Ugh. The kids are really getting annoyingly strong. I thought it was cool when they could never, ever possibly take on say, Zabuza. Cause they're genin. They're twelve years old. And those Kamaruichi ninjas or whatever the clan's name is, they must be chuunin or jounin level... but you just know that the little Naruto team of genins is going to totally school them. Beh.
This is why fillers are kind of lame. Like that "Great Race" filler, they end up beating a hidden mist jounin. A hidden mist jounin *wielding a Hokage's sword*. Come on. They're supposed to be like FLIES compared to a jounin; remember how badly Kakashi could own them? And don't even talk to me about that lame Tree of Might rip-off with the Hero Water... that was just the worst thing I've ever seen.
I mean I thought it was cool when Gai blew away Gaara's sand like it was nothing. It really showed you that even though Gaara was a little 12 year old genin beast, he still had nothing on Gai.
But then later on, these genins all go one on one with Orochimaru's ELITE GUARD, his best of the best, his personal protectors, and the *kids win.* Even Kimimaro lost; granted it was to Gaara, but Gaara is still a genin, and you'd think Kimimaro, being the legendary fiend that he was, would be able to handle a kid. I mean there are scenes of Kimimaro at like age 6 killing loads of hidden mist genin/probably chuunin. But no, he gets destroyed. I mean, in perspective, the four "elite" guardsmen had to go into their full transformations just to beat *two* Konoha jounins, but still... I feel like they should've done far better facing some inexperienced kids.