Summary

• Naruto Shippuden's emphasis on Konoha hinders the development of other regions, resulting in a flat world lacking vibrancy.
• Despite missions to various villages, Naruto fails to provide depth to settings outside Konoha, leaving potential untapped.
• One Piece excels in world-building by characterizing every region, highlighting Naruto's missed opportunity to do the same.

As Naruto returns home to Konoha from a long training trip with Jiraiya, the high-spirited inauguration of Naruto Shippuden also directly shows fatally missed potential. Naruto is, of course, a series centered around its titular character's journey to be Hokage alongside comrades like Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha. The Hokage is a fixture of the village of Konoha, and this emphasis on Konoha can be a problem as it also underlines a key issue: other regions are spoken of and visited, but they're rarely given any life and often even forgotten.

Although this problem is prevalent throughout Naruto, it's particularly notable in Naruto Shippuden for the simple reason that the plot revolves around Akatsuki's attempt to gather the Tailed Beasts from all the Jinchuriki. This mission naturally involves their travels to multiple villages. However, Naruto Shippuden never gives these villages adequate time. As a result, the world ends up feeling flat where it could feel vibrant.

The Structure of Naruto's World Leaves Room for Growth

Despite Its Size, Naruto’s World Follows Straightforward Principles

The world of Naruto is relatively straightforward. Based around a cluster of countries, Naruto emphasizes hidden villages where shinobi reside and train. The foremost of these is Konohagakure, the "Hidden Leaf Village", located in the country known as the Land of Fire. However, many other countries and villages also the series, as shown in the Chunin Exams where shinobi from multiple villages compete in order to be promoted to higher ranks.

Although shinobi are constantly sent out of Konoha on missions to other villages, it's rare that viewers and readers are actually given the opportunity to know these places in greater depth. One particular example might be the arc to rescue Gaara from Akatsuki where a glimpse is given into the daily life and political operations of the village of Sunagakure. This arc is notable precisely because it's an example of Naruto trying its hardest to give depth to another region but ultimately failing to rise to the challenge.

Once Gaara is rescued, the village is never really revisited. This is an ongoing unfortunate trend for Naruto. The depth awarded to Sunagakure becomes a side note in a story ultimately about Konoha and its exploits. Hardly any other village is given the same screen time in Naruto Shippuden. A more egregious example might be the huge amount of screen time that Killer B receives, bu it's offset by the relatively meager presence of A and the Hidden Cloud Village. Naruto's world's simplicity provides a blank canvas for added depth, but it goes unused.

Naruto's Approach To World-Building Has Massive Consequences

A World Too Big To Handle Leads Naruto To Undermine Its Own Themes

The way that Naruto addresses the role of other countries has unintended political and narrative consequences for the story. One example is Konan and her home village, Amegakure: "the Hidden Rain Village". Amegakure is considered a minor village within the world of Naruto and is continuously ravaged by war, a status it holds at least as late as Boruto's episode #157. Because Naruto affords so little focus to these peripheral nations and villages, it has the consequence of Naruto betraying a promise to restore the village and arguably contributing to Konan's death.

I find this tendency to sideline these other regions as possible narrative centers questionable. On one hand, it legitimately undermines Naruto's themes when locations are forgotten and when Konoha seems to be, at best, a hired hand for other villages. The individual clans within Naruto are hardly substantiated, leading to Naruto's own Uzumaki clan being poorly explained at best.

On the other hand, it's enjoyable for me to imagine an alternative Naruto where a similar plot is approached with Naruto and company traveling to different areas, as viewers gain insight into the places they're visiting. I would love to see their customs, and the stories and lives of their people. It would bring a new dimension to the series for me. Sunagakure shows the other set of possibilities afforded to Naruto which were, intentionally or not, declined.

One Piece Shows How Naruto's World-Building Could Be Improved

Despite Different Aims, the Shonen Titans Could Learn From One Another

As much as I love Naruto, it's always been obvious that it tries to do too much at once.

A worthwhile comparison would be between Naruto and One Piece's reciprocal inspirations. While I'm by no means implying that Naruto should have emulated One Piece, it's worth noting that one of the primary appeals of One Piece has been the secrets of the world it's built around - still compelling decades later. Naruto kicked off around two years after One Piece launched. The pair constitute two of the "Big Three" of shōnen, so the comparison is even more apt. One Piece centers on Luffy and a crew of fellow pirates as they navigate the world in search of adventure and to fulfill their goals.

One Piece manages to characterize every single region that Luffy and crew visit in a way that makes Naruto pale in comparison. Every island has a distinct cultural identity, and characters are given dense backstories connecting them to their societies, making clear demarcations between the series' regions. This is basically absent in Naruto. One might note how in the Fourth Great Ninja War, the perspective remains centered around Konoha while other regions are auxiliary; by contrast, a similar planet-level threat recently emerged in One Piece's Egghead Arc, and the impacts on each island are shown.

By comparison, one could even look to a series like Assassination Classroom to see how a planetary threat is assessed at the level of a specific region by intentionally making the focus of the series smaller. My Hero Academia has also been criticized for not showing much of the world outside Japan, but that has always been the focus of the series, and it works on a narrative level. As much as I love Naruto, it's always been obvious that it tries to do too much at once. It builds an extremely vast world while being unwilling to give those regions life. The effect is a series that, wittingly or not, enforces Konoha as the center of its world.

I can't help but look at the Naruto world and feel like it's a bit empty.

World-building is a tricky process. It's hard to build a vast world that actually gives due time to all the places that it incorporates. It's also important to that mangaka inherently work within the constraints of their genre and the demands of their readership and editors. At the same time, it's hard to fully enjoy Naruto when the plot involves such a broad horizon of lands with which I, as a viewer, am hardly familiar.

It's also important to recognize that Naruto's world-building is by no means bad. I'm sure that plenty of viewers would argue that the way that Naruto builds its world is effective in accomplishing its goals. However, I can't help but look at the Naruto world and feel like it's a bit empty. Everything seems to be trapped by the lens of Konoha, and it ends up making its most dire peacekeeping missions feel vain. I love Naruto, but I find it impossible to shake the feeling that it could do world-building better.