Naruto ended up learning a lot of things when he was a teenager. He learned about Nature Transformation, Sage Jutsu, and even how to control the Nine-Tails’ chakra. The only problem fans have with this is that he learned all of these things after the series time skip.
Fans have often wondered why Naruto didn’t learn that much from Jiraiya. Naruto spent two years with him training to fight Sasuke, Orochimaru, and the Akatsuki but he didn’t learn many new techniques to help with that. It’s enough to make one wonder what Jiraiya had in mind when he was training his student.
What Could Naruto Have Learned During the Time-Skip?
The first thing Naruto learned after the time skip was to change his chakra nature. Naruto may have had two years to train, but this might not have been enough time to master this technique, much less add it to his Rasengan; even the masters had trouble with this. The only reason Naruto learned it as fast as he did after the time-skip was because of Kakashi’s Shadow Clone idea; without it; Naruto would have needed thousands of hours of experience in real-time to figure it out. If Jiraiya had thought of this training method, he probably would have used it.
Jiraiya also had trouble teaching Naruto to control his Nine-Tails Chakra. Before the Fourth Great Ninja War, the trick to this was a trade secret of the Hidden Cloud Village. Even then, it was the unintended result of hiding Naruto and Killer Bee together on the Island Turtle. While Bee had taming a Tailed Best down to a science, Jiraiya had nothing to go on and it nearly got him killed. From there, mastering the Nine-Tails under him was out of the question.
One thing he might have been able to help with was mastering Sage arts. He should have been able to take Naruto to train on Mount Myōboku and learn how to gather Nature energy or use Frog Kumite. He might have taught Naruto some of the latter, but there’s little to excuse the lack of learning Sage Jutsu.
What Did Jiraiya Spend Two Years Teaching Naruto?
As it stands, Jiraiya stuck to teaching Naruto to master his fundamentals. Naruto learned how to summon a bigger shuriken, how to make a bigger Rasengan, and how to break out of genjutsu. He also learned how to fight, how to better control his chakra, and how to use his shadow Clones more efficiently. His friends might have become Chūnin and Jōnin at that time, but training with a Sanin might have made his fighting skills even better than that.
As far as new techniques go, Jiraiya definitely could have taught Naruto more. However, what he did teach him helped him to handle the average Chūnin and Jōnin-level ninja, as well as many other high-level ninjas out there. He did all of the physical and combat training he’d need to do so he could focus on learning new techniques after the time-skip.