William Little wrote:
Let's look at Naruto. Even in times of peace, it must be hard to grow
the number of ninja in a village. Assuming Naruto's year as typical
rather than exceptional, the leaf would have to lose less than 9 ninja
(of all ranks) a year for their ranks to grow. Yet the Chuunin exams
alone look likely to take a team or two a year, and the missions above D
level are explicitely rather dangerous. Otherwise they wouldn't need ninja.
An interesting thought.
Canon seems to suggest that there must somehow be a replacement rate of
greater than 9 new genin each year, as in the two and a half years of
the timeskip the Leaf seem to have more or less recovered from the
losses suffered in the Sand/Sound invasion. No doubt they are still
somewhat weakened, but there's no indication that they are in anything
close to the dire situation they were in immediately pre-timeskip. Most
recently, Tsunade was able to muster a force of eighty chuunin and
jounin in response to an emergency - a rather large difference from the
five genin that could respond to Sasuke's defection.
I suspect that this is probably a result of Kishimoto not really
thinking these matters through, but that gives us fanficers something to
do, no? :)
I believe the answer lies in the roughly eighteen genin per year who do
not pass the "bell test" or other equivalent tests. We're told that
they go back to the academy, but its worth noting that none of the genin
seemed to know of that. Obviously, they should have (well, the
non-Naruto ones should have) if the failed genin returned to the same
academy and pool of potential students that the 9 per year come from.
It's also worth noting that these genin are indeed given their forehead
protectors and told that they're genin, which seems odd indeed if they
go back to the same academy or retire to civilian life.
I'd postulate that there must exist some sort of "ninja secondary
school" which these genin attend (while perhaps also performing support
duties of various sorts) and eventually reach a point where they either
graduate to become fully active ninja or get shunted into some sort of
reserve system.
That's still a pretty slow replacement rate, but it's the best
explanation I can come up with. :)
All the genin level ninja in the leaf could not take one of the Kage
(Kabuto doesn't count).
I wouldn't be so certain. Barring Naruto and potentially other rare
exceptions, even the most powerful ninja has a finite amount of chakra.
They can't fight at full strength forever, even if their opponents
never land a blow on them. A sufficient number of reasonably talented
genin could, eventually, wear down the Kage, though most of them would
die in the process.
It's entirely possible, though, that the "sufficient number" greatly
exceeds the number available. :)
The laws of the genre dictate that dramatic increases in power come only
from 1) obsessive training, 2) desperation or 3) death of a close
friend/teacher. There is also 4) outside items or beings of power, but
these always end up having drawbacks or fatal weaknesses.
Therefor, the ninja village that wishes to win a war should strive their
utmost to instill obcession, arrange deadly circumstances (among their
weaker ninja, don't want to risk those already powerful) and close bonds
to civilians (it is counterproductive to arrange the death of a sensei
to strengthen the students unless the sensai is old and losing ability
anyway).
Heh.
Henry Cobb wrote:
Actually I've always thought of this as being a historical reference, but
to the 20th century.
[snip]
So Ninja villages have elite training programs that work very well in
peacetime and they have procedures to avoid all out wars between villages.
It's when these diplomatic procedures break down that the villages quickly
run out of ninjas and tend to get wiped out.
Interesting parallel. I'm not certain it was intentional on Kishimoto's
part, but still interesting. :)