Time Jutsu

Time Jutsu

Introduction

Today I’ll be discussing time jutsu, or the lack thereof, in the Naruto universe (this includes Naruto, Naruto: Shippūden, and Boruto: Naruto Next Generations). You can think of this as a spin-off of my The Power of Time post in which I discussed time-altering abilities in various anime.

There are two main reasons I decided to make a separate post about time abilities specifically for the Naruto universe. The first is that there aren’t really any time-altering abilities, and the second is that Naruto/Boruto content is the most popular on my website (you’re welcome).

Teleportation

Now, I know I just said that there aren’t any time-altering abilities in the Naruto universe, but that isn’t exactly true. Technically speaking, the Teleportation Jutsu would be considered a time jutsu, but it doesn’t work in the way we tend to think about time abilities in general.

The first thing I should mention is that there are a number of different types of Teleportation Jutsu within the series. Clearly none of these jutsu are realistic for a human, but in theory they could work. That said, I’ll mainly be focusing on Minato Namikaze’s Teleportation Jutsu because it’s the most straightforward.

But before that, let’s briefly take a look at two other types of Teleportation Jutsu. The first is where the user, or something else the user picks, is teleported to another dimension. This is mostly seen used by Obito Uchiha and Kakashi Hatake in the form of their Sharingan Kamui.

The second type is Sasuke Uchiha’s Rinnegan Teleportation which swaps his body (or whatever else he chooses) with something else. I feel like he uses his teleportation without swapping out anything once during his fight against Kaguya Ōtsutsuki in Shippūden, but every other time, the positions of two objects are swapped.

Now back to Minato’s Teleportation Jutsu. Minato’s works in a more straightforward manner, he can “teleport” to wherever his specially marked kunai are. But, as I hinted at before, Teleportation Jutsu is technically just a Time Jutsu.

Hold onto your forehead protectors because we’re about to jump into some basic physics for this one.

When an object (or person) approaches the speed of light, time slows down for it (them), because time is relative. If said object travels at the speed of light, then time stands still for that object.

So all that’s really happening is Minato is travelling at or near the speed of light, which is too fast for anyone to see, thus it appears that he’s teleporting. The reason for his specially marked kunai is that he uses the chakra markings as a beacon to direct him, probably since it’s difficult to navigate at that speed.

So, by this logic, since Minato is travelling at or near the speed of light, he’s distorting the flow of time for himself, thus making his Teleportation Jutsu technically, a time jutsu.

Minato Namikaze preparing to use his Teleportation Jutsu from the anime Naruto: Shippuden
Minato preparing to use his Teleportation Jutsu

Time Style

However, if we don’t do some shinobi grade mental gymnastics, there really aren’t any jutsu within the Naruto universe that can be considered proper Time Jutsu. Now, you could argue that it’s because you can’t make “time” out of any of the five chakra natures, but it’s Naruto, it’s all magic anyway.

If you’re telling me you can make Magnet Style Jutsu without using Lightning Style (Magnet style is Earth and Wind apparently) then there’s clearly no logic behind anything and therefore no reason you couldn’t have a Time Style Jutsu. Time Style could have been Lightning and Earth if Explosion style wasn’t already made using that combination.

They could even ignore all the styles of jutsu and just make up a character with the ability to control time, like how the Rinnegan is needed to use the Planetary Devastation Jutsu instead of Earth Style. And yet, there’s still no time-altering jutsu in Naruto.

Looking back at the two major types of time abilities from my The Power of Time post, we see that there are no shinobi who can either stop time, or reset time. I get that these abilities are overpowered, but power scaling doesn’t really seem to be a concern in Naruto anyway.

Conclusion

So why are there no Time Jutsu in Naruto, Shippūden, or Boruto? Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a concrete reason. There just aren’t any. Technically I could argue that Planetary Devastation is also a Time Jutsu because gravity affects time, but we know that’s not really a Time Jutsu at this point.

Can you think of any Time Jutsu that I may have missed? Also, if you could make up a Time Jutsu (preferably not one that’s completely overpowered) what would it be? I think altering the speed of time within a specified radius of the user would be interesting.

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