This post was last modified: Jan 14, 2019 at 3:19 AM by MoonAge.

actually nvm why go through the pacing issues with naruto when I could just read naruto, that’s a real galaxy brain right there

it turns out my library has the entirety of the manga run and since it takes much faster for me to read manga than watch anime, I’ll be going through the manga for the rest of the series (starting today where I grabbed 5 volumes). I’ll watch some parts of the anime just to see how the fights are animated and see the episodes that are adapted from the canon novels but otherwise it’d be redundant to watch the entirety of shippuden after finishing the manga. so yeah, expect my next impressions post soonish instead of in the summer

Congratulations on finishing it. I'm also glad that you enjoyed it somewhat! I agree with your point; especially after having watched both HxH and JoJo, Naruto very obviously doesn't hold a candle to those series but I would agree it stands it's own ground and it doesn't necessarily need to compete with those(because let's just be real; those two are unicorns in the shonen genre anyway).

The most disappointing part of the Sasuke retrieval arc to me was the lack of interesting fight for Kiba. Did he even fight? I remember him running away from someone...somebody and then ending up in a river. Shikamaru's fight was sick and YES! The Bone guy was defintely the sickest member but I'm not leaving out flute chick who summonded big ass orge demons. That was bad ass too. Rock Lee proving he's best bone again and GAARA of all people helping him out....

Yeah; there's certain cheesy things like the whole death fake out thing for every member but to me, this arc had way too many highs to NOT be one of the stand out points in the series.

Interesting you mention Naruto Kai; because if you were planning on continuing with the series I was gonna DM you the reddit link with the Kai episodes and tell you to do that because Shippuden gets SLOOOOOW as fuck at certain points. Mainly the beginning which is the worse part of the second half if you ask me. However, since you're reading the manga now then you don't even have to worry about that. Not only that you get to enjoy Kishimoto's top tier art for part 1 and some pretty stand out moments in part 2 as well.

Good thread. Hope to see more updates in the future!!

pretty major spoilers ahead, proceed with caution if you really care that much about naruto

the fact that I’m on volume 49 and still haven’t made a post on shippuden speaks volumes about my commitment with these sort of things

anyway I’ll post more complete thoughts at another time, but I wanted to get this peeve of mine out of my mind: tbh it seems like there’s a real “nobody can die” vibe going on, as in Kishimoto refuses to let anyone die in an unexpected way. It all started in the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, when Choji and Neji were fully ready to be killed off until Kishimoto said “ha psyche” and revealed they were barely alive. Since then, it sort of started this belief that anyone who dies in Naruto doesn’t stay dead (unless it’s an old mentor character like Third Hokage, Asuma, Chiyo, Jiraiya, etc). Gaara was shown to have apparently died, but then he got brought back by convenient life sharing jutsu. And then the Pain arc comes along, where I’d expect the body count would be high due to the destruction of Hidden Leaf Village, but....then it didn’t happen. While I doubted Kakashi would have stayed dead for the rest of the series, was anyone really asking for the revival of that frog mentor and Tsunade’s apprentice?

It made me think of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, which also had the destruction of the protag’s home. While there were a fair amount of deaths that were quite bullshit, at least it did no take-backsies. Meanwhile in the Pain arc, not only were there few high-profile deaths, but even the most minor characters got brought back in the end. It’s....not really something I’m a fan of. It just takes away tension, knowing that there’ll be no real consequences spawned from whatever huge fight happens. I’d rather there be no deaths at all than setting up deaths only for them to be reversed at the very end.

Yep; I remember reading the manga and finishing the pain arc and just thinking "Y'know....some of these bitches could've stayed dead". Really did ruin the tension like you're saying. That unfortunately is an issue with a lot of shonen though. You have exceptions(Hxh, Jojo, DGM, HnK...etc.) but in general in a lot of these longer running ones i get the sense that it's more about telling a great fantasy like story than making a realistic one.

You could also make the point that the deaths that do happen are that much more impactful BECAUSE they happen so little.

Anyway still a lot of good stuff ahead. You get to see sasuke go full-blown psycho, some great moments of growth with naruto, some of the other team members get their 3 chapters of glory and some more shit that i'm not going to ruin! Keep going! Do not watch Boruto except the movie peace out