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Naruto : A Tale of Queer Love in a Hyper-Masculine Society

An essay-style analysis arguing Naruto is a story of queer love in a hyper-masculine society, examining Naruto and Sasuke's defiance of norms.

Key Takeaways

  • Naruto can be read as a queer love story shaped by a hyper-masculine, repressive society.
  • Queer audiences often find meaning in closeted or subtextual storytelling because it mirrors their own lived experience.
  • The village's militaristic values and shame-based norms actively suppress emotional expression and queer identity.
  • Characters like Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto who defy norms are central to the show's exploration of queerness.

What the video covers

  • The creator argues that the Naruto anime is fundamentally about queer love within a hyper-masculine society, not that its protagonists are simply gay.
  • The analysis is limited to the Japanese-audio, English-subtitled anime (Naruto and Shippuden), skipping filler and excluding the manga, data books, and staff interviews.
  • The speaker explains why queer audiences seek queerness in non-explicit media: finding allies, safety, and relatable experiences, and noting that explicit queer media can be boxed into a niche.
  • The Hidden Leaf village is framed as an exaggerated Japan, with its militaristic norms serving as a critique of masculine, war-driven culture, compared to the Japanese film Monster.
  • Shame and normalization in the village are examined: staying in school past age 12 is shamed, while going to war regardless of age is normalized.
  • Kakashi is presented as a case study of emotional repression, masking feelings and losing Obito, illustrating the cost of masculine norms.
  • The video discusses queercoding of characters with feminine or masculine traits and villains, and cites Hitchcock films as parallel examples.
  • Sasuke and Naruto's relationship is analyzed through scenes of comfort, longing, and emotional intensity, including Sasuke's body comfort and their final-moment kiss.
  • The Madara and Hashirama conflict is compared to a Shakespearean tragedy, with a 'mysterious kinship' framing.
  • The closing argument is that media systems reflect real-world systems, so if queer love cannot be stated openly in the story, it cannot be stated openly in real life.

Chapters

  1. 00:00Introduction and Queer Subtext Premise
  2. 00:09Queercoding Characters and Villains
  3. 00:20Early Character Analysis and Sexy Jutsu
  4. 00:40Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto's Training Arcs
  5. 01:00Sasuke's Relationships with Karin and Suigetsu
  6. 01:20Plot Focus and the Naruto-Sasuke Dynamic
  7. 01:50Shippuden: Queer Themes and Kakashi's Responsibility
  8. 02:17The Madara and Hashirama Shakespearean Parallel
  9. 02:27Conclusion: Systems Reflecting Real Life

Answers

Questions about this video

Why does the speaker argue Naruto is about queer love rather than just featuring gay characters?

The speaker argues the entire show's structure revolves around a queer love story within a hyper-masculine society. The argument is not simply that Naruto and Sasuke are gay, but that defying norms and prioritizing this love story is the show's core theme.

What does the speaker say about Kakashi's role in the analysis?

Kakashi is used as a case study of how masculine norms force men to mask their emotions. His father's shame, his distant behavior, and his grief over Obito illustrate the tragic cost of emotional repression.

Why does the speaker limit the analysis to the anime rather than the manga?

The speaker believes artwork can speak for itself and wants to analyze only what appears in the shows. The speaker acknowledges that the manga, data books, or interviews might lead to different interpretations, but those are outside the scope of this video.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00
Speaker A
Hi. So, you might be delusional if you think every character in Naruto is straight. With such a wide array of characters, it would just be statistically impossible. Now, it would be easy and quite uninteresting to just point out which characters are queer
00:10
Speaker A
based off stereotypes and vibes. I mean, sure, Ga, Anko, Shizune, Tunady, you see where I'm going here? It's a surprisingly unpopular ship considering how obvious it is. I mean, there is literally a scene where one of them is
00:23
Speaker A
carrying a stack of books and the other is carrying their pet pearlwearing pig. I don't think I've ever seen anything more sappic if I'm being honest. I mean, what is the relationship otherwise? Are they just besties living together for a
00:37
Speaker A
very, very long period of time without seeing anybody else? Obviously, I've been avoiding my main subjects here. So, my point is not that Naruto and Saskuke are gay. My point is that the shows Naruto and Naruto Shipuen tell a story
00:51
Speaker A
of queer love in a hyper masculine society. Yeah, the entire show is about being queer. There are many elements to consider for this argument, like the leaf representing masculinity and heteronormativity, how Naruto and Sasuke both defy these norms, how the people
01:08
Speaker A
who go against the system are often queercoded, and how the show prioritizes this love story over other plot points.
01:16
Speaker A
Before we start, there are some things I have to clarify. I am only looking at the show's Naruto and Naruto Shipuen. I am not looking at manga or data books or interviews with staff. I'm only looking at the shows because I believe artwork
01:34
Speaker A
can speak for itself. And you might have a different interpretation if you look at the manga or data books. That's not what we're doing today. I'm also going to be skipping filler. I'm going to be watching this like someone who has a
01:46
Speaker A
Naruto filler list open while watching the show. This analysis is also specifically about the version that is in Japanese with English subtitles. I want to start by addressing uh why do queer people try to find queerness in media that is not explicitly queer.
02:02
Speaker A
Well, first of all, it's because that's how we live in our everyday life. We need to find out who are our allies, who is part of our community, who we can flirt with, who we can talk to without
02:13
Speaker A
censoring ourselves, and who will treat us differently if we do mention that we're queer. It's important for us to stay safe. Another aspect is that queer media does not need to be explicitly queer. Just like queer people don't need
02:26
Speaker A
to be out of the closet, you can be closeted and still be queer. Whether you're open about it or you're not, it doesn't affect your identity. Another aspect is that if you want to make media with a large audience like Naruto, you
02:40
Speaker A
cannot make it explicitly queer, especially in the early 2000s when it was made. If you do make it explicitly queer, then you're putting it in a box.
02:49
Speaker A
This is a gay anime. Kind of like how Brokeback Mountain was not seen as a western film, but as a gay film, a gay cowboy film. Fans of Westerns weren't interested in seeing the film because they didn't feel like it was for them.
03:02
Speaker A
While gay people know that most media is not for them, but we can find characters who face similar struggles and that we can relate to in our queer experience. A final note about this is that um some men are unable to write good female
03:19
Speaker A
characters. And where's the fun of shipping a complex three-dimensional character with a piece of cardboard?
03:26
Speaker A
It's not fun. It's way more fun to look at a relationship organically grow with the story where the characters have an interesting dynamic and they're equally developed. Basically, media that is explicitly gay can tell really cool stories. explore different queer themes,
03:44
Speaker A
but no one can quite tell a closeted story like media that is closeted. So, let's talk about the masculine standard in Naruto. So, obviously the world of Naruto or the Hidden Leaf are based off of Japan. They're kind of an exaggerated
03:59
Speaker A
Japan. If you look at the mythology, the clothes, the tourism, the food, the lifestyle, it represents Japan without being Japan, which is commonly used in media that want to critique the system.
04:11
Speaker A
If you look at Hunger Games that has the 13 districts, you know, 13 colonies, it represents the US without being the US.
04:19
Speaker A
So for people who want to look into it, it's obviously a critique of capitalism, violence in media, and Hollywood. But for people who don't want to look into it, it's just a dystopian world, which makes it marketable to the masses. Now,
04:32
Speaker A
I'm not the best person to talk about Japan in this way because I am not Japanese myself. So, I'll use a Japanese film to help me. Monster was made in 2023 by the director Hiroazu Keda. And it's about these two boys that have a
04:46
Speaker A
queer friendship and they're so misunderstood by everyone around them that it becomes dangerous for them. The second they step out of the masculine norm, they feel threatened and they are failed by their system, by the family, by the school, and it doesn't have a
05:01
Speaker A
very happy ending. The Japanese culture is too set in their ways to accept anyone stepping out of the norm. Keda is definitely a director you guys should check out if you haven't. He makes a lot of movies that play with perspective and
05:15
Speaker A
I find that very interesting. Anyways, let's stop talking about indie movies and go back to our mainstream anime. So, when we look at what is normal compared to what is shameful in Naruto, I think we can get a good idea of the morals of
05:27
Speaker A
the world. One thing that's considered shameful in Naruto is being in school after the age of 12. It's used as a threat of if you're not strong enough, you're going to go back to the academy.
05:37
Speaker A
You're not going to be allowed to be a ninja. And they're really using shame to tell these kids that they're supposed to want to work at this point at the ripe age of 12. They're not supposed to want
05:48
Speaker A
to learn more about the world. And one thing that's normalized is that you're expected to go to war if it happens.
05:55
Speaker A
Your age doesn't matter. Your family doesn't matter. What matters most is war and fighting and dying for your nation.
06:02
Speaker A
They install this don't think just hit mentality with their people where education is discouraged and fighting is encouraged. I don't think you can get a more masculine type of society where fighting is the main goal for everyone.
06:16
Speaker A
So to look at how this shame and expectations affect the world, I think the best case study for this would be Kakashi. When talking about men masking their emotions to appear as these emotionless fighters, Kakashi literally wears a mask hiding his face at all
06:32
Speaker A
times. I mean, if you look at his backstory, his father cared so much about his teammates and his friends that he sacrificed a mission in order to save them. And he was shamed to the point of suicide. And that is practically
06:48
Speaker A
Kakashi's introduction to the world of Shinobi. After that, while Kakashi is sent to war very young because he's strong, so why would he have to learn overall he stays pretty distant from the people around him. He does not try to
07:02
Speaker A
engage emotionally with anyone. What happens is that Kakashi is put in a similar situation to his father where he has to choose between his mission or his teammates and he goes for the mission.
07:15
Speaker A
However, his teammate kind of manages to change his mind. But that teammate, Obito, dies during that mission, and Kakashi is left grieving for the rest of his life, a friendship that never happened because he didn't let himself be open with others. And he was too cold
07:33
Speaker A
to actually learn about people and form bonds with people. And he only saw that while his friend was dying, except for the longest part that they knew each other. They weren't friends. Kakashi was judging him for not being a good ninja
07:47
Speaker A
when Obito was helpful and passionate. Kakashi's life is tragic because he tried to fit into that norm perfectly.
07:54
Speaker A
And he was, but he ended up just grieving for something he never had. And he's stuck behind his mask now. And his mask also covers the eye that Obito left him because that is an emotional thing for him. The Sharingan is emotional in
08:11
Speaker A
nature, but for Kakashi, that is the only part of his dead friend he has. So, Kakashi represents this perfect shinobi that everyone should strive to be. And yet, he's deeply unhappy. He lost his sensei and his friends, his teammates.
08:26
Speaker A
He's left alone most of the time, and he hides behind his mask. And Kakashi and Obito were not the only ones that were affected by this dynamic of masculinity.
08:35
Speaker A
When you look at Madar and Hashiama or Naruto and Sasuke, talking to each other becomes difficult when you're not taught to do that. You're taught to show your emotions by fighting, which does not create healthy relationships or ways to
08:50
Speaker A
express yourself. All this system does is hurt people in a cycle. A cycle that constantly repeats itself every generation. Now that we've seen what behaviors are praised in this world, let's look at what is considered bad.
09:04
Speaker A
Naruto has a lot of queercoded villains and we're going to look specifically at Haku and Noimaru and slightly the Akatsky. To understand what I mean by queercoded, it's kind of important to go back in history. If we look at the
09:16
Speaker A
motion picture production code that was in effect between 1930 and 1968, the code basically restricted positive representation of immorality. Under this code, you couldn't promote sympathy for crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin. And topics that the code deemed immoral
09:32
Speaker A
included implicit sex or scenes of passion amongst other things. The language used in this code is vague, so they could ban what they wanted. Now, queer artists started coding certain characters to be gay without showing them being gay on screen with specific
09:48
Speaker A
traits or behavior, especially if you look at feminine men or masculine women. Some movie villains were also queercoded. If we look at some Alfred Hitchcock films, the villain in Psycho and the two gay guys in Rope, it's not a
10:02
Speaker A
positive depiction of the queer community. So, queer characters could exist, but they needed to be either evil or they needed to be hidden. Now, why am I talking about this American code when I'm talking about a Japanese TV show?
10:17
Speaker A
Well, the MPPPC was present during the American occupation of Japan. During this occupation, the Americans actually took control of the Japanese film industry. They could ban and burn the films they wanted and also promote certain behaviors in films. So, I mean,
10:32
Speaker A
it's not completely unrelated. One of the very first villains we meet in Naruto is Haku. Haku is shown to be very feminine in his way of presenting himself and his way of behaving. He would already match the description for
10:44
Speaker A
queer coding, but if we look at his backstory, there's even more. Haku was raised somewhere where Kekenkai was demonized. Now, at one point, he's experimenting and he discovers that he kind of has this power that seems to bring him joy. So, he proudly shows his
10:59
Speaker A
mother what he can do. Then, she hits him and tells him to hide this part of himself. However, his father sees this and tries to kill Haku with other members of the community. Haku then kills everybody out of fear. This scene
11:12
Speaker A
is very reminiscent of trans scenes in media where kids will just discover themselves and not see anything wrong with it until their parents tell them that it's wrong. What happens after that is that everyone gets hurt by these
11:25
Speaker A
norms. Transphobia doesn't just affect trans people, it affects everyone because everyone is supposed to act not trans. Even if these norms being present affect people's daily lives. So, Haku is the first villain we see and he introduces concepts of transness,
11:42
Speaker A
homelessness, loneliness, and finding community in the underground. So, the demonization of this thing that was naturally a part of him led to so many people getting hurt because the only place where Haku could find community was with criminals. I cannot emphasize
11:58
Speaker A
enough how this is how we are introduced to villains in Naruto. They are victims of this society and of expectations of people around them. Haku was completely failed by the system because he was seen as different. The only thing he actually
12:12
Speaker A
wants is to be accepted. So Haku is 100% a queercoded villain, but he's not the only one. Let's take a quick look at Disney and their queercoded villains, especially during the Renaissance.
12:25
Speaker A
Disney had a lot of queercoded villains. Ursula is usually the first one people think about because she was modeled after a drag queen. But there are many elements to a queercoded villain. I want to read a specific sentence I found in
12:38
Speaker A
an essay kind of defining the goals of a queercoded villain in Disney. So they are talking about Scar and Ursula. They are exiled from their communities and spend most of their time in dark caves and wish to assurp the
12:52
Speaker A
current king so they can gain power for themselves. So um Orochimaru is basically the second villain that is introduced in the show and he arrives as a man in a woman's body quite literally.
13:05
Speaker A
Also unrelated but the outfits that he wears during the show are not his but the woman he killed like that was her fit. He just killed her and stole her aesthetic for years. Nobody talks about that. So Odo Chimaru is very different
13:21
Speaker A
from Haku. Haku has more pity with his story while Orochimaru is straight up crazy. It's easier to sympathize with Haku and his story.
13:32
Speaker A
Orochimaru less. So the reason he got kicked out of the leaf was because he was doing experiments on people sometimes while they were alive. And we don't know where he was getting these bodies, but it surely was unethical.
13:43
Speaker A
Orochimaru doesn't see the human body as a human being. He sees it as a way to advance his knowledge, which to him is the most important thing. So basically what he does now is that he grooms vulnerable children uh to join him in
13:58
Speaker A
his quest for knowledge and does experiments on them. He transforms them into a monstrous version of themselves which we will explore later. But the Rochimaru is the first time we see a character who doesn't look human per se.
14:11
Speaker A
He looks like a snake human hybrid. He doesn't look like any gender. He just looks like Orochimaru. He's his own thing. Now, I won't deny that Orochimaru is bad, but we think he's bad because we're told that he's bad. When we look
14:25
Speaker A
at The Hidden Leaf, they do a lot of similar things to Orochimaru. They are just more discreet about it. And as the audience, we're told that it's a good place, so we don't think about it too much. Because if you're like, "Well,
14:37
Speaker A
he's a creep to miners." Or, "But he attacked the hidden leaf," or, "He does body modification and experiments," or, "He captures orphans and gives them terrible living conditions until they kill each other." Yes, his behavior is awful, but
14:58
Speaker A
the leaf also engages in this behavior. What is truly admirable about Toimaru is that he achieves all of this while always being honest. He didn't have to tell Sasuke that he was going to take his body as a vessel. He could have just
15:11
Speaker A
told him, "I want to train you to make you stronger." And then trap him. But he didn't. He has power because people choose him. The hidden leaf runs on shame. And Noro Chimaru has none, which makes him terrifying. He's completely
15:25
Speaker A
unashamed of who he is. No matter what he's done, he knows why he's doing what he's doing. and he tells people and if they don't agree, well, too bad. He probably could have just kidnapped Sasuke during the tuning exams. But him
15:37
Speaker A
manipulating Sasuke to voluntarily join him, that is so much worse. When he is first introduced, he refers to himself as a predator. Now, obviously, they use the whole prey predator thing in this episode because it's still supposed to
15:52
Speaker A
be appropriate for children, but I think we all know what he means by saying that he is a predator. He admits it. There are also many sexual undertones with Orochimaru. From his way of interacting with people to the way that he kind of
16:04
Speaker A
[ __ ] a scroll on his first appearance body sexuality gender none of this means anything to Orochimaru. He is simply trying to advance his knowledge and these things are arbitrary things that only exist as a construct. None of these things matter
16:19
Speaker A
to him. Another minor thing I want to point out is that at one point we cut to a scene with Kimato and Kabuto is just typing away on a computer. truly shocking because computers are not shown to be part of this world. We've seen
16:32
Speaker A
kind of cameras, but technology has been shown to be very limited in Naruto's world. So, it seems that if Orochimaru has a computer, then it's just the leaf having censorship to control the population. And I could see why
16:46
Speaker A
Orochimaru would be completely against that. In a way, he does give freedom to people he takes in because he does not hide this information from them. I mean, we could talk about forbidden jutsu because what does that even mean? Why
16:57
Speaker A
are they hiding these things? It seems that in the leaf, you only hear what the government wants you to hear. And with Orochimaru, you can find out for yourself whether it puts you in danger or not. Now, what is truly fascinating
17:07
Speaker A
with these characters and Naruto's relationship to them is how they treat them. So, if we go back to Disney for a second, usually with the queercoded villain, there's the satisfying death.
17:16
Speaker A
The heroes will kill the villain and then there will be a straight couple pairing. They will become the traditional family that you should aspire to be because you should kill what is evil, what is queer, what doesn't fit in this world. That is what
17:29
Speaker A
these films teach. In Naruto, it's the opposite. The villains are redeemed. At the end, we feel bad for Haku. Naruto defends Haku and Zabuza turns on the right side, which finally the villains weren't Zabuza or Haku. It was the
17:44
Speaker A
government. Crazy. And Oroimaru, even worse, Oroshimaru doesn't die. And Boruto, his child, is one of the main characters. It's not even that he doesn't die. It's that they don't force him to live in a heteronormative world.
17:58
Speaker A
He can be himself. He's still doing experiments. He's just living his non-binary life or their non-binary life as a parent, as is explicitly said in the show.
18:26
Speaker A
I haven't really mentioned the Akatsky, but I just want to mention that none of them live in a nuclear family situation.
18:33
Speaker A
They all are single uh doing their thing and they all are anti-establishment. At the beginning of the Akatsky, there was one straight pairing which was Kanan and Yahiko and their queer single third wheel. Now Yahiko dies destroying that
18:47
Speaker A
pairing which causes Nagato to form the Akatsky as we know them. So even if you live according to this system, this system is still going to hurt you and that will cause further damage and trauma. Even if you do like Yahiko and
19:00
Speaker A
try to conform and achieve peace in a way that is not disruptive, it doesn't work. So you have to be violent if you want to achieve peace, but that violence will cause more violence and it's an endless cycle. Now, we'll expand a bit
19:13
Speaker A
on some of these characters as we continue this analysis, but overall, Naruto's world encourages a heteronormative society, and the villains are people who were rejected from this society and are usually queer people or allies. Except compared to other media, they don't need to be
19:30
Speaker A
punished for this behavior. They are redeemed. They are still seen as people who can exist in the society without changing who they fundamentally are.
19:37
Speaker A
Why? We are going directly into my next point which is Naruto is telling this story and Naruto doesn't believe that queer people should be [Music] excluded. Okay, so let's talk about the titular character half of the main pairing and that is Naruto. Now I'm not
20:01
Speaker A
saying that Naruto is gay. I'm not denying that Naruto is attracted to women. I would even say he has a preference for women, but he's also attracted to a specific type of men. One thing that is emblematic of his
20:12
Speaker A
bisexuality actually appears in the first episode, which is his sexy jutsu, the jutsu he invented, where he transforms into a naked woman to distract his opponent. So basically, he will either win a fight or get his way by flirting with men while also knowing
20:30
Speaker A
what makes a woman attractive. And of course, this culminates in him using the reverse sexy jutsu at the end of the show. And I mean, Naruto has a few bisexual moments. In the first arc, he finds Haku attractive. He kind of flirts
20:43
Speaker A
with him until he learns that he's a man. And then he respects his identity.
20:47
Speaker A
And this is not something that Naruto usually does. Naruto usually finds something that makes you stick out or that you're insecure about and then uses that as a nickname. For example, Tsunady shortens her life to appear younger because she is insecure about her age.
21:01
Speaker A
and Naruto calls her granny, but he never insults Haku in this way. He always respects his pronouns and doesn't mock him for looking like a girl. And I always saw his attempts at getting a date with Sakura to be him trying to fit
21:13
Speaker A
in and him forming a connection more than a physical attraction to her. For a long time in the show, he uses Sakura as a way of justifying his obsession with Sasuke. I have to save Sasuke because I made a promise to Sakura. But at one
21:27
Speaker A
point, he manages to accept that he's doing it for himself. He admits that he wants to save Sasuke because he cares about Sasuke. And when Sakura confesses her love for him, he rejects her because he is not actually interested. And she
21:41
Speaker A
didn't notice him not actually being interested, but he hasn't been in a very long time. And he was just using it as an excuse to not actually admitting his feelings to himself. Another moment is when Sai is introduced and Naruto is
21:55
Speaker A
disappointed because uh Sai is not as attractive as Sasuke, which is pretty funny. While we're here, I guess we also have to talk about Hinata, which I do want to make a separate video about all the women in
22:09
Speaker A
Naruto and why Hinata and Sakura are the worst ones. But Naruto and Hinata are very interesting to me because Naruto never initiates contact with her. And I would like to start with one of my favorite scenes, which is I like people
22:24
Speaker A
like you. Um because what do you mean you like people like her? Like pale skin, dark hair shy special eyes. I He doesn't even say girls like you. He says people like you. It's really funny. And she interprets it as
22:40
Speaker A
like I like you, but he's talking about Sasuke. He honestly just seems completely uninterested in her. I mean, another one of my favorite scenes like this is during the war arc where Nei dies and then she holds his hand and
22:59
Speaker A
comforts him in the moment. And to her, this means the world. She's like holding the hand of her crush. She feels like she's made it. And then like a few minutes later, Minato arrives on the battlefield and Sakura is healing
23:13
Speaker A
Naruto. And Minato asked, "Hey, is this your girlfriend?" And even though he just held Hinata's hand in this romantic moment, the most romantic straight moment he's had so far, his dad asked him if Sak's girlfriend, he's like, "Yep." If I was Hinata, that would have
23:32
Speaker A
made me want to die. That's so embarrassing. He forgot about it. He The second Hinata is not in front of him, he forgets that she exists. I mean, one romantic scene that a lot of people point out is during the pain arc where
23:49
Speaker A
Hinata confesses that she loves Naruto, right? Um, first of all, there's no post scene to this. He never responds. She says, "I love you." And he just there's no he goes to visit her at the hospital. He takes care of her. He
24:07
Speaker A
like carries her somewhere. Other people from the leaf are taking care of her. And then he hugs Sakura at the end. Very weird. And people say he transformed into the Ninetales because he loved her and seeing her die caused
24:23
Speaker A
this reaction. I want to point out that before this, he's fighting Pain. Pain just killed Jeriah. Kakashi destroyed his village, destroyed uh his toad mentor, and now he sees Pain directly kill someone violently in front of him.
24:42
Speaker A
And it brings back all the anger from the other thing Pain has done. He can't separate the person he's fighting right now to all of the people he's lost because he just saw it right in front of him. And why I'm pointing this out is
24:56
Speaker A
that Orochimaru just had to say Sasuke's name for Naruto to become the Ninetails. Pain had to kill so many people for Naruto to have the same reaction as when Orochimaru said Sasuke's name. When it's Sasuke, it's not romantic. Of course, it's not
25:18
Speaker A
romantic. Maru is like my Sasuke and Naruto's like he doesn't belong to you but it's not romantic but it is when Hinata is like the hundth person that pain kills and that is a trigger for him. Sure. So
25:37
Speaker A
yeah, I don't believe this relationship is interesting or the point of the story. Um so we're going to talk about that very interesting ending later, but this relationship is very one-sided.
25:50
Speaker A
Yeah, listen. We could talk a long time about the gay moments that Naruto has, but that's not actually the point. So, I want to focus on why he is the main character and why he's a good main character for this show. And that is his
26:02
Speaker A
talk nojutsu. This show Naruto was never about physical strength. It's about violence and the cycle of violence. And Naruto breaks the cycle of violence by talking to people and by being vulnerable. In this world and kind of in
26:15
Speaker A
ours, people express their negative emotions with violence, especially men and especially in societies that promote violence and glamorize masculinity. What Naruto does with his t nojutsu is that he will look at these people and say, "I see your pain. I understand what you've
26:30
Speaker A
been through." And everyone needs a therapist so bad in this show that it kind of works. The villains in this show usually are people who have lost themselves to violence, who have been through terrible things and now do
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Speaker A
terrible things to other people, but that's not who they are at their core. Very quickly, Naruto can recognize flaws in the system where he says, "This is not human. This is not fair." And he wants to fix the system from the inside.
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Speaker A
So, he wants to rise to the top and that's how he's going to make the world a better place. He believes in the system and he wants to be part of the system, but he can admit the changes
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Speaker A
have to be made. Naruto generally has a quite a positive attitude towards the leaf and we know it's objectively terrible. I mean, they're child soldiers. But to Naruto, it's his home and that's everything he knows. So, he sees this world with roast tinted
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Speaker A
glasses, but us as the audience are supposed to know better. It is when Naruto defies these masculine standards that he manages to bring peace, to bring joy to people. I mean, think of Gada, who went from a homicidal maniac to, I
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Speaker A
mean, a chill guy. Naruto being a genturiki is kind of his villain origin story, except he managed to not become a villain. That's what makes him special in this world. There are people that are stronger than Naruto in this show, and
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Speaker A
there are people who work harder than Naruto in this show. He is the protagonist because of his sensibility.
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Speaker A
I actually can't believe that people like fans of this show don't like the Tottenham jutsu. That's the point. The show's not for you if you don't like it.
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Speaker A
Clearly. Anyway, let's continue talking about Naruto as the main character. Now, the most important thing about this Naruto section, in my opinion, Naruto is the narrator of the Naruto TV show. Now, being a narrator in a TV or a movie is
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Speaker A
very different from being a narrator in a book because in a book, the narration basically describes everything. While in a TV show or movie, the viewer can still see what the narrator wouldn't necessarily describe. So, it's not that
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Speaker A
we only see Naruto's point of view. It's more that Naruto chooses what we see and don't see. Kind of like how in Breaking Bad, Walter White is the narrator, but he's also the villain of the story. So, you're supposed to know he's doing bad
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Speaker A
things even though he is justifying them as the narrator. What's interesting about Naruto is that he's also a unreliable narrator. Why is he unreliable? Because he's he's kind of stupid and he also has a huge victim mentality and he's a bootlicker. I'm
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Speaker A
trying not to talk about Sasuke too much before I dedicate a whole part to Sasuke, but my favorite part of Naruto being a unreliable narrator has to do with Sasuke. So, I'm sorry. But the way we see Sasuke as a viewer during the
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Speaker A
first show is because of Naruto's kind of narration. We don't see Sasuke's backstory until Naruto is ready to acknowledge that Sasuke has also had a difficult life. Naruto wants to believe that he is the underdog and that Sasuke
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Speaker A
is this naturally gifted person who's never had to work a day in his life.
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Speaker A
Naruto cannot accept that someone has had a childhood that was as difficult as his or more difficult than his. And there's a scene where Naruto is at a park with his friends and then all the parents come to pick up their kids and
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Speaker A
Naruto's obviously not picked up and then makes him upset which is very fair. And then he walks back home and on his way home he sees Sasuke alone and it makes him feel less alone because there's someone else who can relate to
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Speaker A
his loneliness. Except Sasuke doesn't have friends. Sasuke was not at the park. Sasuke was alone this whole time has no one to talk to. Had a family and then didn't. And Naruto sees them as equal. As oh we're both equally alone.
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Speaker A
Yeah. Or like, oh, he gets attention at school because he's a better shinobi than I am, so I don't have to feel bad for him. But we are never shown Sasuke having friends. He says the closest bond he has was Naruto, which they weren't
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Speaker A
friends for that long, and Naruto kind of hated him for part of that. So Sasuke was truly alone, but Naruto cannot acknowledge that. I think the best example of this though is when Orochimaru is introduced in the forest
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Speaker A
of death because they start fighting Orochimaru thinking he's another genin doing the exams but then he casts a genjutsu onto Sasuke and Sakura. Sasuke gets out of it has a vile reaction to it panics is completely unbalanced and
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Speaker A
gives up the scroll. Naruto sees this as Sasuke being weak. And this is often a part of the show that the viewers are like, "Oh, this is when Sasuke realized why the show was titled Naruto or something like that." When Sasuke was
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Speaker A
right, what we don't get is Sasuke's perspective of this scene, we only see Naruto's perspective because from Sasuke's perspective, the one time Sasuke was put under a judu like this was with Itachi when he was tortured.
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Speaker A
So when he is put under a genjutsu by Orochimaru, he immediately knows that this is an Itachi level threat that this is not a genon. So he panics and he doesn't know what's going on. He offers the scroll because he thinks we are all
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Speaker A
going to die. He's trying to protect Sakuran. He's doing the right thing. Naruto acting out, calling him weak, punching him in the face. Naruto also says multiple times during this scene, this is not the Saskuke I know.
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Speaker A
Like I know you. Do you? Because you are not acknowledging any of his past. You are ignoring everything about him. And what does this big moment of Naruto stopping the snake accomplish? Nothing.
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Speaker A
Orochimaru messes with the ninetail seal, which no one is panicked enough about, but he messes with the ninetail seal and then he puts the curse mark on Sasuke, which as we all know leads to many problems. So, what did Naruto
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Speaker A
accomplish by saving the day like he sees it? Naruto failed because he didn't trust Sasuke because he couldn't be bothered to know what Sasuke knows, to trust him. Sasuke did everything he could to save himself and his teammates. And Naruto basically brushed
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Speaker A
it off for a moment of victory. And he shows it as a victory because that's how he sees it. But it's not how it is. If this scene was shown from Sasuke's perspective, Naruto would be seen as a
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Speaker A
fool. So Naruto is the narrator of the show. He's bisexual. He doesn't know it. He's not interested in Sakura. He's not interested in Hinata. So what's left is well [Music] Sasuke. Finally, we get the chance to speak about Sasuke Uchia. Now, if
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Speaker A
there's one thing I have in common with Naruto is that I will not shut up about Sasuke. And it does annoy everybody around me.
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Speaker A
So, let's point out a few things that are very important to Sasuke's character. The way I see Sasuke is that he's a massive liar and he's very secretive, which is what makes him so interesting to me. You can't just listen
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Speaker A
to what he's saying and discover what his intentions are. You have to look deeper into his actions to actually understand him. And that's actually one of the main plots of Naruto. Naruto not understanding Sasuke. I want to introduce this section with a few of my
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Speaker A
personal favorite Sasuke and Chiha lies. Number one would be during his fight against Zabuza where he is very obviously shaking and Zabuza is insulting him for it and Saskuke is like, "Yeah, I'm shaking of anticipation." because that is clearly
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Speaker A
something he thought about later and cringed about and that makes me laugh. He was scared and he was trying to hide it. It's very sweet. Number two is during the tuning exams when Sakura has this episode of feeling very insecure.
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Speaker A
Rightfully so, because she doesn't think she can pass the exams. She doesn't. And Saskuke kind of knows that Sakura also doesn't have a chance of passing these exams, but he notices she's insecure. He has this moment when he's like, "What's
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Speaker A
wrong with her?" but he needs her to do these exams because they're a team and they have to be a team to complete these exams. So, he lies to her. Basically, there's this mini test where the two gay
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Speaker A
guys cast a genjutsu on them. Saskuke notices. So, he's like, "Well, Sakura, I'm sure you noticed too. You know, you have like the best eyes in the team, which is very funny because half of that team has at least a sharing gun." And
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Speaker A
then he says that Sakura has the best eyes, which is Sasuke not being used to complimenting people, trying his best to add this false sense of security in Sakura to make her feel more confident during these exams. Once again, he's
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Speaker A
trying. It's very sweet. The third lie, and by far the most iconic, is during the cliff scene where Kurama says, "You are the spitting image of Madaruchia." And Sasuke says, "Never heard of him. Am I supposed to care?" Um, flashback to
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Speaker A
Valley of the End where he asked Naruto, "Hey, do you know what this place is?" Standing on top of Maduchia, "You're telling me that Saskuchia did not know who Maduchia was?" I call [ __ ] Also, we're going to talk about this
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Speaker A
scene later, but this entire scene is a lie. So, this is just the obvious lie to make a point that the rest is also a lie. Because think about this scene from his point of view for a second. What do
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Speaker A
you say to that? You're the spitting image of Malaruchia. Thanks. A thank you. Little little giggle, a little blush. What was he supposed to say? So, he's just pretending not to know who that was. And Naruto is so absolutely obsessed with
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Speaker A
him that he did not notice that of course Sasuke would know who Mada is and doesn't catch up on the lie. But that was just a stressed reaction from Sasuke, not knowing what to reply to that comment and keeping his cool guy
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Speaker A
act up. This example is less cute but more iconic. To truly understand Saskuchia, you have to look at his upbringing and his childhood. All of the flashbacks from Sasuke's perspective show that he was actually very feminine in his
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Speaker A
childhood. Let me explain. First of all, there are two separate scenes of someone carrying Sasuke as a baby and then someone else coming up and saying, "Oh, is that a girl?" And they have to be like, "No, it's Saskuke." which doesn't
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Speaker A
happen with any other [Applause] character. Point number two, in a world where everyone looks exactly like their father, Saskuke looks like his mother.
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Speaker A
And of course, in real life, that doesn't mean anything. But in fiction, especially in fiction where you draw all your characters, this has meaning.
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Speaker A
Sasuke looking like his mom is an immediate tie to femininity that he is born with. Talking about his family, I think it's also important to mention how Sasuke and Itachi are contrasted. Itachi went to war, has a deep voice, is good
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Speaker A
at everything. He is the embodiment of masculine identity. Kind of like Kekashi. He's this perfect shinobi. And Sasuke is contrasted to this by acting more feminine. He has a very squeaky voice. He is bad at fighting. I mean,
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Speaker A
there's that one flashback that plays a thousand times in the show where he jumps and twists his ankle and then his brother has to carry him home. There's another one where he tries to shoot something with a bow and arrow and
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Speaker A
misses his target. He's not this naturally good ninja that Naruto thinks he is. He's always had to work hard.
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Speaker A
Now, I don't think I have to mention the classic Sasuke pose. I think that's the first thing you thought of when clicking on this video, but yeah, there's that.
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Speaker A
There is one member of the family we haven't talked about, which is Fugaku, Sasuke's father. And let's be honest here, homophobic. He doesn't value his son's emotions at all. He only values what they bring to the clan, which is
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Speaker A
something that messes up both of them. I am the biggest Fugaku hater. I do not like this man. But yeah, moving on. So basically Sasuke grows up in this family that doesn't really value him as a ninja and that is the only thing his father
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Speaker A
values which obviously his father's opinion matters more than his mother's in this world. I would have liked to see a deeper relationship between him and his mother but oh well she didn't have much time and so he was brought up in
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Speaker A
constant comparison with his older brother. So I want to talk about his skewed sense of identity because he was brought up to idolize his brother. you should be more like Itachi. But then the massacre happens and Itachi tells him,
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Speaker A
"You should hate me." So all his life he's tried to be this person that he now has to hate. But he's also now the only Uchia. So he has this legacy to protect.
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Speaker A
So what he is is now what the Uchia is. And he feels this huge amount of pressure. This leads to a massive amount of self-hatred. I mean, he feels like something is wrong with him. He doesn't feel the strength of the Uchia. He can't
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Speaker A
really do what he wants because it would shame his clan. and he's stuck in this misery. The other thing that's important to mention is the sharing gun which is what represents the now the curse of the sharing gun is because you can't really
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Speaker A
train the sharing gun to be better. You have to go through trauma and to live trauma you have to love. So you are more likely to hurt the people around you to get stronger depending on how much you
40:02
Speaker A
want that power. A uchia being corrupted will end up with them killing the people around them. So isolating yourself and staying far away from others is a way of protecting yourself as a nuia because the people you befriend might end up as
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Speaker A
casualties for you to get power. There is this guilt of making friends as a nuia. So now if we talk about Sasuke in the show when he starts in team 7, there are many interesting aspects to his character that can be observed that
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Speaker A
Naruto doesn't necessarily see. The first one is that Sasuke's skill set is very much learned. Contrary to Naruto's belief and contrary to Naruto's powers, I mean, Sasuke practices relentlessly, and you can see this with his fighting style, everything he does seems
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Speaker A
practiced. Seems like he's thought about it. Naruto stole a scroll, read it, and immediately mastered a very difficult judu. Who is the gifted one here? We see Sasuke struggling with the fireball judsu and working endlessly to a point
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Speaker A
where he's hurting himself to actually master it. Every time Naruto is shown during a training montage, he is complaining. When he was told that it would take years for the rasing gun, he was whining about it and then he
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Speaker A
mastered it very quickly. He is an extremely gifted child, which makes sense. Look at his parents. And it's not his fault that he doesn't know, but like, you know, there are a few details about Sasuke being a hard worker that
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Speaker A
you can notice. For example, Naruto has terrible eating habits. Even when Kakashi offers him fruit and vegetables, he declines them. There's another scene where Kashi offers Sasuke sweets and Sasuke says, "I don't really eat sweet stuff." Good eating habits are a part of
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Speaker A
training. It's part of the effort you put into getting stronger. My favorite scene where they show Sasuke being a hard worker without saying anything is when at the very beginning of the show, Kakashi asks Team 7 to join him at 5:00
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Speaker A
a.m. Naruto and Sakura arrive there extremely tired because obviously they're not used to being awake at this hour. Sasuke arrives completely normal.
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Speaker A
What this tells me is that it's not unusual for Sasuke to wake up early to train before school. If he was this natural genius, why would he have to wake up early and train more before school? It's because he's not. I also
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Speaker A
noticed that throughout the first series, you can see that every time Sasuke fights, he has a different variation of the fireball judu. So, he doesn't just learn a jutsu, he tries different things with it. He makes it better on his own time. after he learns
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Speaker A
to climb up a tree, putting chakra on his feet, for example. There's a scene where he uses this technique to hold a kunai under his foot and throw it that way. That is not something we see Naruto or Sakura do. This is because once he
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Speaker A
learned that technique, he wasn't done with it. He didn't just take it for granted. He tried to make it better by training. Now, the problem is Sasuke tries to train like a nuchi using the showering gun and fireball jutsu, but
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Speaker A
it's not enough. He keeps losing fights and not being able to defend himself or attack properly. And so a huge part of Sasuke's character is unnaturally obtaining power after his defeat in the first arc. And once he's losing the
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Speaker A
fight against Orochimaru, that's when Noro Chimaru gets him with the curse mark. And once he experiences that splurge of power that he did not have to work for, he separates himself from his Uchia identity. He gives up trying to
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Speaker A
gain power the Uchia way because it has never worked for him. Sasuke has never been a naturally born Uchia. He's always felt different. He's never managed to be like Itachi. He's always felt like an outsider in his own clan, and he was
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Speaker A
born this way. Another reason he leans towards a natural training is that as an uchia, he doesn't have another to train him. He's been stripped of all of his connections with this clan. Another time that he steps away from the Uchia clan
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Speaker A
is when he learns the electric nature transformation with Kakashi. Electricity is not a part of being a nuchi. But Saskuke learns this because at this point he has to have a diverse arsenal.
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Speaker A
And the fire jutsu simply isn't cutting it. So he tries to be like his mentor, the one who is most around him because he has one charing gun. Kakashi's main traits are having five chakra natures and copying other people's moves. During
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Speaker A
the tunin exams, he's already living the influence of Orochimaru by obtaining power in different ways. Not only does he debut his lightning jutsu, but he also copies a move from Lee, who is the hardest worker in the show and also has
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Speaker A
no chakra. Sasuke being humbled by Lee also had a huge effect on him. He is fighting someone with zero natural skill. He is fighting someone who is a harder worker than he is. And yet, he still fails. So, how much is this hard
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Speaker A
work actually going to lead him? So he feels like he's not working hard enough and he starts feeling like his training is leading him nowhere. So when Orochimaru gives him a taste of unnatural power and he defeats someone
44:47
Speaker A
who defeated Lee that comes to his head because there is no amount of hard work you could do that defeats unnatural power. So Sasuke is insecure. He hides his emotions. He isolates himself to protect himself. He doesn't have
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Speaker A
friends. and he is now being influenced by Rochimaru who wants to give him more power without Sasuke having to work for it. Something he has done his whole life and that has led to nothing. So the next plot point we're going to address is
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Speaker A
Sasuke's encounter with Itachi. This encounter happens at a crucial part in the show because right before this was the tuning exams. During the fight with Gada, Sasuke kind of tried to use his new powers given by Rochimaru, but he
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Speaker A
was failing miserably and in pain and Naruto ended up defeating Ga. Same thing that happened in the first arc. So, he keeps failing over and over again against Haku, Orochimaru, Ga, and then he meets with his brother. And this is
45:43
Speaker A
the first time we get a flashback to Sasuke's past. And we kind of see how he has given up his life in order to beat his brother. So, he hasn't been having fun or hang out with friends or doing
45:56
Speaker A
anything that doesn't benefit his physical strength. In his mind, he's completely different from the seven-year-old that Itachi beat with ease. Like, all of his hard work should have led to something, right? Wrong.
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Speaker A
Once again, hard work does not defeat natural talent. And Itachi defeats him so easily. Sasuke uses his new jutsu, the chidori, not the new chihajutsu, to try something new against his brother, and he still fails. Itachi basically just grabs his arm and breaks it or
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Speaker A
twists it, I'm not sure, and disregards him completely. What's also important to remember in this scene is that this is a huge trigger for Sasuke. We know that Kakashi and Naruto are two of the people he is most attached to, and he discovers
46:39
Speaker A
that Itachi is in town because he sees Kakashi bedridden after a fight with Itachi. Then he sees Itachi targeting Naruto. He's put at a place once again where Itachi is attacking his loved ones. He becomes that seven-year-old all
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Speaker A
over again. And if that wasn't enough, he gets tortured again. You know, for a bad guy to nice, that was a real dick move. Was the genjutsu necessary?
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Speaker A
Really? Anyway, this doesn't just discourage Sasuke physically. It's also a reminder that any bond he creates is not safe. That every bond he makes is an opportunity to get hurt. It's the opportunity to lose someone. It's kind of a neither can live while the other
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Speaker A
survives situation when Itachi wants Sasuke's eyes and Sasuke can't live his life until Itachi is dead because his life will never be safe. So he is completely demoralized after his fight.
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Speaker A
He realizes that he has nothing that he has no strength that he is ruining his life for nothing and he thought he grew from the child he was embarrassed to be but he hasn't. So what does he do after
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Speaker A
the fight? He challenges Naruto. Now, neither of them know at this point who Naruto's parents are. So, to Sasuke, Naruto is someone who has no heritage and doesn't work hard. So, if he can't defeat this guy who is riding on luck,
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Speaker A
like what is even the point of trying? And what happens? You'll never guess. He fails. He thinks he wins for a moment and then he sees the back of the water tanks. Naruto accepting to do this fight after Sasuke was mentally weak from
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Speaker A
torture was not a great move to Naruto. This was just a fun buddy buddy fight.
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Speaker A
He didn't realize what he was doing when he accepted and he even tells Sakura after like no it's fine but to Sasuke this meant a lot and this was a turning point. Naruto just didn't realize what he was doing. Now this leads Sasi to
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Speaker A
having the realization that he has tried everything he could within the acceptable system in place and nothing has worked. The only time he truly felt power was in the forest of death after Orochimaru gave him the power. Before
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Speaker A
that and since then he has been non-stop failing. He knows nothing in the system will help him and he knows he can't live until Itachi is dead. Now, this part of the video might have not seemed very gay, but it's important to lead up to
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Speaker A
what is the anti-institution aspect of Sasuke, which is queer. Orochimaru reapproaches Sasuke at the perfect moment when, as I just said, he is completely down and desperate. He uses these cult tactics to recruit people who need it, and Sasuke is just a prime
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Speaker A
target at that point. He gets beat up by the sound people for good measure, and then he accepts to go with them. We can also mention uh his conversation with Kakashi where Kakashi admits that everyone he loves is dead. Kashi chose
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Speaker A
to live despite the pain, wear a mask, conform to society and basically be this perfect ninja. And that is one option for Sasuke, but at the end of the day, he knows he will not be satisfied by this. And he also knows that Kakashi
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Speaker A
doesn't have an Itachi. So there's no point in trying to live Kakashi's lifestyle. So, in a moment of rebirth, Sasuke dies and has this monstrous body transformation, which blurs the line between gender and humanity. I mean, there's long hair, lipstick, the hand
50:00
Speaker A
wings. It transforms Sasuke into what he feels like he is, which is an outsider, someone who doesn't fit in, someone who isn't an uchia. Transforming into this even destroys his shirt, which has been an emblem of the Uchia. We've mentioned
50:13
Speaker A
previously how Orochimaru is a queercoded villain. And I don't think that is deniable. So what do you think it means when Sasuke joins him? Sasuke is choosing the queer path. He's not following the rules of society. He decides to go his own way. There's this
50:29
Speaker A
piece of symbolism where as he fights Naruto at the end, he is on the statue of his ancestor kind of proving he can't escape and he will always represent his clan because he is one of the last living members. But he's trying hard to
50:43
Speaker A
distance himself from his past. So Sasuke accepts that he cannot get anywhere by just trying to be an Nia. So he joins Orochimaru. This is mostly during a time skip. So it's hard to know exactly what happened between Orochimaru
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Speaker A
and Sasuke. Although we do get a few scenes. One of the things that we can observe is that Sasuke seems to be more comfortable with his body, his body transformations, and how he is unnaturally Anuchia. I mean, if you
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Speaker A
compare just the outfits of the first series compared to Shipuen, he goes from always wearing this high neck shirt that seems to be the average thing for Anuia to wear to a very low cleavage with Orochimaru. We also see him using his
51:23
Speaker A
body transformations quite freely, letting just one wing out or partially transforming his body. He has become more comfortable with how unnatural he is. One way we see him being more comfortable with not being this naturalb born is that during his fight with
51:38
Speaker A
Naruto, he uses Itachi's blind spot jutsu to kind of show that he is at a similar level or just trying to make himself feel better as like I can do this just like my brother could. And then we see him with Orochimaru and he
51:51
Speaker A
does the same jutsu but instead of using kunai he's using the chidori. So he's still obsessed with Itachi but he's doing it his own way. Now my one question with Sasuke um if I could ask him one thing is when he decided to kill
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Speaker A
Odo Chimaru. So what I think happened is that when he left the leaf he was completely desperate and he kind of didn't care about his own life anymore because he knew that there was nothing he could do to live. So he went to
52:18
Speaker A
Orochimaru in this kind of suicidal state um where he's like my brother has to die no matter what. But then he arrives there and he has to wait another 3 years because Orochimaru's already switched bodies. When did he choose that
52:31
Speaker A
he wasn't actually going to switch body with Orochimaru? I believe that once his initial shock of arriving at Orochimaru died down, he kind of made this plan of lying his way through and surviving until he could kill Orochimaru. But this
52:46
Speaker A
is where it gets interesting because 6 months before he's supposed to kill Orochimaru, there is the first scene of Shipuan, which is the leaf arriving to Orochimaru's hideout. Now, I've talked about how Sasuke was lying during the scene previously, but his lying goes
53:00
Speaker A
much deeper than in that one instance. So, Naruto, Sakura, Yamato, and Sai arrive. He doesn't know Yamato and Sai, and last time he saw Naruto, he defeated him. And Sakura is Sakura. So I think he considers for a moment defeating
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Speaker A
Orochimaru now with the help of the leaf. And why I think that is that he asks where Kakashi is because Sasuke at this point and Kakashi may have a chance against Orochimaru. That is the one person whose strength he trusts.
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Speaker A
However, the leaf tells him that Kakashi is not there. So he doesn't have that reliable strength that would surely lead to victory with Orochimaru. So instead of risking fighting Orochimaru and losing, he decides to put on a show to
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Speaker A
show his devotion. Now, here is where I start assuming things. Yamato is the way that he is because he was one of Orochimaru's experiments. Now, I don't think it's crazy to assume that Sasuke would know this, or at least know partly
53:57
Speaker A
about Orochimaru's obsession with woody. He is seen next to Orochimaru all the time. He must know about his experiments, what he's done, what came of those experiments. I don't think it's that crazy to assume. And that is why
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Speaker A
the only lethal blow he delivers in this scene is to Yamato. He knows that Yamato will survive this. When it comes to the rest, he's practically teasing them. I mean, the line delivery of Sakura, knowing that she was obsessed with him,
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Speaker A
knowing how he's dressed right now, he's just teasing. And then as soon as Naruto arrives, his attention shifts completely. Like, let's be honest, he didn't have to do all of that. Another point that suggests that he is not
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Speaker A
telling the truth, that he's putting on a performance, is Kirin. So, Sasuke threatens to use Kirin, a jutsu that requires clouds, but Toimaru stops him.
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Speaker A
Once again, I don't think it's crazy to assume that they've had this conversation before. You can't use this jutsu if the weather is not appropriate and stuff like that. We see him put excessive effort into making that jutsu
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Speaker A
available to him while he's fighting Itachi. So he threatens to use it, but I think he is waiting for Odo Chimaru to stop him, which he does. So in this scene, Sasuke doesn't really hurt anyone in the leaf. He just like shocks them a
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Speaker A
bit in every way, but he proves his devotions to Orochimaru. He says, "I have no more ties. I'm ready to kill these people to test my judu on them, and I don't care." What this does is that Orochimaru will put his guards down
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Speaker A
and he will be easier to kill in the future because Saskuke is proving that he is just Orochimaru's puppet. I mean, he makes this whole speech about how his body belongs to Orochimaru and that he's not a person anymore. It's quite
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Speaker A
performative. I don't think Sasuke ever thought that. I think Sasuke decided to do this to make his future plans easier.
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Speaker A
But I don't think Naruto ever realized what Sasuke was doing here. So as the viewer, we don't see Sasuke's internal conflict because Naruto is the narrator.
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Speaker A
And Sasuke also doesn't care what other people think of him. He is only going towards his goal. So that includes us as the viewer. He doesn't care what we think of him as a character. He knows that what he does makes sense, but he's
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Speaker A
not going to spell it out for us, which is what makes him interesting as a character. And yeah, I think they added that obvious lie of him not knowing who Madaroia was as a hint of like he's lying in the scene, but hey, what do I
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Speaker A
know? Now, after Saskuke kills Roimaru, he decides to form his own team. This shows that he has made connections in the past few years and that he still cares for other people. Listen, this team could be interpreted as Sasuke
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Speaker A
reforming Team 7, trying to like satisfy a need, longing for his past. Except Kakashi doesn't really fit. Obviously, Karen would be Sakura and Suetsu would be Naruto, but Jugo and Kekashi have no connection whatsoever. But if you look
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Speaker A
at color scheme, personality, and clan, they all have a link to Naruto. Um, so that's my interpretation of it. It's the fact that his strongest connection is Naruto and he's trying to keep a link with it. He's trying to stay connected
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Speaker A
in a way because that is something that brings him comfort. So, if you remember the scene where uh we see Sasuke and Su Getsu interacting for the first time, it is probably one of the gayest scenes in the show. I mean, Sui Getsu is naked. Of
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Speaker A
course, he is because Saskuke is just put in these situations. He goes behind him. He points a gun to his head and he's like, "We have to define our relationship." It's funny how gay it is.
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Speaker A
And it's directly after Sasuke kills Orochimaru. So since Sasuke has lied for so long with Orochimaru, pretending to be someone he's not, which is his puppet, he's now at a point where he has to rediscover himself. And although he's
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Speaker A
more comfortable, he still doesn't really know who he is. And Sui Getsu definitely seems to be part of that at least. And I will mention that in the manga, directly after the scene is a scene that is so gay, it's not included
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Speaker A
in the show because you just cannot animate that. Um, but I'm going to talk about it here because I feel like I have to. So, in the show, Naruto does his reverse sexy jutsu at the end to defeat
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Speaker A
Kaguya. However, in the manga, Naruto is not the one to invent that jutsu. Konahamu is. Basically, Sakura is saying that it's a ridiculous jutsu and it would never work on women. So, he's like, "Oh, yeah." And he does the
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Speaker A
reverse sexy jutsu. Now, when you think of the sexy jutsu, you think of a naked lady posing, right? Except instead of just doing like a naked man posing or something like that, it's Sasuke and Sai going at it like doing the deed. It is
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Speaker A
hardly censored. Well, no, it is censored in the books. They blacked it out, but you can find an image online.
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Speaker A
Uh, if you type this, I think it's just unbelievable to me that a these scenes are back to back and b that it exists.
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Speaker A
It's a very like it looks like fan art. The only reason that this exists is because someone wanted to draw this.
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Speaker A
It's I I I believe it's the only sex scene in the manga, which would mean that the only kiss scene in the manga would be with two men. And the only sex scene in the manga would be with two
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Speaker A
men. And they all involve Sasuke Uchia, which is just fantastic and doesn't mean anything at all. Now, if we go back to our Hebi/Taka team. So, one of my favorite episodes of Naruto is actually the one where Suetssu and Sasuke try to
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Speaker A
find the executioner's blade. It's an episode focused on one issue, which is quite rare in Naruto, and it stands very well on its own. There are scenes in this where there are multiple women around Sasuke and he just shows that
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Speaker A
he's uninterested. They go out of their way to show how uninterested Sasuke is in women. Uh while he's spending all this time with this one man and the poses he does in this episode, everything is just he's figuring himself
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Speaker A
out. I think that's quite nice to see. Uh it's a very fun episode and it's it's quite gay. Following Suigiu, there is Karen. His first scene with Kadine is also full of sexual tension, but it's very one-sided. He does not know what is
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Speaker A
going on in this scene. With Sui Getsu, he kind of tells him to put his clothes back on and things like that. With Karen, he's just unaware that he's being flirted with. And that is very funny. So now that we have Suigi and Karen, what I
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Speaker A
find interesting about them is that when you look at team seven and you have Sakura and Naruto, they have this romantic interest in Sasuke, they want to have him more as a partner in life.
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Speaker A
Whereas Suigiu and Karen just want to sleep with him. Karine says multiple times that he is awful and that she just wishes he wasn't that hot. Uh it would be easier to resist him because she doesn't like him. She just wants to
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Speaker A
sleep with him. So even though he tries to recreate a community, he's kind of reduced to sexual desire in his new team rather than being a person that people like. So the reason that Sasuke's team see him more as a body than as a person
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Speaker A
is kind of because of Orochimaru's treatment of him in the last few years where he's seen Sasuke as his replacement body, as a pair of eyes, as a strong vessel but not as a person. And this has affected Sasuke's perception of
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Speaker A
himself and how he presents himself to others. He is not sure of who he is outside of a body and that is reflected with his current team. It kind of continues his struggle with identity because he is seen as an object and a
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Speaker A
name. He is becoming more known because he killed Chimaru. People talk about Sasukeia. They spread lies. And his teammates barely see him as a person.
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Speaker A
They didn't grow up with him. They just know him as someone who can fight and is hot. There are a few throwaway lines I find very interesting in Naruto. And one of them is when a prisoner says that
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Speaker A
talking about Sasuke, he killed Zabuza when he was young and now he's killed Orochimaru. And the way people talk about Sasuke is basically just full of lies and misconceptions because I've mentioned his failures before, but you look at him at this point and it's like,
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Speaker A
well, he killed Orochimaru when Orochimaru was sick in his bed. He passed out when fighting Ga and Haku. If you look a bit further, I mean, Dada Sasuke didn't deliver the final blow.
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Speaker A
Dada did it himself. And if you look at Itachi, well, Itachi was already planning to die. I think the only person Saski truly kills is Dano because Dano was really not planning to die then. But yeah, people spread these lies about him
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Speaker A
and he doesn't really care. I've said it before, but he doesn't care what people think of him. And if this image of being strong helps him in the long run, that's what he'll do. He doesn't care if people
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Speaker A
are lying about him or not. He only cares about his goals. And once again, this applies to the viewers that don't really understand him because he doesn't care to be understood. I can understand a lot of Sasuke's behavior. I find that
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Speaker A
it makes a lot of sense if you think of what he's going through and what his personality is. He is a very levelheaded person except in one moment, and that is his fight with Danzo. I think the worst
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Speaker A
thing he does in the series is stab Karen. And I will not defend him. I think that action was horrible. I also think he completely lost it while fighting Danzo. And you can tell with the animation they use. Sasuke's voice
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Speaker A
actor is going crazy. There's a lot of elements that show that Sasuke is not the same person he was even the day before. But even when he lost it completely, it's still somewhat understandable. He spent his life idolizing someone who he then had to
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Speaker A
hate. He lost everyone around him. He had no friends. He then had to leave the bonds he had behind to try and kill this person and actually live a life. He then kills that person. And then he learns
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Speaker A
that he was actually innocent this whole time. So every time he learns that every sacrifices he makes is useless and that he's wrong over and over again. He loses over and over again. He he feels like he never manages to do something right. But
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Speaker A
learning that Itachi was quote unquote innocent is really what breaks him because that is the one person he loved more than anything else and he realizes that they could still have been brothers and that breaks him completely. So after
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Speaker A
he realizes that his bonds with Taka are just gone because he loses everything once again. He's not there. He hurts Karen. Suggest and Jugo were affected by the battle and he is not thinking of anyone but himself and Danzo. And if he
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Speaker A
doesn't survive this fight, he does not care. So at this point in the story, Sasuke is anti-institution, but he still follows some of the standard rules like having a team of four, but he doesn't let himself be governed by someone above
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Speaker A
him. When he joins the Akatsky, which are very anti-institution, it's more because he wants to use them. And he admits this to his team. At first, he tells Obito that he doesn't want to destroy the leaf, and Obito doesn't seem
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Speaker A
to like that answer. So, Sasuke changes it, and he says he does want to destroy the leaf, but I never see Sasuke actually wanting to do that. I can see him wanting to kill the elders and Danzo because of what they did to his clan. I
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Speaker A
cannot imagine Sasuke killing civilians like his brother did. Now, okay, if I could ask two questions to Sasuke, I would also ask him about killer B because I don't think Sasuke doesn't want the Akatsky to achieve their goal,
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Speaker A
I believe he thinks their goal is stupid. But what was his plan here? My main question is, did he know that Killer B was still alive when he left the battlefield? Was his plan actually to kill Killer B or to go back to the
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Speaker A
Akatsky being like, I tried? Because I genuinely don't know. And there's this one part during the fight where he sees team 7. Like he still cares. Naruto is part of team 7. Naruto is the next target. So I I don't believe that he's
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Speaker A
actually trying to kill Killer B. But I don't know what his plan was. I think maybe he was planning something. But obviously Killer B's strength surprised him. Whatever plan he had might have failed because Killer B was a lot
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Speaker A
stronger than he anticipated. He was like, "Oh, I I've I fought a ginger before and this one was slightly more in tune with his tail beast." I mean, maybe he knew the tentacle was fake with the sharing gun. Like, that's a possibility.
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Speaker A
And he still gave it innocently to the Akatsky, but hey, who knows? We know that Saskuke never really cared about the Akatsky because the second he gets Itachi's eyes, he just leaves them. They can't help him anymore, so he's not
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Speaker A
going to help them anymore. There are many times where Sasuke is mimicking Itachi and I think him joining the Akatsky as part of that. Itachi did join the Akatsky to spy on them for the leaf and Sasuke also joins the Akatsky to
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Speaker A
benefit his own goals. It's also notable that at first Sasuke doesn't want to take Itachi's eyes because that's what his brother wanted him to do and his brother kind of wanted him to work with the system and that's what Itachi did,
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Speaker A
right? He followed what the government wanted and that's how they ended up in this situation. Sasuke hates the outcome of that and wants to do things his own way. So, at first he refuses Itachi's eyes, but he realizes pretty quickly
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Speaker A
that that's not going to work for him. So, there's part of the system that Sasuke just cannot escape. He has to do some Uchia things even though he doesn't want to because he's still power hungry.
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Speaker A
He wants to get stronger and he wants to kill people that have wronged him. And to do that, sometimes he has to conform to the system. In this case, accepting Itachi's eyes. Now, finally, we're at the war arc. And in this arc, one of the
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Speaker A
most important things that happened to Sasuke is his reunion with Itachi. We haven't talked about Itachi much, but he's basically this perfect shinobi with a weakness for Sasuke. What Itachi did, he did for love. His attachment wasn't to a government. It was to his brother.
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Speaker A
And he had the ultimate goal of peace. And Sasuke understands his goal, but he thinks Itachi failed because Itachi's goal was that Sasuke would survive and be happy, lead a life. But Task knows that he will never be happy and that
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Speaker A
there's also currently a war going on after Itachi died. So what did Itachi achieve exactly by wiping out his clan except causing trauma? Itachi tried to follow the system and seeing that he failed was a big moment for Sasuke to go
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Speaker A
completely anti-institution and also to give up hope in life. If the people you love have to die in order to create a better world, will you find joy living in that world without them? So, Itachi sacrificed his life happiness, killing
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Speaker A
his family, and alienating himself from where he grew up. And what did he achieve? Because he didn't achieve world peace. And he didn't even achieve peace for himself. I do think that Itachi is one of the most obvious allies in the
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Speaker A
show. He is very pro- Sasuke and Naruto, and I think that is very sweet. when they meet up again during the war arc, Sasuke follows him and obviously Itachi met Naruto before dying. So when he sees Sasuke, he thinks of Naruto and giggles.
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Speaker A
Um, which is a very big brother thing to do to your younger queer sibling, I would know. And then he also just messes up Sasuke's hair before their battle with Kabuto by like sending crows his way. I don't know what his intention was
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Speaker A
with that, but it just feels very brotherly and I like it a lot. And I mean, we have to mention their final scene together where he says, "No matter what you do, I will always love you," which is what every queer person dreams
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Speaker A
of hearing from a family member. An affirmation of unconditional love for some queer people is something that they will never get from a family member. And I'm very happy for Sasuke that he gets that in his moment because he deserves a
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Speaker A
bit of a bit of love. So although what Itachi has done in the past is not always right, I think in this moment he is really there for Sasuke in a moment where Saskuke needs him. And even though
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Speaker A
Sasuke remains anti-institution, he still takes one last chance by talking with the previous Hokag. He tries to make sense of institutions by asking questions like what is a shinobi? What is a village? And in the end, he kind of
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Speaker A
joins the war as a third party where he is against the other. But I don't think he entered that war counting on making it out alive. And we'll talk more about that later. To finish Sasuke section, I have to talk about
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Speaker A
Sakura. Sasuke has not a day in his life been interested romantically in Sakura. At best, he treats her like a team member.
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Speaker A
At worst, he tries to kill her. He calls her annoying. He doesn't like her. He doesn't seem to like anything about her except that she's part of team seven and he feels slightly comfortable in that team, I guess. But as a romantic
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Speaker A
relationship, it is bad. I am willing to say that Sasuke and Sakura are my least favorite fictional canon legal couple.
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Speaker A
So, I'm going to go over a few romantic moments that Sasuke and Sakura have that some people seem to like and say why I don't find them romantic at all. So, the first romantic gesture he does is when
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Speaker A
he protects her in the forest of death. Sakura has this moment and she's fighting these guys. She's kind of getting wrecked. So, Sasuke arrives and saves the day. This is a moment where Sasuke wants to test out his new powers.
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Speaker A
He is willing to kill and attack anyone around him. him right now. She is an excuse for him to prove his strength.
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Speaker A
Now, the moment that people point out is when she hugs him and he calms down, which okay, like that's a moment. Um, but to me, it's the fear in her eyes and he's realizing that he is stepping away
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Speaker A
from who he really is and a discomfort with his newly found power that he's not controlling. And sure, Sakura likes Sasuke. This can be a romantic gesture for her, but he doesn't do anything. He doesn't give a hug back. He just calms
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Speaker A
down and realizes what he's doing. It puts him in a state of awareness, but he doesn't feel romantic after this. Now, for the second scene where they interact with a bit of romance, you have to go to the end of the first series when he
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Speaker A
leaves to go to Orochimaru. And some of you might hate my analysis of this scene, but I think I'm correct. What happens is he thanks her. And in Sasuke and Sakura terms, this is the most romantic gesture you could do. Oh,
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Speaker A
you're saying thank you dear me. Now the part that I believe is that he is hesitating to leave and he thinks of team seven and he's struggling and then Sakura comes and she says the most outrageous out ofouch things she could
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Speaker A
possibly say and I believe she made his decision to leave easier and he thanks her for it. She compares how she felt when he was in a coma to how Sasuke felt when his family was massacred. This is a
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Speaker A
sensitive topic for him. When Naruto says, "I know what you've been through." Sasuke gets angry at him and says, "No, you don't. You don't know what it's like to lose someone." And you think he would be touched by what Sakura said. I think
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Speaker A
he would be offended. What he realizes in this scene is that Sakura doesn't know the first thing about him.
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Speaker A
something she later admits in the series. The bonds that he has are not that deep. His team members barely understand him. Don't know where he's coming from. And he also calls her annoying in this scene. He doesn't like
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Speaker A
her. Anyway, this is a rough scene for me to get through. And not only that, he he knocks her unconscious. And as a woman, I wouldn't feel safe in the Hidden Leaf unconscious on a park bench during the night. He knocked her
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Speaker A
unconscious, left her on a bench for someone to find, and then he left. That wasn't very nice. Anyway, if we go to the cliff scene, he gives her attention because she like runs to the cliff first, and then as soon as Naruto
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Speaker A
arrives, she is barely in the frame. Like, she's not there. He ignores her completely. And then that's that. That's that's the romantic scene in Shipuan for a grand majority of the entire show. The next time they see each other, he tries
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Speaker A
to kill her, which Yeah. Then when he arrives on the battlefield, he completely ignores her. He only goes to Naruto and he doesn't care. The one scene that Sasuke and Sakura fans seem to always ignore, I've never seen one
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Speaker A
talk about it, there's like there's going to be a tailed beast bomb that's going to kill the entire army until the force arrives and teleports it somewhere else. At that moment, he tells Jugo that he wants to get Naruto and teleport out
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Speaker A
of there. Everyone else will die. Sakura is there. This is not that far before they get married. And they don't even get married. I don't believe that. I've never seen that. But with Sasuke, you have to look at actions, not words. And
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Speaker A
that's an action. He was fully prepared to let her die without feeling any remorse. He wanted Naruto only. And that is in the show. Now, I guess there's one scene like after he looks like Timothy Shalamandun, she helps him escape with
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Speaker A
Obito and then she's about to fall, but he catches her. Big romance. Um, he looks very stiff in this scene. And she's just weak, frail, looking at him, and he's just like holding her up. Once again, very romantic to Sasuke and
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Speaker A
Sakura fans, I guess. Now, before he leaves for the Valley of the End for the final time, he he just throws a last little insult at her. He tells her she's annoying again, which like he really just doesn't like her. Um, he's never
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Speaker A
shown that he likes her or cares about her. I guess maybe as a teammate, but that's all. But now I have to address the worst scene of all. If this if if there was one scene I could remove in
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Speaker A
the entirety of Naruto, it would probably be this one. I find it insulting to Sasuke's character to Itachi's character. And yeah, it it's the forehead tap. The only person that it would be even slightly appropriate for Sasuke to give a forehead tap would
76:26
Speaker A
be Sada. That would be okay with, but it would have to be an extreme situation.
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Speaker A
Sasuke dying type of situation. I have to say it's not a gay thing. I don't want him to do this to Naruto either.
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Speaker A
And if he did this to Naruto, it would be seen as, oh well, you know, it's because Naruto's like his brother and Itachi did this to him, so he's seeing Naruto as a brother. But when he does it
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Speaker A
to Sakura, it's not because she's like a sister to him. I mean, maybe that's what it means. That's what he means by it.
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Speaker A
Because at that point, he has no one and she could be the closest things he has to a sister.
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Speaker A
I But like what does the tap mean? It has two meanings. First one is what his brother used to distance himself from Sasuke. So he would always have the forehead say next time, later, not now.
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Speaker A
It was also a way for Itachi to hide things from Sasuke. What could Sasuke be hiding? But yeah, so the first meaning of the tap is distancing yourself from someone. Hiding yourself from someone.
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Speaker A
And the other meaning is his brother. This is not a romantic thing. It's a brotherly moment of love. But it's not even that because look at the end of Sasuke and Itachi's relationship. When Itachi dies, he does the finger tap on
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Speaker A
the forehead. It's a sign of I'm still hiding things. He died without Sasuke knowing the truth. But when Itachi comes back from the dead, he goes to do the fingertachi to tell him that he loves him because the fingertap symbol was
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Speaker A
never a symbol of love. when there were no more secrets between them, there was no need for Itachi to do that act. Now, I don't remember where, but I do believe I saw a scene of Sasuke doing it to
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Speaker A
himself, which I do like that. Not only is it him remembering his brother, but it's also him struggling with his identity. I find that great. but doing it to just the symbol of his brother dying of his like that's the
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Speaker A
last thing Itachi when alive did to Sasuke that is the symbol of his brother dying to imagine him throwing that symbol around is ridiculous even if he was in love with Sakura he would not do it but anyway uh
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Speaker A
that was my rant on that two second moment um overall I find this relationship ship incredibly boring. It seems that it only exists so that they would have an offspring for a sequel and not something that is part of Sasuke's
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Speaker A
character. And I could get into how it's bad for Sakura's character because it is, but that's another video. So, you have made it through my Sasuke analysis.
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Speaker A
He is insecure. He is failing all the time. He gets power through natural ways. He is anti-institution.
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Speaker A
He is a very queer character at his core. He doesn't follow the main regime and a big part of his life revolves around Naruto. So, I think it's finally time to talk about Naruto and Sasuke.
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Speaker A
[Music] Can you believe we've gone through all of that without talking about the gay scenes between Naruto and Sasuke? I mean, I did say this video is not about them being gay. It's about the show being queer. But let's have a little fun
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Speaker A
and talk about it, shall we? So, I've talked about Naruto and Sasuke separately. If you look at things they both have in common, they are both orphaned and they have a legacy attached to them. They both have personalities
80:07
Speaker A
that don't fit in. They make friends with difficulty kind of. Well, Naruto struggles making friends at first and then it's easier for him and they both mask pain in different ways. Naruto pretends to be happy and tries to make
80:19
Speaker A
people laugh at him or with him while Sasuke shuts down. Even though they have things in common, they are designed to be opposites. Now, during my most recent rewatch, something that was apparent to me in the first show is how it's so
80:31
Speaker A
unclear what the show is about. I mean, if you look at just the first episode, you would believe that the show is about Naruto and the Ninetailes, but his relationship with the Ninetailes is never a conclusion to the show. Both
80:44
Speaker A
shows don't end when Naruto reaches a certain point with the Ninetales. That's not what the show is about. Now, after that, there's becoming a tuning. So, you're like, okay, so the point of the show is moving up the ranks. It's that
80:55
Speaker A
type of story. And that's what my roommate thought when we were watching it together. She thought the final fight of the show would be Naruto and Neji, which was entertaining for me. It's not until the first show finishes that you
81:06
Speaker A
know what Naruto is actually about, and that is the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke. So, my plan here is to look through the relationship throughout the show and do I think eight scene analysis to see what the show tells us, yes, with
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Speaker A
the dialogue, but also with cinematic language. Spoiler alert, it's gay. So, every arc in the first series is a turning point in the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke. The show starts, yes, with the pilot where Naruto learns he has the ninetailes and his
81:34
Speaker A
relationship with Iuka, but the real story starts when he's put into team seven with Sasuke. They are both unhappy about this and Sakura is literally between them. Sakura is often used as an excuse. Like we've mentioned before, she
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Speaker A
is the reason why they have to be protective because there's a weak girl with them. But it is an excuse more than the truth. We will get to that. The reason why Kakashi lets them become team 7 is because Sasuke fed Naruto. Already
82:03
Speaker A
Sasuke is established as someone who will break the rules. And this act of kindness is remembered by Naruto for a long time. It is included in many many flashbacks. A sentence I have to keep repeating is you cannot judge Sasuke
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Speaker A
with his words. You have to judge him with his actions. And in this case, it's an act of care. Even though it can be interpreted as him wanting Naruto to be strong to increase their chances against Kakashi, why wouldn't Sakura do that? It
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Speaker A
just hints that their relationship might be more than what meets the eye at first. Following this, Naruto and Sasuke aren't shown to get along at all.
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Speaker A
They're constantly competing against each other. They both long for some kind of relationship, but because they're both masking in such different ways, they can't seem to find a way to get along. The first opportunity they really get to chat is uh in the land of the
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Speaker A
waves and Sasuke shows some vulnerability by asking for help which Naruto refuses to help and they compete but at the end they bond. They kind of develop a weird love language around that where they're subtle about it kind
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Speaker A
of but they have mutual respect for each other and they always want to be better than the other one. This leads us to the first scene I really want to talk about that I find very interesting and that is
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Speaker A
during their fight with Haku. Specifically, the moment where Sasuke throws himself in front of Naruto to protect [Music] him. This arc is impressive at establishing themes, characters, motives that come back through the show. And immediately one of the thing that it
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Speaker A
establishes is Sasuke as a suicidal person, someone who will throw his life away. We haven't seen anything from Sasuke's point of view so far in the show. And this act is so against what we've been taught about Sasuke that it's
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Speaker A
honestly shocking. It tells us as the audience and Naruto that we actually don't understand Sasuke at all because the description we have of him, he would never do that. He does things for himself. He only works towards his own
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Speaker A
goal. And yet here he is throwing himself in front of Naruto to protect him. This is an action that Sasuke does that shows where he stands as a character. Well, Sasuke dies, but Naruto just doesn't know how to check vital
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Speaker A
signs. So, he assumes that Sasuke dies is my interpretation of this. But when he is dying, um, he thinks of Itachi for about half a second and then there is a long montage of scenes between him and Naruto,
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Speaker A
including the one where they kissed. So listen, although the kiss itself is not romantic, the inclusion of it at the beginning of the show implies a romantic relationship between Naruto and Sasuke.
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Speaker A
The viewers now associate the relationship with romance. Now, accidentally kissing your friend is not gay, but thinking about it when you're dying, thinking about it in your last moments, that's gay. The scene literally plays out like, "I never managed to get
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Speaker A
revenge on my brother, but I did kiss a boy." I don't know if it's there for comedic effect because it is funny. And I'm mentioning something now so we can elaborate on it later, but Saskuke goes to touch Naruto.
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Speaker A
He raises his hand until it falls because he dies. In this scene, they both confess that they don't hate each other, like they've been leading each other to believe. And this vulnerability makes it awkward for them after this
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Speaker A
fight. After this, Naruto and Haku have a little chat and they realize that they both can relate to each other, that they're actually quite similar. And if you've been listening to this video, you know what I think about Haku. Naruto can
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Speaker A
relate to other queer characters. the queer characters that are villains in this show. This is also the first time that Naruto really uses the Ninetailes powers because Sasuke is a huge emotional push for him. And having this moment of vulnerability that he then
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Speaker A
loses with someone he could have had a deeper bond with is very heartbreaking for him. Now, when the mirror things go down and everything, Sakura goes to Sasuke and she cries and she's saying how she's not supposed to have feelings
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Speaker A
as a shinobi. Then she touches Sasuke's face which is something Sasuke was trying to do a second ago. But the thing is because she is less part of this structure of masculinity she can give this type of affection. Then Haku dies.
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Speaker A
Haku and Sasuke being the two people that are down is you know they are the queerest of the group and they both go down in the same way protecting the person they love which is interesting.
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Speaker A
And to add to this comparison, Naruto yells at Zabuza. And while yelling at him, he is so emotional because he's projecting his own relationship with Sasuke onto Zabuza's relationship with Haku. He is saying things like, "He really liked you." And Naruto thinks
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Speaker A
back of when Haku asked him if there was someone special in his life. Now, when Haku said this, Naruto thought of Sakura. But in this case, it moves to Sasuke because he is projecting. Now, I've talked previously about how Kakashi
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Speaker A
wears a mask, and this scene gets me. Zabuza also wears a mask, and in the first arc, Kakashi and Zabuza are just very similar. They are both working without emotion, getting the job done.
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Speaker A
They are two excellent shinobi. But Naruto crying and telling Zabuza that there was someone who cared about him.
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Speaker A
Don't you care? And it really gets to him. And Zabuza sheds a few tears and removes his mask. basically showing that it's impossible to be a perfect shinobi and he is a mirror of Kakashi, a perfect shinobi, but Kakashi never manages to
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Speaker A
detach himself like this. Zabuza loses this fight, but he wins. Losing made it so that he was free from the system. And when he was free, what he did was attack the system. In his last moment, he attacks the government and then asks for
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Speaker A
help to die next to Haku. Not only that, but when they're lying next to each other, Zabuza reaches out and touches Haku's face. In this society, this gentle and comforting act is an act of rebellion. Then it starts snowing, and
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Speaker A
this is interpreted by the characters as Haku crying. So we have the two guys, the two first villains of the show that are crying next to each other while showing affection, being vulnerable and they die there after being victims of
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Speaker A
the system for their entire lives. They get freedom in their final moment. Then well Sasuke also wakes up and when he wakes up because he was never dead, Sakura is crying over him and he says, "Ouch." He says, "Sakura, that hurts. Anyway,
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Speaker A
where is Naruto?" His first reaction from waking up from the dead is him pushing away Sakura, the person he will have a child with, and asking where Naruto is. Incredible. After he imagined them kissing before dying, he's straight, guys. The Haku and Zabza story
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Speaker A
um closes out with Team 7 giving them a respectable burial. They all contemplate on what it means to be a shinobi and they're unsatisfied seeing how the system is so broken. How ninjas are treated as tools, but they can't be
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Speaker A
tools because they're people. This is also the moment where Naruto expresses his ninja way. And he says, "I'm going to sprint straight ahead and pursue." Now, at the end of the first arc, after Naruto learns something, this should be
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Speaker A
the sentence that is emblematic of his character and the show. But I don't really think it is. I think there's one later on that is better than this. I think this ninja way actually causes many problems that are to come. So, this
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Speaker A
arc is basically Naruto and Sasuke meeting queer people, relating to them, and they are put in a situation where they are forced to express their non-hatred for each other. The next arc is the tune-in exam arc. And like I
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Speaker A
said, there's this awkwardness that exists between them now. So during the exams, they're shown to be very competitive and they can't really define their relationship. So they settle on banter. They're constantly trying to one up each other. And that kind of makes
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Speaker A
sense because in a heteronormative society, the rules are already there. You know, the man provides and protects.
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Speaker A
So flirting as a queer person can become quite confusing. Naruto starts to fantasize about saving Sasuke and showing him that he's stronger than him.
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Speaker A
And in this arc, it's Naruto's turn to be in a situation where his life is in danger. And he thinks about the influential people in his life for like a second each before dedicating a massive amount of time to Sasuke. And
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Speaker A
once again, thinking about that one time they kissed in his last moments of life.
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Speaker A
Once again, even though that kiss isn't really gay, thinking about it before dying is gay. And they both do it like he's dying and he's thinking about how Sasuke is his reason to go on. Okay, buddy. So, it's all fun and
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Speaker A
games until Orochimaru arrives. And we've spoken about this quite a lot. Um, start of a lot of miscommunications between them made very obvious that Naruto doesn't understand Sasuke. And Naruto's ninja way of always going for it is very damaging in this particular
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Speaker A
case. Then during the Gar fight, uh, Sasuke has a curse mark and instead of being helped by it, he's disabled by it and Sasuke kind of becomes jealous of Naruto who always gets to be the hero.
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Speaker A
It's only after the tuning exams when we meet Itachi that we get the first Sasuke flashback. So, up until now, Naruto has ignored Sasuke's pain and background, and now he's finally admitting that Sasuke also suffered. This is when the
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Speaker A
viewer realizes that they might have been judging Sasuke too harshly, and Naruto doesn't really let that sink in.
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Speaker A
He moves on, but Sasuke never does. It's very upsetting for Sasuke that once again, Itachi looks over him and kills the people around him. So, this moment leaves them both at a very different place. And this finally leads us to the
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Speaker A
second scene I want to analyze, which is the hospital roof scene. [Music] Now, now although we do get a bit of Sasuke flashbacks in the Itachi scene, to me when he's in the hospital, it's the first time we really see a scene
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Speaker A
from his point of view. The first shot of Sasuke's room is very distorted. This shows that he is not thinking logically and he is mentally ill. Sasuke's mind keeps racing and he thinks of Naruto and Itachi and he's just left in this
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Speaker A
hospital room filled with self-hatred. It then cuts from Sasuke to Orochimaru, showing that Sasuke's deteriorating mental state is the cause and Orochimaru is the effect. Because of everything Sasuke has been through, his mental health is getting worse, which leads him
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Speaker A
to Rochimaru. It also cuts to Shikamaru getting promoted after passing the tuning exams, another thing that Sasuke failed. even though the tuning exams were passed by Itachi when he was very young, which is also a huge blow. And I
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Speaker A
I don't think it's coincidental that this scene is shown in the episode where Sasuke is losing it. Another scene this scene cuts to is Lee healing from his leg injury. In a world that's so focused on violence, I think what this cut does
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Speaker A
is show how much easier it is to heal from physical wounds than mental wounds, especially since Sasuke has been tortured mentally and that he really struggled with his mental health.
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Speaker A
Another interesting thing that happens is when Naruto and Sakura arrive, Naruto and Sakura are talking except their voices are very muffled because this is from Sasuke's perspective and Sasuke struggle sometimes to live in the present. He is stuck in the past and
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Speaker A
Naruto and Sakura fight offscreen when it gets back to a more objective point of view. Naruto is passed out, so we didn't see them actually really argue or fight, which just makes you think of all the times Naruto has been talking and
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Speaker A
Sasuke is just silent in the background. And if he was actually present in that moment, seeing what's going on inside his head makes you realize you actually never see what's going on inside his head. By doing this, Sasuke alienates
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Speaker A
himself from the people around him. And the other thing, even if the audio is muffled, he does focus on Naruto. And Naruto is a big cause of his self-hatred because of the strength disparities between the two and also because, you
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Speaker A
know, self-hatred, gay, whatever. So, Sakura is cutting some apples and it's a gesture of kindness on her part, but Sasuke does not care. It It means nothing to him. He squashes her efforts literally and instead of accepting care
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Speaker A
and healing, Sasuke seeks out more violence by asking Naruto to fight him. Like, take a hint, girl. Like, come on.
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Speaker A
Naruto says that Sasuke is being uncharacteristic, which he always implies that he knows Sasuke even though he doesn't. This is their first fight together, and the concept of seeing another person's heart by an exchange of fist is not yet existent between them.
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Speaker A
So, it's really just a fist fight. This moment really introduces the violence that Sasuke resorts to when he doesn't know how to feel. And Naruto is very ready to respond to that violence. He agrees to do this fight. They cannot
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Speaker A
find a way of getting along in this masculine society. I wish would just cry about it and explain his feelings, but he won't. He can't. What he's been taught is to fight. So, what does he do?
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Speaker A
He fights. And Naruto has always wanted to prove his strength, which this is an opportunity for him to prove his strength. Their upbringings and their values have led them to this moment, which ends up being negative for everyone
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Speaker A
[Music] involved. The third scene I want to analyze is the Valley of the End. Now, this is the turnpoint moment. This is where the first show ends. So, Sasuke has 100% given up on the system and he's ready to leave everything behind. I do
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Speaker A
see this kind of as a suicide attempt. He says that his dreams are not in the future. They only exist in the past. He basically doesn't see himself going forward in life. Now, Naruto wants to change the system from the inside and he
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Speaker A
thinks he can make it work for Sasuke, too. This is the first time that Naruto realizes how desperate the situation is and that he's actually ready to listen.
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Speaker A
He always believed that he had the worst experience with loneliness, but he hadn't considered betrayal, loss, and resentment towards his people. Feelings he will experience going forward, which will bring them back together. So Sasuke is very insecure right now and he wants
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Speaker A
to prove himself. So he mirrors Itachi. One example of this is that he uses Itachi's blind spot move. But it's also because what Itachi did at the time was kill the people he cared about the most to test his strength. And the strongest
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Speaker A
bond that Sasuke has is with his teammate. So to move forward, he has to kill Naruto to be more like Itachi.
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Speaker A
Except he can't. Now, when looking at all the Naruto fights this far, this is really the one with the most proximity.
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Speaker A
It's the most intimate fight. I mean, they are one on top of the other for a while while they are talking to each other. Sasuke spits in his face and pulls him closer. Just by the choreography, you can tell that they're
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Speaker A
fighting for a personal issue and not for a bigger cause. I mean, this fight is emotional. There's this moment of silence when Naruto punches Saskuke in the face. And it's really just realization of what they're doing and how serious it is. And nothing is fun
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Speaker A
anymore. they have to resort to violence to solve their issues because that's all they know. Another thing I find interesting to mention is that all of the scenes we've talked about so far have to do with water or at least water
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Speaker A
plays an important role in the scene. Water is often used as a visual language in Naruto, whether it's in opening sequences or during fights like this.
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Speaker A
But obviously, this scene features a lot more water than the ones before. I mean, there's this idea of water being clean and that the flow of water is the flow through time. I mean, this is where Hashiama and Madra fought and now the
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Speaker A
cycle just repeats itself. But there's also the elements of drowning and being overwhelmed, not being able to see or feel clearly, which water is also used to show how Sasuke is sinking deeper and deeper into whatever state he's in.
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Speaker A
Water is present when they're fighting because when they fight, they lose themselves even more. And they are participating in the cycle of violence like there is a cycle of water. Anyway, through all their scenes together, there's a nice continuation with the
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Speaker A
water. The next topic I want to talk about is um bear with me, body horror and its relationship to queerness. It is not lost on me that both Naruto and Sasuke have a monstrous transformation during this fight. This is the first
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Speaker A
time we see both of these transformations. Naruto's monster is his inner demon, who is the reason for his oppression, and Sasuke's monster is his path of crime that he chooses. They are both bending the limits of humanity.
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Speaker A
Naruto becomes this mix of animal and human and Sasuke becomes this mix of monster genderless thing. And the other thing is that both of these forms hurt their physical bodies. So although it's a closer representation of who they are
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Speaker A
and how they feel, it also hurts them. There is no living comfortably as queer in this society. Now we've talked about narration. Um, but this is something I find really cool in this scene because Naruto now cares about what Sasuke feels
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Speaker A
and what he thinks. We get to see Sasuke flashbacks. These flashbacks are told from Sasuke's point of view. And we see Sasuke going to school and training, watching his parents get murdered, things like that. And what I noticed is
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Speaker A
that every time we see a flashback from Naruto's perspective about Sasuke, including in this scene, there's always a bunch of girls around Sasuke. He has his fan girls that are screaming in his ears and praising him all the time. And
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Speaker A
then we see a school flashback from Sasuke's point of view and you barely see women apart from his mom. What Sasuke hears all the time is that people expect a lot from him and people comparing him to his brother and people
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Speaker A
hoping that he's going to be half as good as his brother. So either Naruto exaggerates the amount of female attention that Sasuke got because of jealousy on which side, who knows? or Sasuke doesn't notice attention from girls. Either way, it's gay. We also see
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Speaker A
a scene where Sasuke's mom tells him that when she's with his father, they talk about Sasuke all the time, that his father barely talks about Itachi when they're alone, which it's really nice to see where Sasuke got his lying
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Speaker A
tendencies from. In this scene, Naruto also finally admits that he doesn't understand. But right before this, we also kind of get a scene where Sasuke realizes he might not always understand.
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Speaker A
When talking to Kakashi, he threatens to kill all of Kakashi's loved ones without realizing that other people have been through similar things. Although rare, like Team 7 has three of the most traumatized people in the leaf. It just
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Speaker A
it's not normal. They were just all put together. Anyway, they both have this I have suffered the most attitude, but they get a moment of confrontation during this time. The thing about the ninetailes and the sharing gun is that
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Speaker A
they are both emotion-based powers in a world where emotions are shunned. In this fight, Naruto gets the tailed beast cloak for the first time and Sasuke develops his sharing gun, which Sasuke's sharing gun developed because of Itachi killing his family and then two other
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Speaker A
times because of Naruto. So, yeah, fun. But feeling deep emotions as a ninja has been a theme in this show since the beginning. It is why they are so well-matched. They both can't reach their full potential unless they are
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Speaker A
emotional. So, they have to care about each other if they want to fight each other with all their strength. And this fight really shows them as fighting as equals. I mean, they're both on the top of Madar and Hashiama. They are on a
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Speaker A
similar strength level, which is really what makes the difference when Sasuke is fighting Sakura. Their power difference is so big that it feels more like abuse than a fight. The Saskuke Naruto fights feel like debates. They feel like
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Speaker A
conversations. Something happens at the end of it. But when Sasuke and Sakura face each other, there is only one possible ending. And it goes too much in the male female archetype. That's just uninteresting. So even though Sasuke goes for the kill with Naruto in this
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Speaker A
fight, it is very different from when he goes for the kill with Sakura. The famous Rasen Chidori mash or whatever. I want to point out that uh when they hit each other with this, Naruto scratches Sasuke's headband and Sasuke hits
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Speaker A
Naruto's chest. Does this need to be interpreted? No. But I will. This fight is what cementss Sasuke's distance from institution. So Naruto scratching his headband, the symbol of being a rogue shinobi. It shows that this was the final straw, that Sasuke wasn't fully
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Speaker A
gone until this moment. Now, Sasuke hits Naruto's chest because in Naruto, his goals, his heart has been at the same place since the beginning. I want to be the Hokag. And this is a change of heart for him. His goal is now Sasuke. So,
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Speaker A
that's that. The reason why this fight cements Sasuke's decision is because Naruto keeps gaining power throughout this fight. And even with Orochimaru's help, Sasuke is still at an equal match with Naruto. like he gets a stronger sharing gun and Naruto still catches up.
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Speaker A
There's nothing he can do. So, this adds to the level of desperation. This fight also introduces shinobies can read each other's heart with an exchange of fists.
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Speaker A
And we get a glimpse of this when there's the Chidori Rasen thing. They are in a time space that is different.
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Speaker A
More importantly, they are in a rainbow time space that is different. And in this space, they are deeply staring into each other's eyes. And there is this mutual regret and just sadness between them. The more they fight, the more
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Speaker A
they'll understand each other. Because in this world, the only way you can be emotional is by being violent. And not only that, they are in this time space in their monstrous form, which is their queer form. So that shot is is it's
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Speaker A
pretty gay. But more importantly for something we will discuss later, they imagine holding each other's hands. That instead of fighting, they could just get along in a world with no rules or standard of masculinity. They could just touch without fighting. They could just
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Speaker A
talk instead of hit. And they dream of having this comfort as a child when they both needed it. They knew they both needed it and they never did it because they were scared. So now they're here almost killing each other, regretting
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Speaker A
not holding hands. Naruto loses this fight and there is a lighting moment where the light from the sky kind of shines like a spotlight and it closes in on Naruto. This is truly the end of act one, the first chapter in Naruto's life.
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Speaker A
It's marked by Sasuke leaving and it says that he'll never be the same after this and he's learned a lot during this fight. He's learned that he's made a lot of mistakes in the past few years. This is the first really traumatic thing that
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Speaker A
has happened to him and this will help him connect with other people during Shipuen. But the entire first show led to this moment. This was the rise and fall of Naruto and Sasuke. Of course, this is immediately followed by the
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Speaker A
shot. I don't even think I have to show it for you to know what I'm talking about. Sasuke has been trying to kill Naruto for the entire fight. And now he's in front of him, over him, unable to deliver the final blow. Just looking
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Speaker A
at Naruto, feeling all the guilt in the world. This shot lasts a while just to show us how much Sasuke actually cared.
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Speaker A
He decides to think that this is a way of defying Itachi, that he won't get power the same way Tachi did. Well, actually, he's doing exactly like Itachi. He's letting his strongest bond survive, chasing after him. Except he
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Speaker A
doesn't even know that yet. He tries to think of his family to justify what he's done. But he's also sacrificing any future happiness he could have felt.
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Speaker A
He's standing over Naruto. He's in a position of power, and he could take his life, but he decides not to because what's the actual cost of this? And for what? For his family that's already dead. He doesn't kill Naruto. At first,
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Speaker A
Sasuke is just completely convinced that he's done with his life. And by fighting Naruto, he gets a bit more will to live.
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Speaker A
Even as the person that he is, there are still people that really care about him, and they're ready to go to great length to prove it. But it doesn't change Sasuke's core sadness and his need for revenge. I mean, the fight starts with a
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Speaker A
romantic montage of them, and it ends with their separation, and this is the first act of Naruto. So, I thought we have a nice little time between the two shows. There's a little time skip, so we might as well talk about some common
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Speaker A
criticisms that fans of gay Naruto do receive. The first one being um they can't be gay, they have wives. Um well, they married women in the cannon. Okay. Like are some people aware that um some gay men do get married to
106:54
Speaker A
women and some lesbians also get married to men? Especially in societies like Narutos where we've established hyper masculinity, heteronormativity are all systems that thrive there. We can assume that gay marriage isn't legal in Naruto.
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Speaker A
It's not even legal in Japan. And I've already talked about how Naruto and Sasuke don't really love these women, especially not romantically. So, I don't think a marriage out of convenience or even for the sake of reproduction disqualifies someone from being gay,
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Speaker A
even less bisexual. I mean, genuinely, how do these people watch any type of media? Do they watch Broke Bat Mountain being like, "Why is he kissing his buddy? His wife is right inside. I guess that's a plot hole." Believing
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Speaker A
everything that is said in media is boring. And so, I don't care about this criticism. I think it is bad. The next one, um, okay, they see each other as brothers. Um, listen, I have two brothers and I don't see them like that.
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Speaker A
I'll look at actual brothers from the show and find moments relatable, but Naruto and Sasuke have never had a moment where they felt like brothers.
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Speaker A
And Naruto says this way more than Sasuke. Sasuke will use bond more often. My theory about this is that Naruto uses the term brother because the way he feels about Sasuke is very different than the way he feels about his other
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Speaker A
guy friendss. And Naruto doesn't know he's bisexual. doesn't really know it's an option. So, this is kind of the excuse that he found. But Naruto doesn't have any brothers. He doesn't know what it's like, which is why Sasuke doesn't
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Speaker A
really say this because he knows what it's like to have a brother. We can also look at Harry Potter and how even though Ron has so many brothers, he still kind of considers Harry as another brother and Harry kind of had a brother, but
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Speaker A
Dudley was awful to him. So, Ron was this positive representation of a family. Naruto and Saskuke were nothing like this. Naruto isn't replacing Nitachi. He's not taking care of Sasuke.
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Speaker A
Naruto simply doesn't know what having a brother is like. So, he pushes this idea onto Sasuke, even though it's not real at all. And if you come at me with the well, the reincarnations of brothers from a long time ago.
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Speaker A
Listen, if I had a girl and a priest came up to me and was like, "Oh, you two can't date because you're reincarnations of siblings from a long time before, the only thing I would do is give him the
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Speaker A
middle finger." So, no, I don't care because let's define brothers or siblings for a second, right? They're either connected by blood or they were raised together. And there are a lot of instances in other medias where there are straight relationships that are kind
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Speaker A
of incestuous. Whether that is Aaron and Mikasa that were raised as siblings, never like that ship, or even Nal and Simba that in the movie clearly have the same dad. And I don't care if you make a sequel to say like actually they were
109:51
Speaker A
not related. You can't just accidentally make an incest film and then make a sequel to rectify it. You just have to accept it. You made a film about incestuous singing lions and it was really good. So incestuous like
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Speaker A
relationships are fine with straight people but when gay people are reincarnations of brothers from long ago then suddenly it is proof. So the goal of the first show was more to establish some queer themes that would be present
110:16
Speaker A
in the show. Shipuin's first scene is very clear that um the themes have been established. It is now time to elaborate. So, the structure of this show is one of my main arguments on why this show is about a queer love story.
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Speaker A
And like we stated, the first show starts with them starting to work together and their separation. How does Shipuen start? Well, with the reunion, of course. Except this is a flash forward. So, why didn't they start the show when Naruto comes back to the
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Speaker A
village? Because they want to be very clear what this show is about. This show is not about Naruto getting stronger or about him wanting to become the Hokag.
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Speaker A
It is like he states in that scene that there is nothing in his life more important than Sasuke. Even though the first show starts with a kiss, this scene really tops that. Okay, enough.
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Speaker A
Let's talk about it. [Applause] Now, in the first show, Sasuke was shown as being very unstable. The shots showed a skewed version of reality. Saskuke was shown to make harsh decisions and just not being stable. Now the tables have
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Speaker A
turned. It is Naruto who is shown to be unstable. After the explosion that I'm not sure how Sasuke survived. That explosion is very confusing to me. There is now a hallway in front of Yamato, Sakura, and Naruto. Uh, which leads to
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Speaker A
light. And Sakura goes head first, which usually you would expect Naruto to do. That's his whole thing. It's his ninja way like he said in the first show. Not only does Naruto hesitate, but on his way there he falls. In the first few
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Speaker A
shots of Shipuan, you see how much Sasuke leaving has affected him and how much his mental state has suffered because of it. He's made so many mistakes with Sasuke by rushing head first and accepting every challenge that now he's seen hesitating. So Sakura
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Speaker A
arrives there first and this is one of two times Sasuke gives her any type of attention during this scene. But even when she looks at him, we still don't really see Sasuke. We see a silhouette.
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Speaker A
It's only when Naruto arrives that we see Sasuke because we know that now Naruto understands him a bit better.
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Speaker A
Naruto has made effort to understand him and Sasuke put Naruto through trauma that he needed to experience to actually understand him. Now, the two elements I find very interesting in this scene are a the position of power and b the ey
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Speaker A
line. Because if we start with angles, the upward angle is used to show who is in power. Because when filming like this, it makes that person look more dominant, taller, bigger, whatever. The other angle, the downward angle, is used
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Speaker A
to show someone who is inferior, who has less power. And physically, the scene puts Sasuke high up on a cliff where everybody has to look up at him while Sasuke is looking down at them.
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Speaker A
Immediately the viewer understands that these are now the power dynamics. What is particularly interesting with Naruto and Sasuke is that both of their powers are tied to emotion. Sasuke seems so calm and collected in this scene whereas Naruto is a mess. So Sasuke has the edge
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Speaker A
both ways emotionally and physically. He is stronger. And Sasuke is also filmed to be very godlike. Not only with the angle but the light coming from behind him, similar to that shot of Itachi with the Akatsky. And again, this is Naruto's
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Speaker A
point of view. To him, Sasuke is barely a person anymore. It's this idea. He has trouble recognizing the person on the cliff at all, but he still means the world to him. Sasuke occupies every inch of Naruto's mind. In his life, he is
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Speaker A
kind of like a god guiding him through all of his decisions. I mean, even in the hallway, they run towards the light.
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Speaker A
Sasuke is the end goal. Now, if we continue talking about Sasuke, um, how do I say this? Um, he looks queer, a little gay. A hand on hip shirt open. We've never really seen an outfit like this in the show before. And
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Speaker A
just debuting this outfit here. I mean, a Naruto is in awe. And this is where the eyes become important because it seems like nothing Sasuke is saying is truly registering in Naruto's brain in this scene. He is just looking. Nothing
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Speaker A
is happening inside of his head. Naruto is known to not being able to shut up.
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Speaker A
talking is his thing and in this scene he is quiet in total awe of this guy in front of him. Now I think we need to talk about that moment when Sasuke comes down to their level. He is being petty.
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Speaker A
He thinks he can show dominance even though he's at their level. He doesn't need the high ground to show how strong he is. And you know you choose how you frame a shot. If you want to show action, your shot will be further away
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Speaker A
so that you can show more movements. And if you want to show more emotions, then you have a close-up so you can see how the characters are feeling. There are three shots for him coming down. So if this was just action, if this was just a
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Speaker A
a movement in a fight, uh you could still film it from far away. But no, they add a very short shot that is more of a close-up of Sasuke approaching.
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Speaker A
That is to put an emphasis on the feeling in this scene. What I would like to call the italic oh, the skip of the heartbeat, if you will. and he wraps his arm around Naruto, not to not in a fight
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Speaker A
way, you know, not like holding him in place. His hand is slightly on his shoulder. Like he knows that Naruto can get away from this grip, but he also knows he won't. That, my friends, is power, emotional power over Naruto. A
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Speaker A
little reminder we can um you know, because we need the reminder that um Sakura is in this scene and that she is supposed to be Sasuke's love interest.
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Speaker A
So she's she's next to Naruto here. He's he swoops down to hug someone and it's not it's not Sakura. And Sasuke whispers things in his ears like why are you so obsessed with me? Shouldn't you be focusing on your dream? Naruto's like no
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Speaker A
you know how can I become Hokag if I can't even save a friend? So he's explicitly saying in the first scene of the show that he doesn't want to become Hukag unless he can save Sasuke. Also, in this scene, Naruto loses his necklace
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Speaker A
temporarily, the necklace that Tsunad gave him, which is a sign of being the Hokag. It was her brother's dream and now it's Naruto's. So, that is just shoving that out of the way. It is not a priority for Naruto anymore. It was in
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Speaker A
the first show until he realized what the show was actually about. Now, the ey line goes crazy in this scene. There's like Sasuke will have his sword through Yamato and still be looking at Naruto.
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Speaker A
There's a shot where I thought he was looking at Sakura because of the angle of the camera and then the angle changes and he's staring at Naruto. The only time he looks slightly at Sakura is when she charges towards him and then of
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Speaker A
course Sasuke goes inside of Naruto and establishes dominance there and Naruto just cannot think when Sasuke is in front of him. This scene is very funny and you can tell through his fighting style that he kind of could kill
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Speaker A
everyone here. Maybe Yamato would put up more of a fight, but he is physically strong and he shows it here. Of course, he doesn't want to, and he's merely playing around with it, showing them his new tricks. Sasuke also mentions that
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Speaker A
with his showing gun now, he can see everything, which to me explains how he's not actually killing anyone. And when Sasuke goes back up on the cliff and Naruto can't smell him anymore, he kind of gets some of his thoughts back
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Speaker A
and he restates that Orochimaru just wants to take your body. Why are you doing this? which we've mentioned Orochimaru and the leaf, two sides of the same coin. It is established that shinobies are seen as tools by the
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Speaker A
villages. They decide when you have to die. They decide on what missions you go on. You don't have free will as a shinobi. So, how is this really different? Oroshimaru sees shinobies as vessels and the villages see them as
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Speaker A
tools. It's not that different. Anyway, Yamato kind of reveals the true intention of the leaf because the leaf doesn't really care about Sasuke as an individual, but they really don't want Orochimaru to get the sharing gun. that would just it would suck for them. So
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Speaker A
although Naruto and Sakura care about Sasuke, the system still doesn't and he's like, why would I go back there?
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Speaker A
Now, I've talked about this scene being an act from Sasuke and I think nothing shows this more than the theatrical way he puts his sword away. That's a choice of movement. Like he could have just put it back. That was that's something else.
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Speaker A
So he's being very theatrical in this scene, which shows how much it's fake. Now, my favorite part is the swoop down, but another very funny one is this little montage where it's a shot, reverse shot, reverse shot, reverse
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Speaker A
shot, reverse shot. I think I just have to show you shot reverse [Music] shot. Reverse shot. Reverse shot. Reverse shot again.
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Speaker A
Shot. Reverse shot. Reverse shot again. Shot. Reverse shot. Shot. Reverse shot. And shot. That is definitely an interesting choice. But hey, it shows that Naruto is thinking only of Sasuke and Sasuke is thinking a lot about Naruto. Also, the way it is shot, it
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Speaker A
still shows the power dynamics being off. And a little little reminder, Sakurai is still next to Naruto. Not quite. Uh yeah, she's her ey line is not important, but yeah, she she she is still there. The the the love interest,
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Speaker A
of course. Now, at this point, Naruto is still using Sakura as an excuse for why he wants to bring Sasuke back. I made a promise. Uh whatever. And it shows both of them being upset when Sasuke dramatically disappears into flames at
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Speaker A
the same time as Orochimaru and Kabuto. But Naruto is visibly more upset than Sakura about this. Like Sakurai is still standing up, still keeping some composure while Naruto falls to his knees and sobs uncontrollably while a dark cloud comes over them. He cares a
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Speaker A
lot more. This affects him a lot more because at the end of the day, Naruto doesn't have another orphan friend he can really rely on. He doesn't have a family to go back to. So these emotions affect him a lot more than they affect
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Speaker A
Sakura. How can he be doing this for someone else when he cares more than that person? And this is the first time out of three times where he falls to his knees because of Sasuke. The first one he is crying upset. The second one he is
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Speaker A
begging. And the third one he is panicking. So I I do believe he cares a lot. Now you might be thinking, "Hey, you just mentioned that there's water in every one of their scenes and um there's no water here." So I'm actually going to
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Speaker A
look at the absence of water. Um, this scene happens in a desert setting for some reason, and it's very clearly dry.
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Speaker A
Now, this is the only scene they have that is like this, and to me, it's because this scene doesn't actually change the relationship. They're in the same place before than they are after.
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Speaker A
The point of the scene compared to the others is not to advance their story, but to make it clear that the show is about the relationship by placing it right after the time skip. Because if the show was actually about the
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Speaker A
Ninetales or them getting stronger, it wouldn't cut out the two and a half years where that was the priority. The show cuts from their separation to when they reunite again because that's what they want you to focus on. Also, they
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Speaker A
might stop us from having a water scene, but they do include a shot that is only there to show us some rainbow flares.
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Speaker A
Uh, so I'm grateful for that. Now, before we continue, and this gets a bit more depressing, I would like to talk about some bonus stuff. First one being the outfits. Now that we've talked about uh the first series and Shipuen, we can
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Speaker A
talk about Naruto and Sasuke's outfits and how they reflect their characters. In the first show, Sasuke is the only one to have an outfit change. When he starts using moves inspired by Lee, he wears a jumpsuit. I don't know if I hate
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Speaker A
or adore this jumpsuit, but oh well. He's showing that he's moving away from being a traditional by taking influences from others with a fashion statement. So Saskuke's jumpsuit represents hard work.
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Speaker A
But after he gets defeated by G and Itachi, he gives up on the idea that he can manage this through hard work and he turns to the unnatural to achieve power.
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Speaker A
So he changes back to his original outfit, which of course gets destroyed as he separates himself from his identity. And in Shipuen, Sasuke changes his outfit a lot. When he receives new information, he tends to change his personality, change his goals, and his
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Speaker A
outfits reflect how he adapts to the world around him. He is a character that changes a lot through the show, so his outfits are as unstable as he is.
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Speaker A
Compared to Naruto, Naruto has his one look, the bright orange tracksuit. The only important difference between his first tracksuit and his second, is that there is a color change. Although the main color stays the same, his signature orange that represent his origins and
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Speaker A
his parents. Now that he knows that, the accent color changes. Now, why this is important is because his accent color was actually Sasuke's main color. Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel. So, these colors showed that they
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Speaker A
were opposites, but they're also somewhat the same. Sasuke's accent color was white. White is a color that shows purity because Sasuke hasn't done anything wrong yet with a few technicalities, but like eh, but it is also a color that is easily tinted by
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Speaker A
others, showing how Sasuke is easily influenced by the people around him. while Naruto's color is very bright and in your face because that's what he is and because he tends to be stuck in his ways. So in Shipuen when Naruto becomes
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Speaker A
orange and black while Sasuke is more purple, blue and white, they lose the color they had in common. They are now two completely different people, they lost the connection that they used to have. Although Sasuke keeps a very
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Speaker A
similar color scheme, he's still the person he was before, but he has now a touch of Orochimaru that has influenced him. The outfit he wears also emphasizes his body, which is his purpose when he's with Orochimaru. The other thing that
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Speaker A
changes on Saskuke's outfit when he's with Orochimaru is the size of his crest. The Uchia crest is significantly smaller on his Orochimaru outfit because when he is with Orochimaru, he diminishes his identity as an Uchia and he's using alternative methods to gain
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Speaker A
power. His crest comes back to a normal size after this because he was kind of faking and also he does become stronger because he is an uchia with the manga and the internal manga and stuff like that. Sasuke changes to black when he's
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Speaker A
fighting Itachi. Actually, every time Sasuke confronts his brother, he is wearing black. That is because he lives in mourning because of his family, but also he wants to kill Itachi, which will be upsetting to him. Black also becomes
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Speaker A
Naruto's accent color in Chipuan. Sasuke criticizes Naruto in the first show because Naruto hasn't had to mourn anyone. In Shipuen, he has lost Sasuke and he will continue to lose people throughout the show. Although it doesn't dim his colorful personality, it still
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Speaker A
affects his character. So losing the blue on his outfit is basically losing Sasuke. And then Sasuke wears gray because he becomes a morally gray character. His personality also becomes a lot darker than it was at the beginning of Shipuen. I hope you liked
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Speaker A
this outfit analysis. The other thing I wanted to talk about was filler. The best aspect of Naruto. Okay, one of these fillers is mostly in a movie, but they do add a filler that is basically a promotion for the movie, but it exists
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Speaker A
in the show, so I can talk about it. And like, can you can you guess? I say that a lot of things are funny in this show, but this is arguably the funniest thing you could do when you have a queercoded
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Speaker A
character and people are talking online about him being gay and stuff. You create an opposite world where everybody is the opposite of their personality.
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Speaker A
I'm not talking less extreme or something. Ka who loves dogs now hates dogs and loves cats, you know. And if you asked me who has spent months making this video, who clearly is passionate about the subject, what is the opposite
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Speaker A
of Sask Chia, I would say a guy who like follows all the rules, who jokes, who is happy. Yeah, just this funny guy, you know, basically Naruto's personality.
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Speaker A
What did they do? They said the opposite of Sasuke Uchia is that he is attracted to women. That is his main personality in these fillers. They created a straight version of Sasuke and they said that's that's the opposite of Sasuke.
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Speaker A
How do you even defend that? I mean, it's crazy. So, yeah. One filler I wanted to talk about was straight Sasuke and the other um it's mostly because I can't believe this episode actually exists. I mean, I understand that filler
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Speaker A
can be used to, you know, explore tropes or dynamics that aren't in the cannon, but like this one, this one is going a little far. The episode is called The Worst Three-legged Race, and I don't think you need my analysis skills for
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Speaker A
this one. I'm just going to tell you guys what happens factually. So, Naruto and Sasuke are separated from Sakura, whatever. They get hit by jutsu and their hands get stuck together. And you might be thinking, well, this isn't
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Speaker A
necessarily romantic. It can be a trope for like two people that have to get along. Anyway, so the sexy music starts and then they try to break it by uh jumping down a waterfall. They bounce back, which makes them kiss. Then they
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Speaker A
splash, and the splash makes a heart. Uh so then they both blush. They try to break the stickiness again. And then Naruto has to pee and he can only pee with two hands. Then they fight a bit and the episode ends with Naruto pulling
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Speaker A
down his pants in front of the camera. So, I'm not sure why exactly this episode exists. You're going to spend a filler episode. They just wanted to make them kiss again.
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Speaker A
Okay. I was just genuinely shocked because this this feels like fanfiction just included into the show animated.
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Speaker A
But yeah, definitely helps my case. So, thanks, I guess. So, the next scene we're going to talk about is right after Sasuke kills Danzo at the Five Kag [Music] Summit. This scene makes it very obvious that Sasuke is going crazy. He attacks
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Speaker A
Sakura, basically attacks Hakashi. He just attacked Karin, but Naruto runs to him anyway. You can tell that Sasuke feels very differently about Naruto than his other ex-coorkers because he's fighting Kakashi and Sakura very normally. And then when Naruto arrives,
128:18
Speaker A
there is suddenly a slow motion as they stare into each other's eyes. In the cliff scene, they were emphasizing how much these two look at each other to show how different their relationship is. And here they're showing how time is
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Speaker A
different when they're together compared to when Saskuke is with other people. This is the first time they've seen each other since the cliff scene. And in many ways, this scene is comparable to that one. One of the main differences,
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Speaker A
though, is that now it's actually a team seven reunion. Kakashi is there instead of Sai and Yamato, but it is a battle of institution versus anti-institution with Sasuke and then Naruto/ the leaf on the other side. But honestly, Kashi being
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Speaker A
here added an emotional layer that I didn't necessarily expect. I mean, we know that Kashi has worked with both Itachi and Sasuke, but he shows in this scene that he really takes responsibility for Sasuke and what he has done or what he has become. And this
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Speaker A
is the first time that Kagashi has seen Sasuke since he tied him up to a tree.
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Speaker A
And Kagashi shows that he actually really understands the system, which makes sense. He's seen so many people suffer from it. And he says, I quote, "Sasuke is a victim of the time we live in." So he doesn't blame Sasuke, but he
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Speaker A
does blame himself for not taking care of Sasuke in this system. Kakashi is smart enough to see the corruption, but he decides to live with it. He's a very passive person, especially compared to Naruto and Sasuke. Uh, but he does
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Speaker A
represent someone who has thrived in the system despite very much suffering from it. Anyway, I think his addition to the scene is really interesting and changed it a lot from the cliff scene. Now, when we talked about the cliff scene, I said
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Speaker A
that Naruto and Sasuke had switched positions. Sasuke was now calm and collected and Naruto was an unstable mess. Now, we come here and oh, it looked like we've switched again. Most of the arcs in Shipuen have happened at
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Speaker A
this point and I even think that Naruto has achieved his dream at this point.
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Speaker A
So, he meets Sasuke with so much more experience than what he had during the cliff scene. Since then, he has lost Jeriah. He has fought pain. He has felt betrayed by Sasuke. He has felt resentment towards his own people. So
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Speaker A
now he understands Sasuke a lot more and he enters this conflict with so much more confidence. Now last time Sasuke was putting on a performance for Orochimaru. This time he's still kind of putting a performance for Toby. So he's
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Speaker A
manipulating the Akatsky but he's also stuck in their grip. Like Zetsu is following him around and Toby is kind of controlling him. So he's not in control of the situation. However, Sasuke has been faking for a while and it has
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Speaker A
affected him at this point. He has killed his brother, discovered that Itachi actually wasn't guilty and it was the village. He's killed Danzo. Danzo kept throwing jabs at him. So, he's extremely emotional. His sense of identity is practically non-existent. I
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Speaker A
mean, everything he thought he knew was a lie. So, he is going crazy and he's putting on a performance. Everything is getting mixed up in his head and he's really struggling to find himself and remember who he is. The biggest
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Speaker A
indicator of this in this scene is his hands. There's two close-ups on his hands that show how unstable he is. He is shaking. It's uncontrollable. And overall, he just seems very unstable. He is basically struggling to keep it
131:23
Speaker A
together. So Sasuke is unstable. He attacks Sakura. He attacks Kakashi. And then Naruto arrives. And because of everything Naruto has been through, he has become much better at talking to Sasuke. He has perfected the tnoujutsu, which makes Sakura the only person here
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Speaker A
who is struggling to understand Sasuke. Not that that is relevant at all. So she says that they still have to rescue him and Sasuke says rescue me from what?
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Speaker A
Because in his eyes there is no good system here and there is nothing to rescue him from. And then Naruto says from revenge which actually is a pretty good answer. No more because you're a shinobi of the leaf because you're a
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Speaker A
comrade or whatever. Naruto has finally realized that Sasuke doesn't want to be part of the system and that he's a danger to himself because of his emotions. So, what he needs is someone.
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Speaker A
It's not an institution. So, Naruto and Sasuke attack each other with the resenidori. And I must point out that this one is pretty weak considering that the first one created a weird vortex and the second one, well, we'll talk about
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Speaker A
that later. This one just like makes a few waves. I mean, the two other ones would have definitely killed Sakura on the side. So, I don't understand what happened here. My guess is they're both holding back. And then we go back to our
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Speaker A
time space. This time, it's not rainbow, it's golden, but it will do. Now that they are highlevel shinobi, they can see each other's hearts when fighting, which is what happens here. They can talk in private. And Naruto admits that Sasuke
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Speaker A
is his goal, which I mean was pretty clear because he's already achieved being recognized by the village. So, the other thing he wants is Sasuke. Naruto seems more comfortable showing his emotions here. He's smiling. He's telling Sasuke how he feels. He's being
133:05
Speaker A
honest with him. And Sasuke is still kind of stonefaced. He knows that his and Naruto's goals don't align. So, what's the point of even trying here?
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Speaker A
They also admit that right now violence is their only way of communicating, something that is incredibly destructive, but that they also kind of need to survive at this point. And one thing that points to the fact that I
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Speaker A
think Sasuke is also putting a performance here is that in the time space Naruto says that he wants Naruto to kill him. He says if you do that you'll become everybody's hero, but otherwise I'll kill you and you'll die a
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Speaker A
loser. And when they're out of the time space, he contradicts himself by saying that he's not going to let Naruto kill him. So he's not being honest in the real world. The other aspect is that immediately after this, Saskuke gets his
133:44
Speaker A
surgery and then immediately betrays Datsky. So clearly he wasn't that much into it. Anyway, they continue talking afterwards and they agree that if they do fight that they will both die.
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Speaker A
However, they will be free of their burdens together in the afterlife. Um, this line is definitely one of the gayer ones, I must say. I mean, I won't be a genturi and you won't be an stopping us from being together
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Speaker A
really. So, it's this sweet moment of we are meant for each other and society is stopping us from being together. And unfortunately, maybe the only way this would ever work is if they both died.
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Speaker A
They are both cursed with being an uchiah and being a ginuriki. It's something they were practically born with and a burden on their shoulders.
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Speaker A
There is no escape in this world. Sasuke does start the scene in the shadows while the leaf is in the sunlight. But after talking to Naruto, Sasuke is also in the sunlight, and we don't see any shaky hands or anything else from him.
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Speaker A
So, it seems like Naruto talking to him has genuinely managed to calm him down.
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Speaker A
Even though he's not admitting to Naruto in this scene that he truly cares about him, he shows it. I mean, Sakura and Kakashi are two of the people that could have calmed him down but failed miserably and he attacked both of them.
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Speaker A
Naruto, on the other hand, even though they do attack each other, Sasuke is better off after they've talked. After all of this, Sakura does say that her resolve is much weaker than Naruto's, which I I do find quite funny. Yes, you
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Speaker A
somehow have less of a reason to date Sasuke than Naruto does. You don't understand him at all. She basically has no reason to care for him compared to Naruto who deeply relates to him. So, what this scene does is that it puts
135:20
Speaker A
them on equal ground. At the cliff, they were both in different places. And here it switched around a bit, but they end up being on the same page. Both of them agree that this system is the only thing
135:30
Speaker A
that comes in the way of their bond. I mean, the only reason they felt the need to be rivals is because they felt like they couldn't be something else. They also contemplate the idea that death might be the only escape that they have
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Speaker A
and their only chance to actually be together and that with the system that is currently in place, it might be worth it. And Sasuke finding peace by talking with Naruto, it just becomes this tragic thing that they can only communicate
135:55
Speaker A
with fighting. Their relationship is destructive to them and those around them. Sasuke before had been through so much more than Naruto and now they've both been through a lot and they feel like they can talk to each other but the
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Speaker A
system is stopping them. What Naruto now understands is that Sasuke is self-destructive and Naruto wants Sasuke to understand that destroying himself will also destroy Naruto. So basically they might as well just destroy each other because that would be the same
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Speaker A
effect. They use sad music quite effectively here when Naruto is basically saying all of this in a very happy tone. The music is very tragic because that is the reality of the situation. They do comfort and make each
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Speaker A
other happy in a very destructive way. And this contrast between Naruto's tone and the music really shows the dynamics of the relationship. Once again, Sasuke asks, "Why are you doing this?" Naruto says, "Because you're my friend." And this ties into what I was saying with
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Speaker A
Sasuke needs someone, not a system. So him being part of team seven, him being a comrade from the hidden leaf isn't going to cut it anymore. What he needs is a friend. And Naruto is saying that first and foremost, he is his friend.
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Speaker A
Sasuke is rightfully shocked with this response because after everything he's done, Naruto is still forgiving enough to accept him as a friend. But I do think that Naruto being vocal about his emotions in this moment was a turning
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Speaker A
point for Sasuke and what he does in the future. Now, to skip to the next scene, there's a lot of unimportant things that happen. I mean, especially in regards to this analysis. However, before Sasuke joins the battlefield, he does go to
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Speaker A
talk to the previous Okag. And I've talked about how I feel about the whole Kaguya Haguro, whatever. I don't like it. But they show a different flashback here, and I do think it's important to talk about it. So, let's take a look at
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Speaker A
this Shakespearean love story, shall we? [Music] No, seriously. This is a beat forbeat Shakespeareians. The clans are at war, but they develop and I quote, a mysterious kinship. Mada and Hashiama, first of all, meet in water. Uh, but they meet, they skip
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Speaker A
stones, they become friends, and they know they're from opposite clans, but they choose to ignore it, which is very sweet. This is a time before the villages and it seems like violence is far worse than it is now. Hashiama
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dreams of peace and he wants to have a more established system. He clearly has an abusive father and when he speaks of peace, Hashidama's father just hits him and yells at him. So negotiations for peace are meant for a violence response
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that's established pretty clearly. So they both feel isolated and they find comfort with each other. And there's a scene where they're just talking and having fun and there's a corpse that flows by in the water. This represents the idea that the cycle of violence will
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always catch up to them. They can't really escape it and in the end their love is temporary. One of the most interesting elements uh in this flashback to me is the song that plays because this song is regarded by fans as
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Speaker A
the romantic song. It's often called Minato Saves Kusha. And I would argue that Mato and Kusha are one of the nicest canon love stories in the show. I believe this song also plays for Obito and Ren, which is another one of the
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biggest relationships in the show. And it also plays for Hashiama and Mada, not once, but twice in scenes where they are planning their future together. Naruto is very specific with their song use, and this doesn't feel like an accident.
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Speaker A
These scenes are framed as romantic. the first one when they're kids and the other one when they're adults talking about the village and going back to the feelings they once had. The other interesting scene is when Hashiama is
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confronted by Tobiiama and their father about his meetings with Madra. And this is just because this scene is so reminiscent of parents finding out about their child's secret gay relationship.
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Speaker A
once again just switch the genders in this scene and it would be crazy how much this would be well this is still very much shipped but anyway in this scene the father who is abusive does represent the system forcing children
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Speaker A
having an innocent love for each other to be punished the adults in the situation are using this bond between children to further their political goals and their ideas of violence the main children of these clans forming a relationship could have been a pathway
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Speaker A
to peace instead the adults see this as a way to fight each other. Mada and Hashiama both choose each other instead of their families in this scene. With the rocks, they warn the other that there's going to be an ambush, but at
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the same time, they're still just kids that love their siblings, too. And seeing this is very scary to them, and they go their own ways after this. But clearly, their love for each other never really died because, I mean, once the
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war is over, they are back to respecting each other and wanting to build a life together. And I won't go through all of their story, but clearly Madara and Hashiama are a representation of Naruto and Sasuke. So, because the Leaf is
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obsessed with hiding history and censorship, they never learn from their past mistakes, which makes the cycle of violence repeat itself again and again.
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And I also want to point out that even though Hashiama is telling the story and he's kind of seen as the hero here, Mad is kind of right. I mean, Hashiama's goal was to create a village so that no
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more children would die. We all know that he fails miserably. Mad also says that the Uchia clan is not safe and Hashiama is the only one on their side.
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So if something happens to Hashiama, the Uchia are no longer safe and he is 100% right about that. The government does attack the Uchia. So similarly to Naruto and Sasuke, we see that the anti-establishment ideology is actually grounded in facts. They are right to
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critique this system. It is incredibly broken and trying to fix it with more institution or trying to fix it from the inside will not change things. A revolution is necessary and the Uchia can see that. Also, the language that is
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used in these episodes is quite entertaining on the gay side of things. Particularly the whole my back was taken part. Very fun. After this scene, Sasuke finally joins the battlefield. And I'll try not to spend too long on this
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because we have other things to talk about. But when Sasuke arrives, he is not met with much love from the leaf except from Naruto. Naruto's just like, "All right, let's go. Let's fight." And that's because with his experience,
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Naruto understands him and he sees where Sasuke comes from. He knows why Sasuke is upset and wants to rebel. So, he's fine just fighting with Sasuke. Now, they have the opportunity here to fight together, not against each other. And
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they are stronger together. Their fighting styles match each other quite well. So even though they are being violent, they are working together and they are enjoying it. As we can see in one of my favorite gay scenes in the
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show. So Naruto and Sasuke go fight together and then Hinata and Sakura choice of characters are left behind and Sakura asks, "What are they doing?" So Hinata uses the Byakugan and says they're smiling because you know they're happier
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together when they leave their wives behind. like choosing Sakura and Hinata to be the ones having this discussion.
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It has an impact. It's the system they have to conform to compared to what they actually want to do. And this opportunity they have of fighting together actually makes him quite happy.
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Sasuke's whole goal while joining the fight is protecting Naruto because he has his own plan. So, we see him being very protective of Naruto while not really caring much for anybody else.
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Now, personally, I would have preferred if the show ended closer to the five kag summit or when Sasuke kills Danzo because with the war and stuff, they kind of lose the plot and they have to do all these mental gymnastics to get to
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Speaker A
the end of the show, which was clearly always meant to be a fight between Naruto and Sasuke. These two people with similar lives that have a very different approach.
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Sasuke starts this fight basically by refusing to cooperate. Him and Naruto just have to do this one little thing and it'll save humanity. And Sasuke is like, "No." Because he knows he wants to fight Naruto. So what he does is that he
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pisses Naruto off. So he starts by not collaborating and then he sees Sakura and he Genjutsu punches her. He also says that he has no reason to love her and then he tells Naruto to go to their spot which is pretty dramatic. He wanted
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Speaker A
the location of the fight to really match his feelings. Anyway, we are back at the Valley of the End. A clear shout out to the end of the first show, except now our characters are in different positions. So, let's start talking about
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this fight by talking about Sasuke's motivations. Sasuke once again has nothing left. His entire family is dead and he killed the one person he had left. Most people in the world hate him and he just really doesn't see a reason
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Speaker A
to go on. He's in a similar mental space that he was when he was a kid. But when he was a kid, it's because he didn't know anything. And now he knows too much. All his vengeance and all of his
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Speaker A
attempts at trying to get justice didn't lead him anywhere when it comes to his mental state and his happiness. So once again, he is at the valley of the end in a suicidal state. And my interpretation of this is that he wants to die like
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Itachi by the hands of someone he loves. He doesn't want to do it himself because that is a sign of weakness. But if Naruto kills him, Naruto will be a hero.
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Like Itachi wanted Saski to be a hero. And he knows that if he just asks Naruto to do this, Naruto would refuse, which is why he's trying to anger him by saying all of this absurd stuff, like saying he wants to be Hokage and being
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mean to Sakura and telling him that he doesn't care about the world and stuff like that. And Saskuke kind of has this justification for it where he's like, "To be unified, the world needs an enemy and that enemy will be me." But I don't
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Speaker A
think that makes much sense because he would have had to do the hand sign first. I think he is mostly being selfish in this fight, which I don't blame him, but it is the reality of the situation. If the last fight at the
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Valley of the End showed how much Naruto and Sasuke were close, this fight shows how much they know each other. Sasuke is constantly trying to stop Naruto from doing hand signs because he knows his strategy. Naruto also does this move
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where he tries to headbutt someone and it's this imagery for him knocking sense into people and Sasuke stops him from headbutting him. He doesn't want Naruto to knock any sense into him. He knows what he wants. Another noteworthy aspect
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to this fight is that there is no music. In Naruto, music really amplifies the emotions that they're showing. And in this scene, there's no music, which makes me think that they're both trying to not feel emotional about this.
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Speaker A
They're trying not to think that they're about to kill someone they love and just get through the motions. Now, the first clue that tells us that Sasuke wants to die in this fight is that Naruto is on top in his tailed beast form. And he's
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about to tail beast bomb Sasuke, and Sasuke just lays there. And there's this moment where you think he really could move or block or do something, and he just lays there waiting to be hit, knowing that this hit will kill him. And
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he only moves when he realizes that Naruto is not going to do it. Now, Naruto says that he doesn't want to fight the current Sasuke because he knows that Sasuke right now is not being honest. And if he's going to fight
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Sasuke, Naruto wants to at least understand Sasuke's reasonings because all of this happened because Naruto didn't understand Sasuke. He doesn't want to make that mistake again. And now that he has been through everything, he knows the truth and he knows that Sasuke
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is lying right now. He can finally see through his theatrics. Now, this is when they have a ridiculous space fight. Um, and it ends pretty quickly because the show is not about that and it's they have to include it because that's where
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their power levels are at. But the show's not about freaking Susano versus Tailed Beast. It's about Naruto versus Sasuke. So that ends pretty quickly, which is funny to me. Their god-like strength is not interesting to people who want to see
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character moments. Anyway, during this, Saskuke says that this fight will be his last, and he fully knows that he's not going to survive this, and he doesn't want to. And that's when they have this fall from grace moment where their
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powers are left behind, and they fall as just the two people. And the focus is on their personalities and their relationship and not whatever godlike thing happened to them. During this fall, Sasuke even loses Orochimaru's belt, which has been a staple in his
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wardrobe since he joined Orochimaru. and he is becoming himself again, not under the influence of someone else, but he is in front of Naruto with his own motivations. And Naruto is trying to discover who Sasuke really is. And
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clearly, it's starting to work. Sasuke after this just seems like a really sloppy fighter. He has been shown to be so precise this entire show. And now he just he's out of it. All his punches seems slow and his reaction time is so
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much slower than it used to be. But he knows that if he stops fighting, Naruto will too. So he can't stop because he wants Naruto to kill him. So in the first fight they had these proximity moments and now Sasuke is the one
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straddling Naruto, pulling him closer and all of that. And it does show how their power dynamics shift and that they're still close even though these past few years have been rocky. They're still their past selves who long for a
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relationship of any kind with someone. But right now violence is the only way for them to really have any form of connection. And this fight is so different from the others because once again there's this scene where it's just
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punching. They are trying so hard not to go into the personal and just being violent. And Naruto is not speaking either, which is unusual for him. He usually tries to understand, but he doesn't need to. He knows Sasuke at this
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point, so he's just being silent and matching Sasuke. This fight balances moments of proximity and moments of distance because even if the characters are trying to be distant, they can't help it. They care about each other too much. And this is when the flashbacks
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start. And the main flashback that's important in this scene is when they're kids and they're asked to hold hands or do a pea signal after their fight at school and they both refuse to do it.
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And this is a moment that they both deeply regret because they had this opportunity to show affection to each other and they had this chance of communicating peacefully, but they were both too prideful to do it. They could
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Speaker A
have had other methods of communicating and they could have had this close bond, but they didn't because they felt the shame and they felt the need to be competitive which ruined both of them.
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Speaker A
This is when we get one of the best shots in the show, the long shot where it slowly moves forward uh towards them while they fight in water and they are so tired they keep falling into the water and they're barely themselves.
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Speaker A
We've talked about the meaning of water here before and in this case they're involuntarily falling into it because you can try to break the cycle and you can be aware of the cycle. You still involuntarily fall into it. Their
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Speaker A
actions have led them here and they're at the same place that Madan and Hashiama were and that they were a few years ago. However, they hit each other so hard that it actually stops the waterfall. They stop the flow of water.
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They are ending the cycle. During this shot, uh, the music starts up again because as much as they can try to make it non-emotional, it really is. And Naruto is just trying to beat some sense into him. He grabs his collar, just
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trying to grasp onto anything that Sasuke will give him and to give him another chance. And Naruto also loses his headband, which is a symbol of his community. He knows that he can't have both. He can't have the leaf and Sasuke
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at this point because the villagers hate Sasuke too much. But it's also a symbol that Naruto has other reasons to go on.
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He has friends and he has a community and he has people who want to take care of him. And when he's doing his rasen, there's the hands of other people helping him while Sasuke is completely alone. He has no other reason to go on.
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And I want to take this quick moment to thank whoever did the subtitles because when Sasuke says, "My one and only dot dot dot," I truly felt that. He says, "Goodbye, my one and only," which means the world to me. And then of course they
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Speaker A
follow it up with friend because they have to. But this is a moment of vulnerability to Sasuke where he admits that even though he can try to replace Naruto, he just cannot. And there is truly no one that compares to him in
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Sasuke's mind. And after this, Sasuke is just tired of losing again and again. And he doesn't understand how every time he gets stronger, Naruto just follows.
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He wants nothing more than for Naruto to give up. But Naruto won't. He can't give up on Sasuke and Sasuke cannot understand that because he's given up on himself. After this, this scene clearly mirrors the cliff scene which is marked
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by Sasuke putting on a performance. Sasuke is pretending to be the villain that everybody thinks he is, but Naruto doesn't buy into that performance anymore. Another difference between this and the cliff scene is that Naruto actually goes up to meet him. At the
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beginning of the show, he was so powerless against Sasuke that he couldn't do anything. And this shows how much his character has changed throughout the show. He is now confident and he jumps up to meet Sasuke where he
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is. Everything they've been through has been a challenge to their relationship. The world is against them and now they're facing each other but they simply can't hate each other. So now there's the lost Chidori Renan and it is
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very powerful and it is also of course rainbow and there is rainbow water and I am a very happy viewer. So every time they fight each other, they understand each other better. And in this final fight, they already understood each
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other. And now they understand each other so well that Sasuke becomes the narrator. Even though this is Naruto's show, they're now basically one. The episode starts with Sasuke telling Naruto to leave and take our bond with you. If Sasuke wants to die, then he
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doesn't want Naruto to die. He wants Naruto to leave and to take their bond with him. He obviously still has a lot of self-hatred for the way that he is.
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Speaker A
So if Naruto stayed alive with their bond, he would take his decisions as a hokag with Sasuke in mind and Sasuke would be able to be with his family without this burden of who he is. Oh man, this is making me sad. Then they're
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shown in the afterlife and they're looking at their memories together. They're looking at their life and they're just living peacefully in the leaf together. They've reached a level of understanding that is so deep that the time space has warped into a life.
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Speaker A
And what really breaks me is that Sasuke looks like himself. He looks comfortable and we haven't seen this Sasuke in a while. His performance is done. He's dead. In the afterlife, Naruto starts worrying about the living. While Sasuke
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can now openly worry about Naruto being in pain. A few moments before this, he was threatening to kill him and physically punching him. But now he's worried about Naruto showing discomfort because now he can be himself. The memories show them being ostracized by
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everyone around them. And you're just reminded of the queer themes where people hate you for the way that you were born. It's not about physical appearance. It's about who you are inside and they are surrounded by villagers hating them. But they're in
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that circle together. Sasuke starts thinking about his brother and he has this moment of realization where the only way he can be with the people he loves, including Naruto, is in death.
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Speaker A
Because he can't be with Naruto in the world of the living and he can't be with any of his family because they're already dead. These flashbacks start cutting to water dripping because life is draining out of them and the cycle is
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ending. Now, there are moments where Sasuke is talking about Hitachi and Naruto together. And the way I see this is that Sasuke needs someone and that person used to be Itachi and now it's Naruto. So, there's a connection uh
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between Naruto and Itachi being two people that Sasuke loved. Sasuke couldn't understand that they loved him in a different way. Sasuke can't understand why Naruto didn't want to kill him the way Sasuke wanted to kill Itachi. But it's because the
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relationship is different. When he talks about Naruto replacing Itachi, it's not a brother for a brother. It's more of a found family trope, which is a very popular trope with queer individuals, but their connection is not about brotherhood. It can be about family, and
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Speaker A
family can be romantic. Anyway, they are back in the real world, and they are both slowly dying. They cannot physically move, so they are forced to talk. They have gone so far in their violence that they are now forced to use
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other methods and they can finally talk it out. So Sasuke asks Naruto again, "Why can't you let me go? Why are you still running after me? Why are you doing this for me?" And Naruto says, "You already know
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Speaker A
why." And he's right. Saskuke knows why, and the audience knows why, but they can't say it. They can't say to themselves and they can't say it on television. There's a moment of silence where as a viewer you're supposed to
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Speaker A
know that Naruto says because I love you. But the systems in Naruto reflect systems in real life. And if they can't say it there, they can't say it here.
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Speaker A
And that Naruto says because I'm your friend, which is also true. Naruto says that it hurts to see you hurt. And that he can't explain what's going on. So, every time that Naruto was punching Sasuke and there was no music and
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they're trying not to be emotional, it was really some self-destructive behavior. This is not the life he wanted and he doesn't know how to get the life he wants. But he just knows that he doesn't like seeing Sasuke hurt and that
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this is killing him. So, if he has to kill Sasuke, it will kill him too. And that is not something that Sasuke understood. Now, the next part I cannot believe exists because they've reached a level of understanding so deep that
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Sasuke can now narrate. And especially now since Naruto has given him new information, Sasuke feels comfortable revealing to Naruto and to the viewer his inner monologue. Sasuke reveals that Naruto has been on his mind since the beginning and that Naruto was obsessed
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Speaker A
with Sasuke, but that Sasuke was also obsessed with Naruto. That Sasuke has always cared and that seeing Naruto being hurt has always hurt him. And we know this. We've seen the proof in the first arc and Sasuke's flashback are all
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tinted rainbow. But if you think that that's where they would stop with this, you do not know this show. The music stops dead in its track and Sasuke reveals that there is something Naruto has never understood about him. And as
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Speaker A
flashbacks of the show play in natural color, Sasuke is over them tinted in the colors of the rainbow, a visual representation of how he feels excluded from the normal world. This monologue is Sasuke coming out. Whether he's coming out to himself,
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the viewer, or Naruto, that is what it is. And Sasuke watches as Naruto builds a community around him. And Sasuke stays alone. and he can see the path he didn't take where he stayed in the village and tried to be happy. But he also knows it
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would have been impossible. And in this image, he is closer to Naruto than his parents. He's closer to him than Hinata, closer to him than anybody else. It is them and others. Now the water drips are turning into blood. This is their final
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moments and the cycle has ended. They're not going to die with this hatred or with society forcing them to be something. They're being honest with each other and they're expressing their feelings even though that is not what they were supposed to do as ninjas. And
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Speaker A
Sasuke knowing that he is dying is smiling. He is feeling free because now he is comfortable with himself. He has admitted to who he is and he can finally leave. Now, a moment I find incredibly powerful is the ellipsis that happens.
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And this is powerful because the war arc is so godamn long that when you skip an entire night, you notice it so much. The last hundreds of episodes have been about this war that happens over two days and yet they skip an entire night.
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Speaker A
And this is the moment I choose to talk about the title of the show cuz when you look at other animes, this show isn't about a Death Note or Dragon Ball or Pokemon or the One Piece or an Attack on
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Titan. It's about Naruto and it's always been about Naruto. And Naruto chooses what story is told. And there is nothing you could cut to that is more important than the night they spend lying next to each other. Even though the world is
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Speaker A
ending, even though there are people he cares about that are still out there, there is nothing more important than this moment. So, it doesn't cut to anything else. They wake up and they simply can't fight. So, they keep
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Speaker A
talking. Sasuke laughs, which is quite shocking to Naruto. when he reveals his plan which was suicide the whole time and that he's quite satisfied dying.
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Speaker A
Naruto says he wants to make the effort for Sasuke to be integrated into society and Sasuke says just because you want it doesn't mean other people will agree. you know, when talking about queer themes, um, wanting something and
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Speaker A
wanting something that feels right to you and you know that this is the only thing that'll make you happy and yet people won't agree and people will shun you and will not let you enter society.
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Speaker A
This is when Sasuke cries and he turns away because he is just not ready for this level of vulnerability. Even though he can admit to who he is, letting Naruto seeing him cry is too much. He's tried to play the persona of someone who
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Speaker A
is stoic and who doesn't care, but he cares. And he has lived his life as someone else, only being himself in his final moments. And this is when the shot goes further back. This is the reveal that they have both lost their dominant
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arm. And also the reveal that this entire time that they've been talking, they have been holding hands through blood. Violence is what brought them together. and they wish they would have held hands in that moment, but they didn't because of masculine standards.
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Speaker A
And now it's these standards that have brought them together. And they can hold hands in the most uncomfortable way imaginable. They were never allowed to be affectionate towards each other. But in their final moments, they're alone together. And they don't need to feel
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Speaker A
any shame for what they're doing. And it means the world to them. And they can't actually hold hands because they are the protagonist of a shownen TV show. So, this act of love is not allowed. This grotesque depiction of them losing their
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hands is allowed, but they can't actually hold each other's hands. The camera going even further back reveals that they're actually lying on top of the debris of Hashiama and Madra's hands that are also holding each other. They broke the cycle by talking. They broke
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the cycle by being honest with each other and by defying the norms that were set by society. How they're placed is also a reflection of Zabuza and Haku, the first queer people that we meet in the show, the ones that taught Naruto
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Speaker A
what it means to love and what it means to be a ninja. And even though Sasuke loses this fight like they did, he actually wins because in the end, he's lying next to the person that he loves.
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Speaker A
And he's saying goodbye to the world as himself, just like Haku and Zabuza. Every time Sasuke would win, he would never be happy. And then finally he loses and he's just satisfied because nothing will be solved with violence.
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Speaker A
But accepting who you are and having conversations with the people you love can bring you to a point where you will be happy no matter what the world around you says. Sakura arrives and I actually don't mind this scene surprisingly. He
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asks her to die um and to just save Naruto and Naruto's like well no if he dies I die which is really putting her in a bad spot. So, she ends up saving both of them and Sasuke staring at
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Speaker A
Naruto knowing that even if they both live, it's not going to be how they want to, but he truly loves him. And of course, they end the war by holding hands because that's all they had to do the entire time was just show affection
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Speaker A
and be together. And anyway, at the end of the show, Sasuke is still narrating.
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Speaker A
And the conversation they had, although it meant the world to them, didn't amount to much because Naruto cannot be the hokag and have Sasuke. The end of the show is kind of like La La Land.
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Speaker A
It's a love story with a sad ending because in the end they had to choose between the person they love and their dream. You have to choose without knowing what you would miss the most. So Naruto would have had to given up his
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Speaker A
duty to his people if he wanted Sasuke's love because maybe as the Hokag he could create a world where people can be who they are. And seeing how Orochimaru talks about being non-binary, maybe he succeeded. And Naruto can technically
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Speaker A
adapt to the society around him and have a wife and kids and be fine. But Sasuke can't. Sasuke went too far in his queerness and reached the level that makes him unable to go back into society. So Naruto gets his arm back. He
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Speaker A
gets to go back with his friends and go through the levels and become a Jonine and then become Hokag. Sasuke is put in jail and he never gets his arm back and he never gets to be whole again. Naruto
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Speaker A
does. when he leaves the village because Kakashi manages to convince people that he's actually done some good. He's wearing this huge black cloak that basically covers him entirely and he's not wearing a crest. He is essentially being censored and you can stay alive
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Speaker A
and you can be outside of a jail cell, but you can't be yourself. Not in this world. So, Sakura and Kakashi say goodbye to Sasuke, but of course, there's one last goodbye. And Naruto is waiting for him in the forest in the
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Speaker A
gayest outfit he has worn to date. Oh my god. And Naruto gives Sasuke's headband back to Sasuke, encouraging him to conform because that's what Naruto will do. Sasuke accepts the headband, not because he's planning on wearing it or
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Speaker A
representing the village, but because to Naruto, it's also a sign of being part of his community. So, he's doing it for Naruto, and Sasuke is the one that narrates the final part of the show.
165:26
Speaker A
Because even if they cannot be together, their bond is very much alive, and they will always understand each other. So, the show starts by showing how demonizing marginalized groups leads to an increase of crime and suffering. And then they feature two marginalized
165:40
Speaker A
characters to see how they navigate the world and then conclude by showing how these characters break the cycle with the love they have for one another. And they still don't get a happy ending. The societal norms are still too strong and
165:53
Speaker A
Naruto is still not in power. They now understand all the theory and they still can't put it in practice. Anyway, this feels like the ending of the show, but it's not. Now, if I told you that there was an epilogue at the end of Naruto
166:06
Speaker A
where they skip a few years, right? If you if you thought that the show is about Naruto getting stronger and accomplishing his goals, then this time skip would be to him becoming the Hokag, right? That's how the show would end.
166:20
Speaker A
And that's what would make sense. Except that's not what the show is about. And the show is about love and the show is about romance. So, how does this show end? Time skip to the wedding. And I won't go on for too long about this, but
166:35
Speaker A
essentially, if I had to write a wedding scene and make it gay, this is similar to Joe getting married at the end of Little Women. So, the entire arc, mini arc, is focused on other people getting gifts for Naruto and Hinata. And Naruto
166:50
Speaker A
is not there. Where is he? Who knows? He's on a mission alone before getting married or he's enjoying his last bachelor days. Who knows? So, Hinata is basically organizing the entire wedding and he only shows up at the end. And
167:05
Speaker A
then Naruto's mini arc in this is to ask Iuka to be his father, which is really nice. I still think I don't know Kakashi kind of got the short end of the stick here, but Naruto struggling to be
167:17
Speaker A
vulnerable and asking Iuka to do this for him is is very sweet. But then there's the actual wedding and I the final shot of the show is Hinata reaching out to Naruto's still hand. He is being forced into this. This isn't
167:36
Speaker A
making him happy. And I'm glad they confirmed that with Boruto. And Naruto is just doing what he has to do to become Hokag. And that is the last separation between him and Sasuke. And Sasuke, of course, is not at this
167:50
Speaker A
wedding, but he sends a note, a note reading the one word, congratulations, which is the pettiest, most you imagine your ex. That was cruel. He wanted Naruto to think of him on his day. That's what that was. He didn't even sign it. He
168:09
Speaker A
says, "You know me well enough. You know I sent this. Congratulations on your new life." And that's how the show ends.
168:16
Speaker A
Naruto choosing to conform and Sasuke being secluded from everybody else. And the show Naruto goes deeply into queer themes while staying very conservative in its form by still only showing a straight wedding. Only showing a gay kiss, but also only showing a straight
168:32
Speaker A
wedding. If someone is still here, um, why? I don't know if anybody's here because I currently have zero subscribers, but I appreciate um anyone listening to me rant about how Naruto is actually queer for I don't know how
168:46
Speaker A
long, 3 hours. So, thank you. But to conclude, the first Naruto show starts with the forming of team 7 and the separation of Naruto and Sasuke. Shipu then starts with the reunion of Naruto and Sasuke and then the ending where
169:00
Speaker A
they are reunited and separated. a true deep dive into masculinity, the unhappiness that seems to follow queer people, and how they're separated from the rest of society. Throughout the show, Naruto feels a constant need to show off. According to the system, he's
169:16
Speaker A
supposed to want to get stronger, and that's what he does. But he ends up not being satisfied because that's what drove Sasuke away. And what he truly wants is Sasuke by his side. So, I'm not saying that Naruto and Sasuke are a
169:29
Speaker A
couple or that they're boyfriends or whatever. I'm saying that they have a love for each other that is based on their queer identity. I do believe that they're soulmates and that this world doesn't allow them to be together while
169:43
Speaker A
achieving their own goals. But this video is about how the show is about their queer love, not that they were dating the entire time. This has been a ship for such a long time that I wanted to explore the other themes that exist
169:57
Speaker A
in the show that support the idea that Naruto and Sasuke were romantically involved. Although at the end it didn't work out. And I mean, if you don't like this type of analysis, kudos to you for watching this entire thing. I mean, good
170:11
Speaker A
for you. Congratulations. You have the cannon. You don't have to look into any deeper meaning if that's not what you want to do. If you believe that this show is about Naruto getting stronger and that he's a Nepo baby for some
170:24
Speaker A
reason, even if they prove with other characters that they can make a good story about someone who starts with nothing and rises to the top and that the love stories are just boring because even though they prove with other
170:36
Speaker A
characters that they can make cute love stories and Sasuke doesn't have any other motivations that what he just says and that he is a two-dimensional character. I mean, if you like that, good for you. Um, I I don't I think the
170:51
Speaker A
rags to riches story doesn't work at all for Naruto. But if it inspires you to achieve your goals, then good for you.
170:58
Speaker A
And I I don't have anything to say. I like sad and gay stories, and maybe you don't. And art changes depending on the experiences of the people consuming the art. You know, in this fandom, there are two sides. There is some who see a
171:11
Speaker A
romantic connection between Naruto and Sasuke, and there's another side that can explain the reneagan, and there is no overlap between those two sides. I've never done this, and I'm not sure how to end a three-hour video, but uh Sasuke,
171:23
Speaker A
you're my favorite. Um, thank you for watching. Peace out. I want to make a sequel about, um, women in Naruto. Um, so that would be my next video. Uh yeah.
Topics:Narutoqueer analysisqueer codingLGBTQ animehypermasculinitySasukeNaruto Shippudenmedia analysissubtextcloseted storytelling

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