Naruto stands out among shonen protagonists for having become a great hero despite a difficult journey—and especially a childhood spent enduring discrimination from everyone in his village, being criticized, and viewed as a constant threat—all factors that would be better suited to the origins of a villain than those of a Hokage
The protagonist is undoubtedly one of the strengths of Masashi Kishimoto’s series, but even from the earliest chapters, a problem emerges—almost like a plot hole—that still doesn’t make much sense today and has ended up disparaging an important character in Konoha’s history. On his deathbed, the Fourth Hokage—Naruto’s father—asked Hiruzen to help the villagers see his son as a hero, a savior who had managed to control the Nine-Tailed Fox now sealed within him.
A mission the Third Hokage never managed to accomplish, achieving terrible results instead. We see this in the first chapter, when Naruto—perceived by his classmates as the class clown—is shunned by everyone, because Sarutobi also failed to spread and circulate the truth about his nature as the vessel of the Nine-Tailed Fox. The only one who didn’t know was Naruto himself, while all the other villagers kept their distance from him for no apparent reason.
Furthermore, even though Sarutobi did try on occasion to protect or look out for him—such as when he asked Hiruka to be less strict in his evaluations of the young man—the Third Hokage never truly made an effort to grant Minato’s wish, leaving Naruto to fend for himself without offering him advice or staying by his side so that he might at least have a role model.
Source: CBR
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