To begin the review I will say that reading this was a complete waste of time
now without further ado
The art- 5/10
It's the same old art from the later parts of the Naruto original manga, which I find it not very good.
If we look at Kishimoto's mid part 2 or even his later part 1 art we will see how much he actually regressed regarding his art style in the series, in the later part 2 the art already wasn't that good and Gaiden follows suit
The story- 3/10
It was completely pointless
You can't say that "oh it was just a side story" or "this wasn't really a sequel" as an excuse no it doesn't work like that
The kakashi gaiden that happened between part 1 and part 2 was well executed, it's plot points were solid and it gave us an emotional message and conclusion. This gaiden however tried to sell itself as the story of the new generation when in truth that wasn't anything like it
We just had a pointless villain and then a stupid way to make drama between the MC's that (unsurprisingly) in the end proved to be another one of the author's countless thoughtless trolls
This troll in particular also managed to erase one of what could be this story's chief messages turning it instead into just another wasted opportunity
The characters- 4/10
Well where to start...
Basically we have Sarada as a main character, her conflict was kind of interesting even if it seemed something more suited to the maury shows than a ninja series, in the end however this conflict was not only poorly resolved but it also managed to destroy Sarada's character potential
Sakura just became more pathetic.
Sasuke is just more of the same old.
and Naruto's TNJ are still a contrived and stupid plot point, however the older version of the old MC's just can't seem to invoke the same charisma the original version of him had, which is a shame.
Enjoyment - 2/10
It was horrible, I read that expecting nothing amazing and was surprised on how much Kishi managed to screw up his story with pointless plot threads and forced drama without an ounce of good interesting storytelling
Overall- 2/10
Factoring my own enjoyment and Gaiden's technical flaws...I have to rate this 2/10, there is no other way to describe this series.
This is a shame though since Naruto used to be quite the huge thing for me back then, it lost a bit of it's magic during part 2 and then lost a lot more of it during the contrived war arc, it just didn't felt like Naruto anymore.
This gaiden is just a continuation of the poor state this series got into.
