Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-12509038-20141124214040/@comment-25766058-20141126084129

The series, overall, is awesome, but has its fair share of flaws to go around.

Characters Most characters are well done, and are believable. My personal favorite characters are Jiraiya and Kurama, mainly because Jiraiya is the most rounded character with his strengths and weaknesses, and Kurama because Kurama has the most character progression. Sakura and Karin have never struck me as great characters, mainly because of their obsession with Sasuke. Ino got over Sasuke after he attacked the Five-Kage Summit. Sakura didn't, and Karin immediately got obsessed with Sasuke after he apologized for trying to murder her. Sakura just stayed obsessed with Sasuke the entire way through Part 2, which is not to say he couldn't be redeemed, because he was, but Sasuke just got to the point that no rational person could love him anymore. My least favorite character, however, was Kabuto. He just always struck me as bland, and just being a less cool, less evil, Orochimaru. And then he wanted to take over the world because of reasons. To me, the worst quality about him was how he just wouldn't freaking die. I think if Naruto had killed Kabuto with the Rasengan at the Sannin fight, the series would have been better because of it.

Plot I think that Part 1 got progressively better, and Part 2 had more ups and downs. My favorite arc in Part 2 was definitely the Invasion of Pain Arc, followed by the Itatchi Pursuit Arc, followed by Confining the Jinchuriki, but mainly for the part when Naruto met Kushina. My least favorite is the Shinobi World War Arc, and the first half of the Ten-Tails Revival Arc pretty much only because of how repetitive and boring the fight against Obito, Madara and the Ten-Tails was. It just went on for way too long, and there were way too many big explosions that devastate the entire landscape, and then are immediately forgotten about.

Mythology and World Building This is a good aspect of the series. Part 1 didn't do much of this, but what it did do it did right. I liked the overall mythology about Hagoromo, and it did a good job of making the world seem large, and full of lots of interesting characters. I especially liked all the stuff about the toads and Mount Myoboku and stuff.

Action There is a lot of action in Naruto, and we all know that's why it's a big part of why it's so popular. The fighting has a good mixture of simple and complex concepts. All of the ideas for fighting are really cool, and I especially liked the Shadow Possession technique for its uniqueness. All the techniques have a distinct style and you can really wonder how a fight between 2 completely unrelated people would end up. However it would always irritate me when a character would explain what happened in a fight for a long time, like in the Naruto vs Pain fight or the Sasuke vs Itachi fight.

Themes There are a lot of themes in Naruto. That is all.

Artwork The anime style definitely fits Naruto, and I could not see the art style being done any other way. The art does get progressively better throughout the series, obviously, and a lot more detail is added in certain areas. It does, however, bother me how Kakashi's face got progressively rounder. All of the character designs are good, although, because all the characters look different, they definitely don't blend into a crowd well.

Favorite Technique Probably the Rasengan. Tt's just cool how the user is able to fully manipulate chakra, and it does a lot of damage. A lot of people say Kirin is the best technique, and I can clearly see why. My problem is that it's just too contextual, and would never be used more than once. Maybe that's why everyone likes it so much, because it is used only once.

Favorite Fight For Part 1, Naruto and Sasuke's fight in the Valley of the End. However the Naruto and Sasuke vs Gaara was also an awesome fight. For Part 2, Jiraiya vs Pain, and Naruto vs Pain. The Naruto vs Orochimaru fight was also pretty cool, just because of its intensity.

Overall, I've loved the series for the most part from beginning to end. It has its ups and downs, but is overall a very enjoyable series and it's been great to see an awesome story unfold. There's not really much more I can ask for, but I can however complain a lot about its shortcomings, and I can praise it for its successes, which there are a lot more of.