Manga 11 Naruto Reviews Filter Check 2

It's done! The end of Naruto marks the end of an 15-year period, about half of which I spent waiting for weekly updates for the manga that was my very first.

Was it worth it? Maybe. I have a gut feeling that Naruto is going to be one of those manga that took great benefit from having a long-ass run time, and that a lot of the attraction towards Naruto was the fact that, well, "everyone else was reading it too." Reading Naruto was as much of a social exercise as it was a reading one, since it's mega popularity ensured that there would always ... be one or two people that you know that would be following it as well.

As far as the actual writing is concerned, I'd have to liken it to Harry Potter: ultimately flawed, but relatable. The themes of believing in yourself and the Power of Friendship™ have been explored numerous times before (and in a much better fashion by other manga/anime), and Naruto itself is a manga that I'm pretty sure could have been written in 200-300 chapters as opposed to the monstrous 700 that have presented over its 15 year run. Many, many, many characters are introduced, given their time in the limelight, and then thrown away because ultimately, it's all about Naruto. Kishimoto doesn't understand how to use scale to properly create climactic moments, and by the end, Naruto's supreme dominance over any of the other characters makes their attempts to seem relevant laughable and almost pitiable. The fact of the matter is, there are so many "oh, but this isn't my final form!" moments in the manga that reading the damn thing became a chore near the end due to the fact that Kishimoto isn't a very creative writer.

So why did I read all 700 chapters of what seems to be a quite mediocre effort? Well, Naruto was my first manga. Arguably, this fact combined with its existence as a social phenomenon made Naruto quite enjoyable to read (see my enjoyment score) despite its glaring flaws. It was fun to discuss the manga's weekly happenings with other people through its ups and downs--the experience was similar to that of following a sports team with other fans.

So, should you read Naruto? Probably not, unless you really, really like shounen's. It's a stunningly middle-of-the-road affair with little original thematic content that was made enjoyable to read due to the fact that it was mega-popular.

Story 4, Art 5, Character 2, Enjoyment 8, Overall: 5 (4.75).

The world of Naruto is probably the most interesting aspect of the show. Despite being a show about ninja, the soldiers in this manga are really ninja in name only. They're actually much more reminiscent of modern soldiers with flashy ninja magic than mysterious, stealthy ninja.

There characters are a rather nice aspect of the show. Many of them are archetypes, but I find them entertaining regardless. I also feel like the characters that are around Naruto's age (teenagers) have realistic personalities. They're teenagers, and they act like teenagers. That's one of the reasons I like them. Many would disagree with me, so it's really a ... matter of taste and perspective.

The action scenes are rather exciting, but there certainly is better out there. The characters have a variety of different ways in which they do battle, and some styles are very entertaining. Others seems utterly ridiculous and completely out of place in a manga that's trying to be serious.

Now, while the series certainly has it's good aspects, the overall series is something worse than the sum of its parts. In fact, while Kishimoto clearly knows what he's doing from an artistic standpoint, his lack of story-telling skills shows through. He spends far too much time putting focus on minor characters. There ends up being so little focus on Naruto himself that it's almost impossible to feel any attachment toward him. I also find him to be rather annoying, which makes it even more difficult to feel for him.

Furthermore, he only focuses on one character at a time. He seems incapable of putting the focus on a group of characters, as he should. Even when the characters are together, they only seem to speak to one another when necessary, never saying much more than what's needed. So while the characters themselves are decent, the character interactions are not very well done.

The story also seems to get side-tracked quite often. Some story arcs have very little to do with the main story at all. Now, that wouldn't be such a problem, but a few of these story arcs each span over a few volumes. A lot of the time, it feels like a waste of time.

The art is quite good, but Kishimoto actually has a tendancy to show too much detail. He shows far more than what's necessary, taking up panels, taking up pages, and slowing down the progress of the manga.

The slow progress is the final nail in the coffin. The longer the series goes, the more it's flaws stand out. The series is good, but not good enough to justify the long, tedious progression of events.

Personally, I love this series. However, I have to admit that, looking at it from a critical standpoint, most aspects of this manga are so utterly mediocre that the series ends up looking even worse than it is.

On a final note, I'd like to say that when I read the manga in graphic novel format, as opposed to the one chapter per week format it's released in Japan and on the internet, I found the series to be much more enjoyable. This makes the series far less tedious, since many events are experienced in one sitting, since an entire chapter can--and often does--revolve around one minute event. Even the English release in the American Shonen Jump, which is released monthly, four chapters are released all at once, making it a much more satisfying read.

So, I would suggest either buying the graphic novels or Shonen Jump, or just waiting for the chapters online to build up, and read them about once a month instead of reading the latest one every week. This will make for a much more enjoyable reading experience.

Naruto is finally over, its had its ups and downs, including a very long list of problems, but is it bad or good? In a sense, it's kind of both:

Naruto had undoubtedly had a great influence on the manga culture, helping spread anime/manga to the west after Dragonball Z and setting up a new generation of readers. 15 years later, it finally finishes. But I've noticed one trend I wished would end already, is it bad because it's too popular? Its a shounen on shounen jump that practically uses shounen elements religiously. Being one of the "big three" its going to get flak for being ... "too popular" or "overhyped", but I will ignore that and look at it more objectively, or at least, as much as possible.

The Story - 5
The story, progressively, started getting worse. There was too much set up with little to forced pay off. Many plot elements got changed over time, such as Shikaku being the soul of a priest rather than the one tail, so nearing the end of the series, these inconsistencies made the story very hard to follow. The rapid change of main villains also didn't help and ruined the flow of the series. However, in certain arcs, when the pace and flow of the series really got rolling, things were good; but these moments, especially in Shippuden, were easily broken down by flashbacks and exposition periods. There may have been good moments, but the constant changing of lore and plot devices, really screwed the overarching story. Although the ending was satisfactory, to a degree.

Art- 7
The art is probably the best thing going for the series...kind of. There are some inconsistencies; a lot of times, especially late in the series, there are noticeable errors and improper face designs. But the improvement of the art style, when done right, is noteworthy, but stagnated quite a bit about half-way through Shippuden.

Characters-4
This was probably Kishimoto's weakest point, once again, especially in Shippuden. The characters were set up really well in the original series, somethng I noticed when re-reading. They all had their relationships and pasts integrated very well in to their character and the growth was apparent. But, trying to make them mature, was very hard for Kishimoto, especially female characters. Not only that, but with such great build-up, Kishimoto also wasted characters in Shippuden, to the point where no one else mattered besides Naruto and Sasuke. There are a few noteworthy characters: Jiraya, Tsunade, Itachi, Pain, Gaara, etc. but most others were just shounen tropes personified in Shippuden, even more so than in the original series. This also leads to his rushed villains problem and how the main characters change depending on which one their fighting. It's kind of disappointing, because Kishimoto is very good at setting things up but just as infamous in failing the execution.

Enjoyment-8
This is where Naruto shines the most, but only to those knowing what they're getting into. If you know this is a shounen, especially one in Weekly Shounen Jump, then you better expect friendship power-ups and believe in yourself's galore. But just because these elements have been overdone, does not immediately make them bad. You take what you get, this series wasn't fooling you, it practically advertised it. In terms of generating hype for battles, well most of them, Kishimoto is not so bad. Like I said earlier, although there are flashbacks and calm periods, when the pacing gets going, so does the hype. The one thing that many have a problem is that it changed styles and themes when transitioning to Shippuden. It went from being about ninjas to being more about Jesus saving the world things. But even that isn't too bad. They give a decent excuse for it and all things considered, a mangaka can interpret things however they please. If you don't like shounens like this, you'll probably not enjoy this series so well, but I have to say, you NEED to know what you're getting yourself into. I do not recommend it to anyone looking for something different in a shounen, such as FMA or Trigun, this is the Dragonball Z type of shounen with higher trope power levels, and this is what you should be expecting going in.

Overall - 6.5
When I first read Naruto and got to Shippuden, I actually dropped the series. I didn't give it a chance. I also kinda became a Naruto hater, mainly because I so loved One Piece. But after a friend, a Naruto-fanboy, begged me to give it a chance. I took it. Of course, throughout the experience, I noticed all the problems all the things and I constantly complained..yet I still continued to read. It was something about it that kept me hooked and I didn't know why. But one day, upon re-reading the series again, I had a realization. It was interesting. I wanted to see what Kishimoto would do, I wanted to see his silly plot changes, his uber-shounen-believe it fights, I wanted to complain about his mistakes, hating on Sakura or other characters, the world, the jutsus and different forms. It had a certain charm that made you want to criticize it, dared you to. If you've read a shounen it practically begged you to compare it. This perplexed me in such a way I didn't understand. The series is a mess, but a fun mess for any shounen reader. That is why if you read shounens, you should give Naruto a try. But if you're looking for a masterpiece or something great, look elsewhere.

Regardless of how you view Naruto as a series, one can't deny that it has left an enormous impact upon the culture and for many, acted as a gateway into manga and anime. Unfortunately, this also means nostalgia can cloud the minds of those that have followed the series since it's earlier years. Personally, I only started reading this series a few weeks ago. Prior to that, my experience with the series was the first 130 or so episodes of the original anime, before I lost interest in it and dropped it. After trying to watch the series again, I always inevitably dropped it around ... that 130 episode mark. So once Naruto's manga had finished, I knew it was time for me to experience the series in it's original form.

Naruto frustrates me in the sense that it attempts to create so much, only to have it mean naught in the end. I'll elaborate on this further throughout my review.

The story of Naruto starts off pretty well. He's a young boy who grew up as an outcast due to the fact that he acts as a container for the 'Nine Tails', essentially a giant fox that attempted to destroy Konoha and kill its residents 12 years before the series begins. Naruto's dream is to become the Hokage (the leader of the village), and the series follows him on his journey to do so. Whilst its not exactly an amazing premise, it definitely sets things in motion nicely and for the first 200 chapters or so the story is decent. But ultimately, its the timeskip that kills this series. Naruto starts a lot of things, but by the end of the story, is unable to finish them. For example, a key focus of the series is chakra and having to manage and use chakra efficiently in order to survive in the battles. This was a good system, it made the battles more strategic and definitely gave a sense of impending doom when a character began to run low on chakra (unfortunately this effect would be ruined as a friendly ninja would often show up to save them). By the end of the series, chakra conservation is far less important, and some of the final battles last longer than some of the series' most iconic battles combined. This lack of respect for one’s own worldbuilding is indicative of how the series progressed throughout the years.
The flow of the story was decent but during the later chapters it definitely reached a pace that was far too slow and stretched. The final arc didn't need the amount of chapters it had, and felt almost twice as long as it really needed to be. Most of the plot twists were fairly predictable, but there are definitely a few that were very well done. Its a real shame as the childhood arc of the series (roughly the first 220 chapters) were rather good, and if I were judging the series overall from just those chapters, the rating would be about a 7. Unfortunately the story fails to hold on to the charm of the beginning of the series, and is ultimately ruined by the introduction of ridiculous jutsus and the reversal of some major events in the series, only to have them mean nothing in the end. And that's probably my biggest gripe with the series; the ending. For some reason, the mangaka chose to display the ending to the series in the final chapter in 25 colored pages. He could easily have shaved 5 or so chapters off of the stretched final arc and used those to set up a far more satisfying, gradual ending. It is currently assumed that the mangaka will explain the ending in more detail in his miniseries that he plans to begin next year, but despite what information is revealed in these, it will not affect the fact that this ending felt very rushed. It was highly apparent that he paired characters together in the ending in a last ditch attempt to appeal to his fans, but his choices made little sense and some of the pairings had zero development throughout the series. If you're looking for a satisfying, meaningful end to this 700 chapter behemoth, you're going to be disappointed.

The art for the series is fairly good. The childhood arcs of the series definitely display a more 'cartoon'-ish feel whilst still keeping the series relatively realistic. As the series progressed, the art adopts a darker tone to match the attempt at creating a more serious story. I don't have much to say about the art to be honest. There were very few moments when I was truly awed by the artwork on a page, but there are definitely some standout panels (mainly from the final fight of the childhood chapters). I felt the mangaka was able to accurately convey what he needed to on a page, and on occasion he could really pull off some terrific backgrounds. The panels flowed well and fights are easy to follow which is one of the most important things in a manga that has them in such focus. The character's designs were also good, and the designs of the tailed beasts I found especially impressive.

Now we move to the worst part of the experience; the characters. The childhood arcs introduce some decent characters such as Rock Lee, Neji Hyuga, Shikamaru Nara and Gaara. Whilst they're developed well, nearly all of the important characters introduced in the first part of the manga are pushed to the side. Most of the characters you’re introduced to in the childhood arcs serve little to no purpose in the overall story. After the timeskip, the series chooses to focus on the journey of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi. The characters outside of these fail to receive much development apart from a small few, meaning that characters that you've been shown and seen develop are just ignored. By the end of it, the characters have developed in a highly unsatisfying way. The antagonists have a very superficial reasoning behind their actions and one of them in particular is supposed to achieve a sort of redemption at the end, and readers are expected to sympathize with him. But considering all of his bad deeds that he's performed throughout the story, it is difficult to pity someone whose motivations were so trivial to begin with. By far, one of the biggest flaws with the mangaka's characters is his complete inability to create a compelling, independent female character. Almost every female character in the series relies on a male character for their development, and its a real shame. I wanted to like some of them such as Sakura, but the mangaka continuously makes her weaker than the other members of her squad, and her obsession with Sasuke throughout the story is unhealthy and delves into ridiculous territories at certain points. But as I've said already, the majority of characters in this series are developed poorly, not just the females.

My enjoyment of the series confuses me. On one hand, I can point out a great number of flaws that the series that seriously hinder it. On the other, I didn't have any trouble reading through the series. It was only in the final arc that I began to get bored with the series, and I ended up powering through those chapters to finish the series more quickly, which is never a good sign. This is an entry-level series that many anime and manga fans are familiar with, but it'll do little to sway someone who has already read similar works. The series has no parts that serve as a shining example of its perfection, all of its parts are noticeably flawed. Once you've finished, unless you're somehow a die-hard fan (living off nostalgia), you'll probably be done with it.

Naruto is a series that attempts to create an enormous world populated mostly with one-dimensional characters, but ends up collapsing under its own weight and reverting to standard shonen development. Everything in this manga can be done better by other works, and you should seek those out if you're looking for something specific in your reading. The series would've benefited from ending just before the timeskip. Instead the timeskip transforms the series into a darker, more focused plot that ultimately fails due to the simplistic design of many of the characters, lack of respect for the world created and the introduction of absurd powers that serve only to lengthen the series and attempt to create intimidating antagonists.

Naruto is a work that creates a lot of hysteria both ways due to its popularity. Whether people like or dislike it, they all feel compelled to talk about it. While I think a lot of people can come to the casual, and really accurate conclusion, that the manga started out as a much more fun work than it has come to be, I do not think a lot of people understand exactly why, which is what I want to address. Some spoilers of course, since I cannot really talk about the problems of this manga without talking about Pain.

I felt like this was an ... 8/10 manga at the start (add in the 4/10 it has been for the last 200 chapters, and a 4/10). While there were MOUNDS of angst, a fairly typical "training arc" layout, and a fairly typical foundation for the type of cool characters (ninjas), there were a lot of positive factors that more than made up for any of those problems. Kakashi taunting his students with his erotic book and the exaggerated responses that come in return (ch.5 p.5) are a good example of the fun spirited nature at the beginning of this work. The aspiration that was evident for Naruto helped keep the story very lighthearted despite Naruto being a brat, Sasuke being a grim angsty boy, and Sakura being a typically feckless cling-on girl character. When you replace that aspiration with "I have to save my friends! Everything is so terrible!", the manga loses a certain amount of its fun spiritedness, and I think the people involved with making this never really thought that out properly.

Now I am not saying the start was perfect, for instance the lack of backgrounds all over the place (just look at say practically any page in chapter 23), but the side characters all have real personalities, the powers are mostly very well thought out, and the battle action is very cool indeed. Things that were lost in the anime like how striking Naruto looks when the nine-tails starts taking control are completely impressive and one of the reasons that reading this manga was so fun. The tournament was completely mainline shounen battle manga fun, and while it is not the most original storyline or even action ever, it was just as fun as any of those has ever been, a definite high point for the manga. There are certainly still good storylines and fights afterward, for instance I would say the puppet master fight is a relative high point, but a lot of problems started to become endemic.

I think it is pretty obvious that a lot of the reasons for the changes in Narutos were the trappings of its immense popularity. With pressure and popularity comes a need to make every character cooler, to appeal to broader audiences, and to simplify plot aspects. In this case it is also pretty evident that there became a real sense of needing to be taken seriously, so we get to slog through a lot of grim angst rather than fun spirited adventure or expressiveness, and it has been that way for something around 200 chapters. While there certainly are works that are grim and work, the people involved in Naruto unfortunately do not have the aptitude to write that sort of dialogue or draw that sort of art. As the villains had to become more powerful and the plot "more epic", the art simplified in shading and character forms, which has been a big disappointment for me. The overall construction of arcs weakened too, and the humor has been just basically completely lost (with the Bee and Naruto's interactions being a great example of just terribly executed gags).

None of the above was really enough of a breaking point for me to stop reading the manga, but Pain was. When you implement a plot copout like killing off a large portion of the characters that we are supposed to care about and then revive all of them, you have cheapened the plot in a way that a work can never really recover from. Pain's transformation to senseless hate to incredible generosity happens in such a short span of time that it is not really very compelling anyway. Even then I picked the manga back up, but what was enough to drop it for good was the recent spate of grim faced unhappiness (personified by Sai), overbold art style (a la Bleach too much ink), or bad attempts at introducing mind game oneupmanship (Danzou) wearing on me to the point that this manga just was not a fun read anymore. It has lost all the fun, and if you are attached enough to the characters then I guess it might still be worth a read, but I would honestly recommend that the end of the fights with Orochimaru is probably the best place to drop this manga if you start to feel like you have had enough. Feel free to stick with Naruto and Sakura trying to prove how adult they are while sobbing about Sasuke a lot though.

Naruto was one of the first anime I ever watched, (I picked up the manga later) however it failed to take a place in my heart. There are many reasons for that.

Story=6
Disappointing. It was going great but the quality dropped steadly after Sasuke vs Danzo arc. The most boring story arc was the fourth shinobi war itself. The final acrs war far too dull. The introduction of Kaguya was never needed, but they just had to force her into the story. I'm surprised that Kishimoto never introduced Kaguya's other son.

Character=7
Many of the charcters were originally interesting, nearly none of them were developed strongly. Only ... Itachi and Naruto were evolved with effort. Kishimoto tried to make Sasuke similar to Lelouch but his character did not match him, nor was his character devaloped for that type. Kaguya was also a dull addition to the character list.

Art=6
Sometimes the art is amazing, other times I cannot understand what the hell is happening. However the fight between Sasuke and Naruto was beautifully done.

Enjoyment=7
Critically the series is not great but doesn't mean that I did not enjoy it even a little. There were just some moments though. I really did not like the 'bigger is better' type of fight scenes when the characters just kept on creating bigger and bigger jutsus.

Overall=6
nothing more is to be said.

Oh Naruto, how you continue to disappoint me. What started of as a promising, yet cliche, shonen manga has since become a horrid Beast of terrible plot devices and unnecessary arcs, whose purpose isto keep the dying monster's heart moving. Oh, how you maintain your popularity through keeping people in wait, promising that the story will carry on, only to decieve them and continue on pointlessly.

As one can tell, I am no fan of this series. Once, I was someone who refused to read this manga, as my only justification was "It's popular, so it can't be good!" However, ... I quickly realized how foolish that was, and forced myself to read this gigantic piece of pop-culture. Initially, I was suprised at the depth that the manga could posess, developing many well-rounded, albiet, cliche, characters. However, it quickly became clear to me that this manga is just like every other shonen action/adventure, neverending. Yes, Naruto will most certaintly end, but expect a terribly executed, ambiguous ending where nothing's really solved, the characters remain the same, and you're no better off reading this manga than not. As you can see, I really dislike the story, and I give it a 3, for being cliche heavy and weighed down by pointless plot points and story archs.

There has, however, been a lot of work put into the art, which is good for an action-heavy shonen manga. The battles are clear, the characters are unique, and you can tell how the world progresses (or how it would progress, as the story does not). I gavbe it an 8.

The characters are cleverly disguised cliches, and have all been done before. A 4.

Initially, I really liked this manga, and had it at a 7, but now, the enjoyment is gone, so I'll settle with a 5.

Overall, this manga is mediocre. That is the perfect word to describe Naruto. Mediocre.

I think before we can judge Naruto, we need to ask ourselves one question: why did we ever start reading it? The answer is simple: it was a show about ninjas and cool fighting scenes. But that is why we started reading it, not why we kept reading it every week.

Naruto started with a very solid foundation, upon several intriguing characters and their past. It was really interesting seeing a rejected kid try hard to be accepted into society, to find a home, to find someone who deeply cares about him. And this wasn't only exclusive to Naruto himself, but also Sasuke and to some ... extent, Kakashi. Sure, the first chapters were goofs and jokes but the manga started to build a momentum toward a grand adventure, a journey filled with eclectic imagination of Masashi Kishimoto. I applaud Kishimoto for this grand tale of the Legendary ninja. Not only that the setting was well done, it was convincing and quite fitting to the themes of the story. But it gets quite difficult after that. Naruto made a bold statement in its infancy yet somewhere along its deacde long publication, it lost the values and its themes scattered. It's difficult to judge this 15 years of work as a whole because the content fluctuates greatly where it can be said that different authors wrote the manga. Sad, but the truth is this beloved series couldn't be distinguished anymore from other shounen mangas. You know, the main character continues a legacy while making friends and enemies and attains power to combat evil yet loses precious people in the process but through effort, triumphs the dark in the end. And in the latter chapters, if it wasn't for the setting, I wouldn't be able to tell if I was reading Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail or some other generic shounen. Yet the manga did have its moments, mainly the Pain Arc where the manga showed off the characters' maturity and importance. It was one of the very few arcs that highlighted what Naruto is: a tale about a gutsy ninja who desires to change the world for better and become the leader, the Hokage. And it was splendid how Kishimoto portrayed the strong bond between the characters and how some of their deaths influenced others.

Something else to note about the story is how philosophical it became over the years. Especially near the end, Naruto was tackling some of the biggest topics such as death, pain, suffering, human nature, and friendship. While it sounds grand, the author didn't provide much logic and effort to execute the probable ideas. It's sad how much potential turned to waste. Near the end, the characters' actions were justified by nonsense reasoning, their rage by incomplete monologues and the biggest questions of the series were answered in a rush.

As I stated earlier, Naruto built itself on its characters and their backgrounds. Naruto's loneliness due to the Fox, Sasuke's family tragedy, Kakashi's father's death, and Orochimaru's long past gave Naruto a great variety of characters. However, when we step out of past, Naruto characters are embodiment of most other shounen characters. You know, the rival, the girl, the sensei, the perverted old man, the weird guy, the powerful drunk lady, that villain and such. But it is worth mentioning that characters in Naruto mature and they develop to establish very memorable traits. And what I find amazing is Naruto maintaining his role throughout the series. Sometimes it was redundant, sometimes annoying but in the end, Naruto being himself, the determined and strong willed boy, kept the series together and preached some very thoughtful messages. The series had some characters, like Jiraiya and Itachi, who truly left a legacy and voice in the manga medium. Other characters, like Obito or even Sasuke, are example of how the series failed to establish solid resolutions for its characters. These characters' roles fluctuated greatly over the years. The rival of the series, Sasuke, could have become a grand villain or an eccentric anti-hero but the author took the shounen route and tried a happy ending for everyone. While it was satisfying as a Naruto fan, it did disappoint me to some extent.

As for art, it was quite good. Naruto's art was simpler than other mangas yet detailed. The style quite fits the story and the attacks are decently drawn. Sometimes the panels were bit messy and some character design were absurd, but, Naruto's characters (mainly women) were drawn more modestly than many other series. And I appreciate that aspect.

It's sad how long the story was dragged out, how redundant the messages were, how ridiculous the reasoning of characters became and how much potential the series ruined near the end. Some months, Naruto was plain boring and it wasn't enjoyable anymore. But when I read the last chapter, it was finally a relief that after over a decade, Naruto achieved his dreams and the story of the Legendary ninja came to end. The 700 chapter journey was a burden near the end but thankfully, it concluded half decently.

Most of us started to read Naruto because it seemed cool. But what kept many readers, including myself, to keep reading was to see Naruto succeed. The ninja raised his voice to change the world and despite his cursed fate, he brought himself to become a hero. Naruto is an inspiration, the mascot of Shounen Jump's motto "friendship, effort, victory."

Although the Naruto manga doesn't tell a great story, it does tell a tale about a great character, Naruto Uzumaki.

Introduction:
Hello, and welcome! This is my very first Review, and the first installment of my three hundred part series: Review Rants for Smart People who Read Really Really Fast. I decided to go with the manga Naruto because it was my first exposure to manga ever. This was back in middle school. I had just finished the second season of Naruto (arguably it's best season) and I didn't want to wait to find out what happened next. So I picked up a copy of the latest Naruto manga.

For a kid who's only exposure to comics were Batman and Garfield, Naruto completely blew my mind. ... It wasn't until many many years later, after becoming more familiar with anime and manga, that I realize Naruto is actually a very bad manga. Why? Well to put it simply, Kishimoto, the author of Naruto, sold out, bad. As the manga progressed, especially past the time skip, Kishi's artwork became lazy, his characters left undeveloped and forgotten, his plots overindulgent, his storyline practically non-existent, and his world left contradicting itself over and over again.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead)

Characters: 6 (Fair)
Let's start with the good. Before the time jump, Naruto's strongest feature was its undeniably charming character development. From Shikamaru to Zabuzza, each of the characters were given unique personalities and trials to face. The best example of this is Rock Lee. Rock Lee is a recurring character in Naruto. However, unlike the rest of his peers, Rock Lee is the only character who cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu, essentially magic attacks. Thus, Rock Lee spent every minute of life devoted to honing his physical abilities, to the point where he could go toe to toe with some of the strongest characters in the story. However, a mere 50 chapters later, Rock faced an opponent so strong that despite his best efforts, he was crippled by his opponent's attacks, never able to use his physical prowess again. This concept of losing the only gift you were born with, something you spent your entire life honing, was exactly the type of risk-taking plot-line that made this manga so captivating and endearing. Prior to the time skip, Naruto was chalk full of characters and side-stories like Rock's.

Now for the bad. Despite it's plethora of interesting characters prior to the time skip, after the time skip, the story focused only on 2 characters - Naruto and Sasuke, arguably the two worst characters of the story. Let's start with our Heroine. Naruto is your typical wild-child main character, which is fine. But the thing I hate the most about Naruto is that his life makes absolutely no sense. His goal in life is to become the Hokage (sort of like a prime minister). Of course, since it's a shōnen, everyone has to make fun of him for it and claim he's not good enough - prompting the proverbial "I'll show you!" from Naruto. Well, it's not until later in the story that it's revealed that Naruto is the son of the previous Hokage. Now, let me ask you - have you ever heard of a celebrity's kid who wasn't overhyped? Basketball fans, do you remember how everyone was saying Michael Jordan's kids were going to be the next MJ? As it turns out, they weren't even good enough to play basketball at the college level. That's what happens in real life. Celebrity kids fail to live up to expectations. Naruto is the complete opposite. Naruto has no expectations from anyone to the point of being downright disrespected as a person. This make absolutely no sense, yet it's a pivotal aspect of the story that is touched upon over and over and over and over again. Similarly, everyone starts off hating Naruto because he has the power of the Fox. However, later in the story, it's revealed that Naruto's father saved the village by preserving the powers of the fox in Naruto's body - another point that makes no sense in retrospect. Would you hate the kid who who's protecting you and your family from a giant fox monster, who's only crime was occasional vandalism? Let's move on. Sasuke is the prototypical "genius" character. However he's only a genius in the sense that Kishi is constantly reminding us that Sasuke is a genius through the thought bubbles of his other characters - namely Kakashi-sensei. In actuality, Sasuke is nothing more than a very serious idiot. For example, in the most recent arc (which is the fight between Naruto/Sasuke and Kaguya, the mother of ninjutsu), Sasuke's only notable contribution to the battle was running into a sword, which would have killed him had it not been for Kishi pulling the old deux ex machina switcheroo on us, promptly reviving him for no reason. The rampant use of deux ex machina completely kills the the sense of urgency that's necessary for reasonable character development in the second half of the manga. Characters need to develop with time and care, learning from their mistakes for better or for worse, not randomly just to meet the writer's goal of ending the manga at a cool 700 chapters. Along those lines, my biggest pet peeve in anime is being told that a character is smart rather than shown that a character is smart. Naruto is all about telling, not showing when it comes to its main characters.

Art: 8 (Very Good)
The art, for the most part, was good. It's not Berserk, in that, the art isn't at the level of detailing every stick-bug on every tree. But the character designs are very original - based on a unique blend of modern and Sengoku styles. The fighting was especially ahead of it's time. From the character running with their arms behind their back to the use of hand seals, there were a lot of elements to Naruto's artwork that has been reshaped and regurgitated all over the anime/manga-verse. For example, it's not a stretch to think that without Naruto's implementation of hand seals, we wouldn't have the clap used by Alphonse Elrik, of Fullmetal Alchemist, every time he uses of Alchemy. (But of course some people might point out that Cloud's spell animation in 1997's Final Fantasy VII actually came first) Regardless, Naruto's art style became a lynchpin in modern anime in a lot of ways. However, as the manga progressed, especially after the midway mark, the art simply took a nosedive. While the art became more clearly drawn, and fancier, Kishimoto lost a lot of the charming creativity that made him so captivating in the first place. Taking a look at the fight scenes, one could say that Kishi just got lazier and lazier. In the past, he made it so that each of his character fought with a unique style that fit their personality. For example, Sasuke, the "genius" used a move called the Lion's combo, that required a handful of acrobatic moves performed in midair. The Lion's combo didn't do as much damages as Rock Lee's Reverse Lotus, or Naruto's physical attack, the Naruto Combo. But unlike Rock's attack, the Lions combo didn't hurt the user, and unlike Naruto's attack, the Lions combo didn't cost any chakra (inner energy). It was a move that made sense for a genius to do. Since the time skip, the fight scenes have essentially become who's energy beam is bigger, and what kind of cool animal shape your energy blast can it take on. Basically, Naruto became Dragon Ball Z, but with a worse story.

Story: 1 (Pathetic)
Speaking of story, Naruto's main plot is one of the dumbest things you'll ever hear. To sum it up, it's - Naruto is a ninja kid that no one likes. He strives to become the Hokage by beating up people who want to take over the world, and making them change their point of view by teaching them the power of friendship. That is some kindergarten material right there. As I mentioned above, Naruto's story makes no sense, on top of the fact that it goes nowhere. The only thing that allows the story to progress is Sasuke, Naruto's best friend, who wants to leave the village to seek his own destiny of hunting down a wanted criminal, which sounds perfectly fine to me. But Naruto and friends seem to take extreme offense to this act of betrayal(?) and they try to hunt him down and bring him back for the high treason crime of deserting the village. Ok... So essentially the the village is a military base? Well, not quite, because Naruto was actually AWOL for practically the same amount of time that Sasuke was. In fact, he seems to leave the village whenever he wants, often visiting other towns with his perverted teacher, Jiraiya, for the sole purpose of spying on naked girls taking baths. The side stories are significantly better than the main story. In particular, the Shikamaru v. Hidan arc was very well done. The aforementioned Gaara v. Rock Lee arc was very well done. The Kakashi & Obito backstory was pretty good. The Haku & Zabuzza story concluded very well. And the Naruto & Sasuke rivalry at the beginning of the story was not bad, and the way in which it ended made sense. In general, most of the storylines (outside of the main plot) prior to the second half of the manga were very good. However, afterwards, like I mentioned before, Kishi sold out. What do I mean? Basically, he stopped taking risks. Let's take the Haku and & Zabuzza arc for example. There's no way Kishimoto would ever write another arc like that again. Simply put, the Zabuzza arc was violent, it was blood-thirsty, it was gritty, it was cold, it was heartfelt, it was edge of your seat action, it was friendship, it was love, it was loss, it was despair, it was hatred, it took us out of our world, Kishi even touched a little upon homosexuality (but not Yaoi) that was everpresent during the Sengoku period, especially amongst ninja clans. Nowadays, Naruto is all about Naruto changing the world by punching people until they understand the power of friendship. If that's not selling out to the mainstream, I don't know what is. Because of this extreme example of selling out, I'm going to negate all the good traits Naruto ever had, and leave it's story with a score of 1, aka straight up Pathetic.

(EDIT) I reread the manga following Kishi's conclusion to Naruto in Chapter 700, and I was able to pinpoint Chapter 401 (a mere 50 chapters past the mid-way mark) as the exact moment Naruto turned to complete and utter garbage. At this point in time, Kishi could have easily wrapped up the manga and done the world a HUGE favor because Chapters 402-693 are completely worthless. By the time Kishi got to Chapter 401, all of the prior major story-lines wrapped up in a meaningful way except one - Naruto and Sasuke. Coincidentally, between Chapters 400-700, the only meaningful thing that happened was Naruto's final battle with Sasuke which started on chapter 694. Everything else was completely irrelevant and unnecessary manga filler. In fact, for the sake of your own enjoyment (and sanity), I highly recommend to anyone reading Naruto for the first time to read from chapters 1 to 401, then skip all the way to chapter 694 and read to the end (chapter 700). The characters will gain a few new attacks and abilities, but you won't have missed any meaningful story progression whatsoever. If anything, you've saved yourself a lot of time and headaches, and by doing so Kishi will actually seem like somewhat of a genius, as opposed to an idiot to all of us, who's memory of chapters 402-693 is still fresh in our minds. I'll even go as far as to say that skipping those chapters would raise the "Story" score from a 1 to a very respectable 7. That's how bad those 292 chapters were (yet they take up nearly half the manga). As for the conclusion of the manga, I think that its best not to give away any hard spoilers because it's one of those things that's most enjoyable the first time you see it. However, I'll tell you that it was something that Kishi had been planning for a long long time, and therefore, there's a very noticeable change in quality between chapters 402-693 and chapters 694-700. Because it wasn't what I call "manga filler," it contained a lot of what we love about Kishi and Naruto. It becomes immediately obvious starting from the first page of chapter 694 the old (non-sellout) Kishi was back. From the art style, to the story, to the carefully crafted dialogue, everything was fulfilling. Even the resolution was pretty fun and entertaining. It doesn't make up for the ~300 chapters of absolute garbage that proceeded it, but it was a nice consolation prize at the end of a long long marathon. If you're ever interested in discussing the ending of Naruto, feel free to shoot me a message.

Enjoyment: 7 (Good)
As far as enjoyment goes, Naruto is a very easy story to begin, very hard to continue because the story just gets worse and worse. After a while, the characters even start blending together until they all become one big blob, and you have trouble telling them apart. Sasuke's the best example of this (Gaara's another example) - with his transition from genius to borderline mental patient - and now he wants to become the Hokage too. Anyways, despite essentially becoming DBZ, Naruto still has very unique artwork, and is wildly popular. So by following it, it can enhance your enjoyment of other mediums that carry the Naruto name. For example, video games. There are a lot of Naruto video games that are probably more fun if you actually read or watch the manga/anime. Sasuke in Jump Ultimate Stars is pretty good, for example, lol.

Comparison to the anime:
The first three or four seasons of the anime are very good, and you should watch it, if not just for the music. It boasts some of the best opening and closing scores out there, including Wind by Akeboshi, the first closing song that matches perfectly with the theme of the story, Go! by Flow, which was the best Naruto opening in my opinion, and Haruka Kanata, the song that really put Asian Kungfu Generation on the international scene. The story of the anime follows the manga up to that point. Afterwards, I would quit the anime entirely and switch to the manga. Naruto is not good enough of a show to warrant spending all that time watching. It's faster to read manga, and most importantly, there are no fillers. The Naruto fillers are even worse than trash. (nerd laugh)

Comparisons to similar anime:
I'm going to compare Naruto to One Piece here, since they're alike in a lot of ways, with One Piece being about pirates and Naruto being about ninjas. However, the most important reason I wanted to compare Naruto to One Piece is to contrast each of the author's overindulgence in their own story. Naruto, especially after the time skip, falls into the cliche of stories that over-indulge in themselves. It's always about this guy trying to destroy the world, or this guy trying to enslave everyone, or this genius and that genius. Everything is way too hyped up, yet always end the same way - with Naruto beating them up. Naruto started out as a show about ninjas (ninjai?) and eventually turned into DBZ. You would think that a show about ninjas would show more discretion than to turn every scenario into a gaudy battle. One Piece on the other hand, despite being more more wild and unincumbered in what they can show because of their unrefined style, tempers it's readers interest by touching upon things that people can actually relate to. Luffy, the main character of One Piece, is out to make friends. He values freedom above all else. And even though he wants to become the Pirate King, he's not constantly out to save the world - he merely conquers it one island at a time. Saving the world is overdone and not cool. Freedom - that's cool.

Conclusion: 6/10 (Fair)
Naruto is an alright manga that is meteorically popular. You should read it if you have the chance. The artwork is good and the side stories can be pretty interesting. And that sums it up folks. I know, I know, I'm awesome. Becoming a great reviewer doesn't happen overnight, you know. I had to kill my best friend in order to gain this power of awesome ranting. Muahaha! Ahem...er thanks for reading.

Holy shit, it's finally over.

So, Naruto. One of the Big Three (joined by Bleach and One Piece), unless their status has changed. No matter, though. Anyway, I did use the word "finally," indicating that it's something I've waited for for some time now. It's true. Somewhere along the line, the sheer length and meandering pace got me turned off of Naruto, so it was a happy moment when I noticed that it had ended, since I'd give me a reason to pick it up again. Like running, it's easier to read when you have a goal. So, what about this ninja story, 15 years in ... the making?

Naruto is a good manga.

This'll have two parts - one with no to minimal spoilers, and a second, spoiler-filled part. First is intended for new readers and second for those who have completed the entire thing.

Having its start way back in 1999, Naruto is one of the modern successors of Dragon Ball, in the way it places its values and builds its story. Like Goku, Naruto starts out virtually alone. Naruto, though, is alone because of the fear the other villagers holds for him. You see, inside Naruto dwells a monster - A monstrous nine-tailed fox that nearly levelled the village before it was sealed into Naruto. Despite his social seclusion, Naruto has a dream: To become Hokage, recognised as the most powerful ninja in the village. And so starts the trials and tribulations of Naruto. He's quickly placed in a team with Sakura, a girl he's liked from a distance for a time; Sasuke, the sole surviving member in the village of the incredibly powerful ninja clan Uchiha; and Kakashi, a world-renowned ninja with an unorthodox teaching style. Together, they form Team 7 and go on missions and adventures together.

It's kind of hard to judge the story of Naruto at first, because it's kind of aimlessly chronicling the growth of Naruto into a more mature young man (he's not even a teenager when the manga starts). It's an interesting set-up for a shounen manga, considering it puts the characters in situations where they have to kill as they are just children. But the ninja world has not a care for your age, just your capability- is what I'd like to say, but good luck pushing out 700 chapters of a bleak, survivalist manga through Weekly Shounen Jump. Naruto instead falls into its oft-criticised "befriend them to death"-formula, where Naruto's sheer perseverance and good-heartedness lights a path to victory. Maybe it sounds like I'm dissing it, but I really like it - to a point. The first part is a very strong manga, thanks to some great character work and rather brave story-telling that you don't normally see in straight shounens.

To the characters, then. Surely the most important aspect of a long manga. Does Naruto succeed in creating memorable characters that keep you coming back? The answer is obviously yes, due to its enormous popularity, but in a very limited way. Hardly any characters except for the main quartet gets any real development, and one in the quartet itself is so poorly written it feels like an affront to manga in general.

"How's Naruto, then? Surely the main character is well written?" Yeah, I'd say so, and I'd say that Kishimoto succeeds in having the story led by Naruto's motivations and actions, rather than Naruto always being led around the nose. That said, he's uncompromising in a way that is endearing at first, but becomes ridiculous naivete as the manga grows older. Like with almost all other aspects of the story, Naruto's growth through the story doesn't work with the growth of the readers. Say you were 15 when Naruto started. You're 30 now. Still, the tone of the manga and the characters have hardly moved an inch. It's weird. I'm an adult now, but Naruto's still a kid with training-wheels. Harsh, yes, but so was reading the final act.

A lot of that can be simply attributed to the fact that Naruto is just a young man throughout the manga, even if he does grow up, to an extent. But his growth is made nearly void at times, with other characters having become leaps and bounds more mature and responsible. While he's still young, a lot of the focus of the manga is pointed at young ninjas having to grow up quick or die.

As far as the character itself, Naruto can be looked at quickly and have you say "he's just another stupid, strong lead character." Thing is, Naruto is about as far from that trope as you'll get in shounen manga, while still being forced into its trenches. He's brash, crude and very rash, yes, but he's also very intelligent and compassionate. He can both plan ahead and come up with tactics in a hurry, given him being very flexible. That's what makes it even more frustrating when Kishimoto makes him into a staunch redeemer who basically befriends people to death. Where's the Naruto that makes tough calls for the greater good (the greater good)? He sure isn't in this manga. Having been possessed by the Kyuubi since birth, you'd expect Naruto to be more pessimistic at least some of the time, and make some bad decisions out of old hatred. But we can't have darker character development, can we, Kishimoto? That's not to say that Naruto doesn't have his share of dark moments, but I feel it's an area that was sorely unexplored.

As for the other main characters:

Kakashi is the team leader, and the adult of the group. Having become a high-level ninja at a young age, he knows how to make tough decisions and has no great qualms about killing. As a teacher, he is strict, but loving, and comes to see his three trainees sort of as his children with time. He's calm and collected, nearly always finding time in battle to come up with a plan to strike. He's also obsessed with reading a certain romantic series that later becomes embraced as a running gag and story development. He's also got a special tool - one of his eyes house a special eye (kind of hard to explain, but special eyes basically make you able to use better ninja-techniques) that allows him to easily see his opponents' moves and intercept them with incredible speed. Being a high-level ninja, Kakashi is proficient in every sort of jutsu (technique, as in "ninjutsu" = ninja technique) around, and he seems to have virtually no weaknesses.

Sasuke is a pretty standard shounen cool-guy character. He's handsome, calm and collected, and of course he's incredibly talented. He's also got a bloodline limit (aka a power limited to those who share a specific bloodline) that is ridiculously powerful, and whose evolution throughout the series becomes even more and more far-fetched. I went from initially hating Sasuke, to actually kind of accepting him, and then hating him again. What's frustrating with Sasuke is that, like many other characters in the series, his rationale and actions are haphazardly altered to fit the story. This leads to some awful reasons for his actions and his constant switching between good and evil, which grows extremely tiresome. It's also hilariously predictable to see where he's going to end up, so most of his scenes become a drag.

Onto Sakura, the most frustrating part of the main cast. Is it because Sakura is a bad character? Well, duh. Sakura is this series' damsel in distress. That's not to say that she's absolutely useless, or that she doesn't have any redeeming qualities, because she does have some good moments. But it's all brought down due to her basically being a love-slave to Sasuke. Whether he tries to off her or is just being a standoffish douche-hat, Sakura is perpetually enamoured with him. Even as she grows up to be a (supposedly) more mature young lady, she still clings to this saddening pretence of what love's supposed to be. The subject of love in manga/anime is almost always a source of vitriol for me, as it's almost always written abominably bad. The Sakura-Sakuke dynamic is another one of those. At least the series' other major (major being arguable) romantic angle, Hinata being into Naruto, has some legs to stand on (despite how rarely Hinata has any meaningful part in the plot) as she actually gives reasons for being in love with our goofy lead man. Sakura's like a programmed woman, designed to submit herself whenever Sasuke shows up. It's kind of a slap in the face where Sakura ends up after having been given no deeper explanation during the series' 700 effin' chapter run. I think ladies reading Naruto will feel insulted, and with good reason. I'm not saying Kishimoto hates women, but I do think he's clueless as to how to write them.

Most of the supporting cast are what they need to be and are playing their simple roles. There's the gutsy ones, the comedy relief ones, the cool ones, the smart ones, and so on. It's very standard fare for shounen manga.

Finishing up with art: It's nice. Sorry, I'm not an artist. The initial art starts out very so-so, as Kishimoto is finding his style, and moves on to be quite sleek and very pretty. The backgrounds can be quite lazy, but it's not my biggest complaint, so no bother.

Finishing up the spoiler-free part, Naruto isn't really something I'd recommend for anyone else but someone who wants to read a big shounen adventure. Naruto might be right up your alley, or you might absolutely hate it. I've learned to tolerate it, and think there are enough redeeming qualities in it (I mean, I finished 700 chapters of this saga) to warrant a passing grade. Naruto uses a lot of build-up that ends up going nowhere and/or being shafted for more "acceptable" reading. I get the reasoning, but it's not for me any longer.

Alright, lads. Spoilers are on from now. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Naruto's main problem to me is the lack of a focus, as it just leads to five different plots at once. Naruto going off on his own and other characters given time as well. The second part of Naruto is the glaring example of this. After the time-skip, characters just haven't changed in general, which makes it pretty fucking meaningless.

Most arcs after the time-skip are sooooooo looooong, and the ninja war being the biggest offender. Everybody gets a mega level-up and are epic-ing their faces off at everything moving and it's just become so blasé at this point. The Akatsuki arc has a promising start, but loses traction very early and just spins it's wheels until Naruto shows up to pummel it to dust, with kindness. Sigh. Technically it lasts until the end, but nobody really thought of the ending as Naruto vs Akatsuki, did they? Thought so.

Also, how many training arcs are there? Man, Naruto stood on its own legs for a while, and then went complete Dragon ball with the characters' developments.

The final pairings are also a complete joke in some aspects. Sasuke and Sakura being married has to be the most abusive relationship ever. I'm okay with Kakashi being named Hokage, even if it didn't seem like a role he'd ever want to have. Others are just paired together due to fan demand, which I guess works.

Like many people, I think the series lost its way somewhere after the time-skip (even if the final arc before that was hilariously bad). The battles grew longer, and the characters became caricatures of themselves. The villains became dumber and dumber until the final big bad shows up for a trans-dimensional tour.

Alright, thanks for reading. Want to ask me something or just cuss at me? Hit me up. Ta~

Naruto is one of those series that's adapts really well into an animated format and appeals to kids which is why it became the series that captivated a generation. I think I might like this series more if it didn't get so much praise and didn't have such an undeserving massively mainstream popularity.

Story:
I give it a 6 because let's be real, it's not the worst but it sure as hell is not the best. The series is very repetitive and there is very little change, there is big bad villain and he comes along and wrecks shit and Naruto changes him with friendship, rinse and ... repeat and increase the scale a little bit for each arc. I might have given the story a 7-8 but god damn the last arc was so bad it just blew me away so I had to drop it down. Naruto has the problem any long Manga has, lack of direction. The series just kept going on and on and on and there just wasn't a central plot, no big bad guy to kill untill the end where they basically played whack-a-mole with big bad OP villains, kill one and another pops up. Orochimaru could have been the perfect villain but god damn they had to turn him into some useless character at the end and have a completely new character be the final boss, just lame. Also the last chapter practically gave me cancer with all the fail ships, sorry stalker love isn't romantic to me and characters who don't even know each other in the main series being married with children at the end... What a joke. 6/10 and that's being generous.

Art:
The art is solid, pretty consistent throughout the series, it's not amazing art by any means and I thought the generous usage of black at the end was pretty annoying but the rest was solid 8/10.

Character:
All the interesting character get killed off and the main character is basically worthless post time skip. 4/10

Enjoyment:
I give it a 3 because I loved this series and it turned to shit so I basically went from like 9 to -6 which evens out to a 3.

Overall:
It gets a 6. Basically the series stole a template from HxH for the majority of the first half and the more it tried to deva-ate from the path it just got worse and worse. The original was good but it peaked at the chunin exams. I think that a 6 is honestly being generous for this big of a train wreck and I think less of anybody who gave it an 8 or higher.

Today I will be reviewing the longest yaoi ever created.

Character:

Don't you love reused bull? Well seeing as though I loved Bleach, which is a testament that I love my reused bull! Now, I for the first few volumes the story was very good, refreshing even. The shounen genre suffers from a plethora of bad storytelling. But the first few volumes of Naruto shove a giant purple dildo in the face of its entire genre by showing a more sentimental, and human, approach to it's characters.

That is for the first few volumes. See, Naruto falls short where some other shounens did as well. I can't ... say the names of these shows, but one of them rhymes with detergent. And where it fell short is that once it found a formula that worked they stuck to it and subsequently beat it to death! "Well, if it's broke why fix it?" says Naruto. "Because that is literary suicide." says the ambiguous sage in the corner smoking a Cuban cigar!

"Okay Callacas, what is this formula the infallible Naruto beats to death?" You ask. I am not trying to bash the manga when I say this but, whenever any character in the manga (any, of them) needs characterization, all the manga does is make a flashback to their childhood. Showcasing their "struggle" to put it informally. It wouldn't be half bad if it all didn't boil down to the same general information, "X had a hard childhood, and because of it grew up into the person he is today." That kind of thing. Again, I did not mind the flashback, at the beginning. But having them told over and over and over again makes it lose its intended affect and comes off as melodramatic. Which is the opposite affect.

Also, another problem of this is that the flashbacks are the only use of characterization. Tell me this, those of you who have seen anything Naruto, take out the flashbacks and what are you left with? A generic shounen.

Actually, let me ask you a better question, take out the flashbacks and try to describe the characters in as many words as possible. Let me tell you now, you are not going to get past one or two. And that is almost as bad as Bleach. 4/10

Story:

The story starts before the time when Naruto and his best friend Sausuke wanted to take off their shirts and kiss. It begins in their early tween/teenage years. The story begins with a love triangle between the all important main character Naruto who has fallen in love with a girl in his class Sakura. Sakura, on the other hand loves the most popular boy in school, Sausuke. While Sausuke secretly loves Naruto. Oh, we have come full circle have we?

Now, Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke are all ninja. In a land of ninja. In a world of ninja. In a universe of ninja. Which is hopefully in a taco or something, damn I'm hungry.... Where was I? Oh, yeah. Ninjas.

Naruto as the main plot continues Naruto and his triangle buddies find themselves all on the same ninja team conveniently enough. And they all go on adventures with their instructor and from there the tale unfolds.

The plot itself is nothing to write home about. It is essentially an epic retelling of the classic Japanese piece of Literature, "A Tale of a Gutsy Ninja Jiraiya" that is about a ninja Jiraiya who summons magic from toads going on adventures trying to win over his love Tsunade, who is a kunoichi who summons magic from slugs, all the while fighting with his arch rival Orochimaru, who is a ninja who summons magic from snakes.

Again, it's nothing to write home about. Generic shounen stuff. 5/10

Art:

I'll be the first to say this, I don't like the artist's designs. Yeah, the clothes are cool and all, but the character designs are just god-awful and just plain boring. With uninteresting faces, or in the case of some characters, no faces at all. Hmm, I wonder how much time that saved the artist when trying to rush the chapters out of the door?

The environments get much better as the series begins to close, but nothing jumps out of the page at you. It just seems like the environments were just shoved to the back of the author's mind. Furthermore, the author seems to love the ever loving troll face out of surrealist artwork. Which depicts strange and sometimes disturbing pictures. I cannot recommend this for too young of an audience.

Enjoyment:

Believe it! I was certainly not board reading this manga that is for sure. Just like i cannot describe the Xbox One past box; I cannot describe this manga past the word fun. It was a genuinely fun read. But I am not sure if it is good enough for a second read through. It is LONG! 7/10

Overall:

Like every long running shounen out there, it has it's flaws. What is bothersome is that it is not aware of its flaws, and that is Naruto's greatest weakness. 6/10

EDIT: Wait a second! I forgot to include the secret criteria! Action!

Action:

I have not seen One Piece yet so I cannot compare it to that. But I have seen Bleach as you no doubt know by now. So, I will compare it to Bleach. The action in Naruto is much slower paced than Bleach. But it gets the job done very well. The action makes sense and all of the enemies actually feel like they are legitimate threats. Also, the fights are long and drawn out, which I like by the way. So that is fine. 7/10

so this bumps my final score up to a...6/10.... Well that was anticlimactic.

Being emo is genetically related to characters within the story.

That's it, that's my review. I don't really need to write anything more because it speaks for itself. That is the extent of how awful the writing in Naruto has gotten. Kishimoto has completely given up in making any kind of sense in terms of characters and story. If he's too lazy to write proper motivations and story points, then why should I waste my time doing a proper review on the plot itself.

The art is still very good for what is a weekly manga and the enjoyment factor is still very high as well because ... of how bat shit insane the story has gotten. We just have to keep reading it to see what insane terrible idea's Kishimoto is going to end the story on. We got to see it through till the end, right everyone? :P LMAO!

I got hooked on this manga when I was 10. It had been recomended to me by some of my friends who liked it alot. Anyways, I thought that it was very detailed for a manga(it isnt really, BTW) I loved it when I first saw it. I was obsessed with it. I mean, I had never seen any kind of anime or manga before, so it was so great and original to me. I loved the series until I was around 12 and a half. Since then, I have been begining to discover that Naruto isnt all that great and many manga and anime ... have all that it has and more, and am only now begining to read different ones. Anyways, The concept of this show isn't that hard to follow. It's an alternate world where ninjas live. The ninjas fight by using various skills, and they have this power flowing inside of them called chakra. Chakra is used to perform powerful attacks which (usually) belongs to either of the five traditional elements of earth, fire, water, air and lightning. Of course, since they are ninjas, they fight with weapons like shuriken and kunai as well as hand-to-hand combat. As expected of this kind of world, there's evil people, having different goals and reasons behind their evil. The story follows Naruto, a ninja in training who carries the Kyuubi and hopes to earn the respect of the villagers some day. It was a concept that interested me, alot. But...the story wasent really as great as the concept. Sure, I felt for some of the characters, some of them had some really sad and well thought out backgrounds. But that started to annoy me when they kept repeated it over and over(like with Sasuke and his dream to kill Itachi). And then they didnt know what to do to keep the series going, so we were introduced to the world of filler. And they were the most ridiculous fillers. I mean, some animes can have good fillers but these were just stupid and pointless. And by now, Im starting to get a little disapointed.

My first manga review, and I've decided to base it on a franchise which I've followed for many years: Naruto/Naruto Shippuden. The Naruto anime was one of the very first I watched, and definitely played a big part in making me the anime/manga fan that I am today. The sheer number of filler episodes, however, caused me to end up putting it on hold/dropping it and now I just read the manga.

First off, the story. For a number of years I loved the story and world of Naruto. By reading the manga (and watching the anime before that) I was introduced to a hugely imaginative ... and colourful world full of ninjas and their cool ninjutsu. I liked various ideas such as the different levels of ninja which existed: genin, chuunin, jounin, hokage; the need for sufficient amounts of chakra in order to perform ninja skills; the many hidden ninja villages which supported their countries and ruling lords as well as the tensions between them; the presence of organizations made up of outcast ninja who wanted nothing but to cause trouble. There were many other positive signs of Naruto becoming an engaging tale full of adventure and plot twists.

Over 500 chapters later and I must admit I'm no longer sure about this. Around chapter 208, Naruto takes a time-skip of roughly two years and the anime marks this as the point it becomes Naruto Shippuden. The majority of Naruto before the time-skip, as well as the first few arcs of Shippuden, were pretty consistent in quality. Consistently good. There was plenty of story going on which included ninja exams, evil conspiracies, revenge and betrayal, organizations with complicated schemes, etc. You got the feeling that the main plot was moving along nicely (even if it sometimes felt a little slow and unevenly paced), with the side plots serving to flesh out the world of Naruto and its characters a smaller, but no less important, priority.

However, a few hundred chapters into Naruto things start to go wrong, horribly wrong, and it becomes painfully clear (at least to me) that the manga should end with a fitting conclusion rather than drag it out any longer. One problem that's related to the story is the addition of new side plots which seem to either slow down the main storyline so much that it's easy forget what it originally was, or are used as a sole excuse for one of the characters to learn new skills and grow stronger (not much of a problem early on, but now it just seems repetitive and boring). Loose ends start taking way too many chapters to sort out and evil characters too long to deal with. Recent plot revelations disrupt the flow of events and makes me wonder why they weren’t revealed much sooner (other than just to extend the story); I don’t see why it’s necessary to wait hundreds of chapters before being shown Naruto’s full background or to found out more about the history of the nine-tailed fox.

The characters of Naruto play a large part in why I think this series is not as good as it once was, and it's an aspect which is hugely frustrating. It's obvious that for a long-running manga like Naruto there are a lot of characters, but Team 7 (consisting of Naruto, his closest friends Sasuke and Sakura, and their teacher Kakashi) and a few others introduced later get the most focus and development. Naruto’s fellow teenage ninjas all get their moments in the story, but for the most part they are there just to lend a helping hand to the main characters during battles. This isn’t a huge problem initially as Naruto himself is a likeable lead, with bags of optimism and personality which sees him overcome the prejudice everyone has towards him, as well as interesting team-mates with whom he gradually develops strong bonds with. Throughout the first half of Naruto the members of Team 7 each develop at a realistic pace as they gain new experiences through missions for their ninja village as well as encounters with their enemies. After the time skip these characters in particular seem to have matured a lot and are no longer the indecisive or fledgling ninjas who they once were.
At least this is what it seemed.
When the major story events start occurring during Naruto Shippuden, certain characters (without naming anyone) revert back to who they were for no particular reason. The newfound toughness and maturity shown in previous arcs are replaced by actions which portray them as weak or just plain mad, with motives which don’t make sense; this leads to characters which, previously likeable, are now easy to hate. Female ninjas seem to suffer the most though, with most of them made to appear useless in terms of the storyline, or just completely forgotten about; other characters, too, just start disappearing from the story only to turn up again much later. Any character development up until now seems pointless, with much of the more important characters acting the same as they did two years earlier.

Another one of the things I used to appreciate about Naruto was how characters became stronger, built up their chakra levels and learnt new techniques as their ninja training progressed, while there were limits to their improvement. The world of Naruto initially contained certain rules, such as the concept of chakra and self-damaging high-level techniques, which prevented characters from becoming too powerful and no stronger than they ought to be. Shippuden does a good job of ignoring these rules; ideas and reasons which aren’t fully explained allow people to become as strong as they want to be as long as it is convenient for the increasingly muddled storyline. The ninjas in Naruto have special abilities, but they are still human, and therefore should not be having infinite potential/chakra levels. New villains introduced at this point are far more powerful than the recognised heavyweights of the ninja world, using ridiculous attacks several times. Even the title of Hokage, the strongest ninja of a village, doesn’t seem so grand anymore as too many characters surpass most of the existing hokages both in strength and abilities.

The art in Naruto is pretty good and I have few complaints. The main characters, as well as most of the supporting cast, have unique designs which makes it easy to tell them apart. There are numerous fights in this manga, and the majority are well-drawn with a large variety of ninja techniques on display which make them exciting to read. Locations such as the Hidden Leaf Village are quite detailed, and the addition of animals through the use of summoning techniques help to make the world of Naruto even more diverse.

Naruto started off as a very good shounen series, even if a little clichéd, and was immensely enjoyable when it peaked at several points before the time-skip as well as during some of the Shippuden arcs. These moments are memorable and full of epic battles between multiple ninjas, and there are quite a few emotionally moving scenes/dialogue too. Unfortunately, this just makes it feel so much more tragic when much of what was great about Naruto is utterly destroyed by the last hundred or so chapters. It makes it seem as though the creator of this manga has grown complacent over his success, and is now allowing the series to run on its reputation alone. There are still stand-out moments in some chapters which mirror the greatness found in the earlier parts of the manga, but these are too few and are far outweighed by the amount of bad characterization, plot holes and slow plot pacing that have taken hold of Naruto since the time-skip.

The legendary Naruto. Naruto is the famous manga (including the anime adaption), probably the most famous on in the world at the moment. I heard aobut Naruto from my friend, and I first started watching anime. When I catched up with anime (that was about 60th episode of Shippuuden at that moment), I've read all of the manga in just few days, and now I'm up to date with manga wince chapter 400 or something.

--- Story --- 7 ---
The main story, all the thing about Jinchuuriki, Bijus, Akatuski, is pretty decent story itself. However, looks like Kishimoto (the writer of the Naruto manga) felt ... the glory of hving the most popular manga in the world, and now he doesn't want to end the story, he keeps more and more complicated things coming, more enemies, more plot twists... Which isn't the best idea. 460+ chapters is way too much for anybody. To be honest, I'm not really fan of Naruto anymore, but I'd simply feel bad dropping Naruto because I've watched and read so much that if I dropped it, then my effort to read so much would be meaningless. Naruto is dragging away from the story and I don't like it. But, as I said, it's good concept, so I'm giving it seven outta ten.

--- Art --- 10 ---
Kishimoto's done some pretty good job with art, I must tell that. Though it was kinda crappy at some chapters, it's pretty good. Though I'd give him advice to draw fighing scenes and action scenes a bit better, too much actionish likes all arond the frame and all over the characters are making it be kinda fussy, and, to be honest, I never really understand the fighting scenes all that well, but it's not much to pay attention, right?

--- Character --- 7 ---
Too. Much. Charactes. I guess Characters and Story are pretty linked with each other and I can't separate them. Longer story is, more characters there are and it's hard to pay attention to each character separatelly, which means very weak character development. However, I enjoyed looking and comparing characters before and after the time skip. (Anime production screwed up with anime, separating it into two animes, "Naruto" and "Naruto Shippuuden" - it's all freakin' one anime).

-- Enjoyment --- 6 ---
If Kishi could put the story in 300 chapters, I would adore the manga. 460+ chapters is a killer. How can I enjoy the manga which I m going to read as 80-year-old geezer with stick, running around the hose with Naruto's cosplay and doing Rasengans at neighbour's dog?

--- Overall --- 6 ---
Even if the Art was awesome, that's not increasing my opinion about the manga at all. Manga is overrated, that's for sure. The fact it's incrediblly long doesn't mean the story is awesome at all. I feel bad for telling this about pretty good manga, but if there was an end for the manga, I would adore it.

Kishimoto, end the manga already before it becoms too late.

Naruto is good but for me it has no consistency whatsoever. I don't even know now what plot it wants to follow. For me I think the mangaka is just getting random idea as to what he should do next about his manga. I think its the reason why some of its readers have slow down reading if not totally stop from doing so. If you think I'm wrong then you should try it yourself.

Story 6

All this time I believe Naruto(the main protagonist) is striving to become thier village Hokage. To be respected by the people of his own village. On the first part, it ... was clear that Naruto will surely succeed in doing so, but after the skip, meh, things just get so confusing. The story suddenly start focusing on Sasuke, a boy whose clan was murdered by his own brother. Chapters and chapters dedicated to this revenge loving maniac. And then what happens? Sasuke killed his brother only to find out that his brother is good. That his brothers action were under the orders of konoha. So now he's out to take revenge(again) on Konoha that his brother tried so hard to protect( at the cost of annihilating his own clan..another psycho.) What annoy is me Narutos' undying will to take back Sasuke, always saying about how can he become hokage if he cant even save a single friend. Sasuke do not even care anymore. He even tried to kill Sakura. And now Naruto is saying that in order to save Sasuke from the grasp of darkness. he's willing to give up his life. (what a joke) How can he become a hokage if he died? Why give up on your dream just to save someone whose trying to destroy the very village you want to protect? For me that's just plain stupid. So story wise I think it's just fair.

Art

Many says the art is great. I cant tell why though. For me, the backgrounds were too much. So many ink go to waste. With character that looking all the same except for their hair and eyes. I think it's just good. Just good. So it's 7

Character

I don't think the character on this one received the right amount attention. In fact I think Sasuke is the only one who's got all of it. Since Shippuden starts, the other character seldom appears. Lack of development. So again just good

Enjoyment

The most enjoying aspect of Naruto is when it comes to battle. With so many techniques to see,and so many strategy to make you feel awe. Aside from that, I think nothing much. There's no more comedy in it unlike before.

Overall.

I'll give it a six. Start out great but then couldn't keep it up. Well, Its not like it's over so it still has a chance to bet back where it was once, that being a great manga.

The story is at an alright level. It starts out with some basic humor to capture your attention and keep you reading. The idea of a demon vessel that dreams of one day becoming the village leader. Going through different missions, suffering from a traumatic childhood, betrayal, action, drama, humor, and adventure all thrown in. It sounds decent no, but not really.

Its more episodic in manga form. Parts of the story (side stories) were unnessacary, and took away from the main story. But it still manage to capture some interest so I continued. A little bit over after Naruto had turned older and went ... after Gaara, it started to loose its edge. Until finally it just became complete migrane to me, a few times I had to stop reading and force myself back into it. Sure the idea is good but the development of it just looses itself after awhile.

The art now. I have to say the mangaka's art was actually quite descent and fair to the story. It should fantastic detailing, a few that may need to be improved but good none the less. The scenary was alright in a beautiful way, though the character's images, sometimes it seemed they seemed a bit crossed eyed, marks a tad bit slanted, etc. But their bodies were actually good. I wouldn't put too much into the character as the background though. The backround though beautiful in its own right, didn't seemed as focused on as the character's were. Wether the mangaka wanted you to pay more attention to the characters rather then the background, I do not know. But I have to say it could do with a few minor improvements.

Now time for the characters. I already complaned about the art, now their development. I have to say it wasn't as good as I would have hoped it to be. I found the character's development a bit jagged, boring, and poorly done once again. Half the time I zoned out in what they were saying while reading, okay a long story telled past becoming boring when a character tells it, not good at all.

If it isn't the story, characters, or art for me, then it is the plan humor in it. Though I found it a bit unlogic at times, the humor was great and provided me with a good few laughs. So my enjoyment of it was quite high over the others.

Overall I would have to give it a six. The story may loose its edge farther along, lacking logic, and poorly written. But its fair to say it can proved good enjoyment occationly.

This story has been a very long ride and it has had its ups and downs. I had to put the rating somewhere in the middle because of that. The story generally starts out pretty good and the characters, while a tad bit bland, had a lot of interesting concepts and had the potential to grow and become more, which was even sort of the point of the story.
Somewhere between a third and halfway through the story, it started going down. Far down.
Somewhere between halfway and two-thirds of the way through the story, it genuinely seemed like the author was just making things up as ... he went along. Every new plot twist and revelation felt worse than the last and every one of them felt like the writing was dropping off a cliff in terms of quality.
Somewhere very quickly into the story, those lessons about functioning as a team and leaning how to be a ninja stopped mattering, because now everybody was just generic shounen fighting characters that you could see in most any story of the genre.

But where the story really seemed to come off the rails was in relation to Sasuke and his family. Their entire existence seemed like an enormous anchor that did nothing but drag the story down and force everybody to talk about how amazing they are/were no matter what they've done, without giving the audience any reason to actually think they are. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that their constant influence ended up ruining the story in the second half, because it seemed like nothing mattered unless they were involved.

I loved the story toward the beginning, and it was sad to see how far it sank after that, but I still can't give this manga too terrible a rating based on that early run.

Despite the international hype that Naruto received, it is NOT the best Shounen manga and is actually VERY POORLY written. Naruto gained enormous popularity only due to its strong opening chapters. At the beginning readers were introduced to a unique shinobi life and interesting characters, but then the publisher, blinded by the need to desperately extend the manga's fame for as long as possible, filled the series with endless fillers, repetitive flashbacks, numerous plot holes and ridiculous deus ex machina events, that ultimately ruined the series and turned away more than half its fanbase. To give the series some credit, Naruto was REALLY GOOD up ... until the Pain Arc and then the plot just took a turn for the worst. By the 400th chapter its main characters were unable to achieve any further character development and by the 600th chapter, characters suddenly ended up with abilities that were never introduced before. Having completed the manga all I recall is a naive & stubborn Naruto, a selfish Sasuke, and a pathetic Sakura. Seriously, for having managed to endlessly stretch out the series, I don't know how the writers weren't able to come up with better story lines. It's such a shame because Naruto started as an epic Shounen series and had SO MUCH POTENTIAL but ended up being one that readers were barely able to read, let alone enjoy. Luckily I am one of the late readers of Naruto so I was I was able to quickly browse through chapters and skip the unnecessary and repetitive details. I honestly don't know how its dedicated fans stuck with this series for over 10 years. Only novice manga readers and teenagers would claim Naruto to be the best manga.