The Liberal Politics of Naruto
An Essay
Naruto is one of the most popular manga and anime of all time. Even if you’ve never consumed it, you’ve likely heard of Naruto or seen some of the iconography. Whether it was a stray Akatsuki cloud or character art serving as profile pic, there was a time when imagery from Naruto was abundant online. This is especially true when it comes to children with access to Toonami in the early 2000s such as myself, where Naruto quickly became the show of choice. Naruto has engaging characters, utilizes bright colors and iconic music in it’s anime, and is generally intellectually accessible to (most) ages. It is because of this accessibility that I find it’s legacy really fascinating to dig into and the affects on its core viewer base worth exploring more.
The story of Naruto is fairly simple. We’re introduced to a young orphan boy and learn that he is a troublemaker with no friends that the adults in his village despise. Though the children are not clued into why he is hated, they take after the attitudes of their parents, Naruto is often treated with derision. To earn the love and respect of the village, he begins on his journey to become the Hokage (the in universe president of his village). In his mind, the villagers will have no choice but to care for him if he is their leader. Naruto, as a show, is especially adept at showing you just how deep the hatred for Naruto runs while juxtaposing that with the respect people have for the Hokage (who is treated with so much deference that it borders on worship). It is natural that Naruto might want that especially when you come to understand the guardian-like relationship Naruto has with the third Hokage at the start of the series. However as all good stories do, Naruto becomes complicated.
Over the course of the story, you’re clued in to the corruption at the heart of the village and the entire ninja world. The first villain you’re introduced to is a rouge ninja (ninja who has abandoned his village) who now works as a mercenary for hire. Disillusioned with his society and corrupted by the money he’s made killing, he attacks Naruto and his team, intent on killing them. In the end, the team triumphs due to the hidden power inside Naruto and some convincing words. What’s fascinating is that the emphasis is placed on the rot within Zabuza (the mercenary) himself, rather than the societal system that got them here. This, as you can imagine, will become a theme throughout the story.
Following this, the next big arc is the Chunin exam arc in which Naruto and his class undergo an exam to be moved to the next phase in the ninja pathway. Unbeknownst to Naruto, the exam is being used as a front for the attempted destruction of their village. A competing village have conspired with a rouge ninja from Naruto’s own village to unleash a monster similar to destroy the village and kill the Hokage in the process. For starters, Naruto’s first two major villains being rouge ninja is no coincidence. They are contrasted with the devotion the village ninjas have in the village and its myth. Their disregarding of the village serve as proof of their inner rot, so the logical conclusion viewers come to is that to be bad is to discard your homeland While to be good is to embrace it. Extrapolated to the viewers own life, you can see how a young child especially might come away with the sense that patriotism is a virtue to aspire to, lest you be a rouge ninja in your own right.
There is also, at the end of both of these conflicts, no acknowledgement of the villages own complicity in these events. The rouge ninja from Naruto’s village is a mad scientist who was permitted to engage in unethical experiments until it was no longer convenient to ignore. At which time he was then allowed to escape rather than face any internal justice. In his fight with the Hokage, the Hokage sacrifices his life to stop him, taking on the sole responsibility of holding him accountable. While yes, the Hokage made the final decisions, the council and the upper brass of ninjas all benefitted from him when he was conducting in experiments that helped them win wars. Why then did they have no part in reigning him in or changing the system that allowed such a ninja to gain prominence in the village? There is also the matter of the other village that conspired with the rouge ninja in the attack.
The 5 Great Shinobi (ninja) villages are constantly at war with each other, mostly for power and influence over smaller villages. In the process they often use those smaller villages as battlegrounds. Even more often, they use particularly gifted children as human weapons in their wars. Many of the more tragic figures we encounter were child soldiers who were separated from their families, sent to kill and die in war, then abandoned so that one village can triumph over another. Naruto himself, though not explicitly raised as a weapon, is in fact a weapon. The threat of which keeps other villages at bay. While the villages’ previous petty wars serve as context of the story we’re presented with in the modern day, their fallout is responsible for every following conflict in the entire story. However, not a single person with the power to do so, across multiple villages and hundreds of years made any meaningful moves to change that reality.
However, a few rouge ninjas attempt to change this system through force. After the exam arc, we are properly introduced to the Akatsuki, a group of extremely powerful rouge ninja from various villages. They are after the select child soldiers that contain the secret power that is also within Naruto. While each individual has differing goals, the intended goal of the group is to create an alternate reality in which children are no longer subjected to the same horrors of war that the founders were. In the process, they cause so much loss and devastation to Naruto that it goes without saying that they must be stopped. Right? Well the more tragic the backstories get the less we’re sure. At least for Naruto himself, who is often faced with the suffering these people have endured and is highly affected by it. However, as close as the story gets, Naruto always frustrating pulls back, coming to the same conclusion that Naruto can right these wrongs himself by becoming Hokage. That he can be the sole arbiter of peace between nations. That through individual friendship, all can be solved. That even when thousands are drawn into war, only Naruto’s pure soul and goodness can really make a difference in the end.
This adherence to individualism, even in the face of its impracticality, is liberalism in a nutshell. The idea that movements need one good figurehead at the center caps a lot of movements at the knees while also devaluing the power of collective action to make change. No matter the coalition that forms around him, issues are resolved at the hand of Naruto alone. The story then rewards him by giving him the deference he craved as a child. For younger or more impressionable viewers, this serves as a guide to live by and morphs into personal politic as you age. It makes sense then that Naruto became so big, especially in America. Naruto doesn’t contrast with American liberal values but enforces them and to a future voting block at that. Those young viewers, who are now voting in their first few elections, are primed to look for strong and powerful men to solve societal issues. I hope you see where I’m going with this.
In our current political landscape, people are asking how they can organize in their communities. While there are those already doing the work, many more are confused about where to start. They are finding that their way of thinking has been severely limited by the way they were raised and the media they took in. Naruto, though I respect the media, is a part of that. While I don’t know if it should be discarded as a property, I do believe the takeaways from Naruto and other libbed out properties we watched contribute to the desire we all have to look to a strong figure to save us. They also obscured the community-minded, problem-solving knowledge we all should have developed. In addition to the millions sold, Naruto will also have to contend with this legacy.
In truth, I don’t hate Naruto. It’s just that the older I get and the further left I move in my personal politics, the less I am able to indulge in the libbed out media of my childhood. Plus, there are issues with the portrayal of women in Naruto that are so hard to ignore. And the ending was a mess and a half. Actually, do I hate Naruto…?
(at least the music is still amazing)
Naruto is one of those animes that I didn’t get into in childhood and now I’m too grown to try. Even as a child, the titular character was annoying to me, and the way the girls/women were written was flat, boring, and wasted their potential. This was the most interesting analysis I’ve read about it and I loved how you tied it into the pitfalls of liberalism that annoy me, too.
Love this analysis! The politics in Naruto are so interesting/frustrating to examine imo. I've been planning on having my first Substack essay be an exploration into the imperialist rhetoric in the series, and I hadn't considered how much it also ties into liberal values (despite the obvious overlap between the two). This definitely put a lot of things into perspective for me!