The Biggest Naruto Plot Hole

Naruto is a great series but it has problems. In this video I will be discussing and fixing Naruto's biggest plot hole. The sheer number of ninjas in the world. During the 4th Great Ninja War, when the Ninja Alliance comes together we found out there are 80 thousand ninjas in the alliance. This is way too much.

It's impossible for the Leaf Village and the other major nations to produce that number of ninjas in the pacing that we see in the series. Konoha's Ninja Academy only produces about 9 ninjas per year, so it would not be possible to reach this number. But let's talk about ways this could be explained and fix the plot hole in Naruto Shippuden.

Become a member to get cool perks:

Like the video!

Subscribe:

[dah_goofster]

Jokes on you, half the army was Naruto’s shadow clones

[crimsonwarrior]

Madara also didn't understand that logic so

_He then started to even it out to logical proportions_

[bartmoralez]

No one said “only 13 students graduated, ” those were just the shinobi’s the spotlight was on

[Subxenox]

There's a scene where you can see Sasuke's report card, and it showed 90 students in his year. We can assume there are at least 3-5 classes per age group, of which apparently it's ages 5-12, so we can assume there's roughly 500-1000 students at a time, but MOST of them do not become Shinobi.

[renatooni-san]

Dude, did you really watch or read the work? The 9 students who passed were only from Iruka's class. He's not the only teacher at the ninja school, and his class isn't the only one.

[-Beliver-Edits-]

Kishi really pulled out that many ninjas from the Gulag

[tyrelljohnson]

I always imagined that the villages did a mandatory draft kinda thing.

[ismetkabir]

The men and women in those villages just produced 1000+ ninjas just for the war💀
Ayoo

[x-mighty]

The number of genins in konoha wasn't 12. It was 72. We only see 12 because those are the ones from Naruto's class. But in the chunin exams arc Kabuto reveals that 72 genin ninjas from the leaf were in the exams. Also, Konoha isn't the only ninja village in the land of fire. It's just the capital. So it is possible that these many ninjas were in the war. Not a plot hole.

[mysavageconstantine]

You can also compare Ninja Registration numbers for a whole time Konohagakure existed. For example, Naruto's Ninja Registration number is 012607, and Danzo's is 000272. That means throughout the entire Konohagakure existence there were only about around 13000-14000 ninjas registered, and it was stated that only chuunins and higher level shinobi were allowed to participate in the Fourth Ninja War, so it makes it literally impossible to draft so many ninjas even if you assume they were drafted not only from Konohagakure, but from the entire Land of Fire

[thebridesons]

The size of the "villages" is vastly understated in the anime. They are massive cities. Additionally, within the Land of Fire alone, we are introduced to many other smaller villages that have ninja. While the major villages are the only ones mentioned, its apparent that all the ninja of the world took part. There are even references of people scouting ninjas from these smaller villages for the war effort.

[Ludoed]

Remember Pre-Hebi Sasuke vs 1000 chunin/jonin shinobi? Orochimaru spawned them out of nowhere.
Yet Tsunade couldn't find at least ONE jonin to catch Sasuke? Really?

[harrytingo]

Actually, the leaf 9 are not from the same class, Neji, Tenten and Lee are from the class before the MC. The Leaf 9 were focused on due to their talent within their generation. But if you look at the earlier episodes there were more students in their class and the academy had multiple classes and sensei's. It is likely that this was also the case for all other villages. Also, it is likely that, even if not directly referenced Shinobi of the smaller villages were also present in the allied forces.

[the_cringe_nerd]

The biggest plothole in Naruto is the one left in Madara when Zetsu reveals Kaguya

[babyiso]

Konoha itsef is huge, I wouldn’t doubt there being multiple different academies in different parts of the village, aswell as multiple genin exams

[ChrisMALUKAI]

my own head cannon:
hidden villages are the main and the most powerful sources of the ninjas from its land, though each country also have other military forces that have been trained as ninja + others just military forces that have been drafted for that war since it was a world threat.

[brandonromero]

Two things:
First, there's 2 chunin exams a year.
Second, naruto's class only had one chunin pass: Shikamaru.

[toxic-chainsaw]

Don't forget, Narutos class isn't the only class. Go watch the episode about Iruka learning how to teach naruto (flash back after pain ark). 3rd Hokage actually mentioned how hundreds of teachers refused him with Iruka being the last one, so actually it's more that 9. Top that off with other kids in that same class that passed n were given to other jonin. Notice how the only ones to pass were the ones who were named n given a yeacher but nobody else was mentioned.

[Chromaspell]

It's a show centered around a couple characters so it makes sense that we only follow like 20. I thought it was implied that Naruto's school was just one of a bunch in the village. And while Konoha is massive there are probably a bunch of smaller surrounding settlements.

[Thatguy-mumn]

That was only in their class, there is a scene where we get to see Sasuke’s report card, showing that there are 90 other graduates in his year, we also see during the chunin exams that there are many classrooms. The Konoha twelve are just the ones the sportlight is on.