Sasuke's absurd feat undermines Rock Lee in Naruto in more ways than you can imagine

The ninja world in the Naruto anime series often features powerful techniques that seem to surpass normal limits and act like a "cheat code" for the user. The most prominent examples of such techniques are the abilities granted by the Sharingan, and this has been clear from early on in the series.

One notable "cheat code" moment was when Sasuke copied Rock Lee's taijutsu during the Chunin exams, while facing Gaara. Although many fans debated whether this was unfair to Rock Lee, who trained for years, Kishimoto clearly showcased the full power of the Sharingan.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from the Naruto anime and manga series and reflects the author's opinions.

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It took Sasuke a few days to do what Lee did in years in the Naruto series

During the Chunin Exams arc in the Naruto series, several young ninjas competed for promotion to a higher rank. While the series mainly focused on main characters like Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, and others before the arc, many new characters were introduced, including Rock Lee from the Hidden Leaf Village.

Before the exam registration, Rock Lee saw Sasuke and challenged him to a fight, which ended in a no-contest when Guy, Lee's trainer, stepped in and called it off. Meanwhile, Sasuke was seen using his Sharingan to try and detect Lee's moves, but was unable to.

While Sasuke was away, Gaara and Lee had one of the most epic battles in the exams, but Lee unfortunately lost despite giving his best. The fight also featured one of anime's most memorable moments of all time when Lee dropped his weights. As the exams went on and Lee was shown recovering, the match between Sasuke and Gaara began.

During the match, while Gaara was gaining the upper hand, Sasuke suddenly copied Lee's speed and began attacking with his taijutsu to gain an advantage. Lee had spent years adding heavy weights to his ankles to master this technique and attain immense speed, but Sasuke learned it in just a month. This was clearly thanks to his Sharingan.

The Sharingan is often seen by fans as a sort of "cheat code" in the Naruto universe, with the ability to copy opponents' moves, ninjutsu, and even predict their movements. While this visual power has played major roles in the series' most important moments, in this case, fans felt bad for Lee, especially after he lost to Gaara and Sasuke used his moves to overpower the same opponent.

Still, even though Sasuke used Lee's technique, he didn't win, and the match was eventually called off because of Gaara's extreme Jinchuriki transformation.

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Final thoughts

Rock Lee is a fan-favorite character from Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto series. He is especially loved for his never-give-up attitude, despite being unable to use genjutsu or ninjutsu. Therefore, it’s understandable why the unfairness is so hurtful when his technique—something he worked very hard for—gets blatantly stolen by another character.

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