What exactly is wrong with Naruto?

[Marid King]

The original Naruto was the first subbed anime I ever watched, way back in middle school. I grew up with it, and with several friends who followed it with me, and to this day I still read the manga every week. As you might guess, I'm hopelessly biased in its favor.   

When I started getting into anime a few years back, I was shocked to find that the general opinion of Naruto was that it is a mediocre series. I've seen quite a few anime since. Based on my memories of Naruto, if I'm honest with myself, I would award it an 8 or 9 out of 10. The only titles I've watched that I enjoyed more are Gankutsuou, Steins;Gate, Hyouka, and Usagi Drop (If you want to be horrified, you can check my MAL to see all the anime I've watched). Certainly I don't mean to say that only those four surpass Naruto in quality; however, no others were for me as enrapturing and stimulating.

I'd like to find out how much of that is based on mere youthful sensitivity and naiveté. Unfortunately, I no longer have the time nor the inclination to rewatch a hundred episodes of a series. And so here I am.

I'd like to hear what the people of the Nihon Review have to say. Is Naruto a mediocre series? Why? What are its strengths, and what are its flaws? What score would you give it?

When considering, please ignore all filler episodes and focus on the manga-faithful episodes. I already know what's wrong with the former. Also, I'm talking strictly about the original, not Shippuuden.

Personally, what I enjoyed most about Naruto was the smart fights, the fun and distinctive soundtrack, the development of the protagonists as they struggle with hardship, the intriguing villains, the clever puzzles, and of course the unpredictable humor. 

[Kaikyaku]

I have never seen any Naruto, so I can't comment on that, but I will say I know understand you feel. My gateway into anime was Inuyasha and I was a big big fan. For a long time I thought it was the best thing ever and even now it holds a special place for me. I know if I watched it again now I would be disappointed, so I would rather stick with my fond memories of the glorious kaze no kizu that was my anime youth.

[The Big Guy]

Now, I'm right there with you when you say you grew up with Naruto in middle school, and I have fond memories of it as well, but I don't think I would rate it as highly as you do.The thing with Naruto is that it falls into the usual shounen pitfalls. Tournament arc? Check. Training Arc? Check. Incredibly bloated? You get the idea. That last one is probably the most important, especially compared to another shounen show and critical darling out this year, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. A naruto training arc tends to last around 15-30 episodes while by comparison Jojo spends an episode at most, and it makes a tremendous difference on the pacing and overall quality of the show. The problem with long, long shows is that it tends to get mired in fillers, and that ultimately can bring a show down. It is not as though Naruto (minus the filler) is bad, per se, the opening episodes were great and broke the mold for a bit (there's a reason why Zabuza and Haku tend to be a lot of people's favorite villains, myself included) and there are actual character arcs and development (I'm looking at you, Bleach), but drag on too long and eventually the quality will suffer.

[TypicalIdiotFan]

The only titles I've watched that I enjoyed more are Gankutsuou, Steins;Gate, Hyouka, and Usagi Drop (If you want to be horrified, you can check my MAL to see all the anime I've watched). Certainly I don't mean to say that only those four surpass Naruto in quality; however, no others were for me as enrapturing and stimulating.

That's odd.  I have no problem saying that Gankutsuou, Steins; Gate, Hyouka, and Usagi Drop surpass Naruto in quality.

Big Guy laid out a lot of the pitfalls of Naruto, which are mostly genre based, but not all shounen battle anime that follow the typical tropes suck balls.  Just off the top of my head, Index / Railgun, Hunter x Hunter, Magi, and Soul Eater manage to either avoid or embrace said tropes in unique ways.  Some, like Medaka Box, end up being parodies and deconstructions while still working as actual shounen battle manga.  This isn't to say that each doesn't also have weaknesses, but there are certainly mold breakers and then there are not.  Inevitably, what really kills a shounen battle anime / manga is the length.  Popular manga / anime keep going well past their expiration dates.  The most widely known example of this is Dragon Ball, which was supposed to end a couple of times, but was pushed forward by publishers who still wanted to milk the cow (even going so far as to punt the original creator's wishes and carry on without him).  Length has really hurt several manga over the years, which has resulted in mass continuity inconsistencies and / or outright handwaving.  Bleach, especially, is a victim of this.  One of the few popular battle anime that has managed to avoid a lot of pitfalls is supposedly One Piece, but I haven't seen any of it so I cannot comment.

So a lot of negativity comes from that, but there is enough obnoxiousness from Naruto itself that rustles jimmies.  I'm not as familiar with the show as others, but I know a lot of the characters are either very poorly developed and one dimensional or just outright hated by the fanbase.  Naruto himself has his fans and his foes, but I don't think anybody gets it quite as much as Sakura.  Part of that is the failing of the writing itself, as she is treated like another common shounen battle manga trope:  a wimp who often ends up the damsel in distress or helpless bystander more than an actual beneficial member of the "nakama".  Female characters in battle manga tend to be this way, especially the "lead" female.  Give me a battle manga, and I can point out that character easily enough.  This is just an example I've gleamed from comments, so don't take it as my own personal critique.

Another blot of negativity is from the absolutely horrifyingly bad filler episodes that carried on way too long.  One website notes that both Naruto and Shippouden have had roughly 40% of their existing episodes as filler.  That's way too high a number.  I realize that anime often catch up to manga, but I am so anti-filler it isn't funny.  I would rather they cut the show for a later season or air re-runs for a year until the new episodes come out than do filler.  Having not experienced the pain of the year long Naruto filler arcs, I can't comment as to how much it would have aggravated me, but having experienced something similar with Bleach (which I did watch), I imagine it would have pissed me right the **** off.

I'm sure there are other issues.  I know a lot of negatives were waned when Shippouden came out, but it seems that lately some of those same gripes are starting to return.  Like I said, nothing kills a show like not knowing when to quit.

Lastly, I would say that whatever attachment you have to a series is based on nostalgia or, by your admission, familiarity.  It is the first anime you watched / enjoyed, ergo it will always mean something to you than anybody else.  I personally have the same irrational attachment to Macross, but that shouldn't stop you from being able to make an honest assessment of what you're watching.  Enjoyment is one thing, and an important thing to an anime's value, but it isn't the only thing.  I mean, you could enjoy MD Geist all you want, it's still a shit anime.

[DrIdiot]

I recently rewatched some of the comedies I loved in high school (Anchorman, Dodgeball...).  I was totally perplexed as to what I liked in them in the first place.  Certainly I have nostalgic memories associated with some of these movies, but it's important to keep the distinction clear: the nostalgia is not for the movies themselves.

I also recently rewatched Evangelion, which I had first watched in middle school.  Though certainly I liked different things about it this time around (in particular, no more fan fiction herp derping), it was still interesting to me.  Evangelion is a rich work.  Middle schoolers might watch it for the robots and boobs, high schoolers for the angst and (maybe pretentious) philosophy, but adults can watch it too -- if not because they identify with the older characters to some degree, then because they identify their younger selves in the younger characters, and that has meaning too.  The people in Evangelion felt very real, despite their ****ed-up-ness.

So to answer your question, the reason I don't watch shows like Bleach (I did not watch Naruto) anymore is that there's no reason to go back.  Nothing that happens to any of those people has or really had anything to do with me, and I no longer have the disposition to indulge in such things.  I no longer find the jokes funny, nor the fights entertaining, nor the fantasies convincing...

[Reckoner]

When your series is really long, you're naturally going to have your ups and your downs. Of course fillers are shit, but as a manga reader, I've always avoided naruto fillers like the plague. I would say a huge amount of the negativity around Naruto surrounds the filler arcs and the first arc or two of Shippuden. We went through like 2-3 years of Naruto fillers if I recall correctly and when we finally got to the Shippuden episodes, the adaption was honestly quite poor. It took a little while for Shippuden to hit its stride as a result, even though the manga of these parts was enjoyable to read.

But anyways.... I think the other major source of negativity surrounding Naruto is that a lot of people like I, started this series when we were younger teenagers. Now we're in our 20's and what appealed to us back then might not appeal to us now. Naruto is honestly not the highest brow series around. Its emotional complexity is nonexistent. People basically outgrew the series. However, I do feel Shippuden tried to account for this in some ways, as it is definitely more serious than Part 1, though not by any means a good representative of anything remotely deep or intellectually stimulating.

But in the end, whether it be for nostalgia or other reasons, I have been a loyal reader of the Naruto manga for many many years. I still like the series, even if it's in some ways "past its prime." The interesting thing is that I thought the Pain arc in Naruto might have been the best thus far, but that came so many years after the series started. That's how these long running series go in the end. I definitely think Naruto gets way too much shit. Kishimoto is not the most complex mangaka around, but his story is still fun and he's developed a huge cast of characters. Yes, Sakura was tossed aside like trash and he hates women. Yes, Sasuke is a polarizing character. Yes, the Konoha 9 are not as relevant as they used to be. But he's done so much with his setting, and plot, and I've never questioned his passion for his story. Naruto is IMO, not a bad show when it is not on fillers.

As a side note, the manga is getting VERY close to its end.


P.S.

If people want more maturity, complexity, and really tight writing... Hunter x Hunter is where it's at. Greatest shonen manga IMO. F one piece.

[hyperknees91]

The problem with Naruto is the pacing is crap (obviously), the directing is crap (because they have to drag episodes out generally, save for a few) and there are way too many characters. Some episodes are simply brilliant though (episode 82 of shippuden is one of the best episodes in any show ever).

Hunter x Hunter and One Piece are the two most enjoyable shounens if you ask me, but the pacing and dragging out of episodes severelyyyy hurts one piece's enjoyment. Basically we have very very very few shounen's which have actually been given proper love in the directing department (the only two I can think of are both seasons of hunter x hunter and Jojo).

So yeah if you want to see the Naruto plot told in a much better fashion you're better off playing ninja storm 2, and 3. The directing is better and the pacing is better (and the animation is more consistent and looks really good as a bonus).