(If you're just curious about what happens at the end of the story, I’ll include a link to a “spoilers” version at the end of the review)
Alright, let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: this thing is LONG! Weighing in at 700 chapters, starting this manga is no simple task, nor a small commitment. You could read a chapter of this series every single day, and it would STILL take you over two years to finish! If that idea scares you, you might as well stop reading right now and give up on Naruto. Trust me, it’s good, but it’s not THAT good.
Naruto is so long and so complex, that summarizing the story is virtually impossible. To make it as simple as I can, I’ll begin by explaining the setting of the story. Naruto is the name of the titular character, a young, mischievous boy who lives in a village populated almost exclusively by ninjas, but not the sort of ninjas you might expect. A “ninja” in this series could basically be interchanged with “warrior”. Masashi Kishimoto’s version of a ninja is heavily stylized, having more to do with supernatural abilities and imaginative costumes than anything grounded in reality.
Naruto aspires to become a ninja himself, and has the lofty dream of one day becoming “hokage” (the leader of the village). Naruto learns early on that he is different, and that part of the reason he is estranged by many of the villagers is because of events that took place in the village when he was born. Naruto really isn’t very good at ninja-ing at the outset, perhaps making his eventual rise to prominence all the more interesting, but also subjecting us to his childish and irritating sense of humor. Is it entertaining? Perhaps, but definitely not something that’s going to tickle everyone’s funny bone.
It turns out that this “curse” Naruto has been afflicted with is more complex than he realizes, and Naruto spends much of his journey learning to control the ailment that he suffers from. This series essentially just follows Naruto over the course of several years as he learns more about how to become a ninja, and control the many unique, seemingly magical abilities that ninjas have access to. Seeing as we have seven hundred chapters to work with, we see a LOT of Naruto’s story as he grows more and more powerful over the course of time.
A series this long could have the potential to drag, but I really never felt that way in this case. I almost felt the opposite—that there was so much story packed into those chapters that I almost had to pause and take a break once in a while. Again, this sort of pacing is not for everyone, as some people prefer a slower pace or perhaps a plot that it less action-driven (which this series most certainly IS).
As for the action-driven nature of the show, well, it’s actually quite good. Normally a story with too much action simply feels cheap and shallow, but “Naruto” knows how to toe the line to avoid this feeling. Being exclusively about ninjas, we were bound to get a lot of action. In fact, this series focuses so heavily on combat, that there’s really no reason to pick up the series if it’s not something you enjoy.
Combat in this series is very well depicted, if perhaps drawn out a bit much at times. Usually, a fight is resolved when a character manages to outsmart or trap his or her opponent, rather than one character simply breaking out his super-special-secret attack. This makes for a much more cerebral and calculated experience than one might expect from a shounen, which is something I found to be very refreshing. It’s somewhat ironic that Naruto himself is such a knucklehead in a world where brain usually beats brawn, but through sheer willpower and determination, Naruto manages to keep moving forward and winning one hard-fought battle after another.
Now, seeing as ninjas in this series basically have magical powers, it would be very easy for this show to succumb to what I like to call “Dragonball Z Syndrome”. What is DBZ syndrome? Well, to put it simply, in the tenth episode of the show, a villain blows up an entire planet using only one finger. Needless to say, this leads to other combat sequences in the show feeling pretty pointless and the sense of scale is lost very early on. Thankfully, “Naruto” displays a lot of restraint in this area, and the godlike abilities are reserved for the very end of the series, where that sort of thing feels more appropriate.
Fight scenes, although well-choreographed, were sometimes difficult to follow. When all you have to work with is black and white lines, it can be difficult to tell what’s going on sometimes, and I think this is perhaps one of the biggest stumbling blocks for this series. I sometimes found myself staring at a frame for a minute or more before I could actually tell what it was depicting. I know that due to the nature of manga, using color is just too expensive and impractical, but I certainly found myself wishing for it a few times, if for no other reason than to distinguish the blurry characters from the exploding rock they were leaping from.
Speaking of characters, the cast is certainly worth a mention. The cast of “Naruto” is well…staggeringly large. I honestly don’t even know how many characters one could consider “significant” in this series. There are, of course, characters who see more development than others, but Kishimoto attempts to develop SO many characters that it can be difficult to keep track of everyone. The initial cast of thirty-something characters consists of a number of recruits similar to Naruto, each of which gets some measure of time devoted to learning who they are and why they want to be a ninja.
As refreshing as it is to have an action-focused series spend time on character development, it’s not always handled in the smoothest fashion. Kishimoto usually chooses to teach the reader about a character through the use of flashbacks. This wouldn’t always be a problem if there weren’t SO many flashbacks! With most other series, character development is done through the use of dialogue, or perhaps a character being placed in a situation where their reaction tells us about their past. However, Kishimoto’s attempts come across as rather ham-fisted. The series will introduce a new character, and as we get to know them, the default method is “let’s have a flashback about something sad that happened to them as a child”. While this information is useful, and at times necessary for the plot, there’s virtually no subtlety to it at all. While “Naruto” was never intended to be the most “subtle” of stories to begin with, the flashbacks to start to get annoying after a while, especially when the series flashes back to something that happened just a few chapters ago.
Ultimately, when the cast is so massive, it certainly does give a lot of life and depth to the series, but also can be rather daunting to keep track of. Many characters are related to others, and other have ancestors who feature prominently in the series, meaning it’s actually quite important to keep tabs on everyone. This is fairly easy for the main cast, but remembering some of the more obscure characters can be rather difficult. This is perhaps one of the advantages the anime has, as seeing a character move and hearing their voice can make it easier to remember them.
The core group of characters mostly focuses on Naruto and his two friends, Sasuke and Sakura, plus their teacher/mentor, Kakashi. This group’s relationship remains a central theme throughout the entire series, and is fraught with plenty of drama and love triangles. “Friendship” is a theme so oft repeated that it may feel like you’re being bashed over the head with it, especially since Naruto has a tendency to attempt to “friendship speech” a lot of the villains he meets. At times, it’s pretty interesting, and Naruto manages to redeem a character thought to be rotten to the core. Other times, it just gets annoying. However, the idea of redemption is revisited rather often, and it’s worth dedicating some time to discussion.
“Naruto” could have simply been a story about a ninja fighting his way to the top, defeating opponent after opponent as he does so. However, the series eventually starts to tackle some surprisingly deep and philosophical questions that are rather uncommon in a shounen. Naruto is faced with questions like “How can you justify killing an enemy when it will only stir more hatred in the hearts of his loved ones?” or “what does it mean to be a ninja?”. Naruto is faced with an identity crisis at a crucial point in the series that added some very powerful depth to the series.
Overall, the plot is incredibly engaging, and is likely the strongest part of the entire series. As Naruto grows in strength, he starts meeting enemies with bigger and bigger plans, until he starts to unravel a plot that is more dangerous than anything he’d ever imagined. With a series that goes on as long as this one, the stakes are pretty high by the time we reach the climax of the series. I think that’s why I grew to love this story so much over the years. There’s much more to it than punches and testosterone, and the series takes time to ask and answer some important questions about the world of ninjas along the way.
Now, having said all of this, is the series really worth it in the end? Well, that’s hard to answer. The series does lose a bit of steam at the end, and I wasn’t particularly happy with the way the climax was handled. Everything is wrapped up story-wise, but I felt as though there were a few too many “fake out” moments. I lost track of how many times there was a series of events that went something like “Oh, you thought this guy was the villain? Well…it turns out this OTHER guy was behind it the whole time!”
It’s not uncommon for fans to feel a bit of dissatisfaction at the way a lengthy series ends, but I think this one had perhaps a few more unhappy fans than usual. Some of the character romances are handled a bit awkwardly, and the series started to get into some strange questions that never even needed answers. For example, Kishimoto attempts to explain where ninjas got their supernatural powers from in a rather convoluted series of flashbacks and long conversations between Naruto and others. Personally, I never really cared. I was just satisfied that ninja’s simply had magical powers in this world, and I never really questioned why.
From my conversations with other fans, it sounds like everyone has at least SOME problems with the ending. That’s not to say it was utterly terrible, but it did seem like it lost sight of what actually made the series good for so many years. For many people, that sort of thing is a deal-breaker, and considering how long this series is, I honestly can’t blame them for feeling that way.
For me, however, it was still worth the journey. I started my journey with this series watching reruns of the anime on Cartoon Network, and after catching up to that, I started watching it online in Japanese. Then, after catching up to the Japanese subs, I started reading the manga. Then after THAT, I had to wait, week-to-week, for the next chapter to come out. There were spells where I didn’t read for a few months, but I always picked it back up again. If a series can hold my interest for that many episodes/ chapters (and even some filler in the anime), then there’s got to be something to it. No, I didn’t love the ending, but for me, the journey there was so enjoyable that I really don’t feel like I wasted my time.
Really the best metric of whether or not you’ll enjoy this series is to simply read through the first arc of it. The first real arc of the series is 33 chapters long, which shouldn’t take all that long to read. This small chunk of the series is a pretty good representation of what the rest of the series is like, so if you get through it and STILL don’t enjoy it, then this series isn’t for you.
I suppose that’s what you have to decide when you look at starting this series. Will I enjoy the journey enough to overlook its flaws and appreciate it for what it is? For many of you, that answer will be a definitive “no”. But for others, I really do think you’ll enjoy this series as much as I did. Is it a masterpiece? Certainly not, but if you like shounens, you should at least consider giving this one a shot!
Now, for those of you who are curious about the ending—whether you just want to know to sate your own curiosity OR because you want to know if the end makes the rest of the series not worthwhile—I’m including a “spoilers” section below, where I will discuss my thoughts on the ending. Read on if you wish, otherwise, thanks for taking the time to hear my thoughts!
If you’d like to read my analysis on the ending, you can follow this link (BE WARNED, THE LINK CONTAINS SEVERE SPOILERS):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IYAm2X2XRZ33LV1NKJesgWWFq1o3BYFEa9-UsI7zzPk
