Naruto
| Naruto | |
|---|---|
 Left to right: Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke | |
| Original Manga | Masashi Kishimoto |
| Director/Artist | Hayato Date |
| Format | Anime (TV), Manga |
| Made By | Studio Pierrot |
| # of Episodes | 220 (Season 1) 218 (ongoing, Shippuden) |
| # of Manga Volumes | 54 (ongoing) |
Contents
Genre
Sum it up in a Sentence
Believe it!
Main Description
Naruto
Uzumaki Naruto is a boy in the village of Konoha and is known to be a prankster and a failing ninja. His wild exterior hides the fact that he is resented by a large part of the village because sealed inside him is the nine-tailed fox; a creature of terrible power who used to terrorize the village but defeated by the Fourth Hokage (the 4th leader and head ninja of Konoha). A few understanding and patient mentors, however, inspire Naruto to do better and he eventually graduates to the level of "genin," where most kids begin their ninja training in earnest. Like all genin, he is placed in a 3-man cell labeled Team 7. It is led by a "jonin" (leadership level and full-fledged ninja) named Hatake Kakashi, and his teammates include a girl named Haruno Sakura and a boy named Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke and Naruto become rivals and eventual friends as they train and work to become better ninja. The real story, however, is marked by Sasuke's underlying desire for revenge on his older brother and the conspiracies surrounding the various ninja villages. Naruto also continues to discover who he really is as he is thrown in the middle of the dangers and lies of the ninja world.
Naruto: Shippuden
Also known as post-timeskip, the story continues 2 and a half years after Sasuke abandons Konoha to train with Orochimaru and Naruto takes a leave of absence to train with Jiraiya. The story mainly continues with the plot of Akatsuki continuing to hunt for the remaining hosts of the tailed beasts so they can steal the powers for themselves. The story also takes on a wider scope in terms of exploring the Naruto world, as the other main ninja nations are involved with political relations and the dangers presented by Akatsuki.
Movies
All of them are considered non-canon but made to fit between various points of the Naruto timeline. There have been 3 made for the original Naruto series and 4 so far for Shippuden. If you're itching to watch the pre-timeskip movies, they are all literally the same. Here's what happens in all of them:
- Naruto + side characters are hired to protect someone.
- This someone hates Naruto because he is obnoxious and vice versa.
- Naruto and gang fight the main bad guy's lackeys when they introduce themselves.
- The person they are hired to protect eventually grows not to hate Naruto through the power of friendship.
- This person gets kidnapped by bad guy.
- Side characters defeat lackeys in round 2.
- Bad guy turns into monster form.
- Naruto does Rasengan and wins.
Watch point 3 and skip to 6 for the animated fights and call it a day.
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Personal Opinions
Zorak
Not the best shounen by any means. Better as of late, though.
Godsavethefritos
Naruto was one of the first shounen series I watched after I stopped watching Toonami. It's a good series that deals with issues of quality, pacing, and filler while having a cast of interesting characters who you will either love or hate. I have my own set of person issues with the show as well, but I also still have a special place in my chest cavity for it.
Up through the 80s the animation was really good but then I found it took a dip in quality. I assume the series was doing well enough to be farmed out to a Korean studio and the episodes were being hurredly pumped out to satisfy demand. Every once in a while there would be a very well done episode though so the series would have ups and downs when it came to quality. The pacing issues may be a personal problem but I think the show jumped the shark sometime between episode 50 and episode 80. I just didn't enjoy the later episodes as much as I enjoyed the series up through that point. Oh, and the filler for this series is painfully bad.
The strength of the series has to be the fact that all of the characters force you to either love them or hate them. This includes the titular character for whome there is no middle ground, you will either love him or hate him. The secondary characters are all interesting and have stories of their own which are also interesting any time the show decides to examine them. Overall I think the greatest strength of this show has to be its character design. But hey, this is all just my opinion.
Willsun
If you're here for the anime, ask around for specific episodes of fights to watch because do you really want to sit through 10+ years' worth of poorly animated shounen filler?
Kishimoto's art quality in the manga improves dramatically sometime before the timeskip, but can still get pretty confusing when a lot of rocks/ground is broken (pretty often). As a whole, I recommend not getting started because this is quintessential shounen that disappoints even with its enticing setting thanks to awful power creep issues and the story's inability to end gracefully.
Links
- Current (16th) SA manga thread
- Current (5th) SA anime thread
- TV Tokyo's Naruto page (Japanese)
- VIZ Media's Naruto site (North America)
- Shonen Jump's Naruto page (North America)
