Ciran's Anime List | Ciran's Manga List

Ciran's Profile

After some time pondering, I decided to give Naruto a try. The horror-stories about the loads of fillers kind of scared me off, but the first 136 episodes were definitely not bad and well worth watching.
After that, I skipped to Naruto Shippuuden. I had no intention at all to watch fillers.

I was prepared for the worst now. Shippuuden might also have had fillers or long battles, but I was willing to watch them.
What I wasn't prepared for, were the incredibly slow episodes which were sometimes only filled with a few lines of dialogue and endless staring competitions, repeated scenes, flashbacks (sometimes even from the same (!!) episode, like episode 45) and non-entertaining fight scenes. I was wondering if the makers of this anime thought we were stupid or something if we cannot even remember what was said during the same episode, you don't need flashbacks for that!

It's just silly, not to mention plain stupid, that a good story is slaughtered by these slow, slow... slowww episodes. Because really, the story of Naruto is pretty good. It somehow has the effect that you want to continue watching, to know what happens next. That's also why I prefer the episodes in which there aren't any tedious battles.

The art is pretty good as well. It's not as detailed as the art in Death Note for example, but the characters and surroundings as well are good to look at.

The sound, well, that's my personal opinion. I preferred the music in the original Naruto. It just emphasized a bit more that it's a show about ninja's. With the flutes and drums in the battle music. In Shippuuden, I got the impression that the music just changed to plain rock.

The characters are still very good. It was very nice to see how everyone had changed and especially Sakura. Instead of being the girl who couldn't do anything during battles, she really can take care of herself now.
Not just the main characters have changed, the other characters as well. The kids from the other teams, for example, may not be on the show that often as team Kakashi, but I wouldn't just call them flat characters. Every character in the show has his own personal traits, which really is a plus point to both Naruto and Shippuuden.

Well, I already said something about the enjoyment. Some episodes just really aren't worth watching because they are too slow. Too much flashbacks and staring. It's frustrating, really. After the first arc I got used to what kind of episodes Shippuuden would still have in store for me and I took some precautions. Remote control close to me and every episode that was filled with staring and flashbacks, would be 'skipped'. Forward button at the ready and after the staring was over, I'd press play again. (Episode 42 received this treatment; actually I skipped most of that episode). I refused to waste my time staring at characters staring at each other.

So, Kishimoto did a great job coming up with this story and all the characters, but the story is ruined by the slow episode.
Still, Shippuuden is worth watching really, even if it's just for the story, but be prepared for some frustrating minutes. read more