Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-7292165-20140825052418/@comment-17623-20140825105328

3.5 out of 5.

The series took to far of a drastic shift in what was expected with Sasuke's defection, never got back on the rails so to speak and now that we are dealing with the chronicles of Ninja Jesus and his Merry Men, I am left looking back fondly at what the series could have been.

What I Expected: Naruto be be about the title character in his career as a ninja. And by career, I mean job. Arcs focusing on missions, stealth being a thing, assassinations, the fact that their first mission to the Land of Waves ended with their opponent just kinda saying "Ok so we're not enemies anymore." kinda made me wish they were all like that. Over time as the rest of the Rookie Nine were introduced, I would have enjoyed if we had some arcs following the exploits of the other teams, doing ninja things.

Post-Sasuke Defection: Everything seemed to be fine up until Sasuke's defection, then things became a soap opera of world changing cataclysms after another. Suddenly the Sharingan, which had the niche of being able to copy techniques and genjutsu became the Lords Eyes on Earth, capable of doing increasingly terrible and broken things. Akatsuki early in Part II were a mercenary group which had plans to take over the world using economics, then became a take over the world with a demon powered super weapon group. Everything that Madara Uchiha is. Serial escalation hit the series like it did with Dragonball Z and everything just got bleh.

What I Want: If the series continues further, and I hope to the Twelve it doesn't, I would like it to kill off this entire generation of characters and bring the series back down to earth. No more tailed beast powered main character. No more broken Sharingan. No more world destroying jutsu that just about every Tom, Dick, and Jane can use. I want ninja stuff, not Saiyan Wars.