Naruto [Naruto] Recommended Reading

[RexNemo]

Alright so my post in the Fic Search thread is over a week old now, so I'm gonna ask this here as well.


With the collective fandom fizzling after the end of the main series it seems that good fics are fewer and farther between. And this site itself seems to be burning out even as I type this. But for some reason Naruto tickles my brain just the right way, and I basically can't give up this fandom. I don't even really care that much for the actual canon series, but Ive found something magical in the fanfiction it has managed to inspire.

So, with that being said, I want to know where else I can look for story recommendations. Sourcing directly from fanfiction.net search is tedious at best, and drains my psychic energy. By the time I dig up anything decent, I find the need to take a break before I can even really enjoy it. This site has become very slow, but I know the fandom hasn't died yet, and there are many amazing stories I have yet to read.

If anyone has any ideas where else I can find story recommendations, and general banter about the series and fandom surrounding it, please share. I never could stand it when I reached the end of a good book.

I know this isn't exactly what the thread was for, but I am searching for Recommended Reading so I hope you'll forgive me.

 

[OniGanon]

Personally, I find most of my stories by finding authors whose stories I liked and looking through their Favourites list.

So long as the village remains a subordinate of the state the complications are minimized so long as they are treated adequately. The daimyo must have some hell of a leverage for them to remain in charge, or some kind of insurance at least given what ninja are capable of to not have already been usurped. Or it might be that going against the Daimyo would be more trouble than it's worth in that they will essentially be at war with their own country and unlikely to gain allies from other countries due to staging a coup.

It's been my headcanon that a Hidden Village that usurped their Daimyo would prompt every other Daimyo to order their own Hidden Villages to wipe the usurpers off the map, just so no other Village got any funny ideas. Thus, the Villages are kept in line, unless they could all simultaneously rebel. And since the Villages are kept in a constant state of cold and not-so-cold war, such co-operation would be unlikely...

 

[Altered Nova]

That's a pretty flimsy deterrent though. What's to keep the villages from usurping their nation all sneaky-like, replacing the Daimyo with a disguised agent, a la Orochimaru usurping control of Sunagakure? Or simply controlling them through genjutsu? Knowing all the subtle forms of espionage and manipulation that ninja are capable of, why aren't all the Daimyo puppets being controlled by their Kage from the shadows?

Or heck, if the threat of annihilation by by the combined forces of the other villages is the only thing keeping any particular village from rebelling... then the Daimyos must all be getting really nervous in the peaceful post-Kaguya world where all the villages are now best friends forever.

Edit: I just remembered that the Water Daimyo hesitated to approve of the Allied Shinobi Forces, warning the other Daimyo that it would give the ninja too much power. So yeah, they must all be terrified of their own ninja now.

 

[Master of Squirrel-Fu]

That's a pretty flimsy deterrent though. What's to keep the villages from usurping their nation all sneaky-like, replacing the Daimyo with a disguised agent, a la Orochimaru usurping control of Sunagakure? Or simply controlling them through genjutsu? Knowing all the subtle forms of espionage and manipulation that ninja are capable of, why aren't all the Daimyo puppets being controlled by their Kage from the shadows?

Or heck, if the threat of annihilation by by the combined forces of the other villages is the only thing keeping any particular village from rebelling... then the Daimyos must all be getting really nervous in the peaceful post-Kaguya world where all the villages are now best friends forever.

Edit: I just remembered that the Water Daimyo hesitated to approve of the Allied Shinobi Forces, warning the other Daimyo that it would give the ninja too much power. So yeah, they must all be terrified of their own ninja now.

It could be an honor thing, sort of like with traditional shinobi retainers. Essentially the Daimyo were the ones that provided the funding and security that helped create the village itself. Those ninja, despite their general sneakiness are almost all about honor. It's probably the only thing that kept Mist from self destructing from it's own toxic stupidity and love of edgelording. It's also probably why Suna thought of attacking Konoha whom they only allied with because they lost a war rather than their own Daimyo who despite abandoning them now was the reason they're village even started or lasted so long.

Loyalty is probably a very big thing to a ninja, though how it's defined probably isn't universal or full of technicalities.

 

[daniel_gudman]

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be analagous to the Sengoku period, where there was technically an Emperor that was the Head of State, but the real Leader was the Shogun, the supreme military commander; and there was a huge civil war between the Daimyo that were all in theory all supposed to be loyal and obedient to the Emperor, but in practice were fighting over who got to order the Emperor to name them the Shogun (and make it stick) in the power vacuum after the previous Shogunate dissolved.

So I'm pretty sure the structure of the Hidden Villages is supposed to reflect literally hundreds of years of Japanese history; there is notionally a royal family, but that is a diplomatic fiction because the real guy calling the shots is the scariest warlord.

That's why I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that the Narutoverse Daimyo are supposed to be actually, practically in charge; I mean, they might be the ceremonial heads of state, but as a matter of realpolitick the Daimyo does whatever the Kage tells them to, or they're going to contract a "sudden illness" and a Daimyo with a better understanding of reality will ascend to the throne.

 

[Shirotsume]

Always seemed to me like a combination of money (Daimyo seems to be the largest supplier of missions to a hidden village, look at how badly Sand was fucked when the daimyo decided to leave them flounder) politics (I scratched your back with setting you up to become kage, scratch mine) and finally caution (sure, you have the money, poltical capital and good will to split from the daimyo NOW... what happens when Pein comes along suplexes your village in the dick for twice your village's GDP? Daimyo gonna laugh in yo face, bitch.)

 

[daniel_gudman]

yeah I feel like the only safe conclusion to draw is:

"The politics are too complicated to figure out from what little we saw."

but that's unsatisifying

 

[Goldenfalls]

Alright so my post in the Fic Search thread is over a week old now, so I'm gonna ask this here as well.


With the collective fandom fizzling after the end of the main series it seems that good fics are fewer and farther between. And this site itself seems to be burning out even as I type this. But for some reason Naruto tickles my brain just the right way, and I basically can't give up this fandom. I don't even really care that much for the actual canon series, but Ive found something magical in the fanfiction it has managed to inspire.

So, with that being said, I want to know where else I can look for story recommendations. Sourcing directly from fanfiction.net search is tedious at best, and drains my psychic energy. By the time I dig up anything decent, I find the need to take a break before I can even really enjoy it. This site has become very slow, but I know the fandom hasn't died yet, and there are many amazing stories I have yet to read.

If anyone has any ideas where else I can find story recommendations, and general banter about the series and fandom surrounding it, please share. I never could stand it when I reached the end of a good book.

I know this isn't exactly what the thread was for, but I am searching for Recommended Reading so I hope you'll forgive me.

It's not a perfect fit, but this forum on SpaceBattles is active and Naruto recs is in the title. It's not going to be pure fanfiction recommendation but you should be able to solicite recs and get a reply.

 

[Altered Nova]

Always seemed to me like a combination of money (Daimyo seems to be the largest supplier of missions to a hidden village, look at how badly Sand was fucked when the daimyo decided to leave them flounder)

Actually, I think this part at least is pretty good evidence to support the theory that the Kage are the real ones in charge. Because yes, the Daimyo did fuck over Sunagakure by cutting their funding... to which the Kazekage responded by rebelling via a treasonous attack against Konoha which would "show our idiot Daimyo the naivete of his policies."

You may have also noticed that the "idiot Daimyo" was replaced by a new one when it came time to ratify the Allied Shinobi Forces coalition. Methinks the "idiot Daimyo" may have come down with a "sudden illness" over the timeskip.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

the "Daimyo change" happened only in the anime, because it did show the Wind Daimyo well before the manga: in the manga, we only see ONE Wind Daimyo.

Also, the idea was "Let's show our boos we are better than the competition by literally crushing them! He'll surely change idea about using foreign villages because we are a much better village!".
We don't actually know how much freedom the villages have in inter-village politics.

That said, when the Fire Daimyo stated the new Hokage Candidate was Danzou, nobody ever thought of disobeying or put his word in discussion.


Lat the Fire Monks are loyal to the Daimyo, not Konoha. It's likely there are a number of similar organization in the various Countries, who might not be strong enough by themselves but are likely to band up together and become a really troublesome problem for a rogue village.

 

[Knyght]

the "Daimyo change" happened only in the anime, because it did show the Wind Daimyo well before the manga: in the manga, we only see ONE Wind Daimyo.

Guess again.

 

[Master of Squirrel-Fu]

the "Daimyo change" happened only in the anime, because it did show the Wind Daimyo well before the manga: in the manga, we only see ONE Wind Daimyo.

Guess again.

That's about 6-7 IRL years difference with a guy who makes a single panel appearance in a flashback in another flashback. It wouldn't be surprising if Kishi forgot what the Wind Daimyo looked like during that time for someone who probably would never have appeared in person again.

 

[Altered Nova]

What Knight linked. Also the Fire Daimyo choosing Danzou as Hokage doesn't prove much, because that apparently only happens if the former Hokage dies without selecting an heir first. Tobirama and Hiruzen both chose their own successor.

Probably the strongest evidence that the Hokage is the one who really runs the nation though is the fact that they apparently are free to form and break alliances with other villages. Plenty of times we hear "Suna made an alliance with Konoha", "Kumo betrayed an alliance with Konoha", "Oto and Suna declared war on Konoha", etc. But never do we hear "The Wind Nation formed an alliance with the Fire Nation", "The Lightning Nation formed an alliance with the Fire Nation", or "The Sound and Wind Nations declared war on the Fire Nation."

It's the Kage, not the Daimyo, that convene for international conferences and hash out the details of alliances between themselves, only asking the Daimyo to approve of them as an afterthought. If the Daimyo had refused to ratify the Shinobi Alliance, do you really think the Kage would have called the whole thing off? And then there was the First Kage Summit, where Hashirama was selling off weapons of mass destruction as a sign of good will, and apparently had the authority to give away some of the Fire Nation's territory to Suna.

There's also something dan already mentioned earlier - the fact that the ninja are all very obviously indoctrinated for loyalty to the village and the Kage, and not to the nation or the Daimyo. Why the hell would the Daimyo tolerate that if they were truly, practically in charge?

Nah man, those Kage are running things, the Daimyo are clearly just figureheads.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

the "Daimyo change" happened only in the anime, because it did show the Wind Daimyo well before the manga: in the manga, we only see ONE Wind Daimyo.

Guess again.

and the previous appearance of the Daimyo in the manga when it has been?

Tobirama and Hiruzen both chose their own successor.

Hiruzen didn't chose Tsunade, though.

Most likely, every and any Hokage Candidate must please the Daimyo.
I'm guessing it works this way:

1. the Konoha Higher Ups decide on a number of names to present the Daimyo(when possible)
2. the Daimyo has in theory to decide which one, but a specific name is suggested by the Konoha Higher Ups, and the Daimyo talked in choosing that name
3. the Jonin of the village proceed to confirm or refute the nomination through a vote
4. if they confirm, the new Hokage is formally elected. If they refuse, go back to 2 with the remaining names.

This basically sums up the process, and explains the involvement of the Daimyo, the Uchiha being unhappy for Fugaku not even being presented as a candidate, etc, etc-

Probably the strongest evidence that the Hokage is the one who really runs the nation

Except they don't.
They rule the VILLAGES not the COUNTRY.
We haven't seen the Villages having anything to do with the Country except missions and military.
Villages are basically "countries inside countries". As long as they don't effect the greater country, they have almost unlimited freedom to act whatever they want-

 

[shioran toushin]

or the candidate has to be famous and popular enough that the Daimiyo HAS to ratify it or risk 'backlash' from the 'populance'.

 

[Shirotsume]

Always seemed to me like a combination of money (Daimyo seems to be the largest supplier of missions to a hidden village, look at how badly Sand was fucked when the daimyo decided to leave them flounder)

Actually, I think this part at least is pretty good evidence to support the theory that the Kage are the real ones in charge. Because yes, the Daimyo did fuck over Sunagakure by cutting their funding... to which the Kazekage responded by rebelling via a treasonous attack against Konoha which would "show our idiot Daimyo the naivete of his policies."

You may have also noticed that the "idiot Daimyo" was replaced by a new one when it came time to ratify the Allied Shinobi Forces coalition. Methinks the "idiot Daimyo" may have come down with a "sudden illness" over the timeskip.

Actually, it's precisely the opposite- it's stated that the only reason Hidden Sand still existed was the fact that the Kazekage could literally pull gold from the ground.

That's a pretty solid indication that without a Daimyo's money, your village is fucked. Even in the Kazekage's case, they would eventually run out of gold or inflate it too much- and then the village goes under anyway.

 

[Leidolf]

Makes sense. Remember, it must cost a fortune to run a hidden village. The main suppliers for missions are the Daimyo, and the one who did screw over Sand by outsourcing to the Leaf was replaced by the fat man later on.

 

[atlas_hugged]

Power between Daiymo and Kage is probably just a partnership. The Kage is the top military leader, and the Daiymo handles civilian matters and also acts as the top diplomat of the nation or village when needed. Both have the ability to mess with each other, the daiymo by pulling funding where he can, the kage by killing where they can. But destructive actions like that are avoided out of practicality. There really isn't anyone who has official power over the other, and friendship is so profitable unofficial powers won't be used and thus aren't tested. The Daiymo having any influence in the Kage Selection process is probably just to ensure that they can work together.

You don't see daiymo or villages switching loyalties too often because of cultural and geopolitical barriers towards doing so. Land of Fire born people wouldn't want to work with people from Lightning or Mists, etc. Those folks might do all sorts of weird things that would offend the cultural sensibilities of a Land of Fire citizen.

 

[Altered Nova]

That's a fair enough explanation. You guys are right that the Daimyos do have some power over the Kages... but I'd still argue that if push came to shove, the Kage is the one who is going to come out on top. The guy with soldiers is going to beat the guy with money every time. Most Daimyo clearly realize this (except for the idiot Wind Daimyo who was mysteriously replaced), which is why the ninja hash out the details of alliances at their Kage Summits without input from the Daimyos, and the Daimyo are asked to ratify them afterwards merely as a formality.

Also yes there are cultural and geopolitical barriers keeping this Daimyo-Kage partnership going, but I'd also argue that the Daimyos playing the villages against each other with constant (cold) wars probably is the biggest reason they haven't rebelled. The Water Daimyo at least recognized this, what with his warning his fellow Daimyo that allowing the shinobi to form a grand alliance might come back to haunt them.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

There really isn't anyone who has official power over the other

Daimyos have official power over the Villages. Full stop.
How much PRACTICAL power, especially over day-by-day matters, is the point of discussion.

We also must remember a number of Shinobi clans were SAMURAI clans who switched over ninjutsu after the start of the Villages System and probably have still something resembling duty-ties to various minor and major Lords-

We also must remember Obito did send White Zetsu to kidnapp\kill the Daimyos and the Villages left to their defense Meii, Choujuurou and the three former bodyguards of Minato, heavy-weights- they wouldn't waste so much firepower if the Daimyos being safe wasn't important.

 

[Altered Nova]

That is a good point. The ninja being morally bound to obey the Daimyo by the remnants of their former bushido beliefs would explain a lot about why they still (mostly, idiot wind daimyo notwithstanding) respect and serve their daimyo despite having a monopoly on their nation's military power.

Although I honestly never understood why Obito bothered to attack the Daimyo. It's not like they had any practical power to resist his army, and they were captured anyway in the infinite tsukuyomi. Was he hoping to demoralize the shinobi alliance by killing them? Or was it just a minor strategy to force them to waste manpower defending them that could have been fighting zombies instead?

 

[Shirotsume]

If you want to cripple chain of command, start at the top. He attacked the Kages, who were the leaders of the ninja, he attacked the samurai leaders, he attacked iirc the head monk guys and he also attacked the daimyo that technically control them all.

He had basically infinite numbers, so his strategy was basically 'Let's do ALL THE OBJECTIVES!'

 

[BukkakeNoJutsu]

[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]The Sound of Freedom[/font]

[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]By:[/font][font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial] [/font][font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]Yojimbra[/font][font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial] [/font]
[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]Tayuya's freedom rests on her ability to play the flute and keep the Kyuubi calm. If only the blond idiot that was it's jailor wasn't such an idiot things would go so much smoother. Naruto x Tayuya, Fluffy, Rated M for Tayuya.[/font]
[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Friendship - [Naruto U., Tayuya] Kakashi H., Tsunade S. - Chapters: 4 - Words: 21,142 - Reviews: 131 - Favs: 352 - Follows: 515 - Updated: Dec 24 - Published: Nov 16 - id: 12235283[/font]

[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12235283/1/The-Sound-of-Freedom[/font]

[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]Tayuya is frequently hilarious here [/font]
[font=Verdana, Verdana, Arial]YMMV depending on how you like the pairing[/font]

 

[douter]

Road to Heaven by crimson sun06

[font=Verdana,]For generations Team 7 has produced some of the greatest shinobi of their age. Their legendary feats moulded not only Konoha but the entire shinobi world into what it is, for better or worse. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but its the road to heaven that goes through hell.[/font]

[font=Verdana,]Characters: Team 7[/font]
[font=Verdana,]Words: 100K, 13 chapters[/font]
[font=Verdana,]Update: Jan 13[/font]

A new refreshing take on a Team 7 story; Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke are all competent ninjas working in different part of the villages when they are recruited to be part of the legendary Team 7. I'm really enjoying this fic, as everyone in Team 7 as their own unique backstory that is slowly revealed throughout the fic, plus the bonus of Shikamaru being a plus one to the team.

 

[AoMythology]

This is the first time I've heard of this story. I'll check it out later, tell you guys my impressions.