afflatus's Blog

Anime Relations: Naruto

Picture an eight years child who are hated and avoided by the people and even the children for no knowing reason. Developing a hyperactive character is so common in children who seem to lack the needed attention in early life; Naruto seems to be no different. He is a mischief child who tries to draw attention of the people in his village.
It is easy to hate where you are being hated But rather than hating the people who looked at Naruto with gaze filled by hatred and fear, Naruto decides to prove himself worthy of people’s respect. He decided to climb up the stairs up to the highest warrior known to people in Ninja world, Hokage.
In the beginning of the story, Naruto for the first time finds out the reason behind his loneliness is that the 4th hokage sealed a monster inside of him when he was only an infant. The Nine Taled Fox is the monster that attacked his village and killed so many before got sealed inside Naruto and the memory of that tragedy led to the hatred and fear toward the one who might someday loose the control and captured by the monster within.
Naruto has a long journey ahead of himself to master the monster within and earn the trust of the others. Years of loneliness made him understand the value of every single bond that he makes in his way. He is living in the Ninja world were money and power are the highest value and yet he breaks the ninja rules so often in order to save his friends or trying to do so.
One of the most important points of this character is his nindo, his the way of ninja: “Never Give Up!”
What it takes to live the life of a warrior, facing death, anger and hatred of powerful enemies and not losing the sight of your [childish] goal? I’ll let Naruto answer this question himself:
Naruto: “if that’s what fools do, I’m a fool. I’m a giant fool who never gives up once my mind is made up.”

Let’s watch Naruto Shippuden in order to find out what a fool can accomplish in his life!

Anime Relations: Naruto

Sasuke was born in a powerful and proud ninja clan- the Uchihas. His father was the head of police force/patrol ninja in the village. His older brother, Itachi, was a genius who was praised constantly by his clan members as well as outsiders.

As a child, Sasuke wanted to earn his father’s attention and respect. He wanted to be praised the way his dad praised his elder son. Although he always seemed to be far behind Itachi and one day wanted to surpass him, he still looked up to him and somehow managed to love AND hate him at the same time. Sasuke loved him because he seemed to be a considerate and kind brother. Sasuke hated him because no matter what he(Sasuke) did, he was always in Itachi’s shadow, .at home or at school Before Sasuke can find a place in his family and the society, the entire Uchiha clan got massacred. And the worst part? The one who killed dozens upon dozen that night was none other than his own brother, Uchiha Itachi.But, the shock of the event was nothing compared to what Itachi had planned for him. Facing his brother the same night he destroyed the clan, including his father, mother and his girlfiend, Sasuke asked Itachi his reason for doing this. Itachi tells his brother that he did all this just to measure his ability. And that he would save himself the trouble of killing Sasuke, ONLY BECAUSE he finds Sasuke a powerful vessel like himself and wants him to become strong enough to face him in the future. And when that day arrives, Itachi could prove himself once more, by killing Sasuke.

In the words of Itachi: “Foolish little brother, if you wish to kill me, hate me. Detest me. And yet survive in an unsightly way. Run, run and cling to your useless life. And then some day, when you have the same eyes as I do, come before me.”



These simple words shaped the fate of a child. All Sasuke wanted till that day, was to gain his father’s respect. But now, he has lost his dreams and hopes for future, drowning deeper and deeper in the bitterness of the memories of his ugly past. In his loneliness Sasuke’s mind got clouded with hatred and lust for revenge. He became a cold and reserved person, who tries to close his mind to hopes and happiness, fixed on the idea of revenge. Years passed by, but even finding new friends such as simple, but happy, Naruto, couldn’t erase the anger and hatred that raged within.

Of course surpassing Naruto and his friends in ninja academy wouldn’t be hard enough for him to get satisfied. Besides, the ones who Sasuke desired respect from, were all murdered by the one who swore to kill someday.



What would revenge bring to such a person? What will it take to bring out a person tainted with such darkness into the light again? Is it even possible? ... Watching Naruto could give you a hint to the answers.

Anime Relations: Death Note, Death Note: Rewrite

Yagami Light: “I am justice!”

Being a great strategist could have its own disadvantages. That’s my personal vote on the matter of course. Seeing through the other’s plans and end-games would eventually make playing and winning games boredom and tiresome. Unless you’d have an even greater motivation behind playing their games that is; for example CREATING A NEW WORLD!

As the story of Death Note begins, Yagami Light is a highly intellectual student who is at top of his class. His family is a normal happy one and his loving father is a high ranked police officer with a great sense of responsibility. His mother is housewife who seems to be more excited than Light himself about his great marks in exams.

One day Yaghami Light finds a notebook in school yard which on the cover of it says that if one would write a name in it, with the consideration of very simple and few rules, the person whose name has been written would die.

The simplest reaction to the DeathNote’s owner would be asking himself/herself “who do I like to kill now?” Watching the news, Light gets the face and the name of a criminal and he decides to test the DeathNote and so he successfully kills a human being! A week later the owner of the notebook,a Shinigami, visit him to find out not only Light is not in shock of getting someone killed, he’s written more than dozen of names in it already! We see that not only Light has the ability to face a supernatural phenomenal and yet keeping his calm, he already has a full planed future in mind by using the DeathNote. He wants to create a whole new world with no crimes in it and then he wants to rule that world.

How he plans to remove the crime from the world? He’d punish criminals with death! Using DeathNote, at first he writes the names of who has committed big crimes like corrupt politicians, mass murderers and then he brings his justice upon lower type of criminals to the point when no one dares to commit any crimes at all. After all, FEAR has been one of the greatest creators of human society schemes in history.

When it comes to Justice Yaghami Light is a bigotry one. From what we see in the anime, he doesn’t really kills criminal because he wants to rescue the possible victims. His strong sense of justice is all about wanting what he thinks is the best thing for himself. Like a megalomaniac person, he believes he is The Good and whatever stands in opposite side of him is The Evil. So lying, betraying, even killing hundreds of people due to his supreme deeds wouldn’t bring any sort of guilt to him at all. He is dissatisfied with the world hence he wants a better world and not only to live in it but for ruling it as its god.

Laity could be easily fooled indeed and a smart person like Light wouldn’t overlook this fact. A few months after Light kept punishing criminal with capital punishment, people creates dozens of websites and communities to emotionally support their savior, Kira, the name media had chosen for the person/s responsible for eliminating the criminals from the society! [How lucky for them that Light wasn’t suffering from a tragic past which could give his personality destructiveness sides as well!]



What is Evil and what is Good is differ from nation to nation, time to time, place to place and sometimes even person to person. Quoting a character from Code Geass here:
Lelouch: "forcing your good intentions on others is no different from an evil act."



Keeping that in mind, Yaghami Light was raised by his father who was fighting the crime in society as a police officer but as good as he was to his son’s eyes, his efforts were not effective enough because the criminal activities were not going to diminish from society with the work of police only.

The great thing about Death Note show was that the judgment of the rightness or wrongness to Light’s logic was left to viewers; So you can decide for yourself if you’d like to accept such justice or not!