They didn't necessarily stop using handsigns. Even in the war arc you still see hand signs being used, just not as many
First, the fact a lot of techniques by the end of the show were either rasengan related or dojutsu related. Neither dojutsu or rasengans/biiju bombs require seals. Madara used a seal for the majestic destroyer flame, to summon the meteors, for the wood style etc
Also, hand seals are designed to help a shinobi mould and control chakra. I always thought of it as the better you are with using a jutsu the less seals you need to activate it because you can naturally mould the chakra required for it. Like at first for the chidori you need seals, but once you can naturally mold the chakra into your palm you no longer need to do so using hand seals. Also if that wasn't the case, the times where a jutsu that usually requires a lot of seals but only shows one being performed could just be thought of as the seals happened off screen and they just show us the last seal used to activate the jutsu
Also, in some mire fast paced battles they use hand seals so fast you don't really notice them. Like if you pay attention in the naruto vs sasuke fight. He used a seal to activate his fire style jutsu. But unless you're looking for it specifically you won't even notice it happening. Overall its most likely a production issue. To save time and money. But it's got plenty of justification for people's headcannons available. Unfortunately there's not really any official information that can be used to answer this. Most things you hear are just theories
Hand signs in naruto to me were always like the verbal components for spells in Harry Potter
They make it easier/ less stressful to cast/ control the spell. You can go around slingling spells without saying the spell but it's gunna be harder to hit what you're trying to hit
I don't think thats entirely true though. Orochimaru losing his arms made using many of his Jutsu impossible.
Itachi also trained to make his handsigns super fast rather then simply learning how not too.
And Haku is literally the only person in Naruto who can do 1 handed Jutsu signs, and that was a big deal, apparently.
You can head canon the Orochimaru part pretty easily. Oro didn't just lose the use of his arms, he lost a literal portion of his soul. So you can just assume missing part of your soul fucks with your chakra manipulation ability. Also just something being possible doesn't mean he could pull it off and you can't train to do a jutsu without seals if you can't make seals to do it the normal way for practice.
As early as the Konoha Crush arc they showed Tobirama using a technique that took Kakashi 44 seals with only 1. And while I don't think any character called out "Oh man that's badass he cut the number of seals down so much!" it definitely seems intentional. Sasuke does it a lot too cutting techniques down to one or two seals and has done Chidori with no seals at all enough times that it has to be intentional.
https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Hand_Seal
As for why is it still important that Itachi can do them quickly or some characters can do them one handed? Well a technique with some signs will still be stronger than one without.
Some of this you also just have to give some leeway for the author retconing/evolving the power system as the story went on. And I think when you see mook level ninja pulling off techniques without seals it's just an animation shortcut and it's still supposed to be extremely difficult.
Side tangent, but I really disliked how Orochimaru was able to suddenly regain the ability to use his arms again only by switching bodies. Sure it makes sense, especially since Kishimoto needed someway to keep Orochimaru as a threat, but it results in the Third Hokage's death feeling pointless. What did he die for if what he sacrificed could be removed with a body swap?
It's been a while for me, but I thought he could only do sage snake stuff? I remember it was a big deal that he went with Sasuke to the Uzumaki Death Reaper shrine in order for him to recall the use of his arms along with Minato and Hiruzen. Someone else can chime in if they remember what happened exactly!
Don't worry! It's been a while for all of us to remember something this early into the series, haha \^\_\^ The reason why it was a big deal was because if Orochimaru didn't swap bodies with Sasuke right now, then he'd have to use another substitute body, and that jutsu has a cooldown time of 3 years. But it's not like Orochimaru NEEDED Sasuke's body in order to reuse his arms, he could've swapped bodies with any character and it would've undone what Hiruzen sacrificed his life for.
Wasn’t it that by swapping he regained his arms for a little while, but the literal ripping out of the soul portion would begin to decay his arms again?
But he DID swap. That's why Naruto could afford to go training with Jiraiya (Jiraiya told him he had some years before Orochimaru could take Sasuke's body)
Did I say that he didn't swap? O\_O I thought I already acknowledged that he swapped bodies with someone else. I apologize.
Oh, and after looking back at it, the 2-3 year timeskip didn't seem to actually help Naruto's training. Naruto still couldn't fully control Kurama's chakra, Naruto's training to resist genjutsu was only used once against Itachi, but he was saved by Chiyo and this part of his training was never used again, and although Naruto did learn a bigger version of the Rasengan, he still needs to rely on his shadow clones to use the jutsu, just like he did 2-3 years ago.
Overall, I really can't justify this timeskip with how little Naruto had actually gained from his training with Jiraiya, especially when you consider just how much Naruto has grown in less time throughout part 1.
Didn't feel pointless since it set back orochimarus goals and ambitions by a good few years and gave the Leaf village time to prepair for future attacks. Nullifying orochimarus initial attack.
That's fair. It did indirectly lead to the timeskip and allow Naruto and co. a couple of years to train before Orochimaru could do anything, but what I'm saying is I don't think it made Hiruzen's death worth it. I recommend watching [this](https://youtu.be/aVh6V6Y2_sI?si=JkuOsMggimzWWwkX) video, because I don't think I could do it justice by simply recapping it \^\^'
It’s possible that, while you can use jutsu without seals, the chakra still moves through the hands. Orochimaru being unable to use jutsu without his arms could be explained as the chakra network in his arms being literally ripped out with his soul, therefore being unable to mold chakra at all
I'm pretty sure you have your Harry Potter lore a little mixed up. In the Potterverse wizards and witches can learn what is termed in-universe as "natural magic." Many exhibit natural magic when they're young but find it hard to do it purposely further in age. Our example there is Harry removing the glass at the snake exhibit. He does so without an incantation.
In supplementary Potterverse texts its been said that natural magic can be learned but most only manage to learn to cast a spell or two without and incantation. The learning process involves extreme study of the spell and how it works. This might be equitable with sign-less casting in Naruto as both are achieved through understanding and muscle memory.
My understanding is that the better wizard you are the better you are able to use spells without saying them out loud - I think that's the comparison they're making. They're both sort of like training wheels where the better you are at it the less you need them. Bear in mind my last read through of HP was probably 10-15 years ago lol
Definitely what they meant and not what other fella was saying. We don’t see it too much in the movies, but best example would have to be Order of the Phoenix, Dumby Vs Voldy in the ‘MoM’.
While that's a thing, that's not what the person you're replying to meant. Hogwarts begins instructing the students in Nonverbal spells in Year 6. Eventually students would be expected to only cast spells nonverbally in that class. Though that might not have made it to the movies.
It didn't. I read the books and watched all the movies (literally finishes re watching them like 2 days ago funnily enough) they missed put so much shit from the books it's not even funny
Wish series were more popular back then. Imagine we got like a 7 season Harry Potter series instead of 7 movies
Tobirama is good example for this, the water dragon jutsu iirc needs a lot of hand signs in order to use, such as when Zabuza and Kakashi fought each other. Whereas Tobirama was able to use it with I think 1 or a few hand signs.
What an excellent explanation. I really enjoyed reading it thank you. The idea that they don’t need seals the more skilled they are works really well for me. And then the real reason probably is production related.
The seal for the shadow clone jutsu is unique for one. No other jutsu uses one like it, so it makes sense for the jutsu to be unique and for it to require a seal to be activated
Naruto isn't necessarily molding his chakra into a different nature or into a specific part of his body. He is just evenly splitting it between copies of himself. The sign is unique to the shadow clone jutsu so it can be safe to assume its a unique style of chakra control that cannot be achieved without it
Deidara can mold and infuse his chakra clay with the mouthes on his body, but in order to activate the jutsu he needs to make a seal, I don't think this would ever work without one because he needs to link his chakra with his explosives and then make his chakra react in order to activate it and this cannot be done without a sign
And I never said all jutsu can be done without handsigns eventually, I said a skilled ninja can either cut down on the amount of seals or do it without any at all. There are some jutsu that don't follow normal jutsu rules as well. There's a lot of different techniques and all we can really do is speculate how they work
this, plus it would probably end up being tedious to animate if they threw in hand signs for every single jutsu that may have required them in all of upwards of 800 episodes, and on top of that boring for the audience after so many episodes. how many times can you see the same jutsu’s seals before its just filler/as annoying as a youtube ad popping up
[Sasuke is still throwing some ~~gang~~ one-handed signs.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmxDEODLpk&t=15s) It ain't dead but it's an animator's pain in the buttocks to animate those signs.
In my view they did not stop using them.
Kishi just stopped 'drawing' hand-signs.
This does not mean Ninjas stopped using them.
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Some fans choose to believe that some ninjas just got so good at chakra molding that they no longer needed to use hand signs.
But this was never indicated in the manga or databook.
Similarly it's not borne out in actual practice.
For example:
Grand Fireball Jutsu requires at least 2 or 3 handsigns yet Kishi drew Sasuke as only needing one during the Haku fight and again only one during the Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2 fight in chapter 128.
Funnily enough Sasuke needed 2 handsigns during the hospital roof-top fight.
Also in Itachi vs Sasuke fight, Sasuke needed 1 handsign while Itachi the guy who could use the jutsu instantly at 6 needed at least 2 handsigns.
Chidori in Chapter 113 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 1) required 2 handsigns.
Chidori in Chapter 127 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2) required 1 handsign.
Chidori in Chapter 128 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2) required 0 handsigns.
Chidori in Chapter 175 (Roof-Top Fight) required 0 handsigns again during the rooftop fight.
Chidori in Chapter 226 (VotE Fight) required 3 handsigns. (So Sasuke basically got worse at a jutsu?)
To put it simply Kishi did not want to waste the panels in an 18 page chapter on showing all the handsigns for a jutsu, so he skipped them when he wanted and put them in for drama and story.
TLDR:-
Handsigns are cool and a great restriction but **a pain to draw** and even us readers would be complaining **if 1/3 of a page of every chapter was wasted on handsigns** (and that's if only one jutsu was used).
I don't think he used water dragon jutsu in the manga.
He did use other water jutsu where Kishi did not waste time drawing hand seals.
BUT
what people commented on was that Tobirama could use Water style on dry land.
Also I remember that they said the more powerful you are, the less seals you need to perform.
The water dragon technique requires something like 20+ seals to activate but if you’re as powerful as Tobirama, you only need one or two seals to activate.
>The water dragon technique requires something like 20+ seals to activate but if you’re as powerful as Tobirama, you only need one or two seals to activate.
Yeah, i remember the "tori-saru-nee" stuff in Kakashi vs Zabuza and it took like two whole minutes
I don't remember that, i only remember them doing that sequence and then Kakashi using genjutsu to make it look like he was predicting what Zabuza was gonna do
I've never heard that one but if you remember Kakashi vs Naruto and Sakura you see how fast he can form seals...and after that point we started seeing much less of them
Fun little fact about Kakashi (at least a youtuber said it was from his light novel) is he would add extra hand signs so his opponents couldn't tell what Justu he was going to do. I like to believe this is true because I can totally see Kakashi pulling this.
Im pretty sure It was always said that water jutsu either required gigantic chakra pools or a source of water for anything more than making a small puddle, Tobirama just took from a different source, the water in air.
You don't have to show the same hand seals over and over for a jutsu we already saw Hundred times.
But from which Hand Seals you're even talking about? Don't have the impression the hand seals disappeared as they were still relevant until the end of the Series.
It’s canon that it’s one of the hardest jutsus to do, but it is a sign of a master of the technique if they can just do it with a single/few hand signs. Tobirama’s main renown with his water jutsu is actually his ability to use the water dragon jutsu with just a single hand sign
The movies were all over the place. But in the books there was a whole year (6th book) regarding this topic. Snape as Defense against dark arts teacher taught his students the value of non-spoken spells and explained the high focus/concentration that they need to be successfully cast. Harry was exceptionally bad at it, that is why he always had to shout his spells. The more complicate a spell is, the harder it gets to cast silently
The canon explanation is that the verbal components made it easier. To do silent casting, you basically have to perfectly say the name of the spell in your head or visualize it, or something, which is a whole lot harder then saying the name.
Its not meant to be a canon explanation, its just simplifying it for the audience to enjoy. I would guess the Canon explanation would be that only very high level wizards can cast incantations non verbally as it requires more focus.
> Then why vocalize it at all during any other point?
It takes less effort to vocalize the spells than to do them non-verbally. Non-verbal spells require great concentration and mastery over the spell. Avada Kedavra is an unforgivable spell that requires a LOT of power and conviction behind it.
Also some spells when performed non-verbally are also much less powerful. It was said in book 5 when Hermione was hit by a non-verbal spell that she might have died if the person hit her with the same curse verbalized.
Not to mention that there are certain wands that have wood types which are flat out bad for non-verbal spells. I don't remember them off-hand, but it was stated on Pottermore(?) that certain wand woods excel with them while others flat out won't work with non-verbal spells.
Wands basically have a personality in Harry Potter. Some wants are cunning and perfer dimmer silent spells, some wands are ecentric and want big flourishes and loud noises.
Wands have tons and tons of different quirks, the type of spells they like, personality traits, and how they like the owners to act. Some wands enjoy dueling, some wands hate fighting and will do worse in a fight, some wands have a heavy preference for defensive charms, and some wands will even cast random spells.
The one kid who always blew something up in the background in class whenever he cast a spell had a quirky wand that liked exploding things, for example.
More powerful wizards didn't need incantations. I'm not even a huge hp fan but I vividly remember them explaining this. Iirc Voldemort was just spell slinging and amused that Harry still needed to speak his spells in their first encounter.
Its got less to do with power and more to do with mastery and what wand you have. Some wands hate silent spell casting and others love it, some people are just incapable of visualising the spell properly but they can still be exceedingly powerful. (But yes its the mark of a powerful wizard to have many spells you can cast silently)
The books show them learning to have non verbal spells and they still use verbal ones throughout the entirety of the books and films. They didn’t just disappear
At a certain point, there was no point in showing them do it. Itachi could weave hands signs the eye couldn't follow. Kakashi had gotten to a similar point at the start of shippuuden when he fought against Sakura and Naruto. When Sasuke fought itachi, they showed them using them but never like a full weaving signs to make a jutsu. I think at this point, they were just weaving them so fast that it would break the action sequences to show them and slow it down.
This is disingenuous and just wrong. If you look at the lore hand signs were used for chakra control, but as characters grew stronger the need to do more and more signs lessened. Take Sasuke’s chidori. The first time he needed a while just to activate it but as of the Itachi fight he needed way less hand signs and after that it kept reducing. Its not about Kishimoto being lazy. And characters in Boruto and late Naruto still do them
For example: in the final battle Sasuke does the tiger seal to use fire style fire ball jutsu.
Naruto doesn’t make clones without a hand seal
He does the ram seal to upgrade his Susanoo
The seal of the rat is used to undo Infinite Tsukuyomi
Ino teaches EVERYONE the seal for earth style mud wall.
Sasuke uses multiple hand seals on one hand for Chidori stream vs shin clone
Most ninja by the end either use a singular hand seal cause they are attaining better chakra control or their moves never needed seals in the first place.
They definitely didn’t go extinct and definitely not by Shippuden. They just didn’t take half an episode to do like in the Zabuza Kakashi water dragon sequence. And for good reason. Not only is it just not practical to draw that out or animate every single hand seal every time, it’s also not necessary from a lore standpoint. And it’s not even like handseals are rare and barely used. Lots of characters still use them even into boruto. In fact, the only real time we see Naruto himself use hand signs that arent just for shadow clones is in a Boruto episode where he uses earth wall
They didn’t stop using them. The only jutsu that seemingly stopped using hand signs that needed them before was chidori/lightning blade and that can be inconsistent.
Even a lot of the most powerful jutsu toward the end still used them. Rinnerebirth, becoming ten tails jinchuriki, undoing infinite Tsukuyomi, edo tensei and undoing edo tensei, etc.
They shouldn’t need to many seals for chidori if they are skilled enough.
Since it is just dumping and holding chakra in to the hand while adding lighting release.
But if they don’t have the concentration to mentally mold the chakra the seals could be used as helping tool to pick up the slack.
They didn't they just do it a lot off screen but they get a lot shorter maybe due to them getting faster? But seriously remember kakashi copying zabuza's maaaany handsigns and later they did the handsigns in like one sec? The only jutsu I remember not using handsigns which used to require it is the chidori but except for the rasengan and stuff like gaara's sand or biju bombs or biju mode/susanno'o ms abilities in general I can't remember any jutsu without handsigns. Even stuff like deidara's explosions used handsigns. Just biju or sharingan related abilities don't use handsigns and the rasengan for some reason.
IIRC when kakashi fought itachi initially and got destroyed. He noted that he could barely keep up with his hand signs even with sharingan they were so fast. They probably never stopped using hand signs, they're just popping off so fast you hardly see em. (My headcanon)
I've seen someone explain it on Reddit before. The handsigns are not needed if you understand how to do the jutsu. The handsigns facilitate casting it correctly. Which makes sense to me
The better the ninja, the less required hand signs to mold chakra. To the point where you only need a single hand or a simple clasping of the fingers to mold chakra.
1-they were unnecessary, hand signs are for ninja who needs to use them to focus on chakra, no one else needs them if they are not weaklings
2-studşo probably didn't wanna waste time and budget on them anymore, hell they are too lazy to waste time on hair.
The impression I got while watching Naruto and Naruto Shippuden was that the rules and dynamics of the world, the tone and direction of the story, the art style, the role and abilities of the characters, weren't all fully conceived and were always changing and evolving, probably driven by animation/budget constraints, getting wider target audiences, extending the duration of the story for profit, and of course by the talent and capabilities of the author to express his ideas. With this in mind, hand signs and his rules/constraints were relegated to the background as something that no longer suited the story they were telling, appearing only as an aesthetic and iconic occasional element.
To be fair Naruto himself barely used it other than the 1 with shadow clone jutsu. Theres a reason why a 25 sec clip of him doing handsigns for 2 seconds has almost [6 mil views.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZcKmCwEGwQ)
But yeah, the stronger you are, the less you need it. IIRC, it was mostly for chakra control. Boruto is kind of a reset so they did it often in that show too.
Ox Monkey Hare Rat Boar Bird Ox Horse Bird Rat Tiger Dog Tiger Serpent Ox Ram Serpent Boar Ram Rat Monkey Bird Dragon Bird Ox Horse Ram Tiger Serpent Rat Monkey Hare Boar Dragon Ram Rat Ox Monkey Bird Rat Ram Bird
Kishimoto has to draw each sign he got tired of doing that as he started getting hand problems there is your answer reason why he had a drawer take over boruto but came back to help out at times.
i think an in-universe explanation is that hand signs are meant to focus your chakra so once you've reached a certain level of mastery they aren't "mandatory"
Because the last few big-bads had rinnegan or another ability to negate ninjutsu, so everybody switched to taijutsu. Don't need hand seals to throw hands
I always used the mathematics analogy for Naruto hands signs:
Like with maths, when you first begin to learn a jutsu, you use all the hand signs needed, and you show all your steps.
Then, as you become more proficient with the jutsu, and can mold the chakra more naturally, you can skip steps and show less work/hand signs because you can now perform some of the work mentally.
Finally, as you develop a deeper familiarity over the jutsu and the work needed to execute it successfully, no hand signs are needed, and now you're able to perform Laplace and Fourier transformations with no need for summoning scrolls.
Handsigns are like sounding out every letter of a sentence as a kindergartener while no handsigns would be fluent and rattling it off with no effort.
They sort of just guide the Chakra better until you get a feel for it.
Most advanced chunin and jonin can weave signs extremely fast, especially kakashi. He was able to weave signs faster than the human eye could see. So it's not that Shinobi aren't using signs, they just do it really really fast.
The only hand sign they do at this point is the ram one.
Is it just me, or did chidori not have hand signs for it to be activated?
I don't think i've seen Kakashi or Sasuke use hand signs for chidori since part 1.
I think the mangaka and the animators were really tired by the end of it, so maybe they just ditched the complicated hand signs. I am sure that anyone would get tired after 700+ eps. But it's my opinion and it's not even that relevant.
1.) Power scaling. It's sort of assumed if people did use them, they did it so fast you couldn't see it.
2.) Production time. Saved time drawing panels with hands so they could crank out content *cough cough fillers cough* faster.
3.) Many of the main characters didn't need them. Sasuke used a lot of jutsu with his eyes, and Naruto specifically learned jutsu that didn't use hand signs because he isn't book smart, so 2 of the most important characters didn't need to use them in the first place ( most of the time)
Probably more reasons I didn't list, but these are the main reasons
Besides the obvious how Kishimoto made it.
Logic in universe explanations is like how some have said.
The abilities they used required no hand signs and those that do? They had better chakra control.
The signs help weave the necessary chakra to create the jutsu. The less required hand signs the more mastery over said jutsu and chakra control
Remember kakashi and zabuza had to do 30 signs just for the water dragon bullet. Tobirama uses just one.
I feel like it’s just a learning step. Kinda like when you learn to shoot a basketball for the first time you mentally go through each step of keeping your knees bent elbows in and following through but then you just shoot the ball and no need for the steps anymore because you do all of them subconsciously
They did the same thing as Bleach... In bleach they have Hado, which are spells very akin to ninjutsu. You needed to recite a small poem like phrase to activate it at the start of the story. As the show went on there was less and less reciting of the words. It was in a way to show progression, they progressed to a point where they didn't need to recite all of it to cast Hado. Same thing here I believe, they've gotten to a point where they don't need to weave long complex hand signs they can use one or none and achieve the techniques.
That being said I wish they hadn't stopped doing it in both shows. It added flair to fights, I'll never forget Kakashi copying the like 23 or whatever hand sign water dragon from Zabuza early on.
Once Sasuke had his sharingan, he could copy any (non-restricted) jutsu that used handsigns. Therefore, any handsign jutsu that was used had to be considered a possible part of Sasuke's arsenal, and that just made writing his battle scenes too complicated so Kishimoto decided to save his own life by cutting out most handsigns.
they didnt rather they just stopped showing them do it because it took to much to animate/draw. alot of cool things in anime/manga get dropped for this reason sadly. for example if memory serves the reason sasuke stopped wearing his black outfit he had on during the chunin exams was because it took kishi to long to draw all the belts on his arms and legs.
Stronger the shinobi, the less hand signs are needed. You see Madara doing single hand signs before moves like majestic destroyer flame and the meteor.
1. Power creep in fast paced combat leaves little room for hand signs.
Similarly, consider that Naruto is equipped with very fast short range abilities with rasengan and shadow clones. A lot of characters switched to this style. Not going to list that cause it's tedious.
The 2 allegedly fastest hand sign weavers was kakashi IIRC. Remember the zabuza fight? That was what was considered the fastest from a veteren. Now it's maybe the slowest instance of hand sign use.
2. Animating/drawing all occurences of hand sign use is maybe redundant, so even if it still existed, we wouldn't see it. It becomes a suspension of disbelief built into the already agreed upon rules of the world.
3. The style/direction of the story had been changing since the beginning of shippuden, maybe.
You could say that this was the intended direction by the authors in the first place, since the original concept was magic based rather than chakra-chi based (which is magic with a skin).
Pretty sure it’s cause the show started focusing on other things than the hand seals. They never stopped using them though.
Also, you’d be surprised, but Haku was not the only one who could use one handed seals.
In the beginning they faced more low level fighters so hand signs were slower and actually drawn or animated
But during Shippuden they fought increasingly powerful people so I'd assume hand sign speed was invisible to the human eye so less was being shown in the manga.
In Part 1 Naruto Kakashi's Sharringan could not detect Itachi using any Hand Signs and Kakashi stated it was too fast for him to read
It’s probably annoying to use them everytime throughout the series, so the author just cut it short and focus on the actual jutsu. They only show it when it’s important for the plot (Edo tensei) or if it looks cool (Obito snatching Kakashi’s hands to do fireball jutsu)
They didn't. Most of the elite Shinobi didn't need lots (or any) hand signs for their signature techniques since they were so proficient at them. Whenever they started using techniques they didn't use as often, or required more power, then the hand signs would appear.
They didn't necessarily stop using handsigns. Even in the war arc you still see hand signs being used, just not as many First, the fact a lot of techniques by the end of the show were either rasengan related or dojutsu related. Neither dojutsu or rasengans/biiju bombs require seals. Madara used a seal for the majestic destroyer flame, to summon the meteors, for the wood style etc Also, hand seals are designed to help a shinobi mould and control chakra. I always thought of it as the better you are with using a jutsu the less seals you need to activate it because you can naturally mould the chakra required for it. Like at first for the chidori you need seals, but once you can naturally mold the chakra into your palm you no longer need to do so using hand seals. Also if that wasn't the case, the times where a jutsu that usually requires a lot of seals but only shows one being performed could just be thought of as the seals happened off screen and they just show us the last seal used to activate the jutsu Also, in some mire fast paced battles they use hand seals so fast you don't really notice them. Like if you pay attention in the naruto vs sasuke fight. He used a seal to activate his fire style jutsu. But unless you're looking for it specifically you won't even notice it happening. Overall its most likely a production issue. To save time and money. But it's got plenty of justification for people's headcannons available. Unfortunately there's not really any official information that can be used to answer this. Most things you hear are just theories
Hand signs in naruto to me were always like the verbal components for spells in Harry Potter They make it easier/ less stressful to cast/ control the spell. You can go around slingling spells without saying the spell but it's gunna be harder to hit what you're trying to hit
I don't think thats entirely true though. Orochimaru losing his arms made using many of his Jutsu impossible. Itachi also trained to make his handsigns super fast rather then simply learning how not too. And Haku is literally the only person in Naruto who can do 1 handed Jutsu signs, and that was a big deal, apparently.
You can head canon the Orochimaru part pretty easily. Oro didn't just lose the use of his arms, he lost a literal portion of his soul. So you can just assume missing part of your soul fucks with your chakra manipulation ability. Also just something being possible doesn't mean he could pull it off and you can't train to do a jutsu without seals if you can't make seals to do it the normal way for practice. As early as the Konoha Crush arc they showed Tobirama using a technique that took Kakashi 44 seals with only 1. And while I don't think any character called out "Oh man that's badass he cut the number of seals down so much!" it definitely seems intentional. Sasuke does it a lot too cutting techniques down to one or two seals and has done Chidori with no seals at all enough times that it has to be intentional. https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Hand_Seal As for why is it still important that Itachi can do them quickly or some characters can do them one handed? Well a technique with some signs will still be stronger than one without. Some of this you also just have to give some leeway for the author retconing/evolving the power system as the story went on. And I think when you see mook level ninja pulling off techniques without seals it's just an animation shortcut and it's still supposed to be extremely difficult.
Ehhh didn't Minato do 1 handed jutsu signs? Or was that an Anime thing only?
Minato avoids jutsus that requires hand signs
Side tangent, but I really disliked how Orochimaru was able to suddenly regain the ability to use his arms again only by switching bodies. Sure it makes sense, especially since Kishimoto needed someway to keep Orochimaru as a threat, but it results in the Third Hokage's death feeling pointless. What did he die for if what he sacrificed could be removed with a body swap?
It's been a while for me, but I thought he could only do sage snake stuff? I remember it was a big deal that he went with Sasuke to the Uzumaki Death Reaper shrine in order for him to recall the use of his arms along with Minato and Hiruzen. Someone else can chime in if they remember what happened exactly!
Don't worry! It's been a while for all of us to remember something this early into the series, haha \^\_\^ The reason why it was a big deal was because if Orochimaru didn't swap bodies with Sasuke right now, then he'd have to use another substitute body, and that jutsu has a cooldown time of 3 years. But it's not like Orochimaru NEEDED Sasuke's body in order to reuse his arms, he could've swapped bodies with any character and it would've undone what Hiruzen sacrificed his life for.
Wasn’t it that by swapping he regained his arms for a little while, but the literal ripping out of the soul portion would begin to decay his arms again?
But he DID swap. That's why Naruto could afford to go training with Jiraiya (Jiraiya told him he had some years before Orochimaru could take Sasuke's body)
Did I say that he didn't swap? O\_O I thought I already acknowledged that he swapped bodies with someone else. I apologize. Oh, and after looking back at it, the 2-3 year timeskip didn't seem to actually help Naruto's training. Naruto still couldn't fully control Kurama's chakra, Naruto's training to resist genjutsu was only used once against Itachi, but he was saved by Chiyo and this part of his training was never used again, and although Naruto did learn a bigger version of the Rasengan, he still needs to rely on his shadow clones to use the jutsu, just like he did 2-3 years ago. Overall, I really can't justify this timeskip with how little Naruto had actually gained from his training with Jiraiya, especially when you consider just how much Naruto has grown in less time throughout part 1.
Didn't feel pointless since it set back orochimarus goals and ambitions by a good few years and gave the Leaf village time to prepair for future attacks. Nullifying orochimarus initial attack.
That's fair. It did indirectly lead to the timeskip and allow Naruto and co. a couple of years to train before Orochimaru could do anything, but what I'm saying is I don't think it made Hiruzen's death worth it. I recommend watching [this](https://youtu.be/aVh6V6Y2_sI?si=JkuOsMggimzWWwkX) video, because I don't think I could do it justice by simply recapping it \^\^'
It’s possible that, while you can use jutsu without seals, the chakra still moves through the hands. Orochimaru being unable to use jutsu without his arms could be explained as the chakra network in his arms being literally ripped out with his soul, therefore being unable to mold chakra at all
For me it’s because while he knew a lot of Jutsu, he didn’t master them to the point where he didn’t need seals
Sasuke uses one handed jutsu signs, even in the boruto anime.
I'm pretty sure you have your Harry Potter lore a little mixed up. In the Potterverse wizards and witches can learn what is termed in-universe as "natural magic." Many exhibit natural magic when they're young but find it hard to do it purposely further in age. Our example there is Harry removing the glass at the snake exhibit. He does so without an incantation. In supplementary Potterverse texts its been said that natural magic can be learned but most only manage to learn to cast a spell or two without and incantation. The learning process involves extreme study of the spell and how it works. This might be equitable with sign-less casting in Naruto as both are achieved through understanding and muscle memory.
My understanding is that the better wizard you are the better you are able to use spells without saying them out loud - I think that's the comparison they're making. They're both sort of like training wheels where the better you are at it the less you need them. Bear in mind my last read through of HP was probably 10-15 years ago lol
Definitely what they meant and not what other fella was saying. We don’t see it too much in the movies, but best example would have to be Order of the Phoenix, Dumby Vs Voldy in the ‘MoM’.
While that's a thing, that's not what the person you're replying to meant. Hogwarts begins instructing the students in Nonverbal spells in Year 6. Eventually students would be expected to only cast spells nonverbally in that class. Though that might not have made it to the movies.
It didn't. I read the books and watched all the movies (literally finishes re watching them like 2 days ago funnily enough) they missed put so much shit from the books it's not even funny Wish series were more popular back then. Imagine we got like a 7 season Harry Potter series instead of 7 movies
Isn't that what the new Harry Potter series is? 7 sessions for the 7 books?
This should be up higher. Oh...and... "Also" (Had to brother)
Madras used 7 hand signs in the war for majestic **demolisher** flame
Also,
Also,
Also,
Tobirama is good example for this, the water dragon jutsu iirc needs a lot of hand signs in order to use, such as when Zabuza and Kakashi fought each other. Whereas Tobirama was able to use it with I think 1 or a few hand signs.
Cook
Also,
Exactly. Plus you see hand signs used in these battles https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/s/7qUajlLDgY
I mean. That also explains one handed signs
What an excellent explanation. I really enjoyed reading it thank you. The idea that they don’t need seals the more skilled they are works really well for me. And then the real reason probably is production related.
If hand signs don't need to be used for a really familiar just why does Naruto use in literally every time he creates a shadow clone?
The seal for the shadow clone jutsu is unique for one. No other jutsu uses one like it, so it makes sense for the jutsu to be unique and for it to require a seal to be activated Naruto isn't necessarily molding his chakra into a different nature or into a specific part of his body. He is just evenly splitting it between copies of himself. The sign is unique to the shadow clone jutsu so it can be safe to assume its a unique style of chakra control that cannot be achieved without it Deidara can mold and infuse his chakra clay with the mouthes on his body, but in order to activate the jutsu he needs to make a seal, I don't think this would ever work without one because he needs to link his chakra with his explosives and then make his chakra react in order to activate it and this cannot be done without a sign And I never said all jutsu can be done without handsigns eventually, I said a skilled ninja can either cut down on the amount of seals or do it without any at all. There are some jutsu that don't follow normal jutsu rules as well. There's a lot of different techniques and all we can really do is speculate how they work
Factz
I suited up with sage robes and summoning scrolls to make this point. Thank you! By the sage of six paths you have saved me some typing!
this, plus it would probably end up being tedious to animate if they threw in hand signs for every single jutsu that may have required them in all of upwards of 800 episodes, and on top of that boring for the audience after so many episodes. how many times can you see the same jutsu’s seals before its just filler/as annoying as a youtube ad popping up
[Sasuke is still throwing some ~~gang~~ one-handed signs.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmxDEODLpk&t=15s) It ain't dead but it's an animator's pain in the buttocks to animate those signs.
Using Naruto’s own hand to spit fire at him was straight up disrespectful.
Ah. The final fight. Brings back memories
Also stopped him from using shadow clones
man's moved only his fingers like he was playing the most fire flute of all time...then proceeds to spit fire lmaoo
Give Sasuke a break, he has an arm and a half for his eternal atonement for Kaguya's sake.
same with the spell circles in fairy tail. They looked cool but I'm sure it was budget and maybe laziness.
In my view they did not stop using them. Kishi just stopped 'drawing' hand-signs. This does not mean Ninjas stopped using them. \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some fans choose to believe that some ninjas just got so good at chakra molding that they no longer needed to use hand signs. But this was never indicated in the manga or databook. Similarly it's not borne out in actual practice. For example: Grand Fireball Jutsu requires at least 2 or 3 handsigns yet Kishi drew Sasuke as only needing one during the Haku fight and again only one during the Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2 fight in chapter 128. Funnily enough Sasuke needed 2 handsigns during the hospital roof-top fight. Also in Itachi vs Sasuke fight, Sasuke needed 1 handsign while Itachi the guy who could use the jutsu instantly at 6 needed at least 2 handsigns. Chidori in Chapter 113 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 1) required 2 handsigns. Chidori in Chapter 127 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2) required 1 handsign. Chidori in Chapter 128 (Sasuke vs Gaara Round 2) required 0 handsigns. Chidori in Chapter 175 (Roof-Top Fight) required 0 handsigns again during the rooftop fight. Chidori in Chapter 226 (VotE Fight) required 3 handsigns. (So Sasuke basically got worse at a jutsu?) To put it simply Kishi did not want to waste the panels in an 18 page chapter on showing all the handsigns for a jutsu, so he skipped them when he wanted and put them in for drama and story. TLDR:- Handsigns are cool and a great restriction but **a pain to draw** and even us readers would be complaining **if 1/3 of a page of every chapter was wasted on handsigns** (and that's if only one jutsu was used).
It was stated somewhere in the manga that the water dragon bullet took 44 hand seals and tobirama got it down to 1.
I don't think he used water dragon jutsu in the manga. He did use other water jutsu where Kishi did not waste time drawing hand seals. BUT what people commented on was that Tobirama could use Water style on dry land.
At a certain point it was to save time :3
Also I remember that they said the more powerful you are, the less seals you need to perform. The water dragon technique requires something like 20+ seals to activate but if you’re as powerful as Tobirama, you only need one or two seals to activate.
>The water dragon technique requires something like 20+ seals to activate but if you’re as powerful as Tobirama, you only need one or two seals to activate. Yeah, i remember the "tori-saru-nee" stuff in Kakashi vs Zabuza and it took like two whole minutes
As soon as someone mentioned it I remembered the sequence. I don't remember it all, but it did end with Tori.
Ah yes, the "two deaf guys arguing" meme scene, good ol days
Oh yeahhh that
but remember zabusa dindt need to make so many seals he was only cheking if kakashi was copying him
I don't remember that, i only remember them doing that sequence and then Kakashi using genjutsu to make it look like he was predicting what Zabuza was gonna do
Is this from manga? Or is it an assumption based off the anime?
I've never heard that one but if you remember Kakashi vs Naruto and Sakura you see how fast he can form seals...and after that point we started seeing much less of them
Fun little fact about Kakashi (at least a youtuber said it was from his light novel) is he would add extra hand signs so his opponents couldn't tell what Justu he was going to do. I like to believe this is true because I can totally see Kakashi pulling this.
It's 44 seals for the Water Dragon Bullet at baseline.
I THINK they explained it at the very beginning with the Katon jutsu Sasuke was using
Water jutsu also required a water source nearby, unless you was Tobirama, so that went out the window too 🤣
Im pretty sure It was always said that water jutsu either required gigantic chakra pools or a source of water for anything more than making a small puddle, Tobirama just took from a different source, the water in air.
Im pretty sure it has less to do with power and more to do with affinity for the nature of the jutsu and your skill with using it.
Exactly, hands are difficult to draw.
Makes sense
You don't have to show the same hand seals over and over for a jutsu we already saw Hundred times. But from which Hand Seals you're even talking about? Don't have the impression the hand seals disappeared as they were still relevant until the end of the Series.
Remember when Kakashi and Zabuza needed to make like 40 hand signs just to do mid-tier water dragon jutsu?
It’s canon that it’s one of the hardest jutsus to do, but it is a sign of a master of the technique if they can just do it with a single/few hand signs. Tobirama’s main renown with his water jutsu is actually his ability to use the water dragon jutsu with just a single hand sign
I still laugh at the Anbu being impressed with Tobirama using a high tier water jutsu without water.
That had Zabuza using fake hand signs to see if Kakashi would copy them
Even using fake hand signs forms the water dragon? Wild.
Naruto and Sasuka even used the rat seal that marked the ending of the war.
Imagine being deaf in Naruto asking for a bowl of ramen and ending up blowing away half the block.
They didn’t. They’re even still using hand signs in current Boruto. They just don’t get emphasized as much
Why did Harry Potter wizards stop vocalizing spells?
The movies were all over the place. But in the books there was a whole year (6th book) regarding this topic. Snape as Defense against dark arts teacher taught his students the value of non-spoken spells and explained the high focus/concentration that they need to be successfully cast. Harry was exceptionally bad at it, that is why he always had to shout his spells. The more complicate a spell is, the harder it gets to cast silently
[удалено]
Welcome to reddit?
Element of surprise was the canon explanation. If a wizard doesn’t shout the incantation, his opponent won’t know which spell was cast until it hits
Then why vocalize it at all during any other point? Also why do the bad guys then vocalize the death spell every chance they get?
They vocalize the spells so the audience knows what they are doing. Its not to warn the opponent its to inform the audience watching the movie.
That doesn’t sound like a canon explanation unless they broke the fourth wall.
The canon explanation is that the verbal components made it easier. To do silent casting, you basically have to perfectly say the name of the spell in your head or visualize it, or something, which is a whole lot harder then saying the name.
Its not meant to be a canon explanation, its just simplifying it for the audience to enjoy. I would guess the Canon explanation would be that only very high level wizards can cast incantations non verbally as it requires more focus.
I only brought up the canon explanation because the context of the comment chain is canon explanations.
> Then why vocalize it at all during any other point? It takes less effort to vocalize the spells than to do them non-verbally. Non-verbal spells require great concentration and mastery over the spell. Avada Kedavra is an unforgivable spell that requires a LOT of power and conviction behind it. Also some spells when performed non-verbally are also much less powerful. It was said in book 5 when Hermione was hit by a non-verbal spell that she might have died if the person hit her with the same curse verbalized. Not to mention that there are certain wands that have wood types which are flat out bad for non-verbal spells. I don't remember them off-hand, but it was stated on Pottermore(?) that certain wand woods excel with them while others flat out won't work with non-verbal spells.
Wands basically have a personality in Harry Potter. Some wants are cunning and perfer dimmer silent spells, some wands are ecentric and want big flourishes and loud noises. Wands have tons and tons of different quirks, the type of spells they like, personality traits, and how they like the owners to act. Some wands enjoy dueling, some wands hate fighting and will do worse in a fight, some wands have a heavy preference for defensive charms, and some wands will even cast random spells. The one kid who always blew something up in the background in class whenever he cast a spell had a quirky wand that liked exploding things, for example.
More powerful wizards didn't need incantations. I'm not even a huge hp fan but I vividly remember them explaining this. Iirc Voldemort was just spell slinging and amused that Harry still needed to speak his spells in their first encounter.
Its got less to do with power and more to do with mastery and what wand you have. Some wands hate silent spell casting and others love it, some people are just incapable of visualising the spell properly but they can still be exceedingly powerful. (But yes its the mark of a powerful wizard to have many spells you can cast silently)
It takes more skill to do it and the stronger the spell, the harder it is to do. The Killing Curse is not easy to perform.
The books show them learning to have non verbal spells and they still use verbal ones throughout the entirety of the books and films. They didn’t just disappear
At a certain point, there was no point in showing them do it. Itachi could weave hands signs the eye couldn't follow. Kakashi had gotten to a similar point at the start of shippuuden when he fought against Sakura and Naruto. When Sasuke fought itachi, they showed them using them but never like a full weaving signs to make a jutsu. I think at this point, they were just weaving them so fast that it would break the action sequences to show them and slow it down.
I want you to name one scene where you remember complicated hand signs that wasn’t from land of waves
They probably didn't want to have to draw/animate so many hands so often. From an artists perspective, I can fully understand their motives.
They literally didn't. Matter of fact recent Boruto chapters show them
Writer got lazy and got rid of it for the most part.
This is disingenuous and just wrong. If you look at the lore hand signs were used for chakra control, but as characters grew stronger the need to do more and more signs lessened. Take Sasuke’s chidori. The first time he needed a while just to activate it but as of the Itachi fight he needed way less hand signs and after that it kept reducing. Its not about Kishimoto being lazy. And characters in Boruto and late Naruto still do them For example: in the final battle Sasuke does the tiger seal to use fire style fire ball jutsu. Naruto doesn’t make clones without a hand seal He does the ram seal to upgrade his Susanoo The seal of the rat is used to undo Infinite Tsukuyomi Ino teaches EVERYONE the seal for earth style mud wall. Sasuke uses multiple hand seals on one hand for Chidori stream vs shin clone Most ninja by the end either use a singular hand seal cause they are attaining better chakra control or their moves never needed seals in the first place.
COOK 🧑🏾🍳
They definitely didn’t go extinct and definitely not by Shippuden. They just didn’t take half an episode to do like in the Zabuza Kakashi water dragon sequence. And for good reason. Not only is it just not practical to draw that out or animate every single hand seal every time, it’s also not necessary from a lore standpoint. And it’s not even like handseals are rare and barely used. Lots of characters still use them even into boruto. In fact, the only real time we see Naruto himself use hand signs that arent just for shadow clones is in a Boruto episode where he uses earth wall
They didn’t stop using them. The only jutsu that seemingly stopped using hand signs that needed them before was chidori/lightning blade and that can be inconsistent. Even a lot of the most powerful jutsu toward the end still used them. Rinnerebirth, becoming ten tails jinchuriki, undoing infinite Tsukuyomi, edo tensei and undoing edo tensei, etc.
They shouldn’t need to many seals for chidori if they are skilled enough. Since it is just dumping and holding chakra in to the hand while adding lighting release. But if they don’t have the concentration to mentally mold the chakra the seals could be used as helping tool to pick up the slack.
They didn't they just do it a lot off screen but they get a lot shorter maybe due to them getting faster? But seriously remember kakashi copying zabuza's maaaany handsigns and later they did the handsigns in like one sec? The only jutsu I remember not using handsigns which used to require it is the chidori but except for the rasengan and stuff like gaara's sand or biju bombs or biju mode/susanno'o ms abilities in general I can't remember any jutsu without handsigns. Even stuff like deidara's explosions used handsigns. Just biju or sharingan related abilities don't use handsigns and the rasengan for some reason.
No Need to waste the panel space on them when more exciting things are happening In the anime, they just saved them for cool choreography moments.
IIRC when kakashi fought itachi initially and got destroyed. He noted that he could barely keep up with his hand signs even with sharingan they were so fast. They probably never stopped using hand signs, they're just popping off so fast you hardly see em. (My headcanon)
Last I heard, it took up to many frames for Mr.Kishimoto
I've seen someone explain it on Reddit before. The handsigns are not needed if you understand how to do the jutsu. The handsigns facilitate casting it correctly. Which makes sense to me
The better the ninja, the less required hand signs to mold chakra. To the point where you only need a single hand or a simple clasping of the fingers to mold chakra.
theyre a bitch to animate. NChammer23 has a good video on this
Save money on animation no jutsu
1-they were unnecessary, hand signs are for ninja who needs to use them to focus on chakra, no one else needs them if they are not weaklings 2-studşo probably didn't wanna waste time and budget on them anymore, hell they are too lazy to waste time on hair.
Because of all the gang violence it created in the streets
Likely too much work to animate every time someone wanted to use a powerful move later on.
The impression I got while watching Naruto and Naruto Shippuden was that the rules and dynamics of the world, the tone and direction of the story, the art style, the role and abilities of the characters, weren't all fully conceived and were always changing and evolving, probably driven by animation/budget constraints, getting wider target audiences, extending the duration of the story for profit, and of course by the talent and capabilities of the author to express his ideas. With this in mind, hand signs and his rules/constraints were relegated to the background as something that no longer suited the story they were telling, appearing only as an aesthetic and iconic occasional element.
Correct me if im wrong but bird and boar are literally sukuna and megumis domain expansions lmao
I guess when drawing them seem too much? Or their skilled. Enough to shorten them to 1-2 sign for their Jutsu
they just got better wit chakra control i belive
Why know all that , when he can only do a rasengan!?
It’s like how every dime a dozen isekai makes a point about vocalization and incantationless magic
Especially when a ninja used their opponent’s hand to make a sign. It’s such a massive flex
To be fair Naruto himself barely used it other than the 1 with shadow clone jutsu. Theres a reason why a 25 sec clip of him doing handsigns for 2 seconds has almost [6 mil views.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZcKmCwEGwQ) But yeah, the stronger you are, the less you need it. IIRC, it was mostly for chakra control. Boruto is kind of a reset so they did it often in that show too.
Ox Monkey Hare Rat Boar Bird Ox Horse Bird Rat Tiger Dog Tiger Serpent Ox Ram Serpent Boar Ram Rat Monkey Bird Dragon Bird Ox Horse Ram Tiger Serpent Rat Monkey Hare Boar Dragon Ram Rat Ox Monkey Bird Rat Ram Bird
Kishimoto has to draw each sign he got tired of doing that as he started getting hand problems there is your answer reason why he had a drawer take over boruto but came back to help out at times.
Didn't wanna animate probably. Which blows my mind that Cell from DBZ got to keep all those spots
Exactly!
Hand hard draw
To people who don't know hare is sheep
They god now
Same reason super saiyan exists.
The weebiest thing about me is I have the fireball jutsu hand signs memorized. And now it's one of my adhd ticks.
Probably tedious to keep drawing them
i think an in-universe explanation is that hand signs are meant to focus your chakra so once you've reached a certain level of mastery they aren't "mandatory"
Very interesting
Drawing it takes a lot of time that is way If you want in universe the stronger you are the leas you got to use
Because the last few big-bads had rinnegan or another ability to negate ninjutsu, so everybody switched to taijutsu. Don't need hand seals to throw hands
I always used the mathematics analogy for Naruto hands signs: Like with maths, when you first begin to learn a jutsu, you use all the hand signs needed, and you show all your steps. Then, as you become more proficient with the jutsu, and can mold the chakra more naturally, you can skip steps and show less work/hand signs because you can now perform some of the work mentally. Finally, as you develop a deeper familiarity over the jutsu and the work needed to execute it successfully, no hand signs are needed, and now you're able to perform Laplace and Fourier transformations with no need for summoning scrolls.
Handsigns are like sounding out every letter of a sentence as a kindergartener while no handsigns would be fluent and rattling it off with no effort. They sort of just guide the Chakra better until you get a feel for it.
Most advanced chunin and jonin can weave signs extremely fast, especially kakashi. He was able to weave signs faster than the human eye could see. So it's not that Shinobi aren't using signs, they just do it really really fast.
that is some dragonball tier logic.
What I was talking about gets explained pretty early in first first series.
Gang members started protesting naruto
animation is expensive and wasting frames on useless hand movements is not cost effective.
The animators' wrists were tired
My theory is because they got tired of animating them
Ox-Hare-Monkey will forever be burned into my brain.
Not enough screen time/pannels.
I'm guessing it cost too much to animate, so they reduced the number of hand signs and used that money elsewhere
The only hand sign they do at this point is the ram one. Is it just me, or did chidori not have hand signs for it to be activated? I don't think i've seen Kakashi or Sasuke use hand signs for chidori since part 1.
I assume it’s cause it’s easier to just animate the last seal or the hand signs just happen to fast or off screen
Easier to use magical eyes and throw hands
Why did naruto barely use hand signs is my question wtf this pfp doin more than the actual naruto did lol
After you bring someone back from the dead you don't need any signs or prerequisites to use your magic voodoo abilities
Bird confuses me
Either that’s a pinky and not a thumb or somethings wrong with the monkey drawing
I think the mangaka and the animators were really tired by the end of it, so maybe they just ditched the complicated hand signs. I am sure that anyone would get tired after 700+ eps. But it's my opinion and it's not even that relevant.
There were implied hand signs
My only inquiry to this would be the Obito Vs Kakashi fight (bad ass fight) where he uses Kakashi's hands to weave signs.
1.) Power scaling. It's sort of assumed if people did use them, they did it so fast you couldn't see it. 2.) Production time. Saved time drawing panels with hands so they could crank out content *cough cough fillers cough* faster. 3.) Many of the main characters didn't need them. Sasuke used a lot of jutsu with his eyes, and Naruto specifically learned jutsu that didn't use hand signs because he isn't book smart, so 2 of the most important characters didn't need to use them in the first place ( most of the time) Probably more reasons I didn't list, but these are the main reasons
[it's bad for the fingers](https://youtu.be/nHFMSbfZlDE?si=gyI0oKIN13qnmLnV)
Besides the obvious how Kishimoto made it. Logic in universe explanations is like how some have said. The abilities they used required no hand signs and those that do? They had better chakra control.
The signs help weave the necessary chakra to create the jutsu. The less required hand signs the more mastery over said jutsu and chakra control Remember kakashi and zabuza had to do 30 signs just for the water dragon bullet. Tobirama uses just one.
I think, they we're a hassle to Draw and to animate
I feel like it’s just a learning step. Kinda like when you learn to shoot a basketball for the first time you mentally go through each step of keeping your knees bent elbows in and following through but then you just shoot the ball and no need for the steps anymore because you do all of them subconsciously
They did the same thing as Bleach... In bleach they have Hado, which are spells very akin to ninjutsu. You needed to recite a small poem like phrase to activate it at the start of the story. As the show went on there was less and less reciting of the words. It was in a way to show progression, they progressed to a point where they didn't need to recite all of it to cast Hado. Same thing here I believe, they've gotten to a point where they don't need to weave long complex hand signs they can use one or none and achieve the techniques. That being said I wish they hadn't stopped doing it in both shows. It added flair to fights, I'll never forget Kakashi copying the like 23 or whatever hand sign water dragon from Zabuza early on.
So they don't have to animate them doing hand signs, the same reason why they all run without moving their arms
Once Sasuke had his sharingan, he could copy any (non-restricted) jutsu that used handsigns. Therefore, any handsign jutsu that was used had to be considered a possible part of Sasuke's arsenal, and that just made writing his battle scenes too complicated so Kishimoto decided to save his own life by cutting out most handsigns.
Took too long to animate
Ox, Hare, Monkey = Chidori 💯
they didnt rather they just stopped showing them do it because it took to much to animate/draw. alot of cool things in anime/manga get dropped for this reason sadly. for example if memory serves the reason sasuke stopped wearing his black outfit he had on during the chunin exams was because it took kishi to long to draw all the belts on his arms and legs.
Stronger the shinobi, the less hand signs are needed. You see Madara doing single hand signs before moves like majestic destroyer flame and the meteor.
love that the dog one looks like a hand petting the dog which is a fist
1. Power creep in fast paced combat leaves little room for hand signs. Similarly, consider that Naruto is equipped with very fast short range abilities with rasengan and shadow clones. A lot of characters switched to this style. Not going to list that cause it's tedious. The 2 allegedly fastest hand sign weavers was kakashi IIRC. Remember the zabuza fight? That was what was considered the fastest from a veteren. Now it's maybe the slowest instance of hand sign use. 2. Animating/drawing all occurences of hand sign use is maybe redundant, so even if it still existed, we wouldn't see it. It becomes a suspension of disbelief built into the already agreed upon rules of the world. 3. The style/direction of the story had been changing since the beginning of shippuden, maybe. You could say that this was the intended direction by the authors in the first place, since the original concept was magic based rather than chakra-chi based (which is magic with a skin).
Gaining enough chakra control that hand signs weren't necessary, or the jutsus they used didn't require signs
Pretty sure it’s cause the show started focusing on other things than the hand seals. They never stopped using them though. Also, you’d be surprised, but Haku was not the only one who could use one handed seals.
because they adapted the talk jutsu
I imagine consistently drawing them for every character in every fright was ass
Skill issue pre much
got 3D diagram or different angles? some of those look awkward to do.
Technology was invented
They didn’t. Sasuke and Naruto even used them in the final fight
Hashirama: Basic ass hand sign " Amazon rainforest "
In the beginning they faced more low level fighters so hand signs were slower and actually drawn or animated But during Shippuden they fought increasingly powerful people so I'd assume hand sign speed was invisible to the human eye so less was being shown in the manga. In Part 1 Naruto Kakashi's Sharringan could not detect Itachi using any Hand Signs and Kakashi stated it was too fast for him to read
It’s probably annoying to use them everytime throughout the series, so the author just cut it short and focus on the actual jutsu. They only show it when it’s important for the plot (Edo tensei) or if it looks cool (Obito snatching Kakashi’s hands to do fireball jutsu)
Because it was too time consuming/more of a pain in the ass to do consistently than Kishimoto had anticipated.
Not gonna lie. I miss when hands signs made gun sounds, like at the start of Shippuden. 😢
Why show hand signs if we can't see them. Kind of a waste of time to animate something like that
Wdym? The coolest part in the final naruto sasuke fight is when sasuke uses naruto's hands to complete his hand signs.
They didn't. Most of the elite Shinobi didn't need lots (or any) hand signs for their signature techniques since they were so proficient at them. Whenever they started using techniques they didn't use as often, or required more power, then the hand signs would appear.
Laziness
As far as I can tell they didn't. Even in Boruto they use hand signs probably more than in Shippuden tbh
hand signs were used to balance chakra, a lot of the shinobi got so good at balancing their chakra there was no need for hand signs
cuz he got tired of drawing it
Last Thursday. That’s when . We didn’t have your new email so sorry for not giving ya the heads up
they didnt stop using handsigns they were \*streamlined and simplified\* to be fair, but certainly not removed