Naruto Population statistics - a thought experiment

[Alzrius]

So a random thought popped into my head this morning, and after running with it, I decided to share it here in hopes that others might find it interesting.

We're told that the Allied Shinobi Force consists of 80,000 ninjas from all five countries. Using some basic assumptions, we can treat this like a Fermi problem and try to come up with some basic population statistics for the countries in Naruto.

Presuming that the forces of all five great countries are roughly equal - which is not unreasonable, given that they seem to be roughly balanced in overall military power - that would mean that each country has about 16,000 ninjas. (This is a liberal estimate, since we're discounting the overall contribution of the samurai from the Land of Iron.)

We'll make another liberal estimate by saying that ninjas consist of 10% of the adult population in each country. We're stretching the term "adult" here, since we see that kids graduate from the academy in their early teens, but given the number of people we see in other occupations, this seems plausible enough.

So each country has an adult population of 160,000; okay, but what about the child population? In present-day America, the percentage of children (ages 0-17) in the total population is just under 25% (table 2 under the tab "population"). However, we've defined "adulthood" here as beginning in the teenage years, as mentioned above, so this percentage should go down for Naruto's world.

On the other hand, huge wartime losses would mean that the populace would likely be having more children - for both psychological (people tend to have sex more when the threat of death is greater) and sociological (you don't want your enemy nations to outnumber you, so social pressures to have sex and start a family are likely greater...hence why there's a female ninja in each team, perhaps?) reasons. As such, we'll say that the 13-and-under populace is 25%.

25% of a total figure, where the remainder is 160,000, comes to a grand total of about 213,000 - but since that's an inelegant figure, and because we've done some rounding, we'll say that each of the five countries has a grand total of 200,000 people, or a combined population of one million.

Except, that number is too small. What about the people from the Land of Iron that we discounted earlier? What about those smaller nations that pop up in the filler arcs and movies? Since we've used generous statistics up until now, let's assume that these groups collectively double the total population - they're just too diffusely scattered to collectively challenge the current political structure.

So the total population overall is a paltry two million people. That means that ninjas make up a grand total of 0.8% of the population (this has ninjas as only being from the five great nations - if you presume that the smaller countries have a proportional number of ninjas, samurai, or other empowered fighters, then this number doubles to a still-tiny 1.6% of the total population).

That's...incredibly small. Most countries in contemporary Earth have a higher population than this - Puerto Rico has almost double that; Ireland is more than double.

Moreover, these people won't have uniform distribution - people tend to cluster in urban areas; this will be especially true in the five great nations, as the major population center in each country is where new ninjas are trained. To make another comparison to America, roughly 80% of the population lives in a city.

Since we only see a single major city (or rather "village") in each country, this would seem to be the sole urban area for each nation. Since the people who aren't residents of one of the five great nations don't count here, that means that 80% of each nation's 200,000 people live in Hidden (Something) Village, or 160,000 people (being children, adults, and virtually all of the ninjas) in each village.

So, in other words, Konoha is about the size of Salem, Oregon or Vancouver, Washington. Incredibly tiny, at least compared to what we think of as a city - perhaps why they keep calling them villages; while they know that they're the largest population centers around, they're still not that big.

What's also interesting to consider is the scope of the continent that all of these nations are on against the backdrop of the rest of the world. The second movie posits that there's another continent across the sea, one with apparently greater technology (based on "gelel" stones). That idea makes a surprising amount of sense, since it's hard to imagine that the entire world would have so few people, especially if you consider that the continent that the five great nations is on has no natural bridge to any greater landmass.

If there are larger continents with greater populations living on them, what would they think of the land where Naruto and the ninjas live?

Considering that that place is apparently the only one to have developed the use of chakra, and has a long history of being ravaged by the Bijuu (and the Juubi before that), one gets the impression that - if other places know about their island at all - they'd think of it in the same way that we'd think of Skull Island from King Kong: a savage place with giant monsters, to say nothing of the hostile populace armed with strange magical powers.

While I have no plans to write one, a fic based on that premise might be fun to read!

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

The numbers sound about right for a feudal society. For comparison, Enlightenment era Florence - the shining, vibrant capital of culture - had a population of about 80,000.

Without modern medicine and farming technology, you get really "small" populations like you calculated.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

Since we only see a single major city (or rather "village") in each country

Except we know AT LEAST of Tanzaku-gai, or whatever the city Tsunade is found in Part-1 was called.

It didn't appear to be much smaller than Konoha, though it was likely less dense populated

 

[daniel_gudman]

Personally, I feel like taking that 80k figure as the whole military, when it's the soldiers directly deployed on the battlefield, is the weakest assumption. I'd guess it's not more than 20% of the total; after all, it's not like we've seen a lot of genin hanging around on that battlefield, right?

Without modern medicine and farming technology, you get really "small" populations like you calculated.

Considering the kinds of things that Tsunade can fix, their medicine is in many ways far superior to ours, on account of it being magic.

They understand genetics and they have industrial chemistry, so they have all the pieces they need for agricultural productivity at the same level as ours.

...My pet theory is that if you pointed at one thing and said, "that's what's fucking up their economy", it would be that all the major commercial missions in Naruto have been about fucking up infrastructure.

I think all those bridges getting blown up most do terrible things to their trade, and I can't imagine that there weren't loads of doods sent out to burn down enemy graineries, or infect foreign rice fields with engineered mosiac viruses, or other lovely acts of total war.

And it's not like there's a technological bottom limit to how far they can bomb each other back before they can't build bombs anymore; shinobi magic is a purely human resource, so even after everyone's back to stone-age savagery, they're still applying the same level of firepower to each other.

So I bet there's an underclass of dispossessed and poor people who are constantly on the edge of starving to death, because all the tools, materials, and material reserves keep getting destroyed.

There's something that bugs me though.

10% of the population as professional soldiers seems really, really high to me.

Lessee... at 31%, the country with the highest proportion of active+reserve+paramilitary troops is DPRK; Cuba, Singapore, and the non-horrible Korea are all 10-12%. My own USA, probably the most, erm, productive military, comes out at 0.7%.

...Actually, the DMZ is probably a really good model for the socioeconomic instability and constant decades-long border tension that's going on in the Naruto world, huh?

If we assume that all these countries are somewhere between Good Korea and Evil Korea, than 10% might actually be low for an oppressive military dsytopia (even by Naruto standards) like Mist.

So I guess that "10% are soldiers" thing is actually a pretty good guess.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

Lessee... at 31%, the country with the highest proportion of active+reserve+paramilitary troops is DPRK; Cuba, Singapore, and the non-horrible Korea are all 10-12%. My own USA, probably the most, erm, productive military, comes out at 0.7%.

yeah, but one should also take in consideration the population and size of the country.
USA, for example, has the second greatest amount of active military with 1,3millions(China is the first, with 2,2millions)

 

[TC_Hazard]

We'll make another liberal estimate by saying that ninjas consist of 10% of the adult population in each country. We're stretching the term "adult" here, since we see that kids graduate from the academy in their early teens, but given the number of people we see in other occupations, this seems plausible enough.

Can't agree with this assumption.

The ninja system is not the same as a normal army. In an army you get people from all over the country.

On the other hand, you only get ninja from one village. People are born in the Leaf, go to ninja school and graduate to become ninja. Now, not everyone in Konoha is a ninja, but every Leaf ninja does live in Konoha.*

The number of ninja can only be indicative of the population of ninja villages.

Applying it to the rest of the country feels like too much of a stretch.

There is also the assumption that everyone can move into a ninja village which doesn't sound right to me.

Sidenote, according to the village stats, Konoha has the highest popullation (5/5), followed by the Iwa (4/5), then Kumo (3/5), and finally the Mist (2/5) and Sand (2/5).

*Kabuto is a bit of an exception, but that's because Danzo has different hiring practices.

 

[Altered Nova]

Honestly those numbers seem pretty reasonable to me. Prosperous, peaceful nations like the Land of Fire seem to be the exception in the Narutoverse. The average country is probably more like Amegakure and Wave Country - dystopian third world hellholes ravaged by the conflicts of a few big warmongering superpowers. It's hard to build up a large population when your country is a poor feudal dictatorship constantly being plundered by invading empires and organized crime.

...My pet theory is that if you pointed at one thing and said, "that's what's fucking up their economy", it would be that all the major commercial missions in Naruto have been about fucking up infrastructure.

I think all those bridges getting blown up most do terrible things to their trade, and I can't imagine that there weren't loads of doods sent out to burn down enemy granaries, or infect foreign rice fields with engineered mosaic viruses, or other lovely acts of total war.

And it's not like there's a technological bottom limit to how far they can bomb each other back before they can't build bombs anymore; shinobi magic is a purely human resource, so even after everyone's back to stone-age savagery, they're still applying the same level of firepower to each other.

So I bet there's an underclass of dispossessed and poor people who are constantly on the edge of starving to death, because all the tools, materials, and material reserves keep getting destroyed.

You know this would actually explain their schizo tech pretty well.

Why don't they have cars? Because ninja blow up all the roads and bridges.

Why do we only see one instance of ninja using radio headsets? Because ninja blow up all the factories that build the things and now working radios are pretty rare.

Why don't the ninja have guns? Because whenever someone tries to mass produce the things their enemies turn obliterate the factories, and if someone looks like they've managed to build an effective modern style firearm they tend to meet the same fate as Uzushiogakure did.

 

[Alzrius]

Except we know AT LEAST of Tanzaku-gai, or whatever the city Tsunade is found in Part-1 was called.

It didn't appear to be much smaller than Konoha, though it was likely less dense populated

Good point. I wasn't trying to suggest that the ninja villages were the only urbanized settlements in their countries, or that the numbers were anything other than a baseline; there'd likely be other (albeit smaller) cities in each country.

It's just that with the power centers of each nation being the ninja villages, it seems more likely that they'll have the greatest urban populations (more on this below).

Personally, I feel like taking that 80k figure as the whole military, when it's the soldiers directly deployed on the battlefield, is the weakest assumption. I'd guess it's not more than 20% of the total; after all, it's not like we've seen a lot of genin hanging around on that battlefield, right?

I personally don't think so. Other than the commanders back at headquarters, it seemed like each country had their entire ninja population out on the battlefield.

I say that because, for the most part, there's no particular indicator that the genin ninjas were being held back from the fighting. While this entire thought-experiment is based on assumptions, I tried not to introduce more assumptions than were necessary to reach the end of the calculations, especially if I thought they were assumptions based on how I thought the end result should turn out (e.g. "keep the inexperienced fighters out of the fray").

I also wonder if those armies would even be as large as they were if things were limited to chunins and jounins, simply because there's likely to be less of them at any given time than genins. Due to the fairly rigorous testing they apply for advancement, and the greater potential of being killed in action, it strikes me as unlikely that there'll be a combined total of 16,000 chunins and jounins in each country against a backdrop of another 64,000 genins - though I recognize that that's somewhat tautological, since the number of ninjas in the army is how we're measuring the whole population in the first place.

Finally, it also strains the imagination to suggest that such limited resources can produce as many ninjas as you're positing here. Each country seems to have only a single village that produces new ninjas, which it does from a single academy, which seems to have standard (e.g. high school-like) class sizes and graduating populations. What we see in the manga/anime may not be representative of the whole, but it does seem to suggest that smaller numbers are more likely to be accurate.

...Actually, the DMZ is probably a really good model for the socioeconomic instability and constant decades-long border tension that's going on in the Naruto world, huh?

Probably so.

I used America as a baseline for most of my examples largely because it was the most easily-relatable. It helps that Konoha seems most like America in terms of military might - while it's numbers don't seem overwhelming, it has the strongest Bijuu, plus families with the Sharingan and Byakugan, which seem to place it above the other countries' level of military power.

That said, America isn't the best point of comparison for trying to presume the level of military activity among the populace (though, in all honesty, I'm surprised the great nations don't simply demand some degree of military service from their citizens). South Korea, as you mentioned, is a much better barometer for that sort of thing - and as you said, that's just with border tensions, rather than periods of out-and-out fighting that seem to erupt at the drop of a hat in Naruto's world.

The number of ninja can only be indicative of the population of ninja villages.

Applying it to the rest of the country feels like too much of a stretch.

There is also the assumption that everyone can move into a ninja village which doesn't sound right to me.

I disagree with you here. Sociology would seem to indicate that there'd be strong incentive to have anyone with the desire/potential to become a ninja would move to their country's ninja village. Likewise, there's little reason for them not to be accepted.

Presuming that there's a system for weeding out potential spies and saboteurs that's at least somewhat effective, each country will want to maintain a large standing army. There's little reason then to not draw on the rest of the populace when searching for possible new recruits. Why turn away potential new ninjas who are already your countrymen?

Now, one could ask why anyone would want to enter into such a dangerous line of work, and that'd be a fair question. Leaving aside that ninjas are simply more powerful than ordinary people, missions pay on commission, according to their rank. It seems to be implied (or at least I thought so) that the higher missions pay considerable sums upon completion, due to their danger component (e.g. hazard pay). So someone from a poor background might be inclined to take a chance (sending their kid to start) learning how to be a ninja, essentially gambling their life on getting rich and elevating themselves and their family out of poverty.

 

[Altered Nova]

Even if the villages were holding back their genin I don't think that would affect the overall size of the ninja population much because I doubt the villages have significant numbers of genin.

Ninja villages are for profit businesses, and genin are not profitable. They cannot run missions outside of their village without supervision and the D-rank missions they perform must be subsidized by the villages for training purposes because very few people could afford to hire ninja to perform their household chores. (I've done the conversions from Naruto's Ryo to yen to USD before, the minimum fee for a D-rank is about $500 USD.) Genin is almost certainly viewed by the villages as a temporary training rank only meant to be used to give newly graduated ninja a chance to gain some experience and on-the-job training before being allowed to risk their lives doing dangerous missions. Ninja who do not make a promotion eventually are likely pressured to retire from active duty and become reserves or to take non-combat positions such as clerks, researchers, medics, etc.

So the bulk of the ninja armies are most likely made up of Chuunin.

Finally, it also strains the imagination to suggest that such limited resources can produce as many ninjas as you're positing here. Each country seems to have only a single village that produces new ninjas, which it does from a single academy, which seems to have standard (e.g. high school-like) class sizes and graduating populations.

Actually Konoha at least also accepted ninja who were trained in that orphanage, so it's not true that *all* ninja come from a single academy. We also know the monks do perform some military service as one of them was formerly a bodyguard for the Fire Daimyo.

Also I don't think an academy that graduates 27 ninja a year could possibly account for even the 16,000 ninja you calculated. (especially when you consider that Konoha lost literally half their shinobi forces in the Chuunin Exam invasion so they used to have significantly more ninja than that.) I know Konoha had been experiencing a lot stretch of peace at the beginning of the manga but surely they were still losing many more ninja than that to missing-nin, border skirmishes, sickness and retirement each year? Konoha at least must have more than one academy.

Presuming that there's a system for weeding out potential spies and saboteurs that's at least somewhat effective, each country will want to maintain a large standing army. There's little reason then to not draw on the rest of the populace when searching for possible new recruits. Why turn away potential new ninjas who are already your countrymen?

Well there's the fact that most civilian born ninja will never be very strong. The best ninja all come from long-standing ninja clans who have awesome secret jutsu and presumably have better genetics (we know chakra usage is hereditary, and that's before mentioning kekkei genkai.)

Also the villages might not be able to afford to train everyone who would want to join up. The nations don't pay to maintain large standing armies, the villages are mercenary organizations who have to pay their own upkeep by performing missions for clients. So there's little point in training more ninja than they need to keep up with mission demand, as idle ninja are just a drain on their revenue. So they can afford to be picky about who they recruit and only train up those they think will be the strongest and most profitable ninja. Which means they'll mostly be recruiting from ninja clans and former samurai, not civilians.

 

[Alzrius]

Even if the villages were holding back their genin I don't think that would affect the overall size of the ninja population much because I doubt the villages have significant numbers of genin.

Ninja villages are for profit businesses, and genin are not profitable. They cannot run missions outside of their village without supervision and the D-rank missions they perform must be subsidized by the villages for training purposes because very few people could afford to hire ninja to perform their household chores. (I've done the conversions from Naruto's Ryo to yen to USD before, the minimum fee for a D-rank is about $500 USD.)

I disagree with you here; I think that genin are the most populous rank of ninjas in any particular village, due to a combination of attrition (e.g. killed in action) and the discriminating nature of the advancement exams.

You posit that ninja villages are for-profit enterprises; I don't disagree with that per se, but I think that they're also subsidized on a national level. Given that the kage position seems to be part of the national government (being appointed by the feudal lord, who is a country's chief executive), and that - as you plausibly noted - genin are not cost-effective in terms of how much they're paid, I think that the budget for running ninja villages is nationally underwritten (and ultimately paid via taxes), which then has for-profit missions used as an additional method of funding.

This would certainly explain why some missions are taken without a private contract (e.g. going on a mission to retrieve a dangerous criminal - that's not bounty-hunting, but the ninjas who do it are still paid at the end of the day).

Genin is almost certainly viewed by the villages as a temporary training rank only meant to be used to give newly graduated ninja a chance to gain some experience and on-the-job training before being allowed to risk their lives doing dangerous missions. Ninja who do not make a promotion eventually are likely pressured to retire from active duty and become reserves or to take non-combat positions such as clerks, researchers, medics, etc.

So the bulk of the ninja armies are most likely made up of Chuunin.

As I mentioned above, I disagree with this, based largely on the advancement exam for chuunin status.

Simply put, if being a genin was as you posit above, then advancing to chuunin would largely be a rubber stamp, probably based on little more than their captain's assertion that they were ready for that status.

The problem is that this isn't what we're shown in the series. The chuunin exams are highly discriminating - there are multiple tests, death is a real possibility, and at the end you're evaluated by a group of higher-ranking ninjas on your suitability as a potential chuunin. It is, in short, not an easy rank to attain.

If genin were an economic drain on running a ninja village - without any sort of method by which they could be financed (e.g. nationalized pay, as I mentioned above) - then it wouldn't make fiscal sense for chuunin being so difficult to attain, even if it was sound training policy. That would end up bankrupting the village in comparatively short order.

Actually Konoha at least also accepted ninja who were trained in that orphanage, so it's not true that *all* ninja come from a single academy. We also know the monks do perform some military service as one of them was formerly a bodyguard for the Fire Daimyo.

I'm not sure I remember any orphanage. Likewise, I can see there being private security or other minor combat-related vocations, but they don't seem to be any sort of major player on the international scale.

Also I don't think an academy that graduates 27 ninja a year could possibly account for even the 16,000 ninja you calculated. (especially when you consider that Konoha lost literally half their shinobi forces in the Chuunin Exam invasion so they used to have significantly more ninja than that.) I know Konoha had been experiencing a lot stretch of peace at the beginning of the manga but surely they were still losing many more ninja than that to missing-nin, border skirmishes, sickness and retirement each year? Konoha at least must have more than one academy.

You're referencing some figures that I don't have, insofar as "half" of Konoha's forces being lost in the invasion, and the Academy only graduating twenty-seven students per year.

My take on the latter figure is that this is just one particular group out of the entire class. I compared the Academy to high school, and that's for a good reason. If your typical high school turns out, say, four hundred students a year, then you'll have a force of 16,000 in forty years, which is a long time but - as you noted - there'd already been a period of stability for a while.

Now, that still doesn't help with attrition rates, but it certainly makes the numbers a lot more flexible in terms of what the overall rates are likely to be.

Well there's the fact that most civilian born ninja will never be very strong. The best ninja all come from long-standing ninja clans who have awesome secret jutsu and presumably have better genetics (we know chakra usage is hereditary, and that's before mentioning kekkei genkai.)

I think that you're overstating this; while coming from a prestigious ninja family will grant access to special techniques above and beyond what a ninja will learn in the Academy or in the field, the actual level of strength, per se, won't vary that much. Chakra is physical, after all, and how much of it you have is largely based on your biology, which among humans has little overall variance.

Also the villages might not be able to afford to train everyone who would want to join up. The nations don't pay to maintain large standing armies, the villages are mercenary organizations who have to pay their own upkeep by performing missions for clients. So there's little point in training more ninja than they need to keep up with mission demand, as idle ninja are just a drain on their revenue. So they can afford to be picky about who they recruit and only train up those they think will be the strongest and most profitable ninja. Which means they'll mostly be recruiting from ninja clans and former samurai, not civilians.

I think this is exactly why ninjas must be underwritten by the national government, simply because they can't afford to have situations like this become the norm. While Ino may help at her father's flower shop, most ninjas don't seem to have day-jobs that they hold down waiting for the next job to come in; ergo, they have to be receiving some sort of salary just for being in what is essentially the national army, albeit probably a small amount that's supplemented with commissions for specific missions undertaken.

 

[Altered Nova]

Simply put, if being a genin was as you posit above, then advancing to chuunin would largely be a rubber stamp, probably based on little more than their captain's assertion that they were ready for that status.

~

If genin were an economic drain on running a ninja village - without any sort of method by which they could be financed (e.g. nationalized pay, as I mentioned above) - then it wouldn't make fiscal sense for chuunin being so difficult to attain, even if it was sound training policy. That would end up bankrupting the village in comparatively short order.

But making Chuunin rank easy to attain makes even less financial sense. That just means the village will have large numbers of barely competent ninja. They'll fail more missions and their clients will leave for other villages with better standards. That's why I posited that the villages simply force any genin who can't make that gruellingly difficult promotion to retire or take non-combat positions, so they can have their elite chuunin and also not have to keep large numbers of genin around draining their revenue.

Basically I think the villages value quality over quantity. They would rather just cut loose any ninja that can't make the standards of chuunin. Yes this means the village spends a lot of time and money training large numbers of people only to toss them aside after graduating, but that's just unavoidable business costs. There is no foolproof training method that can produce chuunin quality ninja 100% of the time, and keeping the failures around will just cost the village more and more money.

Maybe after a huge disaster that devastates their manpower like the Chuunin exam invasion they'll pull some of those failure genin out of the reserves and put them back into active duty, but barring that I think the villages only have relatively few genin at any given time.

I'm not sure I remember any orphanage.

The orphanage Kabuto was raised at. He and his adopted brother Urushi both became Konoha ninja and neither of them ever attended the Konoha academy. So Konoha will accept ninja who weren't trained in the village itself, presumably after passing some kind of competency test and a background check.

You're referencing some figures that I don't have, insofar as "half" of Konoha's forces being lost in the invasion, and the Academy only graduating twenty-seven students per year.

Here, Iruka explains that Konoha lost nearly half their ninja forces.

And the 27 students per year is Naruto's graduating class. So far as I can tell, the academy only has one class per grade. The only Konoha genin we ever meet who weren't in Naruto's class were in a higher grade and graduated a year before he did.

Actually I was browsing the manga for evidence and just found this academy report card. Which seems to imply that there are three grades in the academy, one class in each grade of thirty students, and only ninety students in the entire academy. So I suppose there must be other academies in the Fire Nation training ninja, cause otherwise they would not be able to keep up their numbers for long.

I think that you're overstating this; while coming from a prestigious ninja family will grant access to special techniques above and beyond what a ninja will learn in the Academy or in the field, the actual level of strength, per se, won't vary that much. Chakra is physical, after all, and how much of it you have is largely based on your biology, which among humans has little overall variance.

Among humans in the real world it has little variance, but in the Narutoverse it's a different story. Things like chakra capacity, elemental affinities and kekkei genkai are all hereditary. People from long standing ninja clans simply have superior chakra to civilians, that's how we get situations like Naruto having twice the chakra of Kakashi despite being half his age and having a fraction of his training and experience, because Naruto is a member of a ninja clan famous for their powerful life forces. Likewise Sasuke can master elemental training in days when it takes a normal ninja 6 months to do so, and have chuunin level chakra reserves as an academy graduate, because he is an Uchiha and they have crazy powerful chakra.

Normal people can still become powerful ninja through training, Gai and Lee are testament to that, but clan ninja have huge natural advantages over civilian born ninja.

I think this is exactly why ninjas must be underwritten by the national government, simply because they can't afford to have situations like this become the norm. While Ino may help at her father's flower shop, most ninjas don't seem to have day-jobs that they hold down waiting for the next job to come in; ergo, they have to be receiving some sort of salary just for being in what is essentially the national army, albeit probably a small amount that's supplemented with commissions for specific missions undertaken.

Not necessarily. Ninja don't have day jobs because they don't need them. Ninja missions pay a lot of money. The village doesn't have to be underwritten by the national government to afford for ninja sitting around between missions, those ninja themselves are expected to earn enough from their missions to pay for their own downtime.

 

[Alzrius]

But making Chuunin rank easy to attain makes even less financial sense. That just means the village will have large numbers of barely competent ninja. They'll fail more missions and their clients will leave for other villages with better standards. That's why I posited that the villages simply force any genin who can't make that gruellingly difficult promotion to retire or take non-combat positions, so they can have their elite chuunin and also not have to keep large numbers of genin around draining their revenue.

I don't find that to be likely, simply because it presumes that most private patrons will have the option of recruiting ninjas from other villages. Simply put, that doesn't strike me as being plausible. If you live in the Fire Country, paying ninjas from another country to do something for you is likely to be viewed as treasonous - you're essentially sending money to your country's enemies, not to mention the awkward fact that you'll probably be asking them to perform local functions when they're probably persona non grata in your country to begin with.

Itinerant customers might do this, simply because it'd be logistically awkward to have to hire a different set of ninjas every time you cross a border, but for the most part this probably isn't an option most people have. There's no competition between villages (presuming one village per nation) for customers, because the customers are a captive market - there's no competition there (save for between individual ninja teams).

Ergo, it would make more sense, under your paradigm, for the chuunin exams to be little more than a pro forma affair, rather than the gruelling competition that they actually are. Since that's not the case, I posit that there must be far more genin than chuunin (and, in turn, more chuunin than jounin).

Basically I think the villages value quality over quantity. They would rather just cut loose any ninja that can't make the standards of chuunin. Yes this means the village spends a lot of time and money training large numbers of people only to toss them aside after graduating, but that's just unavoidable business costs. There is no foolproof training method that can produce chuunin quality ninja 100% of the time, and keeping the failures around will just cost the village more and more money.

Maybe after a huge disaster that devastates their manpower like the Chuunin exam invasion they'll pull some of those failure genin out of the reserves and put them back into active duty, but barring that I think the villages only have relatively few genin at any given time.

I think the villages value both quantity and quality, which is why they probably don't cut loose genin that don't seem to have much potential. Remember, Kabuto's initial disguise as a Konoha ninja (when we first meet him) is that he's failed the chuunin exam several times now; no one finds that implausible.

Genin are most likely, to my mind, the vast bulk of the ninja forces in each country; only a few pass each time, and the majority likely spend quite a few years at that level before either advancing, dying, or somehow being rendered unable to actively serve.

The orphanage Kabuto was raised at. He and his adopted brother Urushi both became Konoha ninja and neither of them ever attended the Konoha academy. So Konoha will accept ninja who weren't trained in the village itself, presumably after passing some kind of competency test and a background check.

That...doesn't strike me as a very credible example. Root (or Foundation, or whatever the heck it's called) is essentially a black ops organization, and seems almost dangerously subversive at times. I wouldn't hold them up as being representative of anything except Danzo's ambitions.

Here, Iruka explains that Konoha lost nearly half their ninja forces.

And the 27 students per year is Naruto's graduating class. So far as I can tell, the academy only has one class per grade. The only Konoha genin we ever meet who weren't in Naruto's class were in a higher grade and graduated a year before he did.

Actually I was browsing the manga for evidence and just found this academy report card. Which seems to imply that there are three grades in the academy, one class in each grade of thirty students, and only ninety students in the entire academy. So I suppose there must be other academies in the Fire Nation training ninja, cause otherwise they would not be able to keep up their numbers for long.

Hm, that is pretty hard to argue against (though I thought that the last column on Sasuke's report card was to hold him up against everyone in his year, not in the entire school - that'd make more sense, at the very least).

Among humans in the real world it has little variance, but in the Narutoverse it's a different story. Things like chakra capacity, elemental affinities and kekkei genkai are all hereditary. People from long standing ninja clans simply have superior chakra to civilians, that's how we get situations like Naruto having twice the chakra of Kakashi despite being half his age and having a fraction of his training and experience, because Naruto is a member of a ninja clan famous for their powerful life forces. Likewise Sasuke can master elemental training in days when it takes a normal ninja 6 months to do so, and have chuunin level chakra reserves as an academy graduate, because he is an Uchiha and they have crazy powerful chakra.

Normal people can still become powerful ninja through training, Gai and Lee are testament to that, but clan ninja have huge natural advantages over civilian born ninja.

Again, I think that you're holding up some of the notable exceptions as being normative standards, though I will grant that the fact that such exceptions exist in the first place does show that there's a larger grain of truth to what you're saying.

That said, the Uzumaki/Senjuu and Uchiha clans are both noted as beign exceptional. Most other ninjas are fairly standard in what they can achieve, regardless of their circumstances of their birth (kekkei genkai notwithstanding).

Not necessarily. Ninja don't have day jobs because they don't need them. Ninja missions pay a lot of money. The village doesn't have to be underwritten by the national government to afford for ninja sitting around between missions, those ninja themselves are expected to earn enough from their missions to pay for their own downtime.

I meant to ask before if you could elaborate on how you determined the pay for a D-rank mission. That sounds interesting (though I disagree on the issue of pay; a group of workers who are part of the national armed forces and yet are paid by private work-for-hire commissions still strikes me as being a contradiction in terms).

 

[TC_Hazard]

I disagree with you here. Sociology would seem to indicate that there'd be strong incentive to have anyone with the desire/potential to become a ninja would move to their country's ninja village. Likewise, there's little reason for them not to be accepted.

Can't see it. You are looking at things from a normal army point of view. As opposed to a society that likes to keep its secrets secret. Badass ninja techniques included.

Ninja are the select few.

Ninja villages were formed from ninja clans teaming up together less than a 100 years ago in the first place. Even Sakura has ninja parents as revealed by Kishimoto in Road To Ninja.

You don't go and become a ninja. You're born into it and you're taught from a really young age.

Daimyo are even noted to be reducing the number of ninja after the Third Ninja War.

Basically, it makes no sense to assume ninja are the biggest population centers in any given country, especially since we have seen normal cities and towns in the Naruto-verse.

Edit: There's also the orphanage Kabuto is from but that proves my point. It's an orphanage run by Konoha.

The kids raised there were all orphans. No family ties. No bonds with anyone other than Konoha people.

They are the new blood Konoha takes in.

 

[Alzrius]

Can't see it. You are looking at things from a normal army point of view. As opposed to a society that likes to keep its secrets secret. Badass ninja techniques included.

I really don't agree here. There's nothing secret about the ninja's in Naruto's world - they operate openly, and use big, flashy techniques without concern for who sees them. Their secrets are in learning those techniques, but that's not a concern with using them right in front of your enemy.

Ninja are the select few.

...of 16,000 or more per country.

Ninja villages were formed from ninja clans teaming up together less than a 100 years ago in the first place. Even Sakura has ninja parents as revealed by Kishimoto in Road To Ninja.

You don't go and become a ninja. You're born into it and you're taught from a really young age.

Except it's self-evident that you're not born into it, since we see that they have a standardized learning curriculum for ninas-in-training that mimics the normal progression of scholastic learning.

Daimyo are even noted to be reducing the number of ninja after the Third Ninja War.

I suspect that this is something that's done on paper more than in actuality, since other than a throw-away reference, we don't really see anything with regard to this.

Basically, it makes no sense to assume ninja are the biggest population centers in any given country, especially since we have seen normal cities and towns in the Naruto-verse.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ninjas are population centers." If you mean that the largest villages in each country are the ones where ninja training seems to have been centralized, then again, that's what we're shown in the series. All other locations are presented as being largely provincial by comparison.

Edit: There's also the orphanage Kabuto is from but that proves my point. It's an orphanage run by Konoha.

The kids raised there were all orphans. No family ties. No bonds with anyone other than Konoha people.

They are the new blood Konoha takes in.

I'm not sure what point you think this proves. There are state-run orphanages in the real world too...so? The fact that a shadowy black ops organization recruits a few kids from there on the sly is indicative of...what exactly?

 

[Knyght]

Urushi, the other kid from the orphanage who became Konoha ninja, has no ties to Root.

 

[Alzrius]

Urushi, the other kid from the orphanage who became Konoha ninja, has no ties to Root.

Ah, fair point. But doesn't that poke holes in the idea that ninjas are from families of ninjas rather than being something anyone can be trained in?

Also, is there anything to suggest that he wasn't trained at the Konoha Academy? Given that we never see any other Academy in the Fire Country, then (issues of class sizes aside) isn't that a more reasonable assumption?

 

[TC_Hazard]

I really don't agree here. There's nothing secret about the ninja's in Naruto's world - they operate openly, and use big, flashy techniques without concern for who sees them. Their secrets are in learning those techniques, but that's not a concern with using them right in front of your enemy.

Yeah, because we see things from the ninja point of view.

Ninja by large keep their techniques secret. There is a reason why Neji is surprised the first time he sees Shino.

...of 16,000 or more per country.

Exactly.

Except thait's self-evident that you're not born into it, since we see that they have a standardized learning curriculum for ninas-in-training that mimics the normal progression of scholastic learning.

Name one Konoha ninja we know for sure has civilian parents that wasn't raised in an orphanage ran by Konoha.

I suspect that this is something that's done on paper more than in actuality, since other than a throw-away reference, we don't really see anything with regard to this.

Kishimoto has given us stats of military strength. Kumo is the only one with 5/5 as it's noted they haven't been disarming. The Sand meanwhile has a measly 2/5.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ninjas are population centers." If you mean that the largest villages in each country are the ones where ninja training seems to have been centralized, then again, that's what we're shown in the series. All other locations are presented as being largely provincial by comparison.

Eh, we have seen cities. With buildings.

This is not provincial:
http://i.imgur.com/0limX0q.jpg

Those are buildings. More than one.

Then there's the town where Jiraya and Naruto meet Itachi. Sasuke complains about the number of buildings:
http://i.imgur.com/Kig8qZR.jpg

And a random hotel there has walls of reinforced concrete.

Then we have the outside view and see quite a few buildings:
http://i.imgur.com/YdgalZ0.jpg

Then there's the random town they go to on their way to look for Tsunade:
http://i.imgur.com/zYn0mo2.png
http://i.imgur.com/FZ5jHqj.png

Not the biggest thing ever, but still a fair number of buildings and people. And again, random town.

Then there's the place where they finally find Tsunade in, which in addition to having a nice castle is not really small:
http://i.imgur.com/eNJbTYa.png

They are not completely modern cities, but they are also not little towns in the middle of nowhere like in the Wave.

I'm not sure what point you think this proves. There are state-run orphanages in the real world too...so? The fact that a shadowy black ops organization recruits a few kids from there on the sly is indicative of...what exactly?

Eh, kinght ninja'ed me on this, but Kabuto's brother became a regular Konoha ninja.

The orphanage is where Konoha gets its new ninja not from people who just decide to move in.

You don't choose to move in a ninja village. Konoha chooses.

Also, there is a difference between state-run and Konoha run.

 

[Alzrius]

Yeah, because we see things from the ninja point of view.

Ninja by large keep their techniques secret. There is a reason why Neji is surprised the first time he sees Shino.

They keep how their techniques are taught secret; the techniques themselves are bright, flashy, and oftentimes well-known. While they do have some covert missions and capabilities, ninjas and their techniques are not at all secret, in terms of what the general populace knows about them.

Exactly.

Precisely. Much more than a few.

Name one Konoha ninja we know for sure has civilian parents that wasn't raised in an orphanage ran by Konoha.

Throwing in the "raised in an orphanage" clause sort of undermines the point you're trying to make.

Saying that the few ninjas we see all have at least one parent who is a ninja doesn't, unto itself, prove anything. Even if we discounted the small sample size, it's still too weak a premise to support such a strong conclusion.

[TC_Hazard]Kishimoto has given us stats of military strength. Kumo is the only one with 5/5 as it's noted they haven't been disarming. The Sand meanwhile has a measly 2/5.[/quote]

Military strength is not the same thing as the size of your fighting force.

Eh, we have seen cities. With buildings.

This is not provincial:
http://i.imgur.com/0limX0q.jpg

Those are buildings. More than one.

Then there's the town where Jiraya and Naruto meet Itachi. Sasuke complains about the number of buildings:
http://i.imgur.com/Kig8qZR.jpg

And a random hotel there has walls of reinforced concrete.

Then we have the outside view and see quite a few buildings:
http://i.imgur.com/YdgalZ0.jpg

Then there's the random town they go to on their way to look for Tsunade:
http://i.imgur.com/zYn0mo2.png
http://i.imgur.com/FZ5jHqj.png

Not the biggest thing ever, but still a fair number of buildings and people. And again, random town.

Then there's the place where they finally find Tsunade in, which in addition to having a nice castle is not really small:
http://i.imgur.com/eNJbTYa.png

They are not completely modern cities, but they are also not little towns in the middle of nowhere like in the Wave.

I think that you're reading more into these pictures than they actually show. Most have a crowd of a what looks like a couple hundred people at most, and several buildings with a couple of stories clustered together.

Now, obviously the crowd in those shots isn't representative of the entire population, but at the same time it isn't suggestive of a considerable population either. A market square at mid-day, for example, is going to look densely packed as a general rule.

The three- and four-story buildings seem suggestive of a greater urban area, which is itself suggestive of a larger population, but that's still not very convincing. Plenty of small towns in contemporary (Western) countries have multi-story buildings at their center. Throw in the fact that most of these towns seem to have walls, which encourage denser concentrations of people, and I think there's a plausible way to say that these are relatively tiny villages that look more populous than they are.

Eh, kinght ninja'ed me on this,

I see what you did there.

but Kabuto's brother became a regular Konoha ninja.

The orphanage is where Konoha gets its new ninja not from people who just decide to move in.

You're dichotomizing the two options for no reason that I can see. Is there any reason to discount the idea that Urushi went to the Konoha Academy, instead of postulating that he must have followed some sort of alternate route?

You don't choose to move in a ninja village. Konoha chooses.

Beyond your assumption that Urushi's being a ninja proves this - which I don't think follows - I don't see anything to suggest this.

Also, there is a difference between state-run and Konoha run.

The difference seems largely semantic. The series tends to blend the national interests with the interests of the ninja village.

 

[TC_Hazard]

snip

Yeah, this is the point where I can see we're not going to see eye to eye at all.

 

[Alzrius]

snip

Yeah, this is the point where I can see we're not going to see eye to eye at all.

I was under the impression that the point was to have a lively (and civil) debate, not to necessarily come to a consensus.

 

[TC_Hazard]

snip

Yeah, this is the point where I can see we're not going to see eye to eye at all.

I was under the impression that the point was to have a lively (and civil) debate, not to necessarily come to a consensus.

You're so new to the internet.

 

[Alzrius]

snip

Yeah, this is the point where I can see we're not going to see eye to eye at all.

I was under the impression that the point was to have a lively (and civil) debate, not to necessarily come to a consensus.

You're so new to the internet.

Not really, since I've been a member of this forum longer than you have. I just prefer to hold to a higher standard, rather than a lower one.

 

[TC_Hazard]

Meh, it's no fun if you answer a joke seriously.

Well, it could be but that wasn't.

Serious answer? For a calm civil debate there must be some form of overlap point were both sides can say "Yeah, I can see how you're right here" and what not.

So if I give you evidence and all I get from you is no, there is no point in talking. All we have is "I don't agree with that" followed by more "I don't agree with that."

That's not really a debate.

 

[Alzrius]

Meh, it's no fun if you answer a joke seriously.

Well, it could be but that wasn't.

I disagree. ^_^

Serious answer? For a calm civil debate there must be some form of overlap point were both sides can say "Yeah, I can see how you're right here" and what not.

I agree with that, and I've said as much more than once throughout this thread; I just don't agree with the points you raised.

So if I give you evidence and all I get from you is no, there is no point in talking. All we have is "I don't agree with that" followed by more "I don't agree with that."

That's not really a debate.

That's a very disingenuous way of describing the conversation up to now. You've made some points, and I've stated my reasoning regarding why I don't agree with them. Yes, if someone simply says that they have a different interpretation and then doesn't say what it is, there's no debate, but I've explained my stance on each and every issue that you've raised.

 

[sinewyk]