Naruto

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

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

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

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

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

This review contains spoilers up to chapter 435 of the Naruto manga. Read at your own risk.


Naruto is currently one of the leading titans of the anime industry, and probably the biggest thing to hit it off stateside since Dragonball Z. At first glance, you would think it is completely deserved, and rightly so. After all, this series has all the components of a major success. Nice art? Check. Interesting-looking characters? Check. Unique and clever fighting styles? Why yes. And don't forget the ninjas. After all, what's cooler than ninjas?

Unfortunately, none of that means jack squat if it isn't executed correctly. This is where Naruto falls flat on its face.

The story is typical shonen fare, a young boy hated by his peers sets off to prove himself useful. I won't go into detail as to why, since MAL's Naruto page covers that quite nicely. The problem here is that said boy is set up as almost instantly unlikeable. He's a juvenile delinquent with low motivations, low intelligence, low skill and pie-in-the-sky dreams. Soon after the start of the series, he gets teamed up with Sasuke Uchiha, a mildly interesting lad with murderous feelings toward his own brother, Sakura Haruno, whose personality can best be described as "only there to be a gushing Sasuke fangirl," and Kakashi Hatake, their adult leader who is cool, lazy and just about the only interesting thing about this group.

I will admit that the first few arcs are actually kind of neat. Pretty darn enjoyable, actually. Masashi Kishimoto had talent back in those days, and it shows. the Zabuza arc, for example, is going to grab you and take you along for the ride all the way through. Most of the others after that are also kind of fun, up until after the Chuunin exams.

One of the best parts about this series early on is its wide, diverse and interesting cast of minor supporting characters. They all have their own hopes and dreams, and every single one of them has an interesting fighting style. For example, there's Rock Lee, a martial artist and the only ninja in the village who has no need for fireballs and shuriken, Neji Hyuuga, a child prodigy who aims for the weak spots, Kiba Inuzuka, who teams up with his pet dog in battle, Gaara, who controls and manipulates sand in battle, and Tenten, who....

Oh, damn. What does she do? Something to do with weapons.

Oh, well. She's basically a throwaway character. Kishimoto invented her to keep the "two guys and a girl" status quo he had going. She barely gets any screentime and says all of three or so lines in the entire series, which is a damn shame. She has a very neat character design.

Anyway, most of the side characters are fantastic, and they all get some screentime to show off their unique abilities.

Until after the Chuunin exams.

Now to be a little more fair, there is an arc right after the Chuunin exams that gets them all an excuse to play around with their powers and provides a decent amount of entertainment. Unfortunately, I have to call that the beginning of the rot anyway, because that is the point where the series takes a gigantic nosedive. And that nosedive's name is Sasuke.

Yes, Sasuke. The mildly interesting young fellow goes from being kind of cool to being an overpowered wristcutter with all the personality of a chunk of cardboard. In his quest for power, which he plans to use to murder his own sibling, he enters the tutelage of a fifty-something Michael Jackson impersonator with a bizarre snake affinity, betrays his friends, and generally acts like an utter moron. Worse yet, the story shifts its focus from a balance of all the fantastic side characters to this emo Mary Sue punk. At certain points, you might as well just call the series Sasuke. At one point, he manages to actually kill his brother, only to find out that Itachi threw the match. What's more, Itachi was dying anyway and only ever had the best intentions at heart, giving his life to protect his home. Sasuke then immediately decides to destroy said village, which makes no sense no matter how you look at it.

Compounding on that dilemma is the story's pacing, which more or less comes to a grinding halt. Fights suddenly begin to drag on chapter after chapter, villains become dull and unmotivated, and characters become dumber and dumber as the plot demands.

The most recent arc involves Naruto's final showdown with Pein, an elite warlord superninja with six individually sentient bodies and a knack for showy, destructive rampages. Though there were quite a few clever developments, such as Naruto's most recent powerups and development from whiny brat to competent, clever tactician, this arc suffers greatly from many side character-related flaws. Kishimoto has begun to kill off Naruto's mentors left and right for no apparent reason and in completely embarrassing ways. For example, Kakashi, the coolest thing this series had going for it since the Zabuza Arc, recently died of exaustion after failing to do any significant damage to one of Pein's bodies. Meanwhile, halfway across town, a young, weak Naruto wannabe named Konohamaru knocks out another of Pein's bodies in one blow. What's more, people began to acknowledge Naruto as their only chance for salvation long before he arrived at the village, despite the fact that he had previously done absolutely nothing to deserve that kind of respect. As of the current chapter, the minor characters who were once so clever, imaginative and fun to watch are basically sitting around muttering about how they'll only get in the way of this person that's fighting the ultimate enemy of their entire village, despite the fact that said person was until very recently regarded as the village idiot.

These ratings are generous due to the beginning of the series. Back then Charactes would have gotten a perfect ten. Now they barely deserve a two thanks to all the derailment. The story, once at least an eight, has now puttered down to no more than a one. The enjoyment rating is only as high as it is because this series is almost fun to read if only to laugh at Kishimoto's desperate attempts to motivate a character that's already got more than enough motivation, thanks, and to observe how very, very tired of this series he obviously is. The only reason I can fathom for him to continue is because his editor wants to milk this franchise for all it's worth, rather than risk starting over with a newer, more interesting franchise. I only continue it in the shallow hope that it may one day become half as great as it once was.

In conclusion, Naruto starts out great, but crashes like Michael Scott from The Office on sugar. It hasn't regained its boundless energy yet, and it's likely to keep sleeping for a while. There is much, much better out there, people. Please try to broaden your horizons. read more

I can't believe this... I really can't believe this...

Naruto is a manga that has been running for 15 years, I still remember catching up with the first seasons of the anime back when I was 12, I remember skipping the dreadful filler second half from the original series and going straight to Shippuuden, I remember ALL of it and it is suddenly over. Wow... feels like an entire era ending.

Anyway, Naruto was one of the first anime series I have ever watched (Dragon Ball being my first), and even though I had lost my interest and enjoyment in it for a very long time (I dropped it REALLY early when I had just started Shippuuden, it just wasn't doing it for me anymore), I still made an attempt at catching up with the manga because people told me it was ending and I wanted to see my late childhood fall apart just like that.

As for the actual review, Naruto started out as a fairly decent shounen manga, it told the story of a ninja called Naruto that was treated like shit by everyone else in the Hidden Leaf Village because he had the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him. At first, he's completely useless and kinda annoying, all he really did at first was yelling "I'M GONNA BECOME THE HOKAGE" like if there was no tomorrow. And for those wondering, the Hokage is the ruler of the village.

He later teams up with two other classmates alongside a more experienced ninja and form a team that does the jobs assigned to them, while at the same time, each character has its own goals and intentions. The most notable, other than Naruto, is Sasuke, an old childhood rival that had lost his family when he was younger, eventually leading to him carefully planning to take revenge on the person behind it. At first, they do some stuff as a team and it is a fairly enjoyable story that does its job in a decent manner. Nothing too special, but also something that I could watch and still get a kick out of. Yes, Naruto was a bit annoying as a character, but that didn't keep him from being likeable, and the same goes for all the other characters.... at least for a while...

Eventually, Sasuke runs away and the story goes on a timeskip, which wasn't really a good idea as the story kinda jumped the shark at that point. Filled with asspulls such as the 99 different forms of the Rasengan and the treatment given to side characters, the story past the time skip had a MAJOR drop in quality, which caused me to eventually lose my interest in the series. Not to mention the treatment they gave to Sasuke, which initially was a character full of potential, only for it to be turned into the most despicable one of the cast that SOMEHOW still does a 180 on his mood. One second he is planning to destroy the village, the other he simply agrees to help Naruto defeat the big bad because.... crap, I don't even know anymore, I really think not even Kishimoto enjoyed what he was doing anymore at that point, just dragging the story more than it needed for the hell of it.

And Naruto himself did not get any better too, he was turned into one hell of a Mary Sue that just pulled random powers out of his arse because he had to defeat the evil villain at the end of the day. For crying out loud, even the worst Fairy Tail asspull is not as big as a lot of stuff I've seen here. I don't even think this was about bloody ninjas anymore because, as far as I'm aware, ninjas wouldn't just summon meteorites in a Final Fantasy manner. Eventually, even Naruto's iconic "I'M GONNA BECOME THE HOKAGE" was toned down and that's when I realized that these characters were no longer what they used to be. What about the rest of them? Pffffft, they were thrown to the side after the so notorious timeskip, it's like they weren't even there.

Another thing I have to point out is that the story simply couldn't keep one consistent bad guy. The timeskip arrives and we are left with Sasuke running away to eventually become a bad guy, a psychotic ninja that wants to achieve immortality and a secret society dedicated to capturing the Tailed Beasts such as Naruto's Nine-Tailed Fox. Wanna guess which one was the real big baddie? NONE OF THEM! Sasuke? He becomes a good guy after a while. Orochimaru? Same thing. Pain, the leader of Akatsuki? Turns out he was a puppet after all. Tobi, the guy behind him? Same thing, a puppet as well. Madara? Not this one either. Black Zetsu, the guy that never had any spotlight? Nope, also a puppet! As it turns out (And here comes a big spoiler), the real big bad just so happened to be the entity that created the energy force they use in their battles? How, because she was somehow resurrected...

Overall, Naruto is a manga that does a fair job on the first part, but completely blows it near the end. If you wanna know if it's worth reading? Not really, unless you are planning to stop just before the timeskip begins read more

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

It's hard writing this review straight after finishing the manga but I wanted to do it when It's all fresh in my mind. Naruto is a story manga and anime fans over the world know, hate or love, It is easily the most detested manga of all time but yet one of the most popular. The story is about a young boy called Naruto Uzumaki, with his entire village despising and fearing him he is practically alone in the village and because of that he as a character values friendship more than the comman man and that leads to him going above and beyond to bring his best friend Sasuke back. With many arcs and a monumental timeskip Naruto is a long story and not for people who don't have any patience, the land of waves arc, the chunin exams arc, the invasion of konoha arc, the search for tsunade arc and the sasuke retrieval arc comprised was part 1 and the flow of the arcs was great, it had practically no slow points and the emotion is high.

With the land of the waves being the arc that fans usually remember as the arc that hooked them to Naruto with the crazy techiques and really showed of what a ninja is. The chunin exams is a favorite to many and is my favorite arc with crazy battles and learning about many tragic past to characters it is easily the arc that develops more characters than any. The Invasion of konoha arc is something that could of waited till a certain part in the story was concluded but as it was it was an amazing part in the manga and it did bring tears and epic fighting, still could of been handled differently. The search for Tsunade arc is simply the calm before the storm arc, Naruto gets training from Jiraiya and learns the infamous Rasengan while looking for the next Hokage, the dynamics between Naruto, Jiraiya and Tsunade is very well done and the ending of the arc is a pinnacle point in the series. The final arc of part 1 is outstanding to say the least, the battles in this arc are probably the biggest in part 1 and in the series and the final fight is full of emotion which Kishi is well at, overall the arc changed the story but opened up the story for different possibilities.

Each arc focuses on something new and trhat's what I liked about part 1 and how it was starting to build upon the ninja world. Then in part 2 the focus of the story shifted a bit from being a boy who wants to become Hokage to a boy who wants to bring his friend back before he becomes Hokage. Now the idea of that seems great but it did bring allot of complications to the story. In part 2 the arcs were structured not as well but the character dynamic was excellent but did seem more slow at times. The kazekage rescue arc was a good opening as I expected te be fair but then it went downhill with the sai and sasuke arc which is easily the worst arc in the series, the only good thing about it really was Naruto Vs Orochimaru. Moving on the Kakuzu and Hidan arc was an arc which used different characters like ino, shikamaru and Choji, the depth and the meaning of that arc was very well written. The Itachi pursuit arc is possibly the arc with the most emotion, Kishimoto sensei may of changed the story to more character focused than story building focus but that didn't change him still being able to deliver and with 3 huge deaths, 2 massive ones this arc stands out very much so. The nest arc is the Invasion of pain arc which to me is one of the best. I would prefer for certain things to of changed but as Kishimoto sensei did it, I couldn't call it bad writing. The atmosphere in this arc is very dark, it's the most suspenseful in the story so far and the fear of death looms over every character and I like it and the ending was a real changing point in the series and very much developed Naruto's character.

Moving to the more recent arcs the Five Kage summit was something that was needed, we needed for the kages to interact and to show that the shinobi world wasn't perfect and the dynamic between them all proved that the world still needed to change. Events happened in the arc which led to a big change, something that would start a beggining of a new era, overall a great arc. The confining the jinchuriki arc was an interesting one which focused on characters we don't get to see much and going more in depth with them as well as learning more about the past. The 4th shinobi world war arc was slow and the fighting wasn't that good but the ending proved it not to be the worst in the story. The ten tails revival arc was much better as we learn a truth about a certain person and the stakes really are higher, this is one of the best arcs and especially when read in a sitting instead of once a week for 3 years like some. Next is the final arc which could be seen as the best arc in the series as it focused on a select number of characters and it had very shocking moments and overall it concluded the story well and I didn't know if Kishimoto sensei could do it but he did, he concluded it perfectly.

I'll say some points about the art, characters, my enjoyment and why I gave the manga a 9/10 overall. Well the art I rate an 8/10, for a weekly manga it is rare to find one with superb art every chapter and the Naruto series has allot of great art but then it can be very shabby as well. Characters I would rate them as 9/10, in part 1 it would be 10/10 but because of shippuden and less characters got development I think a 9 is suitable becuase still characters like Naruto, Gaara, Sasuke, Itachi and Shikamaru etc have great development. My enjoyment wise a 10/10, no less, I love Naruto the series, It's my favorite manga and i can look pass the not so good bits because it has everything I look for in a shounen manga. Overall I give it a 9/10, in reality it's something between an 8.5-9/10 but I think I will just give it a 9 instead of an 8. The story is really an amazing jouney and I always wanted my first review to be Naruto when it finished and here it is ... the story of a boy and his dream! read more