After three years of finishing Naruto I finally decided to write a full review of it because why not? because for one, it was my very first anime and two because its goated. but please do note that few things here may not be 100 percent accurate since as I said, it's been sometime since I watched it.
and before we get started, I just wanted to address that Naruto is NOT carried by nostalgia. sure it plays a significant part but it's not only that, honestly it's far from that. And yes this is coming from someone who watched it when she was 11 before actually picking it up for real.
Now with no further ado let's get to the real part.
Naruto is the international popular show/manga thats based off Japan, and pretty much anyone who heard of the word "anime" would know of it. its popularity is deserved not just given.
However, truth to be told, Naruto isn't perfect, actually its far from being perfect, and I get it that you by now should know that im not gonna be biased in this review. BUT this doesn't change the fact that Naruto is a goated anime.
moving on, this passage is going to contain the following topics that im gonna go through individually to analyze it:
- Plot.
- Main Character.
- Side Cast.
- World Building.
- Power System.
- Animation and Soundtracks.
As result of having a tailed beast stored within Naruto, the village grows to hate the orphan and treats him as an outcast, all because they see him as a threat. And for that he develops the dream of becoming the Hokage, solely to gain respect from those who hated on him and so that he can show them that he's no threat. So for this we can say, it's partly about a teenager that works his ass off to reach his gaol. however, obviously it's not only about that.
Naruto goes through the trouble to explain deeper themes such as constant ongoing waging wars, and what losses occur from these, families breaking apart, orphans piling up and people losing their homes and food due to the constant injustice the world was going through, great increase in crime, criminals and tyranny. it goes over the importance of responsibilities and the outcomes of abandoning these, the weight of having to sacrifice those who are dear to you for the greater good, how much wonders passion and determination can do for someone even if they were inferior to others. how much hatred and pain can affect others mentally and thus their actions. tragic and heart wrenching backstories. the outcomes of spreading hate or love, and the triumph of being successful after doing your best, or the let down of failure. growing up in different environments with what type of people around and how much it shapes a person up. and not to mention betrayal and stumbling upon hardships.
It also explores basic thematic topics such as friendship, semi-adventure, treachery, camaraderie, dreams, immense effort, patriotism, racial tension, unity, and ambitions.
However the presence of multiple apparent plot holes brings the story downright, I'm not going to list these since I want to keep this spoiler-free as much as I can, but be aware of these.
it goes without saying that plot is easily an 8.2/10.
Naruto Uzumaki is the protagonist of the Anime Naruto, or rather the person who's story is being told, I mean that goes without saying, no?
honestly it feels like Naruto was the character to set all the foundation traits of a Shounen MC, its actually impressive how many writers followed this kind of path. I mean Naruto isn't dumb nor smart. [we don't talk academically wise, Naruto is hopeless there], he's so kind and quick for forgiving others, is cheerful, outgoing and oblivious, he has a dream that he sets to achieve no matter what hardships he faces, he goes through hell and heaven for his friends' aid when they're in danger, wether they want his help or not, and he's obsessed with a specific type of food.
however, he is really not only that, he's not a happy-go-lucky character as you may think at first glance, hes a more complex and a compelling character, I mean he's SO well-written and is fleshed out pretty well, from his actions to his mindset, it all aligns with his tragic past, way of growing, his type of persona and origin very perfectly. because someone's circumstances is what shapes them up to be who they are, and why they think in a certain way and what types of goals they have. Naruto lived his childhood without knowing who or what he was to deserve to be hated so much, and it even reached to the point where the guy even questioned his existence, its heart breaking, really.
the fact that he was an arrogant kid, seeking attention and love says a lot about him, used to pull pranks on others, draw on the hokage statue figures. he did all that so he can get recognized for who he is, not of what's inside of him. what makes this sadder is that he didn't know what was inside him to begin with. Later on, he got lucky, since he finally met someone (Iruka) who cared for him for who he is. and that was a drastic change in his personality and upbringings.
Naruto isn't really my favorite character in his show, and is arguably only top 5 for me personally, but we cannot deny that he's so damn interesting.
okay moving on, Naruto is at the very least an 8.8/10 protagonist. truly remarkable.
Well well the is going to be quite interesting.
characters you can love? check!
characters you can wish death upon? check!
characters you can relate to? hella check!
characters you can feel sympathy towards? check!
characters to cry over? double check!
truth to be told, Naruto has one of the best written characters of all times but thats more exclusive to the main characters, the thing is, the side cast of Naruto aren't really THAT impressive but they're good enough not to mess things up, in the OG Naruto they were so interesting, but in shippuden it felt like they stopped developing, like they had no more to them than what we already were offered and that was disappointing. Kishimoto focused more on the main four, well um honestly, it didn't feel that he focused on Sakura much, but its refreshing how there was a normal character without a depressing backstory, he did great wonders though, he made her way more badass and gave her the development she deserves while y'all were making fun of her. childish. anyways, thats not the issue, I'm not saying all the side cast wasn't focused on, take Shikamaru for example, this guy is undoubtedly one of the best characters out there, he only got more developed and more badass post time skip. there are others too, Gaara, Jirayia, and ITACHI (the king himself, arguably the best written character in Naruto).
and personally I enjoyed Minato's character a lot, to the point where hes my favorite character in not only the show, but the entire anime world.
moving on, thats all on top of the fact that Naruto offers us badass moments and heroic ones, a great display of emotions, with immense determination, dignity, sacrifices, high and low self esteems, with interesting characters and their different ideologies and ideals, very tragic backstories and insane characters development.
Naruto villains are top notch and amazingly well developed, they mostly have logical explanations to their actions and ideals and that all goes back to their past circumstances, exampeles are Gaara, Obito and Pain.
however we also have these that are just pure evil and thats basically their only motivation to do messed up things along with their superiority complex. these are also amazing, like wow, being evil just to be evil? honestly I like this trope. examples are Madara and Orochimaru.
[this doesn't include Kaguya]
and finally, let me add; the Naruto deaths are painfully impactful on the readers/watchers. the way their final moments were portrayed speaks volumes about the high writing level. I will never trust someone who didn't at least cry twice during watching the show.
the side cast is a solid 7.8/10
the world building in Naruto isn't the best out there, but it's better than most if we are being fair.
Naruto's world is quite realistic and actually makes some sort of sense. There are the typical facilities that are present in any country, it has multiple governments, with multifaceted goals, motivations, reputations, etc.
the system of five big lands with a main village in each that are each other's rivals is interesting, and similar to the idea of the seven continents on earth. each land and village is different from the other, from leaders to different systems of government, traditions, methods of combat and geopolitical landscapes.
for example; the cloud village is shaped up to be extraordinary and somewhat fancy, but on the other hand, the stone village is so ordinary that its boring with nothing particularly eye catching.
The main village, Konoha, is shaped up amazingly and the concept of the stone faces is so good, it gives another sense of beauty somehow.
And each village had its either implied or explored kind of history that it went through at some point and overcome.
There are different time periods and eras that we were introduced to, each with different ruling system, costumes and way of living and dealing with power. its quite impressive we had the chance to go over these.
Honestly, there's not much to say, but one disadvantage that I can remember from the top of my head is that one of the villages, the sound village I guess, appeared once and was never mentioned again, like it vanished. its not really that important but its a major plot hole.
My problem with it personally, though, was that I hoped we could see more of it because u can tell it was thought throughly but never got presented well, Its like Kishimoto wanted to do more with the Naruto-verse but he just didn't have enough time or he only wanted to finish the series. hopefully we see more of it in Boruto. it has so much better potential.
world building: 6.9/10
POWER SYSTEM
so here we come to one of the most shining points of the show. its power system and the fights.
from all the Shounens I've watched, Naruto has the best Power System. few of you may argue that Hunter x Hunter's power system is better, which is defiantly not the case, let me remind you: complicity=/better. so as I was saying the Chakra and its building is very extraordinary, its implanted in a way it that it makes so much sense, as it has its advantages and disadvantage on the users.
In Naruto, to do any superhuman feat, you need to understand the nature of your chakra in order to developed your usage and manipulation of it, it's not an easy feat and it requires immense training to achieve. it was mentioned before that without the chakra you're merely a normal person, incapable of achieving high feats, unless in rare cases the person's determination allows them to use physical strength as a substitute, but that requires inhuman training to reach the point where you can compete with chakra users toe to toe, and in some cases probably surpass them, only three known characters are able of reaching such state, will go more throughly over it later.
so what's exactly this "chakra"? it's the flow of spiritual energy and amalgamation of physical energy, by utilizing and manipulating these, the user is allowed to use any Jutsu (attack) that aligns with their chakra nature.
now that we got to the point of the "chakra nature" there are five Chakra types or Nature Releases, fire, water, lighting, earth, and wind. each user has one main type, few people would have a secondary type, in these cases, the person can combine the two nature releases to create Kekkai Genkai, example is Wood Release thats a combination of the earth and water releases. and in VERY rare cases there's a tertiary type a person can posses and combining these three affinities would result in Kekkai Tōta. however, There’s also two other Nature Releases that don’t fit in with the other Releases, Yin and Yang Releases.
and for the record, not everyone is capable of manipulating their chakra and in these cases it renders useless.
running out of chakra = death.
there are three main Jutsus which the abilities branches off from;
- Ninjutsu; the ability to use or create attacks that are so powerful, this usually requires using hands signs. ex. Rasengan and Shidori.
- Genjutsu; the ability to put your enemy into a state of fake reality and hallucinations, where the person who's under it is usually incapable of distinguishing between reality and what not.
- Taijutsu; its the physical ability basically, of punching and kicking, however there's the "eight gates" thats achieved without using chakra, the first gate is the "weakest" while the eighth gate is the "strongest" honestly, its ridiculously powerful and ultimately one of the strongest attacks in the verse but the user dies immediately after it.
as I mentioned above only three characters are known for displaying such monstrous raw strength.
theres also the special abilities and Jutsu’s that are passed down genetically, and they're basically based off Kekkai Genkai. examples; are the Byakugan and the Sharingan, these are exclusive to specific clans.
and do note the concept of the Sharingan, thats exclusive to the Uchiha clan (the most powerful known clan along with the Senjus) is amazingly crazy, it's first unlocked when undergone emotional trauma, and evolves as they experience immense emotions, mainly tragic ones. Sharingan at first enables the user to see a split of a second onto the future, the more tomoe they unlock the longer this duration increases, the maximum is three tomoe.
undergoing even worse emotional trauma allows the user to unlock the Mangekyo Sharingan that has special powers that differs from a person to another, and also unlocks a greater power thats common for all mangekyo users is the Sussano. it goes toe to toe with the tailed beasts.
okay so now we got to the Tailed beasts part. these are beasts that has a numbers of tails that goes from one tail to nine tails, and have an immense amount of chakra thats basically infinite. the beasts are extremely dangerous to be left alone and thus needs to be sealed within a person called Jinchuriki. the person normally is treated as an outcast for holding such mysterious power within them. if the person successfully befriends them, they can have access to the power and utilizes it better than the beast itself. it becomes such a great power thats unmatched most of the time.
theres also the Sage Jutsu, sadly I don't remember much so I won't say anything about it, I dont wanna mess things up.
moving on, the fights are OUTSTANDING, seriously nobody can draw fights the way Kishimoto does, they're so thrilling and exciting they'd engross you into them, the movements are not repeated over and over but Kishimoto actually manages to come up with something else every time. giving it a different experience each time. hats off for the fights they're so well done.
well, the talk-no-jutsu isn't bad, and is somewhat inspiring, but the thing is its overused and it works most of the time, lowkey it was annoying at some point, but it can be overlooked.
12/10 and you're not allowed to disagree.
ANIMATION AND SOUNDTRACKS
Animation: 6.3/10 Soundtracks: 9/10
To sum this up, Naruto is utterly and absolutely an outstanding story with many flows that can be overlooked, and the fact remains that everyone needs to experience it at least once in their lives.
and since you're here, whoa! thank you for reading! for real!
Psst, as someone who watched all the fillers, there are actually good ones but the majority are shit, so do yourself a favor and SKIP THEM. you can watch the good ones once you're done with the show. trust me its a great experience when you dont watch the awful ones.