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Naruto Reread
- Thread starter Veelk
- Start date
I know this opinion is unpopular, but I like Sasuke for about 80% of the manga.
There's just a portion in the second half where
There's just a portion in the second half where
Sasuke inexplicably goes crazy evil. I mean, he doesn't hesitate to stab Karin when in his previous arc he pushes himself to protect her. Thankfully, he more or less goes back to normal by the end of the manga.
Sasuke was a huge part of the story and he had loads of screen time. As of chapter 530, he had over 5400 panels of screen time, over half of Naruto's at 9700. Reference.
The Uchiha stuff was largely tied to Sasuke. Even when he wasn't there, he was always present through Naruto and Sakura and their motivation to bring him back. The finding Tsunade arc was partly about Sasuke, through the rescue Gaara arc Sakura was focused on getting info on him, the Grass country arc became about Sasuke, Naruto's training was about becoming strong enough to face Sasuke, the search for Itachi was about Sasuke, Naruto going to the Kage Summit was about Sasuke.
If it wasn't for Hidan and Kakuzu attacking Konoha, Jiraiya looking for Pain and dying, Pain attacking Konoha, Killer Bee and Kisame shenanigans, and the parts of the World War that went on while Sasuke was adjusting to Itachi's eyes and looking for answers in Konoha, the entirety of part 2 since his reintroduction would have been about Sasuke in some way.
Apparently one of his goals was for Naruto to never defeat any villains either.
What did you think of Sasuke in Shippuuden? I always wanted to like him, he has his reasons for what he was doing but he wasn't really much of a character anymore in my opinion. It seemed like he was never had any plans to do anything besides hiding somewhere and and either follow someone or being followed by people that had no motive but to follow him for whatever reason. Then he shows up at the end helps naruto out in the big fight after years of giving him the silent treatment.
Fuck it, I'm in. I don't want to miss this
This is still the greatest thing that ever came out of Naruto lol
This is still the greatest thing that ever came out of Naruto lol
Okay, that took longer than I expected it to (and I have a feeling that will be a running theme among the arcs as they get longer), but I finally did....
Land of Waves (Chapter 9-34)
Again, there is a certain sweet bitterness in reading this arc, moreso than the introduction arcs before it, knowing where this manga will end up. Because this arc? This is everything Naruto should have been. It's not perfect. Inari is, if not utterly superfluous, then way more hokey than the seriousness of this arc demands. And some other continuity stuff (like how Sasuke somehow doesn't know that Kakashi is one of the last remaining Sharingan wielders) rears it's ugly head, showing again how little Kishimoto planned this manga out. Lastly, there's some small plot stuff that could be done better (what the hell was Tazuna doing in the Land of Leafs in the first place anyway? And why is Naruto not educated on how chakra works even though he graduated? Or did Naruto never notice that his wounds healed instantly before?) But this arc does so much right.
Plot recap: Naruto and Team 7 have completed yet another frivilrous D-level missions and, utterly tired of the stupid shit they are being tasked to do, Naruto demands that he recieve a higher level mission. Amused, the Hokage decides to give him a C-rank mission to placate him, which involves gaurding a bridgebuilder named Tazuna on his way to the Land of Waves. However, an evil corporate guy wants to keep his monopoly on the place, so a bridge would be bad for him, so he hires assassins to kill him. One of them happens to be Zabuza and his sidekick Haku, who are both badass enough to make it an A mission in disguise. Zabuza attacks them the first time, but they manage to fight him off with some clever tactical help from Naruto and Sasuke working together to give Kakashi an edge while Sakura heroically stood there doing nothing. They made it to Tazuna's village, where they recovered and the group was trained further in ninja arts by a treeclimbing exercise (over which Naruto and Sasuke kinda bonded). At one point, Naruto met Haku without recognizing him as Zabuza's ally and they had a short conversation about the nature of being a shinobi.
Eventually though, Zabuza and Haku came back for a second assassination attempt. This time, Zabuza fought Kakashi alone and Haku fought Sasuke (after a while Naruto joined him). Sakura just stood there. Naruto and Sasuke both reached new heights of their powers by fighting alongside each other. Sasuke awakened his Sharingan when Haku attacked Naruto while Naruto's seal was weakened and he used the Fox Chakra for the first time when Haku seemingly killed Naruto (Sakura awakened her Helpless Crying ability upon seeing a seemingly dead Sasuke). However, when Naruto recognized Haku as the guy who he talked to earlier, he stopped in his tracks, since he could no longer see Haku as purely an enemy, even though he seemed to have just killed his friend. Haku begged Naruto to kill him as he felt he had no worth after his defeat, but he sensed that Kakashi was about to kill Zabuza, so he took the killing blow. Zabuza tried to take advantage of this opening, but to no avail. However, this was when the evil corperate guy stepped in and tried to just kill everyone, since he wasn't happy with how Zabuza failed him, using an army of thugs. He started this by kicking Haku's dead body. Zabuza acted like he didn't care about Haku, at which point Naruto straight up attacked him for his coldness, only to reveal that Zabuza was indeed human enough to care for Haku aftera ll. Zabuza's last act, having had his arms destroyed in his fight with Kakashi, was to charge in with a kunai knife between his teeth and kill the evil corperate guy, before falling to his death. Naruto and the rest cleaned up the thugs after that, and Naruto resolved to find his own ninja way, one that didn't involve being as heartless and abusive as the philosophy he witnessed in Zabuza and Haku.
Honestly, in a way, I was terrified that this wouldn't hold up to my memories of it. But while it's not perfect, it's still kinda amazing how much this arc manages to accomplish.
First, on a character level, it develops Naruto in how he conceptualizes his ideals as a ninja. In a lot of ways, Naruto just wants to be a superhero, and up until now, he's wanted to do it for reasons of self validation. However, as forgettable as Inari (the little kid that lost his dad to evil corperate guy) is as a character, it helps show that there is more to Naruto than just being an attention whore. He sees the kind of pain he's suffered in others and wants to help. Inari came into the story as a broken boy who just embraced cynicism, but left it as someone who wants to fight for his home (I wish his mom was actually the one who took his place in this story, since it's a bit silly for a kid to be leading the fight against the thugs in his town, but whatever). This served as a good thematic contrast to Zabuza's coldness and brutality, showing that both these elements co-existed in this world.
Sasuke also continues to be kinda awesome. First off, despite his introduction as King Negative Edgelord, his character is one with genuine vulnerabilities. He bashfully asks for help from Naruto (who asked help from Sakura) for the tree climbing exercise, he and Naruto are shown to be more alike than either wants to admit, and he genuinely seems enjoy Naruto's company as a rival. This makes his shock at defending Naruto against Haku's attack, even though it felt like it cost him his life, as well as Naruto's rage at losing his comrade, feel really genuine. They're both surprised at how much they connected with each other.
The combat really sells me on the series as well. It's very tactical. It shows front up that power levels don't matter that much. Zabuza is way, WAY above either Naruto or Sasuke's paygrade, but they force him to make a mistake and lose his fight to Kakashi through clever trickery. Zabuza's fight with Kakashi is this too. Rather than use his Sharingan to straight up 'beat' him, what he actually does is psych him out by making him think that the Sharingan allows him to see the future, when in reality, Kakashi is just fucking with his mind. Zabuza, in their second fight, wises up to this and employs different techniques, which then Kakashi has to counter him in return. In contrast to this, Haku v Naruto and Sasuke is a bit more of a power struggle, since Haku's technique is far above anything either of them could counter. But that's not as disappointing as it sounds, since the arc already gave us plenty of tactical fights, I don't mind so much that they pull back and let Naruto and Sasuke level up and just beat Haku through muscle. I remember the first time I saw Naruto with fox chakra and having him just be able to punch out the guy who has up until now not only been tactically beating them but through sheer power as well was pretty intense.
And the art. Not all the panels are gold. In fact, a lot of them are pretty blank. Not as much as Bleach would become, but Kishimoto was taking advantage of the fact that they were in a white fog pretty strongly. But the panels he wanted to hit hardest with, he definitely nailed them. Look at the expressiveness of them. Again, this is a major constrast to what his future work will become, and it's sad, but it's nice to see him in his prime right here.
That said, the Viz translation is really starting to get on my nerves with these sound effects. Most of the time, they don't make sense, which is bad enough, but then they start crowding the frame and obstructing the art. At one point, they literally damage it.
As the antagonists, Zabuza and Haku shine both with their personalities and with their abilities. You get a sense of how powerful and varied the abilities of the top combatants of this world must be with how they both employ so many different styles with a basic water theme. Zabuza in particularly is genuinely terrifying, despite being pretty outmatched, just because of his delighted brutality. But the real clincher for their characters is naturally the end, where it's revealed that while the world might have turned them into monsters, they still have a human core. Haku finds the life of a ninja to be distasteful and hates the idea of killing, but will do so just because Zabuza asks for it, because Zabuza is the only one who ever showed him kindness (and even that was under the pretense that Zabuza just wanted an attack dog). Zabuza meanwhile has to have his inhumanity shoved in his face, the idea of not caring about Haku's corpse being kicked around, before he finally cracks. This turn around is surprisingly effective. You have Zabuza established as a vicious murderer who takes pride in how many lives he's taken, only seeing Haku's death as yet another advantage to exploit, just start crying when Naruto spells out just how fucked up of a human being he is.
I think this, more than anything, is what drew me to the series in the first place. This beautiful contrast of a kid trying to be a hero to compensate for his personal hangups about being left alone in the world confronted with the ugly brutality of the shinobi that he can't even comprehend, but still finds a shred of decency in even someone as vile Zabuza. It's a world of the broken. It's a story of a damaged kid trying to help other damaged people. It's hard to describe how relatable I find this even today. If you ever felt like that, like a damaged person in a fucked up world...idk, it resonates with me atleast.
As it is, if Naruto had continued on the standard that this arc set with some refinement of quality, I genuinely think we'd have one of the greatest manga on our hands. Even though I like the Chunin arcs and most of Part 1 from here on out, they immediately took a different tone and turn, leaving behind the outside ninja world for more Konoha centric conflicts. I think if Kishimoto had done just one more arc with Naruto going outside Konoha to explore the ninja world and then did his whole Chunin exam thing, maybe that'd have given Kishimoto more encouragement to just do this instead.
Ah, well. Next time, the Chunin arc. I might split this up into different segments though. Like, first the lead up and the written exam, then forest of death, then the tournament thing, since this next arc is going to be twice the chapter length we have now.
Land of Waves (Chapter 9-34)
Again, there is a certain sweet bitterness in reading this arc, moreso than the introduction arcs before it, knowing where this manga will end up. Because this arc? This is everything Naruto should have been. It's not perfect. Inari is, if not utterly superfluous, then way more hokey than the seriousness of this arc demands. And some other continuity stuff (like how Sasuke somehow doesn't know that Kakashi is one of the last remaining Sharingan wielders) rears it's ugly head, showing again how little Kishimoto planned this manga out. Lastly, there's some small plot stuff that could be done better (what the hell was Tazuna doing in the Land of Leafs in the first place anyway? And why is Naruto not educated on how chakra works even though he graduated? Or did Naruto never notice that his wounds healed instantly before?) But this arc does so much right.
Plot recap: Naruto and Team 7 have completed yet another frivilrous D-level missions and, utterly tired of the stupid shit they are being tasked to do, Naruto demands that he recieve a higher level mission. Amused, the Hokage decides to give him a C-rank mission to placate him, which involves gaurding a bridgebuilder named Tazuna on his way to the Land of Waves. However, an evil corporate guy wants to keep his monopoly on the place, so a bridge would be bad for him, so he hires assassins to kill him. One of them happens to be Zabuza and his sidekick Haku, who are both badass enough to make it an A mission in disguise. Zabuza attacks them the first time, but they manage to fight him off with some clever tactical help from Naruto and Sasuke working together to give Kakashi an edge while Sakura heroically stood there doing nothing. They made it to Tazuna's village, where they recovered and the group was trained further in ninja arts by a treeclimbing exercise (over which Naruto and Sasuke kinda bonded). At one point, Naruto met Haku without recognizing him as Zabuza's ally and they had a short conversation about the nature of being a shinobi.
Eventually though, Zabuza and Haku came back for a second assassination attempt. This time, Zabuza fought Kakashi alone and Haku fought Sasuke (after a while Naruto joined him). Sakura just stood there. Naruto and Sasuke both reached new heights of their powers by fighting alongside each other. Sasuke awakened his Sharingan when Haku attacked Naruto while Naruto's seal was weakened and he used the Fox Chakra for the first time when Haku seemingly killed Naruto (Sakura awakened her Helpless Crying ability upon seeing a seemingly dead Sasuke). However, when Naruto recognized Haku as the guy who he talked to earlier, he stopped in his tracks, since he could no longer see Haku as purely an enemy, even though he seemed to have just killed his friend. Haku begged Naruto to kill him as he felt he had no worth after his defeat, but he sensed that Kakashi was about to kill Zabuza, so he took the killing blow. Zabuza tried to take advantage of this opening, but to no avail. However, this was when the evil corperate guy stepped in and tried to just kill everyone, since he wasn't happy with how Zabuza failed him, using an army of thugs. He started this by kicking Haku's dead body. Zabuza acted like he didn't care about Haku, at which point Naruto straight up attacked him for his coldness, only to reveal that Zabuza was indeed human enough to care for Haku aftera ll. Zabuza's last act, having had his arms destroyed in his fight with Kakashi, was to charge in with a kunai knife between his teeth and kill the evil corperate guy, before falling to his death. Naruto and the rest cleaned up the thugs after that, and Naruto resolved to find his own ninja way, one that didn't involve being as heartless and abusive as the philosophy he witnessed in Zabuza and Haku.
Honestly, in a way, I was terrified that this wouldn't hold up to my memories of it. But while it's not perfect, it's still kinda amazing how much this arc manages to accomplish.
First, on a character level, it develops Naruto in how he conceptualizes his ideals as a ninja. In a lot of ways, Naruto just wants to be a superhero, and up until now, he's wanted to do it for reasons of self validation. However, as forgettable as Inari (the little kid that lost his dad to evil corperate guy) is as a character, it helps show that there is more to Naruto than just being an attention whore. He sees the kind of pain he's suffered in others and wants to help. Inari came into the story as a broken boy who just embraced cynicism, but left it as someone who wants to fight for his home (I wish his mom was actually the one who took his place in this story, since it's a bit silly for a kid to be leading the fight against the thugs in his town, but whatever). This served as a good thematic contrast to Zabuza's coldness and brutality, showing that both these elements co-existed in this world.
Sasuke also continues to be kinda awesome. First off, despite his introduction as King Negative Edgelord, his character is one with genuine vulnerabilities. He bashfully asks for help from Naruto (who asked help from Sakura) for the tree climbing exercise, he and Naruto are shown to be more alike than either wants to admit, and he genuinely seems enjoy Naruto's company as a rival. This makes his shock at defending Naruto against Haku's attack, even though it felt like it cost him his life, as well as Naruto's rage at losing his comrade, feel really genuine. They're both surprised at how much they connected with each other.
*sigh*, if only things could have continued this way
The combat really sells me on the series as well. It's very tactical. It shows front up that power levels don't matter that much. Zabuza is way, WAY above either Naruto or Sasuke's paygrade, but they force him to make a mistake and lose his fight to Kakashi through clever trickery. Zabuza's fight with Kakashi is this too. Rather than use his Sharingan to straight up 'beat' him, what he actually does is psych him out by making him think that the Sharingan allows him to see the future, when in reality, Kakashi is just fucking with his mind. Zabuza, in their second fight, wises up to this and employs different techniques, which then Kakashi has to counter him in return. In contrast to this, Haku v Naruto and Sasuke is a bit more of a power struggle, since Haku's technique is far above anything either of them could counter. But that's not as disappointing as it sounds, since the arc already gave us plenty of tactical fights, I don't mind so much that they pull back and let Naruto and Sasuke level up and just beat Haku through muscle. I remember the first time I saw Naruto with fox chakra and having him just be able to punch out the guy who has up until now not only been tactically beating them but through sheer power as well was pretty intense.
And the art. Not all the panels are gold. In fact, a lot of them are pretty blank. Not as much as Bleach would become, but Kishimoto was taking advantage of the fact that they were in a white fog pretty strongly. But the panels he wanted to hit hardest with, he definitely nailed them. Look at the expressiveness of them. Again, this is a major constrast to what his future work will become, and it's sad, but it's nice to see him in his prime right here.
That said, the Viz translation is really starting to get on my nerves with these sound effects. Most of the time, they don't make sense, which is bad enough, but then they start crowding the frame and obstructing the art. At one point, they literally damage it.
Original, the fist is a a bunch of blur lines to help give it a sense of a kinetic 'pow' effect.
What the FUCK is this, Viz?!
As the antagonists, Zabuza and Haku shine both with their personalities and with their abilities. You get a sense of how powerful and varied the abilities of the top combatants of this world must be with how they both employ so many different styles with a basic water theme. Zabuza in particularly is genuinely terrifying, despite being pretty outmatched, just because of his delighted brutality. But the real clincher for their characters is naturally the end, where it's revealed that while the world might have turned them into monsters, they still have a human core. Haku finds the life of a ninja to be distasteful and hates the idea of killing, but will do so just because Zabuza asks for it, because Zabuza is the only one who ever showed him kindness (and even that was under the pretense that Zabuza just wanted an attack dog). Zabuza meanwhile has to have his inhumanity shoved in his face, the idea of not caring about Haku's corpse being kicked around, before he finally cracks. This turn around is surprisingly effective. You have Zabuza established as a vicious murderer who takes pride in how many lives he's taken, only seeing Haku's death as yet another advantage to exploit, just start crying when Naruto spells out just how fucked up of a human being he is.
If nothing else, you gotta give Kishimoto credit for making a psycho murderer's tears feel authentic
I think this, more than anything, is what drew me to the series in the first place. This beautiful contrast of a kid trying to be a hero to compensate for his personal hangups about being left alone in the world confronted with the ugly brutality of the shinobi that he can't even comprehend, but still finds a shred of decency in even someone as vile Zabuza. It's a world of the broken. It's a story of a damaged kid trying to help other damaged people. It's hard to describe how relatable I find this even today. If you ever felt like that, like a damaged person in a fucked up world...idk, it resonates with me atleast.
As it is, if Naruto had continued on the standard that this arc set with some refinement of quality, I genuinely think we'd have one of the greatest manga on our hands. Even though I like the Chunin arcs and most of Part 1 from here on out, they immediately took a different tone and turn, leaving behind the outside ninja world for more Konoha centric conflicts. I think if Kishimoto had done just one more arc with Naruto going outside Konoha to explore the ninja world and then did his whole Chunin exam thing, maybe that'd have given Kishimoto more encouragement to just do this instead.
Ah, well. Next time, the Chunin arc. I might split this up into different segments though. Like, first the lead up and the written exam, then forest of death, then the tournament thing, since this next arc is going to be twice the chapter length we have now.
Eh... No.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
This arc was incredible. I loved every second of it, the feels were pretty much at an all time high with its amazing climax. Naruto's first two arcs (Chunnin Exams) are probably some of the strongest openers to a series, esp for long running series.Okay, that took longer than I expected it to (and I have a feeling that will be a running theme among the arcs as they get longer), but I finally did....
Land of Waves (Chapter 9-34)
...
I remember watching it and when the music kicks in at the end.. damn. Emotional.
This should be legit canon.
The Silver
Member
Yeah pretty much
Kuroi Gogeta
Member
A lot of people criticize how that arc ended with how Naruto ended up talking to pain and trying to understand him. Even as a teenager, I thought that was a really cool way of handling that arc, and showed character growth for Naruto. He was put in a situation where he felt he had nothing left to live for and yet he still wanted to understand what was driving someone to be so cruel, he wanted to understand the antagonist rather than just see him purely as a thing to be killed.
I also grappled with a lot of the stupidity of the series, but I'll say that Naruto is an example of a protagonist that actually goes through a lot of challenges and grows as a character. He's still childish in the sense that he wants to force sasuke to see things his way, but he also demonstrates a lot of maturity.
Pain reset some of the losses, but he couldn't resolve what happened with Jiraiya, which was probably the biggest deal for him since he spent every day with him for 3 years.
Can I get an explanation for this reference? I'm assuming its related to the fact that Naruto is supposed to be about how hard work can beat talent if talent doesn't work hard, but then we later find out that it's not really the case?
It's the Hiashi's master plan meme (heavy on late spoilers)
The best thing to ever come out of Naruto, in fact.
Teren_Kanan
Member
Such Fond memories of Naruto before the time Skip..
It's like Kishi completely lost the tone after that, and tried to make his manga into something else.
By the end iw as DBZ power levels of ridiculousness.
It's like Kishi completely lost the tone after that, and tried to make his manga into something else.
By the end iw as DBZ power levels of ridiculousness.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I think Kishimoto made a story about dualism. That's really how I see it. If you look at it on the core level, it's a story about Naruto Vs Sasuke, but that greatly expands towards the end of the series, but it's still about Naruto Vs Sasuke. Both in a larger and smaller meaning. Senju vs Uchiha. Control versus Freedom. Revenge Vs forgiveness.
There are these ambigious and symbolic dualistic elements at play at every corner. And it also seems like this carries on across the divide. We see how Naruto, Sasuke and Sakuras functions as a team, and then we get the stories of how other Ninja functioned similarly.
I think Kishimoto made Kaguya as a wrap on how the two bloodlines started feuding. In the end, Naruto and Sasuke are just an extension of their ancestors clashes. It's sort of like King Lear, where the king divides his kingdom between his sons, and they start killing each other endlessly destroying the kings empire. All the villains in the series are an extension of the idealism of the Sage of Six Path and that hatred is what is carried down to the later generations.
Naruto is Hashrama, Sasuke is Madara. It's the same dualism. It's the same dualism when Jiraiya fought Ochimara, his best friend as it is when Naruto fights Sasuke.
I think the reason why Itatchi and characters like him are favorites is that they do not have repeats. Many characters in Naruto become redeemed thanks to Naruto (like Gaara and Pain), but characters like Itatchi are unique and work on a plane where nobody before or after is like him. This might have something to do with that many characters didn't got their just due in the sun.
Sakura was totally abandoned. Neiji was totally abandoned. Rock Lee was totally abandoned.
It's understandable as there where just way way to many characters. But Kishimoto should really have killed off many of them. Half of Narutos friends should have been wiped out, one by one, sort of like in the rescue-Sasuke act. That would have made the Ninja War a lot more powerful emotionally.
But everyone have their favorite characters besides Naruto and Sasuke. And if you start killing Choji, Kiba and Shikamaru, it will hurt the brand. Never the less, I believe the shows flow would have become a lot more dramatic and powerful had many of these loved characters gotten the axe. Not to just kill them off, but because there was a "end of the world war" and these all powerful super natural forces are coming to wipe out the entire world. It makes sense that many many skilled Ninjas would die trying to save it.
I think a lot of it was due to the unplanned story- it felt a lot like he was making stuff up as he went along the longer the series went on. It seemed like he didn't think far enough ahead, so there are a lot of weird things in the story that aren't properly resolved or seemingly come out of nowhere.
And yea, the power creep in Naruto is completely ridiculous. By the end Kishimoto had to lump a bunch of crazy achievements onto the second Hokage just so he could be relevant with the other three. And not to mention the Uchiha fighting in giant sharingan gundams.
Monochromaticx
Member
Yeah, sucks because she was setup to be a brilliant jitsu user and a quick learner.
Zabuza is the best antagonist in Naruto
Followed by gara ( he was too emo eeeeeevil tho)
It's probably one of the, if not the best arc in the series. Sad it tragically went south rather fast after the timeskip. Shikamaru's arc being the exception. Pain's arc had it's moments but was overall pretty flat once you got into the actual shounen bits and massive power spikes.
Good luck Veelk. At least I can assume you'll love tearing apart Naruto bit by bit.
Iva Demilcol
Member
Just came here again to second that Hiashi's master plan is one of the best things that came out of Naruto. The fact that it'll continue to develop in Boruto is a testament to its greatness.
I haven't mentioned this as much, but I really, really like the style of early Naruto. This bizarre anarchonistic blend of modern, fantastical, and fuedal japanese aesthetic was utterly unique. It made a lot of character models just look straight up cool.
I don't know why this is ambiguous to some people. They straight up say that Haku's a guy and play how he looks like a girl as a joke on Naruto. That said, I do wish he was a girl, if only so we had as badass a female character as Haku on here.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
You'll love Afro Samurai if you've never seen it.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
This and Chunnin exams for me are my favorites. Pain would have possibly thumped all of them if
everyone didn't get a phoenix down.
It's Golden Byakugam, the source is the NarotuFan forums back in the day.
Ah, goold old days.
Absolutely sad about Naruto, it had so much potential, it all went to shit in the Timeskip after the Pain arc.
WaffleTaco
Wants to outlaw technological innovation.
I think a general rule of thumb should be marking spoilers until we get to that part...because some of us have not read or watched Part 2.
Part one of the manga (and anime up until what I call filler hell on Earth) is one of my favorite works of fiction. Kishimoto laid down a great foundation for an interesting ninja world with lots of wonderful characters. The way that Zabuza broke down after Naruto yelled at him with Haku dying for him as a tool was really powerful and made me go from "this is a cool anime" to "it's fucking raining inside my house." I am definitely a little sad we didn't get more small missions before going to the chuunin arc, is probably my big regret of part one.
After the time skip, it definitely lost a little something, and I hated how much Kishimoto seemed to have a hard on for Sasuke (that seemed to translate through Naruto), but the stuff with Asuma/Shikamaru, the Pain arc, Itachi fight, that was all pretty awesome.
Definitely one of the greats.
After the time skip, it definitely lost a little something, and I hated how much Kishimoto seemed to have a hard on for Sasuke (that seemed to translate through Naruto), but the stuff with Asuma/Shikamaru, the Pain arc, Itachi fight, that was all pretty awesome.
Definitely one of the greats.
Speaking of the Asuma arc.
The Akatsuki was a fantastic concept that was shitted on after the Pain arc to give way for MORE UCHIHA FAN WANK
Yeah, this is one of the things that really killed the story. Remember how in the Plinkett RotS review, he talks about how Darth Vader was just a high ranking officer of the empire and not any kind of space jesus figure, but Lucas wrote him to be more important because he was popular? That's kinda whats happening here.
Sasuke's heritage is well regarded, but when you get down to it, his rivalry with Naruto was just a slap fight on part of two insecure kids who saw each other as competition. Shippuden made their pissing contest into the ULTIMATE FINAL BATTLE OF ULTIMATE DESTINY. It'd kinda odd how putting more importance on something can sometimes just ruin it. It was perfectly fine for them to just be two guys who wanted to beat each other.
Yup. Totally disappointing.
Heheheh...No.
In fact the all of uchiha clan, with the exception of maybe Itachi, are a bunch of drama queens.
I feel for the OP. As soon as I finished the manga, and I only did it so I could have a closure on the clusterfuck that is Naruto, I put all that thing behind my back. I don't care about Boruto or whatever the fillers they come up next only to keep milking this dead cow. Kishimoto can't write drama and his female leads have some serious issues.
Seriously Kishimoto doesn't seem to understand women at all and he sucks in character design.
Go reread Hunter X Hunter OP, much better quality and better use of your time or skip Shippuden all together.
Okay, that took longer than I expected it to (and I have a feeling that will be a running theme among the arcs as they get longer), but I finally did....
Land of Waves (Chapter 9-34)
...
Best arc imo. Subscribed to this. Can't wait for your views on the post timeskip stuff.
Also when looking at the images it appears ot me that Naruto became way less bloody after that arc... I don't even care for it that much but yeah... seems like some editor spoke a few words with kishimoto.
AlimNassor
Banned
I used to love Killer B for his compete and total punking of Sasuke and Akatsuki. His lariat on Sasuke was the greatest thing ever.
We still get some gruesome moments with Gaara, but yeah, after a certain point, it stops being as gory. Which in this case legitimately takes away from the story, because in this case, the gore really helped sell how utterly brutal the ninja world was outside of Konoha. It really made it feel like if a character made a wrong step, they'd be insta-glibbed by the various jutsu that characters had at their disposal. It's not something that the series should have done away with, as if we need to add yet another thing to that particular pile.
Aaronrules380
Member
So how are we going to force Veelk to read Fairy Tail. As bad as late Naruto was, the fact that Veelk thinks it's the worst he's ever read means we need to show him the true depths to which manga can sink
I believe I already qualified my statement.
It's going to be the worst because it made me care. Fairy tale can be 100 times worse than Naruto (and it probably is), but it's not going to hurt me because I know ahead of time to not bother investing in it's bullshit.
That said, I'm willing to read Fairy Tail for reasonable fee, as I said before. 100 USD a volume seems fair to me.
Aaronrules380
Member
Fair enough. I still want to force you to read Fairy Tail
Then cough up the dough.
Oh yeah the whole clan is full of crybabies. I just meant that he was that he lived up to the hype of being overpowered. So overpowered that the writer couldn't even think of a way to kill him. I don't think I've seen a villian just randomly written away like that haha. "uhhhhhhhhh Madara is now a random unfocused lady... There a weakness! Now the heros can win!"
That's not near enough to read absolute shounen trash tbh. It should be 100USD to read a chapter. You can't get that time back.
JadedWriter
Member
Nice read up. Early Naruto is actually pretty good before it started hitting all of that power creep. I also don't like how it's always set teams all the time. Naruto is actually a much better character later on when he's bouncing off of people that aren't inherently part of Team 7. I will also agree that the franchise should have left Konoha more. The world of Naruto is very interesting, but you don't really get to see enough of it.
Sato Koiji
Member
Come on guys the great ninja war was fantastic! Even the first introduction of the main villain and all of his fights until the end were great!
JadedWriter
Member
Cobra Commander Kabuto unveiling Madara motherfucking Uchiha was some bad ass shit, Madara was bad ass, but the villains after that were lame.
