Naruto: Shippuden

STORY - 9/10
The Naruto series is in my opinion, one of the best written shounen anime. Unlike the original Naruto, Shippuden focuses mainly on the backstory of several characters and the origins of Konoha. The story is mainly presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to.

___ CHARACTERS - 9/10 Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each character has their own beliefs and ideologies that motivates their will to fight for what they think is right. The main as well as the side characters have a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different abilities and jutsu. Shippuden attaches us to the characters emotionally, as their philosophies and ideologies gets tested. The villains are ones you can empathise with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. The villains have a particular past event, or particular emotions that somewhat humanizes them and redeems them to a strange extent, and we realise that they’re not only ‘evil’ simply because they are. Everyone has their own reasons for their own judgements, and who they are as a whole and that’s what makes each character amazing in their own way. A great example of a well-written character is Itachi Uchiha, a rogue shinobi known for slaughtering his own clan to test the limits of his abilities, sparing no one but his younger brother. In the original Naruto he is portrayed as a ruthless villain, known for eradicating his own clan for the means of testing his own abilities, However in Shippuden, Itachi's true moral values are revealed, representing a character who is damaged by the cruel realties of the shinobi world. In contrast to the original Naruto, Shippuden portrays Itachi as a character which embodies the theme of selflessness and sacrifice. There are many other characters with the same level of complexities as Itachi, and is what brings the depth and meaning to the anime. ___ ANIMATIONS - 7.5 Shippuuden is a major step up from prequel in regards to visual aspects and animation. It has much more attention for details, and the colour is greatly used to its advantage to display the emotion and tone within each atmosphere. The character designs such as outfits are much better made, along with the colouring and effects which have better animations. The landscapes scenery are beautifully drawn, and sets the stone for its unique world building. Most of the fighting scenes are well-choreographed, and emotional scenes are something I've noticed myself are paid much more attention to. The overall authentic shounen feeling is all over Naruto Shippuuden. ___ SOUNTRACK - 10/10 From all the unique elements of Shippuden, the soundtrack is the best I have heard in any anime, it connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. Each and every soundtrack manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The OSTs are really something unique and what makes the Naruto series as a whole stand out. Some of the best soundtracks include; Byakuya, Man of the World, Senya and Lonliness. ___ PACING - 7/10 The one major issue I had with Naruto Shippuden was the staggering amount of filler episodes. With a total count of 219 filler episodes, it accounts to about 44% of the series as a whole. With the inclusion of fillers, there cant be any room for significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a major issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. Therefore, this absurd amount of fillers results in poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself. Leaving that aside, the pacing of the actual story derived from the manga is mediocre. There are many great arcs within Shippuden. Although the bridge between arcs can often fell bland at times, if we can look past that we get an incredible story which makes Naruto what it is today.