The story of Naruto is an interesting and unique one. Its something that hasn't been told too often and it has a great setting. But the anime does a very poor job of executing it. There are a few canon episodes, then a plethora of fillers appear out of nowhere, so that when the canon story continues from where it left off, I have somewhat lost my hype on what was happening before the filler. This is even more prominent towards the end of the series, which is where there's supposed to be excitement above all else. The fillers themselves are so bad they ruin the characters' personalities to some extent.The canon episodes are dragged on by the same flashbacks so many times you'll start feeling sleepy. The characters' backstories, especially Naruto's, are shown so many times, you won't even feel sentimental anymore. There were some great story arcs like the Pain arc, but the rest all drag on and on.
Speaking of characters, Naruto has some of the best characters in anime, hands down. Protagonists like Naruto, Shikamaru, Kiba etc and antagonists like Itachi, Nagato, Madara are some of the best ever in anime history. But I feel that as the series progresses, the series starts focusing too much on Naruto and Sasuke and leaves out interesting supporting characters. Even the notoriously bad guys are somehow turned into good guys through some bullshit backstory so that they MUST turn good before they die, even evil-F*CKING-Madara. so the series kinda ruins the characters it brought up, though I wouldn't say they are bad.
The animation too goes downhill since the beginning, and this is one of the worst aspects of the show. Too many still images, too many flashbacks, too long recaps are all there to increase the runtimes and save up some budget. There were some arcs that were decently animated, but others are sloppy and still to the point I sometimes thought my computer froze.
The soundtrack has a great Ninja-esque felling to it, and it unique and in most instances, pretty catchy. Most of the opening songs are great while the endings are average (I guess). The voice acting is done greatly, as one would expect of anime (lol). The dub, of course, is terrible.WATCH THE CAPTIONS!!!!!
Overall, Naruto is good if you ignore the plethora of fillers, the sloppy animation and the terrible dragging on of its episodes, but that just can't be ignore can they?
