Naruto follows the plot of every single Shonen to date. A Young man has something that no one else has, he begins to use the thing to fight his way to the top of his imaginary society, and he will be fighting off against his best friend or family members soon. In this Anime’s Case, Naruto has a demon, he uses it’s chakra(spiritual energy if I am right) to get his way to become the leader(Hokage) of his Ninja Village.
While watching the first episode, I was honestly surprised to find the Japanese voices to be a bit annoying, so I switched to the Dubbed version and even was more surprised to find I actually liked it. The voices fit the characters well(But some of the characters sound a little too old for their age) and the script wasn’t half bad and it wasn’t censored so much that to explain the dead bodies, they say their ‘sleeping’.
The storyline is pretty much standard, but it picks up enough after the first story arc and I get pulled in after the rookie 9 meet for the first time. That takes…20 episodes.
You might be asking why I stayed in that long if the story was standard fare. And I will say because the characters are incredibly easy to relate to and even easier to like, if not love.
Naruto is pretty interesting as a main character in his own little way, and Sasuke can probably make all the girls in the world rise up and cheer if he just kisses Naruto again, and Sakura…well…doesn’t do anything but otherwise she stays out of the way most of the time and is interesting in her own way.
The other main character is Kakashi, the most kickass teacher in the whole F’in world. He is mysterious and yet not moody, He is incredibly powerful but not arrogant, he has a great sense of humor without trying too hard. In fact, You could have given the entire series to Kakashi and he would probably have the same(if not better) success as naruto.
The supporting characters are just as good, and all of them have a great back story and deserve to have the praise and fan fiction they get and more.
But every series has it’s downfalls for people…and for some it’s worth not watching a great anime.
The first problem(complaint) is that Naruto is filled with Fillers. And I honestly say that the popularity of Naruto thrives on Fillers. To point out why I think that, lets compare two animes that are known for Fillers.
Dragon Ball Z
A huge fight at the beginning…and then we wait the entire season for at least something like that to happen again. Meanwhile, We get to train! And Train some more! And we get to watch Goku learn two boring moves and when he finally uses them, they are nothing but wimpy when used on the two enemies where only ONE was damaged.
Naruto
The Fillers show more of the character themselves and I can’t distinguish one filler episode from just a regular one. Naruto has fillers filled with character development that I love and cherish(Except for that kid in episode 2, I smiled when he cried at the Hokage funeral =) )
The Second problem is that Naruto has stereotypical characters. I admit, many of the characters that Fans like all have some sort of troubled past or they watched their entire village get slaughtered(WINK). But Yet again, I am not picky and all the characters are stereotypical in a way that isn’t obvious as some other animes.
The Third problem is that Naruto is copying off from other anime, which I find silly because Anime is always the same really. In fact, most of the anime you find will look incredibly similar story wise. But Anime is special in that the characters are always new and fresh and can easily be related to. Naruto is no exception.
The Fourth and final problem is the flashbacks, and I honestly can say that you will get a flashback about every 5 to 10 minutes! And the flashbacks always focus on what happened in the last episode. There is a point where we already have gotten five different aknoledgments from the characters of what happened, we need a flashback on what just happened.
In short, Naruto is a anime that you will enjoy if you are open minded and want something new. You won’t like it if your complaining about the characters jumpsuit and you don't like Ninjas.
That means your a Pirate guy right?
