Naruto

I used to like this series.

I used to enjoy it.

Not anymore.

This series does not age well. I found the apex of the series to be the Chunnin Exams and the very moment that Naruto decks out Gaara was probably one of the better moments showing the differences between the two.

But now, looking back....it wasn't worth the time.

... Some of my favorite series have less episodes to work with and tell more interesting stories.

Some of my favorite series have less plot, but are a lot more enjoyable.

And some of my favorite series run less than the amount of filler episodes in this series.

Overall, I lost interest. I still like a couple of the characters. But I've outgrown the series.

Naruto himself as a character stopped being interesting and was turning into the whinny little kid type I found throughout the series. Sakura is just useless and Sasuke reminds me of a slow and way dialed up emo Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho.

This series is a cash cow, it was fun at the time, but now it's run it's course and doesn't age well.

A lot of the series development is either pointless or easy to see from miles ahead.

It's easy to see why kids from 10-17 like it. But I'm 23 and outgrew that trend.

There are better series out there. Pass on this if you haven't watched it.

i just lost my time. a ridicullous story with 100 fillers and bothersome stuff that lead to nowhere. the characters are all cliche none original, besides 75% off naruto is copied from other good anime such as dragonball, trigun and MANY others (if u have watched it and havent noticed u r an ignorant person with low anime culture). in the end i can just say: naruto is something for ppl not otaku, and under 12. for the naruto fans i just think u should watch something good.

Warning: Might be spoilers, not like "oh naruto kills 'name', but like "at this time it was sad".

Well, first off, yeah this was the first Anime I saw, hence I loved it, but that ended quite horridly some episodes after episode 80, when it started falling, and I mean FALLING from grace, it fell so hard I nearly cried. It started out as a great anime but turned out to be some repetitive piece of crap.(Spoiler) I must say that no anime has had me as close to crying as this one from the things that happened around the Zabuza time(Spoiler). So my advice is ... to only watch up to about 80.

(Only for those who have seen it all) :
What pissed me the most of is when they repeat the EXACT thing that happened around the Zabuza time with that other 'sword dude' who has two swords instead of the gigantic Zabuza one. Everything is the same, just with different skills and abilities.

Well I have to say I was dissaponted in this anime a bit. Its very over exaggerated. Well the characters are much too simple and lack depth. Though they are comical which could be a decent aspect. Characters here tend to tug at my tolerance. They dont feel relateable. I dont feel that connection between character and audience. Honestly the main character{Naruto} just seems to piss and moan. Theres too many fillers and fights drag on for episodes. The art is bearable. But the plot isnt too complex either and theres almost no plot twists. For older audieneces, I feel this is more like a ... waste of time. That audienece have tendency to enjoymore thought provoking shows. As for a younger auidence I think this might be enjoyable.

Well, well here's Naruto. Oh joy. OK before I start reviewing this I would like to point out that this is a review and therefore it will contain the personal opinions of the person in cause, me. What was the point of me saying that, one may wonder? Well, simply put, it's due to the fact I'm well aware of Naruto's huge popularity and therefore I'm certain a lot of people that will read this review will, probably, find themselves frustrated of what will they consider of me being completely devoid of any taste in anime for not realizing the geniousness of this anime. Now ... with that outta the way let's head on the review. What's most important for any anime? Of course the story. I'll be direct and say that the story , in my case, is nothing short of dreadful, and therefore get's the 2 thumbs up from me. It's based around a kid, who so happens to have lost his parents, and therefore is an orphan, and the challenges he'll face in his quest to become the greatest ninja in his village, which is called Hokage by the way. Seems simple but yet intriguing now doesn't it. Well so have I though till I actually gave it a watch. To my surprise the story falls flat on it's face from the very first episodes. This is mostly due to the story itselfs being in contradiction with the world in which it develops or maybe the other way 'round. The plot device here is the ninja world. However in Naruto's world, the ninjas seems to be the inverted version. Where a ninja has to be stealthy and calculated, here most ofem shout, scream, jump head-on in a confrontation and apparently don't even bother wearing proper uniform, something to help disguese them, instead prefering to walk around in bright colors so that everyone may notice them. Art get's a 5. All I can say bout it is that it was good but overuse of recycled scenes made it eem cheap and there less enjoyable to watch as the series progressed. Sound get's the 6. It's great that's for sure but unfortunately it suffers from the same problem as the art of the show. As the series progressed the soundtracks ued got cut down untill eventually they ended up recycling 4-5 more memorable soundtracks for every episode that followed while the others went into complete obscurity. Character. Oh boy. 1. I really feel sorry for their characters. Aside from the main characters the rest are underdeveloped and bland, and some go as far as succumbling to certain stereotypes. Example: A fat guy in one group that thinks alwys 'bout food, eats all the time, and oh wait he can also use a technique which makes him even fatter. Yeah, if that's the idea of a character of a comedic value than to Naruto's misfortune it's long overdue. And ther re lots more. Smart kid who is too smart to even bother, kid who ties to win his crush over by standing up to the guy who seems to popular, guy too popular but who doesn't care about anything etc. And the list could go on. To underdevelop a character is one thing but to completely throw out the window the ntion of balance between is completely another. And again, while this is bad, Naruto seems to excel at this. Main characters get stronger by learning new powers while old ones are stuck with the very powers they started with and as the enemies appearing get stronger and stronger the only thing these side characters end up showing is how useless they've become or are becoming. And the main character is also a reason the whole show falls. His annoying and completely unlikeble. Ok Naruto we get it that you're an orphan and despite that you have the guts to stand up to the injustice that life's done you and pursue your dreams but that isn't a reason to keep remnding us this every episode. And also the sheer amount of positivity in this guy in contrast with how he behaves is something that is completely unrealistic. The choice in doing such a character also limits his development possibilities which in turn diminishes the viewers interste in even following this character. He's not worth it. You already know he has a strong belief in the morale values he upholds and , therefore, regardless of watever challenges he faces he'll always pull it off 'cuz of his strong beliefs. But his constant reminder of this aspect of him really makes unlikeble due to the fact that after a while it gets anoying and can't help but give a weird sensation that the show is just trying to scold you and shove it's morale lessons down your throat. With this said I can only state that I hardly enjoyed Naruto and to put it in a nutshell, it gets a 3 on the Enjoyment meeter but that's only due to moments of amusement from how ridiculous this whole show is and of how hard it tries to be serious. Overall I give it a 2. The art and sound doesn't save the show from me giving it a 2 due to the fact that, as well as they might be, the whole experience is poor. Final score for Naruto: 2

Oh my. Naruto. I almost shed a tear when rated it so low, because i wanted it to be any better than what it has become.

Naruto is for me on of the best anime out there if you only count from episode ONE to NINETY NINE. It has commedy, no romance, action and excelent fights and a great character development for the protagonist and perhaps other "sub" characters like gaara for instance.

The way naruto finds his way to release the "hidden fox" inside of him and the way naruto rivals with sasuke who would later become his best friend and enemy is superb.

In the beggining ... he is much of a wuss, but he gains strength little by little through tough training and lamen eating... (~datte ba yo ! ^^) and not through inconsistents powerupps !!!

=== BUT ===

After episode 99, there're fillers and the story starts to get slowed down so much that one episode would contain half of the last episode in the form of flashbacks and the other half being flashbacks of earlier parts of the SAME EPISODE... until it gets to a point where you would get FULL SEASONS OF FILLERS and the anime starts to get UNWATCHABLE.

But people tend to forget/ignore this move and that's why he is just another OVERATED series here in anime list.

So if you rate naruto for only his 99 first episodes (10+++) but as a whole series with 220 episodes in total (3~) we get about 45% of the anime being very good and the whole rest not.

Naruto still managed to have a sequence as bad (or worst) than its fillers, called Naruto ShiFillerDen...

Just to finish it, the protagonist has his own name as the title of the series, wich means we can't expect that he will ever die. xD

People seem to dickride this show in recent reviews so lets talk about it.
WARNING, this review will almost definitely contain spoilers.


Im not covering the whole show, just the 220 episodes of the naruto, which means i'll be excluding shippuden.


So naruto starts of the series by basically being an asshole bratty kid and basically says to everyone, "you cant do the things i do, im the main character, im better than you"
The show always tries to preach to you and emphasize the lesson that even if you aren't born with amazing gifts, hardwork can always make up for it. Let's mainly focus and talk about the ... Neji vs Naruto fight during the chunin exams. Lets first establish the two characters, Neji and Naruto are mirrors in this instance. First lets talk about naruto, but which naruto? There's a lot of fuckin naruto's in this series. Obito is a naruto, Jiraiya is a naruto, Tsunade's stupid little brother is a naruto, Tsunade's supposed boyfriend is a naruto, Kiba's a naruto, Hashirama is a naruto, Sai's brother is a naruto... It seems like EVERYONE at this point is a naruto, TOO many naruto's. But lets talk about my most favourite naruto of them all, no its not naruto, its Iruka Sensei, the most useless and unimportant character in the series. This guy made a big deal about caring for naruto at the start of the series when everyone hates him because they're so similar, his parents died when this big fox that lives in naruto's anus, or spinal cord, i dont really know where. But this fox ate their house or something and munched on his parents, damn that's quite rough buddy. So Iruka Sensei grew up without parents and he also was stupid. So to get attention he acted like an idiot, when really he actually is. So he's like, hey naruto *while crying*, you also are an idiot and your parents are dead like mine, so i'll teach you how to fail and be useless in the ninja world life like me, and he really did try to do that. Unfortunately for him though, naruto ends up becoming a living god that fights a living god that basically gave birth and created the whole shinobi/human race in naruto. He fought a tree from the moon with an eye with 10 tails or something, idc. But what's Iruka sensei doing by the end of the series? Nothing, just jerking it, no wife, no nothing, no advancements in his career as a teacher or a ninja either. He's just busting nuts against the wall until he dies alone in minimum wage. Why? because unlike naruto who is ACTUALLY VERY TALENTED and has a lot of shit going for him that this guy(iruka) will NEVER have. This guy is naruto if naruto wasn't a talented hypocrite who yells hardwork all the time when really he never worked hard at all.

The series makes a big deal at showing how talented and privileged naruto really is. They bestow upon him and spoon feed him on a silver platter many gifts. The first of them is 9 tails from sonic that lives in his ball sack or something. Since its a japanese anime they have something called chakra which they act like its physical stamina but really its not and its just magic points that allows you to do magic tricks that you can kill people with and cause big magic explosions without having to make am actual bomb or something. So, tails the big red fox has ALOT of magic points, LIKE ALOT and when Naruto runs out of magic when he does stupid and pointless shit during the so called tactical fights which he usually does tails the big red fox do will give him more! How much more? just however much the plot needs. Heck at this point its like pokemon when the animal wins the match for the trainer and everyone is like "WOW, tHAT tRaINEr sUrE iS sTRoNg!" even though the trainer didn't do anything. This anime does just that with naruto's fox thats up his anus with magic powers called chakra. Naruto does something stupid and then the fox bails him out and everyone all around naruto is like "Wow naruto sure is strong and is really good at becoming a magical ninja now, i better believe it!" Let me give you one example. Our hero naruto is tricked into stealing some secret high level scroll from the secret ninja association library book scroll place and learns the signature move to make shadow clones. Naruto learns to do this and immediately makes 100+ clones after reading the scroll for JUST a few minutes! Are you kidding me?! This is stupid because later on we find out that being able to make just a few of these requires a ton of chakra points. So how did naruto make so many? Fox hax! Shadow clones are apparently some secret technique/magic trick invented by the 2nd hokage and since it was on a forbidden top secret scroll it apparently is some high level technique taught to high level ninja aka Jonin although even kids recognize shadow clones when they see them and other villagers also recognize it when they see it and enemies all over the ninja world ALSO recognize shadow clones to be some kind of mundane trick so i guess its not that secret..? The point is naruto can only do it cuz he's cheating with his talent and fox hax. He later on even gets told that he's garbage at doing it because compared to his teammates, his magic point control is too weak and he wastes too much of it everytime he performs the jutsu/magic spell trick thingy. He's just dumping a bunch of magic points into the trick until it works. Ironically enough, at the start of the series they show that naruto himself doesn't even know what chakra IS??!! He's not only stupid and a cheat, but he also doesn't work hard and never studies. The thing that pisses me off about naruto is that he always repeats and says that he always tries really hard but in reality we never actually see him try or work hard to become a good ninja. Anyways i think im done writing this review, you kind of get the point. Dont watch this anime its a waste of time. Definitely not the worst thing ever, but could be way better.

At first, I thought it'll turn out to be a good anime since it was common. But, I was wrong.

The character development isn't as great, since Naruto starts as having a dream to become Hokage and goes through several missions and at the end of the series, what did it turn out to be? Having a dream of becoming Hokage once more. Meanwhile, Sasuke's dream is to kill someone that he's been willing to kill, and at the end what does he do? Search for the person to kill him. And it really does not make sense whatsoever. Ninjas are dreadful creatures of the hidden, ... but I only watched this just to get more of a favor for ninjas and what do I get? More dislikes for ninjas. My ideal for ninjas was a positive manner until I watched all 220 episodes of this, praying and hoping for it to be at least positive. But I was wrong, there was no hope into continuing it to the second season. But, unlike my selfish self, I decided to. It was the worst decision in my entire life.

What I believe is that this anime isn't pointed directly to teenagers. It's pointed directly to little kids that haven't had a taste in good anime or cartoons yet.

Character development was poor, story was filled with filters (so much that I got lost), art was decent due to the fighting scenes being all nice and stuff, but the drama in between it... It's annoying. The sound was decent, the enjoyment was alright. Reason being is: The only thing that I was enjoying out of this was my laughter. How funny it is to see someone else being more dramatic than my surroundings in reality. Making me reminiscent. If you're one of those people who takes anime seriously, then you'd probably crash with anger by the time you hit Episode 10-22.

It was a naive anime, but it isn't pointed directly towards the older audience.

When I first watched Naruto, I was amazed by all its glory. I was completely speechless of its humor, how great its art is, etc. etc. I was a total newbie to anime, for Naruto was one of my first anime I've watched.

What made me eventually grew out of Naruto is its fanbase. Naruto x Sasuke this, Sasuke that. It made me pissed off. The story was overall great, but the art, to be honest, it's not that great. The sound still impresses me even today. The character development is decent, but not that all amazing. Enjoyment is decent enough to be watched. Overall, it's ... good for new people new to the anime world. But eventually, they will grow out of it.

to those how are new to anime and have watched this are your first i wish to be the first to offer a apology for this will most likely turn you off the anime world

story: because this is a shonen jump anime/manga there is barely a story with most of it being filler this wouldn't be a problem if it was a random story anime like hetalia but seeing as it was meant to be a continuing story you will get turned off by the over use of switching story's and the over long episodes.

art: many might be turned on by the art style and ... the look of the character however the animation will be a turn off when you realise that some of it were exact copys from other better done animes like this infamous one http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/CETAWS6/1256431478681.gif

sounds: the sound was not as annoying but it is very forgettable

character: it's impossible for me to do this part with out using the words hate of f@#$ you anywhere. naruto is the main character but he's pretty much everything bad about anime rolled into one. he's annoying, he a complete douchebag, he's a loud mouth, and were suppose to like him. he's not the only annoying one in the show. sasuke is basicly the agnst type without any of the growing up. sakura is a annoying fan girl to the agnst so half her dialouge is "oh sasuke, oh sasuke" to be honest it's hard to say anything good about the character (with the exception of kakashi because he act's like a ninja. the perverted sage for being a perverted and the shy girl because she rarely talks). in other words i hate these characters

enjoyment: what enjoyment the anime is too fast paced and gives no room for anyone to breath in the show but there is nothing to breath in that's worth breathing

overall: AVOID THIS ANIME AT ALL COST. if your new to anime avoid it like the plaque this can most likely ruin anime for you! watch other anime's doesn't matter what just anything besides this!!

Over-hyped does not compare to describe this show. I was looking forward to watching this show, but once I did, I regretted the decision. I forced myself to watch 68 episodes, thinking I might find something I enjoyed, but I never did. Most of the characters are horrible in this show. There is Naruto, who wants to become the Hokage. However, he does not seem to take it that serious and goofs off most of the time. Plus, Naruto does not have to work hard because he has the power of the Nine-Tails. After ... a while, I think he forgets his long-term goal. Then there is Sasuke, a one-dimensional emo character, but most of the girls swoon over him. The worst character in Naruto has to be Sakura. Besides the always whining and crying, she is also a horrible person. I do not know how some people defend here characters, but she makes fun of Naruto for being an orphan. If Mr. Emo would have not told her off about that, she would not have changed her attitude towards Naruto. Then when the guys are working hard to get stronger, Sakura and Ino are playing with flowers and Sakura asks Ino why boys are like that? Are these two girls not warriors as well? Should they not try to become stronger? Then the scenes of the cutting of the hair, it was too funny.
I would rather watch Dragon Ball Z, then this garbage. I would recommend Hunter x Hunter (2011) and Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, instead of Naruto.

This is one of some shows I really don't know why is so successful. I can only guess why: It was one of the few animes transmitted on the TV with an easy way to watch. I guess this because of it was the very situation on my country down to the last decades, so I think this is the overall situation.

If you drink some soda, listen to some song or play some video-game, how do you know these things are good or not? Exactly, comparing with other products of the same type. If you have no others products to compare, you will probably ... find anything great, because it's a pure type of innovation in your life. I'm almost sure it was the reason Naruto became so popular.

Naruto is just one of the many commercial crap released with no clue of creativity, if you watch like, Hunter x Hunter before it, you'll easily note the elements recycled to that. Took as example the main character: a good smiley pre-teenage boy with a big dream, how cares a lot about the people around him and is kinda of an idiot. Then you have a cool-head fellow with a serious expression and a dark past.

OK, it already is a very big resemblance, but does it end here, right? Nope. Although it does end in the main characters, you'll see many others resemblances in others characters, like antagonists, tutors, aged men, etc.

You may think "resemblances are natural in those types of work because the authors have inspiration and hall" wait, it doesn't end here, only in the characters, despite we getting two exactly looking characters at the very beginning, it has already to many others "resemblances", as we say. What about the routes the plot takes? Our brave kids go trough a lot of "similarities" in a way it's kinda of very scary. We got to see them going to doing a time-limited test to take an object from an obviously stronger adult; we got to see them doing an exam to graduate to the job they need to, which you'll see them passing through quest-based games, individual fightings and a time-limited contest that you need to get some objects from other competitors, then get out of the demarcated area, that has some extravagant animals besides the other competitors who will make your objective very much difficult.

Although, not everything is the same. Naruto also tries to discern in some cases, but then we get some horrible things: the author tries to write deep characters, I know it, but the think is he don't know how to do it, the maximum he could do was putting distinct characteristics at unidimensional buildings. It's not an horrible move, in fact, is one of the most things shounen writers do. The horrible thing about it is the constant need to rub that in our faces. WE ALREADY KNOW HOW MUCH NARUTO SUFFERED, WE ALREADY KNOW HOW HATRED SASUKE IS, WE ALREADY KNOW HOW DETERMINED LEE IS BESIDES OF NOT HAVING NINJUTSU, DAMN.

Another horrible thing about the show is how lazy Kishimoto tries to settle the conflitcs up: it's just: fighting, fighting, more fighting, Naruto crying about it's past, fighting, Naruto gaining a lot of power from the legendary creature inside of him to win the fight, ok, this over, everyone happy now.

Summing up: this show is a huge caught in the hurricane plot with no creativity at most part, and when tries to create something original, it ends up boring, repetitive, painful to watch and a pure waste of time.

This is probably the worst shounen I've ever seen.

Story: 3/10.

Art: 2/10. Easily the worst animated shounen I've seen.

Sound: 2/10. Nothing of note here. Since the series itself is like 9001 episodes long you can probably find some good openings or endings though. I do remember Ending 4 making me want to rip my ears off, it is abhorrent.


Character: 2/10. Sasuke and Naruto are basically the dumbed-down version of Griffith and Guts. They have no chemistry, and their 'friendship' consists of Sasuke getting all the girls to look at him and Naruto expressing his envy every five seconds. Sakura is just a third-wheeler who gets ... in the way and, oh boy, is she annoying af.

The only good characters are probably Rock Lee, Orochimaru and Kakashi. Rock Lee actually puts in hard work and strives to be the best; he doesn't have asspull demon powers to guide him through everything, and he's just a likable guy. Orochimaru is actually intimidating and has an ounce of intrigue to his character. And Kakashi, well, there's not much to hate about him. He has a cool design and is pretty chill.

Other than that, the rest of the cast is basically what you get when a 13 year old writes a 2deep4u shounen. Edgy dudes like Gaara and Sasuke make me hate rival tropes in shounen.

Enjoyment: 1/10. Do you want to go through endless filler, flashbacks and slow paced episodes with horrible artwork? Me neither.

Overall: 1/10. I'd rather watch Fairy Tail, and I despise Fairy Tail.

Utter and complete garbage. To preface on why a person would ever choose to watch Naruto, were they sane of mind: Quite honestly they wouldn't. The only rational setting for the show to be viewed is as background noise. While cooking, or building a dresser, or something of the sort. Which is how I began watching Naruto:
Binging while redecorating my room. And for that time, the show was tolerable. The opening arc is solid enough, and paying attention for five seconds out of every thirty and cracking a joke to myself about how absurd things had gotten by that point was fun enough. But funnily, ... as soon as I started paying attention to Naruto, all that mild enjoyment faded.
Because it is a horribly written, terribly paced, absurdly generic travesty with some of the most unlikable characters ever put to screen. Gaara, Sasuke, Sakura, Orichimaru.. Every time these characters appear on screen, a rational viewer cannot help but feel sickened to their very soul. By their incessant, never ending whininess, or their absolutely pathetic (and unceasing) attempts to come off as 'cool'. Nothing about Naruto is 'cool'. Nothing about Naruto is 'badass'. Because it is such an exemplary failure in writing, on every single level. Things take utter years to happen, and mean nothing at all.. Never once was a good line of dialogue divulged by a character besides the shockingly perfect Rock Lee. Never once did anything interesting happen to anyone.
It is boring, slow, revoltingly annoying garbage burdened by an absolute pathetic amount of effort for such little reward.
Rock Lee is a great character: Naruto is okay: Some ideas are good: Sometimes the animation is as well.
But the reality is that the final product will make you wince with irritation by the sheer sound, sight and experience of it.
Oh, god.. Have I not mentioned the music? Watch out for that. Abysmal. One of the worst, most grating scores I have ever heard.
Anyhow:
No one in their right mind could watch the 77 excruciating episodes of Naruto I watched and leave with a positive impression. This show is trash.

The story is not bad.Let's review it:
The begining is not so pathetic, but it is not great. 5.0
The Zabuza arc is's bad. Original. 7.0
Chunin exams arc is original.The problem of this arc is the copie of Jiraya. The training before the 3rd exam is totaly stock, it sucks! So,6.0
The Tsunade arc is the number 2 of good Naruto arc. It is very good. The rasengan iis great, the desapoint here is that rasengan is the copie of Kamehameha.The battle of sannins is great. So,8.5
This the best arc, the last story arc, the Sound Four arc. The final battle between Naruto and Sasuke is great! ... The problem that it is copied of Goku VS Vegeta. All of other battles are good! So, 9.0
Shippuden is stock! It sucks!The only good of this arc is Naruto VS Pain, Sasuke Vs Itachi, Sasuke VS Killer Bee! So, overall 3.5
5+7+6+8.5+9+3.5=39:6= 6.3
The story is on 6.3, it's fair.
Art is very good. The details of the Hidden Leaf village (Konoha) are awesome! The details of some characters are outstanding! The art is very good for the anime! 8.0, very good.
Let's review the sound:
Openings are very good! My favorite is the 6 Shippuden opening! 7.0
Endings are poor! They sucks! No comment: 2.0
The sound effects of the anime are goods. The sound when Naruto's doing the Fuuton: Rasen Shuriken is awesome! So, 7.5
7.5+2+7=16.5:3= 5.1 Mediocre
Characters... let's review them:
Naruto- Mashashi Kishimoto is dumb?! What a Failer fucking,sucking main hero?!1.0
Sasuke-what a fervor character?! I hate'm! But he is done well in the art. so, 6.0
Sakura-fuck! What a dumb heroine! She is not even beautiful! Horror... 1.0
Kakashi- nice character. A comic master and a storg guy! But, fervor...9.0
Guy- Oh yeah! 10.0!!!!
Lee-10.0!!!
Others are stock! Copied from DBZ! So,1.0 pathetic!
For enjoyment... I don't know, I don't like Naruto. But, it has many fans(I don't know why, for me it sucks!). So, it's only my opinion (sorry, naruto fanboys)1.0
Overall: 6+8+5+1+1=21:5=4.1 Decent

The story started off slow enough, it doesn't help that pace gets slower once you hit the chunin exams and relief doesn't arrive till well past the introduction Tsunade.

The decent fights are full of bloated dialogue

What ticked me off was how overhyped people that Sasuke was.

What ticked me off even more was how filler increased when pace picked back up a bit around the Sasuke retrieval arc.

WHAT TICKED ME off the most was how there were so many frocking prodigies. Allow me to list: Sasuke, Kakashi, Neji, Shikamaru, Haku, Itachi, Kimimaro, Jiarya, Orochimaru, Tsunade, Gaara, All the Aukatski, Any kage, basically anyone ... with kekkei ginkai. By the end even Naruto, the main character goes from idiot to prodigy in his own right.

Maybe in this alternated world, prodigies are the majority and your special if your actually not a genius

Don't finish this anime if you can't get hooked on by the 5th episode

Pros: everything, but only up to about the first 50 episodes (plus the clashes between the 3 legendary shinobidos later on)
Cons: everything since then

The anime is well viewed and understood. It thus does not require synoptic reviews. I'll just share some personal experience with the anime.

I started watching the series a lot later than most people, but once I started, I had no trouble comprehending the frenzies my friends would have about the series -- a tale of ninja and their mysterious techniques (grown up in China, I love all things elemental-related when it comes to magics and fantasies), a depiction of the hierarchy and ... conflicts in the Japanese Warring era, and a ballard of growing-up with tears, efforts and friendship. It was an awesome escape from the real world, with either new shinobido techniques or new character stories to reveal every episode-- there is always mystery, suspension, and action.

However, (as with all things, there has to be a "however"), that's only up to about 60 episodes, if I recall right. After that, the series is reduced to episodic missions that do not further the storyline or introduce any new techniques. The motifs of each small story are boring and blank at best. The whole series simply turned into a repetitive, dungeon-ish, adventure anime probably only geared for grade-schoolers.

Just to name one of its vice, it occurs in every single episode that some character, in a super intensive, emergent and often life-threatening situation (as depicted by the character's monologue anyway), would somehow freeze and take ages to make the simplest decision or the most obvious tactical observation -- as if the viewers all have IQ of none when viewing this series. What does the anime itself do during all these pauses? About 7 seconds zooming in on the same frame. And then? Another 7 seconds zooming out! If not longer!!
It's almost sever to the point that I can barely enjoy the episodes as animations but instead voiced CG drama.
I gave up after a few episodes of those, obviously. I would revisit the series occasionally and only receive disappointment - not to anybody's surprise.

Hence, my overall rating -> 3/10, in a protest against the inattention of the producer to the later part of the series, while the partial ratings remain high, in a tribute to the series' quickly-diminished potential.

EDIT:

Unlike normal rating, the word clause remains neutral/positive until the score is lower to as bad as 3 when writing a comment -> partly the reasons for the low score.

I tried so hard to like this show I liked the premise (Ya know ninjas) and this was some people's childhoods, but I personally found that's all it really was. The only good thing about this show I can say is the music, other than that the characters suck the only two I actually enjoyed were Rock lee and Hinata as they had actual personalities outside of Dr. Family issues and Mr. I wanna be the best there ever was. Outside of that the story itself is poorly paced with a lot of nothing just to get a something that somehow still wasn't set up ... very well which make the simple blunders and contradictions that most other shows can get away with painfully and stick out like a sore thumb. Example: Chunin exams during the fight sequences the one girl (on rock lee's team) was set up to be smart but proceeds to do the same thing over and over again even though it was proven to be completely ineffective the first time. Overall I watched way too many episodes of this show but I really wanted to like it, I can't say anything about Shippuden because I frankly don't want to watch it after this. I give this a 3 with the tagline of one of those shows that you shouldn't go back to when you're older.

There is no need to introduce Naruto to anyone. Everybody knows it, even people who are not into anime.
This manga has become extremely popular, and even though it is over, it lasted long.

As in every long shônen anime, a lot happens in Naruto. We follow the everyday like of Naruto, an orphan rejected by his own village, in this world of shinobis who work for a living taking missions with their team.
We see these Shinobi pass exams to level up, take missions, and fight several threats including Gaara who has a demon inside him, Orochimaru who tries to destroy Konoha, and the Akatsuki, a group ... with unknown purpose.

Now, the story is what makes Naruto popular. I can understand that. I actually would like the story... if it wasn't so non-concise and full of fillers.
Want an example? Just look at the 80 fillers in the end of the series ; or take a look at the Chunin Exam arc, which lasts 40 episodes (JUST FOR AN EXAM).
Basically, not only Naruto is extremely full of fillers, even the main story is very slow. As a result, it feels like nothing happened. MUCH MORE should have happened in those 220 episodes.

Hell, some anime with 50 episodes or less have as much story as Naruto!
As good as the story sometimes gets, there's just too few (compared with the number of episodes).

If you tell someone who watches anime that you do as well, it's simply assumed this is one of those shows you've both seen, right? Well I've watched since dubs weren't really a thing if that gives you an idea of how old I am, and I'd somehow never gotten around to watching Naruto. IDK how or why, it just never happened. When I saw Netflix had it available and I had some time to kill I figured "Why not?" I thought with how long it had been around and the perceived impression, it had to be at least DECENT, right? RIGHT?

No.The setting's weird ... as hell. Is it the future? The past? An alternate timeline? WTF? They walk everywhere because I guess cars don't exist, but indoor plumbing and electricity, do? "Maybe I'm just being picky," I thought. "You're getting hung up on that, but not talking frogs that are bigger than most houses, who magically appear by doing magic gang signs? OK then." I stuck it out for over 100 episodes mostly on the collective "anime classic" status I thought it had (I generally tried to avoid conversation about this because I didn't want to sound like some kind of anime hipster because I'd never seen one of the most famous). So onto the characters:

Naruto - actually not THAT bad (although, let's be real: a young teenage boy with the ability to create temporary clones, make them look however he wants - including his first one "Sexy Jutso" where he makes himself look like your standard anime female, and if you think he would be interested in doing anything other than wanking off 24/7, you're delusional). He's your typical anime protagonist: a lazy screw-up who thinks he's the best despite all evidence to the contrary, but because he decides he REALLY wants it, and now apparently enough to actually work for it - then he's gonna be the greatest! (Well that and the fact that he keeps getting access to WAY more powerful magic gang signs most other people don't know and because they don't have a young priest and an old priest there to EXORCISE THE DEMON).
Sauske - Your typical edgelord rival. Seriously, if you've ever played D&D (don't act like there's not a lot of overlap between that and anime. Stop lying to yourself), ya know "THAT guy?" The one who always plays a rogue with resting bitchface who is attracted like a magnet to the corner of whatever room he's in? The kind with a backstory so dark you can tell they did it just to one-up Batman? The one who would list brooding and standing on rooftops looking into the distance as his favorite pastimes? That's this guy (putting the tryhard edgelord in shortpants was the ballsiest thing they did with his entire character).
Sakura - just a basic bitch who gets moist everytime gothboy appears just like every other basic bitch in this show. Seriously, can SOMEONE get this girl a glass of water because DAMN she's thirsty!
The sad thing about all this is each of these characters had their own little chance in terms of a few episodes that focused solely on them, to become a deeper character and like the background in a Scooby-Doo chase scene, the creators decided "Fuck it. Changing that up a little sounds suspiciously like work. Just loop it over and over; nobody'll notice."

The plot: So... yeah, I guess this show's main plot is these heroes taking care of their little village, although WTF anybody else would care about it, is never really explained. So maybe it's about the individual character arcs then? Well Tropeboy's only goal is to be leader of this village just so everybody there will quit treating him like the plague because he has a demon inside him, even though once he starts to give a crap and becomes a 1/2way decent ninja, nobody really gives him shite anymore, so you stop caring about his goal since he's basically already made it. Basic bitch really has no backstory except a history of being a tsundere to the MC, while creaming her shorts everytime Gothboy walks into the room. Making his story the best by default, which isn't something to be proud of.

All in all, if you don't want to feel like you're a weirdo upon meeting other weeaboos, then sure - watch it. But if you're just looking for a GOOD anime to watch, pass.

EDIT: So being in lockdown, I took a 2nd look at this review when a friend who DIDN'T know how I felt about this anime recommended it to me. I figured: "Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do." I stuck it out a little longer and there was a pretty big event that happens which changes the entire dynamic of the show where one of the main characters is out of the picture for the most part for quite a while. I won't say that it makes it a GREAT anime, but it does change the feel of the story a LOT so I think that after this major change is why a lot of people think so highly of it. Also once they switch over to... I guess you'd call it the "2nd chapter?" the story DOES get a lot better when they do a time skip to Naurto Shippuden and you find the kids of the story have at least somewhat matured a bit. I don't know if I would go so far as to say I'd recommend it, but if you HAVE started this before and you can manage to make it through the beginning part, then don't put in the time and effort of seeing the beginning then give up on it just when it makes a major change which at least SOMEWHAT gives a payoff for all that effort.

2nd EDIT: So they did it to me again. I've pinned down what, or rather WHO it is that I can't stand in this show. Once they got rid of them for a while, the show was INSTANTLY a lot better to watch... then they bring them back... and do 20 episodes of flashback filler so you don't even get the slightly more mature and palatable version... FML