Animal Summons

A popular aspect in the naruto verse, and many stories like that people like to focus on are summons.

But how do you:

- Avoid clichés

- Choose a good summons for your character

- Add substance to said summon animals

These three things are often neglected despite being such obvious things to consider. So let's take a closer look at these things, look at examples of how it has been done well and the most important aspect of all. Why?

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Avoid clichés

The easiest way to avoid choosing a cliché animal summon is by using a search engine to search for these terms: Naruto "yourSummonAnimal" summons

The most often animals used, aside from those of the 3 legendary sannin are:

- Panda's / Pandaran

Ft. Cliché tropes such as kungfu, staff fighting, inborn sages / nature energy specialists, qi / ki, monks.

- Dragons

Ft. Nuke sized ninjutsu, kungfu, qi / ki

- Wolves

Ft. Inuzuka clan ripoff abilities, often times with a permanent partner treated like a ninken.

- Spiders

Ft. Intelligence gathering, trapping, venom and free clothes of cheat quality and comfort. Imagine all spiderman variations for a better understanding.

- Foxes

Ft. Ninjutsu, Genjutsu and tracking

Those are some of the most used ones and their most used tropes. There are plenty more but if you want your fic to stand out. Then it's best to avoid such obvious choices and go for something unique.

A great example of this is a fiction named "Walk on the Moon by SixPerfections". Here a the SI sister of Yamanaka Ino contracts the Rat clan as her summons.

She has to face life threatening trials to get accepted as their summoner, and in turn gets the viscous killer rats at her beck and call. Rats that use poisons, infiltration and assassination techniques along with ruthless tactics to brutally murder their opposition.

They aren't the typical kind summon, which we see in a variety of novels and fanfics, they are quite the opposite in fact, which makes them stand out from the crowd and spring to the front of my mind the moment someone asks what a good example is in how to go about summon animal in a naruto fanfic, or story with a simular system

But. They have been done now. So how do you choose something unique?

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Choose a good summons

I think that the best you can do is ask yourself the following questions:

- Do I want to use my summons to cover weaknesses my character has?

Or

- Do I want to use summons to train my character?

When choosing the first option it's important to focus on the weaknesses your character has, what he can't do and what the animal in question has and does to cover these.

Another point to focus on are elements. What element do you associate with the animal and your summoner and how do they work together? How would they fight together?

This is quite a bit harder to figure out than the other option which is why it's a rare choice. Often when it's chosen, it's because the summon isn't a fighting type and thus tends to bring intelligence gathering to the table as their unique selling point.

In other words the most used summon type used for this are Utility summons. Because most people find it hard to write a complementary combat summon.

That is why, In most circumstances, people choose to use their summons for training and summon battles only.

In that case it is best to look for animals with aspects or mythology in real life that reflect the build you want for your character.

Thus, if you want a kenjusu specialist, with illusions and wicked fire elemental attacks, then perhaps choosing that panda ain't that good an idea.

Especially when it's so overdone that it became one of the animals not to choose if you don't want to loose a large portion of your fanbase.

What you want to look for instead are predatory animals with sharp claws, that you can easily imagine using those fire and illusion type of attacks. (in case of this example)

For their fighting style, you look at how they fight irl and extrapolate from there. Cats for example scratch and slash a lot mixed with wrestling when they fight among themselves. They rely on ambush tactics on the hunt to pounce, where as a Martyr will try to rip the others throat out, as its sole focus turns into one ultimate murder command. rip and maim.

A Wolverine on the other hand is a jumped up family member of martyr with a warrior tank mentality. It behaves bigger than it is, is thrilled to fight bigger creatures and rip them apart and even a bear or lynx thinks twice about crossing one!

If you like poison animals however, but don't want the typical poison cliché, you can also go the bacterial disease route of things like komodo dragons. Or toxin like many salamander species.

Whatever you are looking for as a combo, I assure you it's there with plenty of alternatives. Just turn on Natgeo wild or other such channels on once in a while or look at your countries lists of dangerous or rare animals. there is likely already a perfectly unique candidate on that list.

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Add substance to summon animals

Once you have the prior points figured out, you're going to want to use that good look at the real animals in question to add that substance to your summons.

Like the animals such as wolverines that I mentioned before.

Look at the info you find on the animal you choose a s ask yourself:

- What is their social dynamic like?

- Are they loners or pack animals?

- What would their summon clan society look like? (Based on the prior questions.)

- What do such animals do when they confront each other and what would they do to establish dominance or gain respect?

- What do they hunt?

- Who is their natural enemy?

Asking yourself this will allow you to come up with a challenge and resultant plot points that they might ask a potential summoner to do, which will add more substance to your story.

Combined with the prior topics, it will also allow you to shape distinct impressions of the teachings they will give your summoner, and in turn help you add substance and presence to your summon animal.

After all, do you really want to be that author that finds a Panda or Fox cub in the forest and has the greatful parent offer their clan as your personal summons?

Do you really want to be that author that has the Royal Emperor Super Duper Majestic Galactic and whatever other big word Pheonix or Dragon or dragon pheonix Summon?

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I hope this helps people who are stuck on choosing a summon animal when writing a naruto fiction or story with simular systems in place and help them to find something to help them stand out.

Often, you will find everything you needed within mere minutes of searching the Internet so don't be afraid to do so.

After all, a little research along the way never hurts!

Let me know what you think, pitch your favorite animals or add your own tips in the comments!

Have fun!