Naruto is filled with countless iconic moments and story arcs, however, none is more important than the Chunin Exams and the storylines it gave breath to. This arc set the stage for character development throughout the rest of the series and even set Naruto and Sasuke down their opposing paths for the first time officially. During the exams, the audience is finally introduced to the expansive world of Masashi Kishimoto and gets to watch as their favorite ninjas compete to move from Genin to Chunin.
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The question, “If the Chunin Exams had gone to the end, who do you think would’ve won?” was asked by the official Naruto and Boruto account on X, was originally bounced around in the minds of fans for years now, and has a handful of possible answers. Before being interrupted, the Chunin Exams had five ninjas left in the running. Gaara, Temari, Kankuro, Shino, Naruto, and Sasuke each did not get to complete their final face-offs in an official capacity. An argument can be made for any of these Genin to be the victor, and fans in the comments are hard at work making their cases. We will discuss the matches and hopefully come to a compelling conclusion for a victory.
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The Matchups Left Some Questions Unanswered in the Chunin Exams
While the exams came to an abrupt end, there were two semi-final matches left to be had. The first match we’ll talk about is between Sasuke and Gaara, and it was the match that led to the exams becoming interrupted. When breaking down straight-up abilities the fact that Sasuke lacked any meaningful ways to deal damage to Gaara beyond the Chidori an attack that drew blood but not much else from the Sand Genin, leads to a difficult fight that would likely end with Sasuke running out of chakra much like his battle against Gaara outside of the exams. The follow-up fight would be between Kankuro and Shino, who are two fighters that we get to see face off outside of the exams as well, where we see Shino immobilize Kankuro but succumb to poison. This fight can go either way, and for this conversation, we can have them end in a draw, giving one of the other competitors a bye round.
The follow-up fights would revolve around the remaining Naruto, Temari, and Gaara and could either be a match between two of the Genin while one has a break or between the three of them in a battle royal style match like we see in Boruto: Naruto the Next Generations. Either way, the battle ends up the truth of the matter would be similar to the bout against Gaara and Sasuke which is that there is no meaningful form of damage that any of the Leaf Genin can muster against the Sand Shinobi. We do see Naruto face off against Gaara outside of the exams, but he requires help from the rest of team 7 and needs boosts from anger through seeing his friends in danger.
The Strongest Genin
Throughout the Chunin exams, Gaara shows that he is on a completely different level than the other young ninjas and would only really have true difficulty in the future against Naruto’s greatest villains. We see Gaara defeat countless opponents with ease and even defeat adult Shinobi sent to assassinate him. The question we should be asking is, who would get second place? Could Naruto defeat Temari? Well, from all showings of their respective abilities, it is incredibly unlikely that Naruto would be able to even lay a finger on the Kunoichi. Up to this point, Naruto has shadow clones and taijutsu to fall back on, and we often see him struggle with enemies that can attack at range and damage multiple targets.
Not counting for any extra power boosts that the narrative may bring about when it comes to looking at pure abilities, our second and first-place ninjas in the Chunin exams would be Temari and Gaara. The Genin from the Village Hidden in the Sand showed their consistent power and dominance through the whole of the Chunin Exams and were rarely faced with opponents whom they couldn’t outright eclipse. Rock Lee had to utilize a body-damaging ability to face off against Gaara, and Shikamaru was the perfect match-up for the Kunoichi. At the end of the day, within the confines of a tournament, none of the Leaf Genin left in the running could hold a flame to the sand siblings.
