The likeability of the Uchiha stands as a divisive factor among the fanbase. Fans who hate the Uchiha really hate the Uchiha, and fans who think the Uchiha clan is awesome (like me), really love the Uchiha.

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I could be wrong, but a lot of people who adamantly despise the Uchiha clan hate the world-building decisions Kishimoto made themselves more than actually hating the Uchiha clan itself.

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Whether or not you think the Uchiha clan was too powerful or got too much focus is a matter of personal preferences on literary choices. But some fans make the unreasonable criticism that giving the Uchiha too much power makes Kishimoto a bad writer, which I must dispute, because creating an imbalanced power system by having certain people/races/characters with genetic advantages is extremely common and prevalent in fiction. It’s virtually a staple in fantasy to have characters with fated or genetic advantages. Lots of stories include people who are born with more power potential than other people. In fact, most protagonists are revealed to be the “Special” or the “Chosen One” or a “child of prophecy”, those individuals who were born with special powers and a special destiny.  

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Masashi Kishimoto is criticized for having an unbalanced power system where those with special genetic advantages are at the top of the power food chain, and those with less-good genetic advantages or no genetic advantages rank lower down on the innate power level scale. You know what other stories use this unbalanced power/magic system? Dragonball, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Tokyo Ghoul, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, to name a few. I don’t think I need to mention that these are among the most popular franchises in fiction, and they use a genetic power inequality system in their worldbuilding just like Kishimoto does: Saiyans outclass humans, benders outclass nonbenders, Jedi outclass non-Force users, wizards outclass muggles, ghouls outclass humans, demigods are stronger than others depending on their parentage, etc.

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It perplexes me that Naruto gets critiqued so heavily for its imbalanced system when other main franchises don’t. Avatar: The Last Airbender is about the Avatar himself (you don’t get more inborn privileges than that in terms of power), Harry Potter and Star Wars both follow the fated “Chosen One” (sounds special, doesn’t it?), Tokyo Ghoul focus on the ghouls, a race with natural advantages over humanity, Percy Jackson focuses on the naturally more powerful son of Poseidon, and Dragonball focuses on the incredibly strong Saiyans.

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Much as I might love an underdog, I’ll be honest when I say I love the powerful and elite more when it comes to storytelling. And judging from what series are the most popular, clearly the majority of fans feel the same. Even characters who appear to be an underdog quickly become not-an-underdog, in cases like Black Clover where Asta’s anti-magic is a huge advantage over magic wielders or My Hero Academia where Deku gains the greatest quirk in the world in the first couple of episodes.

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In reality, very few “pure” underdog stories exist in fiction. The lead nearly always proves to be extra special than everyone else in some way, commonly in ways that are genetic or fated and not earned through hard work and training alone. Naruto is far from being alone in this aspect.

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Perhaps fans are still too caught up on grumbling about the popular misconception of how Part I was allegedly about “hard work beats talent”, as they complain that Part II of the story went against that theme.

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Let me debunk that misconception: Naruto was never about hard work beating talent. That’s a false narrative and myth that fans made up based on what themes they wanted to see in the show, not what was actually there in the series.

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Fans were charmed by Rock Lee’s story in Part I (and who wouldn’t be?), and due to liking Lee’s character so much, fans naturally wanted him to succeed and thus created the notion that, “Naruto has a ‘hard work beats talent’ theme in its story”. Naruto Uzumaki, the apparent underdog, fed this narrative as well, yet fans were very wrong about “hard work beating talent” being the point of the story. It was not the message Kishimoto was trying to go for, not even in Part I. Seeing as how Naruto often won all his tough fights with the powerful Ninetails fox, it seems strange that fans weren’t clued into the fact that those with special powers have an advantage in Part I.

 

All you have to do is look to Part I to quickly debunk the “hard work beats talent” narrative. Rock Lee is introduced as stronger than Sasuke since Rock Lee has an extra year of experience and training than Sasuke does, presumably (from Naruto’s guess) because Rock Lee trains harder than Sasuke does. Yet what took Rock Lee years – maybe even a lifetime – to perfect and achieve, Sasuke could replicate after only a single month’s training. A month. And this occurred in Part I. Still think that Part I promotes the “hard work alone beats natural talent and genetic advantages” message? It doesn’t, and Kishimoto has been consistent with this since the start. He didn’t “ruin” it in Shippuden; the Uchiha were shown to be stronger than everyone from the beginning of the series. 

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The lesson of Naruto isn’t “hard work beats talent”. There are people who are more naturally talented than others in certain areas. Even people who try hard at something simply may never be as good as someone else who has a natural knack for it or a kekkei genkai advantage over them, even if those two people spend exactly the same amount of time training for the same skill. It is more accurate to say the message of Naruto is: 

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Talent < hard work < talent + hard work.

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If you don’t like that kind of story and you’re wondering why Rock Lee didn’t get to defeat Madara Uchiha because hard work should trump all, maybe Naruto isn’t for you. Naruto has a more consistent power system than that with powers, that are more potent than others regardless of how much training one undergoes.

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Unfortunately, fans irked by Kishimoto’s world-building preferences take out this frustration by hating on the Uchiha characters, sometimes unreasonably so. Many fans scathingly criticize the Uchiha as “whiny” or “emo”, even though they are no more whiny or emo than anyone else, and I might argue that many of the Uchiha are less whiny or emo than many others in the shinobi verse (I don’t actually consider any of the characters to be particularly whiny or emo though, considering how many characters had rough lives in the Naruto series). The only difference is that the Uchiha are more powerful and more ambitious, and thus hold the capacity and the will to be more destructive and cause greater harm than others do.

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There seems to be a consensus that the Uchiha are collectively, without exception, a bunch of arrogant jerks, as if it’s a given fact that the Uchiha are born arrogant bullies who can never rise about their fate of being the worst sort of jerk there is. Yet we’re presented with many Uchiha characters who are not arrogant or rude, such as Izumi, Teyaki, Uruchi, Mikoto, Shisui, and Sarada. You can’t degrade an entire people group as arrogant jerks without considering the people group as a whole. If there are exceptions to the Uchiha all being “arrogant jerks”, then of course that means that the Uchiha are not, in fact, all jerks.

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Anyway, fans complain that the author favors the Uchiha clan way too much. From a literary standpoint, it’s not bad writing like people claim.

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Yes, Kishimoto obviously favors the Uchiha clan, as they are one of the primary focuses of the story. But one could criticize any author for that kind of “favoritism”.

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Why did J.K. Rowling spend so much time empowering wizards at the expense of having Muggles do absolutely nothing throughout the series? Why so much focus on the Weasley family when they weren’t even the most famous family, when she could have explored so many other wizarding families instead?

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Why did George Lucas spend so much time developing the Jedi and the Sith that it felt like the regular, non-Force sensitive people couldn’t hold a candle to them in terms of power (because they can’t)? Why did Lucas so blatantly favor Jedi over those who can’t use the Force and create an imbalanced power system? Why did he focus his saga on the Skywalkers? Doesn’t he know that other families exist in his galaxy far, far away?

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Why do characters like Sokka exist in Avatar: The Last Airbender? Isn’t it unfair that non-benders exist, because it throws all favor to the benders of the world? Why such an unreasonable power imbalance?

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Why did the author of Dragonball not allow the non-Saiyan heroes to be as cool and strong as Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Trunks? Saiyans are the only ones who get the spotlight.

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If you have a problem with the basic set-up of the world, that’s fine. But I want to point out that Kishimoto is doing the same thing a whole slew of other authors do when their series throw favoritism towards certain elements in the story, while other characters or aspects are not much explored or under-powered in comparison. Authors focus on certain characters because the authors want to, because it’s the story they are telling.

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Writing the Uchiha as strong and central to the plot as they are is just the way Kishimoto designed his story and his world’s power system. This doesn’t mean the series is poorly written. If you have the preference of focusing on other characters in Naruto instead of what we got, that’s fine. That’s your opinion, and evidently Kishimoto doesn’t agree with it because that’s not the story he was telling or the things he wanted to focus on.

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Certainly anyone can complain about that writing choice. But it’s Kishimoto’s world and if he wants to have a clan who’s elite and way stronger and more powerful than everyone else, that’s his choice, and he’s entitled to that. It doesn’t make him a bad author per se, it makes him an author with a preference of which characters and elements and themes of his world he prefers to spend time on.

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Personally, I like how immensely strong the Uchiha are, as the power imbalance that the Uchiha and those who possess kekkei genkai have makes for an interesting concept with a thought-provoking social commentary behind it: how the elite are in a sense also the underdogs, because as En Oyashiro points out, even despite being the “gifted”, those with kekkei genkai seem born at a disadvantage.

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Besides, the aversion to the “elite” that so many fans have is strange to me. Characters like Itachi, Haku, Sasuke, Madara, Kushina, Karin, Mito, Nagato, Kimimaro, Ranmaru, Hinata, Neji, Kimimaro, etc. had really rough lives, despite being dubbed the “privileged” class. In context, the non-elite seem to have a much better lot. Being forced to be a slave, having your homeland destroyed, being a lone genocide survivor, watching your father kill your mother – none of these seem like appealing outcomes for a bloodline advantage. If that’s the price that these powers come with, then you can keep your genetic privileges, thanks. I’d rather be like Rock Lee and Sakura, who were bullied and mocked, but even that doesn’t sound too bad compared to watching your family die or having your entire race slaughtered or being a slave. Naruto writes in an interesting narrative, about how the “privileged” are so often left at the mercy of the unprivileged, who fear and scorn and hate them for their superior powers. 

 

Besides, why hate people for being naturally talented or born with genetic abilities? It’s not like they can help being gifted or being born the way they are. Resenting people for having a biological or natural talent seems petty and immature to me.

 

Kishimoto poured a ton of creativity in the lore and workings of the Sharingan, which I greatly appreciate and it’s fantastic worldbuilding. I wouldn’t ask that Kishimoto decrease and simplify the writing of the Sharingan, only that he give the same or similar level of complexity to other powers in the ninja-verse. I do think is that the other clans were not given enough screen time and that they should have been stronger or more developed. One would hope that clans such as the Hyuga or Uzumaki clans would get about as much development and historic feats as the Uchiha, or at least something a little comparable. As is, the Hyuga clan are so weak they are basically a joke and so un-influential and lacking in ambition and drive that they never accomplish anything. The Byakugan is extremely under-explored and underutilized. But that doesn’t make me like the Uchiha any less; it just makes me wish the Hyuga clan was treated better within the story.

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Besides, Sasuke is the secondary main character of the series, and as I’ve explained in this book, Sasuke’s identity as Uchiha is an important aspect of his identity and how Sasuke perceives himself. So by necessity the Uchiha clan must be explored a lot in the story of Naruto, because it’s an integral part of who Sasuke is.

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And there’s a huge difference between Sasuke and Naruto, in that Naruto’s clan is not an integral part of Naruto’s identity, thus why the Uzumaki clan doesn’t necessarily need to be explored as much. The Uzumaki clan is not an important part of Naruto’s identity as far as Naruto’s concerned. Naruto grew up alone, without the strong clan ties that Sasuke has, and so Naruto is largely disinterested in his clan affiliation or what it means for him as an individual. Plus the Uzumaki clan is scattered and exist in minor pockets here and there; they’re not united by the strength of a clan background.

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Even as it is, it’s not like the Uzumaki clan was a minor footnote in history. They were major influences in history and in the present era, and apparently even in the future they will be a big deal, since Boruto Uzumaki is the protagonist. Pain was the leader of the internationally infamous Akatsuki and ruled the Rain village, Karin was involved with bigwigs like Orochimaru and Sasuke and stopped a major adversary in the war with her Adamantine chains. Kushina Uzumaki helped stop the Ninetails attack on Konoha and helped Naruto control his Kyubi power. Other Uzumaki clan members such as Mito and Ashina were influential heroes in their day, seeing as how Mito became the first jinchuriki and Ashina formed an alliance between the Uzumaki village and Konoha (which is why Konoha shinobi wear the Uzumaki crest on their backs), but those stories were not explored because they were not immediately relevant to the plot the way the Uchiha were.

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You can dislike Kishimoto’s literary decisions of the way he constructed his universe, but I don’t think one can fairly criticize this as bad writing, because it’s not. If Kishimoto wants to create a clan that is genetically superior to everyone else, he is well within his realm to do so as a writer. It is Kishimoto’s world, so he gets to choose how to build it and what rules and power systems his world has.

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I’m not saying this to persuade readers that they must adore the Uchiha clan, just pointing out that the Uchiha and Kishimoto receive unfair or irrational criticism because of the literary decisions of the story. A lot of fans dislike the Uchiha clan because they think other elements of the story needed more focus and the Uchiha took up too much screen time. I respect this opinion, though I personally don’t think the Uchiha needed less screen time or development (I’d actually say they could have used more development and screen time than what they got), just that other elements needed more screen time. Even despite its length, Naruto was too short a series.