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From emotionally gripping plotlines to great fights,Narutohas several elements that display Masashi Kishimoto’s exceptional storytelling skills. However, there’s one aspect where Kishimoto always fumbles, the female characters. Female characters and Kishimoto in the same sentence are enough to make any anime fan sweat. It could be said that he’s bad at writing female characters but that’s not all.
Even if he manages to create a great character, they either end up being unfortunate or useless. Mei Terumī is the perfect example of this. She had immense potential and her Kekkei Genkai was an added perk. Moreover, she had simple dreams. Her character arc could’ve been concluded pretty well and easily so.
Mei and Her Powerful Kekkei Genkai inNaruto
Growing up in a war-struck state, she learned to fend for herself and fight for the village’s sake. Besides her general compatibility with most of the natural elements, her Kekkei Genkai also added to her strength. Kekkei Genkai are unique abilities and Mei wielded not only one but two of them. Her first ability was the Lava Release, it was a combination of the earth and fire elements.
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Her second ability was the Boil Release, a result of the combination of water and fire elements. She used this ability during thefight against MadarainNaruto Shippuden. Both of these abilities were extremely destructive with acidic qualities. The two times she was properly seen using them, she ended up inflicting substantial damage to Sasuke and Madara’s Susanoo. She could even alter the pH of the Boil release to strengthen or weaken its effect. These abilities made Mei one of the strongest characters from the Mist Village.
The first few years of her life were tragic, but with hard work and the mastery of the natural elements, she rose to the rank of Mizukage. She had a simple dream of getting married and finding love. This could’ve been easily executed, butMasashi Kishimotocouldn’t even give her one thing she desired. It was played off for comic relief. This makes one wonder if he just hates strong female characters.
Mei’s Characters Makes us Wonder if He Hates Female Characters
Mei’s strength could’ve been more fleshed out by giving her proper fights instead of brief sequences. Moreover, every character she fought also had plot armor keeping them safe. There was no need for her to retire, if Kishimoto wanted, he could’ve given us glimpses into her diplomatic ability post-war. If not her strength, her personal life could’ve been fleshed out with her getting married as she always wanted. However, she never found love either.
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This aspect is common to almost every female character in the series, except for the main characters. They’re inherently unfortunate when the matters of the heart are concerned. If they’re lucky in that respect, then that’s all that remains to their character. For instance, Tsunade and Karin were strong characters who were extremely unlucky with romance. Whereas Hinata, who has a supposedly loving husband, does nothing but look after her family.
While there’s no problem with her willing to be there for her family, we never see what happened with the dreams she talked about in the original series and later on. Sakura and Ino are the only characters who get to experience a great romantic life and other things outside of it. Except for them, every other female character is lacking in one way or the other. What’s the worst is that these characters had the potential to be so much more, but it was simply never utilized by Kishimoto.
Narutois available to stream on Netflix.
Laveena Joshi
Anime Writer
Articles Published :925
Laveena is an anime content writer at FandomWire. Having written more than 800 articles, she’s an expert in mainstream shonen series, ranging from the bizarre world of JoJo’s to the expansive worldbuilding of One Piece.With her formal education in Journalism and Mass Communication, she explores entertainment journalism through the lens of anime and manga, from mainstream and classic titles to niche and obscure ones.
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Masashi KishimotoNarutoNaruto Shippuden
