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I'll be honest: I didn't like Naruto that much.

Now before you think I've gone nuts, hear me out. I liked the premise of the story and I enjoyed the beginning of the series quite a lot as well. The sound track is pretty nice, albeit a little dramatic at times and I liked the animation. I liked most of the characters, even. But there were a few things that really killed the series for me.

One issue was that there were way too many fillers. Even die-hard Naruto fans will agree with me on this. There were so many just useless episodes about random ... missions or life at Konoha or whatever, that I started to get sick of watching. Some of them were nice, I'll admit, but most of them added basically nothing to the story line and got on my nerves. Out of the 500 episodes of Naruto, at least 100 are fillers and for me, that is just waaay too many.

There was also an issue of a few plot holes and good ideas that were not revisited at all, which got me mildly to thoroughly irritated from time to time based on how interested I was in the idea. But in the long run, I don't think that problem alone would have made me dislike the series as much as I do.

This next one is kind of personal preference. Although Naruto doesn't have a bunch of blatant fan service or girls in bikinis and whatnot. I eventually got sick of the fact that almost every new female character was introduced with an obligatory butt shot or boob shot. For some of them it was more odd and out-of-place than the others, but overall I'd say that the idea just kind of got old. Fan service in general isn't really my thing, but I don't mind it that much if it doesn't become a central part of the story. Once again, however, this is just personal preference, so if you like fan service or don't find butt/boob shots boring, this won't bother you at all.

But the biggest issue I had was the Sharingan (an eye that grants the user access to special techniques). In the beginning, I really liked the idea of an eye that can copy other jutsu (ninja techniques that are somewhat like magic, but marginally explained) instantaneously. It was an interesting idea and I looked forward to its uses and how it would be developed. I expected there to be some kind of upgrade to it. So when Itachi (one of the characters) showed up with a Mangekyo Sharingan that was very useful to for genjustu (marginally explained mind control), I accepted it. I didn't really get how someone could get from a copying eye to any eye that can hypnotize people, but I just kind of shrugged and went with it. But when Sasuke (one of the main characters) and Itachi started to yank literal skeleton monsters out of their eyeballs, I got super irritated. Explain to me how in the world we got from a copying eye to an eye that has enough room to fit a skeleton. At this point the writer was blatantly just adding complete bs to the Sharingan in order to make Sasuke look more "badass". Sure, it made him look marginally more competent, but to me, it was just irritating. It made no sense in any way, shape, or form and was just a major plot hole and turnoff. The final nail in the coffin was when a villain with the Sharingan showed up with a dimension in his eyeball. How? Just how? You're really telling me that there is now a special dimension accessible to Sharingan users that no one had any prior knowledge/ idea about? What does the main ability of the Sharingan, the copy cat eye, have to do with pulling dimensions out of thin air? It was like the writer was trying to see how far he could go with just random, unexplained power ups to the Sharingan. It was infuriating, stupid, and I lost what little respect and awe I had for the Sharingan I had with this "new ability". The entire constant evolution issue with the Sharingan was even further offset and outlined by the Byakagan (another eye that gives the person access to special justu). The Byakagan was established as very strong and blatantly more powerful than the Sharingan at the beginning of the series. So when I noticed that the Sharingan was turning into some kind of a monster, God-like eye, I expected some sort of special Byakagan to form. But the Byakagan stayed completely the same from episode 1 to episode 500. If you're going to power up one eye so much, at least stay consist and do something to the other one!

Overall, some parts of the story were done really well. Some aspects of the plot and some of the messages wrapped up in this story are good. But some things in the story just completely killed it for me and even though I watched the entire series, I kind of wish I had just dropped it once the problems became too much for me to handle. Even so, a lot of people like Naruto and there is nothing wrong with that. I just listed what issues made Naruto a no-go for me. So if you have read the plot summary and don't have any issues with the problems I outlined above, go for it! Hopefully you will enjoy Naruto more that I did.

Honestly, I had very few expectations going into the anime. I knew that this had been famous for quite some time, but I've been pretty out of the anime loop until recently and my standards for Shonen anime have sadly dropped a lot. I don't have a certain style of anime that I really love( I've watched it all from yaoi to comedy to shonen), I just like a well written plot. I don't mean that it has to be super deep or very out of the ordinary, but rather something that keeps me interested. Usually, for shonen, the characters tend to be placed on ... the back seat while the plot and the fighting and whatever, probably war, that is going on is a lot more emphasized than character development. In terms of this textbook formula, Nanastu no Taizai is not that different. It has the classic over-powered male character with the somewhat damsel in distress type female lead. But I will give it this-- it kept me interested. A lot of shonen have a bunch of fillers and nonsensical episodes that just show off how strong the male lead is, but Nanastu no Taizai used each episode to further the plot, even if a majority of it was fighting. The anime did also make me pretty invested in each character. Although there was a severe lack of character development, with arguably only one character having any sort of personal journey, each character did have their unique quirks and abilities and their backstories and such made them a bit more flushed out in terms of character portrayal. Another thing that Nanastu no Taizai did really well was it kept a balance. I mean this in two ways. One, it balanced out the comedy and slightly more plot heavy aspects of the show, and though shonen typically don't have massive problems with this, it becomes a real deal-breaker when the writers are trying to be funny and failing. Secondly, and much more importantly to me, Nanastu no Taizai established a few rules and actually stuck to them. This a problem I see in a lot of shonen anime. It starts off well and within some boundaries of reason, but as the show progresses, the writers start to really stretch my suspension of disbelief in an effort to make characters seem more and more powerful. That is my #1 pet peeve of shonen anime. It just becomes repetitive and really irritating when characters just have these unexplained add-ons in terms of ability. That, to me, is just a sign of sloppy writing and I usually just stop watching the anime or have to mentally prepare myself to watch the standard of the anime to drop severely. I am very happy to say Nanastu no Taizai did not have this problem.

On a separate note, I like the animation. It was, once again, not anything super special, but it was easy on the eyes and well executed. The fighting scenes looked really nice as well. Other than that, there's not much to be said about the visual aspect of it. I did like the music though. The one hype song that came up during the really intense fight scenes was really nice.

Overall, I'd say that Nanastu no Taizai is a pretty typical shonen anime, but it is well executed and well thought out. I would recommend it to any Naruto or Fairy Tail or other classic shonen fan.