Naruto

Ok so my experience with Naruto was one where I watched a few episodes of it on Cartoon Network when I was a kid, like a lot of other kids at the time, but I never really watched it and had only seen a handful of episodes. I finally decide to watch it about 6 months ago as I had met so many people who said it was there favorite show, and there was such a huge fanbase for the show as well. Looking at it from afar the show always struck me as really corny but I wanted to give it a chance. I watched the first 141 episodes and watched episode 220, I skipped all the fillers in between as I was told it wasn't necessary to watch them. I really wanted to like this show, but there is just way too much bad compared to good.
There are about 135 or so canon episodes in the show, the problem is this could've easily been cut down to 60 episodes. I'm not joking. The amount this show drags its absurd, theres one scene SPOILERS where the Third Hokage is fighting Orochimaru and he is being stabbed in the same place not moving talking to Orochimaru for about 10 episodes (I didn't count them so give or take.) Now I'm not saying the fight scene took 10 episodes I'm talking about them literally just standing there for 10 episodes. The show is filled to the brim with this that it constantly came to the point where I wanted to stop watching. The thing that sucks is I actually find the character designs and the characters for the most part. quite endearing, so to see the show constantly fail because of its abysmal pacing was terrible. The endearing characters (although many of them tropes at the same time) are what I feel like people who love the show remember, and because of that they can just look past all the bad parts of the show like they don't exist.
Another huge problem this show has is Naruto's plot armor. This man does not lose. This is an even bigger problem when you look at the fact that he is initially is built up as the underdog. This is almost immediately lost when you realize that no matter what happens Naruto is going to win whatever fight he's in no matter what the circumstances are. I could almost stomach the fact that Naruto was able to defeat Kiba and Neji, but it was when he defeated Gaara that really put it over the edge for me. You see the entire show Gaara is built up to be this unstoppable for among the other students, for Naruto to beat him at the skill level he is at at the time should be literally impossible. When they finally get into fight Naruto pulls The Nine tail fox and the biggest frog homie out of his ass like its nothing. The show can constantly justify Naruto's strength just by saying, "He has the nine tail fox in him" but it always takes it too far and the show becomes very boring of this because it feels like Naruto's life is never at stake. To compare it to its inspiration, Hunter X Hunter, imagine if Gon just beat Hisoka in the tournament arc. It would be absurd. Everything the show tells you before Naruto fight Gaara is that he would get his ass whooped, but Naruto always just goes Hulk mode and wins it is so uncreative and uninspired.
As to not make this review too long I'm going to end it here, the are a plethora of other more minor flaws with the show as well such as flashbacks, lack of soundtrack diversity for 220 episodes, how powers such as substitution jutsu are never shown til after the fact and are just there as a plot tool that bails the writer out of any hole he wrote himself into, etc. I do however feel like if this show was 60 episodes or so instead of 135 it would've at least understood why people love the show so much as it is a great enjoyable story with a cool concept with a lot of great characters and fight scenes. As for now though I feel that the only way someone could possibly enjoy this show is if they started watching it under the age of 15 or so. This show at the end of the day is made for kids (which is fine I feel like it can appeal to adults as well.) so if you didn't watch it as a kid, chances are if you have seen any great animes you aren't going to be able to look past all of its flaws. At least that was the case for me.