Of Course Spoilers Will Appear

Hello and welcome to my series of posts about the manga/anime Naruto! I’ve been revisiting Naruto. I never had a blog back when I finished the manga the first time but this time I actually have a blog so I’m going to take advantage of that.

On my other blog I’ve talked about the friendship of Guy and Kakashi and the shinobi education system. In this blog I shall be talking about the characters.

First up is Neji!

I really liked Neji. He had such a satisfying character development. I mean he came from the messed up Hyuga family. I loved the byakugan but I did not like the Hyuga family.

The whole main branch and side branch thing was twisted. They were twins! And the later twin was the side branch? Like what?

Neji started life so positive until he realised that his life had already been decided. He wasn’t allowed to be mad about it. He wasn’t allowed to learn the secret fighting techniques of the main branch and he had to watch Hinata and he was always inferior to Hinata.

His father then died for the family and they don’t really talk about Neji’s mom so I wonder who looked after him after his father died.

That’s a lot to go through as a child. I understand why he was the way he was when he showed up in the chunin exams. His whole life had been decided of course he thought people couldn’t surpass their destiny.

He was so well written when he showed up in Naruto. It was such a deep arc. That fight between him and Hinata. He was really going to kill her, imagine the anger and hurt in his heart that pushed him to that extreme.

Then he met Naruto and Naruto showed him a way out by beating him against the odds. After that Neji’s life took an upward trajectory. He found out what really happened to his dad and the Hyuga started to change their twisted ways. (Sorry I’m harsh, they annoyed me).

Although I will give Hinata’s dad props for apologising by bowing to Neji. He really was sorry for his twin’s death. And after that point he did change things and I was glad about that.

I’m glad that he had Might Guy as his teacher. Guy is positive and Neji needed that positive energy in his life. I like to think that his unit was a family and he could be completely himself there. Not only did Naruto prove Neji wrong but Rock Lee did too. He became a great fighter with only taijutsu defeating the odds.

Neji was then able to make friends and to become a jonin.

And then the war happened and my man died.

I’ve read that he was killed off so that Naruto and Hinata could be together. I was already pissed that he died but to find out that he died as a plot device for Naruto and Hinata… ew! I mean if Naruto and Hinata truly loved each other they wouldn’t need Neji to die to be together. There were sooo many other ways Kishimoto could have done that. I will never understand that logic. And why was Neji the only one to die? His father died and then he died? It just felt wrong.

Do you know what would have been moving? If Hinata’s dad had sacrificed himself to save his brother’s son. There! That would have freaking moved me and others and it would have meant more.

Ahem, so I’m a little passionate about this character. He just had so much potential; his ending was disappointing for me.

How about you, did you like Neji? What did you think of his story?