Island of 1,000 Condiments

@Unruly: That was filler.

@Felix: Those were like, mercenaries...

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Masked_Felix

Mercenaries are soldiers, they just aren't devoted to a single country or cause.

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Kurushimi

So, 99% of the Leaf Ninja army would be made of mercanaries?

I'd still say they just had small armies, as Ninja are meant to be elite, as Punxx pointed out.

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~ xkcd

Masked_Felix

Yes, the ninja are mercenaries. They're soldiers for hire. What I was pointing out is that it doesn't matter if they're mercenaries or not; a mercenary is a subclassification of a soldier.

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Kurushimi

I would think a country would recruit a majority of their army from their own people. Lest you suffer a greater risk of betrayal.

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~ xkcd

Masked_Felix

Yes, but none of the mercenaries mentioned were working directly for a country. One set was working from a village headquarters, selling their skills everywhere, and the other's were hired by Goto. I'm sure the countries had regular soldiers. The Fire Country's Lord had at least a special guard that Asuma and that random monk guy were a part of.

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Island of 1,000 Condiments

@Kuru: Except, we've never seen regular soldiers I mean, it's possible the Lords have small, private armies, but probably nothing more than a hundred or so.

@Felix: Asuma and the monk were Shinobi. D=

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Kurushimi

Lol.

I was saying the armies were simply very small, composed of Ninja. I can't really find anything wrong with your calculations.

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~ xkcd

Island of 1,000 Condiments

Except, when I did those calculation, I went under NarutoFan's assumption that students graduate the Ninja Academy three times a year, opposed to my suggested one. If I went by my original, then there could only be 450 Shinobi in a 50 year span. Effectively, that's 150 teams. However, that doesn't include all the Shinobi who died in wars over these 50 years. Battle deaths are very common in Naruto. Hell, Hanzo took out at least a dozen Shinobi when he fought the Sannin. The Kyuubi probably destroyed half of Konoha. Itachi & Madara slaughtered a Clan. Then, subtract the amount that go rogue? My original calculations had 450. It was stated that Konoha lost almost half of its Shinobi force in the Konoha Invasion. That immediately puts it at 225, not counting prior loses. Even then, it was stated that Konoha was still comparable to the other nations? O_o

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burningvegeta

Well you know when they say "Konoha was still comparable to the other nations?" they had the legendary Sannin (and others), even though one has officially left; they had the other two even if they weren't based specifically in Konoha they would still be associated as Konoha's allies and being highly skilled ninja:

-Jiraiya: S-Rank.
-Tsunade: S-Rank.
-Sarutobi (Sandaime) is stated to know every Jutsu or something like that in Konoha. If so that would add strength to Konoha, besides in the data-book he is said to be the strongest Hokage.
-Then theres Danzo, said to have very highly skilled ninja loyal to him who were apart root, ANBU. His unit must have powerful ninjas; if Tsunade has suspicions and fears him being able to take over Konoha.
-Just to support the what I've said even further Kakashi Hatake's father: "The White Flash" is a well known ninja in terms of his skill. Kakashi himself is a well known ninja throughout the Naruto universe "Copy-Cat Ninja" once again another highly skilled ninja. Compared to other villages within the Naruto universe how many of them have ninja with these levels of ability or famously known for their ability? Not many if any at all.
-The Niju Shotai the Twenty Platoons is a task force created by Tsunade for the purpose of tracking down, attempting to capture, and, if necessary, eliminating Akatsuki members in the Fire Country. This force consists of twenty four-man teams (80 ninja). Tsunade has high hopes that if these four-man team encounted an Akatsuki member they could capture, and then even eliminate them.


I know this doesn't support the confusion with numbers and basic army but does help tip the scale in terms of power for Konoha. Even though Konoha has such a small amount of ninja, the vast majority of these ninjas are highly skilled. Where Konoha may lack in numbers it's obvious they make up for it, with skill and ability.

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Masked_Felix

Was the monk a Shinobi, or did he just know Ninjutsu?

In a land where Ninjutsu is a big part of being a cut above the rest, it would be handy to know some, ninja or not.


BELAY THAT; STUPIDITY WARNING.

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Island of 1,000 Condiments

@Burning:

Sandaime, Tsunade, & Jiraiya: At this point, Sandaime was dead. Jiraiya was away, and Tsunade was no where to be seen.

Danzo: We know nothing about him, so don't start assuming.

Kakashi: First of all, how many Jounin of other Villages have been seen? Naruto is set in Konoha. Therefore, more Konoha Shinobi will be seen. However, from other Villages, we've seen many powerful Shinobi. From Kiri, look at Zabuza, Kisame, Kimimaro. From Suna, look at Gaara, Sasori, Sandaime Kazekage. Sasori destroyed a country. From Iwa, there is Deidara. Deidara is probably the only major Iwa Shinobi shown. From Kumo, we've seen virtually no one, except Yugito. Before you go on about Yugito being the second strongest, I'll stop you right here. She was decimated by Hidan and Kakashi. Team Shikamaru w/ Kakashi was almost destroyed by Kakuzu, alone. So before anyone calls her weak, stop and think. I'll also add that she'd be logically more powerful than Gaara. The Kazekage. So, Kakashi may be reputed, but by no means, is he the only reputed Jounin. Everyone I listed is from a different Village. From them, all of them are more powerful.

Platoon: The platoons are hardly comparable to Akatsuki. Team Asuma would've been exterminated by Hidan / Kakuzu. Keep in mind, this is Base Kakuzu. Hidan defeated Asuma, and Kakuzu was about to slaughter the rest of Team Asuma, in Base. He was confident even when reinforcements came for Team Asuma. In fact, the Akatsuki only fled because they had orders to do so. Otherwise, Kakuzu might've had to activate Doton. Nothing less than multiple teams with complete knowledge of Hidan's abilities ended up defeating Kakuzu. According to most members, Kakuzu is one of the weaker members of Akatsuki. So no, the platoons were not comparable to Akatsuki, at all.


So, don't start on quality. The most powerful Shinobi we've seen aren't even from Konoha. D=

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Unruly_Saiyajin

Have you ever thought that there could be more than 1 academy? For example in our world we do not have one school for every county...

Also, consider that there are multiple classes of students being taught. I mean in our world do we have just one big classroom?

One more thing. How do we know only those 9 Genin graduated. There were a lot of other students there as well. The story only focuses on these specific teams, I'm sure there are more.

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G.O.A.T.

Its only a small village. They're not that big.

Possible.

Kakashi said during the bell test that only nine could become proper genin.

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Island of 1,000 Condiments

Thoughts in bold.

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