This post was last modified: Dec 19, 2018 at 1:20 PM by MoonAge.

tbh it would be pointless to talk about a 700+ episode (granted I’m skipping most of the filler), potentially terrible show like naruto without talking about it to anyone, so I figured I might as well dump my thoughts here since there’s at least 2 people who unironically like the series here. I’m not really expecting much replies to this, but fwiw it’s a good way to put my thoughts down without the anime community telling me “you’re making a huge fucking mistake”

I just finished season 1 (the first 25 episodes but minus #26, which is just filler), and honestly it’s pretty good so far. my experience with other shounen shows like jojo or hunter x hunter tells me that this isn’t nowhere near a perfect shounen series, but it reminds me a lot of avatar in terms of the setting, the worldbuilding, the power system, and etcetera, so it has that going for it at least. something worth pointing out is that the way the dialogue is written is almost awful. I can’t tell if it’s the particular sub translation at fault, but it gives me this nagging feeling that it’s ripped straight from the original japanese with no edits made to it. it’s as cliched as shounen writing can come, but I’ll at least take it over the dub, what with naruto’s nails-on-chalkboard english voice

speaking of boruto’s dad, how’s he for a main character? well, besides that weird brock syndrome where he never opens his eyes half of the time, I actually find him sort of endearing. the idiotic hero trope’s starting to wear on me a bit, but I can still admire his eagerness and whatnot. as for sasuke, I’m glad he’s not the complete stoic I thought he would was before starting the series, since he still shows a good helping of emotion. his pride’s a bit irritating when he managed to get his ass kicked by haku and rock lee, though

and yeah hot take sakura’s the worst character, no surprise there. it’s one thing to have her motivation be nothing but wanting to get sasukun to notice her, but considering she’s never done a damn thing in any of the fights so far (besides throwing a shuriken at haku, but even then he caught it), she’s legitimately a burden. it would be nice to see her biggest strength, aka her analytical skills and overall intelligence, be used more in battle, so I still have a tiny semblance of hope for her. not much, but a tiny bit

in terms of what I think about the fighting...well, let’s talk about the main battle in the season, the climax of the land of waves arc. I don’t have much to say about kakashi vs zabuza as it was more talking than fighting, but hoo boy the haku fight. I will say that it sets up nicely for more creative uses of chakra to come, but I didn’t find the battle itself all that...interesting, I guess? it was pretty much nothing but naruto blindly throwing himself at the mirrors and sasuke using him as a guinea pig, with no real detriment to haku made until naruto pulls out his demon form ex machina and demolishes the mirrors. perhaps it was supposed to feel futile, but for now it might be a sign of bad things to come. speaking of which I was really counting on the show to not use the “heroes struggle until the main character shows up” cliche that was practically dbz’s fetish

I might as well throw some more issues with the arc while I’m at it. first off, what was the point of sasuke “dying”? even if it would have been a good chance for sakura to grow some character for once if he stayed dead for a while, I can get why killing off the second-biggest character this early would be a bad idea. but even then, nothing really came out of his “death”. naruto’s and sakura’s opinion of him didn’t change, sasuke didn’t learn anything new, etc. it happened and got resolved so quickly that I swear it was only done for shock value. on another note zabuza was a good villain but I couldn’t get why he got sympathy despite assassinating his nation’s leader, turning rogue, and attempting to kill team 7 on more than one occasion, but I digress

those nitpicks said, I have pretty high hopes for the chunin exam arc. rock lee and gaara are both interesting and straight up badass characters who I can’t wait to see more of, and the written exam was a pleasant surprise, if only for introducing everyone’s powers in a non-straightfoward way

overall, despite a messy climax to the biggest arc of the season and the failure that is sakura, I’m enjoying this series more than I thought I would. though given the negative side of this show’s reputation I’m expecting the more glaring flaws to rear their ugly heads soon enough

>live impressions of a firstwatch of naruto

This is a good thing. Keep doing it.

let me know whe nyo uwatch bleach i dont know fuck all about this shit

let me know whe nyo uwatch bleach i dont know fuck all about this shit

here's my review of bleach: rukia is the best character and when they locked her in bowser's castle for 30 episodes i quit

This post was last modified: Dec 19, 2018 at 10:25 PM by Pea.

naruto (mainly the anime) has him do a lot of "run towards the enemy and then complain that his battle tactics aren't working", which can be tiresome, which is also why you should NEVER WATCH THE FILLER EPISODES.

the filler episodes are a slog and even more. the characters are never interesting, the drama is cheesy and nothing is taken as a lesson from them. you will probably be watching filler just to see your favorite characters do things relevant to their field of expertise. the better fillers are comedy focused (they are very scarce). some of them deal with the history of the world, but most of them have naruto tell the bad guy that it sucks to be a bad guy. either way, they don't matter, cause you will never see a filler character ever again, outside of their arc.

the fights in the OG series are more technical based, where the characters get crafty with their moves. this carries over to the shippuden series, but as it goes on, you're gonna be seeing some seriously sick choreography, especially near the end. if you're going to watch naruto in its entirety, do it at a somewhat fast pace, if you can. this series is better marathoned than watched at a leisurely pace. i'll be looking forward to your following post as you delve deeper in the show.

also, Naruto: The Last is a canon movie and you should probably watch it when you're nearing the end of shippuden.

ayy i recommend sonic X my MAN

let me know whe nyo uwatch bleach i dont know fuck all about this shit

bleach is better for drinking than for watching but thank you

also I realized I didn’t talk about the first zabuza fight but this gold pretty much sums it up

This post was last modified: Dec 20, 2018 at 2:44 AM by Aidan.

also I realized I didn’t talk about the first zabuza fight but this gold pretty much sums it up

ZABUZA SWORD CAN'T BE BEAT

did they sell throwing knives to children

This post was last modified: Dec 20, 2018 at 4:47 AM by MoonAge.

why bring throwing knives to school when you can get suspended once a teacher mistakes your fancy jutsu sign for a gang symbol

EDIT: naruto confirmed for promoting criminal activity

I'm about to go to work so I cant reply like I wanted to but if u dont love the chunin exam arc then just check out but otherwise dont listen to the hate naruto is a solid 8/10 series. Shippuden without filler is about the same level of quality after you get thru that first arc no spoilers but good luck on it journey man

watch the batman anime

season 2 finished

since the concept of the forest of death episodes is basically a carbon copy of one of the exam stages from hunter x hunter (both involve the characters being plopped in a forest where they’re expected to survive and steal others’ objects to progress further) and was done much better in that show, I don’t have much thoughts on this first part of the season besides some stellar animation in the sasuke vs orochimaru fight and rock lee slowly working his way up to becoming best character. but sakura, jesus christ sakura. as if her involvement in the aforementioned fight being summed up as screaming “SASUKE-KUN” for a good few episodes wasn’t banned enough, she just completely dropped the ball when she had to defend sasuke from the sound ninja trio. I could have seen a moment that would change her character for good and instead....sakura used some basic-ass transformation techniques, bit on someone’s arm, and did nothing while she got punched repeatedly. never should have quit your day job. I guess the only other thing worth mentioning is how good of a job it did at establishing gaara’s threat level with perhaps the most brutal attack in the series so far

that said, the main attraction from this season is the preliminaries for the third stage, which is basically a grand slamming tournament arc. personally I think these arcs are a great opportunity to both set up abilities through matchups we wouldn’t normally see and character development, and this did not disappoint...mostly. before I go into a match-by-match analysis, I’ll state my biggest complaint with this half of the season: the padding. it’s better with some fights than others, but this show seems to have a frightening fetish of interrupting fights with feeling the need to show everyone’s reactions to every sudden turn, not to mention flashbacks, whether it be for backstory or, in the case of shino vs haku, showing the moment where haku’s arms got broken two to three times. I don’t know if this par for the course with shounen, since I recall hxh and my hero academia using these tropes in their tournament arcs much less frequently, but I digress. first let’s dive into:

Sasuke vs Yoroi: I always dig the episodes that shows sasuke getting pummelled, honestly pretty cathartic. but it’s not like sasuke didn’t put up a good show here; it was neat seeing him fight against the curse practically killing him and in the end winning over it, and the finishing move was plenty stylish....even if he copied it from rock. another gripe I have is that half of these fights don’t start out with that much emotional stakes, considering the bracket’s flooded with sound ninja only there to kill sasuke, and yoroi was definitely the least interesting of the bunch

Shino vs Zaku: a pretty short fight in real-time that’s one of the biggest victims of padding. at least shino has an interesting (though probably useless later on) ability

Kankuro vs Misumi: not much to say really, it ended as quickly as it began

Sakura vs Ino: fffffucking

I feel like to properly get the most out of this fight, it’s necessary to be invested in sakura as a character....and in case this is the first paragraph of my thread you’re reading, I’m nowhere near one of those people. this was just a boring match that was emphasized by the fact that I hate ino for much of the same reasons as sakura. doesn’t help that while I don’t hate their conflict where they stopped being friends because they both like sasuke, since that’s a pretty 12 year old thing to do, I don’t exactly think it should have been given that much attention resolving it, much too many flashbacks.

Tenten vs Temari: okay I have to be honest here, as I was focused on something more important at the time I didn’t really catch much of this fight. sorry!

Shikamaru vs Kin: this is where the preliminaries really start picking up. once again, it wasn’t that long, but it was fun to see shikamaru go through this fight with nothing but his wits. it almost reminded me of jojo in a way, and it’s something I can’t wait to see more of. speaking of which...

Naruto vs Kiba: as juvenile as it is, I really can’t hate how flatuence was the deciding factor in this fight, it just made too much sense. the main draw for me in this fight was seeing how much naruto has grown as a fighter: he didn’t even use shadow clone jutsu once, undeniably his trademark move, and some of his actions were hilariously perceptive of him and were moments I wouldn’t have expected even ten episodes ago. combine this with kiba’s unique ability and we have an all around great fight.

Hinata vs Neji: it’s a shame this seems to be overshadowed by the fight that follows this, because this battle was just stunning. before getting into this, I was already a fan of hinata for nothing if not being precious, but my opinion of her skyrocketed after this fight. she’s everything I wish sakura was and more; not only does she have a compelling reason for crushing over naruto, but she’s actually competent at fighting! naruto ending up with hinata in the end was one of the few twists I knew about before starting this series, but boy am I glad it wasn’t sakura. not only this but sweet jesus was the fight tense. you could feel the impact of every blow the hyugas dealt, and even if I knew hinata would survive, it damn near felt like she would die at any moment. sort of wish they would have toned it down with neji’s jerkiness though, seriously fuck that pretentious prick

Rock Lee vs Gaara: and here’s the big one. before starting naruto I had heard plenty about how this wasn’t just one of the best fights in the series, but in shounen anime as a whole. and now, I can completely get behind that. when rock’s weights went fucking crashing down to the ground, it gave me goosebumps. I’m not kidding when I say that this battle cemented rock’s place as one of my favorite shounen characters, and certainly my favorite naruto character so far. he doesn’t any of that fancy shadow clone or substitution shit; no, he’s perfectly capable of dishing out pain with nothing but his bare hands, at astounding speeds expressed through some of the most smooth, hectic, and downright gorgeous animation this show has ever had. I love how there’s no emotional stakes or personal beef between gaara and rock here: it’s just a fight between two powerhouses that kept me on the edge of my seat with every twist and turn.

I would gush more about this fight but I have to leave soon so I’ll just say what an amazing arc (also choji vs desu was a fucking joke, not much to it)

Yeah man, I remember back in the day(jesus christ I need to stop saying this) but when Naruto was SUPER HUGE you could tell which fights were the most popular by looking and seeing if it had 100+ linkin park amvs on Youtube.

Gaara vs Rock Lee was one of them.

That fight is so dope because like you said it really shows how much of a beast Lee is. No ninja magic, no gimmicks. Just hard fucking work all the way through and by the end you're on the edge of your seat hoping he pulls a win. He doesn't, of course, but in the back on my mind I knew that Gaara wasn't going to go out so soon. He's had too much hype, there's too much mystery around him and...well I don't wanna spoil anything so I'll leave it at that but yes. Gaara is sick. That fight is sick.

I agree with your points about padding as well and that's one major complaint I have with the Naruto anime specifically. If you're reading the manga it goes by pretty fast. Couple pages of flash backs and you're right back in the action BUT it's totally different in the anime where there's 5-10 of flashbacks per fight for people you honestly don't really give a fuck about(The Sound Ninja). Bro, I was so sick of sadness and sorrow this arc they used the shit out of it if I remember correctly.

What ele can I say...if you liked that Shikamaru fight you'll love the rest of them and just him as a character probably. They're very tactical and wit based and his theme song is sick as hell. Hinata fight was heart-breaking to watch and I'm not even really a Hinata guy but fuck I shed a tear I'm not ashamed. I actually liked Sakura's fight even if it boils down to two bitches fighting over sasuke; I'm a rare breed who actually doesn't mind Sakura(she can be very annoying though.)


Keep watching fam. I think there's maybe one slow point in part 1 after chunin exam and you'll know when you get there. For the next 40 something episodes you're in for some good shit!



edit: oh yea man rewatching this last year it's crazy how much homie took from hxh in the chunin exam specifically like fuck lol if i was togashi we would have to fight. but i mean anko wasn't in hxh so it's all good

so, season 4 (if you’re curious about season 3 I’ll post the discord logs...eventually)

I suppose itachi was an intimidating villain and all, but it felt weird how quickly he left. it seemed like all he did was get into a skirmish with the leaf village jonins, try to abduct naruto followed by a relatively brief fight, and then left. it was more of a teaser for something bigger than anything, really

it’s clear the main focus of this season was the tsunade arc, though. first off is the rasengan, the signature move of the series I knew all about before the show started. I did like how it was introduced compared to dragon ball’s signature move: while master roshi first used the kamehameha for heroic purposes, putting out a large castle fire, jiraiya showed it to naruto by....knocking out a low-level thug. I don’t know, something about how casual it was amuses me. there was yet another cliche when naruto didn’t master it until his life was on the line in his fight against kabuto, but I didn’t really care much since it was a really satisfying moment.

I’m pretty fond of tsunade as a character, too. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her as she didn’t care about risking anything anymore after the death of the two people she loved most. her personal arc was probably my highlight of this season

and hoo boy, the orochimaru & kabuto fight. even if it wasn’t anything special on a technical level unlike gaara vs lee or the first orochimaru fight way back in the forest of death arc, there were still a bunch of little moments that put this battle on the same tier as those in my opinion. between naruto almost dying and the three sannin reuniting, this had some of the highest emotional stakes in the series. like I said before, naruto landing a rasengan on kabuto was extremely gratifying, great to see how much he’s growing. not to mention kabuto getting used to tsunade’s jutsu that messed with his nervous system, the kaiju battle at the end, the sheer ridiculousness of a snake with a sword in its mouth coming out of orochimaru’s mouth....idk, I just like this fight a lot

also, a shout out to my boy rock lee, such a powerful character arc he’s been going through. I was feeling right with him when he was facing death, and he’s continuing to prove why he’s the best character in the whole show

lastly I took a look at my first filler episode, #101, as it was marked as notable compared to the rest of its kind. and...I can see why, it was pretty decent. for those who don’t know, it was basically naruto and the gang trying to find out what’s behind kakashi’s mask. it kind of slowed down once this stereotypical dumbass villain trio showed up, but I still found the whole the whole thing enjoyable for the physical humor that the series normally doesn’t do that well. also appreciated getting to see sasuke dork out along with naruto and sakura, even if it comes out of nowhere considering this is after he was tortured by his brother he had a blood vendetta against

there is no greater pain than being spoiled by a fucking picture on the app store

that's a huge bummer but honestly did the eye grow with him how does it work

here's my impressions of naruto:
ultimate ninja storm 1 was cool because you could jump around naruto's town place but they took that shit out in the sequel and then made all the cutscenes half an hour long so i uninstalled it right after beating up the puppet guy

and now, part 1 of naruto is done. lot to unpack here, but first I'll give my thoughts on the sasuke retrieval arc

And man, do I have mixed feelings on this arc. I might as well say the things this arc didn't do so well first:

-Sound Five wasn't anything special, just another shounen villain squad. Kimimaro was my favorite among them thanks to his creative powers, but ultimately his backstory and motivation is the same as Haku's from way back to the beginning of the series.
-Now, I was fine with Choji's "death". I thought it was a bit sudden since it was the first time he had shown any personality besides eating a lot, but it did a good job at being emotional and was a good sendoff. Then suddenly my bullshit meter went off the charts when they pulled the exact same stunt with Neji, same flashback montage and music and all. It was...honestly a bit insulting to the audience's emotions, and any doubt that they could have really died (never mind that I already saw Shippuden art for the both of them) cleared instantly.
-I can't help but feel they tried to undermine the strength of the Leaf Village genins a bit? I mean yeah, they managed to pull off incredible feats and all, but they couldn't get an upper hand in the fight without seriously injuring themselves intentionally (besides Rock), and the ones who won their fight against a Sound ninja barely survived. I'm not asking for battles that are a complete curbstomp, that would simply be boring and interesting, but I feel a bit copped out after the stupidest deus ex machinas in the series where 2/3rds of the Sand Ninjas showed up in the nick of time and managed to instantly floor their opponents.

And now the positives: Both Naruto vs Sasuke arcs were phenomenal. There's no strategic plans, no long internal monologues, just two characters giving each other an emotional beatdown with some spectacular animation. The entire series was leading up to these rivals duking it out, and if it didn't fulfill my expectations it would have been a very disappointing climax, but I'm glad it didn't happen. Rock Lee vs Kimimaro was a fight that really stood out as well, not only is any Rock at all appreciated but his Drunken Fist style allowed the artists to get really creative with the choreography. And overall, I appreciate that some of the genin that didn't get much attention previously like Choji and Kiba got their time in the spotlight. speaking of which what the fuck is a tenten

In the end, I thought Naruto wouldn't stack up to two of the more well-done shounen series I've seen, Hunter x Hunter and JoJo, and while I still think this doesn't hold a candle to those two, this is still a very competent shounen in its own right. The odd thing is that two of my biggest gripes against this series changed with the version I was watching; I started off watching on Crunchyroll, but due to certain circumstances I had to find an alternative source while I was at the middle of season 5. This is how I found Naruto Kai, a streamlined cut that covers one volume per episode with no filler and padding. For one thing, the pacing improved exponentially, as many of the fight-interrupting flashbacks ceased to be. The writing also improved, as I found it rather stilted and cliched in the original subs but became more natural in the subs. So while these quality of life changes made my experience more enjoyable, I still can't really ignore the fact that those issues were there in the first place.

But even then, there's still plenty of things to like about this show. Naruto, while a bit grating at first, turned out to be a pretty sympathetic and interesting characters, and most of the other characters had interesting personalities and motivations. Some of the fights can be rather rough around the edges, but when they hit, they really, really hit. Gaara vs Rock Lee will always stand out as one of my all-time favorite anime battles, and like I mentioned before, the Naruto vs Sasuke fights were immensely satisfying. The animation's standard, but that's the lowest it stayed; I can't think of one awkward or off-model piece of animation in the series, and it can be the highlight of some of these fights. Overall, I'd only recommend Naruto if you're sure you're ready for a long commitment and can withstand jeers from your online peers, but if you do start it, you might find something incredibly fun.

As for the hot mess that is Shippuden, don't expect this thread to be bumped for a while, since I'll be holding it off until summer where I have more time.

what the fuck is a tenten

you and me both