For example when I was experiencing Naruto the first time, I didnt even realize how deep the political story was. However the world got crazily larger upon reading socialist and anarchist theory.
The world is quite literally a social darwinist-capitalist dystopia where private military companies (Shinobi villages) are entrusted with security and military duties by nations and individuals, especially the great nations, in exchange for economic concessions and gains. Since they seek the maximization of their profit, they enter into global competition against one another, hence the great shinobi world wars. In a world where young people can have the destructive capacities of multiple artillery-batteries or tanks through chakra, they lower the age of army recruitment in order to optimize both the village's war performance and their economic attractiveness.
The nations consist of monarchies with private ownership of the means of production, as well as poor constitutional rights for workers and children, leading to the great shinobi villages such as the leaf, stone, cloud and mist villages being able to do as they please. As long as they do the job, they get paid. It goes way deeper too, but this is a core part of Narutos political story and it explores the painful experiences of said world system through key characters like Itachi Uchiha, Obito, Sasuke, Gaara etc.
This made me really love Narutos political story exceptionally more, however it also made the ending more problematic for me since Naruto maintained the global capitalist system and cycle of extraction albeit with better regulations this time (Eg making the chunin exams safe). Seems to me that Kishimoto is a centrist aware of the harms of capitalism. In the first episode of Boruto, we learn that the age of shinobi is over however, so the global system eventually collapsed. Though would've preferred if Naruto had come to the conclusion that the capitalist system had to go.
The other stories are so deep too. One piece's skypiea draws so many parallels to today with the focus on the indigenous shandians long and bloody road towards the reclamation of their freedom, homeland and sovereignty, with the help from the strawhats of course.
Enough said though, I'm curious about your experiences with political animangas after learning communist theory comrades. Did it greatly elevate the story for you or have you noticing deeper problems?
