Unpopular Opinion: Satoru Gojo and Kakashi Hatake Are Not Comparable…
In when it comes to caring for Megumi Fushiguro and Naruto Uzumaki respectively, at least, not completely.
I’ve seen a lot of Tumblr posts and TikToks who are often critical of Kakashi for not being in Naruto’s life prior to becoming his Jonin Sensei, despite Naruto’s father being Kakashi’s own sensei, while Gojo goes out of his way to care for Megumi and his sister, Tsumiki, despite their father being the one that tried to kill/killed Gojo less than a year prior. But I feel like these posts fail to see how the biggest issue between these two, Gojo had everything going for him to make this choice, while Kakashi had everything working against him.
Note: I should clarify, neither men (boys at the time) were required to get involved, as they were kids themselves at the time, but this is the subject and I’m pointing out the complexity of their situations.
Let’s look at the similarities Gojo and Kakashi had at the time they were faced with taking care of children, both Gojo and Kakashi:
Were teenagers at the time of meeting their respective child.
Gojo = 17 (16 when told about Megumi)
Kakashi = 14 (@ the time of Naruto’s birth)
Are believed to be wealthy
Gojo is confirmed by author and manga itself (think about the Button-up Kugisaki spills coffee on)
Not sure if it’s confirmed, but it’s largely believed that he is due to his father being a well-respected and powerful shinobi before his death, Kakashi being the sole heir to the Hatake Clan, and Kakashi’s own salary as a shinobi.
Are somewhat respected in their field, despite their age:
This does not mean that people like them, just that other people acknowledge that they are good at what they do.
Are prodigies/geniuses:
Gojo is essentially running Calculus just about every single moment of his life.
Kakashi is the youngest person to graduate from the Academy (age 5) and become Chunin (age 6).
Are constantly processing a lot of information at the same time:
Gojo’s Six Eyes are constantly analyzing the world around him, taking in information that Gojo has to processes.
His Domain Expansion shows how overwhelming a few seconds of this to everyone else.
Kakashi not only has Obito’s Sharingon, which also takes in a significant amount of information and can’t be turned off, but he also has a heightened sense of smell (and maybe hearing, but I couldn’t find anything supporting this outside of Fanfiction) as well.
There are some other things as well, like how both are betrayed by one of their best friends, but Kakashi was not aware of this at the time, so I’ll be leaving that out. I’m also not bringing up obvious physical similarities outside of what is relevant, as they do not necessarily affect their circumstances and likely common among their respective clans.
Now, let’s look at the circumstances that Gojo had at the time:
Pros for Gojo:
Getting the obvious out of the way, Gojo was already believed to be, or was on track to being, the strongest Sorcerer at the time, and could easily over power the Zenin Clan’s strongest Sorcerers.
Gojo was the Clan Head of one of the three strongest clans of the Sorcerer World, putting him at equal standing of the Zenin Clan and their Head.
Gojo also had a lot of support: His clan, Principal Yaga, Shoko, and maybe Nanami. They might not have completely agreed, but they would have likely been on his side in the event of an attack.
Megumi technically wasn’t part of the Zenin Clan yet, since his father left the clan, and the sale having not gone through, yet.
Also, on a similar vein, I’m not sure if it was known yet that Megumi would inherit the Ten Shadows Technique, which is revered by the Zenin Clan and believed to rival Gojo’s Six Eyes. It’s for sure known that Megumi had enough Cursed Energy to be a Sorcerer, but as far as I could I figure out, no one knew for sure if he would even inherit a technique at all at the time that Gojo interferes.
Megumi was at least five or six years old at the time, which allowed for Megumi to have a little bit more of an opinion on what happens to him, and allowed for Megumi to grasp his situation.
Cons for Gojo:
Gojo likely had significant trauma from being murdered/ almost murdered by Toji, and Megumi looked a lot like him.
Gojo had limited life experience and was likely not emotionally mature enough to be raising children.
Gojo was viewed as a weapon in the Sorcerer World and was constantly on call to fight curses, and was also still in school himself.
Gojo was not largely liked by other Sorcerers, either due to how powerful he was, or due to his personality and attitude that was a result of being placed on a pedestal his entire life and subsequently dehumanized.
And here are the circumstances that Kakashi was facing at the time:
Pros for Kakashi:
Kakashi had a preexisting relationship with Naruto, being:
Minato’s only (known) living student
Also being Minato’s longest student, likely meaning he’s had a long relationship with Kushina as well.
Kushina’s Anbu guard for the duration of Kushina’s pregnancy
Meaning that Kakashi would probably have understood a lot of potential issues Naruto could have faced, due to being around a Jinchūriki for extended periods of time.
Kakashi had a reputation that was already starting to be well-known, and was becoming stronger as he grew older.
Cons for Kakashi:
Not only did the Third Great Ninja War end recently, but the Kyūbi attack occurs the day Naruto is born, so tensions are high and it does not help that the village is destroyed and the Fourth Hokage (Minato, Naruto’s father) is dead.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, once he is back in office after Minato’s death, immediately makes Naruto’s Jinchūriki status and biological relations a S-class secret, and bans everyone who was close to Minato and Kushina from interacting with Naruto in a meaningful way, equating breaking this law to treason.
And as Minato’s student, Kakashi is one of the ones most affected by it, so even if he wanted to be there for Naruto, he likely would have believed that the consequence far outweighed any positive impacts.
Meaning that if Kakashi tried to break this rule and interacted with Naruto and was caught, he could be exiled at best, or executed at worst, leaving Naruto alone again and probably with a worst reputation as he’d likely be blamed for what happened to Kakashi (because the villagers were like that).
Also, The Third Hokage is Kakashi’s Boss and Leader of his village, Kakashi does not have an equal standing to argue against Hiruzen’s rulings, and with Kakashi being the last of his own clan, he has little to no political power, and no protection for if he decided to break this rule.
Comparing Kakashi and the Third Hokage’s standings is like a mid-level employee arguing with the CEO, Kakashi has little power in this situation. While, Gojo’s situation is like two CEOs fighting for the same potential employee, but hasn’t been hired by either just yet.
Kakashi has less support than Gojo does:
Kakashi was not well liked by the village as his father, Sakumo, was blamed for the start of the Third Great Ninja War. This heavy criticism of his father lead to Sakumo’s death.
This also caused Kakashi to internalize these criticisms, and made Kakashi an intense rule follower for most of his childhood, believing that if he follows the rules to the letter, he won’t end up like his father. Unfortunately, this did not work either, and caused him to be just as disliked.
He had the support of Team 7 and Kushina, but they also died, one by one:
Obito Uchiha and Kakashi’s relationship had started to get better when Obito died saving Kakashi. Obito did give Kakashi his Sharingon to replace the one Kakashi had just lost, but this inadvertently caused Kakashi to be hated by the Uchiha clan.
Kakashi spent the period after Obito’s death building his friendship with Rin Nohara and even rushed out to rescue her when she was kidnapped and unwillingly became the Three-Tails Jinchūriki. But Rin had discovered that she was being used to attack Konoha as the seal she had was compromised. When Kakashi refused to kill her despite her pleas, Rin took the choice from him and killed herself using Kakashi’s attack on an enemy Kiri-nin.
Kakashi blamed himself for not being able to pull back in time and since Rin’s status as a Jinchūriki and the events surrounding her death was made into an S-Class secret, so did other Shinobi.
This event caused Kakashi to gain the nickname “Friend-Killer Kakashi”.
And we’ve already mentioned what happened to Minato and Kushina.
All-in-all, after being faced with all of these deaths, I imagine that Kakashi would feel that he was not capable of caring for a child, if people would even trust him to care for one. It would not be improbable for Kakashi to convince himself that he was the problem and believe that he would be a danger to Naruto if he got close to the boy.
Note: He does have support from Maito Gai, Asuma Sarutobi, and Kurenai Yuhi, some others in his age group, and some Anbu members, but they all likely did not have enough political power to push back on Hurizen’s ruling for Naruto
Also, factoring out that Kakashi has been fighting a war since he was like five or six, being fourteen and being seventeen are completely different mentally. Like, sure Kakashi was considered an adult for years by the time he’s fourteen, but he’s still barely a teenager, I mean, fast forward to the Naruto series era, kids roughly fourteen years old are still being watched and taken care of by adults, not raising kids on their own.
And for those that say that Kakashi could have taken care of Naruto when Kakashi was older, Kakashi was shown to be actively getting worse as time went on, and likely did not get better until he becomes Team 7’s sensei. Besides, again, the law is actively preventing him from doing this even if he wanted to.
Now, if you want to argue about what Kakashi should have done when Team 7 existed, or about just how much Gojo was involved in Megumi and Tsumiki’s lives, or even how Kakashi and Gojo compare in different aspects, those are separate conversations and not what this post was about. This post is also not about if one person is better than the other, either. The conclusion of this is that Kakashi was not mentally or legally able to care for Naruto when Minato and Kushina died, and probably for a long time after, and it should not be compared to Gojo choosing to step up and care for Megumi and Tsumiki, as both Kakashi and Gojo faced differing factors and had different resources to the point that it’s unfair to Kakashi.
