Here I am, typing out my second review of Naruto. Apparently I feel pretty strongly about this series, and not in a good way either. But first, let me tell you why I even bothered with this series.
If you were in middle-high school in the mid to late 2000s, then chances are you were exposed to the full brunt of the Naruto craze. I was in 5th or 6th grade at the time and all I was ever exposed to were AMVs. It wasn't until a few years later that I decided to take it upon myself to watch the series to the bitter end.
...
And what a wonderful mistake that was. Alright, with all the personal bullshit out of the way, let's get to business. Since I'm lazy, I'll just write a review for the original series by extension as well.
Story: 3/10
About as predictable as you can imagine. Some bratty kid has an overly ambitious goal and the story revolves around him trying to reach it. And of course, he does, and some people might argue that the suspense lies in how it all happened. In other words, when there's already a foregone conclusion, all the stuff in the middle is supposed to be exciting. While the story is not necessarily "unexciting", it IS drawn out, bland, and riddled with plot holes. Villains are constantly revealed to be mere puppets for an increasingly more powerful villain, and all Naruto has to do to convince them to his way of thinking is talk to them. Rinse and repeat like four or five times. The story also contains way more characters than it can handle, as key characters from early on in the series, like Orochimaru, are simply forgotten in favor of other plot developments. The bigger fights can easily span over 5 episodes, leading to the action being just as slow as the plot progression. Ultimately, the story seems to take its focus off of Naruto and his journey to reach his goal and devolve into a somehow even less interesting Uchiha clan soap opera.
Art: 4/10
The art is nothing spectacular but also not totally hideous to look at. The REAL flaw lies in its animation, which fluctuates in quality and shows a lack of care on the animators' part. Everyone knows the notorious Naruto vs Pain fight, one of the most major fights in the series. In an attempt to make the animation look more fluid and polished, the character's faces and bodies are stretched and skewed and basically everything goes to hell. Plus, there's the animators' crippling inability to draw faces or objects that are far away. Some of the filler characters are either intentionally ugly or just lazily drawn, but we're not touching those.
Sound: 7/10
The soundtrack is admittedly pretty impressive. I mean, it's normal to get sick of the opening after the tenth or so time, but some of them really shine. The music is a mix of traditional Japanese instruments and punk rock, and somehow they just mesh so well together. However, I can't particularly choose a favorite track. There are very few that really stand out, but all of them are great. However, I think I have a clear bias towards Shippuden's soundtrack, because it feels grander and more emotional.
Character: 2/10 (this is gonna be a long one)
For me, THIS is where the series truly fails. As I said before, Naruto has way more characters than its story can handle. Stories with large casts that all have good development is possible, but this is not the case for Naruto. The first problem is that the main characters are significantly less interesting than the side characters could be. Naruto is designed to be a goofy yet charismatic guy who just draws people to him without explanation, but instead comes off as annoying and preachy. He inexplicably converts the worst of villains to his way of thinking, and it comes off as just plain stupid. It's possible to have one character be a moral compass and not have everyone worship them. Then there's Sasuke, who's designed to be a polar opposite to Naruto, but instead comes off as an edgelord. Rounding off the main cast is Sakura, who is supposed to be a strong heroine type but instead comes off a doormat who lets Sasuke toy with her emotions and relies on Naruto to do shit for her.
The main cast is simply bland, but it's the villains I was most disappointed with because of how they were handled. After shaping them up to be generic bad guys without feeling or remorse, Kishimoto likes to trick you into feeling bad for them by slapping on a tragic backstory, usually shortly before or even after their death. Their backstories almost always involve the death of a loved one driving them to their current state. This is part of Naruto's message about forgiveness, but it still doesn't work as a narrative device. To make a villain sympathetic, you have to humanize them while they're still alive. The other reason Kishimoto fails at writing tragic villains is because their true motives are usually only presented to the audience as opposed to the characters in the story, and so the good guy never questions what they're doing (not that this would have worked anyway). In short, Kishimoto shouldn't have even bothered trying to make most of the villains sympathetic.
Enjoyment: 4/10
As you can tell, I got bored with this series after all was said and done. Almost the entire cast was underdeveloped, and while the side characters had the most potential, they slowly but inevitably became part of the Naruto circlejerk that encompassed the entire ninja world. The animation tends to fluctuate depending on the animator's budget, and the story is exactly what you would expect from the Big Three: bland, incomplete, and way longer than it needs to be. I should mention that one of Naruto's messages is that previous generations should carve the path for the next generation to take their place. Now that its glory days have long since past, I think Naruto should do the same.
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Mar 12, 2017
Naruto: Shippuuden
(Anime)
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Here I am, typing out my second review of Naruto. Apparently I feel pretty strongly about this series, and not in a good way either. But first, let me tell you why I even bothered with this series.
If you were in middle-high school in the mid to late 2000s, then chances are you were exposed to the full brunt of the Naruto craze. I was in 5th or 6th grade at the time and all I was ever exposed to were AMVs. It wasn't until a few years later that I decided to take it upon myself to watch the series to the bitter end. ... 
Dec 13, 2016
The Last: Naruto the Movie
(Anime)
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Can you say contrived? Because that is what I got out of this movie. This is what happens when you try to make a romance movie based on a shonen: contrived. Romance should never be the focal point of a shonen, so you'll forgive me if I don't understand why there was such a fuss over who canonically had sex and who didn't, because all the romantic development on the part of the characters was glossed over. And this movie takes the contrived romance of Naruto to another level.
If you've been living under a rock for the last 2 years, this movie showcases the romantic ... |
