Hi, I'm Gigguk and this is every frame of-
NARUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
SASUKEEE
So in my previous video where I picked out and broke down a few examples of brilliant fights in anime,
a number of you commented,
and I'm sure many more of you thought
that I only picked the Naruto fight simply because of the sponsor of that video.
A-a-and, you know, that kinda hurt my feelings
implying that you'd think I'd have my opinions swayed just because someone was paying me for it.
Which is exactly why you can watch...
I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
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Now plenty of examples were suggested of fights that carry more emotional weights behind them,
and while I agree most of the fights end up being more emotional thanks to a better plot buildup,
I feel like Naruto has some fights that execute storytelling even better in their scenes alone.
So let me explain to you why, on a technical level,
Naruto has, at least, two examples of some of the best storytelling to ever come out of an anime fight.
No, this is not fucking satire.
*sped up version of Naruto OP 4 plays*
But yes they also have some very shit fights.
Now I mainly talked about the Naruto-Sasuke fight in the video
but the one fight that almost took that spot
was Kakashi and Obito's fight that came before.
Which does some aspects even better than the latter fight
but just missed out as it was shorter and wasn't as complete a story.
You may be thinking,
"Well, who fucking cares how well a fight tells a story?
It's just two peeps beating the shit out of each other.
Can't you just appreciate a fight for that?"
Well, what I have to say to that is uhh...
even if you don't realize it...
Every fight has a reason and emotions behind it.
Even if, in most cases, it's just a very simple story like,
Sasuke: "Ahh mate you're starting mate, mate you're starting.
Naruto: "Hey mate you starting, you're starting."
Sasuke: "Mate, I'll fuck you up mate."
Naruto: "Mate I'll fuck you up like I fucked your mum."
Sasuke: "Oi my mum's not a slag, your mum's a slag."
Naruto: "Oi don't say that about my mum mate!"
Naruto and Sasuke: "Mate, mate (u wot) mate, mate, mate mate."
"MATE."
And these two fights, the story is very similar.
Two old friends fighting each other to defend their ideals,
and it just so happens that their beliefs are so strong
that they are willing to fight to the death for it.
And the way they portray this story with minimal dialogue
is what sets them apart from most other anime fights.
To illustrate what I'm talking about,
let me take an example off another fight that I really love
Ryuko versus Satsuki's first duel in Kill la Kill.
Now just from these scenes alone,
see how much you can tell about the story, the emotions
and the thoughts of the characters, where the fighters are even talking to each other:
as opposed to this scene done without any dialogue:
Okay you may think I'm being a little unfair to use a fight
whose main selling point is the spectacle,
and don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this fight
but in terms of being able to portray the story behind a fight,
the characters' thoughts and emotions,
I feel that the latter fight has a much greater impact
even though there's no dialogue, it's much quieter and that it's
from FUCKING NARUTO.
The way the fight juxtaposes the two fighters' current and younger selves
among this beautifully choreographed exchange
gives us a better sense going on along with their history.
These are two fighters communicating purely through their fists
and we know what they are saying without them actually saying anything.
And to cap it off,
look at how they show us how Obito rejected the ideals of his former, younger self to get to where he is now.
This... goes beyond just being a brilliant fight.
This is brilliant visual storytelling and the Naruto-Sasuke fight borrows a lot of the same beats from this
as it does well to show the communication two people can have with their fists
as opposed to their words.
By this point in the series,
the final epic "save the world" battle has already been done and dusted,
and there is nothing really at stake here
except for their own ideologies.
In the larger picture,
this fight is actually far less important but at the same time
that's why it works as a story as the entire purpose
of this fight is to bring closure to both their character arcs.
And that's exactly how it plays out.
The start of the fight unfolds with a complete lack of music to help emphasize
that this brawl is about these two guys communicating with each other
and not the larger plot.
By this point they both have such a deep understanding of how each other thinks and feels
that there is no longer any need for words.
I briefly mentioned this on my other video,
but we are even subtly shown how much they understand each other in the fight.
Throughout the whole series, we see how reliant Naruto is on his Shadow Clone jutsu.
Like he is that one cunt playing a fighting game
who only knows that one OP move and keeps spamming it to victory.
So with that in mind,
look how Naruto almost immediately resorts to trying get off the Shadow Clone hand sign.
and how Sasuke is very aware
and consciously reacts and stops him from doing so.
*nope*
*nope2*
*nope3*
*nope4*
Naruto tries this a whole 4 times before succeeding.
And I'm betting a bunch of you wouldn't have even noticed this on your first viewing
as it's not really something that's really highlighted.
But it's subtle details like this that shows
that a lot of thought has been put into character actions in this fight.
The middle of the fight is a flashy extension
showing how far both guys have come since childhood.
And that, despite all this time,
their relationship has not changed that much.
They have just found bigger and more powerful ways to
bicker with one another about their beliefs.
But the message can't get any purer
as when the fights just divulges into the fistfight.
As I said, it's incredibly intense
and chock-full of emotion
and it's the direction that makes it feel so gritty and real:
teeth are knocked out,
blood is fucking spilled everywhere.
Fuck man, this fight is so raw that
just add some crowd noises,
make it a vertical shot and...
it's now become a WORLDSTAR video.
*crowd noises*
All this leads up to one of my favorite shots of the entire franchise.
This one and a half minute long, unbroken shot
just slowly panning in closer to the two of them
still brawling out 'til sundown with hardly any enough energy left to throw a punch.
You don't need words to describe how both of them feel
both physically and mentally.
And the long shot just emphasizes the fatigue
as it feels just exhausting watching it.
But while the fight does great to portray these emotions and story,
the reason I picked it over Kakashi versus Obito
is that it does well to end stories too.
Firstly check out this beautiful little moment between Naruto and Kurama
that really came outta nowhere.
This little fist bump that you saw
manages to conclude the character arc between these two characters perfectly.
As we've seen throughout the series
Kurama transforms from this terrifying beast that would've ripped Naruto apart
to a grouchy old fox
to just full fucking tsundere by the end
I mean screw Naruto/Hinata, Naruto/Sakura
or even Naruto/Sasuke (how dare you Gigguk)
this is the real fucking ship of the series.
Kurama: "I'm the one who's been inside you this entire time."
Naruto: "Oohh oh god please stop saying it like that."
This fist bump manages to encapsulate
how their relationship has evolved over time
with just such a simple, beautiful action.
And the best part is
this amazing little moment wasn't even in the manga.
It's entirely an anime only moment that
manages to build on what we know about the characters.
This all builds up to the ending of the fight
as while it might just seem like a normal clichéd final clash to end the fight,
this one contains so much more than that.
Aside from the obvious "scroll through their characters through the ages",
we see the hands of different people helping power their attacks
with Naruto starting off with Jiraiya
and then everyone else close to him
and from Sasuke we see the slight glimpse of a hand
which is probably his brother's.
And this subtle detail perfectly encapsulates what both characters are about.
Naruto's driving force throughout the entire series has been
the desire to be accepted by everyone
and now that he's achieved it,
that's what he's fighting for while for Sasuke,
though he'd like to think that he's doing this all for himself,
has been driven by his brother's experience.
This final clash doesn't just symbolize the end of the fight
but it perfectly caps off the journey both characters have taken to get to this point
and the conflict of ideology which this fight was all about.
Again, this is beyond just a brilliant fight,
this is brilliant visual storytelling,
and these two fights showcase some of the best examples of
something Naruto is quite universally famous for not doing:
Subtlety.
It's not what the scenes tells us that makes them so good,
but what it lets us discern for ourselves.
And what I find amazing is how they manage to sum up so many emotions,
so many thoughts and even finish up character arcs
with minimal dialogue exchange between the characters.
This takes me to the biggest thing holding back these fights,
which aren't even the fight themselves,
but the buildup to the fights.
See despite everything I've said, I'm sure the majority of you
will still regard your favorite Naruto fights to be either Rock Lee versus Gaara
or even the first Naruto-Sasuke fight.
And widely so, as a simple reason to that is
because we are more emotionally attached to those fights.
The problem with these ones is that the plot and character arcs
building up to these events were so badly done
that by the time the fights happened,
the majority of us had already given up on the series, or just dropped it entirely.
Obito turned out to be just a rather disposable villain, all things said and done,
and Sasuke's character arc was HORRIBLE.
His journey, thorughout the series, was all over the fucking place
and I'd be doubtful to find many people who genuinely think
that Sasuke wasn't a laughably bad planned out character.
It's the motivation of these characters that are questionable,
rather than the fights themselves.
We are less invested in these fights than we ever were
with our favorite fights in other anime series
or even previous Naruto fights,
despite how brilliantly executed these are.
A great example of how important it is to have a proper buildup to fights
is in One Piece.
See, on a technical level,
a lot of One Piece fights don't look that impressive
compared to some of its Shonen competitors
but it's a master-class for getting us to truly care about what is happening
which is why they feel so epic.
The fights themselves are just an extension of the emotion
and the story that have been built up.
And it does it so well that
it can make us genuinely invested and care about characters
that look like this,
LIKE
THIS.
Which is why, even though these are two fights that have
some of the best examples of storytelling,
they've been largely overlooked by the greater anime community,
despite only being executed so damn impressively.
In fact, I'd go so far to say that
had the characters been built up better and the audience were more emotionally attached,
these would definitely go down as some of the greatest fights in anime history
because, god damn
these are brilliantly directed scenes in general
regardless of it being a fight or not.
And that's the other reason I wanted to make this video.
I feel like Shonen anime can get a bum rep, simply because it's Shonen
and, you know, sometimes it's understandable
as the community can be toxic, there's a lot of crap
and these are only two great scenes in
OH GOD MAYBE DYING OF OLD AGE WOULD BE A FASTER WAY OUT.
But that doesn't mean that Shonen can't have equally brilliantly directed sequences
that deserve praise as much as any other mature, multi-layered anime.
Behind all the screaming 14 year-olds,
there can actually be merit behind some of these moments
containing your favorite edgelord characters.
Just leave to secret Shonen tards like me
to wait through the hundreds of episodes so I can find that moment where I can go:
"See guys?
Punching people in the face can be arc too!"
Hey guys if you enjoyed this video,
then be sure to check out my previous "Fight" video
where I talk about a bunch of other great anime fights as well.
Also if you'd like to see more content from me,
then you can consider supporting me on Patreon.
Also you may have now heard that YouTube favors content that gets more likes so
PLEASE LIKE THE VIDEO HAHA
I'm kidding you just like it if you like the video
I-I don't care.
Anyways that's it from me,
I've been Gigguk and I'll see you all next time.