post-mission debriefing (where neji is always in the hospital)
Not you putting Neji in hospital when he is a better fighter than Shikamaru 😭
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) 😭 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 💀
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 don’t judge,I myself also ship a rare pairing—NejiSasu,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 Neji— Neji if I had to choose one :)
The caption was meant to be mostly humorous— 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 ShikaNeji— 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, though— with how I binged Naruto, I barely saw any before I started slowing down post Season 5 😭. 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.
From the very beginning, Shikamaru established himself as someone Neji could trust to lead. Not only was he detail oriented, took everyone’s capabilities into account and planned ahead, but that Shikamaru, someone the team is placing their trust in, trusts them in turn. Trusts Neji, especially, in turn. Neji, who is surrounded by Shikamaru’s childhood friends who he’d trust and have close bonds with, was tasked with the most difficult job because Shikamaru recognized (and recognizes) his extremely robust skillset. Fandom forgets his genius, but Shikamaru never will.
But what really gained Neji’s respect was Shikamaru explicitly stating that the most important thing about this mission was that they were rescuing a fellow Konoha nin, and that he was willing to lay down his life for that. That was the way of Konoha shinobi. Even though he didn’t like Sasuke, Sasuke was a comrade and they were tasked with the mission of taking him back. Neji, an emotionally driven person, is shown that Shikamaru thought there was value in that way of thinking, that that was what was most important and what drives Konoha shinobi to do what they do, that he thinks this way too.
This sets up their dynamic for the rest of the arc. Shikamaru, who had already respected Neji as a shinobi, expresses this and is rewarded with Neji’s trust. Neji, acting on that, cooperates extremely well with Shikamaru throughout the mission, going so far as being proactive about his role and not only doing what he was told to do. There is a stark difference between how Shikamaru leads the others vs Neji, in which he doesn’t really lead Neji. He works with him. Shikamaru as their strategist needs constant information about their situation in order to do his job, and Neji with the Byakugan never fails to deliver this and more. He and Shikamaru bounce ideas off of each other and they only get more and more comfortable working together the longer they do. It was a little shocking to witness that, throughout one day, Shikamaru and Neji had gone from what they were before (which wasn’t really anything and even a little negative), to co-leading the mission together. The mission where Shikamaru says if they don’t do what he says, they’d die. Shikamaru, when he and Neji separately concluded that the team had to split up, appointed Neji as the leader for the other team, once again, over the rest of their teammates who are all Shikamaru’s childhood friends.
The preparation for the mission wasn’t just a one-and-done trigger for their trust for each other and how well they’d cooperate together, however. You can see the gradual improvement of their teamwork throughout the day and how that also extends to their opinion of one another. Neji, having been proven wrong about Shikamaru being a wimp (his words), starts paying closer attention to him and tries to guess what he’s thinking… Quite explicitly. He starts playing this role of “explaining what Shikamaru is thinking” to the rest of their team without ever being told what he’s thinking by Shikamaru himself. Not only is he always right (no doubt because he is also smart), but Shikamaru even…likes that? Shikamaru always respected Neji, but I don’t think he particularly cared for Neji as a person (probably thought he was uptight) until this mission. When the team was trapped in Jirobo’s jutsu Shikamaru lied about betraying the rest of them, and everybody’s trust (even Choji’s, momentarily) in him wavered except for Neji’s. Neji continued to observe what Shikamaru was doing (you can see him just staring at him in the background) and slowly piece together Shikamaru’s strategy in his mind. When he tells the rest of the group what it was and only asking for Shikamaru’s confirmation after, Shikamaru only gives his amused-smirk-huff thing as his answer. He then proceeds to ask Neji to throw a kunai towards a crater in the wall that everyone can see, instead of himself or Choji who was literally beside it.
That doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the moments Shikamaru and Neji are curious of each other/express their trust in one another. I’d love to go on and on and I genuinely could make a break down on their relationship and how it changed during the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, but this is long enough as it is. This mission, though it’s what started it, isn’t even a fraction of why I ship these two together, either. I thought I’d elaborate as a treat for my fellow Shikanejis to find, as well :)
And lastly, being misogynistic isn’t only applicable to heterosexual men, plenty of queer men are too. I think Shikamaru would be hard pressed to endlessly defend himself as heterosexual, as that’d take way too much time, effort, and a frustrating conversation he’d rather avoid. Would he claim to like men, though? I don’t know. I personally see Shikamaru and Neji as a “it ended up happening” on Shikamaru’s end. Funnily enough, I *do* think he has a preference for more feminine qualities, though I don’t think he knows.
