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The jokes got old fast, InuYasha and Sesshoumaru were the only characters with much character development, the fights were boring (InuYasha was a bad fighter, anyway), and the romance was like a cheap soap opera. The romance never progressed, nor did anything else, really. It's sad, because the characters were potentially very likeable, but as I said before, Sango, Miroku, and Shippou had no character development at all, and Kagome only had a little.

There's really not much of a plot. Think of it as Dragon Ball for girls, and you've pretty much got it. Kagome, Inuyasha, and friends search for pieces of a broken jewel. ... They find half of the jewel within the first couple of episodes, but another 150 episodes, give or take, go by after that with the jewel still incomplete. The series goes on seemingly forever with little progress in plot or character development. The seemingly infinite, pointless filler episodes that provide no character development and little, if any, entertainment, while also making up over half of the series, don't help matters.

Some of the fight scenes in the first few episodes were rather exciting, so this made up for the lack of character development. After all, it's pretty much natural for an action series to sacrifice character and story development for good action scenes. But as the show went on, InuYasha relied more and more on one big, flashy attack that finished every fight. The same animation of InuYasha using that attack was used in many of the episodes, as well. And instead coming up with a variety of different ways to stop InuYasha's technique, they just relied on the use of the same device over and over again. So the fight scenes, like much of the series, became very repetitive.

There are good aspects to this show. The artwork is beautiful, even if the fights reuse the same scene of InuYasha using his strongest move for nearly every fight. InuYasha is a very touching character, and Kagome is a character that is easy to identify with. However, anyone who knows the series Fruits Basket can see quickly that InuYasha and Kyo Sohma are nearly identical in personality, so InuYasha and Sesshoumaru's pretty faces, Kagome, and the occasional episode that's actually funny (a couple of them were hilarious) end up being the only really good reasons to watch.

Overall, it's mainly the plot (or lack thereof) and lack of character development that stop this anime from being great. Of course, being an action series, a lack of character development would've been fine if the fights were entertaining, but the entertainment value of the fight scenes is rather low. I definitely recommend watching a few episodes. There's fun to be had with this series, but the sub-par aspects of the show drag it down, making it something that's far worse than the sum of its parts.

The world of Naruto is probably the most interesting aspect of the show. Despite being a show about ninja, the soldiers in this manga are really ninja in name only. They're actually much more reminiscent of modern soldiers with flashy ninja magic than mysterious, stealthy ninja.

There characters are a rather nice aspect of the show. Many of them are archetypes, but I find them entertaining regardless. I also feel like the characters that are around Naruto's age (teenagers) have realistic personalities. They're teenagers, and they act like teenagers. That's one of the reasons I like them. Many would disagree with me, so it's really a ... matter of taste and perspective.

The action scenes are rather exciting, but there certainly is better out there. The characters have a variety of different ways in which they do battle, and some styles are very entertaining. Others seems utterly ridiculous and completely out of place in a manga that's trying to be serious.

Now, while the series certainly has it's good aspects, the overall series is something worse than the sum of its parts. In fact, while Kishimoto clearly knows what he's doing from an artistic standpoint, his lack of story-telling skills shows through. He spends far too much time putting focus on minor characters. There ends up being so little focus on Naruto himself that it's almost impossible to feel any attachment toward him. I also find him to be rather annoying, which makes it even more difficult to feel for him.

Furthermore, he only focuses on one character at a time. He seems incapable of putting the focus on a group of characters, as he should. Even when the characters are together, they only seem to speak to one another when necessary, never saying much more than what's needed. So while the characters themselves are decent, the character interactions are not very well done.

The story also seems to get side-tracked quite often. Some story arcs have very little to do with the main story at all. Now, that wouldn't be such a problem, but a few of these story arcs each span over a few volumes. A lot of the time, it feels like a waste of time.

The art is quite good, but Kishimoto actually has a tendancy to show too much detail. He shows far more than what's necessary, taking up panels, taking up pages, and slowing down the progress of the manga.

The slow progress is the final nail in the coffin. The longer the series goes, the more it's flaws stand out. The series is good, but not good enough to justify the long, tedious progression of events.

Personally, I love this series. However, I have to admit that, looking at it from a critical standpoint, most aspects of this manga are so utterly mediocre that the series ends up looking even worse than it is.

On a final note, I'd like to say that when I read the manga in graphic novel format, as opposed to the one chapter per week format it's released in Japan and on the internet, I found the series to be much more enjoyable. This makes the series far less tedious, since many events are experienced in one sitting, since an entire chapter can--and often does--revolve around one minute event. Even the English release in the American Shonen Jump, which is released monthly, four chapters are released all at once, making it a much more satisfying read.

So, I would suggest either buying the graphic novels or Shonen Jump, or just waiting for the chapters online to build up, and read them about once a month instead of reading the latest one every week. This will make for a much more enjoyable reading experience.

I think there's two things that make me love this series. First of all, while vampire stories have been done so many times, as have romantic comedies, Karin is one of the few cases where the author tried to put a new spin on both genres, and actually succeeded in doing so. Second is the characters. Particularly Kenta. Usually the leading female role of these series falls for a whiney, brooding little brat. Karin's love interest goes completely against this archetype, with an upbeat attitude and a great work ethic (sort of like a male Tohru Honda, but tougher). Karin herself does have some of ... the usual traits of the lead female of a romance series (clumsy, no experience with boys, a victim of fate), but she manages to differentiate herself from the others. Many other characters are not so original, but still manage to be entertaining. It's a great series to read and watch, especially if you don't typically like romantic comedies.