The Moment
Vol.19, pages 179–180 in the Japanese edition; VIZ Vol.19 at the corresponding panels. Naruto has just met the woman being recruited as the Fifth Hokage — the legendary Tsunade — and his review is not favorable: 「だいたい５０代のババァなのに若く変化してんのがなぁ．．．」「火影ともあろう奴がみんなにウソついてていいのかなぁ」 — "FIRST OF ALL, AN OLD WOMAN IN HER FIFTIES CHANGING HERSELF TO LOOK YOUNG... SHOULD THE HOKAGE LIE LIKE THAT?" She invites him outside — 「表へ出なガキ！！」, "OUTSIDE, BRAT, NOW!!" — and announces her credentials mid-stare-down:
「こう見えてもこれから五代目火影になる私だ」 — "HOWEVER I MAY LOOK, FROM TODAY ON I'M THE FIFTH HOKAGE." 「ちんちくりんのガキ相手に本気もないな」「コレ一本で十分」 — "I DON'T HAVE TO TAKE SOME PIPSQUEAK KID SERIOUSLY IN A FIGHT. THIS ONE FINGER IS PLENTY."
And Naruto, on the same page, throws her sentence back with the poles reversed:
「今はこんなでもオレだっていつかは火影になる！！」 "WHATEVER I AM NOW, I'M GONNA BE HOKAGE SOMEDAY!!"
Why the Title Is Worth a Fistfight
The collision has been loading for a page. The offer itself lands with a flourish — 「フン．．．これからは綱手じゃなくこう呼びな」「五代目火影様ぁ！？」 — "HMPH... FROM NOW ON, DON'T CALL ME TSUNADE. CALL ME... THE FIFTH HOKAGE!!" — and Naruto, who has wanted exactly that title since chapter 1's ramen stall, reacts not with awe but with an audit: 「綱手のバアちゃんが今日から五代目火影になんのかぁ～～」 — "GRANNY TSUNADE BECOMES FIFTH HOKAGE TODAY...?" — followed by the itemized objection: 「気性が荒くてワガママっぽくて．．」「その上金にルーズで陰険でバカだし」 — "SHE'S BRASH AND KINDA SELFISH... AND SHE THROWS MONEY AROUND, SHE'S SNEAKY AND STUPID..."
The complaint is the character note that matters: Naruto has never met a Hokage he wasn't measuring. The office is sacred to him precisely because he polices who deserves it — 「火影ともあろう奴が」, "someone who would BE the Hokage" — and a candidate who lies about her face and gambles away her money fails his audit. The fight that follows is not a tantrum; it is a dispute between the office's incoming holder and its self-appointed inspector general. It ends the only way it could: 「行くぞォ！！」 — "I WILL TAKE YOU ON, GRANNY!" — 「ま．．．またデコピン！？」 — "N... NOT AGAIN!" One finger, twice.
The Sentence, Piece by Piece
| Piece | Reading | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 今は | いまは | "for now" — contrastive は conceding the present |
| こんなでも | konna demo | "even (being) like this" — concessive でも |
| オレだって | ore datte | "even ME" — protest-inclusion だって |
| いつかは | itsuka wa | "someday, at least" — the schedule conceded, the outcome not |
| 火影になる | ほかげになる | "will become Hokage" — bare なる, unhedged |
The sentence is a fortress built of retreats. Every element before the final verb concedes something: the timing (今は), the current state (こんな — "this sort of thing," gesturing at himself), the listener's low opinion (でも), his exclusion from the class of plausible candidates (だって), the indefiniteness of the schedule (いつかは). Concession after concession — and then なる, plain nonpast, the same bare certainty-grammar that ends every vow in this family. The rhetoric is judo: give away everything except the one clause that matters, and that clause, having conceded nothing, stands unqualified.
And it is a mirrored sentence. Tsunade's own claim one balloon earlier runs on the identical frame: こう見えても ("even looking like this" — concessive) + これから ("from now") + 五代目火影になる私だ ("I am the one becoming Fifth Hokage"). Appearance conceded, office claimed — her shape, his shape. The title's present and future holders are arguing in the same grammar, and the page lets the reader hear it.
Words to keep: いつか (someday), こう見えても ("appearances aside"), 〜だって (even ~), 五代目 (ごだいめ, the Fifth), デコピン (forehead flick — the fight's entire munitions list).
The Voice
The line is built entirely from concessions — 今は, こんなでも, だって, いつかは — and yet lands as pure defiance: hedge stacked on hedge so that the final verb can arrive bare and unhedged. Shouted at the person about to hold the very office, moments before she flicks him with one finger — which is the most Naruto audience imaginable, and the most Naruto outcome: the vow does not require winning the fight. It requires being on the record.
The Echoes
Within the vow-family, this is the variant under maximum resistance: the original was said over ramen to a sympathetic teacher; the snake version to a digestive tract; the gate version to a rude client — and this one to the person who will actually hold the title, mid-audit, moments before the first forehead flick. The arc that follows turns the mirrored grammar into a real inheritance; the page where the two vows share a panel is its down payment.
In English
VIZ's "WHATEVER I AM NOW, I'M GONNA BE HOKAGE SOMEDAY!!" is a clean structural translation: "WHATEVER I AM NOW" compresses 今はこんなでも accurately, "SOMEDAY" carries いつかは, and the concession-then-claim architecture survives whole. What thins is the mirroring: Tsunade's "HOWEVER I MAY LOOK" and Naruto's "WHATEVER I AM NOW" rhyme less audibly in English than こう見えても / 今はこんなでも do in Japanese — a quiet loss of the page's best structural joke, though both renderings are individually right. The audit survives at full comic strength ("GRANNY TSUNADE" for バアちゃん is the right degree of disrespect), and 「ま．．．またデコピン！？」 → "N... NOT AGAIN!" drops the デコピン but keeps the また: "NOT AGAIN" tells you this has already happened once.
Take-away
Japanese argument style often concedes its way to the point: stack limited concessions (〜は, でも, だって) so that the final, unhedged clause carries total force. Learn to read stacked particles before a bare verb as a rhetorical ramp, not as uncertainty — the more a Japanese sentence gives away early, the harder its last three morae usually intend to hit. This line is the pattern's textbook case: a wall of retreats, one verb, no doubt anywhere in it — and, on the same page, the incoming Fifth Hokage building her own claim out of the identical bricks.