Kishimoto did them such a disservice. He gives this great eye power and literally shows us what its capable of and ties it to and makes it the original eyes of the alien ninja founders and the sages younger twin brother. ,But has the Hyuga practically complete waste and underutilize it with like barely 6 98% close combat moves. The Hyuga are literally the purest and closest genetically to the alien ancestors of all the powerful alien bred clans but they practically fall dead last to others with none of them able to really become Kage level shinobi.
They can see Chakra and Chakra points in the body , they have near 360° vision, they have telescopic vision with the farthest i believe hinata seeing like 400km out and microscopic and Xray vision, plus extreme Chakra control by way of the gentle fist and can outpour Chakra from any part of their body. Hell kaguya and Hamura could read Minds and kaguya could just tear people apart with hers. Yet the Hyuga barely utilize most of the byakugans abilities.
Like there's next to no long range hyuga clan jutsu which they could excel at . No hyuga style Medical ninjutsu which they should excel at with the way the gentle fist can be used and applied. Something like the rasegan or the Chakra scapel seems right up thier alley and more like something they could've been made by a genius hyuga.. Chakra constructs similar to a Susanoo or just weapons made out of Chakra should be child's play to them. The hyuga should be the king of versatility. And we've even been shown unique ways it can be applied like when neji channeled his gentle fist strikes through kimmimaros webs into dudes body from a far.
Or Kaguya for that matter with her rabbit hair senbon which is just her using her like jiraiyas needle jizo and firing it at Chakra points ,something that could've killed Sasuke . Or her Eighty god vacuum palm where she made those Chakra constructs arms/palms and gentle fist style tore down a whole sussano. Literally a sussano should stop being an "ultimate defense" against a strong hyuga. But no The Hygua use the same old same old clan techniques with next to to no versatility.. Hell the Uchiha have a bunch of clan jutsu that dont rely on the sharigan and then they still also just learn other jutsu. But the Hyuga just do the same thing over and over and apparently nobody like Hamura or any of his children decided to leave a "Hyuga stone tablet" or pass down any of Hamura's or Kaguyas crazy ass powerful secret techniques.
Its jusr bad writing
Not disagreeing on the general direction of your post OP, but as a large fan of Naruto who was reading the Mangas live while they came out... It took us about ~68 volumes before we saw Tenten, the Ningu-Expert, throw a Kunai in the Manga. And she never got a dedicated fight, ever, in its entire run.
I love a lot about Kishimoto's writing, buy he is notorious for leaving things underdeveloped at times. And also for having changed the Mangas direction a few times over the course of the series.
Not to speak of how the series as a whole has changed over time.
Just my 2 cents :)
I knew Ten-Ten was doomed when she was a weapon user in a world where nobody important ever got killed by a stray knife.
She was doomed when she lost in one attack against Temari; there was no recovering from losing to another minor character.
This is more power scaling fan-fiction nonsense. Just because they aren’t doing what you want doesn’t make it bad writing.
The Hyuga, just like the Yamanaka, Abrurame, Nara and Inuzuka clans, have a specialization and theirs is gentle fist Taijutsu. It’s would be bad writing to make the anywhere near as powerful as the Uchiha or the Senju.
More importantly it wouldn’t service the story in anyway possible. They aren’t main characters. They aren’t even that all important to the overall story. A supporting characters job is to support and flesh out the story but they aren’t the focus. And you’re saying they should have susanno-like chakra constructs?
I’m sick of the “hype moments and aura” crowd.
They're literally one of the three great clans along with the Uchiha and senju with one of great dojutsu
Three great doujutsu’s are sharingan, Rinnegan (yes it’s separate), and byakugan
The byakugan is fleshed out further in The Last movie but it was never that important in Naruto proper nor deserving of so many fanfic abilities when neither Hinata nor Neji are as important as the big Four Uchiha characters+Kakashi
Absolutely yes, The Hyuga were just never thar important narratively.
Also, OP's points about how Susanno "the ultimate defense" was destroyed by a Hyuga ignores that the feat was performed by Kaguya of all people, literally the strongest character in the original series and the progenitor of chakra.
Yeah OP’s argument boils down to arguing like Kimimaro or Kaguya clan needed to be integral to main story too cause she uses Bone jutsu’s in the fight
Also, equating the Otsutsuki having the Byakugan to Hyuga being stronger is weird.
Otsutsuki are not stronger because of their Byakugan, though it is plus for them. Almost all the strong ones we see have an additional dojutsu to be strong.
So? That means nothing to the STORY. It’s cool you’re a fan of the clan but there is 0 reasons you provided about why they should have, as you put:
And also
You’re just pulling bullshit out of thin air to justify that any modern Hyuga should be comparable to Kaguya or Hamura.
Its not bullshit or out of thin air lol just look at the byakugan and its shit ton of abilities
Just because Kaguya and Hamura had the Byakugan and could do all this crazy shit doesn’t mean any of the Hyuga can or should be able to do the same.
By your same logic Sasuke should be able to naturally achieve the same feats as the Sage of Six Paths since he’s a descendant as well.
Only Uchiha and Senju explicitly state they are the greatest, they are founders. It is claimed they are the greatest shinobi. Hyuga belong to noble clans together, like Akemichi, Aburame, and others—that is, great, but nothing more than that. That's all the importance, even their greatest Hyuga, who for a long time comically less great are Kakashi, Itachi, Sasuke, Minato, Shisui, Hiruzen, and Orochi.
No, the Hyuga were never meant to be as OP as you’re describing nor where they ever hinted at being that big important of a clan
It’s not bad writing the manga didn’t do your specific fanfic Hyuga ideas.
Their eyes are explicitly to be said to be equivalent to the Sharingan, even in the ending, the lore reveals the Byakugan is actually the origin of all Dojutsus, which makes the Hyuga's lack of relevance to the plot to be feel.... curious, to say the least.
False, the eyes were only said to surpass sharingan in perception skills which is objectively true. The byakugan was never said to have an evolution that could be attained like MS to sharingan
They are revealed to be main eyes of the Otsutsuki’s but that’s hardly relevant to the story outside of why Toneri would want to marry Hinata in a movie Kishi didn’t even write
You want to know why Hyuga weren’t relevant to main story plot elements? Cause there was zero main characters with Byakugan while TWO main characters since land of waves had Sharingan’s. Both of those MC’s have a special connection to other antagonists from the Uchiha clan
In that moment of the manga, we didn't knew MS either. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of the Dojutsu Lore didn't exist there as well, if we are using a Out-of-Universe argument.
That is exactly OP complaint, the Hyuga are basically the living descendents of the Otsusuki, with Kaguya herself having those eyes...and we just do not focus in the Hyuga?
We know that, that is why we are complaining because it only makes the Byakugan and the Hyuga's existence much weirder.
We knew about MS from Itachi during search for Tsunade. We learn it’s lore during Sasuke retrieval
The last movie does and it’s more of a Boruto thing to deal with given his and his sisters powers
There’s other doujutsu’s besides sharingan. That’s all
There is really not more.
Rinnegan= Mutated Sharigan, its true actual ideal self.
Byakugan= Original Dojutsu before being corrupted/mutated/diverged.
It doesn't serve as a simple worldbuilding information, because it inherently ties the Byakugan to the Otsusuki.
And yes, Boruto is actually the main hope of the Byakugan right now, the fact that we have to rely in a whole new series is exactly the complain because its like "Man, you just realized the implications of this? Naruto's family are now direct descendents of Kaguya's bloodline. It took time to realize, right?"
I mean, I actually do like plenty of things. Like, as Boruto is dealing with the Ootsusuki Momoshiki trying to take over his body, his actual fightstyle is...derivate from the Hyuga clan, which leads to the weirdness of him accidentally being SUPER PEFECT for the powers, because his mom made the "basic tutorial of how handle being a Otsusuki".
But it only leaves Naruto (OG) weird because "Man, imagine how crazy would be if Hinata and Neji got told they actually descend from demigods and/or they met Kaguya"
The Rinnegan isn’t the form of *sharingan. Cause the only way to obtain it is by breaking cycle of reincarnation. Under regular circumstances you can never do that and Sasuke needed tomoes in his rinnegan to use his sharingan abilities as shown by Naruto Gaiden
They are different doujutsu’s, you awaken it by recreating hagoromoms chakra via merging Ashura & Indra chakra. NOT as normal evolved form of sharingan
Hinata and Neji aren’t apart of Team 7. And Hinata is told this already in The Last. They even make up some BS name for her as “Byakugan princess. So what you said literally happened
There's a confirmed direct descendant of the Sage of Six Paths out there. Hidden Sakura, we see, has a very similar chakra, and all. Being a descendant of a sage doesn't make you a great ninja or anything. The Hyuga are still far behind Kaguya in terms of bloodline. Secondly, even that isn't world-building. We know what we need from the Hyuga. The conflict is already there and it's been resolved. They're not masters, protagonists, rivals, or antagonists. Their importance is simply minor, there's nothing more to it, and nothing wrong with that. They just want more prominence, but this is never presented as anything more than secondary characters
But doesn't the Manga itself explicitly point out how powerful and influential the clan is? On several occasions actually.
They are powerful, both in skill and economically. That doesn’t mean the Hyuga need to have their own chakra constructs. OP just want their favorites to be Madara level for no reason.
Fair point! :)
But they need something they became an absolute joke in the end.
For what? What do they need that will service the story? They aren’t the main characters. Neji and Hinata serve their roles as supporting cast. They have no more importance outside of that. Neji’s character arc was done with his death. Hinatas was done with “The Last”. There was nothing more for them to do.
People keeps saying they “need” a buff but no one can give a viable narrative reason why.
Cause they weren’t equal to strongest last surviving Uchiha’s?
Hanabi is badass
Hinata is “Byakugan princess” in The Last movie. A movie that also introduced the Tensigan as Byakugan power up
Boruto & himawari have Byakugan and Boruto even got an anime original doujutsu based off byakugan called Jougan
They’re fine and air palm proved to be pretty useful in the war tbh
Their kekkai genkai is valued but they aren’t changing the entire ninja world, especially cause they are also tight knit clan that is even divided within itself
The Uchiha’s helped found Konoha, Hyuga’s in comparison have implied ties to Otsutsuki’s but have zero actual lore importance outside of being descended from Hamura
According to Sakura Hiden and the manga, there are more direct descendants of Hagoromo who even have chakra similar to that of the one Kido used to make his pills. So, this great scheme diminishes the importance of Hyuga. The reality is that people, for some reason, want more filler for Naruto, but this applies to Naruto, not any other shonen.
Yep, Neji and Hinata were very hyped in universe in the Chunni Exams explicitly for the Byakugan, and the Hyuga do have the economical power they are said to be.
In fact, they're actually very good militarily too, just not at the level to interact with the main cast, who are all anomalies and geniuses.
The Uchiha lore is famously a disaster tragedy of epic proportions were everyone was fighting everyone, but the Hyuga just...didn't do anything? Zetsu didn't thought in using the other set of Otsusuki's descendents for his plans for some reason.
Except they literally were though , constantly lauded as one of the three great clans with one of the three great dojutsu
Constantly? It was once by Jiraiya when lore dumping about the Rinnegan
That’s all there was. The byakugan’s importance is talked about in The Last movie but NOTHING meant it needed to be so pivotal to main story
It literally was though by way of kaguya and hamura
We don’t learn anything about Hamura in the manga. Kishi had no intention of doing so either cause he didn’t write The Last, he just edited the story that was pitched to him
All of Hamura’s lore and importance comes from the movie.
Kaguya also has Kimimaro’s abilities, does that mean Kaguya clan needs to be at forefront just like the Uchiha are?
There is also a more direct descendant, the Sage of Six Paths, with a body similar to Sakura Hiden, although Hyuga isn't that important on that side either.
To be extremely fair, the Byakugan is extremely potent. While it’s not Summoning Giant energy Tengu Warriors, the Byakugan can do everything you mentioned (Seeing from afar, which at peak is nearly the whole globe, though ordinary characters cap at 20 KM, near complete 360 degree vision, X-Ray Vision, see Chakra and C.Network), plus:
1) See the activation of Genjutsu and identify victims of it. 2) See the Chakra Points within Ninjutsu to nullify that Ninjutsu. 3) Distinguish between Clones and Originals 4) Amplify your own Genjutsu
And in Filler there are extra abilities like seeing in Infrared, predicting attacks, or even analyzing your relative stage of Chakra development.
The issue is less “The Byakugan is underutilized” and more “It is the perfect IRL Ninja Ability in a world where some Ninja drop meteors.”
Like, don’t get me wrong, for some of these points, you’re right. Gentle Fist’s insane Chakra Control should give them highly capable Medical Ninjutsu.
But even if they did have it, it wouldn’t help much against a character who can cut mountaintops off casually. The Byakugan is ultimately is the ultimate tool in a grounded, real life fight, (hence why it was compared to the buffs of the Sharingan in early Part 1, because the Sharingan was also relatively grounded in ability), but is meaningless when your foe is God.
Hell, the Sharingan is too. Like, don’t get me wrong, the Sharingan is immensely powerful, but in modern day the Sharingan’s most prominent features never get used. Illusions are few and far between at this point (unless you’re Sarada, who uses it a couple times), Copying Ninjutsu almost never happens anymore, seeing your opponents moves a couple of moments in the future is an unseen ability that is rarely brought up, etc.
The main things used in a fight right now are Sasuke’s minor teleporting ability, Susanno, and sometimes Amaterasu. Sarada being her new black-hole like power.
The Sharingan and its variants never have their full abilities utilized currently. Nor does the Rinnegan. It’s just the big guns mentioned, because we’ve left grounded combat in the dust.
And it’s especially bad because, early on, the Hyuga were portrayed as a major force, with their Byakugan presented as a dojutsu on the same level as the Uchiha clan’s legendary Sharingan. But then Kishimoto kept giving the Uchiha increasingly absurd powers, one after another, and being obsessed with making the Sharingan look "so cool" for edgelords.