Naruto Manga 316: Begin Training

WitherWings says:
Ready to talk shop! I can't believe he de-leafed the tree. It's going to die now. I think that Asuma has a death wish because he has made himself a sacrificial pawn for the "king"

SnowyOwl says:
Agreed on the prediction on Asuma. He's been reflecting on something about his life lately (visiting and confessing to his father (the Third?) (see 314)). His metaphorical speak definitely had a foreboding/prophetic tone to it (it weirded out Shikamaru). I don't think the 'king' represents Naruto. He probably refers to some higher ideal.So...what's the point of having thousands of Narutos training if they're all doing the same thing? The only way he can speed up training is if all the clones try different approaches at once. And Yamato's a bit of a showoff, yeah? (Oh, I think I'll show you how I change my chakra's nature by ALTERING THE LANDSCAPE!)

WitherWings says:
So, do you think that the king is all of Konoha or something? Or maybe it's something corny like the friendship between villages or something.

But the training Naruto's make sense to me because normally he would do the same thing over again for like a month and then finally master it. With 50 thousand trillion of him, he's still doing the same thing but in less time. Very Naruto-esque. Doing different things will probably take too much brain power. "Shii-ne!!"

SnowyOwl says:
I do think that the 'king' Asuma refers to is an abstract concept. As for guesses, there are a few major themes that carry the series, which are expressed by a few key characters, but really, it all boils down to the value of 'bonds between people.' So, the 'king,' which must be protected, would fit -- 'bond between people are worth protecting.' Maybe I'll compose a more detailed post on that theory later.

As for Naruto's brand of training, don't forget that he only advanced after he stops to think and have little epiphanies. Kakashi's new training will only be effective if somehow having the clones simultaneously doing the same thing will get one of them to do something different faster. That's not even considering the fact that the original needs to release the jutsu to consolidate the information of all his individual clones. And I thought Kakashi was a tensai.