How I would write Naruto Post Time Skip

How I would write Naruto Post Time Skip

I make it no secret that I dislike Naruto's character after the time skip of the original series but I am going to put my money where my mouth is and try to see how I can make Naruto post time skip a more interesting character to me. I find Naruto Part 2 or Shippuden's failings with both Naruto and Sasuke as characters to be more fascinating than something that makes me angry and often mock. I will talk about Sasuke some other time but I will be talking about Naruto here.

First, here is the biggest problem with Naruto post time skip that just really annoys me. It's the fact that Naruto thinks like a stalker and someone who isn't inherently "there" in the head. This isn't bad on it's own, in fact, I felt Naruto was interesting in how it had its protagonist be a lot less deranged mentally compared to other shows. The problem is the lack of any kind of self awareness or any acknowledgement from the plot that Naruto is in fact not thinking clearly and that he is in fact so obsessed with Sasuke that it's detrimental to his mental health and how he acts in general. If the plot acknowledged this more instead of playing it entirely straight with a concept like this, then I feel Naruto post time skip could've been an amazing character especially for a shonen protagonist.

Here's what I would've done, I would keep Shippuden's first 2 arcs entirely the same. But where my version of the story diverges from is giving the characters of Sai and Tsunade more active roles in the story. After Sasuke refuses to go back to the village a 2nd time, Naruto starts to become depressed that he has no one to motivate him anymore. So now, he tries to find a new rival to match Sasuke through Sai, but here is the problem, Sai isn't as good as Sasuke at all, Naruto and Team 7 would go on various missions together and then Naruto realizes that Sai wasn't the guy he was looking for. He starts to miss and gets crazed over Sasuke as a result, Naruto later demands Tsunade to track down Sasuke so he can bring him back to the "light side". Tsunade straight up refuses, and tells Naruto that Sasuke is a criminal and has abandoned the Leaf Village, the latter has become a lost cause and isn't worth it. Tsunade shows more concern that she doesn't want Naruto to end up like other people in his life. So then Tsunade suspends Naruto from future missions until he gets his head together.

During this time, Naruto wants to get stronger and the only thing driving him now that someday he will fight Sasuke in battle so he trains and learns his new Jutsu the Rasen Shuriken. This then leads to his him defeating Kakazu.

Everything after I would keep the same except now when Naruto does his "Talk no Jutsu" on Nagato and the latter does his "Art of Rinne Rebirth" everyone who knows how to use Chakra sees what Naruto did to make Nagato change his mind while the villagers hate Naruto and the Leaf Government for doing a terrible job at defending the village. Naruto's ninja friends admire him and while the Leaf Villagers loathe him and then Danzo overthrows Tsunade through a democratic vote after rallying the Leaf Villagers to his cause. The series would then have Naruto learn how to control Kaurama so he can protect the Leaf better and the scene where he talks to his evil side in the Water Fall has more purpose because Naruto doubts he can control the Fox after how much the Leaf Village hates his guts.

Danzo has an iron grip on the Leaf Village and doesn't run things like Tsuande or any of the previous Kages did which would then lead to Sasuke attacking the Leaf Village under the orders of the Akatsuki, Naruto then fights Sasuke to a stalemate but senses good in Sasuke because the latter never tried to kill the Leaf but only went after Danzo. Sasuke kills Danzo and then Tsunade becomes Hokage again.

I would keep Obito's declaration of war and I would the uniting the villages mostly the same. The War Arc would take far too long for me to rewrite but to keep it short, Naruto and Sasuke fight again, but then he convinced Sasuke to change sides AND after Sasuke learns the full truth, they fight Obito while the Kages defeat the resurrected Madara. After this, Naruto and Sasuke have their final battle to see who is the best once and for all and then I end the series there.

In conclusion, there are other issues that prevent Naruto from being a great show but this is a major one that I am covering in this blog. I might do more, not sure.