Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-12509038-20141124214040/@comment-17623-20141231115905

While I have no bloody clue what that tirade was on about, here is my opinion on Naruto as a whole.

Good in the beginning. Peaked at the Invasion of Pain. Fell like a ton of bricks during the war. I haven't seen the Last, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be an okay film.

Characters The characters were fine, for the most part. A lot of people went underused. Team Kurenai was criminally underused, the one time they had a relevance to the plot was during the Itachi Hunt arc and even then that was mostly about Sasuke.

While I understand it from a narrative point of view, a lot of pretty evil people got off way to lightly. Obito turned Kiri into the "Bloody Mists" got a whole lot of people in Konoha killed, started a world war that got even more people killed and he is all but forgiven because he had an broken heart and was further manipulated by another evil bastard who, despite dying, was also forgiven by the only person he cared about. Basically the forgiving of characters became grating when the people should have, to me, paid for their crimes in more ways than just dying.

Another problem was how characters tended to fall off the radar, like hard. You would not be wrong to think Anko died after Sasuke and co left her ass in that cave after reviving Orochimaru, until you saw her again in the epilogue about to hang out with the single most awesome character in that chapter. (You tell me you don't like Chocho Akimichi, and I will impale you upon the very spires of Orgrimmar after we sack it again.) When not being used, characters tend to just disappear and are never heard from again. Hell when Yamato was captured by Akatsuki at the start of the war, nobody gave a single fuck until Guruguru appeared and whatdoyaknow he's riding Yamato.

Plot The plot in the beginning showed the most promise. Naruto is now a ninja. Go do ninja things. Chunin Exams, to rank up and do more ninja things. Being a ninja was awesome. Then Sasuke defected and it basically became Dragonball Ninja. Despite this, the highlight of the series was the Invasion of Pain arc, mainly because if focused on a lot of other people going through this invasion, and no scene in this manga was as epic as Naruto's return after Pain crushed the village.

But as I said, once the war began, it just went hat on ass stupid. Not Bleach level mind you, but fairly stupid. The beginning of the war wasn't that much of the problem, it did what the Invasion of Pain did, which was show the other characters and what they can do. But once Madara came back, it devolved into Broken Wars.

Mythology and World Building One of the better things Kishimoto has done was create a large interesting world. Damn shame we hardly ever got to see any of it. I would love a series following some other schmuck in Kumo. Or another schmuck in Suna. I would love to know more about the last generation of jinchuriki. While it is totally illogical the expect Kishimoto to fit an entire universe into the pages of one series, it is slightly sad to know that such a large world can not or will not be explored.

Action In hindsight, the action in this series is not all that good. Mainly because after a certain point, it reached DBZ levels of stupid. Went from being about being smarter than your opponents and using your advantages over theirs, and became who can blow up the biggest mountain with my chakra cannon of doom. Not helped by the fact that every big fight must have a obligatory flashback chapter stuck in it somewhere.

Themes/Life Lessons The overall theme, from what I could gather, was that war is hell, hatred is self destructing, and family and friends are far better to have than trying to act like a big man and fly solo. Forgiveness and understanding is key to a better world for all.

Personally, I quite like this optimistic look on things. World needs more optimism, which is why I find it hilarious when people call Naruto an idiot and Sasuke a good hero, when Sasuke embodied the opposite of everything I said up until he admitted defeat to Naruto after they both nuked their arms. Cliched, yes But that doesn't ruin the charm.

Artwork Not an artist, but I can say that while his style got more refined as time went on, some charm was lost along the way. The early chapters look nothing like the later ones, and something appears to be missing. Not saying the art is bad just...just saying it's not awesome either.