Ranked #498

Naruto (Manga)

Here's Naruto Manga summed up short and quick, unlike what the manga is capable of.

It can't finish what it's started.

Story:

Naruto began as an intriguing tale based off of everyone's favourite sub-culture group, ninjas. Except these ninjas had personality, and a backstory! Everything was going well, really well, I loved reading it cause every jutsu they pulled was thought out carefully, where they'd adapt what they had to suit their purposes. Battles were strategic, plot was meaningful, and most importantly, EVENTS LEAD SOMEWHERE.

Now, I'm still reading this manga, so maybe they're something to it, but I've dropped it once before, and I'm getting awfully close to dropping it again. I'm just in so deep now that it's tough to quit.

As I just said, Naruto started out good, but in the chapters regarding the split of naruto and naruto shippuden, well... it went downhill.

Akatsuki was a good addition, but after all the grief, all the fighting, all the backstories, you ended up not even caring. SPOILER ALERT. I mean, honestly, they end up killing off an entire village, and all the important characters, making you think the story was concluding, and then nope, actually, Naruto manages to inexplicably woo another creepy old dude to stray from his determined path, and REVIVE the WHOLE FREAKING VILLAGE. That is not appropriate plot development people! You don't start finishing the series and then just say "jk! Lulz!" That's exactly where InuYasha had it wrong. SPOILER DONE.

As the series dragged on, everything I loved about Naruto was slowly whittled away, appearances by Rock Lee and Shikamaru were lessened, each battle grew to be less about strategy and more about who had the more powerful, previously unmentioned jutsu. I kid you not, the last 4 chapters I read, all that's happened is a fight where they either summon a giant monster thing to do their fighting for them, or use a genjutsu, within a genjutsu, within a genjutsu. There's no imagination left here people. Honestly it's turned into a DBZ clone, except without the yelling, and without the aftermath actually leading somewhere.

But I suppose everyone wants a review according to all the factors.

Art:

Sometimes it's a bit over-inked and it makes it difficult to tell exactly what's going on, especially during a fight. The art style works nicely overall, but it's nothing that's about to wow you if you've read manga before.

Character:

if they had focused on the good characters, like Gai, Lee, Kakashi, Shikamaru, Gaara etc... I could give this a higher score, but Naruto took the "Goku" approach, and suddenly everything has to be done by one guy, except unlike goku, the guy doesn't even require an explanation as to why anyone more skilled than him couldn't do it. Everyone just seems to accept it.

Enjoyment:

It's hard to say, first couple hundred chapters were magnificent, 10/10. But last 100 have been shite, and it's really dragging on. I can't give it overall anything more than a 6, but understand that the last chapters have been really poor.

Overall:

A resounding MEH. I've read 477 chapters now and it's just been getting worse and worse as time goes by. If you want to get stuck in a manga where the start works it's way up to a brilliant climax, and leaves you wanting to read more, only to find out the more that you get to read is worse than the 100 episodes of filler they threw into the anime of this series, then go for it. Naruto WAS good, Naruto was great. But it's hard to stay motivated about a series as stagnant as this one. It's lost it's charm, it's only got the "I'm in this far" factor going for it now. read more

Before you read this. If you don't like manga that takes a long time to finish up plots then this manga isn't for you. If you do then keep reading.

First off, the story is very well written, but as I said before, it takes a long time to finish up a plot. There are enough plot twists to keep you guessing, but I wouldn't say there are a bunch of them. Because of this, the story gets a 9/10. If the plots were sped up by a slight bit, it would be perfect.

Next is the art. This style is perfect for a ninja manga. It shows detail to what's important, not just what's in the panel. I've seen many manga detail every last thing in each panel, which looked nice, but it drew attention away from what's really important. The character design is nothing to scoff at either. 10/10

The characters in this manga are very well thought out. Almost every character either has or will have a backstory. One character has no real backstory until you get to the late 300's. Unlike many manga, everyone has a unique look and personality. There are very few exceptions to this i.e. Rock Lee and Gai.

To put it simply. I like this manga for what it is. My only concern is the speed of the storyline. Personally, I'd give it a 9.5/10. I hope you found this review helpful. read more