Review of Naruto
66/100 naruto is the anime | Naruto is the character
Synopsis: boy with a demon inside him tries to become the king of his village.
TL;DR must watch, but not great.
After doing the HBD anime opening I decided to rewatch the first part of naruto and finish shippuden, and honestly it’s not that bad. I appreciated the strong start, unfortunately the series starts to gradually decline in quality afterwards. Only canon elements of the series are assessed.
I.
A lot of the conventional criticisms of naruto are fair (poor writing, pace too slow, ripoff of HxH, 9tails is a plot device), but I would like to point out the one that isn’t:
Sakura is not actually a bad character. She has a distinguished personality — she’s concientious, neurotic, extroverted, and narcissistic/machivellian. She has unique strengths and weaknesses — intelligent but not adept at fighting. The problem is that naruto is so poorly written that her traits don’t actually affect the plot that much.
In the original naruto she mainly sticks around the fights as a support (e.g. protect the bridge builder), but doesn’t do highly impactful tasks. Shippuden tries to address this by having her become physically stronger, but this feels like a bit of a cop out.
Instead, I would write Sakura as the team captain who comes up with strategies/on the fly tactics, but suffers from nerves due to neuroticism and fights poorly. Instead, the tactics in the show seem to be decided by Sasuke and Naruto, which is an appaling decision from a writer’s perspective.
Beyond the conventional criticisms, ThatAnimeSnob notes that the show consistently tried to push Naruto as the underdog when he is actually the chosen one. Ironically enough, the reason he was so unsuccessful at the academy was due to a technical error his dad made in sealing the 9tails, not an actual lack of talent. In addition, he clearly has a lot of unique advantages over others (e.g. father was hokage, has 9 tails, can use the toads) which makes him being an underdog even more of a meme.
Many say that the first two arcs of naruto were much better than the rest of the show - there is truth to this, but I think one of the reasons that get ignored is that the fights are much better earlier on. This is because the power level is lower, so it’s easier to make supernatural fights more realistic.
Besides this, the other cause of the discrepancy is the Sasuke-Naruto rivalry that is emphasized in the earlier part of the series, which is largely absent later. Beyond the first two arcs, I remember liking the Pain arc of shippuden the most, which seems to be a common opinion.
This sasunaru rivalry is the main component of what I call the ‘naruto trio’ (extroverted/disordered/noble/unintelligent/ambitious male protagonist (Naruto), introverted/calm/dark triad/intelligent male anti-hero (Sasuke), and neurotic/conscientious female sidekick (Sakura)). I am not entirely sure why this trio works well, but I have a few theories on why it does.
I think at their core, most humans are like Naruto: somebody who has a lot of energy, is low status (from a paretian perspective), and believes they have good intentions. The ways in which Naruto is different from most people (e.g. ambition) provoke a sense of awe rather than alienation, partially because humans admire ambition and because his relatability is established. Having this be the main character is ideal, as most people sympathize with them by default. Having the anti-hero be Sasuke also works well, as people naturally see their rivals as being less kind and more intimidating. Then, the female sidekick will have typical female traits, but come with a less fearful personality and more disagreeableness to make them fit in a competitive environment.
I suppose the naruto trio is a variant of what tvtropes calls the 5 man band: the hero (naruto), the lancer (sasuke), the girl (sakura), the brains (shikamaru?), and the brawn (no naruto equivalent). What distinguishes it from the 5 man band is that most of the focus is placed on the first three characters and a leading adult character (in this case, Kakashi).
I must also address the elephant in the room: Naruto is one of the most popular animes of all time. This was not a random occurrence — I think these are the factors that contributed to it:
Strong opening arcs: both the Haku/Zabuza arc and the Chunin Exam arc are legitimately good, so it’s unsurprising that a lot of fans stick around to watch the rest of it.
Early adopter: Naruto was an early adopter of the battle shounen genre, which is one of the most popular genres now.
Self-aggrandizing story: demon in you that makes people hate you but makes you powerful?
Relatable but still distant: the combination of modern elements (e.g. toilets, comouters, public schools) and medieval ones (e.g. magic, melee weapons) allows readers to relate to the modern elements but awe at the medieval ones.
Strong cast: Sasuke, Rock Lee, Shikamaru, Kakashi, Itachi, and Gaara are all stand out characters.
Lots of fanfiction/creative potential: shipping wars (NaruHina vs NaruSaku vs SakuNaru vs SasuNaru), imaginary jutsu (anything is possible in naruto), and a large cast enable lots of mindwandering and fanfiction. In fact, naruto is second to only harry potter in total fanfiction written on fanfiction.net.
Appeals to both men and women (this is a very underrated one - many anime only appeal to one sex, which diminishes their audience).
All-age appeal: Naruto is obviously very popular with children and teenagers, but there are lots of adults who like it too.
II.
This is what should have been done differently in Naruto:
Sasuke joins team Neji to train under Might Guy after the chunin exams (note: Lee is injured at this point of the story). Kakashi had nothing left to teach him, and it would make his choice to join Orochimaru later more understandable.
Sakura should be written differently.
Fix the Sakura/Sasuke romance. For the love of god.
Less flashbacks. For the love of god.
Pacing should be a little faster, but not much faster. The emotional impact of naruto is strong due to the slow pace, and removing that would ruin the show.
The power differences between the characters should be made smaller to avoid the power creep issue that plagues Shippuden.
Sasuke should have left on his own accord, and the Sasuke recovery arc should have been Naruto going on his own to try to convince him to stay. This removes the irrelevant side-fights and shortens the arc.
The show should have been almost entirely rewritten after shippuden.
First, it would be much shorter — 100 canon episodes instead of 300.
Remove all characters who’s story is resolved after the pain arc (e.g. Danzo, Madara, etc.)
Third — Sasuke and Naruto should have been colluding together to stop Pain after Naruto fights Sasuke and loses. Sasuke joining up with Naruto after winning the fight (not instantly, but later on) makes the transformation much more genuine.
Here are the trajectories I would write for the main cast of naruto: Naruto - marries Hinata, Sasuke - lives as rogue ninja, Sakura - marries neji (trollface), Kakashi - dies, Ino - dies, Shikamaru - marries Temari, Choji - quits, Kiba - lives, Shino - gets injured and quits, Hinata - marries Naruto, Kurenai - lives, Asuma - dies, Rock Lee - marries TenTen, Neji - marries sakura, Might Guy - dies, sandniggers - live, Orochimaru - commits suicide, Kabuto - rejoins the village, Akatsuki - all but Deidara and Sasori die, Jiraya - dies, Tsunade - lives.
With the prior in mind, the main cast of naruto would have eventually developed into team 7/team guy/hinata/kiba/shikamaru/hinata/sandniggers with a villain cast of itachi/orochi/akatsuki during the 2nd half of the series.
No sage mode
What I wouldn’t change is that naruto would remain an idealized world — I think there is a place in the world for these kinds of works that show what a good world looks like. Not everything has to be an XxGrittyxX super dark mature thriller.
III.
It’s fun to note what is present in the real world, but absent in naruto:
Divorce
Child molestation
Persistent underclass
Career stagnation (all I remember is one character who stayed a genin until old age as a gag).
Friendship atrophy
Sexism (…Shikamaru?)
Racism
Drug ODs
Obesity (just Chogi)
Democracy
IV.
Do I recommend naruto? I would recommend watching the first 70 episodes, but not beyond that. HxH and FMA are better.