Naruto

Naruto

Naruto Cover Art Replacement featuring Team 7 and Iruka
Naruto Cover Art Replacement

Overview

What better way to start off the new year than reviewing my official introduction to anime.  Sure, Sailor Moon was my real first taste of Anime, but I didn’t start really watching anime until after Naruto.

This post is only going to be about the Original 220 episode Naruto series; no movies, no Shippūden, no Boruto.  And I’ll be honest, the original Naruto series really isn’t that good.

If you’ve seen it before, but want to get into Shippūden, I suggest skipping over the rewatch and going straight to Shippūden because you’ll get all the refresher you need in the form of flashbacks.  However, if you are new to the Naruto series as a whole then I suggest watching the original series first, probably with a guide to skip all the filler.

The best arc in the show comes pretty early in the form of the Chūnin Exams arc which afterwards, it seems, most people dropped the series.  However, if you really want to get into Naruto then forge on you must because there are many more important developments before you can move on to Shippūden.

Team 7

Team 7 is the squad which Naruto Uzumaki, our main character, is a part of along with Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and their teacher, Kakashi Hatake.

Naruto is, well, an idiot.  That’s his defining characteristic other than the fact that he never gives up.  He’s also the Hidden Leaf village’s #1 most unpredictable ninja as well as the vessel for the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon’s spirit.  He has no living family and because of his link to the Nine-Tailed Fox he has been an outcast in the Leaf village.

Sasuke is an orphan as well.  He’s the last remaining member of the powerful Uchiha clan in the Leaf Village.  Other than the fact that they’re both orphans, Sasuke is Naruto’s opposite as he is considered a child prodigy.  As part of the Uchiha clan, he also develops access to the Sharingan, a powerful jutsu of the eyes.

Naruto vs. Sasuke first fight at the Valley of the End
Naruto vs. Sasuke

Sakura is the only girl on Team 7.  There’s nothing really special about her during the original series, but trust me when I say she does eventually become useful once we get to Shippūden.

Kakashi is the team leader.  He is considered one of the strongest ninja in the Hidden Leaf village and is known as the copy ninja due to his ability to copy almost any jutsu he sees.  This is made possible by his left eye having the Sharingan although he is not part of the Uchiha clan.

Out of these four characters, Kakashi is probably my favorite in the original series, with Sakura being my least favorite.  I generally don’t like the child versions of the characters and so Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura do get better in Shippūden.

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning, the original Naruto series isn’t the best, but it is important for watching Shippūden so it does have value.  In the end this portion of the series is a 6/10.

The characters, their designs, the story, the animation, basically everything about the original series is improved upon in Shippūden.  That along with the amount of filler in the series makes it impossible for me to rate Naruto any higher.

One Reply to “Naruto”

Leave a Comment