Hello everyone welcome to my blog my name is 
For a start I'll just put it out there, my favorite anime is none other than Naruto. The anime has a lot of beautiful episodes (720 of them), great story, moral lessons, understandable characters including the villains as it tends to explain the concept of nobody being born evil. The anime in total is not only entertaining but educative as well. However it still has a lot of shortcomings attached to which contributes to why the protagonist (Naruto) is not even part of my top 5 favorite characters in the entire series, this privilege falls to Shikamaru Nara- master of the Shadow paralysis jutsu.
Shikamaru is a laid back ninja from the Nara clan belonging to team 10 headed by Asuma Sarutobi- son of the third hokage (head of the village). His teammates are Ino and Choji and the trio have been friends since childhood just like their parents.
Shikamaru is a very skilled ninja who relies more on brains than strength and with this alone he was the first of his mates to become a Chunin despite losing in the exams. He looks up to his teacher, mentor and friend Asuma a lot but unfortunately he was murdered on a mission by two members of an evil organization known as the Akatsuki right in front of him.
This very event sends him into a devastating state which according to him can only be ended when he gets revenge on Hidan and Kakuzu, the two responsible for the death of his master. Feeling prepared and ready, he assembles a team of himself, Ino, Choji and Kakashi Hatake for the mission.
He chooses to fight Hidan- Asuma's killer while Kakashi, Ino and Choji fight Kakuzu . The heated battle drags on for a while until the arrival of Naruto, Sai and Sakura. With this new development, Shikamaru lures Hidan to a secluded location to confront him alone. The fight persists with Hidan having the upper hand or so he thought which was all part of Shikamaru's plan.
Thinking he has his blood, Hidan uses it to perform his ritual unknown to him that it was his teammate's and inevitably causing him to loose a life. Shikamaru eventually takes control of the fight blowing him up in pieces with just his head surviving the explosion inside a pit.
Since Hidan is an immortal he cannot die but he is unable to move either so his body less head just starts screaming at the victor from inside the hole. Shikamaru has achieved his objective, tells Hidan that he can pray all he wants but there was not escape for him and then proceeds to close the hole with the head inside.
Satisfied by the outcome of the battle, Shikamaru lits a lighter one last time in memory of his teacher so he can rest easy knowing his death was avenged.
Shikamaru's revenge arc is not like every other one where the character has to get stronger to achieve his goal and that is what makes this different from the others. Shikamaru is a ninja who relies on strategy over strength for everything and he employed this technique where he outsmarted both his enemies and came out victorious in the end.
The arc does not play the usual ordinary scenario of winning NOOOO. Asuma was more than just a leader, he was a teacher, a friend, mentor and even a father figure and this had a lot of emotional elements strong enough to convince the audience to rally behind him. The arc also saw the entire team 10 especially Shikamaru mature from playful kids into young adults responsible for their actions.
In the end Shikamaru was made the godfather of Asuma's daughter and he promised to protect her, the very thing he could not do for her father.
Thank you all
Pictures are gotten from narutofandom.com and screenshots from imdb
