Discipleship in Naruto: Sai

[ng.jimmy]

I'm looking at the concept of Discipleship in Naruto, mainly because it seems that Sai has been overlooked.

Naruto is the Disciple of Jiraiya
Sasuke was the Disciple of Orochimaru
Sakura is the Disciple of Tsunada
Sai is the Disciple of Danzou

Kakashi is the Disciple of Minato
Minato is the Disciple of Jiraiya


Kakashi has no disciples.


I question Sai's discipleship, mainly because Danzou doesn't seem to be passing the Baton in responsibility. Also Danzou trained many under his wings and has chosen other roots to follow him to the convention.

The concept of Discipleship is important, because if you have the wrong Teacher for the student, the student would not excel.

For example, Jiraiya would have been a great teacher for Naruto, because they both are capable of handling Sage mode, both hold a lot of Chakra, and both strategically use Shadow clones. As such they are a great match.


As much as we all want Naruto to be the disciple of Kakashi, Kakashi was part of Anbu. His extremely strategic and covert training is highly inappropriate and an absolute waste of time. Hence Kakashi only trains Naruto what he trained Sasuke 3 years back.

On the one hand, Kakashi really believed Sasuke was going to be his disciple, since he was so excited that they both have the same primary Chakra type.


So we have the basic relationships established. If Kishi were to have a time skip anytime soon, the next teachers of the main characters, Sasuke, Sakura, Sai and Naruto will mould their characters further.

In my opinion, Sai is going to be the Disciple of Kakashi. Only because Kakashi is looking to being Hokage, and Yamato doesn't seem to understand Naruto quite as well as Kakashi and Sai. And hence he needs Sai to watch out for Naruto, preform sealing techniques as naruto grows.



Yamato is the disciple of the 1st Hokage, (Like he has free will...)
Sasuke would be the true disciple of Madara
Sakura would be the Disciple of Tsunada
Sai would be disciple of Kakashi.
Naruto ... is the surprise I guess.

[Afro Thunda]

I wouldn't have begun to consider Sai as a disciple of Danzo. Yea, Danzo taught Sai as a part of Root, but Danzo didn't take Sai under his wing and personally teach Sai. That's the one thing that they don't have in common with Naruto/Jiraiya, Sakura/Tsunade, and Sasuke/Orochimaru. As far as Sai is concerned, he doesn't need to be trained under anyone else. He's fairly capable of doing things on his own if need be. So I don't see him becoming anyone's disciple.

[Hand Banana]

I was gonna say in before Afro but nevermind. He pretty much summed it up.

[Rlinfamous]

It's hard to find a clear "sensei" for Sasuke, because he cycles through them in his never-ending chain of hatred/betrayal/revenge, but I think Sasuke is more Kakashi's disciple than Orochimaru's... his style and personality mirror Kakashi's far more, and he (until very recently) always put his comrades' lives before anything else. On the other hand, look how clearly he rejected Orochimaru's goals and ambitions before he betrayed him. Sasuke held nothing but contempt for Orochimaru, but clearly holds true to some of Kakashi's teachings.

Kakashi is also a major teacher for Naruto. While Jiraiya is the main one, Kakashi was the one who brought Naruto to his coming-of-age moment with Rasenshuriken, in which Naruto began to truly believe he could surpass the Fourth. Kakashi is also the first teacher Naruto had, and the one he performed the "bell test" with... I'd argue that Kakashi is just as much Naruto's teacher as the Fourth was to Kakashi, or the Third was to Jiraiya, or Jiraiya to Nagato. It's uncommon for teachers to go 1-on-1 with students like Jiraiya did for Naruto.

[thorofasgard13]

^ I think the one-on-one is probably more common than we see directly. Neji learns from the hyuuga patriarch, same goes for Choji, Shikamaru, Ino, and most of the others, respectively. Sasuke has no family to teach him so Kakashi had to do, Orochimaru was just a means to an end, and Madara... well we'll see. We don't know much of Sakura's family as we never see them, plus she wanted to be useful to the group so-Tsunade. Naruto has no family we know of whatsoever, and Jiraiya was obvious because of the level of perverseness.

It seems that the group learning helps to make you well rounded and learn strategies for working in a particular team, but to fine-tune your specialty a one-on-one specialist is needed.

Naruto is a perfect mentor for Konohamaru btw. and if history is to repeat again with the Sannin teaching the new-Sannin, then Moegi will be mentored by Sakura, and the other Dude by renegade-Sasuke.

[sagenarutard]

simple anser jaryiya and naruto are very similar
sakura and tusunde are to
orcymaru and sasuke both similar
narutos marster died sasuke killed his and sakuras is in a coma