One of the biggest problems about the show is not necessarily the flashbacks (hey think of it as a supplement to the manga), but instead, the recaps. Recycling footage may have worked in the late 80's/90's, but this is ridiculous. You can tell that they're really just trying to prevent the show from going past the manga which, based on past experiences, is a good idea. However, fillers are better if some effort is put into them (unlike the fillers from the original Naruto).
Other than this complaint, the sequel series has been a great improvement from the original series. The animation was superb and the music fits well into the scenes. The characters are well drawn, and it's great to see the battle scenes drawn well (I still cringe at the thought of what happened to some of the battle animations back in the original). The music, well, I'll admit that some of the ops have been really annoying, but I was instantly hooked with "Hero's Come Back". Furthermore, it's great to see some better insight of some of the characters (which means, yes, I do appreciate some of the flashbacks). However, my biggest complaint about the show's character development is the fear that the script writers will revert back to the cookie cutter characters that they made in the past show, which just made things dull. I understand that a lot of the characters have a sad past, but please, cut down on the melodrama sometimes eh? The show is going to turn into a drama at the projected rate that we saw in the last filler arc. Other than that though, it's finally nice to see some villains that I don't hate with a passion though (I'm sick of seeing Orochimaru's "I can't die" routine). Anyways, here's my breakdown:
Story: (10/10) Hey, the core story is very great, simple and yet it involve so many different characters.
Characters: (9/10) Gotta admit, the characters are well done. It is great to finally see a better development of the old characters, and also, it's great to see the new characters be unique in their own way (how do you not like Sai's lack of common sense?).
However, I'm sick of this "you have no idea how hard my life was" crap from some em...
specially the last filler character, it's a bad reminder of the cookie cutter side protagonists that they made from the original Naruto in the fillers. However, other than that,
Animation: (9/10) I think one of the strong points of this show was definitely the animation. Everything that was shown was very fluid which made the show very mesmerizing to watch. I gotta admit, one of the highlights that I found watching this show was watching everyone use their own specialty set of moves.
Music: (9/10) Ok, I liked the music, it is so great and has it always make me so emotional.
Final comments: Naruto Shippuuden is the ultimate anime out there for me. I will keep watching it week by week till the last episode (unless there are fillers involved)^_^!!
