Is this Naruto question on or off topic?

Question

Regarding one of @Pablo's recent Naruto question:

Why did Naruto decide not to use Rasenshuriken due to the harm it did to his arm, if he could create it with clones?

At first glance, this seemed on-topic to me (which is why I tried to answer it) but a discussion we had in comments is making me wonder if it still is. I answered that Naruto didn't do this one, because the jutsu was forbidden, and two, because he avoided the damage done to his arm by throwing it while in Sage Mode. Many hours after I posted the answer, he said it wasn't the answer he was looking for because the "timeline of the question" is set to when Naruto didn't know Sage Mode. I should note that not in the question title nor question body does he say where the "timeline of the question" is set.

I once read somewhere on this site that if you ask a vague question, you get a vague answer. Referring to this Anime & Manga meta page, I tried to figure out if this question was on-topic or not. But well.. no luck.

So the problems I feel with the question are:

• Not enough detail given in the title or body, so answers may be wrong or the answerer may be confused
• Question seems like a "go ask Kishimoto yourself" type of question (kishi is the naruto creator)

AFAIK, "Not a real question" used to be a flag reason, although I don't see it anywhere the times I've flagged a question.

So, is this type of question on-topic? Or should this be closed with some custom flag reason?

NOTE: A brief-ish discussion with @Memor-X made me look at the question with a different perspective, but I still can't see how I should edit my answer, why I should edit my answer, and if this question is on-topic.

Answer 1

I would say that it's off-topic because it's missing a key detail:

What was the other time that Rasenshuriken was used at close range?

A cursory memory refresher suggests that the only battle that this was used before he learned Sage Mode was the first time that he learned the jutsu.

That basically plays to your question about "timeline of the question", in that it's really not clear what timeline other than before Naruto learned to throw it exists, or if there are other battles that it was used in after that.

So with that basis, I would say that it is off-topic because any answers to this would either be based on an incomplete premise (that the OP was only talking about the only known canonical fight), or that the OP is asking an unclear question (that there was more than one fight involving the Rasenshuriken in the time before Senjustu was learned).

Answer 2

The question is indeed a duplicate of When Tsunade told Naruto to not use the Rasenshuriken, couldn't he have just used a clone? as mentioned in the comment by Daniel. I didnt see that comment until now.

By the time I made the question, I've just watched those episodes. If you have just watched those episodes recently, you remember that by the time Tsunade asks him not to do it, he didnt learn Sage mode yet. So I don't know what Sage mode has to do with the question at all. I guess that if you havent watched the episodes in a long time, you can suppose that by the time the question is made (when Tsunade asks Naruto not to do it) he knew Sage Mode. But he didnt.

And the answer can't be "because Tsunade asks him not to do it" because the question acknowledges that. By mentioning that, the question implies why Naruto obeyed Tsunade, who asked him not to do it due to the harm it made to his arm, if he could tell Tsunade "it doesnt make harm to me if I thwrow it with clons". If the answer to the question I make would be "because Tsunade asked him not to do it", I wouldnt mention the answer to the question in the question, there would be no point in making a question you know the answer.

In the other question which is identical to mine and which it was made before mine, I can see user Arcane remembers clearly what happened in those episodes. The answer "it could kill the clone" is kind of the supposition one could make about why he didnt do it, but as the comments of Arcane states it was shown he can do it and the clones survives. Even though those comments are more in the line of an answer to the question I made.