Naruto: Shippuuden

Naruto Shippuuden! The series that would never end finally ends! After ten years, five-hundred episodes and several movie tie-ins, this milked cow is finally laid down to rest, resulting in one of the worst shounen anime adaptations ever made. While I did enjoy myself with the series and certainly found myself even liking it for the first two-hundred episodes or so, the insane amount of filler, padding, and the abysmal final three or four arcs made me despise this show by the end, and all of the characters and narrative. The filler in this anime is such a goddamn problem that it destroys the entire ... anime, and at this point, if you did want to get into Naruto, I would recommend reading the manga, or skipping over the filler because, for the most part, the filler is absolutely abysmal and is rarely interesting or adds onto the overall world of the series. Since this review is going to spend a long time detailing all of my problems with the story, I will address the animation and music now. While I still prefer the original soundtrack of Naruto, Shippuuden is still great. The action pumps you up and there is a great variety in songs and moods to fit each moment and scene. The animation is a different story, however. The anime is very inconsistent, and that is to be expected with a show with over five-hundred episode; at its best, it could be movie quality, it’s worst, trashy nineties OVA.

Shippuuden is the direct continuation of the original series, set two years after the events that transpired in the original in which Naruto has trained to hone his skills and jutsu. Upon returning to the village, he fights off against the Akatsuki, a group of powerful, rogue ninja who wants to collect all of the tailed beasts to create the ten tails and rule the world, while trying to save his gay lover, I mean best friend, Sasuke. Now, I want to clarify first of all that I enjoyed the first season very much (excluding the fillers, that is). It was fun, the battles were original and creative, and the characters went through great development; it captured the hard life of a ninja perfectly and the cruel world in which they live in. Shippuuden was also pretty good for a little while in the beginning of the series, albeit not as interesting or engaging as the previous story arcs of the show.

One good thing about the sequel is that Shippuuden is a lot darker and more mature than the original series, now with the Akatsuki clan running amok and killing many of the tailed beasts. There is this constant sense of looming danger and tension in the series and the Akatsuki were easily the best thing about part two. All of them are interesting, had unique abilities, and for the most part, are allowed to shine in their own respective battles. Hell, there are even a few character deaths which took me by surprise, which added onto the steaks and tension of the show. The first one hundred episodes of content (minus the fillers) are pretty great although I did have some problems, most notably being Naruto and Sasuke themselves.

Naruto in part two is annoying, whiny and irritating, and his constant journey to save Sasuke feels boring and without much sense logically, since Saskue becomes a complete dick head, hell bent on destroying the entire village. Sasuke starts off wanting to kill his brother, and after the worst plot twist in the series where we learn his evil brother was, in fact, a good guy, which I’ve always hated, all he wants after that is to destroy the village and everyone in it, and his character fluctuates so much throughout part two that it becomes hard to keep track of. Both of their respective story arcs hit brick walls by the end of the Pain arc and hardly develop at all past that, just in their power levels. Speaking of the Pain arc, the conclusion to that very same story arc was so bad that I lost all hope in the series. After a great fight in which much of the main cast die, Naruto has a friendship speech with the villain in which after, he brings back all of the people in the village who died! This removed all of the tension from the series and was such a cheap way to bring back characters that I began to hate the series from that point onwards. Combine that with characters who did receive some screen time in part one, now being pushed to the sideline with no development, aside from Shikamaru, but even after his own arc, he is pushed to the side to make way for the yellow-haired twit. In addition, Naruto’s character is ruined after we learn he is the child of destiny and was destined to save the world since he was born. This meant all of his hard work was for nothing and is such a giant middle finger from the author, that after this point, I hated the series. From this point on, we know that Naruto can never die nor lose since he is destined to save the world. His fate is pre-determined from the start, which does remove some tension from the later arcs.

It also destroys Naruto's main theme at the same time. Naruto's driving force was that hard work and endurance would pay off in the end, and earn you respect from the people around you, even when the whole world is putting you down. In the early parts of the series there was a genuine sense of satisfaction in watching Naruto grow as a person and the catharsis pay off that entailed was great after all his hard work. Learning that he is a destined child, and was destined with all these great powers from the beginning ruins all of the hard work and endurance he had to go through to gain respect as a shinobi. Essentially, the author shot himself in the foot and omitted one of the driving forces of his story.

Now, let me elaborate a little more on the Itachi plot twist before I go ahead and why I didn't like this twist in the story. To me, Itachi was a great villain, someone who killed his entire village just to test his limits, leaving his younger brother alive to act out revenge on the part of his fallen clan. Like Saskue, we hated Itachi at the beginning, which we should of, since this makes a great villain. Itachi is strong, ruthless, and cunning. All of this, in my eyes, anyway, made him great as a villain, but Kishimoto, works in a twist that reveals he was a good guy all along and killed his clan to prevent a war from occurring. Essentially he had to carry a huge burden on his back from the village elders, which is admirable, but it also causes Saskue's character to go out of control from this point, and fluctuate so frequently. I always found this twist to be kind of "meh", for a lack of a better term. I never hated it per say, to the point where it broke the series or anything, it's just that I think Itachi was much better as a villain than a good guy. But hey, this mini-rant is just down to my own personal preference.

The worst character out of them all is Sakura. Now, I don't think she is useless in this series. Hell, she has a pretty okay fight against one of the Akatsuki members and wins, which is something I can appreciate, it's just that her character goes nowhere. She stays so stagnant and boring, whilst crying about Saskue. And holy hell does her love for Sasuke feel forced as hell. It makes no sense why she loves him to this extent, especially after the bastard almost killed her and threatened to destroy the entire village, killing everyone she loved and had known. Back in the original I could kind of excuse her crush on account that she was a young child, but now it's laughably pathetic and doesn't even make any sense. This applies for most of the female cast in the series since Kishimotot can't write good female characters. They're either completely useless or completely superficial. That's it.

And this brings us to ninja war arc and everything that came after. These final arcs were awful. All of the clever tactics and strategies the characters had are now gone, in favour of who could pull off the most landscape reducing jutsu, and Naruto and Sasuke become so powerful, to the point they rival gods, even going as far as having them both die and then re-birth as an act of destiny. What I always hated was that all of the characters that died before; characters that I liked and had well-completed arcs were brought back to life since the author was too lazy to create new ones. This ruined many of the original arcs these characters went through, and I found this, for the most part, to be completely boring since they just repeat what happened previously. Sure, there is some development and growth with the characters, but it's hardly substantial enough to raise the bar. All of the previous rules and ideas that Kishimoto establishes in the early part of the series are thrown out and it's painfully obvious that he didn't even care about his own series in the end since the justsus and abilities some of the characters can perform goes against the rules of the world that he established. A good example is when Kakashi gets two Sharingan which would require a large amount of chakra to use. We've been told time and time again that this character, while having a wide range of impressive jutsu, doesn't have much in the way of chakra and thus can't battle for too long but in the final arcs he performs so many Jutsu it is unbelievable and when he does require the double Sharingan it makes no sense how he can utilise its power, especially since he obtains it at the end of the war and thus his chakra would have been completely gone! Another example of crap writing is after Naruto is reborn, he somehow saves Gai from dying just by simply touching his chest! It makes no sense why he can suddenly do this and this element is never explained to us at all. Not only that, but a few moments later he restores Kakashi's eye in the same fashion, but fails to restore Gai's dead legs, for whatever reason. What an asshole!

These final arcs are so full of ass-pulls, random power-ups and last for so long that I can’t stand the idea of watching them again. The final fight between Naruto and Sasuke was pretty impressive and I’m glad it wasn't stuffed with filler but it’s not enough to save the whole series. The “final” villain Madara was the only thing I liked about the final arc but even then, he was replaced by the true final villain who was terrible, since the author had no idea how to end the series nor of how to get rid of such a powerful enemy. Kaguya was such a terrible final villain, only being relevant for about ten episodes or so. The biggest problem is that she came out of nowhere. There was no build-up like Madara. Madara felt justified to be the final villain because of the build-up and the pay off with him was pretty good, but Kaguya was boring, dull and had no narrative steaks or intrigue behind her character at all. She was truly the worst final villain I've ever seen.

I could go on and on about every little thing, but I’ve covered everything that pisses me off the most so I’ll leave it at that. I do enjoy Naruto, despite the obvious flaws, but if you want to get into the series, just read the manga.

As 'good' as the normal naruto series.
Reminicent of Inuyasha - characters keep running around and nothing really (ever!) happens plot-wise(what plot? There is no plot!) for the next 300 manga chapters and 500 anime eps... Will Inyasha, ops I mean naruto, save kagome, ops I mean sasuke.... Seriously....

Most of the time is spent showing characters: running around (mostly jumping from tree to tree, it seems), standing tensely, with the wind blowing between them...Very productive and oh so tense. oh, almost forgot sakura's endless whining about poow nawuto and/or sasuke or someone/something else equally as unamusing. And naruto's whining about sasuke.

Had to watch ... most of it on FF (3 second skip) towards the end of the eps I had.

Another useful parallel quality-wise, would be DBZ...Except DBZ probably had more variety in the lack of plot :D. But about as much action, except characters there stood around powering up for half an ep. Which is ALSO present in naruto.

Save yourself, watch something else...

Naruto: Shippuuden review

Naruto: Shippuuden is one of the most famous anime of all time, but sometime, being famous doesn’t mean it is good. People generally just base their opinion on what they liked but not on what they disliked about Naruto so that’s why you might have heard that it is a good show. If people love so much this anime, it is basically just because they found it entertaining or because they grew up with it, but if we look at it objectively we can clearly see that it is a huge waste of time and attention.

First, the main story line is about Naruto ... dealing with Obito’s past. Let me explain myself, Obito was in love with a girl called Rin when he was around twelve years old. That girl died because she had a beast sealed inside of her that was supposed to destroy her village. Instead of coming back to Konoha, she decided to kill herself to save some life. Even if she suicides, Obito couldn’t bear it so since that day he decided to avenge her by destroying the ninja world. Naruto will have to counter all his plan to save the ninja world and his precious comrades. So what sucks about this is that Obito is now a lot older and still didn’t get over it, which is just stupid. Almost everything that’s going to happen in this anime was indirectly or directly because of that incident that happened many years ago. It is so exaggerated, the Akatsuki exist because of Obito and there will be another Great Ninja War that last for more than the half of the anime (which is 500 episodes!).

Second, the psychology of all the characters is messed up. You will learn the story of a lot of them and it might seem like a good thing at the beginning because it justified the fact that some of them are evil. In facts, it makes the anime last a lot longer for no reason because they all have the same story. There is more than one hundred characters and none of them has a unique story, including Naruto they are all thinking the same way so they all doing the same thing. Here’s a few of the characters story that you’ll see many times:
1. The character loses someone he holds dear, so he will want to avenge him by destroying the responsible and his village (Ex: Obito, Nagato, all the member of the Akatsuki)
2. The character is a total failure for martial arts and has a genius (a genius in Naruto is only someone who his not totally stupid cause they are honestly never doing anything smart) in his team, so he’ll try to surpass him and become hokage (Ex: Obito, Naruto, Guy sensei).

Third, as I said before it is too long for no reason, but not only because of all the unnecessary character’s story. A fight in Naruto: Shippuuden can last for many episodes because of all the efforts of the director that wanted to make it epic. I remember that fight against Orochimaru that was like 4 episodes and two of them were basically Naruto standing in the middle of a bridge just to show the power of his beast and Orochimaru talking to Naruto in beast form that can’t answer him back. All the things that Orochimaru said were useless, it was only a reaction to Naruto’s power. Another proof of that is clearly the Ninja war that last for hundreds of episodes. Every time that Naruto’s side finally succeed at beating Obito or Madara, there will be a stupid reason for them to come back with more strength. You’ll see that those two will be beaten two or three times each, but there’s always an excuse for them to recover.

Fourth, there are a lot of character (especially girls) that are useless. Sakura for example which should be one of the three principal characters after Naruto and Sasuke isn’t doing anything and gives nothing to make the story go further. She is only in love with Sasuke since she saw him and always try to stop Naruto that want to bring him back to the village. Pretty much every female Ninja student in this anime exist because they love someone or just because some teams miss a girl. Even the Hokage (the chief of the village) is useless. She is one of the most unqualified person to take that role. She is very weak and dumb, the only thing she knows to do is how to lose a fight and give orders, but again she is a girl and her team needed one when she was young.

Fifth, Naruto’s way of thinking just doesn’t make sense. He is always saying that what he wants the most is to protect his friends, but you’ll see that he will excuse Obito for killing a lot of them and his parents just because the guy said that he hoped for Naruto to become Hokage. All the bad things that happened to Naruto were in some way because of Obito and he wants to forgive him because of some worthless words? That is ridiculous! Normally I wouldn’t waste time on one specific characters like this, but it is the main one, so I think it is worth mentioning.

To conclude, I think that Naruto: Shippuuden only has one quality, it is entertaining. Unfortunately, this one isn’t enough to make this anime a good one because of all the defaults that it has. If you are looking for an anime that has a good story, good characters, relationships with real feelings or some interesting psychology, you are not at the good place because it is too simple, too repetitive and doesn’t feel real for a bit. If you are interested, I can suggest you Katanagatari which has some theme in common with Naruto: Shippuuden but certainly a lot more mastered. Also, you can go look at Ranma ½ that inspired Naruto, a little bit too much in my opinion (It is a lot better, but not a masterpiece).

TL;DR
+ some OP and ED songs
+ short-living cool moments
- fillers and flashbacks
- visuals, all of them
- overused sound assets
- pacing and episode direction

Story
Story continues where previous Naruto series left off with few years time-skip. If you haven't seen previous series, don't worry. Story this time is full of flashbacks and fillers in case you missed anything from last season. Dialogues are dull, fillers are there just to drag the series (they serve 0 importance and events are instantly forgotten in the first normal episode), pacing is incredibly slow, characters are dumb, fights are predictable.
Story in short, Naruto looks for his lost best buddy who is ... blinded by revenge against pretty much everyone and gets slowly consumed by darkness. One thing lead to another and now Naruto's trying to save the world. Main themes: friendship and determination.

Art
Animation is almost non-existant. Most episodes consist of still images with slight mouth or limb movements, this makes them all look awfully stiff. It's painfully obvious that they'd rather change a scene than do proper animation. Even in fights, you can see a lot of changes from one still image to another, because the "characters move so fast"... Right.
Background images could be split into 3 types - trees, village, cave. None of these are eye candies really.

Sound
Personally, more often than not I enjoyed opening and ending songs. What's worse though are background sounds. Don't get me wrong, they're not terrible, but they were nice to listen to the first million times. They've become something like a trademark now and watching the episodes muted wouldn't wouldn't make any difference as you can easily guess what'll play.
Voice acting has been ok at best. Naruto is still voiced by a lady.

Character
Characters didn't change at all at start, except they grew bigger and stronger. A lot later there's some development going on, but only between 2 main characters. It's still very refreshing to see though.
So basically, Naruto is still gutsy dude who wants to be the very best and Sasuke is still darkness. That's about it.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed few nice battles or moments. Unfortunately, most of these were partially or completely destroyed by horrible pacing and animation. Most of the rest can be easily skipped.

Overall
Started off as "ok", but for a long time now, this show has been a mass produced garbage made just to milk more money from fans. The only way an episode can keep my attention is if I triple the playback speed.
I suggest you watch this ONLY if you haven't seen the previous season and stop as soon as you start getting bored, because trust me, it will only get worse. Whether we like it or not, Naruto is a big piece of anime history and it shold be experienced by all fans (at least a bit).

FAIL

That sums up Shippuuden in one word. The animation looks cheap and the facial expressions are not noticeable. Not to mention, the lack of character development is unforgivable, especially in the sub-characters. They show up in the first episode and then disappear. Very good. -__-'

Just don't watch it. Watch something interesting like Gintama. At least it retains it's sense of humour, which is sadly lacking in this anime.

oh "Naruto Shippuden".. it should've been titled "Naruto X Sasuke: BROMANCE" >.

Though I really like the storyline due to reading the manga I must say i'm really disappointed with Shippuuden. Before this series came out I couldn't wait to see it because of how good the manga is but sadly I realized it's different. Naruto Shippuuden has got to be one of the most boring animes out. If you think you're gonna see an action packed anime think again for the characters stare at each other for 15 minutes before anything happens. By the time the fight starts you're already asleep. I don't recommend anyone watch this anime simply read the ... manga.

I only read the manga of it.
But the anime; I stopped at 263.

This anime is the like the COD of anime. Well, you know why.

If you are a MAJOR Naruto fan-boy; then do not read this. And please be mature about this. I also want nice comments about this review. And it's a tad bit long. 'Tis appeal.

Well: as known as some might say; THE MOST POPULAR ANIME IN THE WORLD. But, what I want to know is: ''Why?''. Is it because it is 'Tis an action anime or is it your favorite ongoing show? 4 years ago when ... I was in the 8th grade; I'm in 12th now. I used to love this show. But, there is something about this such as on fan-base and applause for this. Many also compare this show to other shows even some from a different genre. Like, some person at my school said that: NARUTO IS THE BETTER THAN FRUITS BASKET BECAUSE NARUTO HAS THE NINE TAIL CHAKRA!''. And many say that this anime can kick any other anime's ass.

And I know it's an opinion. But, this starts a bad view of mere.

At my school, not a lot of people like anime and some don't even know what it is! Baffling! Pretty much; people at my school only care about sex, dating, and reality shows like ''Jersey Shore'' or ''My Big Redneck Island''. The few that know what anime/manga is only know about Naruto, Bleach, and the BIG 3. They are not real anime fans really.
They are just enthusiastic about anime.

Let is be specific here:

Naruto lacks character development. I don't want to spoil anything; but this has to do with THREE CHARACTERS that appeared in the manga and anime; but introductions for them was bad.

And art was fine.

Story was dreadful because with poor character development and there is no other form of intro to us when in lookout for other parts. Trying my best not to spoil.

Sound and music was good; ARR-DUFF!

Decent enjoyment; but the story utter..........

Overall with the extra 2; well whatever....

I don't care about fillers or deaths.


BIG 3? Really, it also gets boring.


And annoying characters? Well, there are some.......


The only character I like is Gaara.

And no more: ''BELIEVE IT!''

That's my review.

Naruto: Shippuden - what can I say? I used to love this shit. Back in 2007 I would wait for the episodes, coming back from school every Friday to excitedly check whether or not the latest episode had been uploaded and subbed. Unfortunately I no longer find the series nearly as enjoyable as before.

STORY

I know this might anger all you angry Naruto fanboys out there, but come on guys, where is the story in Naruto: Shippuden? All it's about is our title character, Naruto, trying to bring Sasuke back from the dark side. I admit that Kishimoto isn't as bad as Kubo in ... this department (who seems to be making the shit up as he goes along; either that or he likes trolling us (eg: "Who said the Espada numbers go from 1-10?!?!" *trollface*) but of course that is an entirely different matter. All I can say is that at least Kishimoto seems to plan a few weeks in advance). I wonder if people ever get bored of Naruto chasing after Sasuke.

"But no, psyxwar, Naruto isn't just about him chasing after Sasuke!" I hear you say. Maybe you have a point. It seems that the series is now about the Akatsuki, a criminal organisation, chasing after "tailed beasts", beasts of "chakra" (that's Naruto terminology for energy, ki, etc) with tails and their plan of world domination. I agree. There seems to be a little variation in events. This is why I have given Naruto: Shippuden a very generous score of "2" for Story.

Of course, you, being the passionate, die-hard Naruto fanboy that you are, probably do not accept my reasoning and justification for giving Naruto: Shippuden a "2" in the Story department. Fair enough. But shouldn't you put this into perspective? Would you read a book that had a guy chasing another guy as its plot? I know I wouldn't.

tl;dr: Naruto: Shippuden is about a guy chasing another guy

ART

The art of the anime is okay - nothing exceptional, but pretty good nonetheless. There are countless examples of newer animes with better art and more fluid animation, but I won't hold this against Naruto: Shippuden. I've seen far worse in my years as an otaku.

SOUND

The sound is good as well, but again, nothing exceptional. I would usually skip over the same opening after watching it one or two times which usually just means it's "meh". There was nothing godly like "Hare Hare Yukai" (where I would watch that every. single. time.)

CHARACTER

The character development and characters in general admittedly weren't that bad. Naruto definitely develops in skill (and maturity?) a fair bit over the course of the series. I'm not going to spoil anything so I won't really elaborate further on the issue of character development. I'd like to add that despite somewhat "maturing", this may simply be superficial as he still chases after Sasuke. He should know by now that he's a goddamn sociopath and wants to kill everyone and destroy his village. The characters are for most part unique with their own personalities.

ENJOYMENT

Did I enjoy it? Meh, it was alright. Nothing exceptional. I feel as if I've wasted hours upon hours watching this shit though. I feel that if I wasn't such a dedicated fanboy in my youth, I would have enjoyed this series a lot less.

THE VERDICT: 4/10
"PRETTY BAD"

Here I am, typing out my second review of Naruto. Apparently I feel pretty strongly about this series, and not in a good way either. But first, let me tell you why I even bothered with this series.

If you were in middle-high school in the mid to late 2000s, then chances are you were exposed to the full brunt of the Naruto craze. I was in 5th or 6th grade at the time and all I was ever exposed to were AMVs. It wasn't until a few years later that I decided to take it upon myself to watch the series to the bitter end. ... And what a wonderful mistake that was. Alright, with all the personal bullshit out of the way, let's get to business. Since I'm lazy, I'll just write a review for the original series by extension as well.

Story: 3/10
About as predictable as you can imagine. Some bratty kid has an overly ambitious goal and the story revolves around him trying to reach it. And of course, he does, and some people might argue that the suspense lies in how it all happened. In other words, when there's already a foregone conclusion, all the stuff in the middle is supposed to be exciting. While the story is not necessarily "unexciting", it IS drawn out, bland, and riddled with plot holes. Villains are constantly revealed to be mere puppets for an increasingly more powerful villain, and all Naruto has to do to convince them to his way of thinking is talk to them. Rinse and repeat like four or five times. The story also contains way more characters than it can handle, as key characters from early on in the series, like Orochimaru, are simply forgotten in favor of other plot developments. The bigger fights can easily span over 5 episodes, leading to the action being just as slow as the plot progression. Ultimately, the story seems to take its focus off of Naruto and his journey to reach his goal and devolve into a somehow even less interesting Uchiha clan soap opera.

Art: 4/10

The art is nothing spectacular but also not totally hideous to look at. The REAL flaw lies in its animation, which fluctuates in quality and shows a lack of care on the animators' part. Everyone knows the notorious Naruto vs Pain fight, one of the most major fights in the series. In an attempt to make the animation look more fluid and polished, the character's faces and bodies are stretched and skewed and basically everything goes to hell. Plus, there's the animators' crippling inability to draw faces or objects that are far away. Some of the filler characters are either intentionally ugly or just lazily drawn, but we're not touching those.

Sound: 7/10

The soundtrack is admittedly pretty impressive. I mean, it's normal to get sick of the opening after the tenth or so time, but some of them really shine. The music is a mix of traditional Japanese instruments and punk rock, and somehow they just mesh so well together. However, I can't particularly choose a favorite track. There are very few that really stand out, but all of them are great. However, I think I have a clear bias towards Shippuden's soundtrack, because it feels grander and more emotional.

Character: 2/10 (this is gonna be a long one)

For me, THIS is where the series truly fails. As I said before, Naruto has way more characters than its story can handle. Stories with large casts that all have good development is possible, but this is not the case for Naruto. The first problem is that the main characters are significantly less interesting than the side characters could be. Naruto is designed to be a goofy yet charismatic guy who just draws people to him without explanation, but instead comes off as annoying and preachy. He inexplicably converts the worst of villains to his way of thinking, and it comes off as just plain stupid. It's possible to have one character be a moral compass and not have everyone worship them. Then there's Sasuke, who's designed to be a polar opposite to Naruto, but instead comes off as an edgelord. Rounding off the main cast is Sakura, who is supposed to be a strong heroine type but instead comes off a doormat who lets Sasuke toy with her emotions and relies on Naruto to do shit for her.

The main cast is simply bland, but it's the villains I was most disappointed with because of how they were handled. After shaping them up to be generic bad guys without feeling or remorse, Kishimoto likes to trick you into feeling bad for them by slapping on a tragic backstory, usually shortly before or even after their death. Their backstories almost always involve the death of a loved one driving them to their current state. This is part of Naruto's message about forgiveness, but it still doesn't work as a narrative device. To make a villain sympathetic, you have to humanize them while they're still alive. The other reason Kishimoto fails at writing tragic villains is because their true motives are usually only presented to the audience as opposed to the characters in the story, and so the good guy never questions what they're doing (not that this would have worked anyway). In short, Kishimoto shouldn't have even bothered trying to make most of the villains sympathetic.

Enjoyment: 4/10

As you can tell, I got bored with this series after all was said and done. Almost the entire cast was underdeveloped, and while the side characters had the most potential, they slowly but inevitably became part of the Naruto circlejerk that encompassed the entire ninja world. The animation tends to fluctuate depending on the animator's budget, and the story is exactly what you would expect from the Big Three: bland, incomplete, and way longer than it needs to be. I should mention that one of Naruto's messages is that previous generations should carve the path for the next generation to take their place. Now that its glory days have long since past, I think Naruto should do the same.

So it goes like this - Akatsuki a criminal organization of rogue ninjas is on the move to capture all the jinchurikis. Naruto is on the move to bring Sasuke back. Sasuke is on the move to kill his brother Itachi who is an Akatsuki member. Other characters are inconsequential in the eyes of the writer.

There are a whole lot of problems with this series but the main problem is Naruto himself. Why would he go so far to bring back a dick like Sasuke who does not give a shit about him or any other person. Naruto completely sidesteps his ambition to become a ... hokage. His new goal is to bring back Sasuke. Why the hell is Sasuke so important? For this series to work Sasuke should have been a real great guy who was loved by and who was a real hero but Sasuke is a self centered dick,piece of shit,asshole. The only persons who care about Sasuke are Naruto and Sakura and it is an established fact that both of them are retarded. So the main problem with me is the motivation of the hero which is completely illogical.

The second problem is the hero itself. Naruto is a weak person. He has had his balls removed. He is a self pitying piece of shit who cries on a drop of a hat , who treats important people like shit and sucks up to Sasuke. It would have been great if the hero had been a guy like Edward Elric because Ed also has a tendency to get emotional and well up but no one can call him a sissy pants.

However the most excruciating aspect of the series is its pacing. It just goes on and on and on. It eats up a whole episode to do something which requires merely 5 - 6 mins. There are flashbacks to remind you about what happened five minutes ago and this also happens during action sequences which kills the momentum and intensity which is already lacking.

Finally I am so angry because I think this series had so much more potential. It throws you into a complex and interesting world of ninjas but focuses on the faggots - narusasu. It gives us awesome characters like Kakashi and Ero Sennin and sidesteps them completely. They should have been the heroes. It also treats female characters like shit and portrays them as worthless (Sakura' Ten Ten,Hinata) ***THAT IS ALL END OF RANT***

Many people have already talked about the issues of this franchise (this show in particular). It's time to present my objective point of view about Naruto Shippuden. Let's start talking about the main problems presented in it:

1) Time skip. The show already starts with a big issue. There are characters that have obtained power ups behind the scenes, others have been rewritten in the way that Kishimoto wanted like the case of Gaara and many of them are exactly the same, only now taller than before. This is one of the worst way to use a time skip, there's no real justification in first instance.

2) ... Nearly everyone in this show are retarded. Naruto for trying to rescue throughout the damn show a character more retarded and edgy than him, that literally wanted to kill him every time that he went in his rescue, Sasuke for being an edgelord that contradicts everything, since the message his brother left him about why he became a villain to his own principles and motivations that never been explained why it have changed drastically. Additionally, thanks to the previous issue, the character transformed in a plot device. Sakura for being an absolute useless character that only exist for the ships and forced romances, Hinata and similars for being a cheap fanservice and a plot device in the form of damsels in distress, Obito for beginning a war only because he wanted to live in a sexual fantasy with his dead waifu (this is one of the most retarded characters) and many other cases.

3) Many characters were a replica from the previous Naruto. For example Sasori that have a very similar story to Gaara and Kakashi and Obito that were a replica from the seven team.

4) The "deaths" in this show. The death is treated in the same way that the Dragon Balls. There's no tension because there are several jutsus that can bring back to life to any character. The reason of why some of them are not revived is because Kishimoto didn't feel like doing it. And this is not the worst part, many of these characters literally revived to do nothing or to be cannon fodder for the following antagonists.

5) Many of the new characters introduced were irrelevant. Like Sai, who is only remembered for the shipping wars, the new Sasuke's ball lickers, sorry, the new Sasuke's gang that are plot devices created to save Sasuke when he was in trouble and many villains that were one-dimensional.

6) The power ups. If you transplant a special eye you will automatically get a shit of powers like the case of Kakashi and, later, Sasuke. Also, many characters obtains power ups because the script needs them to have them to beat the villain on duty as is the case with Naruto several times.

7) Plot holes. There are many of them and they are all just as retarded. For example, they literally revived an immortal character. Tell me if this is not very retarded. Following the previous point, other example is Orochimaru, if you only need to steal an Uchiha's sharingan eye to obtain his powers, his entire plan in the previous season was a waste of time. Itachi, because he turned evil to avoid a ninja war that was inevitable anyway. There are other cases, but I believe that this is enough.

8) Contradictions. The franchise began with Naruto being a loser and later it was revealed that he is literally the son of the messiah in the universe of the series. One of the messages of the show is about pacifism, which is contradicted when Naruto only forgives one of the main villains becuase he revived his friends. If there was no way to revive the characters in this series, would he have forgiven him? Sasuke, that were during big part of the show an antagonist turns into a saint for being another son of messiah, and he is forgiven for his misdeeds for people in Konoha for this reason. Both of them had the plot armor of a prophecy that made them super special, if the previous point wasn't enough.

9) Bad animation. There are a lot of memes for this reason. Well, being realistic, the previous show had the same issue.

There are also a few good points in this trashy anime:

1) Shikamaru for being one of the few characters that had interesting fights and a decent development.
2) Jiraiya, for have a significant development and a direct and indirect importance in the show.
3) Good soundtrack.

In conclusion, this was a terrible sequence that literally destroyed everything made by the first Naruto. Kishimoto should have avoided turning his franchise into a cashgrab that is not even well remembered today by his own and/or ex fans.

Naruto Shippuden is the long awaited sequel of Naruto. Naruto is a good anime that's why it's no wonder why it became so popular,however Naruto Shippuden ruined it.

Story: 4/10
Naruto Shippuden started off really good, at least it didn't failed everyone's expectation after the long wait. It was nice to see Naruto and the rest grew up as teenagers -with their new missions and new journey. However... as the series continue, the story started to get messed up and slowly went downhill. The story started to focus more on Naruto and Sasuke's relationship - on how Naruto wanted to keep his promise to Sakura ... and bring Sasuke back. The fights took so long, not because a fierce fight was going on but because of the long talks during the fight.

Art: 2/10
The characters doesn't look as good as before. The animation is also really bad, it looks so dull. There were fight scenes that could've been great to watch, but because of bad animation, it became boring to watch. There are also times when the characters look distorted -especially during fight scenes.

Character: 6/10
Nothing much has change from the characters...except:
Some old characters that we thought of as cool ended up doing nothing really helpful and ended up like side characters.
There are new interesting characters but the attention for them slowly fade.
The are lots of characters that wasn't given the attention and development that they deserve.

Overall: 3/10
It is really sad... how a good series ended up being disappointing

I would like to let people know that this anime is awesome and i grew up watching it. If your wondering why the overall is only 4 is because the creators are complete jerks.
They are able to make masterpiece episodes but they have utterly no respect for their fans. Half of an entire season is fillers that are irrelevant to the main story. I watch this anime to see the great action and story following Naruto and his friends. Not some imagined on the spot character that brings up a over-dramatic life.
They take more "breaks" than they make episodes.
Just recently they came ... back to the main story after a few months of fillers i have no interest in but just after that one main episode they decide to take a few weeks for a break, then they did it again.. and again.. and again.
I use to see stores with anime fan toys and souvenirs, They prohibited all their merchandise and decided to monopolize it at a overpriced retail.

I wish some other company would take over naruto and bring out its full potential instead of soliciting ratings from millions of students and swimming in their pools of yen.

Fucking Naruto Fillerpuden , Studio Pierrot, That quality drop,
Anime can be Good but must without Fucking Boring Filler Episode
However I Still love this anime But cant score it than this

Art is Good But i cant accept that Quality drop
(6)
Story is always nice (without Filler) Its good in Many ways Funny Sad Power
(7) But must without Filler

Sound: Not Good Not Bad Not anything striking so much
... (7)
Character: Good like always
(9)
Enjoyment: Fillerment
For a manga reader like me this anime is turning to disappointed
Its being filled with Fillers many many many Fucking time Turn it to bad anime that Should not be

This is one of those childhood anime that is full of memories, but after I watched it thoroughly, I decided not to recommend this anime.

The reason is simple, there are too many flashbacks in each episode, this is the worst motive for stalling time in my opinion. there are a lot of useless episodes but most of them are filled with flashbacks which are very long, long, very long and even take up several episodes.

I don't have a problem with flashbacks from each character, but the problem is the positioning, for example, I was enjoying watching Naruto fight but suddenly I met another character and ... the flashback started, seriously?
The worst thing was the flashback of Sakura saying to bring Sasuke back, I was really tired of hearing that, I don't know how many times I had to hear Sakura's cries for help!

So in conclusion, this anime is good, but there are many negative points, especially for flashbacks, imperfect placement, as long as you put flashbacks anywhere, In other words, this anime is too fixated on flashbacks, really badly, and what's worse is that the same flashback is played again in other episodes, only with a few scenes added, and this applies to other flashbacks.

This should have added the Drama genre, because it's a lot more crap compared to action.

Story continues where previous Naruto series left off with few years time-skip. If you haven't seen previous series, don't worry. Story this time is full of flashbacks and fillers in case you missed anything from last season. Dialogues are dull, fillers are there just to drag the series (they serve 0 importance and events are instantly forgotten in the first normal episode), pacing is incredibly slow, characters are dumb, fights are predictable.
Story in short, Naruto looks for his lost best buddy who is blinded by revenge against pretty much everyone and gets slowly consumed by darkness. One thing lead to another and now Naruto's trying ... to save the world. Main themes: friendship and determination.

Animation is almost non-existant. Most episodes consist of still images with slight mouth or limb movements, this makes them all look awfully stiff. It's painfully obvious that they'd rather change a scene than do proper animation. Even in fights, you can see a lot of changes from one still image to another, because the "characters move so fast"... .

Given the voracity of the backlash against the "not-so-bad" rating that Naruto received upon initial viewing by a fellow reviewer, I am certain that many readers eagerly anticipate a reviewer that, upon broader viewing (or even being of dissimilar gender from the original critic), will vindicate their pristine opinion of this title. Unfortunately you, the reader, are stuck with me. While I don't think poorly of this title by any stretch of the imagination, the buzz pervading Naruto is plainly more hype than substance.

So where does the hype begin you ask? Right off the bat. From the very beginning of episode one this title more ... or less pronounces itself to be of the cookie-cutter Shonen Jump variety, and only a somewhat above average one at that. The character for which the show is named, Naruto, is quickly introduced, and even before the end of the first episode the viewer is completely aware of the ultimate direction of the plot: Naruto will someday become the strongest ninja of his village and receive the highly coveted title of Hokage. But knowing the end of the plotline isn't as much of a killjoy as one would expect. It is the ride that counts after all. However, in the case of Naruto the ride is tantamount to that of an old, wooden roller coaster: sometimes thrilling and often nostalgic, yet still quite a bit rickety and easily outdone in terms of excitement and quality.

The characters, like the plot, are mostly OK while being admittedly cliched. Uzumaki Naruto, our primary character, is much like the leads of many of the most popular fight-styled anime. Like Goku (of Dragon Ball fame), Naruto is headstrong, motivated (mostly to become stronger), and cares deeply about his comrades. Like Yuusuke (of Yu Yu Hakusho fame), Naruto is rambunctious, brash, and a bit of a slacker. Despite his being particularly formulaic, Naruto at least combines the finer qualities of his predecessors. Such can not be said of his archrival Sasuke, a figure for whom blandness knows no depth. In fact, many of the characters fall somewhere in-between Sasuke's blandness and Naruto's charisma and coolness. You will come to care for the cast of Naruto for sure, just not at any deep or meaningful level.

The animation, much like the characterization and plotting, is spotty. At times great while at other times shoddy, the quality of the animation here lacks any real consistency. During the arcs in which the animation is still on the minds of the animators, the viewer is treated to a fluid frame-rate and artistic renderings that leave little to be desired on the part of fans of the manga. Nevertheless, when the animation is bad it is painful. At these times the once faithful renderings degrade to craptastic levels. It is as if you can feel the framerates slipping before your very eyes. Like most aspects thus far examined, the animation of Naruto is a mixed bag indeed.

It is perhaps a bit unfair though to judge a fight/action anime based upon factors such as characterization and plotting. True to its genre, it is in fight/action scenes that Naruto receives is highest accolades, though that isn't saying a whole hell of a lot. Despite very wide employment, the fight scenes manage to remain remarkably fresh. With such a large extended cast, invigorating and unique fighting styles/techniques manage to continuously infuse action sets with life. Additionally, the background music manages to add some tension to these scenes quite effectively. There are some negative aspects to the action sets however. One is the overemployment of certain special techniques, particularly Naruto's Shadow Clone technique, a move in which he creates multiple clones of himself. When a character uses the same move over and over and over and . . . well, things get bland and repetitive. Another detriment is that the sheer number of fights impedes the potency of plotting. Still, the combat stages are pretty intense and there are plenty of scenes for action fans to get pumped about.

How one feels about Naruto probably depends, in good part, on their anime viewing mileage. As a person that has been watching anime for a decade and a half, there isn't too much here that I haven't seen done better elsewhere. However, it has managed to get better as it progresses. Although uneven in most aspects, this show is a good introductory title that will likely bring many newcomers into the fold of anime fandom.

In closing, Naruto, while being better than worse without a doubt, doesn't quite succeed in being as mind-blowing as the hype-machine would have you believe.

This anime volleys between a two-star and a four-star feature depending upon your anime viewing mileage and how easily you can stomach an anime so action laden. If you are relatively new to anime and a fan of DragonBall Z and YuYu Hakusho, it is a four-star feature. Otherwise, this is a three-star series at best

Naruto Shippuuden is like Star Wars the Disney Sequels - a whole lot of retconning, fan service and bull crap. It's one of those anime continuations or endings that were better off not happening at all. The problem is the story, not the anime, the animation quality or manga, the story is the main culprit.

As it continues off from how Naruto ended, the story starts off full of hope, energy, a lot of new adventures, but just like One Piece Post Time Skip, it just should have not existed at all. Just to see the story ending and the price being the whole story turn ... into garbage is a price way too high for anyone to pay.

The way the story goes in Shippuuden and how it is explained the origin of Ninjutsu is also too far-fetched and not a satisfying conclusion. There is a lot of going back and forth in the series, a lot of nothing happening for hundreds of episodes, meaning literally years passing with nothing of significance happening. Then there are a lot of useless side-characters from other ninja villages being introduced, each one gets their own flashback to explain their motivation, again wasting at least 30-40 episodes for absolutely no reason.

A lot of the time is Naruto acting all strong and mature and Sasuke playing emo once again with some new followers buying his crap. At the end there is a great culmination, combined with dead characters being brought to life and useless characters being killed off like Portgas D. Ace in One Piece just to create a fake feeling of how dark and serious stuff are (which isn't the case), then comes the ending filled with even more retconning and fan service and the series ends.

I was glad when it ended, not because I was happy with how it ended, but with the fact that it's over, so I don't have to put up with this trash ever again. The original Naruto series is far superior and it should have never been continued into Shippuuden if it was going to be the garbage it was. This is further emphasized in the series Boruto, which is literally 70% fan service and 30% riding on the old story's fame hoping to keep this garbage afloat. After that I won't be surprised if there is a series about Boruto's grandchildren, and some people will even watch that too.

A good anime, like any piece of art, isn't judged only by it's art style, characters and story. It also heavily relies on the production, fan base and various other factors.
While this anime started out well enough it had completely degraded itself with almost 45% of the episodes being fillers. As a fan I get totally engrossed in the plot and when the production decides to milk the fans for more views this becomes a stab in the back of dedicated viewers.

For 10 years I've watched this anime and at long last after all said and done all I can say about Naruto (and derivatives) ... is that it is garbage.

Never waste your life on this show. You are too good of a human to be marred by this disdainful time sink.