Really? Well, perhaps he has decided to pick it up again...it certainly reads better than a lot of other Naruto stories.

 

I posted this a few pages back but it got overlooked.

Unbiased
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10759250/1/Unbiased
By: EvilFuzzy9
Fairness is a nice idea, but tricky to actually work out in practice. Tsunade, however, at least intends to give credit where credit is due. Set before the Sasuke Retrieval arc.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Drama/Adventure - Sasuke U., Naruto U., Sakura H. - Chapters: 7 - Words: 25,391 - Reviews: 84 - Favs: 210 - Follows: 245 - Updated: Nov 25, 2014 - Published: Oct 15, 2014 - id: 10759250

It diverges from canon after the chunin exams. I found it to be worth reading.

 

Is there a particular reason you found it worth reading? The first chapter is pretty much just Sasuke bashing and glorifying Naruto. I haven't read further though.

 

The first three paragraphs were all that were needed to put me off the story.

 

The glorifying and bashing stops after the first chapter and besides that I don't think anything the author said about Naruto or Sasuke was unearned. I thought it was worthwhile because it's relatively well written from a technical standpoint, the characterization is accurate, and it's an interesting point of divergence.

 

Well, even if Pursuing Happiness doesn't have an update coming, its author's favorites list had a new time travel fic that shows promise:

As it's not even a week old, it's a bit early to tell if this really is a quality fic, but I've enjoyed what's been written so far. The writing itself has been fine and the character interactions feel authentic. Also, the past future in this time travel story is a rather interesting AU, so it seems like it'll mix up the formula a bit.

Worth the quick read and I hope the author continues to update quickly.

 

Author note :

The author seems to conveniently forget that Gaara is a Jinchuuriki that has been killing Chuunins for a while, without receiving a single scratch.
Naruto matched him because he's a powerhouse and had Gamabunta.
Then he/she proceeds to extol the Naruto's virtues, and why he deserves to be Chuunin.

Thing is, since he kept the Chuunin Exams canon, neither Naruto nor Sasuke deserved the promotion. Naruto is waaaay too immature at this point of the series to be considered a decent leader, and I have trouble suspending my disbelief enough that a canon Naruto could be promoted for his performance during the exams.

Writing is good though, if a bit too infodump-ish at times.

 

The writing is readable you mean; it hardly qualifies as "good."

And the characterization is not really accurate. Canon Naruto shows bouts of trickery but no real strategic foresight. It's all heart and power. Young Sasuke has become largely overlooked by the fandom because of how horribly Kishimoto botched his character in Shippuden. His character arc in Shippuden should have been about confronting his personal demons, not super awesome magic eye hax pulled out of nowhere without any real consequence. If you watch the way he interacts with the other rookies in part 1 there is a natural tendency for them to conglomerate around him as the leader in spite of his loner attitude. To some extent this is a credit to Naruto's influence on him -- which is tangentially related to what Orochimaru was talking about with Kabuto. That said, Shippuden has also taught us that the advisors would have been against promoting Sasuke. To them he is little more than a loose end. The entire premise of that fic is kind of flawed.

I remember giving it a try and sticking with it up until Naruto became "taicho" of Team 7. At that point I clicked the little red "X" without a second thought.

 

I will tentatively second Pursuing Happiness. An interesting spin on the whole 'time loop' idea that's been well-executed so far.

 

That's the best literally anyone manages though? Even Shikamaru, who's supposed to be the really smart strategic guy, only pulls off some really basic tactics. He only ever wins because his opponents are literally designed so that he can beat them.

 

I think more than his tactics during battle it was the fact that he gave up after his fight that got him the promotion.
A chunin should know when to cut his losses and retreat. An insight both Naruto and Sasuke failed to demonstrate. To be fair they probably didn't get the chance to, however considering their no retreat no surrender attitude I doubt they had it anyway.

 

Are you seriously trying to say that you cannot tell the difference between how Naruto's intelligence is portrayed in battles versus Shikamaru's?

 

Strategy and ingenuity aren't strictly tied to intelligence.

Pre shippuuden showed several instances of him coming up with some pretty awesome plans and strategies.

He's ignorant though - not the same as stupid - for narrative reasons.

He's also sometimes a little thick/ stupid for 'comedic' reasons.

Basically, Kishi is a shitty writer, and trying to apply logic/ reason to what's presented in canon is an exercise in futility.

It's probably why I'm totally okay with people using the universe itself as a premise while ironing out the minutia as they see fit.

 

The dumbass loudmouth protagonist whose greatest personality trait is either their "Never give up" attitude or "I will fight for my precious people! Including randoms I just met!" is pretty common in the shounen genre.

When it's pulled off successfully, you have characters like Luffy (One Piece), Son Goku (Dragonball), Azuma Kazuma (Yakitate Japan), hell, even Ichigo (Bleach), etc where their apparently simple mindedness and "stupidity" is more just the fact that they don't really care about "common sense" in the first place.

Problem with Naruto is that his stupidity almost always seem to be of detriment of his character for the sake of comedy. Add in a desperate attempt to try to prove himself to everyone, there's no way that those traits can ever really become something that is quite cool. So really, all that it really does is makes him more of an underdog so when there's a bit more satisfaction when it does come to his epic scenes (which to be fair, did work quite well).


But yeah, Narf, another scene you forgot to mention was against Zabuza, where Naruto came up with the plan to turn henge into a shuriken and allow Sasuke to throw him over to disable the Water Prison on Kakashi. I think Kishi portrayed as Naruto having some sort of innovative tactical cunning in the heat of battle, but was a moron in all other facets of his ninja career, only ever attracted by whatever shiny jutsu was available in battle. The only real connection between this and any other behaviors shown in Naruto's character could be his pranks (as fandom loves to connect), but I don't think Kishi would have even thought that far....

 

The author is trying to claim that genin Sasuke is more reckless than genin Naruto which is absurd. Quick to point out that Sasuke charged head first against Itachi(his goal in life) but ignoring that Naruto tried to jump over the table and attack Tsunade. Sasuke also had the sense to try and retreat and surrender against Orochimaru and Naruto tried to flip that into something negative.

 

Ichigo is a way more complex character than Naruto or Luffy. Luffy works but just because he is so badass. Ichigo succeeds because of this complexity and not because of his shounen qualities imo.

 

Of the Trinity, Ichigo was the only protagonist I actually liked. He was well written and had believable character growth.

I will also say as an aside, Bleach allows for a more ignorant protagonist. It makes sense for Ichigo to not know things. Naruto not knowing things because he was a poor student just makes him unlikable.

 

I would say Ichigo's the only one I don't like. He's good at everything he tries and is boring.

 

I'm still annoyed at bleach for having such a cool system (zanpakuto), then giving Ichigo the most bland, unimaginative one possible.