The Surprising Thing Naruto Fans Miss From The Beginning Of The Show

If you know a thing or two about the proper hand symbols to unlock powerful ninjutsu techniques, then you probably are a huge fan of the immensely popular "Naruto" series. "Naruto" is a long-running franchise that has spawned several spin-offs, but the main "Naruto" series ran for 220 episodes, while the direct sequel, "Naruto: Shippuden" ran for 500 episodes (via CBR). Following the exploits of Naruto Uzumaki (voiced by Junko Takeuchi in Japanese and Maile Flanagan in English), the show is about Naruto's training and struggle to be recognized. He is originally an outcast in his village because of the presence of a nine-tailed demon fox, who is defeated and contained within Naruto's body.

However, Naruto's connection to the demon fox augments his already potent ninja skills. The show features several outrageous and incredibly energetic attacks and abilities like flight, regeneration, insane speed and reflexes, illusions, and skills involving the manipulation of Chakra and latent energy that result in untold and hard to quantify destructive strength. Considering how long-running and popular "Naruto" is, what is one aspect of the series that fans miss from those early episodes?

It turns out that one of the things "Naruto" fans miss about those early episodes is the extensive use of mudras, with Reddit user u/Fayyker starting a conversation by linking a clip of a staggering amount of hand gestures. Mudra is a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to 'seal,' 'mark,' or 'gesture' (via Brittanica), and mudras are traditionally articulate hand movements used in ceremonies, dance, and art in Buddhist and Hindu cultures.

Redditor u/2legittoquit agreed with the original comment and replied, "Man, I liked that. It made big jutsu actually meaningful, they had to memorize all of those hand signs. It also made the sharingan so much cooler, since it let the user copy the complicated hand signs without having done the jutsu before." u/say-hi-to-Bri-guy joked that those early strings of jutsu resembled a top tier combo in a popular fighting video game, and noted that both require some serious dedication and skill. u/Nono4826 claimed that the longest jutsu requires 44 gestures, while u/KhaoticTwist said that the jutsu became more simple as the series progressed because of the inherent power creep of anime, and to highlight the growing skill of its wielders because they don't require as many mudras. 

Overall, it seems like some fans of early "Naruto" miss the tension of watching a character fire off a bunch of hand symbols to unlock powerful abilities, but understand why they became featured less prominently.