Update: Land of Waves arc
So after many, many, many years after I dropped it, I have decided that I am going to reread Naruto. If you've ever talked to me about this series, then you know that this series is important to me for two reasons.
The first reason is that this was a highly transformative work for me personally. It was my gateway anime and when I caught up with that, I immediately started reading the manga because I was just so into the story. I had to get more and I am pretty sure I got to the latest chapter at that time just as the timeskip happened. I loved this series and it kind of crystalized a lot of writing tropes/techniques that I have a personal affectation for to this day. I love rivals and foils. I love battles that are equal parts superpowers and clever thinking. I like organizations of villains. There's a lot of stuff like that my earliest memories of getting hyped watching was Naruto. And it also introduced me to forum discussion proper. I talked about it for hours on end online. That too was formative for how I discussed storytelling with other people.
The second reason ended up being the worst manga I've ever read. Yes, I know that sounds contradictory. And no, I am not speaking in hyberbole. It's the actual worst (for me. Remember, the term is subjective)
Look, I'm sure you can find other works in which you can make arguments of it being objectively worse written, but for me, Naruto hyped my 12 year old mind up with promises of epicness and let me down hard as it went on. Except I was reading it on a weekly basis, so it wasn't like other disappointing works of fiction where. It was YEARS of pure stupidity, character assassination, and piss poor conflict resolutions before I finally dropped it sometime in the middle of the Ninja War. It turned one of my nerd passions into something I truly loathed. It got bad. And for me, that makes truly the worst story I've ever experienced. I decided I would just finish it when it ended. But then it ended and I didn't really want to because I forgot what the hell was going on. So I decided I'd do a reread sometime eventually.
Well, eventually is now. And I am doing it because I only remember the broad strokes of my complaints about it. I want closure. I want to be able to say, precisely, where and how the story truly fell apart. And I want to revisit the good memories of the old days too. It's not strictly speaking the first time I've done it, and I know that Part 1 of the story isn't perfect itself either. The rose tinted glasses of nostalgia have come long off. But I nevertheless want to look back at the stuff I fell in love with as a kid.
Anyway, since the manga is 700 chapters long, I'm instead just gonna do my impressions as I read along instead of reading the whole thing (or even a significant chunk), since there is a lot that I'm gonna want to talk about.
Introductions (chapter 1):
The opening chapter of the manga does 3 main things: Show glimpses of what made Naruto good, shows glimpses of what made Naruto bad, and in retrospect shows that Kishimoto didn't plan the story out terribly well.
Recap: The first thing we see is Naruto acting like a little shit, getting in trouble for it, and no one likes him. Only Iruka treats him with any kind of decency. We find out that he has big ambitions to be Hokage, but then find out he's an utter failure at a normal technique. We get a sad scene of him looking at parents who he hears talking about how they all hate him. Mizuki takes this moment to exploit his emotional state to get him to steal the scroll for him, which Naruto does, learns his Shadow clone technique, and then Iruka finds him, then Mizuki finds him and explains to Naruto his past (how the 9 tails was sealed in him), which tries to cause emotional turmoil with both him and Iruka while he tries to kill them by insinuating that Naruto is responsible for the deaths of his parents via the 9 tails fox and how he should just be hated. Fortunately, Iruka doesn't hate him for this and Naruto ends up using his newly learned technique to beat up Mizuki, at which point Iruka rewards him with the headband he sought.
So what this opening chapter does really well is establish the tone. Naruto is a childish character who does a bunch of pranks that...well, they really aren't all that funny. If anything, it's funnier to see him yelled at for being a nuisance. But the twist of the chapter is very relatable, if crudely implemented (a character straight up says that Naruto does it just because he wants attention). Naruto is introduced as a little shit, but becomes more enjoyable when Iruka sits down and actually connects with him as a person. And it's relatable because the hatred Naruto deals with isn't something explicit and overt, it's just prejudice. Any teenager feels like they got the world against them even if they think it's unintentional and because it's a thing that also actually exists, it gives the manga this authentic feel. Like, yeah, you did just see a guy get hit with a giant shuriken and there's ninja magic, but combining this with this social factor just gives it a nice kick. I can honestly say that if I were reading this for the first time, I think I would atleast be intrigued. Because this has....had potential.
Which is not to say that the rough spots don't show more roughly than ever nowadays. Mizuki is silly levels of evil, like pure mustache twirling for no reason, but I have to wonder, what was his actual plan? Steal the scroll, I know, but what was he going to do with it? Apparently they contain super dangerous techniques, but Shadow Clone Jutsu isn't that dangerous a technique, so are the other techniques just way higher levels? We don't really know because this super powerful scroll is never really brought up a second time.
There's also the fact that Naruto went from not being able to keep up with any of his peers to producing a thousand clones, each of which are better than the stuff his peers did. And he learned this inside an hour or so after getting the scroll, all without much explanation (maybe that's the real power of the scroll, makes learning hard techniques easier?). But the crown kicker is probably the fact that we don't get to see the money shot of Naruto kicking Mizuki's ass. It's like the author drew the shot of a thousand clones and then was like "Fuck it, I'm done, I can't do this anymore, I'm just ending it"
A lot of this is simply not thought through for the future. The Shadow Clones, taken scroll that's supposed to be so powerful that it can make anyone a super ninja, ends up not only being a technique that's fairly commonplace in the ninja world, but also it's not particularly strong since they take can only take 1 hit and poof. Then you have the hokage, greatest ninja in Konoha, genuinely passing out by Naruto transforming into a nude girl (bet Orochimaru would have loved to know it was that easy), and Iruka himself just becoming an extraneous character in Naruto's life that Kishimoto had to keep in because he was hte first one who acknowledged Naruto. He has no purpose other than being Naruto's paternal support figure, when the premise of his character is that he isn't supposed to have one of those!
So yeah, Naruto is flawed....but there is value here. Value that Kishimoto would later go on to capitalize...then squander.
Konohamaru (Chapter 2):
Who cares.
]Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi (Chapters 3-8):
Recap: We get introduced to Naruto's squad, which will go on to become the most important characters in the manga (especially Sasuke). Naruto ties up Sasuke (that he is able to do this is hilarious) so he can pretend to be him and make advances on Sakura. Sakura, meanwhile, has the thirst of a dehydrated sponge, jesus christ. And Kakashi is introduced as a lazy but competent ninja. He gives them a physical test to pass, which is actually a secret test of character, and they pass and become ninjas.
The notable thing about it is the ending when Kakashi foreshadows how serious the ninja life is supposed to get. He's had friends die, and this is a stark contrast to the fairly goofy tone that the manga has shown thus far. The kids here, despite being trained to kill, still really act like kids. Naruto is a goofball that shoots off his mouth, Sasuke is Miller's Batman levels of darkness and Sakura....well....Anyway, this is actually good. It's more of what was introduced in the first chapter of serious shit happening in the adult world of the manga, even though the focus right now is on Naruto as a child. Kakashi's lesson in teamwork is pretty hokey otherwise. Kishimoto really didn't sell me on him being a hardass when it comes to teamwork given that he passes them the first time they do something right. Kakashi certainly makes a good impression in terms of style and trolling, but there's not all that much to him.
The interesting thing is that Sasuke is introduced as a pretty....I don't want to say good, and I don't want to say fun, but he's not a bad guy. He only goes after Naruto when Naruto fucks with his life. He defends Naruto to Sakura (well...'defends'. It's more that Sakura pressed a hotbutton by blaming Naruto's behavior on his lack of parents and then complaining about her parents scolding her) and he's the one who gives Naruto lunch in the exercise. (By the way, Naruto and Sakura not knowing about Sasuke's parents is another example of how Kishimoto didn't plan ahead. Really guys, you never heard of the Uchiha fucking massacre? Similarly, Sasuke refers to Itachi as a "certain someone", as if it wouldn't be blazingly obvious to anyone who lived in Konoha who it'd be.) Naruto hates him, but the way he's presented here, he's arrogant and condescending to others, but when you're stuck between Naruto being a jackass and Sakura having nothing on her mind other than how much she wants to do him, I can't entirely blame him.
Sakura, on the other hand.....really makes a bad impression. First she shit talks Naruto for not having a parent and complains about her own. You know, like a teenager would. But in these chapters, it's plainly established that Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi all have darker secrets that weigh onto their personalities that provide a contrast and context for their immaturity. Sakura, even moreso than Naruto, comes off as a very stereotypical teenager whose got no idea what it's like in the real world. And, while I'm not opposed to teens being teens, she is still a trained ninja, so she should have some semblance of maturity in her. Like, she honestly has no goal in her life beyond fucking Sasuke. And I do mean fucking because I'm reading from the Viz translation and they make it pretty clear that this is pure lust for her....which is kinda uncomfortable given she's 12 years old. I'd say it's poor characterization, and it is really, really is, but it's just baffling how stark the contrast is between Sakura and the other characters. They all feel like they have purpose and direction and then here's Sakura being completely out of her depth. And it's really unfortunate that Kishimoto basically never takes her far beyond this. She just mostly becomes nicer, but she doesn't even get her own technique until Part 2.
And that's it for now. There's not much meat here, because this really is just the start of the manga and it takes off in the next arc, but there was more here than I recalled from memory. From what I remember, the Water Country arc is arguably the best in the series, so I'm looking forward to reading that later. Also, I think future posts will be shorter since I'll be recapping less, since those arcs are better remembered and a lot of this was just getting people in the mindset of the series, but they could run just as long as I talk about the stuff in them that I can actually sink my teeth into. The themes and character development and such.
Also, for rules of the thread, I'm not gonna say that you need to spoiler anything, but I'm basically not really gonna talk about stuff unless I'm at that part of the manga, so if you want to discuss how awesome the last part of the ninja war is or something, I got nothing to say to you for now.
So after many, many, many years after I dropped it, I have decided that I am going to reread Naruto. If you've ever talked to me about this series, then you know that this series is important to me for two reasons.
The first reason is that this was a highly transformative work for me personally. It was my gateway anime and when I caught up with that, I immediately started reading the manga because I was just so into the story. I had to get more and I am pretty sure I got to the latest chapter at that time just as the timeskip happened. I loved this series and it kind of crystalized a lot of writing tropes/techniques that I have a personal affectation for to this day. I love rivals and foils. I love battles that are equal parts superpowers and clever thinking. I like organizations of villains. There's a lot of stuff like that my earliest memories of getting hyped watching was Naruto. And it also introduced me to forum discussion proper. I talked about it for hours on end online. That too was formative for how I discussed storytelling with other people.
The second reason ended up being the worst manga I've ever read. Yes, I know that sounds contradictory. And no, I am not speaking in hyberbole. It's the actual worst (for me. Remember, the term is subjective)
Look, I'm sure you can find other works in which you can make arguments of it being objectively worse written, but for me, Naruto hyped my 12 year old mind up with promises of epicness and let me down hard as it went on. Except I was reading it on a weekly basis, so it wasn't like other disappointing works of fiction where. It was YEARS of pure stupidity, character assassination, and piss poor conflict resolutions before I finally dropped it sometime in the middle of the Ninja War. It turned one of my nerd passions into something I truly loathed. It got bad. And for me, that makes truly the worst story I've ever experienced. I decided I would just finish it when it ended. But then it ended and I didn't really want to because I forgot what the hell was going on. So I decided I'd do a reread sometime eventually.
Well, eventually is now. And I am doing it because I only remember the broad strokes of my complaints about it. I want closure. I want to be able to say, precisely, where and how the story truly fell apart. And I want to revisit the good memories of the old days too. It's not strictly speaking the first time I've done it, and I know that Part 1 of the story isn't perfect itself either. The rose tinted glasses of nostalgia have come long off. But I nevertheless want to look back at the stuff I fell in love with as a kid.
Anyway, since the manga is 700 chapters long, I'm instead just gonna do my impressions as I read along instead of reading the whole thing (or even a significant chunk), since there is a lot that I'm gonna want to talk about.
Introductions (chapter 1):
The opening chapter of the manga does 3 main things: Show glimpses of what made Naruto good, shows glimpses of what made Naruto bad, and in retrospect shows that Kishimoto didn't plan the story out terribly well.
Recap: The first thing we see is Naruto acting like a little shit, getting in trouble for it, and no one likes him. Only Iruka treats him with any kind of decency. We find out that he has big ambitions to be Hokage, but then find out he's an utter failure at a normal technique. We get a sad scene of him looking at parents who he hears talking about how they all hate him. Mizuki takes this moment to exploit his emotional state to get him to steal the scroll for him, which Naruto does, learns his Shadow clone technique, and then Iruka finds him, then Mizuki finds him and explains to Naruto his past (how the 9 tails was sealed in him), which tries to cause emotional turmoil with both him and Iruka while he tries to kill them by insinuating that Naruto is responsible for the deaths of his parents via the 9 tails fox and how he should just be hated. Fortunately, Iruka doesn't hate him for this and Naruto ends up using his newly learned technique to beat up Mizuki, at which point Iruka rewards him with the headband he sought.
It would have been kinda interesting route to take if Iruka had been crippled from this encounter as Iruka has become something of an extrenuous father figure to Naruto, given he already gets Jiraiya later on, who also factors into the plot instead of just...being there. .
So what this opening chapter does really well is establish the tone. Naruto is a childish character who does a bunch of pranks that...well, they really aren't all that funny. If anything, it's funnier to see him yelled at for being a nuisance. But the twist of the chapter is very relatable, if crudely implemented (a character straight up says that Naruto does it just because he wants attention). Naruto is introduced as a little shit, but becomes more enjoyable when Iruka sits down and actually connects with him as a person. And it's relatable because the hatred Naruto deals with isn't something explicit and overt, it's just prejudice. Any teenager feels like they got the world against them even if they think it's unintentional and because it's a thing that also actually exists, it gives the manga this authentic feel. Like, yeah, you did just see a guy get hit with a giant shuriken and there's ninja magic, but combining this with this social factor just gives it a nice kick. I can honestly say that if I were reading this for the first time, I think I would atleast be intrigued. Because this has....had potential.
I really, really like this image. I like canine creatures in general, but making it a Kaiju based off a myth is just a concoction of cool, that also further builds the worldbuilding. This had me wondering "What is this thing? Are there more of them? Whats going to happen when it comes back?" It's just a really intriguing story concept neatly fitted in.
Which is not to say that the rough spots don't show more roughly than ever nowadays. Mizuki is silly levels of evil, like pure mustache twirling for no reason, but I have to wonder, what was his actual plan? Steal the scroll, I know, but what was he going to do with it? Apparently they contain super dangerous techniques, but Shadow Clone Jutsu isn't that dangerous a technique, so are the other techniques just way higher levels? We don't really know because this super powerful scroll is never really brought up a second time.
There's also the fact that Naruto went from not being able to keep up with any of his peers to producing a thousand clones, each of which are better than the stuff his peers did. And he learned this inside an hour or so after getting the scroll, all without much explanation (maybe that's the real power of the scroll, makes learning hard techniques easier?). But the crown kicker is probably the fact that we don't get to see the money shot of Naruto kicking Mizuki's ass. It's like the author drew the shot of a thousand clones and then was like "Fuck it, I'm done, I can't do this anymore, I'm just ending it"
The first and, as far as I remember, only time Naruto has summoned this many clones at once. And we don't even get to see them fight.
A lot of this is simply not thought through for the future. The Shadow Clones, taken scroll that's supposed to be so powerful that it can make anyone a super ninja, ends up not only being a technique that's fairly commonplace in the ninja world, but also it's not particularly strong since they take can only take 1 hit and poof. Then you have the hokage, greatest ninja in Konoha, genuinely passing out by Naruto transforming into a nude girl (bet Orochimaru would have loved to know it was that easy), and Iruka himself just becoming an extraneous character in Naruto's life that Kishimoto had to keep in because he was hte first one who acknowledged Naruto. He has no purpose other than being Naruto's paternal support figure, when the premise of his character is that he isn't supposed to have one of those!
So yeah, Naruto is flawed....but there is value here. Value that Kishimoto would later go on to capitalize...then squander.
Konohamaru (Chapter 2):
Who cares.
]Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi (Chapters 3-8):
Knowing what I know is to come, they really should have just made them a couple
Ow, the edge
Just normal 12 year old girl thoughts.
Recap: We get introduced to Naruto's squad, which will go on to become the most important characters in the manga (especially Sasuke). Naruto ties up Sasuke (that he is able to do this is hilarious) so he can pretend to be him and make advances on Sakura. Sakura, meanwhile, has the thirst of a dehydrated sponge, jesus christ. And Kakashi is introduced as a lazy but competent ninja. He gives them a physical test to pass, which is actually a secret test of character, and they pass and become ninjas.
The notable thing about it is the ending when Kakashi foreshadows how serious the ninja life is supposed to get. He's had friends die, and this is a stark contrast to the fairly goofy tone that the manga has shown thus far. The kids here, despite being trained to kill, still really act like kids. Naruto is a goofball that shoots off his mouth, Sasuke is Miller's Batman levels of darkness and Sakura....well....Anyway, this is actually good. It's more of what was introduced in the first chapter of serious shit happening in the adult world of the manga, even though the focus right now is on Naruto as a child. Kakashi's lesson in teamwork is pretty hokey otherwise. Kishimoto really didn't sell me on him being a hardass when it comes to teamwork given that he passes them the first time they do something right. Kakashi certainly makes a good impression in terms of style and trolling, but there's not all that much to him.
The interesting thing is that Sasuke is introduced as a pretty....I don't want to say good, and I don't want to say fun, but he's not a bad guy. He only goes after Naruto when Naruto fucks with his life. He defends Naruto to Sakura (well...'defends'. It's more that Sakura pressed a hotbutton by blaming Naruto's behavior on his lack of parents and then complaining about her parents scolding her) and he's the one who gives Naruto lunch in the exercise. (By the way, Naruto and Sakura not knowing about Sasuke's parents is another example of how Kishimoto didn't plan ahead. Really guys, you never heard of the Uchiha fucking massacre? Similarly, Sasuke refers to Itachi as a "certain someone", as if it wouldn't be blazingly obvious to anyone who lived in Konoha who it'd be.) Naruto hates him, but the way he's presented here, he's arrogant and condescending to others, but when you're stuck between Naruto being a jackass and Sakura having nothing on her mind other than how much she wants to do him, I can't entirely blame him.
Sakura, on the other hand.....really makes a bad impression. First she shit talks Naruto for not having a parent and complains about her own. You know, like a teenager would. But in these chapters, it's plainly established that Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi all have darker secrets that weigh onto their personalities that provide a contrast and context for their immaturity. Sakura, even moreso than Naruto, comes off as a very stereotypical teenager whose got no idea what it's like in the real world. And, while I'm not opposed to teens being teens, she is still a trained ninja, so she should have some semblance of maturity in her. Like, she honestly has no goal in her life beyond fucking Sasuke. And I do mean fucking because I'm reading from the Viz translation and they make it pretty clear that this is pure lust for her....which is kinda uncomfortable given she's 12 years old. I'd say it's poor characterization, and it is really, really is, but it's just baffling how stark the contrast is between Sakura and the other characters. They all feel like they have purpose and direction and then here's Sakura being completely out of her depth. And it's really unfortunate that Kishimoto basically never takes her far beyond this. She just mostly becomes nicer, but she doesn't even get her own technique until Part 2.
And that's it for now. There's not much meat here, because this really is just the start of the manga and it takes off in the next arc, but there was more here than I recalled from memory. From what I remember, the Water Country arc is arguably the best in the series, so I'm looking forward to reading that later. Also, I think future posts will be shorter since I'll be recapping less, since those arcs are better remembered and a lot of this was just getting people in the mindset of the series, but they could run just as long as I talk about the stuff in them that I can actually sink my teeth into. The themes and character development and such.
Also, for rules of the thread, I'm not gonna say that you need to spoiler anything, but I'm basically not really gonna talk about stuff unless I'm at that part of the manga, so if you want to discuss how awesome the last part of the ninja war is or something, I got nothing to say to you for now.
