Did making the Naruto chars older hurt the series?

[Yukimura]

@Animaniax: The rasengan seems to be a pretty flexible skill since the user controls the amount of chakra comprising it as well as the amount of spin. If you make one that's not that strong and not spinning too rapidly then it's not going to do as much damage as if you fill it with as much power as possible and make it spin like mad.

@Abdula: Naruto is the underdog hero so they make it out that h's terribleat everything when in reality he's just not applying himself to his full potential. Besides nearly ALL of Naruto's training has revolved around chakra control of some form. When you only focus on one thing eventually you'll get good at it.

As to the difficulty I believe Jiraiya mentioned that it was an A rank technique because of the difficulty of the component steps. Getting your chakra into your hand is pretty straight forward, but getting it to come out of your actual body and then making it spin doesn't seem like something that would be so easy. And then once you can get some out and spinning you have to be able to handle pumping out enough to shatter a rubber ball. The only other time we've seen raw chakra do anything close is Neji's Kaiten. Then the third step requires intense concentration and to contain and control all the power and rotation and that doesn't seem like something just anyone could do without intense focus and training on just controlling one's chakra (Naruto who only trains for chakra control has to create a whole separate consciousness to manage it). Of all the ninja we've seen the only one who's displayed a high level of of direct chakra control is Neji so I would expect him to have little trouble learning it but none of the others seem good enough with direct chakra control to pull it off.

Also the Rasengan doesn't utilize hand seals, I've always viewed hand seals as a sort of short cut for the mental effort needed to take chakra and do stuff with it. When Sasuke learned the Fireball Technique he was able to turn his chakra into fire with seemingly no experience with fire chakra just by directing chakra to his chest and performing the seals. It must still take some effort but I think the seals are meant to do a good portion of the work in making a jutsu do what it's supposed to, be it turn chakra into fire or lightning or a shadow. The fact that the Rasengan is as potent as it is but has to be fully controlled by the users mind instead of seals is another thing that makes it more advanced.