What are you reading?

[Brian]

Naruto's goal is also very specific to his setting.  Ranma's usually got a very mobile goal (beat the curse, be the best, etc.), and Luffy's goal may be more mobile as well (find the treasure) if you start early enough.

Naruto's goal is 'become the Hokage'.  If he's suddenly in another universe, that's kind of totally out of the picture.

I'm thinking a 'Naruto gets yanked into an alternate dimension' fic is actually more interesting from the angle that a fuinjutsu master or two can probably figure out where he went, and Konoha isn't about to let the Kyubei's container just vanish.

But maybe that's just me. >_>

[Dracos]

True, nobody ever uses that.  No, wait.  I think someone did once.  No, that was only close, where Konoha hid Naruto (+ a few others) in another setting as a way of avoiding them also being captured during a massive disaster for Konoha.  Trying to make sure the nine tails couldn't be captured by hiding him in another world for a bit.

Luffy's goals are in a sense setting centric, but they don't depend on any organization, so they're more malleable.  Meeting respectfully with Red Haired Shanks can easily be dropped, and while it is exposed early, it's not expressed as anything more than an emotional nostalgia.  The One Piece is really an irrelevant tag behind his "Become the Pirate King" that was his early adventuring goal.  Certainly, in a world without many pirates, it wouldn't make much sense, but it also has no need for recognition and is mainly an excuse to travel, adventure, and live the good life.  The further away from Konoha Naruto is the less things usually make sense unless his 'goals' are dramatically changed in a life altering experience.

*ramble ramble, retread, retread*

[thepanda]

Not Quite As Planned

Bleach fic. Ichigo takes a little too long finding his sword before heading into soul society and comes out a bit different. Fun read. Also has a sequel, though I haven't read that yet.

[alethiophile]

Oh, I liked NQaP. It's got fun bits.

Regarding Naruto transplants...one semi-decent one I've seen is The Newest Challenger, by Kenchi618, which I am too lazy to link to. He gets transplanted out by dimensional gate in backstory, and his current motivation is to get enough money to investigate the possibility of getting back rigorously. He's going through the whole plot of that story because a character has promised to fund his looking-around if he wins their tournament.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/22/From-Fake-Dreams

Update. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but passing it along.

[Dracos]

Oh, I liked NQaP. It's got fun bits.

Regarding Naruto transplants...one semi-decent one I've seen is The Newest Challenger, by Kenchi618, which I am too lazy to link to. He gets transplanted out by dimensional gate in backstory, and his current motivation is to get enough money to investigate the possibility of getting back rigorously. He's going through the whole plot of that story because a character has promised to fund his looking-around if he wins their tournament.

Kenichi618 gets tossed around a lot.  He's extremely prolific.  I dunno, maybe I had a few bad experiences, but it feels like all of his fics have a samey 'here's a bunch of OCs and we'll also supercharge naruto' vibe that has me falling out of them.  Maybe I'm unfair.  I just expect whenever I see his name for Naruto to get overwritten shortly.

[alethiophile]

Sealed Kunai and Soldier of Fortune do both have that vibe, at least to the degree that those iterations both have divergent backstories that lead to differences in characterization. I found Better Left Unsaid to be pretty decent along the more-canon-ish-Naruto aspect.

[JonBob]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/22/From-Fake-Dreams

Update. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but passing it along.

Grail war starts... mmm, delicious.

[Dracos]

http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,12270.0.html Kinda amusing.

A magical girl villian makes its way to Touhou.  Enforces Magical Girl rules, requiring Magical Girls to come and kill is with silly named attacks.  Reimu is unhappy, Sanae thinks she's dreaming, Meiling isn't in genre.

[Jason_Miao]

http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,12270.0.html Kinda amusing.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Nazrin twisted in the palm of her hand.  "Reimu, normal magic won't work on them.  They aren't youkai like the rest of us, they have a special protection.  You need to use the magic of love to banish these monsters!"

Shouldn't Marisa completely kick their ass?  I thought her magic is love-based.

[Kt3]

Friends Like These, a Mass Effect 2 story.

11k words, it's a relatively short, but rather comedic piece about how Tali, Garrus, Joker, and Chakwas investigate Shepard, who's been up to something...

[Dracos]

Mainly just skipped to chapter 3.  But kinda neat.  Amusing writing.

[Dracos]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7745648/10/Legacy-of-Uzushiogakure

Kinda neat as a Fairy Tail Fusion into Naruto.  I mean, it's not called that, but it totally is that.

It's got lots of glaring flaws.  The Fairy Tail characters drown everyone out in terms of lines and influence on the scene.  Konoha comes across as kids ape-ing being as good as these guys in comparison.  There's few interactions between the Naruto cast and the others.

It feels like the author has a better grasp of the Fairy Tail crew than the Naruto crew, as most of the cast come off as distorted images of the originals with the same names.  Too talkative Kakashi.  The other Jonin aren't much better and the city itself lacks prestige and numbers.

As a clan, the Uzumaki come off as an enormous crew and that's even commented on.  It makes the leaf village seem tiny, which doesn't make sense in context of the narrative.  They also come off as outrageously powerful in context of the story.

Anyhow, yeah, kinda neat, worth a look, but lots of glaring flaws throughout.

[Brian]

"Bad, yet enjoyable"?

[Dracos]

Mmm, kinda.

More wanted to see it succeed.  It seemed a particularly clever way to do a Naruto/Fairy Tail fusion.  Much better than I've seen elsewhere.  And the concept seemed sensible too.

But the skill to weave the story isn't quite there.  Also the littering of japanese with it comes off as very unnecessary.