post-mission debriefing (where neji is always in the hospital)
Not you putting Neji in hospital when he is a better fighter than Shikamaru đ
But the art is pretty
This drawing is meant to take place post-Sasuke retrieval arc, though I felt too lazy to add Shikamaru’s finger injury. Shikamaru is also a much more conservative fighter and Neji is shown to take more risks because he believes (rightfully so) that he can handle/make up for it. I would also believe, especially as a jonin, that he’d be sent on more higher stakes missions or take higher stakes roles regardless of both of their statuses. This was also referenced from my personal, unserious observation that Neji seems to always be injured/out of commission whenever important things happen to the konoha 11 in canon (atleast in the og show) đ So in the end, it was just my amusing musings. Thank you though! I absolutely adore Shikamaru and Neji’s characters and I can talk about them all day.
I am not attacking you,I just thought at first that you think that Neji is weak đ
Too often in fandom I see people forgetting that Neji is literally canonically the unique genius
But I am very happy to hear your opinion! This warms my heart ;)
But you are actually very right
Neji is literally an enslaved abused and exploited orphan used as a meat shield for hinata all manga till his death :/
So yea,Neji is probably always injured and likely fights even when he is hurt,unless he is bedridden
Also Neji is the only one who works both inside his clan for main branch for free and also for the village,so double shift goes crazy
Are you a NejiShika shipper? I always see Studio Pierrot for some reason putting Neji and Shikamaru together almost on all the merch and I always wonder if that is where ship came from
I donât judge,I myself also ship a rare pairingâNejiSasu,it is just that in my imagination Shikamaru always was a hardcore stereotypical hetero guy because of his several mysoginic jokes,especially the one about Temari after she literally saved his life
I didn’t take it as an attack, I just disagreed with what you said. I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss two of my favorite characters, Shikamaru and Nejiâ Neji if I had to choose one :)
The caption was meant to be mostly humorousâ I don’t think being injured constantly is special to him, but commonplace with shinobi of his level. It’s just especially obvious next to Shikamaru, who, like I said, is a much more conservative fighter (which brings him value as a leader) and who’s safety is prioritized over others as their strategist (as emphasized by Asuma).
Canon, unfortunately, also has never been explicit about the working dynamics within the Hyuga clan. It’s never been clear the kind of work Neji may or may not have under the head family outside of training Hinata.
If you mean whether or not I ship Shikamaru and Neji, yes, it was in the tags :) if you mean the dynamic NejiShika vs ShikaNejiâ I personally do not care and I don’t think they would either. While it is extremely delightful as a shipper to see them always beside each other in official art, I believe there was a thought process behind this. During the Sasuke Retrieval Mission, Shikamaru and Neji were prominent side characters that played similarly important roles within the arc. Secondly, they both have neutral, earthy color palettes (and other complimentary features) that are easy to pair up for the sake of composition.
It actually wasn’t the official art that made me ship them, thoughâ with how I binged Naruto, I barely saw any before I started slowing down post Season 5 đ. It was watching the Sasuke Retrieval Mission and witnessing how well they played off of each other, how seamless their teamwork, and how strong their field chemistry was that did. It’s easy to brush off their dynamic as “two smart characters getting along”, but I think it’s more than that.
That is amazing! I never saw such a deep perspective on NejiShika as a pairing,but you draw them beautifully and write about them very interesting.
Seriously,itâs great!
Now you made me think that in your AU it makes sense for Shikamaru being misogynistic if his hate comes solely from a place of his sexuality as a gay men: he dislikes women because he is not interested in them and being raised in a patriarchal society made him think that men are in deed superior to women.
I just want to add about Hyuga system:
Neji is not just hinataâs teacher and sparing partner,he is also her bodyguard.
Neji is hinataâs personal slave,hinata is a slave owner and she quite literally owns and uses him as her possession.
Neji was gifted to hinata on her 3rd birthday as a special personal slave,the same dynamic as in between Hizashi and hiashi.
Having a literal torture device on his forehead what can kill him any minute,Neji and Ko & all other side Hyuga branch members do whatever main branch members: hinata,hiashi,hanabi and hiashiâs father; tell them to do.
There is no choice except to obey or to die in torture and to watch your loved ones being also tortured to punish you and to set an example for other slaves.
Shikamaru for this is a nice proof himself because he is also a child of clanhead: the only son & kid of the Nara clanhead and unlike hinata,who lost her status as a heir to hanabi when she was 12, Shikamaru is the real,one and only heir.
Yet we donât see Shikamaru getting special treatment anywhere,not even in his own clan: he doesnât have bodyguards like hinata does and nobody calls Shikamaru -sama when he is just still a teen / a child.
It is clear that even if we compare hinata to other children of clan heads like Shikamaru,Ino,Choji, Kiba,Shino,Sasuke,Itachi,Gaara, Temari,Kankuroânobody is getting the same privileged treatment inside of their own clans and villages.
I also never thought that Neji and Shikamaru being put together on official Studio Pierrot arts is because they have similar patterns,I guess I just never noticed that they have similar colours in their designs.
Also,if I am not mistaken,Shikamaru is also a jonin,isnât he?
And in my personal opinion Shikamaru is the real Hokage while Naruto is just a cover up: Uzumaki can fight thanks to sheer volume of gifted to him Ashuraâs and Kuramaâs chakra but as a leader and a politician he is lacking.
Thank you so much! I do think they have great potential to even just be friends in canon. Shikamaru needs another shogi partner and while Neji wouldn’t beat him, Shikamaru would atleast have fun đ.
Now, I don’t think Shikamaru is gay either. I believe he is attracted to women and might even prefer women. I think his opinion was informed a lot by the time period (based off the 90s) and the women he grew up around, namely: Yoshino, Ino and Sakura. They’re all very assertive and it clashed against his lazy personality. He also just, self admittedly, doesn’t understand women đ. To a guy like him that’s all about logic, it’d bother him extra that he doesn’t understand them. My personal hot take is that Neji’s internalized misogyny is arguably worse than Shikamaru’s, but this is based off of a comment he made earlier on during the Chunin Exams like, once.
More reason to believe Shikamaru is attracted to women, I think a lot of his dynamic with Temari could be borrowed for his dynamic with Neji. I think he’d be attracted to Neji for a lot of the same things (smart hardass with a nice smile).
I am aware the owner-slave dynamics within the Hyuga Clan, I was talking more about work conditions for them. We don’t know if Neji does any manual labor or any other kind of work consistently for them, and him being Hinata’s bodyguard doesn’t seem to be a strict arrangement as A) they aren’t on the same team (and the Hyugas definitely have the power to make that true if they want to) and B) he isn’t with her all the time. We don’t know if this is because of Hinata, or that the agreement is a general “protect the head family” sort of thing. They seem to be okay letting Neji go off and do shinobi work, but we also don’t know if this is because the Hyugas are a shinobi clan so they respect that, or if Hiashi personally is okay with it, or if Hinata asked Hiashi to let Neji do these things. To reiterate, we don’t know a lot. Which is a shame, because the Hyugas are such an interesting clan to explore with so much potential for storytelling but never was.
Honestly,I think that only hinata fans claim Neji to be âmisogynisticâ and âhate womenâ just because they want to ignore the fact that hinata abuses and exploits Neji as his slave owner and takes advantage of her position in clan + Hinata fans want to paint Neji as a villain for saying out loud facts about hinata literally everyone from Hiashi to Shino knew.
May I ask why do think that Neji is misogynistic? He has zero problems with Tenten despite her being dramatically weaker than him + him having to watch out for her all the time on the missions. And his opinion about hinata on chunin exam is more than factual and justified + Neji doesnât like hinata not because she is a female but because she is a slave owner.
About Neji and Shikamaru playing shogi together,I think that they just have two different types of intelligent: Shikamaru is more âbookâ smart while Neji is more smart at a real fight.
Shikamaru is a great fighter when he is in a formation InoShikaCho and when he has the opportunity to outsmart the opponent by setting up the trap like he did with Hidan.
But can Shikamaru fight on his own? Yes and no: depends on the strength of the opponent. Shikamaru alone can take on only weaker than him or roughly the same level as him opponents or someone really stupid and/or inexperienced so that Shikamaruâs intelligence can overpower raw strength of the opponent.
Based on fight with Tayuya,Temari,first fight with Hidan and KakadzuâShikamaru has troubles fighting alone, especially when he previously didnât know the opponent and didnât have time and/or opportunity to make a plan and a trap beforehand.
Neji on other hands was born,raised and trained to fight alone: yes,he does perfectly in any team formation,but his specialty is working alone as a bodyguard of main Hyuga branch.
While Neji can also fight together with hinata or any other Hyuga,he always puts his role as a protector of hinata first,what we can brightly see in war arc.
Shikamaru from childhood was told that he has trusted allies in Yamanaka and Akimichi clans he can lean onto.
Neji from childhood was told that he is a meat shield and a weapon for main branch,specifically for hinata,and he must die on command.
As the result,we can say that Neji is more âshinobiâ smart while Shikamaru makes a great politician and is very sharp at theory,like when playing shogi.
It is important to say:
Hinata is not the Hyuga heir: she lost this status to Hanabi when she was 12 BUT Hinata is STILL the member of main Hyuga branch and a slave owner.
Hinata was allowed to go on a team in the first place because she lost her status as a heir and future clanhead.
We never saw Hanabi being on a genin team and it is save to say that it is solely because hanabi is the Hyuga heir.
Hinata isnât,she lost that place to hanabi and that is why Hiashi is okay with her being on a genin team under Jonin supervision.
AlsoâŠ
Hinata has Ko and Neji as her bodyguards. Being a slave owner from main branch Hinata is free to exploit all Hyuga side branch members,not just Neji.
In pain arc wee see Ko getting injured while protecting Hinata and still being deadly afraid that he will fail at his duty as a bodyguard.
So,hinata is on the Kurenaiâs team without a Hyuga bodyguard on there because hinata is just a member of main Hyuga branch but not the heir,she is not as valuable as Hanabi,who never was allowed on a genin team,is.
I agree with you that Kishimoto failed to properly develop the Hyuga clan,but letâs be real: work conditions FOR SLAVES are never and nowhere good.
I also agree that Shikamaru mostly hates confrontation: he prefers piece and quiet.
I wonder what do you think Shikamaru will do when,of course,Neji is ordered by main branch to marry a side Hyuga branch woman and to make more slaves for main Hyuga branch?
Considering that Neji is an extremely talented genius,his genes are highly valuable,the most valuable in the whole clan, even above main branch: Hiashi saw Neji fight Naruto and said that Neji deserves to be in main branch more than he and his daughters do;so it is very likely that Neji could have been ordered to take several side Hyuga branch women just to make more slaves for future main Hyuga branch members.
There isnât no way any main branch member would be okay with Neji having a relationship outside Hyuga clan.
Even if it is a gay relationship with a man,main branch would still want Neji to make babies for them to exploit.
And Shikamaru,unlike Sasuke and Naruto,doesnât have enough raw strength: he canât just march in the Hyuga compound and whoop Hiashiâs ass while threatening Hinata and hanabi if they dare to object.
In my personal opinion, Shikamaru just wouldnât bother and he with Neji would have ended having a secret relationship covered up with âfriendshipâ excuse while Neji has one or even multiple wives with a ton of children in Hyuga side branch.
I think that Shikamaru will lie to everyone that âwomen are too much of a bother to get marriedâ and that âhe and Neji are just close friendsâ.
But Shikamaru definitely will be pressured by his own Nara clan and his parents to find a wife and start a family to give birth to a future heir of the Nara clan.
Neji explicitly states in the Chunin Exams that the fight between Ino and Sakura isn’t anything noteworthy because they are two kunoichi. Tenten immediately corrects him and says that a good battle has nothing to do between being a man and a woman, and the conversation doesn’t continue. I don’t believe he carries this opinion for long, but I believe it was informed, like Shikamaru, by the women in his life. He greatly outperforms all of the konoha 11 as a shinobi which includes the kunoichi. However what informs this opinion the most is the most prominent woman figure in his lifeâ which is Hinata.
May I ask where Hinata has ever hurt Neji? I don’t recall any moment whatsoever where Hinata abuses and exploits Neji. What makes Neji and Hinata’s relationship so complex is because even though Hinata has been nothing but kind to Neji, and I would never believe it was in her nature to hurt him, it doesn’t erase the power she has over Neji, and that she can torture him at any moment. Hinata and Neji are very similar where they are emotionally driven people with kindhearted personalities and soft demeanors. However, Hinata had the privilege to continue acting this way, while Neji does not. We see this active change after he got branded with the seal, when before Neji was open and even happy to the idea of getting to know Hinata.
Hinata, the heir at the time, was another kunoichi he outperformed and their gap was even bigger than of Neji and the other kunoichis. Hinata had a personality that heavily contrasted her roles in Neji’s life: his master and a fellow shinobi. Neji was shown time and time again that even though they wanted similar things (his freedom and to be a ninja), Hinata was given more favor than him because of her status, and that she can hurt or kill him with no punishment.
Hinata has a third role in Neji’s life, though, and that is as his sister. It is stated multiple times that they were raised like siblings, and drifted apart for obvious reasons. Neji is the one that insists on keeping it formal while Hinata continues to call him her brother, and isn’t dissuaded from doing that. I think it’s a huge leap in judgement to go from that, to “Hinata is a slave owner that abuses and exploits Neji and treats him like a meat shield.”
The only woman jonin he was in constant contact with was also Kurenai, who was Hinata’s teacher. Neji was not set up to have good, fulfilling relationships with the women around him and I’m not surprised a young boy like him internalized that through misogyny.
That’s obviously not the case now, though.
Being an heir to the main branch and being a shinobi are two completely separate matters. We know this because Hiashi is a shinobi. It was never explicitly stated that Hinata was allowed to become one because her status as an heir was transferred to Hanabi. And before that officially happened, you need to be in the academy for years in order to even become genin. Hiashi and Hizashi, both main and branch family members, were allowed to become shinobi, so it has no relation to their duties to the Hyuga clan.
While it’s canon that Shikamaru “plays it safe” compared to other intelligent characters in Naruto, it is also acknowledged in canon that strategy in shogi is no different than strategy in a battle. Shikamaru’s intellect is one of the biggest reasons he’s considered a great shinobi, why he became chunin first and why he was one of the few that became jonin in their class. This is also one of the biggest reasons Neji respects the guy. Intelligence is a tool to shinobi, just like any jutsu or weapon. Nobody in Naruto has ever thought this was separate from Shikamaru’s skillset as a ninja. It is one of his greatest traits as one.
So I don’t think who will or wouldn’t win against Shikamaru one on one in terms of raw strength…matters. Shinobi don’t even operate solo, they, minimum, operate in teams of four. They are trained to work together, even with small, menial tasks like D-rank missions. However if we are measuring his capabilities based off one on one battles, we have seen him defeat shinobi who’s jutsu and strength exceed his, and that is Kin and Temari. He very soundly (hah) defeats Kin with no room for argument, and even though he forfeits his battle with Temari, everyone was in agreement that if it were a real confrontation, Shikamaru had won. He had no prior preparation or knowledge on either of them and defeated them still. I would argue he also defeated Hidan on his own, but your argument was about the amount of preparation Shikamaru has for an opponent for one on one battles. One of Shikamaru’s greatest assets is not only his thinking, but his flexible thinking. Time and time again we see him come up with new strategies on the spot, and even test to make sure they work.
Shikamaru’s intelligence is what makes up for his lack of strength, and that shows exactly how smart he is. Multiple Hokages have trusted Shikamaru and listen to his advice, all the way from his chunin days. If by “book-smart” you mean academic, then the answer depends on if we’re applying grades here. If this is based off grades, Shikamaru had terrible ones, only better than Naruto in his class. However, when he did take the time to participate, he had great scores. Neji, on the other hand, was called “the best rookie of his batch”, and this label seems to require not just great practical skill, but great academics as well, since Sasuke is the other one with this nickname. So, funnily enough, Neji beats Shikamaru in this department.
As for your proposed scenarios for how Shikamaru and Neji would work under the pressure of their clans, a lot of what you brought up is just pure speculation and hypothetical. We have never been given any indication that this is how either the Naras or the Hyugas operate. While I agree that the Hyugas are conservative, there has been no suggestion, ever, that Neji would be forced into arranged marriages, especially with multiple wives. Not only have we never seen a polygamous relationship in Naruto, but just because there is no proof to contradict it, doesn’t mean it’s true. Hinata abusing Neji as a slave, Neji being forced to father multiple children from multiple women, would be just as true as, say, Orochimaru sexually assaults Sasuke. Just because there is the capability of it being true doesn’t mean that it is. We don’t know if the Hyugas prioritize numbers, I could also argue they wouldn’t want that because it’d make keeping the secrets of the Byakugan to themselves harder which is their top priority. We also don’t know if the Naras operate under the same main branch-side branch family system the Hyugas do, so we have no idea if Shikamaru has any duties to sire children. Sure, Yoshino would want him to, but that’d be because she personally would want grandchildren.
However, Shikamaru and Neji facing problems because of the Hyugas are a more likely than them facing problems because of the Naras, so I’ll answer that. If the Hyugas were to demand something of Neji that’d get in the way of his and Shikamaru’s relationship, what would Shikamaru do? I think he’d leave it up to Neji. While I don’t think the Naras are anywhere like the Hyugas, I’d believe that Shikamaru would be more aware of how clan politics affect a person more than others because he himself is from one, with the head as his father no less. He also respects Neji’s freedom to choose and his autonomy, so the decision is up to him. If Neji decides to end their relationship, he’ll respect that. He wouldn’t be the type to force Neji to do anything, which works well with Neji’s need for independence and freedom. However, this is circumstantial, and I’d also believe if there was a situation where Shikamaru would disagree with Neji’s choice to do what the Hyugas say. It really, really depends.
That’s one way their relationship could subvert tropes. Usually, in a relationship like theirs, it’d be the one with more freedom and autonomy that would urge the one without it to fight for their relationship, to fight for their love. But I believe it would actually be more likely for Neji to be the one to do so for himself, and maybe even get angry that Shikamaru would assume or ever suggest he wouldn’t.
However, again, even that is speculative. We really don’t know. The Hyugas are conservative, but we don’t know in what ways they are and aren’t. We don’t know if they’d make Neji do anything that’ll sabotage his and Shikamaru’s relationship. We don’t even know if the Naras wouldn’t do anything that would sabotage them either. It’s all hypothetical.
