Grief in Naruto: Philosophy, Media Literacy, and the Hero’s Journey

Francisco Tupy

Grief as a Narrative Core

In Naruto, grief is not just an emotion — it is the axis of the entire narrative. From the first episode, absence defines the protagonist: an orphan whose parents died to save the village, Naruto carries emptiness as his inheritance. Around him, the entire world spins on loss — destroyed families, fallen masters, vanished friends. The series shows that pain is not an obstacle to growth, but its hidden engine.

From an existentialist point of view, this structure echoes Heidegger’s concept of being-toward-death: the awareness of finitude gives meaning to life. Every ninja acts knowing they may not return from a mission; heroism is born from accepting that condition. Grief, therefore, is not the end of something, but the moment when existence becomes luminous through contrast.

Grief as a Media Language

Through the lens of media literacy, Naruto teaches its audience to handle representations of loss ethically and aesthetically. Unlike other action series where death is reversible (Dragon Ball, for example), Naruto builds a pedagogy of pain: each death is irreversible, and every loss has long-term consequences.

Viewers are emotionally educated to recognize the complexity of mourning. This forms part of an emotional media literacy — understanding that media can serve not only to entertain, but also to teach us how to feel, reflect, and narrate suffering responsibly.

The Hero’s Journey and Emptiness as Initiation

According to Joseph Campbell, the Call to Adventure marks the start of the Hero’s Journey — and in Naruto, that call is a call to pain. The hero must pass through emptiness in order to become whole. This arc repeats across almost every major character, but reaches its deepest expression in two paradigmatic examples.

Itachi Uchiha: Silent Grief as Ethical Sacrifice

Itachi is Naruto’s tragic mirror. While the protagonist transforms pain into connection, Itachi transforms it into secrecy. Condemned to annihilate his own clan to prevent civil war, he bears the weight of impossible guilt. His life is a meditation on grief as moral choice: he accepts being hated so that others may live in peace.

Philosophically, Itachi embodies a Nietzschean tragic ethos — the affirmation of suffering without resentment. He endures the unbearable not as a victim, but as one who transforms pain into necessity. For Nietzsche, the highest strength lies in saying “yes” to life even in its cruelty; Itachi’s silence and sacrifice enact that affirmation.

Jiraiya’s Popsicle: Grief as Everyday Memory

The moment when Naruto holds Jiraiya’s melting popsicle after his master’s death is one of the series’ most subtle scenes. The half-melted popsicle symbolizes the warmth of life slipping away — yet also the persistence of simple gestures. The pain is not staged with dramatic tears but through silence and daily ritual: eating the popsicle alone becomes the poetic translation of mourning.

Here, Naruto teaches that to remember is to continue an interrupted gesture. The popsicle is a relic-object, transforming absence into symbolic presence. It marks the passage from pain to memory — an exercise in humanity.

The Philosophy of Loss and the Ethics of Continuity

The series proposes a philosophy of grief grounded in transmission. The death of a master does not end wisdom; it marks the moment when wisdom becomes part of the disciple. As Hannah Arendt reminds us, it is through narrative that we preserve the shared world. What Jiraiya teaches, Itachi demonstrates: dying means entrusting someone else with the duty to continue.

Grief thus becomes a bridge between generations. The deaths of Hiruzen, Asuma, Neji, and even Itachi are not erased — they are incorporated. The Hidden Leaf Village is literally built upon those who died protecting it. This historical consciousness distinguishes Naruto from mere action fiction: it is a saga about collective memory and the ethics of legacy.

The Viewer as Heir

From a media literacy standpoint, the audience becomes part of this inheritance. By witnessing the characters’ grief, viewers learn to recognize their own pain within fiction. This is what Aristotle called catharsis — emotional purification through art.

Grief in Naruto becomes a practice of empathy. Watching Naruto hold Jiraiya’s popsicle is, symbolically, to hold within oneself all those who shaped us — mentors, friends, ideas.

In this way, the hero and the viewer share the same mission: to honor loss by turning it into purpose.

Conclusion: Grief as the Soul’s Pedagogy

Grief in Naruto is both myth and method — it links the Hero’s Journey to the ethics of remembrance and turns suffering into a universal language. Itachi and Jiraiya reveal two faces of the same wisdom: one, the silence of sacrifice; the other, the tenderness of gesture. Both teach that heroism is not about defeating death, but about continuing in spite of it — and that all media, when read critically, can become a school for the soul.

Francisco Tupy is a Brazilian educator, game designer, and researcher with a Master’s and a PhD in Audiovisual Media and Processes from USP’s School of Communications and Arts (ECA-USP). His work investigates games such as Street Fighter and Minecraft. He has also published on Batman and Iron Man, exploring superhero narratives through ethical and aesthetic lenses. As a mentor of science-fair projects and a postdoctoral scholar, he advocates for media literacy through games, heroes, and anime, using playful worlds to cultivate critical, creative, and civic competencies in students and the broader public.