One Rin Scene Has Naruto Incels Justifying Obito’s Villainy

Only in Naruto can a decades-old scene still set comment sections on fire. The latest skirmish? Rin’s confession. You know the one. Rewatch it now and, yeah, you can see why people are still cranky about it. Let’s talk through what actually happens, why it feels so messy, and what it does (and doesn’t) explain about Obito’s heel turn.

Quick rewind: the setup that still stings

We’re in the Kakashi Gaiden stretch, during the Third Great Ninja War. Team Minato — Obito, Rin, Kakashi — is deep in chaos. Obito, the kid who was always catching strays from Kakashi, pulls the most heroic move on the board: he sacrifices himself to save his teammates. Brutal, gutting, all of it.

Afterward, Kakashi, shattered and doing the grown-up thing anyway, goes to tell Rin. He lays it out as gently as he can:

"Obito died saving us. He loved you."

And Rin… turns around and confesses to Kakashi. Immediately. It lands like dropping a love letter at a funeral. Fans were (and are) furious at the timing — not because Rin owed Obito anything romantically, but because confessing to his best friend right then feels wildly insensitive. Even Kakashi looks like he wants to conjure Obito back to help clear the air. To his credit, he shuts it down on the spot.

The fandom reaction, in plain terms

People aren’t mad that Rin didn’t pick Obito. She didn’t have to. The outrage has always been about the timing — the emotional whiplash. And yes, it’s awkward as hell. But if you’ve ever watched real people grieve, you also know that messy, poorly timed decisions are painfully human. Rin was a teenage medic in a warzone, not a therapist with a handbook.

What actually broke Obito (and what didn’t)

The simple take — that Obito became the masked Madara because Rin didn’t love him back — is lazy. The truth is heavier and a lot more tragic:

• War and loss had already shattered him; years of trauma were the bedrock.
• Manipulation preyed on his grief and redirected it toward a darker worldview.
• Rin’s death was the real catalyst — the final straw that pushed him over the edge.
• That confession scene? It didn’t cause his villain turn. At most, it twisted the knife.

So was the scene bad writing?

I don’t think so. Uncomfortable? Definitely. But it tracks. People say clumsy, contradictory things when the ground falls out from under them. They look for comfort. They latch onto the nearest piece of certainty. That’s not neat storytelling — it’s realistic. From Obito’s point of view, watching that moment from the cheap seats of the afterlife would be brutal, which is exactly why the scene keeps living rent-free in fandom memory.

Why it still hits a nerve

Obito is the definitive what-could-have-been character: a kid with big ideals who got ground up by a cruel world. Rin’s confession remains controversial because it’s not actually about romance — it’s about how grief twists people, how loss scrambles judgment, and how a single terrible day can magnify everything already broken inside someone.

So yes, the Obito-deserved-better crowd has half a point. The other half is the part Naruto always nails: it’s tragic, it’s awkward, and it’s uncomfortably human.

If you want to relive the discourse fuel: Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are streaming on Crunchyroll.