ShikaTema Manifesto, In Which I Have Too Many Thoughts About A Side Couple From A Mangaka That Self-Proclaimed Cannot Write Romance

When I was first watching Naruto (the night the English dub of episode one premiered on Toonami), honestly, I was never particularly attached to any of the main characters. My favorite was Anko! However, when I got back into the series in February of 2014, leading up to the manga's ending, I quickly realized... Oh, Shikamaru and Temari. I like them. I like them a whole lot, actually.

To others, they're by far the most universally liked couple in the fandom. They're the "oh, that makes sense. No wonder they ended up together." The poster child for "yayyy we love girlboss x malewife!!" (Henceforth I will not be using the words girlboss nor malewife)

But to me?? They're so much more!!! They are very, very intentionally written to be complementary narrative foils (as evident by their amount of screentime together), and push each other to be better people. So much so, that it's incredibly hard to imagine how their lives would've ended up had they never met. How's that? Let's find out!!

Temari, and who she is

Admittedly, much of Temari's backstory involves a lot of inference, but it's not hard to extrapolate what her childhood was like being both Gaara's eldest sister and also the Kazekage's daughter. Suna's long been struggling for resources, so much so that they're willing to stage an invasion of Konoha. Her and Kankuro may not have been compatible for being Shukaku's jinchuriki, but they were still raised to be political weapons first and foremost. She's described as being downright cruel, but she never had the choice of being anything else. She had to be powerful and ruthless for survival. Her mother died giving birth to Gaara; she was probably too young to remember. She could never disobey nor disappoint her father. Oh, and on top of all of this, her youngest brother kinda has a demon inside of him, and she could never quite fall asleep and know if she was going to wake up the following morning. You know, very normal childhood things. But she is who she is, and she takes immense pride in that.

Shikamaru, and who he is

Chance encounter: the chunin exams

Two side notes before we get into this. One, I just want to draw attention to the fact that there's so many circumstances at work here that if anything would've gone slightly differently, they would have never met in the first place. The way the preliminaries matches were drawn, the way the final matches were drawn, Sasuke's late arrival forcing to push a match forward that shouldn't have happened otherwise, Naruto literally pushing a Shikamaru that was about to forfeit into the arena... Makes you want to believe in fate, I guess? Sure as hell beats dating apps.

The second is that: while this is never outright alluded to in the manga itself, I can't help but think about Temari's mindset going into this match. At this point, Orochimaru has already killed Rasa and is impersonating him, but she didn't know that. Sure, the plan was for this match to never happen in the first place, but if it's going to happen anyways... Her father is watching. Everyone in the entire arena has their eyes on her, but, most importantly, her father is. She knows she's untouchable, but does her father know that? Is she a good fighter, a good shinobi, in his eyes? His focus is very obviously on Gaara, but he still must have the expectations of her, but how often does he actually watch her? Because this is her chance.

One overeager Temari charing at him before the proctor tells them to start, and let the games begin!

Immediately, they start staring down each other with a sort of they-fight-like-cats-and-dogs look. Okay, okay, I do have to talk about the elephant in the room. We do love a misogynist king. ♥ While, YES, at this point in time, Shikamaru has an unfortunate habit of having to fight women all the time and he doesn't like this... (he does get over this character flaw pretty damn quickly like come on) I do think it says a lot that Shikamaru immediately acts as if he's had a switch flipped. He complains about everything being a drag, but that's only for the mundane that doesn't interest him. His grades were the second lowest in the academy, only ahead of Naruto's, because he just couldn't be bothered. But he's always up for something that pushes him intellectually! (Why do you think he loves to play shogi?) Now, this fight with Temari...

Contrary to what they both say out loud, honestly, I feel like there's a lot of unsaid mutual respect going on in this fight. Temari's ego is even larger than her oversized fan. She has the skills to back it up. She's just playing a showmatch to stall for time. Her opponent is, by all means, (on paper) by far the weakest competitor in the finals. After her first swing of just rushing him and trying to crack his skull open with it (or whatever she was trying to do), she immediately acts defensively and tactically. She's seen his jutsu in the preliminary fights, and she thinks through it to the best of her ability to not get caught. She very boldly, dramatically, declares to the whole stadium that she's seen through his tricks and won't get caught.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru starts dozing off and staring at the clouds, wishing he could be like them. He concludes that, maybe, it doesn't look like that'll be the kind of life he gets to live. He sure chose hell of a time to start thinking like that. If it's because he had a gut feeling that the way this fight plays out would have a domino effect on how the rest of his life plays out, crumbling down in more waves than one... well, I don't know what to tell him!

The back-and-forth of the match continues. Of course, what he infamously later says to Tayuya is that the first attack is always a feint. But what he does here? First he tries directly casting his shadow, then waiting for the sun to drop, then using his jacket as a parachute, and then is the big reveal that everything was perfectly calculated to lure her to the hole Naruto made. It was a feint within a feint within a feint. I'm not quite sure what the right word to use here is. Maybe 'trust'? I'll go with that. It took instinctive trust for Shikamaru to believe that she wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for the obvious, but in knowing how she would play around his moves, she fell right into his trap.

Despite his nonchalance earlier, at some point, somehow, he did get invested in the fight. If only just a liiittle bit. Come on. Look at him when he gives her permission to look behind her, letting her see just exactly how she got caught. It's blatant gloating.

Temari's personality is bold and brash; she's a tornado personified. I'd have to imagine being completely frozen, being someone else's puppet, must be the absolute worst feeling for her.

She's not used to being outsmarted, not in the slightest. When it clicks that the parachute was yet another diversion, she looks ouright terrified. What else could this guy possibly be capable of? What could his next move possibly be?

And then the bastard says he gives up.

Shikamaru Nara, ever the enigma, then says he's out of chakra (which I do think to mostly be the truth), then claims he had the next 200 steps planned out. Honestly, I'm still not quite sure what he meant by this. (Common fandom joke that the 200th step was marriage aside.) It does come off as a little jab, a little reminder that he still won, even though he's giving her the win on paper, and even though his face afterwards suggests that he genuinely doesn't care. Maybe he himself doesn't even understand why he's like this.

But Temari? Putting aside all of her ulterior motives for being here for a moment, this is personal. Even after he retracts his shadow, and complains about how he's exhausted, she's just standing there. Staring. Mortified over everything that just happened. He is so completely, utterly unlike any other shinobi she's seen before. Shinobi don't doze off in the middle of a battle. (Earlier, she internally lashes out that by doing so he was mocking her. Which may have been partially true, but it is more so that that's just genuinely how he is.) Shinobi don't outsmart her, especially genin from Konoha. And most importantly, shinobi ESPECIALLY don't give up a fight they just won.

It's... a lot for her to take in. All at once.

She won't forget this.

Oh, it's you again: the Sasuke retrieval mission

Unfortunately, even though he forfeited his match... he still gets the promotion anyways! And then Tsunade's first mission assigned to him is blatantly a suicide mission! Yayyyy, what could possibly go wrong!!! (Side note: I do think I have a pretty high suspension of disbelief, but the flimsy excuse that LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHUNIN AND JONIN IN KONOHA WAS UNAVAILABLE is. A LITTLE too much to realistically believe. Especially when we're talking about TSUNADE Of All People letting Sasuke go to OROCHIMARU'S side!! But it gave us peak fiction, so. I digress.)

Fast forward. I just want to draw attention to the fact that Shikamaru and Tayuya were right on top of each other, yet Temari's jutsu is so pinpoint accurate she was able to create a cyclone so powerful that it sent Tayuya flying while leaving Shikamaru untouched. She is so cool I hope everyone knows this

Shikamaru is an ungrateful little shit and his IMMEDIATE reaction to getting his pathetic life saved is that he starts yapping about how Suna is a bunch of traitors, and how he can't believe that they'd flip sides so fast. (I especially love the performance in the dub here; he says "TRAITORS" with suuuch vitriol lmao) Which, okay, sure, to an extent, he does have a point. But HELLO she literally JUST saved your life!! What more can you want from her!!!

Temari doesn't take it personally though. She retorts that she was just following orders then, just like she is right now. Which, I mean. She's not lying. Shikamaru would have no way of knowing this, but she was in fact vocally against going through with the Konoha invasion in the first place.

Then we get this absolute gem of a line.

"By the way... are you getting dumber by the minute?"

There is. A lot to unpack here. I am... genuinely not sure if either of them realize this, but by her saying this, this is outright admitting to the fact that he previously outsmarted her, that he showed her up!! If he's an idiot now, then he must've been smarter that last time!! Yes, this is a direct insult, yes, it's supposed to be an insult, but in a way, it's also a backhanded compliment?? It's such a Temari thing to say and I just ugh *chef's kiss* I love her

She then starts blabbing, directly referencing their fight by mockingly teasing if he was going to give up again. (Which... yes. Had she not shown up at the absolute last second, he did give up. He was resigning to himself that he was going to die right here and now.) Then, she starts acting all pompous, declaring that she's able to handle Tayuya all by herself.

And also. Okay. Let me be crystal clear here. We don't know exactly what the sand siblings were up to in-between now and their previous appearance, but Temari had WAYYYYYYYY more important things to deal with off-screen. First of all, that whole planned invasion of Konoha? Well, yeah, not only did it fail, it was a colossal shitshow of a catastrophe on every account. Suna's still struggling for the reasons it attempted the invasion to begin with. The Kazekage was murdered in the attempt, which must make things even more difficult due to a loss of leadership. Even if he was certainly up there on the list of worst fathers ever, he was still her father, and she must have conflicting and deeply complicated feelings about it. And of course, most importantly, Gaara said sorry, and adjusting for his reformed personality must've been such a massive, unbelievable change in her life, especially when you factor in how much this impacts her relationship with Kankuro as well. She has to get to know them both, all over again.

So. That being said. She has allllll of this going on in her life at the present, and not only does she still remember the chunin exam fight, she's very clearly still MAD about it. SHE REALLY LET HIM LIVE RENT FREE IN HER HEAD LIKE THAT THIS ENTIRE TIME LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO 😂😂 (And shortly later, she thinks SHE has the right to lecture HIM on having a fragile ego...!?!?)

Shikamaru, on the other hand, I don't think he thought about the match all that much. I think in his mind, his memory just sort of loosley thought of her as "oh, that was the overbearing girl with the massive fan." Honestly, I would believe it if he didn't even remember her name! (Can you imagine him having to ask for her name after all of this though. Talk about awkward.)

More yapping ensues and Shikamaru starts going all off about how he can't have a woman protecting him and blah blah. (Temari would've absolutely reserved the right to say "Okay. Die then." here if she wanted lmao) Again, honestly I don't think he was being all that serious here. He was literally begging for a miracle, like that time Asuma sensei saved his sorry ass, but came to the conclusion that there were no miracles to be had here. Then he gets one aaand. I think he's more flabbergasted that he's alive in the first place, and is just spewing whatever nonsense comes to the front of his mind first.

Of note, even though this happens while he's still in his misogynist era(™), he never actually... really(?) complained about having to fight against Tayuya. Sorta? The closest thing is when he has her in his jutsu, he says that it's against his personal policy to strike a lady, but discounts her as counting as a lady. (?? Whatever that means. I guess he was refering to her curse mark transformation.)

Plus, I just think there's cosmic forces (or something like that) that make Shikamaru and Temari want to bicker endlessly whenever they're in close enough proximity.

In any case, Temari agrees with me and says that he's just spewing nonsense he doesn't actually believe in. That he's just acting, that he's putting on a brave face. That she can see right through him. She is behaving SOOO familiarly with someone she only met one time prior, like she really knows all of his ins and outs. But, well... is she wrong?!

The two of them start talking tactics, and I just think this part is nice to see. Despite how different the two of them are, their common ground is that they both are incredibly strategically minded people. Serves as some nice foreshadowing for how well they'll work together on a professional level, shortly in the future. But whereas Shikamaru thinks they should run and hide to restrategize, Temari, on the other hand, interrupts, and boldly declares that she asked for information alone and not his input. (Again, shoutout to the dub performance here. "Excuse me, did I ask for your opinion!?!" is pure gold.) And Temari isn't a cocky idiot! She damn well knows what she's capable of, and intends to prove it.

AAAAND, THEN. HERE WE GO!!! THIS IS IT!!!!! By the end of the manga, ninja are summoning meteors and shit, but if you ask ME and for MY opinion, this is the absolute pinnacle of a raw display of power and it's not even CLOSE. That like 10 seconds of Temari being the first person to land a hit on Madara only happened in the anime but in my heart I take it as the truth. Did she need to do all of this? Probably not. Is it overkill? Probably, yeah. Did she do it anyways? ABSOLUTELY! And she made it seem so effortless, with a single swing of her wrist!!

Suna doesn't have trees. She's just coming off feeling trapped and helpless because some guy caught her in his shadow, of feeling trapped and helpless because she was unable to quell a rampaging Gaara, seeing her worst fears she's held her entire life unfold in front of her... But here? She has physical proof of the prowess of her powers, as far as the eye can see. It must have felt so good.

Temari doesn't need anyone to tell her she's hot shit. She's Temari. Of course she knows that. But, still. Between the two of them, she was absolutely the only one keeping track. They had a score to settle. So she did it and then some! They're even now, in her eyes. Shikamaru most likely never gave their match a second thought, but that doesn't matter. He has no choice. For a moment, it's as if the entire world revolves around her; he's forced to acknowledge who she is, and what she's capable of. Here and now.

In the cheekiest manner imaginable, she even asks him what he thought about all of that. It's a rhetorical question, of course. I mean just LOOK!! In any direction you want!! Again, I'm not entirely sure if either of them realize this, but this is essentially her directly admitting that, okay, maybe she does actually care what he thinks of her lmao. Even if it's only a little bit.

Shikamaru, meanwhile... this is the one time he actually shuts his trap. In every single fight he's in over the course of the series, he's someone who finds a way to make his opponents think he's the most obnoxious scum on the planet imaginable. But here?? He is stunned into complete silence.

I do want to clear up a slighttt misconception I see where people quote "the scary yet beautiful smile" as if it's actually in the text and. I mean sure he's clearly THINKING that, but that's just from the little editor's text in the margins during the manga's magazine run. But what we DO get??? Honestly, even among ShikaTema diehards, I think we all collectively do not give "SUBTLE AS A RHINO" the absolute praise and attention it deserves!!! It's only a four word similie and yet it conveys SO MUCH. I simply believe there is so much adoration and utter awe behind such an overexaggerated and nonsensical statement, like Temari's inherent existence defies the very laws of nature.

Oh, and he also admits that she's scarier than his mom. Which. Raises so many questions if THIS is what makes Shikamaru move the little needle on his measuring stick...

AND THEN WE GET TO.......

HER SMILE GLITTERING LIKE THE FIRE OF THE DESERT SUN!!!!

DFOJIHEIJ*SGI*jtw3irqwites9gijODGoikqr@JL:QKWatesr/ylwtw Sorry I walked into an electrical fence it's okay I'm normal now. I just!!! I love this scene sooooo SOOOOOOOO much. Man. Peak fiction is real and it's in N*ruto of all series. Her smile is so beaming and radiant and it's so iconic it's so Temari. To me, this kind of all-teeth, grinning smile will never fail to remind me of her. The cheekiness to it all?? The fact that she does this WHILE THE LITERAL PAGE ACROSS THE CENTERFOLD IS THE CORPSE SHE JUST MURDERED??? Chef's kiss!!! Name one other character that does it quite like she does I'm waiting!!

The next panel is Shikamaru's eyes widdening, eyebrows flung up, with an elipses as he takes it all in. With the order this is presented in, it's suggesting it's really this: her smile, her attitude about it all that's making him completely dumbfounded. Even more so than the fact that she so effortlessly killed the girl that was half a second away from killing him!

Then finally, his expression softens. It's over, at long last. But just look at him. If you want to tell me that's not the face of someone smitten, then please, by all means the floor is yours. He says that this time, he has to be grateful. Except, well, he doesn't actually say it out loud, just to himself. He doesn't need to. Even if, y'know, saying "thanks" is the most obvious way to show gratitude. His face does kinda say it all. She gets it. This is only the second time they've met, and already, there's so much mutual understanding between them.

He won't forget this.

Fragile egos: the hospital scene

First of all!!!! Alright, so we know that Temari is an incredibily duty-first driven person. Not only do we as the readers know this, but Shikamaru himself knows this too, because she literally JUST barked in his face about how she's someone that follows orders! Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and make a wild assumption that following this one guy back to the hospital (whose worst physical injury was probably just his broken finger that he himself intentionally broke) was not exactly a part of the mission. At least, certainly not sitting there and waiting with him!! But alright Temari, you do you!! (To be fair, I don't know what else she was supposed to do in Konoha exactly but still. lmao)

They have a lot of time to kill while they're waiting to hear the news of the fates of Shikamaru's comrades. Shikamaru, of course, isn't exactly in the mood for small talk. He's fidgeting with his fingers to try his best to calm his nerves. Temari, sitting across from him, states incredibly bluntly that working himself up like this isn't going to help anyone. Shikamaru has a speech bubble where he goes "...!", indicating that he was caught off-guard by Temari psychoanalyzing him like this. That she caught him being so defenseless, itching to be able to do something, anything to help his friends. That she was, once again, able to see right through him.

Shikamaru, who just gloated to Tayuya about how great his squad is and how he'll believe in their loyalty to the bitter end. How he didn't believe that any of them were even dead.

Now, unlike to Tayuya, and even unlike his match against Temari... he has absolutely nothing to prove to her here. The mission is already over. He's simply awaiting his judgement, and should anyone actually die here, their blood is on his hands.

The "haven't you received emotional training?" line is so incredibly fascinating for so many reasons. For one, Temari is just kinda making assumptions here, isn't she? While yes, sure, that's probably true for shinobi everywhere, but I have to imagine it's not as true when comparing Konoha-nin to shinobi from anywhere else. Especially if we're talking directly comparing herself to him. For her, well, *gesturing to the entire circumstances of her upbringing*. (As a side note, this does seriously make me wonder what Temari's personality would be like if she wasn't essentially forced to grow up like this...) For him... seriously, who was putting him through psychological training? Iruka? Asuma?? Can you seriously picture either of them doing that??? What exactly did this training entail? How rigorous was it? I find it hard to imagine Shikamaru "barely passed the academy" Nara doing such a thing, let alone any instructor thinking he's anything but a lost cause in this regard.

In any case... Shikamaru goes on his whole "woe is me" speil. The supposed emotional training he received couldn't compare to the real thing. He knows she has him cornered. She's here talking about what a shinobi should be, and... he admits it! That's not me! I'm not cut out to be a shinobi! He's agreeing with her. Here's a reason why the intensity of this scene is so unsettling. Shikamaru and Temari aren't supposed to agree with each other. From their match, to what just happened with Tayuya, to every other interaction they have afterwards (even if it's affectionate jabs), the entirety of Shikamaru and Temari's relationship is so fundamentally founded upon their neverending bickering. To have him actually essentailly agreeing with her here just feels plain wrong.

She continues to criticize him, calling him fragile. Shikamaru then says a bunch of words that can be summarized as "it's all my fault it's all my fault it's all my fault."

Now, I'll say what Temari doesn't say. She doesn't offer words of sympathy. She doesn't say one way or the other whether he deserves the blame for what happened.

She says exactly one, brutually direct question.

"Are you afraid of getting hurt?"

Two reasons she asks this. One: Again, even though she spent the entirety of the Tayuya fight placing herself as superior to him, it comes from a place of admitting that he did outdo her during their match. She wants to know if the guy she had built up in her head was actually a headless chicken this entire time or not. Two: ... She just genuninely wants to know. She wants to understand him, what exactly it is that makes him tick. She's asking this question for herself as much as she's asking it for his sake.

And here's the thing! Temari herself is absolutely someone that is afraid of getting hurt. Look at how she acted around Gaara while they were taking the exams. But she knows she was never allowed to so openly express those feelings. She can't be like him.

Also, just... look at her expression. She's so deadly serious about this. She's not just trying to give him shit like she usually does. She so genuinely wants to know if this is where he's going to falter and waver, if this is his limit. Why is she so personally invested in what happens to him? It's a cruel thing to say, yes, but she's saying this because she does care.

Shikamaru seriously thinks it over, knows in his heart that the answer is 'yes', but he doesn't give a response. He's the self-proclaimed guy that's best at running away, after all.

... He doesn't get very far.

Here is my strongest piece of evidence why Temari is so fascinated with, and therefore drawn to Shikamaru. He is completely, thoroughly, absolutely, and utterly different than anyone else she's ever met before.

When they first meet, he gives up his match. He cares too little.

The next time, he pulls a 180 on her. He's breaking down into uncontrollable tears over a failed mission. He cares too much.

Shikamaru Nara is an ever-present enigma, one who defies every expectation she had about what a shinobi was and should be. Temari isn't one to back down from a challenge. (Plus... she just does genuinely feel for the guy. That can't hurt, either.)

... Next time, the mission will go perfectly.

Is this a habit? Can we make it one?

Ambassador Problems(™)

Okay cool, but what about Shikamaru?

And from here on out