The start of Part I marks a major turning point in Naruto’s life when his life starts to improve for the better for the first time. The first episode of the series brings Naruto to a crossroads: he can team up with Mebuki to get revenge against the village for the horrible way they’ve treated him, or he can side with his home village and protect it. Naruto makes the heroic choice: he protects his friend Iruka and sides with the village, even in face of all the horrible ways his fellow Konoha citizens have treated him. Mebuki’s challenge forced Naruto to decide if he would choose the path of a hero and forgive the villagers for the way they had treated him, or if he would stew in bitterness and hatred and turn against Konoha (notably the choice the majority of Naruto villains make). Naruto chooses the morally higher road, and his character brings to shift from there, as Iruka taught Naruto a valuable lessons of empathy and protecting others through his selfless act of shielding Naruto with his body.

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Due to the incident, Naruto’s relationship with Iruka peaks in a meaningful way. Iruka takes a large shuriken to the back to protect Naruto from harm. Naruto, who has been ostracized and hated his entire life, was shocked. Never before had anyone ever done something so selfless and sacrificial for him, and no one had gone as far as to put their life on the line for his sake. Naruto is touched by Iruka’s selflessness and friendship, particularly when Iruka showed that he was sorry for not helping Naruto sooner, knowing that he should have treated Naruto better because he understood Naruto’s pain. Iruka was the first person to put his life on the line solely for the purpose of protecting Naruto. Never before had anyone done something so selfless and kind purely for Naruto’s sake, so needless to say Naruto was moved by his teacher’s words and actions in defense of him. He was so inspired by his teacher’s example that Naruto reciprocated by turning around to save and protect Iruka. Naruto also showed that he learns better by example and actions than through words. The lengths Iruka was willing to go for Naruto inspired him to use his signature jutsu for the first time: the shadow clone jutsu.

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There are some interesting things about Naruto’s first proper usage of the shadow clone jutsu. It shows how skilled of a shinobi he really is. Despite supposedly being a dunce when it comes to jutsu, the moment (a moment notably occurring at the series’ inception) when he created hundreds of shadow clones to defeat Mebuki disproves that. Naruto had no one to show him the jutsu and he had virtually no practice – he’d never even used the jutsu before. Yet when push came to shove and Naruto desperately needed that jutsu right then, he summoned hundreds of perfect clones with no problem. It brought to light what a genius he actually was, because only reading about the jutsu had been enough for him to master it – that coupled with proper motivation. This scene shows that the supposed failure is actually a genius with tons of potential and talent merely hidden away, waiting to be awakened. This scene also implies that Naruto needs a ton of pressure and motivation to grow and improve, and that much of his genius is intuitive.

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The second interesting thing about the shadow clone jutsu becoming one of Naruto’s primary jutsu was revealed later on. Much like the sexy jutsu is a desperate, lonely cry for help from a child starved of love and attention, it appears the shadow clone jutsu became a cover-up for the loneliness Naruto was suffering from as well, a jutsu that could help fill the void by creating “others” who Naruto could surround himself with, even if those others were merely projections of himself. Initially, it struck me as odd that in the second Final Valley fight, Sasuke was so aggravated by Naruto’s shadow clone jutsu because, as Sasuke claimed, it was a jutsu that covered up Naruto’s loneliness. In light of the recent Kawaki arc in Boruto, it seems Sasuke’s statement was correct and speaks to how Sasuke is very insightful and in tune with Naruto’s feelings. When Kawaki asks about using shadow clones to beat himself in order to “get the stress out”, Naruto replies that he’s “been there, done that”. Both Kurama and Sasuke, the two people who knew Naruto better than anyone, perceived Naruto’s reliance on shadow clone jutsu to be an outcome of his loneliness. Perhaps since Naruto was never able to find adequate teammates that he could rely on all the time, he resorted to making “teammates” of his own. Naruto himself confirms that his shadow clone jutsu was something he leaned in to try to fill the void of loneliness in his heart, as we see from some of his conversations with Kawaki. In the anime, there was a scene where Naruto was training himself with his shadow clones by fighting them during his tutelage under Jiraiya in preparation for the final round of the chunnin exams, and in Shippuden Naruto tries to entertain himself at home by playing a card game with his shadow clones, ineffectively attempting to fill the void of his loneliness with replicas of himself.

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Naruto becomes a genin, and Naruto’s life takes a turn for the better: Naruto’s headband becomes a ticket to guaranteed attention. This becomes apparent by how Naruto quickly gains a pupil in Konohamaru. After meeting each other for the first time, Naruto and Konohamaru become friends and Konohamaru is the first person to openly show that he looks up to Naruto, and Naruto acquires his first student, who he teaches what it means to be Hokage.