Naruto: Shippuuden

It has been two and a half years since Naruto Uzumaki left Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village, for intense training following events which fueled his desire to be stronger. Now Akatsuki, the mysterious organization of elite rogue ninja, is closing in on their grand plan which may threaten the safety of the entire shinobi world.

Although Naruto is older and sinister events loom on the horizon, he has changed little in personality—still rambunctious and childish—though he is now far more confident and possesses an even greater determination to protect his friends and home. Come whatever may, Naruto will carry on with the fight for what is important to him, even at the expense of his own body, in the continuation of the saga about the boy who wishes to become Hokage.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Uzumaki, Naruto Main

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Hatake, Kakashi Main

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Uchiha, Sasuke Main

Sugiyama, Noriaki Japanese

Haruno, Sakura Main

Nakamura, Chie Japanese

Uchiha, Itachi Supporting

Ishikawa, Hideo Japanese

Nara, Shikamaru Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Jiraiya Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Uchiha, Madara Supporting

Uchida, Naoya Japanese

Gaara Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Hyuuga, Hinata Supporting

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Simone, Jamie Producer, Casting Director, ADR Director

Shiraishi, Makoto Producer

Hijikata, Makoto Producer

Azuma, Fukashi Producer

Reviews

Mar 23, 2017

AnjuRatty

Recommended

-------------------------------------
Naruto Shippuden : Review |
-------------------------------------

Naruto. The series that sold over 220 million manga copies, winning handful of awards along the way. An anime that ranked as one of the most watched series in Japan that got tarnished by a greedy studio and has received tons of internet backlash throughout the years.

Let me start off by saying Naruto is by no means a flawless anime. It's the exact opposite. The series had too many fillers. Sometimes the animation quality was below par and pacing can be painfully slow at times. But please bear with me here. I'm going to tell you why it has ... been the best experience an anime gave me in my entire life and dig into what made the series popular while also explaining its flaws.

-----------
Story - 8
-----------

The story of Naruto has been a mixed bag. While it's not bad, it's certainly no Berserk. But what it is, is beautiful (probably not the word that can be often used to describe a shounen anime), but it really is. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to. It starts off where the first part of Naruto ended and the very first scenes gives us a sneak peak of things to come. The series eases you back into the world of Naruto with a slow paced , almost SOL like first few episodes. And the story then on is presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. The story is mainly hampered (not ruined) by fillers and pacing issues which I will discuss below.

Let's start with the filler. The amount of filler in this show is staggering. It counts as 219 total filler episodes which make up 44% of the series as a whole.
The issues that lies within the filler episodes is that they are not allowed to make any significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a huge issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. So mostly what we get is poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself.
However, there are exceptions for this. Some of the filler episodes can be genuinely enjoyable but those are few and far between. The fact that filler can't move the plot along fuels the second big flaw. Which is,

Pacing Issues. Aside from what I've said above, even some of the non-filler episodes are very slow paced. This is mainly only an issue at the start of the series. If you're into characters chilling down and wasting a lot of time, this may sit well with you. But even then some of these episodes might be below par for your taste. Once the series kicks it into high gear around 70th episode, it mostly manages to keep that pace up.

Now that we got the flaws out of the way, let's talk positives.
The main strength of the series is its characters, who drive the plot (which we will discuss in detail later). After the first 70 episodes, things begin to get lot more interesting really fast. The world of shinobi gets expanded exponentially, and if you're a fan of deep lore in stories, this will fit right in your wheel house because it begins to explore the roots of the world and its history very deeply.
Another thing that this series does very well is explaining its core concepts to the viewer. The techniques that characters use and how the things in shinobi world works are explained in detail. Also, the concept of Chakra and what a versatile and detailed power system it is compared to other shounen series really stands out.

The amount of themes explored in the series are vast. It explores all the basic themes of a typical shounen and as it goes on it delves into themes such as the nature of humans, self sacrifice, discrimination, manipulation, roots of war and peace, difference of perceptions, the line between good and evil, and alienation. It manages to deal with all these themes without abandoning the shounen type feel or becoming pretentious.

Something that the author, Kishimoto, really excels at is setting up events. For example, during the early episodes of Naruto (the prequel to this show), he has already started setting up major events that happened in the last of episodes of Shippuden. In the beginning, we look over these little details and minor events and have no idea that they are going to have such an impact later in the series, and when it all comes together in the end, you feel so satisfied. Most of the times these events and twists will take you by surprise and maybe you'll have fun trying to figure out them before they happen as Kishimoto drops clues for you to pick up throughout the entire series. Same thing applies to the moments that tug at your heartstrings , they feel genuine because how the story builds up to those moments.

Being a battle shounen ,of course there are going to be battles, and this is one area that the series really shines.
As I see it , battles can be broken down into three different segments in this anime , The battle of wits , The battle of ideologies , The physical battle. All three come in union to make some memorable and truly great moments. Each characters ideologies and philosophies gets tested time and time again by their opponents and we can see even the main character himself doubt his ideologies towards the end. When we see someone gets broken inside as well as the outside it's devastating to watch. To put it blatantly, Naruto has the best combat scenes I've ever witnessed in an anime. I have to mention that this style of combat is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto does a fantastic job putting emotions into its battle scenes which are backed up by gorgeous animations (at times, we'll get to that later) and a mesmerizing soundtrack, and with these combined it really sets up fantastic visual storytelling through combat. Kishimoto does an excellent job at setting up the events leading up to the fight to make it feel all the more personal and these battles often comes down to which character outwits the other rather than who can punch harder. This makes characters like Shikamaru Nara who have very little ability make a huge impact in the series.
Variety of the fighting styles is massive, ranging from intimate hand to hand style combats, tactical combats, long range jutsu battles, and most often a mix of all of these!

The last arc of the series has been very controversial as the constant change of antagonists has irritated some of the viewers. But in all honesty, all of the antagonists that presented had different motives that drove them to do what they do and distinctively different from each other which made them very enjoyable. That being said, the final part of the war arc was really disappointing as the final villain of the series is the worst character that the series had to offer as the villain had almost no personality and motives were shaky at best. Without spoiling anything all I can say is that decisions taken during the last war arc felt like it was done to unnecessarily prolong the final battle and messed it up with a poorly written villain and bad story decisions. But the final episodes after the War arc manages to reign it all in and give a proper farewell to the series it so richly deserves.

Throughout the series you will witness friends become foes, foes become friends, unlikely alliances formed and broken, that precious character you loved die, revenge plots, plot twists, characters growing up, politics, romance, and the world itself change. It can be flawed at times but it's a full package and Kishimoto always seemed to have the ending and everything planned out from the very beginning.

--------------------
Characters - 10
--------------------

Now this is the core of the franchise.
Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each has a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different skill sets. And hats-off to Kishimoto for his brilliant character design as he used a very bright color pallet and made each one very distinctive to make each of them stand out.
No matter which kind of characters you prefer, you're sure to find someone here that you can relate to. What the series really does well is making sure that you'll be attached to the characters emotionally. And you will cheer them on as they try to achieve their goals , watch their philosophies and ideologies gets tested , watch them break or prevail and break down crying at their deaths.
You will get to see how what's happening around the characters change them , mold them. Witnessing how tragedies that's happening around them having an effect on their psyche is one of the strongest points of Naruto Shippuden. It's fun seeing small character interactions from early episodes grow into full blown relationships.

Now let's move on to the "Villains"
This series checks all the boxes when it comes to antagonist character archetypes.
*Self-Righteous Villain with a God Complex* [checked] , *Money Hungry Villains* [checked] , *Religious Psychopaths* [checked] , *Villain who is after Revenge* [checked]. I think I've made my point there. But what makes this villains so enjoyable is that no one is a villain just for the sake for being a villain. The best kind of villains are the ones you can empathize with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. As same as the main characters, the villains too have core motivation driving them. They have their own beliefs, ideologies and they are willing to fight for what they think is right. You might find yourself cheering on the villains more than the "heroes." The morality here is blurred.

But coming back to the war arc, its main flaw is the final villain (which I will not spoil here). Compared with the other villainous characters from the series, the final character is very bland and their motivations are not entirely clear or most likely not relatable to any of the viewers. That being said, this character is only in the series for a very small amount of episodes and the others certainly do more than enough to make up for it.

-----------------------------
Art and Animation - 7.5
-----------------------------

Again we have a mixed bag here.
This show can look stunning when it wants to, and by stunning I meant big budget movie level of quality. But at times the quality can drop way below par.
I think I should specially mention Hiroyuki Yamashita’s work here. He mainly works on battle scenes and this man is a genius when it comes to it. Even though he only worked on a limited number of episodes, his episodes pushes the animation, choreography and stylishness to 11!
Despite this I can't give it a higher score because this show is wildly inconsistent with its animation.

And as for character designs, we already talked about how Kishimoto made his characters very distinctive and imaginative and how the bright color pallet fuels this.

--------------
Sound - 10
--------------

This is an another strong point of the series. Yasuharu Takanashi has made a masterpiece of a soundtrack for this series that manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The emotions that Kishimoto wants to portray make it through to us so well because of this soundtrack. It connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. I would recommend listening to tracks like Samidare (Early Summer Rain) to get a taste of what the soundtrack is like.

------------------------------------------------
Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 10
------------------------------------------------

Naruto Shippuden is more of an experience that needs to be had than just a mere show. It played with our emotions for over a decade and now it has been concluded. The enjoyment of Naruto Shippuden goes beyond just the series itself. This series has a very big community and fanbase that you could interact with. And its lore is so vast that you would never run out of things to discuss about it. Although it has its share of major flaws, this series is a journey that shouldn't be missed if you're fine with the hefty commitment. It's by no means a flawless anime , but it's an anime with highs that more than makes up for it's lows. It reaches for the stars but makes a few tumbles along the way , but the best moments of Naruto are some of the best moments in the medium itself.
And with this, I conclude my review for this series that defined a generation.

Sub or Dub ? : Sub is recommended

-----------------------------------------------
| Recommendations for Similar Series |
-----------------------------------------------

[Naruto] : Yes, the original series. It's essential to watch it before the Shippuden series because it contains a lot of character development and build-up for the Shippuden series.

[Fullmetal Alchemist : Brotherhood ] : This series contains most of the things that made Shippuden great such as good character development, good soundtrack, and excellent world building. This series does it in about 70 episodes which is truly a magnificent achievement. If you like Naruto Shippuden, it's a given that you will like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as well.

[Hunter X Hunter (2011)] : A series that greatly inspired Naruto. Both anime feel very similar in style. If the inconsistencies of Naruto bothered you, you'll find a much more consistent pacing and quality of writing here. Whether the highs of Hunter X Hunter matches up to the highs of Shippuden or FMA Brotherhood is up for debate, but you won't have to sit through any lows like you have to endure with Naruto or Naruto Shippuden.

[Proofreading - SomeRandomNerd]

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by AnjuRatty (9)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jul 10, 2018

Kuta1

Mixed Feelings

Back in high school, I was an avid Naruto fan. I discovered the series when I was 14 years old and binged it all in 2 weeks, and started Shippuuden soon after. I loved it at first, and revered it during the Pain arc, but soon after I found the show started to decline in quality. And now looking back, I find the show had pretty serious problems throughout its run.

Just to get this out of the way, the egregious amounts of filler amidst very few canon episodes as well as a lot of episodes consisting of 70% flashbacks and 30% actual content is ... seriously off-putting.

Yes, I know Naruto spent his childhood alone on a swing-set; no, I don't have to see that scene for the billionth time.

These aspects became so unbearable that I (and many of my friends) ended up dropping the show halfway through the Great War arc and just read the manga chapters whenever they would come out. Doing this made me realize how poorly the pacing and execution of that last arc was handled, and when I eventually went back to catch up on what I missed, I wasn't surprised to find these errors hadn't been rectified at all.


I think there's a common theme to be had in considering the series that is Shippuuden: inconsistency. In almost every aspect here, Naruto excels at some point in time and then fails to deliver otherwise. The series is definitely one of highs and lows, and I think the lows have overwhelmed whatever high points the series ever had.


Story: 6/10. Our first look at the inconsistency of Shippuuden is targeted at how the various arcs vary in quality and immersion. I want to talk about what I consider the highest point and lowest point of the series: the Pain arc and the Great War arc (respectively).

The Pain arc was a beautifully told story focusing on themes of abandonment, true peace, war, perseverance and acceptance. We saw amazing character development in Naruto: from the loss of his mentor/friend/father-figure to his ability to finally surpass his limitations and become a great ninja, it seems this was what the whole show had been built up to. Furthermore, we had an amazing villain to complement Naruto: Pain. A rather intriguing villain who we can empathize with, Pain and his tragedy really helped build on the themes of the arc. He challenged Naruto, both in physical prowess and personal philosophy, and through it all Naruto was able to learn what he holds dear. All in all, a really great arc; not without its flaws, but still a great story well told.

Then comes the Great War arc, which is 1) too drawn out, 2) ignores character development and replaces it with obscure power-ups, 3) ignores 99% of the interesting cast to focus only on characters with special eye powers and Naruto, 4) has too many villains, each one diluting the significance of the other.

This arc didn't need Kaguya. Obito and Madara were fine villains on their own, and whatever themes the arc wanted to handle could've been well done using only them. Once Kaguya is introduced, we go into the territory of power creep, bs powerups and no one being able to keep up with the villain unless 1) they're a main character like Naruto, 2) they have special eyes like Sasuke, or 3) they randomly get god powers (i.e. both Naruto and Sasuke). Chakra was such a great power system in the original Naruto that didn't model rather one-dimensional power systems, lie Ki in DBZ. It seems now that chakra unfortunately devolved into becoming glorified Ki.

As an aside, if you watched this arc while it was airing and stuck through it, I'm not sure how you did it. I watched this arc while I was an avid fan of Naruto and ignored every criticism of it, and even then I had to drop it for a time to read the manga before I could eventually get back to watching it. The filler; the flashbacks; the slow pacing: all of these put me off. When an episode is 15 minutes flashback and 5 minutes of actually story progression, the show loses sight of where it wants to go and just becomes something that beats already explored themes and concepts down your throat.



Art: 5/10. Inconsistent once again. Some scenes are downright shoddily drawn and bland. I understand that long running shounen tend to have this problem, and we see it a lot in shows like DBSuper and One Piece, but it still holds that the art leaves something to be desired.

The show does have its moments with some pretty aesthetic character designs and well animated fights. The Pain fight is an example of pretty bad art at times, but amazing animation.


Sound: 9/10. The OST for Naruto is pretty freaking great. However, given that the show has around 20 openings and endings (maybe even more, I haven't counted), there have been a fair share of really bad and really good songs.


Character: 5/10. After the Pain arc, we see character motivations start to morph into one-dimensional determinations or become outright forgotten. The biggest offender is the Great War arc, which takes away 99% of an interesting cast to focus solely on Naruto and Sasuke and their bs powerups.

Also, imo, Sasuke is probably the worst written character in the show. I don't want to get into an entire essay on why I think this (because trust me, I could), so I'll just list out some of my points for why I really despise him and the writing that surrounds him and his circumstances.

1) The love relationship between him and Sakura makes no sense. They literally have no chemistry together.
2) Itachi gives up his life to ensure his brother can live in peace, and Sasuke decides to start a war to honor him. Way to respect your brother's wishes. Alright buddy.
3) Dude causes grief to literally every character in the show, then pops up like it's nobody's business during the war and lets it slide that he's going to become Hokage. I actually had to pause because I burst out laughing. Did he really think he'd be taken seriously?
4) His overbearing arrogance borders on stupidity. He attacks a 5 kage summit, ignores advice from others and then cries about the arrogance of the leaders of the hidden leaf who put Itachi through pain. You're not any better, dude.
5) My last point, his undeserved strength and the fact that his relevance to the plot hinges on that alone. Without his eyes, he would be NOTHING. Everything special about him comes from Kishimoto giving him powerup after powerup; atleast in Naruto he had to work for things like Chidori. Now, he can just fire off infinite Chidoris, summon black flames that never go out and eventually conjure up a gigantic Titan made of chakra to dispose of enemies.


Enjoyment: 5/10. My enjoyment, as well, was inconsistent: it varied a lot while watching, from downright bored to immensely engaged. I consider the Pain arc the highest point of the series and one of the best arcs in shounen, and that arc alone deserves a 9/10 at the very least. But after that, I'm afraid the show went through a downward spiral and destroyed itself with the final arc.

Overall: 5/10.

+ Pain arc
+ Everything up to the Pain arc is somewhat interesting


- Show falls into a downward spiral after the Pain arc and crumbles during its final arc
- The diverse and interesting cast is underused in the final arc
- Chakra loses its nuance
- Fights after Pain become a matter of who can stack on more god power + eye powers to win
- Some sub-plots are entirely ignored and never answered in the show.


If you really want to watch Naruto, you might have a better time now that you can skip the filler, but the pacing still leaves something to be desired. At the very least the manga fixes the pacing problem somewhat, but I still find it fails to deliver in terms of story and characters. All in all, the show was a major disappointment.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Kuta1 (47)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Mar 22, 2017

LIQfilms

Not Recommended

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by LIQfilms (73)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Physically Strong Women in Anime

by -Hotaru_

50 Entries · 27 Restacks

2000's: Animes dubbed into Latin Spanish from the 2000's (2007)

by bolakabuto666

27 Entries · 4 Restacks

Naruto Complete Watch Guide (Story Arcs, Movies, Specials, Fillerlist etc)

by TheCoolGuy82

30 Entries · 14 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for September. Week 1: September 3 - 9 Anime Releases Kanojo, Okarishimasu 3rd Season (Rent-a-Girl...read more

Sep 3, 7:56 AM by Aiimee | Discuss (0 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for May

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for May. Week 1: May 7 - 13 Anime Releases Hyouken no Majutsushi ga Sekai wo Suberu (The Iceblade ...read more

May 5, 10:47 AM by Aiimee | Discuss (0 comments)

	Poll: Happy Birthday, Hinata!! tsubagakure - Dec 27	2 replies	by PhoenixPrav »» 8 minutes ago
	Poll: Naruto: Shippuuden Episode 123 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) removed-user - Aug 20, 2009	109 replies	by Lord_Kleveland »» Dec 25, 9:38 AM
	Poll: Naruto: Shippuuden Episode 175 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Knave - Aug 26, 2010	195 replies	by pickyotaku »» Dec 25, 4:58 AM
	Poll: Naruto: Shippuuden Episode 161 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) KriegWurst - May 20, 2010	131 replies	by pickyotaku »» Dec 23, 11:21 AM
	Poll: Naruto: Shippuuden Episode 86 Discussion CCLocs - Dec 5, 2008	31 replies	by diksha_hehe »» Dec 22, 11:03 AM

Top 25 Strongest Naruto Characters

The Naruto franchise is host to a lot of ridiculously powerful ninja that can annihilate entire landscapes with ease, and even bring people back to life. Let’s take a look at the mightiest of them in this list of the strongest Naruto characters!

by Kvasir369

1,194,481 views

Spoiler

CollectionNaruto

Naruto Hand Signs and Jutsu

Naruto Hand Signs, also called Hand Seals, are used by ninjas to manipulate their chakra, the inner energy that is used to create ninja techniques(Jutsu). Here is a perfect Naruto hand signs guide!

by NicWat10

227,015 views

ActionBackground AnalysisWeaponsSuperhumanNaruto