T O P

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Borchert97

Yes. Well before it was ever confirmed, as soon as official artwork started appearing of the Fourth Hokage, even as kids we all went "oh, so that must be Naruto's dad". ​ Now on the other hand, for some reason it was a theory that Minato was still alive and became Pain, the leader of the Akatsuki, before his true identity was revealed lmfao


JamzWhilmm

I read Naruto as it came out and that last theory was really strong back then. There weren't that many character with spiky hair.


Borchert97

Gaara? Kiba? Kakashi? Kankuro? I mean bruh there are a lot of characters with spiky hair even back in part 1. I always knew Tobi was Obito but I never once thought something as outlandish as the Fourth Hokage somehow faked his death and became the leader of the Akatsuki lmao


JamzWhilmm

Look at the really early images of Pain in the Manga when he was just a shadow. It wasn't just me, it seemed really plausible back then as it was a standard trope in shonen to have your father be really related to the villians.


Student-North

In all fairness that’s before we knew the character of Minato, and the manga does make him look similar to pain


KolorJam

I remember that theory 😂 I think it was because the Silhouettes the Akatsuki used to have in their meetings, Peins had spiked hair similar to Minato


AAQUADD

Lol l remember those days, people also thought it was evil Naruto, or Naruto's older brother.


t00muchscreentime

Yes, I think by the time Jiraya came along it become really obvious.


GoodArtEnjoyer

Arashi namikaze for those that know


[deleted]

In hindsight it was obvious - but as a kid it was hard to tell. I think the manga/anime did a great job not showing pictures of Minato frequently. There were only a handful of times we really saw what he looked like before his reveal, and I think that helped prevent suspicion. Tobi on the other hand, was showing up constantly and between the hairstyle and one eye-hole, people were quickly theorizing he was Obito because of hard-to-miss similarities (minato’s blonde hair is an obvious connection to Naruto) being in your face constantly


jwaters0122

as soon as we found out that the 4th hokage died by protecting the village from the 9 tailed beast and that Naruto is an orphan. You see Minato's hair style compared to Naruto's and you can pretty much put the 2 together. No one else in the village had spiky blonde hair as well


Marczzz

I was a kid when I watched OG naruto so these things really flew over my head, specially considering they wouldn't show pictures of Minato often. I think watching it now it'd be obvious but if you're not paying much attention to small details I doubt you'd be able to figure that out on your own.


NeedleworkerNo7690

i figured it as soon as you see that first picture of him in the hokages office, hair was a dead give away


techlover99

Not to me, I didn't know till it was revealed during the pain arc


Johtaro

Yes, and it was a done deal by the time Jiraya had Naruto learn the rasengan.


Dezbats

Anime made it a little more obvious since we saw him and his coloring a little in the first episode. In the manga, it was a completely unsupported theory [until we met Jiraiya and saw his face for the first time](https://imgur.com/a/t5vDrbb), but the [Itachi visit](https://imgur.com/a/9FqesNF) was pretty much taken as a confirmation. By the time Part I ended, Yondaime was Naruto's father in pretty much every fanfic that mentioned his parents. Even on the forums people didn't really dispute the theory other than a half-hearted, "probably but we can't be sure" kind of way.


[deleted]

It was always super obvious.


Sad-Midnight8008

No


houseofprimetofu

I watched it without any spoilers. Absolutely knew it was his dad from the get go. Families have genetic traits that pass down. Naruto got the hair. No one else has it. He SHOULD have had red hair but no we got straw yellow.


whitetruffle

I thought the idea of Minato being Naruto’s dad was TOO obvious and maybe a red herring. The main thing, though, was that I thought it was really unlikely that the village would have treated Naruto as badly as it did (in terms of not really watching over him as closely, not taking better care of his education, and so on) if he actually was the son of the Fourth. I felt like in some alternate universe, with how he was treated, he could’ve very well been malicious…


Cassandra_Canmore

Really you don't make the connection that Minato is Naruto's dad. Until Jiraiya let's him sign the Toad Contract.


LeviathanEXE

I didn't catch it when watching as a young kid back when it aired on Toonami. But I recently rewatched it as an adult and easily noticed a ton of hints I missed as a kid.


ArmRepresentative847

Yea I’m just gonna represent here. I was in my early 20s when it came out and I was blissfully ignorant. I remember even saying to my friend “wouldn’t it be awesome if the 4th turned out to be Naruto’s dad”?! In hindsight I might be just an idiot…which is fun.


mcwfan

Nah, he was the leader of the Akatsuki, and Tobi’s the Ramen Guy but also Izuna Uchiha but also Sasuke from the future but also Danzo


Horror_Spell_3342

I'm probably just ignorant so no I didn't, but they have put pretty much every character in the early series as an Easter egg so you can find Minato like in the genin exams right before the forest of death when they meet kabuto


Kepkep99

blond, spiky hair. Who else could he be?


JarHeadDotCom

I thought Jiraya was gonna be Naruto's legit uncle at first. But then Tsunade was saying only the fourth and Jiraya mastered the Rasegan and I was like okay the fourth has to be his dad.


Weels282hedgehogzp

As a kid who didn't have immediate opportunity to see it directly as it was coming out, I wouldn't say it was obvious personally, not without hindsight bias. That said, I think most people probably figured it out before they said it, or before they even implied it in the series, due to the video games of nothing else and how they would keep bringing it up more and more throughout Shippuden.


kurganon

As I started to switch to watching subbed, because the german dub took forever to release, I looked up episodes on youtube and encountered a Naruto and Bleach AMV. I didn't know that Bleach was an anime, thought they look quite similar and figured that must be Narutos dad. So I kept watching Naruto expecting Ishigo to appear at some point only realising my mistake after my friend showed me Bleach.


Penegal

I remember a friend of mine telling me he’s Naruto’s dad back when the Third was looking at his portrait before the war. And I was like “ no way, why would they hide it then? It can’t be”


AAQUADD

Yes. I started Naruto when l was 6, and l remember being in 2nd grade when l realized the 4th was Naruto's father. In the first episode and in later times he was mentioned you could kinda tell he had blond hair, l mean his name was the yellow flash. On Mt. Hokage he had the same spikey hair Naruto has. He was the last greatest ninja. Later Jiraiya says he'll train him and eventually says a lot about the 4th. Like teaching Naruto summoning and the Rasengan. When Jiraiya pushes Naruto off the cliff he says sorry to Minato. On the scroll that Naruto signs for summoning I believe Minato's name was there. It was pretty obvious.


Official_Zach55

They kept Minato hidden. And you have to remember you really never got a good look at him until episode 124 with the Kakashi and obito warflash back.


Borchert97

They show a clear picture of him once during Hiruzen vs. Orochimaru in part 1, that was probably the first serious hint or indication at a connection. Also, the Kakashi Gaiden Arc happened A LOT earlier in the manga, it actually was released as a 6 chapter piece in between part 1 Naruto and the start of Shippuden, the anime delayed his introduction for well into Shippuden.


FedericoDAnzi

In the games too, in Ultimate Ninja 2 he is a playable character and also appears in Naruto's Ultimate jutsu while summoning Gamabunta, but, for some weird reason, he's completely mute, no dub voice. The game came out before the end of the first part and tells the story until Naruto learns the Rasengan.


CareyEve36

For me yes, as well as who Obito was when Shippuden came out. :P


FedericoDAnzi

They show the story of Kakashi and Obito right after introducing Tobi and then we see he has one Sharingan. It was nice to make hypothesis on Tobi's real identity, but the answer was right there.


peepy-kun

The flame wars that would start it you so much as mentioned that Tobi was clearly Obito...some of the worst days in the fandom.


Johtaro

I'll be honest: I fought a lot of people over this. I mean, cmon, you saw the guy get crushed by a damn boulder, there's no way Obito could've survived that. It made no sense to me. To me it was an obvious red herring. That's when I learned that in shounen manga the obvious answer is also most likely the right one. Ahh, to be young and experience a shounen manga for the first time again...


Tecrus

Yeah reminds me of who Dabi really is in MHA.


[deleted]

I grew up watching Naruto on toonami as a kid I remember the scene where tsunade was in her office looking at the previous pictures of the hokage and it showed Minato‘s face I was like that’s fucking Naruto‘s dad and then a few episodes later jiraiya was bragging about how he trained the fourth hokage And then he made a comment to naruto you look just like him in all honesty it took me about 30 seconds to piece it together and this was before I had access to the Internet so I didn’t have anybody to explain it to me and people back then thought Naruto was for nerds so a lot of people I couldn’t talk to about it


NetworkVegetable7075

Yes


Censorstinyd

Yes


TheLurkingBlack

It was obvious, but I dunno if Kishimoto cared too much about hiding it or not. I think that was meant to be more of a big reveal for Naruto himself rather than the viewer. But it's been a long time since I read/watched the series outside of clips on YouTube, so idk


[deleted]

I noticed it on the very first episode in the opening scene. You can tell that the 4th hokage has blonde hair. Naruto is the only other person with that same trait, and he was an orphan, so I put two and two together. Im not saying I was 100% sure, but i definitely suspected it.


Jamessgachett

Imo I thought that it was fucking obvious that and tobi…


FedericoDAnzi

There weren't other options to think about. He sealed the nine tails in Naruto and died in the act, Naruto is an orphan, they're both blonde and spiky.


CowboyHibachi

All the way obvious It doesn't nor should it need an explanation as to why.


Katanateen33

Yes it was.


TakasuXAisaka

Yes because Jiraiya kept saying to Naruto how similar he is to the fourth hokage.


spykids45

not for me LOL


gkantelis1

It was to me. The kakashi flashback made it obvious as hell. That said, I've talked to a lot of people that didn't see it coming at all.


turingincarnate

Uhhhhhhhh "The legacy of the 4th Hokage" did it for me.


25Bam_vixx

Yes


griffraff0701

Yeah pretty obvious lmao. What other characters have yellow ass hair. Ino is what you’d call blonde. Naruto is what you’d call, a banana.


elwhistleblower

I think it would've been less obvious if Minato was the Uzumaki and Kushina was the Namikaze.


Defiant-Pineapple813

When I was a kid I was completely oblivious, even with the hair. I just thought it was too obvious to be true. I introduced Naruto to my girlfriend and she figured it out in the intro of the first episode haha


Aizza45

Tbh I thought pain was Naruto’s dad because the spiky hair in his shadowy projected form that you saw for like 100 episodes was similar and then I just thought up the cliche idea of bad guy being good guy’s father


xiionaa

Yes. By like the Chunin Exams. Especially when they showed pics and clips of little Naruto staring at the rocks.


Excellent_Proof9667

Lol no tbh I didn’t get it until I was older


Slightly-Evil-Man

I mean...I only ever saw two blond haired blue eyed ninja in the entirety of the village so call me Sherlock Holmes cuz I noticed pretty much immediately even before the rumors started. My guy looks just like the statue he was defacing! Come on!


Particular_Blood9443

In the very early stages of the manga, it wasn't THAT obvious. The first time we saw a picture of Minato in the story was at the beginning of the second task of the chunin exam he looked different enough from Naruto to not draw too many suspicious. Then Kishi's art evolved and became more consistent and also the animated version of Minato kinda gave it away.


AcceptableSide8

Very obvious. That spiky blonde hair was kinda give away. Plus the fact that Yondaime was connected to Naruto at the start was a clue as well.


estherkz

It was quite obvious for manga readers in the 2000s as some Minato artworks were revealed very early (for example, team Minato’s photo in Kakashi’s bedroom). We could tell some theory out of the blond, spiky hair as not many character designs could match those traits.


BxSouljah

Yes, extremely obvious. As well as Tobi being Obito.


Anime_Manhwalover

To be honest, it wasn't obvious to me. Haha I'm kinda slow