Now I'm beginning the Wave Country arc. Nowadays we complain about how long fights take, but holy shit that qualification exam with Kakashi took about four chapters. That's nothing compared to nowadays, but I swore to god it was one or two. It's weird how the memory works.

I like how Naruto decisively defeated Sasuke here and no one remembers this.

When I first read this I was confused and I still am today: Why are they so surprised by this fact? If it has a 66% rate of failure, that meant there should be tons of kids in the Ninja Academy who failed and are hoping for another shot. Why don't Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto know about them?

I've been thinking about this for a while. Considering Naruto's still a genin, does that mean after all this is done, he'll go back to missions of walking people's dogs?

People forgot about this. When the daimyou showed up later and were protected when the Ninja War started up, everyone was like, "Who are these guys??" I kinda wish Kishimoto explored the exact relationship between the ninja villages and the actual government of their respective countries more because it could've provided interesting plot points, but oh well.