Current Events > What's your thoughts on the Naruto series?

(+) Yeah! (+)

When I say Naruto series I mean Naruto and Shippuden. Not Boruto.

I rewatched it and I still really enjoyed it overall. I'm not sure where the strong hate from some people come from. The story is very interesting with plenty of twist. It has some pretty deep Lore. It had a great sense of power progression which many animes aren't great at based on my experience. Character development was very good from the quality of the development to the quantity. (Oddly enough, Naruto had the least amount of progression)

There were some clear bad things though. The number of fillers is just insane. Especially in the original Naruto toward the end. Plus, most of them felt like a waste of time in the original. They were there as character development which wasn't needed because the main story did a great job at developing all those characters. Shippuden did a MUCH better job with fillers. They filled time gaps with fillers that were directly relevant to the next arc. (For the most part) Very well done there overall IMO.

To sum it up, I can see why people adore this series. It has some hickups here and there. What makes it good to me is that some things don't seem to make sense when it happens but then you can actually explain it with the Lore. That's pretty cool to me.

What's your thoughts?
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Mostly trash from the start. Some really cool characters, tho, like Kakashi and Guy.
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Not my style, hard pass
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Started off alright.

Had significant quality drops as it went on, became the "lol Ninja Jesus" show as it went on too.

Even Dragon Ball allows side characters to do more, and actually fail.
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I like Rock Lee

Chunin exams, Jiraya and Akatsuki were very memorable for me

I liked it
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Trash, imo.
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A series with amazing potential that decided to throw it all away by focusing on the wrong things like eye powers and forgiving Sasuke over the massively more interesting side characters and fleshing out the world beyond the Leaf.
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I stopped giving a shit after the Pain arc
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Eh, it tried.
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Parts of it are very good. The Zabuza saga, Chunin Exams, Pain arc, for example. But it is bogged down by tons and tons and tons or pointless fillar and the latter half of Shippuden goes off the rails real hard in the worst way. Also the entire thing revolving around the visual powers is just stupid, and the entire circle of You though Pain was behind everything, but it was me Tobi, but I'm actually Madara, but I'm actually Obito, but I was actually being controlled by Madara, except I'm planning around his plans, except that he's planning around me planning around his plans, except it was actually White Zetsu all along planning around all our plans to bring back magical moon lady who hasn't been mentioned before now and she's the real villian who planned all this thousands of years ago is dumb as shit and I probably missed some of the steps before the first one. Overall it was pretty mediocre with snippets of greatness.
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The_Ivory_Man posted...

Even Dragon Ball allows side characters to do more, and actually fail.

I strongly disagree here.

Naruto had a pretty great cast of supporting characters with their own development and stories. Shikamaru had a stellar arc against Hidan and Kakazu
Hinata went from incredibly timid to willing to stand beside and in front of her love (and even almost died)
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@ZMythos posted...

Hinata went from incredibly timid to willing to stand beside and in front of her love (and even almost died)

LOL, don't even pretend Hinata was ever actually useful. The vast majority of the females in Naruto are useless.

That's not to say Naruto doesn't handle its side characters better than Dragon Ball does, but still. Naruto sucks with female characters. Lee and Neji, two of the coolest characters in Part 1, really get thrown under the bus in Part 2 as well.
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

LOL, don't even pretend Hinata was ever actually useful.

Of course not. She was garbage in and out. But she definitely had actual character development
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I stopped watching when sasuki grew giant hand wings sometimes I think I might want to continue but I have no idea what episode I was on.
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best girl won so it's great by default
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Rock Lee and Gaara
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I read all 700 chapters of that and Gaiden/Salad's sidestory. I dropped the anime because it had too much filler and ruined fights with that one's animator's shitty art. I hated probably more than half of the series and I'm so glad Sasuke didn't end up the Hokage, though an Uchiha really should take the spot someday.

Fwiw it was the first manga I ever read and it was such an odd feeling when it ended. A new chapter of Naruto every week was just so routine for me for a long time.
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Naruto is one of those weird franchises where I'd rather read fanfiction than read/watch the source material.
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ZMythos posted...

The_Ivory_Man posted...

Even Dragon Ball allows side characters to do more, and actually fail.

I strongly disagree here.

Naruto had a pretty great cast of supporting characters with their own development and stories. Shikamaru had a stellar arc against Hidan and Kakazu
Hinata went from incredibly timid to willing to stand beside and in front of her love (and even almost died)

Yeah, and Dragon Ball does that better too.

Let's compare Piccolo throughout OG, Z and Super to say Gaara throughout the original, Shuppuden, and Boruto

Piccolo trains Gohan and sacrifices himself while fighting Nappa, showing his development.
He goes and fights Frieza, preforming well and fighting for his people, even absorbing the memories and strength of someone there.
Trains side by side with Goku who he previously saw as an enemy, after keeping secrets for him and filling in everyone on what's happening with Trunks
Becomes the leader of the Z-Warriors in Goku's absence showing himself as one of the strongest there and defeating Android 20 in Goku's failure
Finds out about Cell, the true main villain, has a cool sequence where he stalls for time.
He then briefly becomes the Strongest Z-Warrior (surpassing the three Super Sayians) and is the first person to actually be shown with a chance at defeating one of the Androids.
Then turns and gets the Androids to work with him against the new threat in Cell.
Lectures Goku about his own son's personality, after providing him with his clothes

Shikimaru was cool, but again those characters really stop mattering.

I'm going to stop now, but any comparison results in the Dragon Ball characters doing more over the course of the series.
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Currently watching some filler (because you're not a true fan or can't say you've watched an entire series while skipping filler) right now and I'm enjoying the character of Yukimi. Her pink smoke jutsu. Funny stuff
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