Naruto: chuunin exams: chick fight!

[mikkeneko]

-They may suck as ninja, but at least their fight was more visually interesting than any of the others.
-What the HELL was that, Ino? Gah! Isn't this enough of a catfight already?
-Oh man, I am so pissed. Why is it only the female ninja who have to learn stupid stuff? Why isn't it important for guys to sneak into enemy territory and pass as normal men and arrange flowers? No, no, it's fine for male ninja to disfigure themselves in the names of their specialized attack, but women - ! Well, now, they can't do anything to mess up their pretty faces, now can they?
Not that I really think running in sunny fields and picking flowers is a bad occupation for five and six year olds, but my GOD this show is sexist.
-I don't care about their angst any more. Wait, I never did. *fast-forwards*
-Hey, Naruto did something useful!
-And, to nobody's surprise: YOU BOTH SUCK.
-Temari rocks. If she somehow fails to kick Tenten's ass, I will be very upset.
-Shikamaru is cool!

Comments

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

*growls and bites Kishimoto's leg* Unf mmph eef, 'ish!

[devils-devotion.livejournal.com]

Naruto is, like...the most sexist thing ever. Strangely enough, it goes both ways. *shrugs*

*goes off to bed*

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

I know. Jeez, this is exactly what I hate about shounen shows.

Male character: I'm going to go off and do something incredibly dangerous.
Female character: But you could die.
Male character: Yes, but if I don't, my manhood will be affronted!
Female character: ...That's stupid.
Male character: You just don't understand.

[windandwater.livejournal.com]

Kishimoto has stated repeatedly that he's no good with female characters. ^^;; At least Tsunade and Temari rock. And Sakura post!timeskip.

Shika is a PIIIIIIIIIIMP.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

I think what Kishimoto's missing is that you don't HAVE to have a whole seperate set of rules for female characters. You don't have to understand Love and Flowers and the Power of Passionate Womanhood. You treat them like PEOPLE.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Which is probably why Tsunade and Temari rock so much (as you will later see). They're powerful ninja, they're female, and no comment is ever made on this. They just ARE. In the face of the stupidity and vapidity Sakura, Ino and Tenten all display at various points, this is a little weird.

Oh, and there's Hinata. Hinata is not a powerful ninja, but I don't recall that this is ever attributed to her gender. She's caught up in the Bad Destiny Hyuuga narrative instead of the Ninja Girls are So Girly narrative, lucky her.

The girls-are-weak thing bothered me all the way up until we met Tsunade, who is so interesting and awesome and multifaceted that I basically stopped thinking about it.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

For some reason Hinata's crushing on Naruto doesn't bother me nearly as much as everybody else's crushing on Sasuke. Maybe because I got the impression that she did it because her position allowed her to see something in Naruto that nobody else did -- rather than being attracted to Sasuke because it was the fashion or because of superficial appearances.

Plus, uh... how do I put this so it doesn't sound bad? Hinata's weakness seems to stem from her shy and retiring character, rather from the fact that she's a girl.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Hinata's crushing on Naruto didn't bother me because NARUTO NEEDS LOVE DAMMIT, but in fact, that is exactly the case. Hinata's attraction to Naruto is the polar opposite of the crushes people like Ino and Sakura have on Sasuke (at least at the beginning of the show). They go into a little bit during her fight.

Plus, uh... how do I put this so it doesn't sound bad? Hinata's weakness seems to stem from her shy and retiring character, rather from the fact that she's a girl.

::nods:: I don't believe it's ever suggested that Hinata's weak because she's a girl. She is, unforunately, a weak person. But she works so very hard at getting stronger. Ganbatte, Hinata!

why am i up so late

[ashoka.livejournal.com]

Temari completely makes up for how much Sakura sucks. If you like her, wait till you meet Tsunade, who puts me to shame.

Hey, Naruto did something useful!

*clap* *clap*

Re: why am i up so late

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I totally fangirl Temari. I know I shouldn't, she's a bitch, but she has such a sultry throaty voice!

Naruto yelled in the middle of Ino's attack and was able to motivate Sakura to fight off the body-switch jutsu.

Re: why am i up so late

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

No no. Temari deserves the fangirling. The more you get to know her, the more justified it will be.

[kytyngurl2.livejournal.com]

There honestly doesn't seem to be many girl ninja period. *wonders if female ninja are usually discouraged, and only families that need a heir and have no son or tomboys become ninja*

...What? I think the flower arranging thing sounded like a passive agressive way of telling the girls "Don't be a ninja. Go home and get married."

Hell, most the kunochi we see seem more interested in going for the men then being good at fighting. Reminds me of the way college used to be for some women in Japan.

...Not that most the men in the show aren't total macho retards about the fighting thing. ^_^;;

Add me to the chorus of "Temari... and later Tsunade... rock! And Sakura eventually, more or less!"

Shika owns my soul. Oh GOD do I love him!

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

It kind of boggles my mind that most of the girls are boy-crazy, but none of the boys seem to be girl-crazy. Oh, a few of them have their eyes on one girl in particular -- and Lee and Naruto making eyes at Sakura is damn cute -- but you think they'd be more concerned with girls in general. Well, maybe the timing is to blame -- girls usually go hormonal a year or two before boys do.

Oh man, do I love Temari. Mostly because so far, she could as well be a guy (aside from a brief moment of stupidity over Sasuke early on.) Also, I love her character design.

Yay Shika!

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Gee, you're going to have some fun cognitive dissonance during Shika's fight with Temari...:D

I suppose Temari could have been male in the sense that there's nothing that explicitly makes her female. But since plenty of the male characters are male without explicit male characteristics (say, Chouji, Asuma, Iruka), I take Naruto's stated genders at face value without looking to see who's a coded what.

And Tsunade could not just as easily have been a male character--and not because of the boobs, at that.

[kytyngurl2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess they are still at -that- stage of puberty right now....

Heh. At least Temari was sort of cool about it. In a "Hm. Nice ass. Ah well." sort of way.

[suzu.livejournal.com]

Shikamaru is cool!

He's *my* secret boyfriend! Hands off! rar!

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Pah, that doesn't matter. Monogamy is too much of a bother for Shika. It interferes with his pimpin mojo. XD

Do you know what I'm talking about when I reference a movie, can't remember the title, where the main character is kind of a loser at love until he stumbles on the zen of Steve Somebody or other, whereby when you stop chasing after girls, they find you irresistable and come to you?

No? Well, Shikamaru has that zen going on.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I don't recall the movie, but I do remember that from early Doonesbury strips.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

-Temari rocks. If she somehow fails to kick Tenten's ass, I will be very upset.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No fear. Tenten sucks.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

She does kinda. "What? My throwing-things attack didn't work? Obviously the solution is to throw MORE things! Oh no, that didn't work either! Who would have thought?"

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

The only surprise in that fight was that Temari didn't snap Tenten's spine.

Tenten is kind of the Sakura of her team, except that she's a minor character with no redeeming features and I don't like her at all.

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

Aye, sexist. I hate Ino and Sakura so much, they had the worst fight ever. On the other hand, I fangirl Temari and Hinata a LOT. Hinata is so cute and Temari rocks like woa. And Shika is cool. Shika is uber cool. There is a Shikamaru vs Temari fight somewhere later on. I'll let you guess how much I liked that. <3

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Aye, sexist. I hate Ino and Sakura so much, they had the worst fight ever.

O_o I wouldn't go that far. Personally, I was not unmoved by the whole repairing-of-the-damaged-friendship thing. Kunoichi arranging flowers is stupid, but the less sexist aspect of the flashback/flight comes in Sakura showing Ino how much Ino means to her by demanding to be fought as an equal. It's one of the cooler things either of them ever does.

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

Everybody else was having a fight over their ideals or something cool like that (Hinata <3), and those two idiots were...I don't know. It was feely-touchy and embarassing. Look, I don't understand why the hell you two wimps are allowed to be ninjas, just get out of the way for the cool girls like Temari. It just really didn't sit well with me.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

But they were fighting to be acknowledged by each other. That's basically what Naruto wants from Sasuke and what Lee wants from Neji. ::shrug:: What Lee and especially Naruto have that they lack, I think, is significant ambition beyond that (at this point, anyway).