reading this part I was immediately reminded of the Hunter Exam from HunterxHunter where they also had to go to a forest and trying to get other contestant's thing to continue to the next stage of exam. Obviously the major difference was that it makes complete sense in Hunter Exam, the Hunter Association don't care about who lives and who dies as they have no stakes put in the exam.
@@sasoning so are ninjas if you cannot survive the chunin exam you are worthless as a ninja. Only the strongest are qualified to be ninja and go out on missions that ninja are supposed to do. Having fodder ninja does not help the village.
to me it didn't make sense to have them kill each other to get the scroll, since Hashirama created the village to stop the senseless killing. So, the chunin exam pretty much contradicts his idea of what the village was for.
Supposedly part 1 Naruto takes place in a time of relative peace, there are cold wars going on between nations but nothing major. The Chunin Exams are an exercise in diplomacy but also intimidation, showing what your people can do in a show of force and having the opportunity to eliminate a few promising ninja from other villages. The diplomatic side of the exams is tackled in the manga itself, though it's mostly implied. The Boruto exams only makes sense for its time, an era where Shinobi from different villages aren't always read to eliminate each other if a conflict breaks out
I see this as cultural thing. It was like only 100 years ago, when kids just kills each other on constant war and it was like expected to kids, to casually die. So it's very likely, that those cultures would have some weird and dangerous initiation rituals.
My understanding was that Konoha promoted such,to slowly kill other Village's genins so they can get on top in the case of another war...just saying DANZO had a lotta his hands in TOO MUCH STUFF,so it'd not be a far strech to say that the "Killing allowed" rule in the Forest wasn't an unplanned rule...
2:55 they were weeding out the weakest ones and the ninja that the village doesn't want/need. If you can't survive this you wouldn't survive anything more difficult. That's why the 1v1 arena fights had so much buildup- only the best who survived the forest
But you're wasting genin they might not be very strong but manpower is manpower what happens if someone with crazy potential dies before there power develops.
@@herobrans9822 well they specifically don't let you go take the exams if you aren't ready- your jonin instructor will know when you're ready. Freak accidents happen but that's just the dynamic nature of the shinobi environment. What happened to the Kaguya clan and Haku's clan was a mistake however
@@iamcool544 Listen smart guy first of all anyone can get lucky, who said anything about perfection, autistic? Second of all Sakura became a better medical nin than Tsunade and Ino's sensory abilities surpassed every Yamanaka prior, plus the Ino-Shika-Cho formation is a time honored tradition and an example of flawless teamwork and coordination so obviously they passed. Shikamaru became a chunin, so clearly that counts for something.
Hiruzen literally explains that the exams are the way to keep balance and peace instead of all out war, they are ment to die, konoha has to flex like that in order to keep it s advantages, or else they will be weak while negotiating.
love how the entire purpose of the hidden village system as stated by Hashirama was to stop child soldiery as the life expectancy was like 30. Also Gaara straight murdered some rain ninjas casually in FoD,
The funniest thing is that since the Forest was near Konoha they easily could have used reanimation to resurrect the fallen kids for info if they were evil
The chunin exams makes sense from their world/ an older world standpoint. In a world where you are sending children and preteens into situations where they could possibly be offed, it makes sense to put them in that type of scenario early. We see it with earlier civilizations like the Spartans who are known for how strong they are. Many Spartans did not make it past combat training. This makes even more sense when doing it with another village. Although you do not want to go to war with your ally, you do want to keep them in check. The actual world also does do joint exercises with ally nations. As for the point of all the tests before the final one, it’s to simply eliminate numbers. It doesn’t matter if they are televised as they are trying to to only show the true talent to the important people attending. As for villages sending in jonin to end every genin there, it’s just something that wouldn’t happen. It would cause a chain reaction that would just lead to war. Orochimaru was a rare case that cannot be used since he had a “grudge” against the third and also wanted to give Sasuke the curse mark. Love the content and can’t wait for the next part of the Naruto rewrite
If that were to be the case, the village would have a value system that reflects that. But the general sense of moral of the Konoha is actually quite modern; It doesn’t work for practicality’s sake either, they are simply too young with too much potential to be wasted in a “game”, when they well could have become great assets in the field if given more training…it’s over the top even from a in universe standpoint. The fact that Garra was literally killing audiences during the tournament and the first response of Naruto and Shikigami was not to notify authorities is even weirder…
There is no evidence the Spartan Agoge involved any significant large scale deaths of its citizens. They did train kids by having them kill slaves, but these kids were of the Spartan elites they weren't killing each other.
I mean, I guess that on the villages minds, if they die then they are not good enough and a necessary sacrifice. It's similar to the Hunter Exam on HxH.
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Considering the fact that it was about survival in the field. Tbh, every team leader told their team that they could die and if they didn't want to participate then they didn't have to. Also, if the team leader didn't feel that their team was ready then they didn't have to. Compared to the way things were in the past, the Forest of Death is tame. Let's not even touch on the fact that Kirigakure's Academy graduation exams revolves around the last man standing ideology. Actually, military exercises do incorporate live ammunition drills.
Military exercises incorporate live ammunition for shooting training, like shooting targets, but not against other soldiers. At least that's what i know from my military training, idk about other countries
It's more about the fact that the Forest of Death is extremely counter productive. Imagine that during WW2 you'd send the 17year old drafts of your own nation into a remote forest where they kill each other before sending them to the front lines. It diminishes your war power, emotionally scars your soldiers and worst of all, nobody actually gives a sh!t. In the live ammunition drills I took part in we shot at dummy targets (dunno the english term for it but google translation say Gefechtsschiessen = skirmish shooting), never actual people, cuz that be like stupid and dangerous (It's really cool to see tanks in action tho). For combat simulation against one another we used special gear and blanks (the gear electronically registers when you're hit, and the blanks go boom to simulate gunfire). For Urban Warfare we used "cold wax projectiles" (better paintballs that hurt much more).
@R4ND0M1ZER these people are fully trained. They're just inexperienced...the kids were that is, and that's because they purposely chose to join in when they did. If people in Naruto had a single brain cell, their teachers would never have allowed them to join in so soon after graduating the academy. They would have had the kids wait at least a couple more years to gain experience and hone their skills. There was no need to kill, so they didn't purposely send the Genin in to die. It was just a possibility based on their opponent's whims, perfectly capturing what would happen on a mission if they were foolish enough to get caught by the enemy. There are countless issues with the Chunin exams. This is not one. Armies are also meaningless in Naruto when a single high-level shinobi can be a 1-man army and superweapon. Pain, for example, could literally wipe out the Hidden Leaf or any other villain at any moment if he really wanted it. Even a single random Chunin could infiltrate a village and start planting bombs. We're shown constantly how easy it is to infiltrate a village, especially if they used any form of cunning. They could also kill any high-level shinobi if they were smart. This is a world of assasins, not soldiers. Armies are both redundant and counterproductive. A couple of dozen competent shinobi are more than enough for any faction. Hundreds would just be overkill, let alone thousands. ... If the writing were consistent with the world building, that is.
@@corruptangel6793 I think your words have some merit, but on the other hand also have some logical flaws. Imagine Hashirama, Minato, Raikage A or Itachi got killed during a chunin exam by a similar tier opponent, that be super stupid. Why would you risk your top assets before they flourish. The high tiers are only high tiers when they're older.
@R4ND0M1ZER don't send them in before they flourish. That was my opening point. The entire purpose of the Chunin rank was to see who was ready to go on life and death missions, who can handle the risk. The death forest is effectively a faux Chunin level mission. If you can't handle one where they try to limit everyone to a relatively equal level, then you're all but destined to die on a real chunin level mission. And then you'll also drag the village into your failure. Even Orochimaru showed how danger levels can fluctuate mid-mission. Just like how the first arc was officially Chunin level but upgraded unoffically to Jonin level once Zabuza got involved. A shinobi should never make a move unless they're certain of success. If you've seen it, Hunter X Hunter handles that mentality perfectly with Killua. Though there, they condemn the attitude because he was no longer an assassin but instead trying to be a hunter, where friendship was valued and risk commonplace. If you get caught, you have only yourself to blame and deserve anything that comes your way.
Bruh, it’s a world where people can spit fire, teleport, summon oversized animals, hide stuff in a roll of paper, and all kinds of crap. Ofcourse the canon explanation will be that the exam was being monitored. And it’s actually not stupid to think that. Because the death of young ninjas could start wars between nations, and with that many young ninjas from different nations, ofcourse they must have had some sort of security to ensure nothing too severe happened. Orochimaru appearing there was like a flaw in the security, similar to how Cedric and Harry got sent to Voldemort in the Goblet of Fire at the end of the tournament.
The Forest of Death was a Darwinian exercise in my perspective. As others have stated, the hidden mist had fights to the death for their Chunin promotions, which is why it’s called the bloody mist village. It also ensures that recruits are able and willing to kill their opponents. And when you’re on the precipice of war because your Kage is being subtly influenced by Obito Uchiha, it is rather important.
You're not looking at these particular chunin exams in the larger political landscape. these are held by the leaf and the only ninja that arrive are either from small villages on the border or from the sand or the sound village, both of which are planning to use the exams to their own means. You dont see any ninja from any other of the big 5 because this is meant to test the hidden leaf genin against smaller lands around them and the occasional kage level land that may show up, and not against a targeted attack from conspiring nations
Bro, I'm sorry, but you completely missed the point here. The Forest of Death has two purposes: one, to eliminate as many ninjas as possible from the exams, that way, only the best of the best can remain; and two, because there is no actual peace between the hidden villages, the ninjas are urged to learn how to kill and survive, also they have to be prepare to die, all of that within the most dreadful circumstances, they need to be as strong as they can be, ASAP. And those who are too weak, they either lose or die. Put in referees would only kill the purpose of the exam, plain and simple. These ninjas are being prepare to go to war, eventually. You put the army as an example? In the army they teach you that you need to be prepare to kill and die at war - Jocko Willink said that. Well, same thing goes for the Chunin Exams. Also, using Orochimaru as an example, at the time one of the most powerful ninjas on earth, makes no sense, because only him, and maybe a couple of other ninjas, could've infiltrated throuthg the whole Chunin Exams and get away with it. Besides, what would be the point of showcase the exams at this point? The feudal lords only care for the best of the best and this phase does not have them. That's why they wait until the final phase to witness the exams. Also, in Boruto the exams "makes sense", because they are at peace, all of the villages. So, there's no actual need for them to kill each other; this time around it's more like a friendly, light hearted competition.
On one side of the coin, the actual prodigies who can truly become Chunin will excel at these exams, but on the other side of the coin, if your 6 year old kekkei genkai badass gets jumped and killed by a sneak attack, and doesn’t get to grow into a kage level god, then it’s not exactly a fair test, is it?
If the Chunin Exams in Naruto don't make sense to you because of the way in which its conducted, then it shouldn't be a surprise the way Boruto does it. Boruto shows a Chunin Exams where they are pushed to be stronger IN a controlled environment. That's the big difference I see between Boruto and Naruto's Chunin Exams. Boruto's HAS a controlled environment to showcase their ninja whereas, as you state, thw Forest of Death doesn't show Kage or potential clients the skills of the shinobi present.
I’ve also always wondered what happens when one or two of your team members pass but you don’t. Like obviously you have to retake it, but are you supposed to take it with an entirely new team? Doesn’t seem fair whrn obviously each team in the exam are long term teammates with loads of personal experience/training but also not fair having someone who’s already proven to have passed to be eliminating others who havnt yet. I get being able to work with different people is important but the third hokage created these teams specifically for how they function together
I think there's a general lack of weight to deaths in Naruto, specially anything before Shippuden. Like, in the Chunin exams, Gaara killed a group of kids in cold blood. That's maybe 2 to 3 families who just LOST THEIR CHILD to a Sand-Village monster. You're telling me the Leaf village was just okay with it? This is the kinds of things that START WARS between nations. Maybe more ridiculous, when Gaara becomes good and comes back to help, everyone is like "Oh, now you're cool". No he's not, hello??? He killed your fellow students, people from your country, kids your age. He's literally a murderer of your people. You don't forgive murderers because "They're good now, so it's okay". Also, their siblings are, like, numb to the murders he, along with them, commits, until he has a change of heart and so now they also care? Now, as a Disclaimer, I really love Gaara's arc as depicted in Shippuden. He is a very caring person, and he deeply, and I mean deeply, regrets the atrocities he committed as a child. He wants to do good, to do right for his wrongs. I think at THAT point you redeem him, have people forgive him.
4:51 yeah but that ain’t the real world, and if ur weak enough to die in the forest of death your likely to just be a liability in the field for the mission, some missions in which a tiny mistake could mean full on war. Makes sense in my opinion
This test isn't just about gauging strength and fostering peace. It's also about testing each ninjas' obedience to commands and willingness to do or die against other children who could possibly be their future enemy combatants if another ninja war breaks out
Although it doesn't make much sense, a lot of cultures has this idea of only the strongest can make it into the military. Spartans did the same thing by sending 8 year old kids alone to survive in the wild and only those who survives are worthy enough to be in the army.
It's worth noting that this exam is loosely based on how real exams were performed by ninjas during that period, but it's kind of strange in its presentation. The manga Azumi properly portrays how brutal it was in comparison, but it also illustrates the necessity of why their exam was so brutal. Because they have to service an Emperor and follow the task given to the letter even if they are morally opposed they have to effectively kill their heart. In the story, Azumi gets a number of close male relations that she has to kill, even opens with her killing the boy she was sweet on and her friend group slowly dwindles down to nothing as the nature of being an assassin isn't so sweet. I highly recommend reading it if only because I think Naruto makes more sense to me when read through that lens.
“We have secret techniques that are exclusive to our Hidden Village. Let’s hold a competition where anyone will be able to see these tactics and find ways to stop them.”
The Chunin Exams were nothing but a waste of resources and a security risk. The exams are also really ineffective at showcasing the traits and skills the villages look for in chunin. Leadership and resourcefulness are not exactly traits showcased very well in one on one spars. Power and fighting ability are important but if that was what they are looking for the Nara would've failed on principle of being too out of shape to fulfill anything more than a support role, yet he was the only one promoted even though his stalemate would've ended up in his death. The rate of promotion is also odd considering how Chunin are the bulk of a villages military force, yet a village seems lucky to have more than a one or two promoted during an international event that happens twice a year. The severe lack of manpower during sasuke's defection proves there simply isn't enough shinobi being produced to make up for the losses they suffer from conflict and general risk of the job to throw away genin in political bloodsports to showcase to investors, not like showing off children and teenagers killing eachother would make convincing arguments to invest in your mercenaries.
The chunin exams weed out the week. They want quality over quantity. It doesn't have to make sense to you, they think way different than us, their whole lives depend on the quality of ninja they have
I don't know I think the chunin exams very accurately showed how cutthroat the ninja world actually is and is meant to prepare you for having to be in kill or be killed scenarios 24/7. I mean look at what genin missions normally are they almost never have combat in them unless it's during a great war. We don't really get that feeling cause team 7 is obviously thrown right into a high stakes situation with the land of waves arc but the other 2 konoha genin teams definitely were not prepared and it shows with their reactions to someone like gaara who already knows how ruthless the ninja world can be.
I thought you'd mention how stupid it is to organize an exam in which tons of ninjas from other villages can do their intelligence work way more easily: study other village's jutsus, infiltrating into the host village, steal technology or jutsus, studying or attacking people of interest which would be very hard otherwise, etc. (yes, the host village can try to do the same but still). I haven't seen the series in years so I guess the justification is "for a show of peace", kind of like the Olympics, but ninjas aren't sportsmen. Still, the the exam arc is still pretty cool despite most of its tests not making much sense.
Well, for me It makes sense since the Shinobi world was in an neverending Cold war state, so Their training *had to emulate an war scenario* In parallel to real life, Soilders before WW2 passed an training so harsh that many died in the middle of it
Yeah... Just send someone with beyond Chuunin's skill level disguised as Newbie to Annihilate the others villages' prospects, year after year, creating a gap between your village and the others. For the final act Give proper instructions to Gaara's Team, they act like weaklings/stupid/easy prey... Get in the Florest, literally erase Nejii's Team, Sasuke/Sakura, Hinata's Team... Just avoid 'Ino-Shika-Cho' and the whole War is now much easier.
Yep this, death being a possibilty is fine but like you are going just throw them unsupervised into a death forest to fight each other. Like ignoring the needless loss of manpower this will cause, how are you gonna prevent let say a super elite ninja of a small but hostile village coming in disguised as a genin killing all the best of your current generation if genin?
These are all good points but might I offer a counterpoint? This is also the same universe and people who made using 8 year olds as front line fighters the de facto modus operandi for... how long exactly?
Because they are literal kids who just became genin, the lowest grade. Even if they fail the exam you are killing a potential future asset for no reason other than " muh chunnin exams are so deadly and cool" Besides the ninja world, by the time the chunin exams take place, is in relative peace, so why even be as strict as they were? No sense at all.
Because of their potential. Imagine if Naruto or Sasuke died because say they were found by Gaara. The Leaf has now lost two potentially extremely powerful Shinobi and he same goes for the other villages. A solution for this would be to invent a way to prevent the ninjas from killing each other with some jutsu or change the test to something more easily regulated.
There are programs in the Army where we train with other nation's troops in "war games " and a lot of military training could be deadly and many have died or severely injured themselves through said training. #Veterans #Knowledge
In universe the Forest of Death is a survival exercise to test more than just combat ability but all of their other abilities at their disposal. I agree with the idea that they need precautions set up to stop under handed play but the idea is to set up life or death stakes to overcome because that is what ninjas are expected to face.
Yeah but that’s ridiculous. No real world military has people shoot live rounds at each other, expecting them to hit maybe half the trainees even though that’s something that could happen
@@tillburr6799 Well world of Naruto been using lethal force since the Bell Test. It's messed up by our standards, but not by theirs. The Chunin Exams are meant to simulate war, and it does that well. It's also not meant for children. Remember that Naruto's class were outliers and that there were a ton of adults that were weeded out. I believe it's actually intended as an insurmountable wall for children, but prodigies look at it as a challenge. (Granted, there really should be some Jonin supervision to save anyone out of the running as a form of insurance because like you said, don't just throw your millitary assets away.)
If your Genin can't survive a forest full of other Genin then they were clearly not ready to be a Chuunin. The ninja world is a dangerous & unforgiving world. The exams are one of the first crucibles a ninja must overcome
Compared to what other villages was doing, Konoha had it easy. Either they did that or have a huge army of weak ninjas which would ultimately lead to certain death in the ninja world and plus the numbers would even out cuz other villages was flat out killing a lot of they’re ninjas during exams
My problem with the arc is much like episode 1 there is a lack of consequences for the sand siblings and Orochimaru. Gaara kills Dosu and doesn't have to sign paperwork in triplicate explaining to the leaf that it was in self defense. Baki and Gaara should not be able to outmaneuver the security ninja and The Sand Sibs don't get tortured for failing their mission by the Sand or get executed by the Leaf for their alliance. A country that kills for money should expect a huge fine to pay for losses otherwise they justify the leaf holocausting the sand and Orochimaru never deals with repercussions from the Grass village as he should have saved his betrayal for a year and just made himself enemy number one. Also Naruto should have used his toads to strangle Neji and batter him.
You didn't think an exam that is very deadly and likely to lead to the students dying being a requisite in order to determine if the students were strong enough to go to war and potentially die, in order to save their lives from sending them too young and weak to war where they would ultimately die, to be a strategy that makes sense? 😆
Dude, Hiruzen literally explains at the beginning of the preliminary rounds that Chuunin exams are a cheaper war substitute. The teams sent to the Forest of Death are sent on a suicide mission, actually, killing as many teams of the other villages as possible without repercussions. That's the whole point behind the politics of the second stage of the exam. If a jounin manages to infiltrate the examinees, well, too bad for the village.
I think you can do the forest of death test without all the...well death. You could have supervising ninja within the forest posing as other genin, acting as part of the test while watching the trainees. You can also have loyal summons help as well acting as wild beasts. There's a lot of ways you can make it more secure while also keeping the difficulty of the test.
What's your favorite scene in the Chunin Exams?
Lee vs Gaara for sure.
I love the whole ending with Orochimaru's reveal during Sasuke and Gaara's fight its so high octane it feels like the plot speed from a 10 to a 15
F
Orochimaru vs 3rd hokage. Damn that fight was funny,I was waiting for when will they finish it? They turned a 1 or 2 episodes event into a f#cking 20 episodes.
Shikamaru vs Temari. Specifically everyone's reaction to when Shikamaru gave up
From my point of view, the chuunin exam should be something more within the villages themselves than something from several villages together. It makes much more sense for villages to test their ninja themselves and see if they are fit for the next level than risk letting intruders with ulterior motives enter the village or letting other villages discover weaknesses.
That makes sense, but the Chunin exams are meant to Foster peace and trust between the villages. Its also meant to gauge the future strength of different villages.
@@jamesrt5352 Kinda. I do agree with you. It's difficult to foster peace and trust through proxies of war. The exams seem counterintuitive.
@@ghost245353 I suppose its like modern militaries running drills against one another. Helps Foster cooperation but also gauges strength
It's explained that the chuunin exams also act as a sort of diplomatic event for the different villages (sort of like the Olympics). At the beginning of Naruto, the villages are still rivals but gradually moving towards peace. They showcase the abilities of their ninja as a show of goodwill. Also, several potential clients attend the chuunin exam tournaments to see how the various villages' ninja compare against each other. Villages that do well in the exam tournaments will drum up extra business.
it was supposed to be a way of gauging strength tho
I don't remember if it was mentioned, but for me chuunin exams were something like a small war between the villages. They didn't openly fight for many reasons (for example tailed beasts) but they liked to compete and test the strength of the other ninjas. It was a smaller war to avoid a bigger one
It's the 3rd hokage who said it
Not also that, but they were essentially the Olympics of the ninja world.
3rd hokage mentioned that the exam was meant to bring out other spies from other villages. While at the same time keep friendly relations, so it was somewhat of a win win for Konoha.
It was stated to be a war type situation by Hiruzen. The chunin exams make perfect sense, this is honestly a shit video
I think you’re missing a few things here. Though I agree throwing away man power does seem senseless but in the world of Naruto it’s quality over quantity. We see that in the shinobi in Boruto vs the shinobi of Naruto. Konohamaru vs kakashi for example completely different quality of ninja jounin.
Also this version of the chuunin exam only existed after the third great shinobi war. It’s more of a political tool first and promotion exam second. As the selection criteria doesn’t necessarily depend on if you win or lose. You just have to show the qualities of a chuunin. This is why shikamaru was the only one to be promoted in the og arc.
I just realized that the leaf village sent 2 of their most powerful "weapons" to die. Naruto (Jinchuriki) and Sasuke (Uchiha).
Just imagine if instead of being attacked by the sound guys they were attacked by Gaara first. Literally Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura die.
Pretty much lol
they knew what they were getting in to when they signed up for it tho
Isn't there always a chance that Naruto would go berserk and rage murder everybody ? Imagine a scenario where Team 7 encounters Gaara first. Gaara kills Sasuke and Sakura to taunt Naruto who then goes berserker 6Tails and starts to rampage. He'd wipe out the entire forest. Nobody there stands a chance against him.
Sure, Might Guy, Hiruzen, Kakashi and the other Jonin are able to kill 6Tails Naruto eventually (if he'd go 8Tails Minato would come and be like: yoyoyoyo chill mate the plot wants you to survive), but it would be a catastrophic event for sure.
@@r4nd0m1zer2 He wouldn't unleash the six tails as the Seal progressively unravelled through the series. At that point at most he will unleash the one tail cloak from his fight with Sasuke in the Final Valley
@@r4nd0m1zer2 naruto would've died from going that far as he's way too weak right now
According to an interview with Kishimoto, he wanted to have Team 7 go on more missions and meet other teams from other villagers, but his editors told him there was no time for that and to do a tournament arc to introduce all these characters.
He also said he wanted to have Shikamaru win the tournament, but then his editors told him to create a villain to interrupt the tournament, and that's how Orochimaru came to be.
How do you even know this?
@@martiniliev2236 Most likely read/watched the interview
@@martiniliev2236 "in an interview"
Interrupting the exams would be a common trope. The filler arc that interrupted the war where the Konoha 11 became chunin. Boruto, the chunin exams can never just come and properly finish can it.
@@francoperalta5986 was it really a common trope already back then?
It’s funny how openly the Chunin exam is flawed. We’ve seen Gaara kill people in cold blood in the forest and he could have kept doing this and reducing every villages military power.
We’ve also seen the waterfall village sneak in two Jonins to protect Fu while she was taking part. And in this same exam Nagato sent in his own squad.
Oh yes, the second chuunin exam filler is so underrated. It was in a weird spot in the middle of the war but it's still my favourite Naruto filler and more people should watch it
Wait is the second bit of your argument filler? Because if that is the case it doesn’t count
@@eduardocalle3536 it is, but I like using Filler when there’s nothing that contradicts it.
@@eduardocalle3536 arguably Filler is closer to what Ninjas are supposed to be
Being assigned missions based on who hired them
Don't forget about Kabuto infiltrating different editions to spy on young ninjas for Orochimaru and nobody taking notice of it.
It's implied the other villages had even more brutal systems than Konoha's chuunin exams. Hidden Mist literally had their ninja kill each other in death matches to determine who graduates (We find out their Kage was being manipulated by Obito during this time, but the fact that the village still apparently permitted it without resistance demonstrates just how mundane this practice is in the Naruto world). Also, keep in mind ninja in the Naruto world aren't strictly a military force. They also act as assassins, spies and mercenaries for their nation's daimyo and other clients. They need capability, not just quantity. Ninjas tend to work in small units. A single weak/incompetent ninja can cost the success of a mission and in the worst-case, the lives of the entire team. The effectiveness of a villages' shinobi determines their whole economy and ultimately the survival of the village as a whole so they need a system that thoroughly tests their abilities as much as possible.
The Hidden mist did that because Obito was controlling the village and he obviously didn't care at all about their welfare. After Obito stops controlling Yagura and Mei takes over the methods of the Mist Village become much more like the Leaf
@@DygoKnight I dont think, that Obito was truly behinde it.
Remember. Zabusa is around the same age as Obito and Kakashi. And he "canceled" this genin exam, by attending it, when he was a kid. It ended, after he killed a full year of students, even, when he wasnt even old enough to go to this exam.
Mean: Obito can not be maked this exams.
Aside of that, make puplic events not much sense, because, it would make it so much harder for the ninja, to go to other villiages after that for spying missions.
Because: The chance is there, that someone noticed the ninja from this exam (good, it is allways 2 times in a year, it is easy to forgett someone later again).
But, whe saw in the Obito flashback, that they maked the exam solo, when they had war`s. And this exam`s are war`s in small format.
@@DygoKnight I did acknowledge that the system was practiced while Obito was controlling the Mizukage. I'm not sure he was the one who actually established it though. However, the fact that the idea wasn't _outlandish_ enough for the Mist Village to immediately outright refuse it still speaks volumes about what's considered acceptable in the ninja system. Imagine the mayor of a town decrees "Hey, we're going to start having the students kill each other to determine who graduates from high school". I would imagine the reaction from most towns would be "You're out of your mind. That's INSANE." Not the Mist village. Apparently, they just ran with it. Early Naruto painted a much more brutal, Darwinian ninja system where shinobi lives were considered fairly disposable even in the villages where the good guys are from. I agree, it's not really optimal when you think hard about it, there's definitely better ways to determine who's fit to serve without killing your candidates, but the reasoning does make sense on a surface level. This is a world where six-year olds could be sent to battle frontlines.
@@DygoKnight Its still shows how accepting shinobi are of social darwanism
I know that the mist eventually rebelled but they still accepted that for many years because shinobi do not see the lives of shinobi as valuable
they are taught time and time and again that they must die for the mission
I feel in part one their was a greater emphasis on quality of shinobi then number of shinobi. (Makin naruto and his shadow clones a fun inversion)
The shinobis being a complete army was also very weird to me.
I feel with retcons the scope of the ninja villages just grew larger and larger
Everyone wants to always forget how the White Fang got treated in the leaf when he put his squads lives over the mission. So much hate he self deleted. Reason Kakashi is the beast he is now. His whole bell test is a result of how absolutely brutal the previous era had been.
I think this is a victim of the tonal shift and power creep of the Naruto series. Originally ninjas were portrayed as a kind of faceless thankless solider who is used as an expendable resource for the nation rather than the weapons of mass destruction that they ended up as. The forest of death was supposed to paint them as disposable and easily replaceable. Additionally there was a burden of performance basically telling them "if you can't survive this you aren't worth anything as a shinobi in the first place". But as the story went on and the ninja got stronger we went from risking a couple tanks and maybe a fighter jet or two in the chunin exams to risking a couple nukes in the nuclear arms race.
They are mercenaries for hire and somehow it became a mage battle.
@@Doflaminguard Both of yall have terrible takes this common notion needs to die
It was already stated that ninja in the past were WAAAAAY stronger than current ninja and dudes were throwing magic uh i mean "ninjustsu" around better than most magic based shows from the get go.
The power ceiling was established to be extremely high of course the protagonist was gonna reach it eventually
@@jdrmanmusiqking its funny because ninjas are just mercenaries for hire and it became a world ending battle with alien.
Kurama and Gamabunta were literally in the first episode. Its like yall forget that on purpose so you can have these takes. The weapons of mass destruction been there since the beginning.
@jdrmanmusiqking Stated in "The Last" the movie that came out after all the power creep.
This video just reminded me of how unique Kishimoto's early art was! Considering how Shippuden ended up looking at the end of its run, the development of Kishi's art is wild. Bro completely changed up his style!
Honestly i enjoyed his art more back then. I am not sure why but it has more "edge" to it? I also think that in shippuden everyone kinda has the same face xd yeah art looks more clean and yada yada but zabuza/chunin egzamin art had such unique feel to it. Villains were drawn more scary i think
@@oooonoooo3807 yeah there was definitely more eagerness and personality when he started, was improving as it went on but it's clear that by the end it more turned into a style he could pump out quickly. But i can't fault him for that too much, what was it, 15 years making one of the most successful manga series weekly? I'm glad man didn't go mad or get terrible health issues knowing how the industry can get on these artists.
And just tonally, things like the covers became a lot more subdued. I remember early Naruto covers would show the characters in whacky but really cool poses, with like these dope ass weapons sometimes, very dynamic. But he made them a lot more grounded over time.
He actually loved the character design done for the anime and went on to emulate it further on. I think hes lowkey a god when it comes to things like hangs, feet and depth (the characters feel like theyre 3d) but my favorite is the inbetween from his old style into his new one that started in the later stages of chunin exam up early sasuke retrieval arc. -
@oooonoooo3807 I know what you mean. I also prefer his old art style.
Naruto was better at this point. Hated Shippuden.
you could send a jonin disguised as a genin and kill the next generation of your enemies village here lol. I mean orochimaru was a participant 😂
Hell someone like a young Kakashi or Itachi could have been sent. They were both ANBU as like young teens/pre teens. By the logic naruto was running off of, no one would question them being there despite them being high level threats lmao.
When the Chunin exams were presented it made sense as you had the impression (vanished from that point in forward) that the ninja villages had a servant relationship with their respective nations and nation's leaders and they NEED to display their power and prestige for the Nation/Leader themselves. Also the non-ninja related missions were something presented as if it was the most of the stuff the Villages worked with... But from here to the rest of the series, everything not directly related to Ninjas vanished, the Villages themselves seem to became the "great power of the land" no more subservant to other istitutions.... So in the new frame, wasting young talents for meaningless showoff seems madness
It also served like a ninja olympics
yeah it's very well documented the writer didn't expect the series to ve serialized for so long... basically just winging it early on, then having to change things down the line
yeah, look how much it deviated that i didnt even through that there was more to the world of naruto that the villages, were are those "nations" the villages are supposed to be subservient to mentioned? because let me tell you i dont remember them ever being mentioned
Yeah that aspect of worls building gets just thrown out the window after a while, i think only the anime only keeps it relevant more
@@AriesBozz Damn bro, didn't know people died in the Olympics. Seems like perfect sense to kill promising athletes.
It doesn't make sense because Villages have thousands of Chunnins but the exam is once per year and very few people are selected as a Chunnin.
Minor correction, it’s actually held twice a year.
It is very likely that the villages promote most its chuunin ninjas due to performance in regular missions, they send the most skilled genins to the Exams to show off to potential clients.
It was stated that even if you lose a chunim exam ( third and last part of it) you can be promoted to chunnin.
And there can be a siyuation where no one get chunnin rank.
In tournament gennin advertise they village and bring in potwntial customers and investors
@@Hektols Bingo
@@patrykzajac4961 That and it's clear that Naruto's generation of genin are fairly exceptional on average, and that probably ultimately lead to their mindset of simply plowing on ahead instead of actually properly assessing situations. Which is why Shikamaru passed.
One thing that would have been a good twist, was to keep the start of the forest of death the same, but to have the Jonin keep watch over their squads. Each squad already had a shinobi assigned to them to knock them out in case they opened the scroll and fail them, so that Jonin would use genjutsu on their squads' opponents and knock their squad out in cases where they would have died, leaving their teams scroll behind and failing them. It would give the illusion of death and keep the same tone of the exam until the end, making sure that the genin were willing to die for their village but without the risk. Also, the forest of death and the written exam seemed to weed out the shinobi that were not strong enough for the rank of chunin and then the 1 on 1 fights were more for the display of power, having the best of the candidates display their capabilities for a crowd
I think this would be the best solution
Yeah, and then snake boy would seem much cooler if he then had to take out whoever was keeping watch over Sasuke without the judges wising up to it. Plus, it'd fit with the theme of the previous exams being based around the supervisors being deliberately misleading.
yes this would be far better solution in a real sense for the leaf village but for us viewers it would be much more enjoyable seeing the risk of danger and death that characters would be in
On some Star Trek shit word
Something like this happens in Hunter X Hunter:
They should have done something like the Island Phase of the Hunter Exam in Hunter X Hunter where every participant had a Hunter asigned to keep them on watch while using Zetzu (not the akatsuki member, a nen technique to conceal the presence from other people) to not get detected and watch over them not get killed (though in HxH murder is allowed too during the phase). So then in Naruto they would be Jonins watching over and due to their skill they would be able to hide without being detected by the genins. And also only reveal this at the end to keep the ilusión of danger on the exams.
It is so over the top, Lee was the greatest Taijutsu trainee and he was literally paralyzed in the exams 😭I do love it though its the best I love all the teacher like "oh well, I guess they could all die🤷♂️"
Such a great moment. Guy became so awed by Lee's tenacity and hard work that he lost sight of the kid's limits and taught him a technique far beyond his ability and ended up crippling the boy. What will this do to Guy? What happens to Lee? It had so much emotion and weight.
...
Too bad it was ruined and made hollow by Lee recovering.
@@corruptangel6793 lee became crippled because Gaara crushed his legs with sand, he wouldn’t be crippled but would have to recover for a while. That’s how the gates work, only 8th gate is death.
@@corruptangel6793
The technique didn’t get him crippled though?
People, it doesn't matter if it was Gaara or the gates did the deed. Things progressed that far because Lee was able to use such a devastating ability. This means that the true fault of the injury is Guy's for not only teaching Lee the technique, but also encouraging him to use it and push beyond his limit.
"Lee...I never let myself think that you could lose. I wanted to help you achieve your shinobi path. Please forgive me, Lee...for not stopping you before it was too late."
I agree, it makes no sense to have your ninja with incredible potential into a forest that has a above 50% death rate
If your ninja have an incredible potencial them he would be in alot of mission with 80 to 90% death rate
I think you guys underestimate humans. Look to real world examples of how nations act in wartime.
they get to choose whether they o or not tho. and the senseis have to sign off on it too. they are not forced to do it
@0xInternal fr
@@mr.bibinho8528 Well Their parents should know what their kids are getting into. They signed up to be a NINJA. That’s like signing up to be in the military bro it’s a brutal job, killing people and risk of being killed. You can argue it’s unethical to let kids be ninjas that’s a different topic but in the naruto verse at least, the kids are soldiers so they gotta get a taste of what their job is gonna be like.
The Chunin Exams are a bit crazy ngl...
It's not even a thing of "only the strong survive" because you can still lose strong and valuable ninjas.
Imagine if Sasuke died in the exams, that would be horrible for the village, he's the last Uchiha and losing him would mean that they would completly lose Sharingan users in the future
It's almost like it was a literal plot point that all those kids were too young and inexperienced to take part, and they only joined in because their teachers, who are obviously trying to kill their students, pushed for it.
@@corruptangel6793 what teachers wanted to obviously kill their students? Guy even had has students not participate for years till he thought they were ready no one wanted their students to die.
@Michael Joseph they're kids with midling levels of skills and experience. The fact that none of the kids were ready to be fully independent also proved they weren't ready to be Chunin. Any adult with even a smidgen of common sense would see none of them were ready and that there was a high risk of death.
Between that and Kakashi's mentorship in the first arc, how could they not be trying to kill their students? These are situations in which the KIDS are blatantly not ready for, and it is the ADULTS that are allowing and even pushing for the situations to occur. The fact that any Genin survives to adulthood is nothing short of a miracle.
@@corruptangel6793 yeah I just don’t get how kakashi sent Sakura to the exams. She was not ready at all, she was the weakest Genin out of everyone. Sure she was determined and had some ok chakra control and was smart but it wasn’t enough to take the exams.
@@michaeljoseph9634 idk about others but gai allowed Lee to use eight gates beyond Lee's limit
The fact that no one except the leaf, sand, and sound village passed the forest of death is telling. I’m surprised no one says anything about konoha rigging the chunin exams in their favor.
The leaf had over 20 teams, every other village sent like 3-7
@@fatboysergio737id say thats still rigging the system in the leafs favor.
@@spencervance8484 Not really, every other village just chose to send less. Also, most of the villages were weak
@@fatboysergio737But even then konoha was at its weakest in all of its history and far past its heyday and the height of its power under the 1st Hokage .
"Why would you throw your ninjas into a death trap" laughs in blood mist village
Another big problem I have with the chunin exams is that clients don’t even really show up afterward, attracted by the performance of certain ninja. That whole part of ninjas being killer mercenaries is dropped for most of the series even though ITS THEIR VERY JOB.
Yes because the story focused on Bijous and Aliens instead of Military ninjas (which in my opinion was stupid af)
@@casualcookin3893 that is also my problem. Naruto should have been a story about child soldiers with super powers killing other child soldiers.
@@casualcookin3893the show well not be as popular as it today and shonan well not hesitate to cancel it and kishimoto wanted to have more arc before the chunin exam but the editor forced him to cut down there is a reason why we don't see the other village
@@dylanbuchanan6511blame the editor because kishimoto wanted to have more arc before the chunin exam but the editor forced him to cut down shonan forced kishimoto to introduce kagua to set up for boruto
One of the most hilarious things is that after the Genin survive in the forest of death, the Jounin's first reaction is: Too much Genin passed, let's do an elimination round and eliminate half of the candidates.
What they were essentially saying was: A lot of kids survived this year, let's get rid of them.
Lol yes and no. It's because of the written exam, too many passed there.
@@TalkativeHands and who's fault is that? They didn’t even bother noticing that one of the students used a morse code dog, one had a literal sand eyeball floating over his head and one of them somehow put mirrors on the ceiling..
@@Wolltazar It's Naruto's fault for being totally un-ninja-like and inspiring everyone of his competition to not raise their hands in the tenth question lol
Or did you not get the test was just a ruse for the actual hard part, which was answering the 10th question? The people that were caught cheating 5 times would make no difference in the forest of death and would probably just lose to the wildlife there, so they were free eliminations basically.
And there is also sasuke and sakura who aloud bring attention to others competitors about genjutsu so they are all on second floor instead of third floor. If they kept their mouths shut, they would have even less rivals.
My biggest issue with this is that naruto didn’t get promoted. He demonstrated the strategy needed to beat neji and outsmarted him quite a few times and proved himself. Yet shikamaru gets promoted because he’s smart even though it’s clear he lacks the motivation by literally quitting at the end of the match.
The explain this in the show that neji and Naruto would be terrible at leading and high stakes missions. You need someone with high strategy that won’t get the whole team killed.
@@seanmaddex4104not everyone is made to be a leader, so how do those ninja ever become Chunin if that were the deciding characteristic?
Neji lost and Naruto has the Kyuubi and is seen as dangerous
you become the eternal genin. the shows lore states that they need some leadership abilities.@@anibal5845
Naruto did not have any strategy against neji whatsoever he just ran in got his chakra sealed then used the nine tails and one shotted neji by going underground
I think there is a more critical consequence of these exams that people overlook, the blood feuds. Those contracts are not gonna stop their families and clans desire for revenge. This could start a ninja war or lead to internal instability.
Yeah imagine Hinata ran into Gaara in the forest and got sand coffined for basically no reason. That sounds like a political nightmare.
@@boredomkiller99 god I never thought about that, bro imagine going to war with your ally village for decades, just because of a exam going wrong, and there really wasnt anything about any sensei going "Hey Gaara, try not to mess the leaf up, they're our allies" bc it was orochimaru controlling the village, and literally nobody bothered checking who it was, you know, ninjas who are supposed to gather intel? someone could legit pretend to be a important figure and just not prevent bad shit from happening and war would break loose... thinking about it I guess the forest of death could be a very good exercise to give kids insight in their political stat(kinda?) for example, people from the leaf being adviced to rely on those from the sand for support, since they killing each other could be bad for their alliance and helping each other could make the alliance stronger once they become adult ninjas, top it all off by sending a few Jonins in together to make sure there are no impostors and important people (or better no one) gets killed, to avoid political problems (like the stone village claiming genins from the leaf village are being told by their parents and senseis to target only those from the stone, thanks to their long past of hating each other, I damn bet that would happen considering how the Tsuchikage is) but noooooo people from the same village are actually encouraged to kill and fuck each other up, imagine someday you have to go on a mission together with someone who almost killed you in an exam for the shits and giggles of it, even if it's a test people hold grudges against each other... I mean *Sasuke* held a grudge against Naruto for being stronger than him and being the one targetted by Itachi, which led to him developing a inferiority complex that just got worse when Naruto got even stronger leading to him abandoning the village and eventually fcking everyone up
@@Drip_Wooper Jeez you know I didn't even fully think about how effed people from the same village could be especially in the Leaf where it seems everyone knows everyone. Like imagine seeing your neighbor who's son maimed or killed your son for a exam. Sounds like a bad time.
@@boredomkiller99 meeting with a homie in the market after after your kid crippled his kid is gonna be... awkward... to say the least
The more I think about it the chunin exams seemed more like ninja population control rather than a series of tests to see who’s cut out to get promoted
To be fair, most of the danger team 7 faced was from orochimaru and his henchmen. Nobody that strong was really supposed to be there besides Gaara. While they could die, it's probably pretty rare
Edit- Wasn't Anko actually in the forest too because they got word of orochimaru being there? It's been awhile since I watched the chunin exams lmao but it's definitely not as dangerous as the jonin make it out to be. They wanted them to feel like they could die but they weren't about to let anyone get killed that they could help. Gaara is the only exception because they didn't know how dangerous he was but no other genin actually killed someone prior to or in the exams. That I can remember
I agree. Orochimaru and his machinations increased the danger by a lot.
Definitely, orochimaru’s interference was the real danger. Especially when he started the plan to destroy the leaf village
The giant blood sucking insects dropping down on you from above definitely wouldn't kill anyone
@diddles Wright they definitely wouldn't. Academy students can jump through trees lol. They're scary not deadly.
Sounds about right. I remember for a lot of my training in the military they LOVE making it sound like you could get yourself or someone killed, but to be quite honest, you genuinely would have to try in order to die. Everything was so regulated that the act of accidentally hurting someone was damn near impossible. That don't mean it was 100% safe but you weren't at huge risk of dying. The chunin exams were probably just like that, except at this point, anybody there should be more than capable of not dying towards anything that lived in there.
children soldiers make no sense when the village was built to not use them.
Compared to the literal death battles that the other villagers were having the Leaf's chunin exams are not so bad.
@@zcnaipowered7407 I mean yeah compared to the holocaust the segregation was not as bad.
...but it was still bad lmao
@@marxist-leninist-protagonist I'm not denying it was bad, it's just given how the villages were structured those kids were going to die soon anyway, eg Orichamaru's friend who died on the very first mission.
I mean, I think the whole point is that the ninja world is fucked up beyond repair. The arc before the Chunin Exams features an antagonist whose *graduation exam* was murdering his entire class. So I think the life threatening nature of the Chunin Exams is on brand with the world.
Brutality for brutality's sake is stupid as shit though. Take the hidden mist graduation exam where you have to kill your whole class. That means if you have 5 of the most top tier, grade SSS best ninja you have ever seen you will end that class with 1, who might just be permanently injured before they EVER did A SINGLE THING for the village. Thats absolutely fucking stupid. Years and tens of thousands of dollars wasted on fuck all.
@@iamcool544 I agree. But that’s part of the commentary, brutality for brutality sake is stupid and so is the Shinobi system.
@iamcool544 from a logical standpoint it is stupid. True. But the chunin exams seems culturally consistent with how violent and expandable the ninja world is. It is like how we have dumb rules and customs in the real world that are consistent with just how things are.
It wasn't his graduation exam, that wa he ended up doing.
The whole point of sending Genin to other villages for the Chunin Exams was to try and grow positive relationships between villages, if I recall correctly. I agree with your thoughts on the Forest of Death, though. But I do think it's a lot more fun to watch, logic be damned. lol
Nothing makes me like someone more than watching them kill / assault my friends before I have to fight them myself.
But they didn't just let them die, it was all optional they could choose to remain a Genin forever and do only low risk missions, they even gave them another out before the forest of death, Kakashi, Asuma and Kureani all truly believed their teams are more than capable of surviving, otherwise they would of not recommended them to participate.
Hiruzen states that the whole tournament aspect is just a sideshow that the chunin exams true purpose is a real mini battle between ninja villages and their nations, otherwise it has no meaning, a shinobi can only show his true abilities when he or his teammates life is on the line, the chunin exam is made to see if they have what it takes to be tools for war to lead others into battle, to make difficult decisions and face the unexpected, it cannot be tested if the risks are fake.
In the universe they live in it made perfect sense, it's Boruto capture the flag games that make no sense in universe.
At least the whole flag thing is a lot better than sending kids to their deaths in a forest and not let them gain the rank of Chunin.
Forest of death should have surveillance for check and they are checking their ability to keep valuable information a secret, adaptability according to circumstances and coordination in dire situations. Also, the ability and resilience to survive and While surveillance insures that the instructors can intervene if someone tries to kill others. There should be guard around the forest to insure no invasion occurs as well
Aside that, I also find the display of shinobi prowess in the final churning exam is also kind of unnecessary. One of the biggest advantage a shinobi has in battle is having their abilities unknown to their opponent.( for instance, pain vs jiraya). If the ninjas are openly displaying their abilities to the whole world, its easy for spies and enemies to gather intel that will easily shift the tide of battle. The exams should be done in secret instead
It’s for the rich clients, putting on a show gets more investors
As far as I understood, those exams were supposed to prove their will to keep peace among the nationts by exposing their power by showing their abilities etc. via this exam
@@hazelnutluni1923 Which if course makes the whole high chance more problematic since it was suppose to foster trust.
What you have to consider is that the forest of death is mild compared to what previous generations of shinobis had to deal with: war.
It was also explained if I recall that nations were using the chuunin exam as a way to gauge each other's power. Finally, it is arguably very difficult to infiltrate a hidden village. Orochimaru and Itachi knew how to do it because it was their original village, but Pain for instance had to invade from the sky and summon the 6 paths from inside
About Hirozen, I think you need to loose this kind grandfather image of him. He is a ninja and it was made clear in the beginning of the series that ninja accept all kind of missions. Even assassination. Never once morals were thing. Ninjas would kill innocents to get money for the village. And Hirozen being the Hokage was assigning the missions. We see story from Naruto's lens who let's be honest too moral to give us a real picture of the village.
I don't know about killing innocents. The only ninjas that immoral (at the start) were the ones hired by Gato. I suppose there's a chance they are tasked with killing innocent runaway ninjas. But we never explicitly see that. I certainly don't think any of the Leaf ninjas would be chill with killing innocents.
@@SonGoku-bg1fr the reason is that because the show can't show you audiences our main characters killing innocents but it's just a background fact. Naruto never even killed any bad guy. Rogue Ninja aren't that common and a village only kills their own, I would assume. Why kill other villages ' rogue ninjasvif you can capture them alive. The village would accept any mission, for example killing businessmen etc. Hirozen said they accept all kind of missions.
Also it's a well known fact that Kishimoto's editors wanted him to move to a tournament arc and from there the story took it's course, Missions had became a background thing.
People had thus disillusion that leaf village hold some kind of moral compass. No they don't.
@@muhammadzeagham4092 Even if the Leaf has no moral compass, the Forest of Death makes almost no sense. There's very little moral benefit, but more importantly, there's just as little practical benefit. All you're doing is wasting valuable military power on a test that could have easily been fixed by just adding hidden adult supervision. Literally no one wins in this type of game, all you do is get your young talents butchered.
@@blazefactor6849 I was just replying to his argument that if I can imagine Hirozen sending children to their deaths. The forest of death is a completely different argument
@BlazeFactor have you forgotten about the Spartans. And there 300 who held back xerxes and the Persian army. For more then a week. Have you forgotten how sharpening your spears makes breaking defense way better. Especially if that defense is held up by weak chain links. The idea is that the few who make ot through will be thousands of times better
Tbh you can’t compare the Naruto and boruto chunin exams because they both served different purposes to their respective stories
Also for as kind hearted as lord third was never forget he wasn’t against the uchiha massacre he just wanted to find a peaceful solution, if it came down to it hiruzen was just as prepared to kill his own villages children as much as danzo was, but Naruto is to kind hearted and wouldn’t even consider doing such a thing so of course the chunin exams in boruto aren’t as dangerous because the world isn’t in a kill or be killed mentality anymore
EXACTLY!!! This is why I enjoy Boruto's Chunin Exams because it shows the skills of the respective shinobi IN a controlled environment.
Yup. He was against it but not unwilling. Like dude, YOU allowed the elders and Danzo to ostracize the Uchiha. You allowed (I think) for 24/7 spying. Hiruzen seeminly never thought about the potential actions that led to that point.
@@joshuareid4654 That why boruto is boring lol
@@minnaing5970 again it’s about perspective, if you watch the boruto chunin exams with same mindset as the Naruto chunin exams then you miss the point, the Naruto chunin exams was a way to flesh out the ninja world and various characters, powers, abilities and concepts. When you look back at it the two major fights Naruto had are ultimately an afterthought when compared to other fights like lee vs garra and even shikamaru vs temari is more engaging to me. My point is that Naruto isn’t the main focus of his own chunin exam
Now look at boruto, his exam makes you focus on him and only him because the story was written that way. Remember borutos goal was to make it far in the chunin exams so that his father would acknowledge him because the hokage would be paying attention to the chunin exams the only place boruto felt he could be seen, even leading up to the finals the farther boruto got the more Naruto went out his way to talk to him. If boruto got bounced early then Naruto’s focus remains on the exams and his son wouldn’t be there so that’s why he cheats
that’s why the focus is on him because the chunin exams in Naruto told a large story with smaller stories inside it while borutos chunin exam was a story specifically for boruto
@@dj2k460 Do you know good story? or
Good writing? You cant just make boring story and said it is good
I agree with you, I remember watching Hashirama and Madara back story the scene where they were young and sitting on the cliff saying they dream of building a village where children don't have to fight wars and die, and I was so touched with that for a moment then I thought "they would die in Chunin exams though 💀" lol xD
I loved that that story though of founding the village and the Chunin exams is ideed one of my favourite arcs, but I see your point 😂
It was Tobirama that would later do that. Undoing his brother's work.
Well, then Tobirama came and fucked up the system so badly they had to set up the chuunin exam. And then Hiruzen continued his teacher's tradition, resulting in Kakashi becoming a chuunin at 6. Not exactly what Hashirama and Madara had in mind with "Ok, how do we prevent literal kids from risking their lives and becoming cold-blooded killers"
@@rosehill7919Well desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose .Hashirama should have done much much more than simply creating the ninja or the village system .He possessed all the power in the world and yet allowed feudalism and other unsavoury practices to continue to exist and persist in the world .
I'm 95% sure Danzo proposed the forest of death idea to be able to abduct and kill potentially dangerous genin from other villages.
Sounds on brand for him.
That's a retcon because Danzo wasn't created until part 2
@@268dbs Just because he didn't appear until part 2 doesn't mean he didn't exist.
In fact we know he likely did exist as a concept in Kishimoto's mind from the first manga chapters since he builds up Itachi being forced to kill the Uchihas very early on with Sasuke mumbling about remembering him crying and thinking he imagined it, in very early chapters
What doesn’t make sense is keeping people that should be higher than genin to be genin. Also I didn’t see any Cloud or Rock village shinobi so it makes you wonder how Orochimaru was able to sit alone with Hiruzen.
What’s even crazier is they go through all this shit just to promote ONE ninja to a Chunin. But then later villages have thousands of Chunins and Jonins to spare so I guess these exams are held like everyday
It's like the Olympics but extreme. If you can't survive in the exam, you wouldn't make it as a ninja. It clears out your weak ninjas and makes the gene pool stronger
Thats pretty flawed thinking tbh. Sometimes the actual rank doesn't even match the characters skill level. You could have an army of 5 Minato's but you'd be sending them on missions WAY below their skill level or only on high ranked missions, neglecting basically every other duty your village might have. Then there's the ninja who have very specific specializations. They might not be super good in combat but they're much needed experts. Then there's the fact that ninjas get old and out of their prime. Are you just going to run your 5 Minato's into the ground? You're already saddling them with tons of missions that could have been assigned to different squads. Killing off your new recruits just seems stupid.
@@murddeath that’s why they’re part of teams
Thats terrible thinking. Your best strategist and battle planner gets murdered on a 1 on 1 fight? lol Oh well tough shit.
The two weakest ninja both pass cause they got carried in the team sections and only fought eachother in the battles like Sakura and Ino? I guess they deserve it cause they are clearly better than the others.
Your strongest ninjas get paired up randomly and one gets killed and the other gets crippled? Well those losers defiantly didnt deserve to make it.
@@iamcool544 Ninja are not generals. They're hired or serf killers.
Of course, there's no ninja's in naruto. Just wizards.
Man, I haven't read the Manga, but I was laughing my a** off watching this in the anime. Iruka shows worry about the 9 rookies and the Hokage's response is to hold a preliminary to ease his mind... meanwhile the preliminary contains the forest of death. Yeah thanks lord 3rd, really put my mind at ease knowing all of them could die very easily.
When the best arc in Part 1 Naruto is also the one that makes least sense.
The ironies of life. Even though the Sasuke Retrieval Arc is better.
Dragon ball z is the same way with the time travel in the Android arc 🤣
@@catninja909 The saiyan and freeza sagas are better in my opinion.
Least sense award has to go with black zetsu retcon or Sakura having a kid with Sasuke
@@DygoKnight Hey man you have great content, also a request what you do for Naruto, can u make similar types and quantity of content on samurai 8 series by kishimoto and his assistant as artist. No one makes good content on samurai 8, maybe u can be the one. Anyway great videos, u earned a sub.
I think the best write around for this would be to have Orochimaru present himself as the 2nd Tsuchikage like he did in the final exams but earlier and present Hiruzen with the concept of the forest of death as his way of testing his ninjas back in his village. This way the forest of death becomes a one time thing where it’s under heavy supervision but because orochimaru snuck in with his team no one spotted anything irregular and after this the forest of death exam is discontinued and replaced with the 3 on 3 fights like back with Kakashi’s and obito’s era
The Leaf Village ninjas were exceptional that year. Basically every squad we saw from the Leaf made it out of the forest. But think about this for a second: they could've been sent in at the level Sakura was at back then. She was a top graduate and was doing ok at the low rank genin missions they were supposed to be doing. Ninjas on her level would've been slaughtered out there.
Back then when reading this part I was immediately reminded of the Hunter Exam from HunterxHunter where they also had to go to a forest and trying to get other contestant's thing to continue to the next stage of exam. Obviously the major difference was that it makes complete sense in Hunter Exam, the Hunter Association don't care about who lives and who dies as they have no stakes put in the exam.
"Make no sense to die in a exam."
Welcome to the hunter exam fröm HunterxHunter^^
Oh man, that's so true! 🤣 At least they train you before taking the chunin exams, the hunter exams on the other hand are like: sink or swim bitch! 😂
It's different cuz hunters are independent gloryfied mercenaries
@@sasoning so are ninjas if you cannot survive the chunin exam you are worthless as a ninja. Only the strongest are qualified to be ninja and go out on missions that ninja are supposed to do. Having fodder ninja does not help the village.
No one with a brain would compare the military of a nation which required time and money to form, to outcasts of society who have nothing to lose.
@@variangaming8559 Hunter fro HxH are independent, the ninjas in Naruto are not.
to me it didn't make sense to have them kill each other to get the scroll, since Hashirama created the village to stop the senseless killing. So, the chunin exam pretty much contradicts his idea of what the village was for.
Supposedly part 1 Naruto takes place in a time of relative peace, there are cold wars going on between nations but nothing major. The Chunin Exams are an exercise in diplomacy but also intimidation, showing what your people can do in a show of force and having the opportunity to eliminate a few promising ninja from other villages. The diplomatic side of the exams is tackled in the manga itself, though it's mostly implied. The Boruto exams only makes sense for its time, an era where Shinobi from different villages aren't always read to eliminate each other if a conflict breaks out
The fact choji lived
I see this as cultural thing. It was like only 100 years ago, when kids just kills each other on constant war and it was like expected to kids, to casually die. So it's very likely, that those cultures would have some weird and dangerous initiation rituals.
"Fake it until you make it"
- Naruto, the entire first exam
My understanding was that Konoha promoted such,to slowly kill other Village's genins so they can get on top in the case of another war...just saying DANZO had a lotta his hands in TOO MUCH STUFF,so it'd not be a far strech to say that the "Killing allowed" rule in the Forest wasn't an unplanned rule...
Those ninja parents when their children die in the forest of death: what's 17 more year? I can always start again. make another child
2:55 they were weeding out the weakest ones and the ninja that the village doesn't want/need. If you can't survive this you wouldn't survive anything more difficult. That's why the 1v1 arena fights had so much buildup- only the best who survived the forest
But you're wasting genin they might not be very strong but manpower is manpower what happens if someone with crazy potential dies before there power develops.
@@herobrans9822 well they specifically don't let you go take the exams if you aren't ready- your jonin instructor will know when you're ready. Freak accidents happen but that's just the dynamic nature of the shinobi environment. What happened to the Kaguya clan and Haku's clan was a mistake however
@@herobrans9822 It's better to focus your resources on high quality soldiers than low quality ones that's how it's always been in armies
Oh really? Only the best made it? Is that why Sakura and Ino passed? Cause they were the best?
@@iamcool544 Listen smart guy first of all anyone can get lucky, who said anything about perfection, autistic? Second of all Sakura became a better medical nin than Tsunade and Ino's sensory abilities surpassed every Yamanaka prior, plus the Ino-Shika-Cho formation is a time honored tradition and an example of flawless teamwork and coordination so obviously they passed. Shikamaru became a chunin, so clearly that counts for something.
Hiruzen literally explains that the exams are the way to keep balance and peace instead of all out war, they are ment to die, konoha has to flex like that in order to keep it s advantages, or else they will be weak while negotiating.
love how the entire purpose of the hidden village system as stated by Hashirama was to stop child soldiery as the life expectancy was like 30.
Also Gaara straight murdered some rain ninjas casually in FoD,
The funniest thing is that since the Forest was near Konoha they easily could have used reanimation to resurrect the fallen kids for info if they were evil
The chunin exams makes sense from their world/ an older world standpoint. In a world where you are sending children and preteens into situations where they could possibly be offed, it makes sense to put them in that type of scenario early. We see it with earlier civilizations like the Spartans who are known for how strong they are. Many Spartans did not make it past combat training. This makes even more sense when doing it with another village. Although you do not want to go to war with your ally, you do want to keep them in check. The actual world also does do joint exercises with ally nations. As for the point of all the tests before the final one, it’s to simply eliminate numbers. It doesn’t matter if they are televised as they are trying to to only show the true talent to the important people attending. As for villages sending in jonin to end every genin there, it’s just something that wouldn’t happen. It would cause a chain reaction that would just lead to war. Orochimaru was a rare case that cannot be used since he had a “grudge” against the third and also wanted to give Sasuke the curse mark. Love the content and can’t wait for the next part of the Naruto rewrite
If that were to be the case, the village would have a value system that reflects that. But the general sense of moral of the Konoha is actually quite modern; It doesn’t work for practicality’s sake either, they are simply too young with too much potential to be wasted in a “game”, when they well could have become great assets in the field if given more training…it’s over the top even from a in universe standpoint. The fact that Garra was literally killing audiences during the tournament and the first response of Naruto and Shikigami was not to notify authorities is even weirder…
The Spartans died out because of that practice. There army became too small to defeat any opponent.
There is no evidence the Spartan Agoge involved any significant large scale deaths of its citizens. They did train kids by having them kill slaves, but these kids were of the Spartan elites they weren't killing each other.
I mean, I guess that on the villages minds, if they die then they are not good enough and a necessary sacrifice. It's similar to the Hunter Exam on HxH.
1:47 the idea of a ninja using the leaf for injuries is hilarious to me 😂
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Considering the fact that it was about survival in the field. Tbh, every team leader told their team that they could die and if they didn't want to participate then they didn't have to. Also, if the team leader didn't feel that their team was ready then they didn't have to.
Compared to the way things were in the past, the Forest of Death is tame. Let's not even touch on the fact that Kirigakure's Academy graduation exams revolves around the last man standing ideology.
Actually, military exercises do incorporate live ammunition drills.
Military exercises incorporate live ammunition for shooting training, like shooting targets, but not against other soldiers.
At least that's what i know from my military training, idk about other countries
It's more about the fact that the Forest of Death is extremely counter productive. Imagine that during WW2 you'd send the 17year old drafts of your own nation into a remote forest where they kill each other before sending them to the front lines. It diminishes your war power, emotionally scars your soldiers and worst of all, nobody actually gives a sh!t.
In the live ammunition drills I took part in we shot at dummy targets (dunno the english term for it but google translation say Gefechtsschiessen = skirmish shooting), never actual people, cuz that be like stupid and dangerous (It's really cool to see tanks in action tho).
For combat simulation against one another we used special gear and blanks (the gear electronically registers when you're hit, and the blanks go boom to simulate gunfire). For Urban Warfare we used "cold wax projectiles" (better paintballs that hurt much more).
@R4ND0M1ZER these people are fully trained. They're just inexperienced...the kids were that is, and that's because they purposely chose to join in when they did. If people in Naruto had a single brain cell, their teachers would never have allowed them to join in so soon after graduating the academy. They would have had the kids wait at least a couple more years to gain experience and hone their skills.
There was no need to kill, so they didn't purposely send the Genin in to die. It was just a possibility based on their opponent's whims, perfectly capturing what would happen on a mission if they were foolish enough to get caught by the enemy. There are countless issues with the Chunin exams. This is not one.
Armies are also meaningless in Naruto when a single high-level shinobi can be a 1-man army and superweapon. Pain, for example, could literally wipe out the Hidden Leaf or any other villain at any moment if he really wanted it. Even a single random Chunin could infiltrate a village and start planting bombs. We're shown constantly how easy it is to infiltrate a village, especially if they used any form of cunning. They could also kill any high-level shinobi if they were smart. This is a world of assasins, not soldiers. Armies are both redundant and counterproductive. A couple of dozen competent shinobi are more than enough for any faction. Hundreds would just be overkill, let alone thousands.
...
If the writing were consistent with the world building, that is.
@@corruptangel6793
I think your words have some merit, but on the other hand also have some logical flaws.
Imagine Hashirama, Minato, Raikage A or Itachi got killed during a chunin exam by a similar tier opponent, that be super stupid. Why would you risk your top assets before they flourish. The high tiers are only high tiers when they're older.
@R4ND0M1ZER don't send them in before they flourish. That was my opening point. The entire purpose of the Chunin rank was to see who was ready to go on life and death missions, who can handle the risk. The death forest is effectively a faux Chunin level mission. If you can't handle one where they try to limit everyone to a relatively equal level, then you're all but destined to die on a real chunin level mission. And then you'll also drag the village into your failure. Even Orochimaru showed how danger levels can fluctuate mid-mission. Just like how the first arc was officially Chunin level but upgraded unoffically to Jonin level once Zabuza got involved.
A shinobi should never make a move unless they're certain of success. If you've seen it, Hunter X Hunter handles that mentality perfectly with Killua. Though there, they condemn the attitude because he was no longer an assassin but instead trying to be a hunter, where friendship was valued and risk commonplace. If you get caught, you have only yourself to blame and deserve anything that comes your way.
Bruh, it’s a world where people can spit fire, teleport, summon oversized animals, hide stuff in a roll of paper, and all kinds of crap. Ofcourse the canon explanation will be that the exam was being monitored. And it’s actually not stupid to think that. Because the death of young ninjas could start wars between nations, and with that many young ninjas from different nations, ofcourse they must have had some sort of security to ensure nothing too severe happened. Orochimaru appearing there was like a flaw in the security, similar to how Cedric and Harry got sent to Voldemort in the Goblet of Fire at the end of the tournament.
The Forest of Death was a Darwinian exercise in my perspective. As others have stated, the hidden mist had fights to the death for their Chunin promotions, which is why it’s called the bloody mist village. It also ensures that recruits are able and willing to kill their opponents. And when you’re on the precipice of war because your Kage is being subtly influenced by Obito Uchiha, it is rather important.
You're not looking at these particular chunin exams in the larger political landscape. these are held by the leaf and the only ninja that arrive are either from small villages on the border or from the sand or the sound village, both of which are planning to use the exams to their own means. You dont see any ninja from any other of the big 5 because this is meant to test the hidden leaf genin against smaller lands around them and the occasional kage level land that may show up, and not against a targeted attack from conspiring nations
Bro, I'm sorry, but you completely missed the point here. The Forest of Death has two purposes: one, to eliminate as many ninjas as possible from the exams, that way, only the best of the best can remain; and two, because there is no actual peace between the hidden villages, the ninjas are urged to learn how to kill and survive, also they have to be prepare to die, all of that within the most dreadful circumstances, they need to be as strong as they can be, ASAP. And those who are too weak, they either lose or die. Put in referees would only kill the purpose of the exam, plain and simple.
These ninjas are being prepare to go to war, eventually. You put the army as an example? In the army they teach you that you need to be prepare to kill and die at war - Jocko Willink said that. Well, same thing goes for the Chunin Exams.
Also, using Orochimaru as an example, at the time one of the most powerful ninjas on earth, makes no sense, because only him, and maybe a couple of other ninjas, could've infiltrated throuthg the whole Chunin Exams and get away with it.
Besides, what would be the point of showcase the exams at this point? The feudal lords only care for the best of the best and this phase does not have them. That's why they wait until the final phase to witness the exams.
Also, in Boruto the exams "makes sense", because they are at peace, all of the villages. So, there's no actual need for them to kill each other; this time around it's more like a friendly, light hearted competition.
The chunin exam feel more like the Anbu exams!
They throw them to die and the ninja that have that rank outside the main cast are USELESS!
On one side of the coin, the actual prodigies who can truly become Chunin will excel at these exams, but on the other side of the coin, if your 6 year old kekkei genkai badass gets jumped and killed by a sneak attack, and doesn’t get to grow into a kage level god, then it’s not exactly a fair test, is it?
it's weird because hashirama and madara created konoha because they didn't want children to fight and die, and decades later, this's what happen
4:17 Hiruzen was from a different time and his decision making and inability to lead the Leaf is reflective of that.
Dudes get injured or die in military training pretty often, and they do use live rounds for training as well lol
If the Chunin Exams in Naruto don't make sense to you because of the way in which its conducted, then it shouldn't be a surprise the way Boruto does it.
Boruto shows a Chunin Exams where they are pushed to be stronger IN a controlled environment. That's the big difference I see between Boruto and Naruto's Chunin Exams.
Boruto's HAS a controlled environment to showcase their ninja whereas, as you state, thw Forest of Death doesn't show Kage or potential clients the skills of the shinobi present.
I’ve also always wondered what happens when one or two of your team members pass but you don’t. Like obviously you have to retake it, but are you supposed to take it with an entirely new team? Doesn’t seem fair whrn obviously each team in the exam are long term teammates with loads of personal experience/training but also not fair having someone who’s already proven to have passed to be eliminating others who havnt yet. I get being able to work with different people is important but the third hokage created these teams specifically for how they function together
I think there's a general lack of weight to deaths in Naruto, specially anything before Shippuden. Like, in the Chunin exams, Gaara killed a group of kids in cold blood. That's maybe 2 to 3 families who just LOST THEIR CHILD to a Sand-Village monster. You're telling me the Leaf village was just okay with it? This is the kinds of things that START WARS between nations. Maybe more ridiculous, when Gaara becomes good and comes back to help, everyone is like "Oh, now you're cool". No he's not, hello??? He killed your fellow students, people from your country, kids your age. He's literally a murderer of your people. You don't forgive murderers because "They're good now, so it's okay".
Also, their siblings are, like, numb to the murders he, along with them, commits, until he has a change of heart and so now they also care?
Now, as a Disclaimer, I really love Gaara's arc as depicted in Shippuden. He is a very caring person, and he deeply, and I mean deeply, regrets the atrocities he committed as a child. He wants to do good, to do right for his wrongs. I think at THAT point you redeem him, have people forgive him.
4:51 yeah but that ain’t the real world, and if ur weak enough to die in the forest of death your likely to just be a liability in the field for the mission, some missions in which a tiny mistake could mean full on war. Makes sense in my opinion
This test isn't just about gauging strength and fostering peace. It's also about testing each ninjas' obedience to commands and willingness to do or die against other children who could possibly be their future enemy combatants if another ninja war breaks out
Although it doesn't make much sense, a lot of cultures has this idea of only the strongest can make it into the military. Spartans did the same thing by sending 8 year old kids alone to survive in the wild and only those who survives are worthy enough to be in the army.
It's worth noting that this exam is loosely based on how real exams were performed by ninjas during that period, but it's kind of strange in its presentation. The manga Azumi properly portrays how brutal it was in comparison, but it also illustrates the necessity of why their exam was so brutal. Because they have to service an Emperor and follow the task given to the letter even if they are morally opposed they have to effectively kill their heart. In the story, Azumi gets a number of close male relations that she has to kill, even opens with her killing the boy she was sweet on and her friend group slowly dwindles down to nothing as the nature of being an assassin isn't so sweet.
I highly recommend reading it if only because I think Naruto makes more sense to me when read through that lens.
it wasn't based on HxH exams? I never heard of this
“We have secret techniques that are exclusive to our Hidden Village. Let’s hold a competition where anyone will be able to see these tactics and find ways to stop them.”
The Chunin Exams were nothing but a waste of resources and a security risk. The exams are also really ineffective at showcasing the traits and skills the villages look for in chunin. Leadership and resourcefulness are not exactly traits showcased very well in one on one spars. Power and fighting ability are important but if that was what they are looking for the Nara would've failed on principle of being too out of shape to fulfill anything more than a support role, yet he was the only one promoted even though his stalemate would've ended up in his death.
The rate of promotion is also odd considering how Chunin are the bulk of a villages military force, yet a village seems lucky to have more than a one or two promoted during an international event that happens twice a year. The severe lack of manpower during sasuke's defection proves there simply isn't enough shinobi being produced to make up for the losses they suffer from conflict and general risk of the job to throw away genin in political bloodsports to showcase to investors, not like showing off children and teenagers killing eachother would make convincing arguments to invest in your mercenaries.
The chunin exams weed out the week. They want quality over quantity. It doesn't have to make sense to you, they think way different than us, their whole lives depend on the quality of ninja they have
I don't know I think the chunin exams very accurately showed how cutthroat the ninja world actually is and is meant to prepare you for having to be in kill or be killed scenarios 24/7. I mean look at what genin missions normally are they almost never have combat in them unless it's during a great war. We don't really get that feeling cause team 7 is obviously thrown right into a high stakes situation with the land of waves arc but the other 2 konoha genin teams definitely were not prepared and it shows with their reactions to someone like gaara who already knows how ruthless the ninja world can be.
I thought you'd mention how stupid it is to organize an exam in which tons of ninjas from other villages can do their intelligence work way more easily: study other village's jutsus, infiltrating into the host village, steal technology or jutsus, studying or attacking people of interest which would be very hard otherwise, etc. (yes, the host village can try to do the same but still). I haven't seen the series in years so I guess the justification is "for a show of peace", kind of like the Olympics, but ninjas aren't sportsmen.
Still, the the exam arc is still pretty cool despite most of its tests not making much sense.
Well, for me It makes sense since the Shinobi world was in an neverending Cold war state, so Their training *had to emulate an war scenario*
In parallel to real life, Soilders before WW2 passed an training so harsh that many died in the middle of it
Yeah... Just send someone with beyond Chuunin's skill level disguised as Newbie to Annihilate the others villages' prospects, year after year, creating a gap between your village and the others.
For the final act Give proper instructions to Gaara's Team, they act like weaklings/stupid/easy prey... Get in the Florest, literally erase Nejii's Team, Sasuke/Sakura, Hinata's Team... Just avoid 'Ino-Shika-Cho' and the whole War is now much easier.
The rule of cool is one hell of a drug. It can make things very enjoyable but it can also make things stupid when looked at with hindsight.
I thought the chunin exam to show the other village how strong we are don’t mess with us
I’d say if you die in the chunnin exams you’d probably die in a half-difficult mission anyway. It’s just training for the real world
honestly the only thing I would change about the chunin exam are supervisors. the arc could still serve it's purpose but less genin would die.
Yep this, death being a possibilty is fine but like you are going just throw them unsupervised into a death forest to fight each other. Like ignoring the needless loss of manpower this will cause, how are you gonna prevent let say a super elite ninja of a small but hostile village coming in disguised as a genin killing all the best of your current generation if genin?
These are all good points but might I offer a counterpoint?
This is also the same universe and people who made using 8 year olds as front line fighters the de facto modus operandi for... how long exactly?
Its funny because a ninja village is just a mercenary hires.
This always made sense to me, its kill or be killed in the shinobi world, why would they want ninjas who cant survive that exam
Exactly
These are literally young ninjas and if that’s the case sasuke gara neji and ten ten should have been disqualified
Because they are literal kids who just became genin, the lowest grade. Even if they fail the exam you are killing a potential future asset for no reason other than " muh chunnin exams are so deadly and cool"
Besides the ninja world, by the time the chunin exams take place, is in relative peace, so why even be as strict as they were? No sense at all.
For me It doesn't make sense tobirama made the Academy so that young ninja wouldn't fight in war and what they do send them in a death forest.
Because of their potential. Imagine if Naruto or Sasuke died because say they were found by Gaara. The Leaf has now lost two potentially extremely powerful Shinobi and he same goes for the other villages. A solution for this would be to invent a way to prevent the ninjas from killing each other with some jutsu or change the test to something more easily regulated.
There are programs in the Army where we train with other nation's troops in "war games " and a lot of military training could be deadly and many have died or severely injured themselves through said training. #Veterans #Knowledge
In universe the Forest of Death is a survival exercise to test more than just combat ability but all of their other abilities at their disposal. I agree with the idea that they need precautions set up to stop under handed play but the idea is to set up life or death stakes to overcome because that is what ninjas are expected to face.
Yeah but that’s ridiculous. No real world military has people shoot live rounds at each other, expecting them to hit maybe half the trainees even though that’s something that could happen
@@tillburr6799 Well world of Naruto been using lethal force since the Bell Test. It's messed up by our standards, but not by theirs. The Chunin Exams are meant to simulate war, and it does that well. It's also not meant for children. Remember that Naruto's class were outliers and that there were a ton of adults that were weeded out. I believe it's actually intended as an insurmountable wall for children, but prodigies look at it as a challenge.
(Granted, there really should be some Jonin supervision to save anyone out of the running as a form of insurance because like you said, don't just throw your millitary assets away.)
If your Genin can't survive a forest full of other Genin then they were clearly not ready to be a Chuunin. The ninja world is a dangerous & unforgiving world. The exams are one of the first crucibles a ninja must overcome
Compared to what other villages was doing, Konoha had it easy. Either they did that or have a huge army of weak ninjas which would ultimately lead to certain death in the ninja world and plus the numbers would even out cuz other villages was flat out killing a lot of they’re ninjas during exams
This specific exam we saw I. Early Naruto it’s stated all exams every year is different so it’s probably that this one was just uniquely bad
My problem with the arc is much like episode 1 there is a lack of consequences for the sand siblings and Orochimaru. Gaara kills Dosu and doesn't have to sign paperwork in triplicate explaining to the leaf that it was in self defense. Baki and Gaara should not be able to outmaneuver the security ninja and The Sand Sibs don't get tortured for failing their mission by the Sand or get executed by the Leaf for their alliance. A country that kills for money should expect a huge fine to pay for losses otherwise they justify the leaf holocausting the sand and Orochimaru never deals with repercussions from the Grass village as he should have saved his betrayal for a year and just made himself enemy number one. Also Naruto should have used his toads to strangle Neji and batter him.
Demon slayer looked at it and sayed,
Yes.
You didn't think an exam that is very deadly and likely to lead to the students dying being a requisite in order to determine if the students were strong enough to go to war and potentially die, in order to save their lives from sending them too young and weak to war where they would ultimately die, to be a strategy that makes sense? 😆
Dude, Hiruzen literally explains at the beginning of the preliminary rounds that Chuunin exams are a cheaper war substitute. The teams sent to the Forest of Death are sent on a suicide mission, actually, killing as many teams of the other villages as possible without repercussions. That's the whole point behind the politics of the second stage of the exam. If a jounin manages to infiltrate the examinees, well, too bad for the village.
I think you can do the forest of death test without all the...well death. You could have supervising ninja within the forest posing as other genin, acting as part of the test while watching the trainees. You can also have loyal summons help as well acting as wild beasts. There's a lot of ways you can make it more secure while also keeping the difficulty of the test.
I know a few people that died during military training. Not hu throwing them into battle. But still, it was during training.