Anime: Naruto Shippuuden 2v4h4o

A nice shounen, that do what a loooooot of others series do, it has its moments, but it doesn't manages to sur the ones that were used to copy their ideas (DB, Hokuto no Ken, Saint Seiya, Samurai X, etc).
Most of the main characters are super annoying, morons who are unable to understand their own feelings and thoughts much less to express them, or even worst some of them like to be "masochistic / slaves"? as Sakura (the blond girl I think that is her name). Although it has some good fighting scenes and techniques, as well as lovable characters as Naruto's two masters.

First of all, thank you for reading all the way to this, right after 1 hater and 2 fanboys.

Naruto Shippuden isnt perfect, no anime is, but, in my opinion, it doesnt deserves such an unfair rate. What I will tell you is my own personal point of view, and I am well aware that we are all different and have different tastes, and just because this page says that Naruto Shippuden isnt worth it it doesnt means it is.
Im just here to express my opinion about this anime and why I think it deserves to be watched by everyone, and I will appreciate if you bother enough to at least read it, if you want.

Art and Animation: The animation is indeed better than the previous Naruto, and it surely adds more to enjoy in the action fights, specially on the legendary "Naruto VS Pain" fight, and the animation continues to soar in quality. But I have seen better though, Naruto Shippuden was created in 2007 and it still "looks" from that year, more modern animes will give you better visual experiences than Naruto Shippuden, but if you arent interested in the visuals, then keep reading.

Sound: Im not sure if the soundtrack is better, equal, or not as good as the previous Naruto, and while the music does indeed help the anime get the emotion it seeks, in my opinion, the previous Naruto had better soundtrack. But thats the music.
The sounds of chakra flowing, Rasengans spinning, powerful Jutsus being executed, among other ninja stuff are indeed better than the previous Naruto. But again, the sounds still feel like 2007, and like the animation, more modern, younger animes will give you a better sound experience.
But the animation and sound isnt all in an anime, is it?

Story: I read manga, many manga, and I dont want to sound bias, but of all the manga I read, Naruto is the only one that I found worth of re-seeing animated.
Why I say this? This is just my opinion, but compared to other stories, Naruto Shippuden has the perfect combination of action, drama, comedy tragedy, and emotion of all.
Some people say that since Naruto isnt even on the top 5 of the best-sellers of all time, it isnt worth it. They say that just because other series are more sold and have a bigger fanbase, like One Piece, prooves that those series are better than Naruto. If you are one of those, just let me ask you something:
Is Avatar, from James Cameron, the best movie ever made?
Is Call of Dutty the greatest videogame franchise of all?
Is Justin Bieber the most awesome artist of the world?
Of course, their fanbases will always say that they are the best, in fact, they wouldnt be so successful if it werent like that. But doesnt matters how successful something it is, it will always have a huge tail of haters behind it.
What Im trying to say is, dont measure somethings quality just based around its sells, fanbase, and popularity. Quality is something that you must define yourself, it doesnt matter what something is made from, or how does it looks, at the end is you who decides if something is worth it, or not. And in MY eyes, Naruto Shippuden is, and will always be, the best of all.

Character: Some criticize the Naruto series saying that Kishimoto uses cliche shonen characters that have been used many times, and are still being used by many others. And that...is true.
Naruto is the stupid, hyperactive, knuckle-headed protagonist that you will find in almost every shonen, and that it doesnt matters how much they kick his butt, he will always somehow power-up himself one way or another and will one-shot defeat his enemy that is most probably a selfish, typical, over-used villian that tries to conquer the world or something like that.
But as I told you, it doesnt matters if it is a over-used cliche that makes the story very predictable, it is you who decide if you will look him like the best or the worst anime character ever.
In my eyes, Naruto is the bravest, most inspiring figure in all the shonen genre that always works really hard for his goals, and always puts his comarades before anything. A beacon of hope that averyone should aspire to be and that everyone should ire. But then again, thats just me.

Value and Enjoyment: Im not sure what these mean, its my first and only time here since i just wanted to add my humble opinion of this anime on this website, but I think I made myself clear.

I just wanna thank you for reading this far, and I hope my review helped you, if you are someone who has never seen Naruto Shippuden, I hope you consider give it a chance, Naruto Shippuden has both a huge fanbase and a big group of haters, like pretty much every famous anime in the world, but I hope it wont affect your opinion about this series and that you consider watch it at least once, but if you dont, its okay.
If you are some one that either doesnt cares about this anime or hates it, I hope my review helped you reconsider your point of view, but if it hasnt, then I respect your opinion.
If you love these series as much as I do, but you dont respect the opinions of others, like the 2 narutards that came before me on this tread, then stop polluting Naruto Shippudens reputation. Its not perfect, nothing is, it has its flaws and it could be better, dont try to force your opinions into others and let the haters hate. If they dont like naruto Shippuden, its their lost, not ours.

Thank you again, anidb, for taking your time to read all this, I hope you all enjoy watching any anime and have a good life.

IM NOT A FANBOY, IM NOT A NARUTARD, I wanted to get this clear.

Why do I think this is the best anime in history? Well:
The story is amazing, well written, emotional, and easily the best you could ever find in a japanese anime.
The animation is astonishing, way better than the previous Naruto, and thats saying something!
The quality is more than incredible, if you watch it you would easily understand why it is the most popular anime in all history.

In general, Naruto Shippuden is by far the greatest, coolest, and most enjoyable series you could ever find, if you ever, EVER, find either a negative comment or a hated comment of this awesome anime, it is not hate, it is jealous.

The most badass anime ever made, dont believe me? Watch it yourself.

First of all, a review or preview is just an opinion, you can chose either listen to me or not, the only reason why I made this is because I found it completely insade that such an awesome series has such a low score.
Naruto Shippuden is, for me, the most badass, awesome, incredible, and amazing anime in history, and this comes from someone who watched Astro Boy, the 3 dragon Balls, Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, Death Note, the 2 Full Metal Alchemists, Kill la Kill among other well-known animes of the world.

Thats why I will give this anime the best review I can give it, if you think this anime sucks or that is the best, it doesnt matters, because to me, this is, and will always be, the BEST animated series ever made. Hands Down.

Notice: This review covers the whole series.

Naruto created a sensation in its first years, and unlike most anime that get forgotten after a few months, it became the quintessential fighting shonen people are still talking about decades after it began airing. There were a hundred different things one could find to talk about when it came to the story and its characters, as well as everything it was based on; namely the still up until then semi-mystical Japanese history and mythology. And just like every show that becomes a world-wide sensation, it was also an easy way for someone to blend in at anime conventions. Are you a newbie who doesn’t know anyone nor has an opening for starting a chat? All you needed was a headband, memorize a few hand seals, and run like a retard with your hands stretching behind you. In a few minutes someone would approach you, asking who your favorite characters are.

There were stuff going on that you wouldn’t see in earlier years, because the internet wasn’t as fast or as widespread, and anime were not promoted that heavily yet. As famous as Dragonball was during the 90s for example, it was not everywhere on the same volume as the Big Three. You couldn’t believe how many young people had become weeaboos thanks to it (not me, as I was already over twenty at the time, and was more into mecha, space operas and super violent OVAs). You would go into a net cafe and see dozens of people doing a Naruto marathon. You would see others improving their drawing skills just so they could sketch their favorite characters. There were also those learning Japanese language and history, after they got fascinated by the themes and the philosophy of the show. And of course there were the shipping wars, the theory crafting, the versus battles with characters from the other Big Three, and a gazillion other things to keep you preoccupied for a decade.

It’s very easy to see why it was so successful. It was tapping into the need of young people to stand out in the crowd, which was a really big issue for most teenage millennials of the time. Having a war-torn setting was also an easy excuse for action and adventure, while victimizing children at the same time for having to grow up in a suffocating society that expects too much out of them. It was a relatable excuse for empowerment fantasy when it came to young people with first world problems suffering from social anxiety.

Obviously, the more the show kept going the less relatable it felt, partly because its audience was growing out of its angsty teenage phase and partly because of how the writing was becoming progressively worse. It began losing its magic once other shows with far better production values came out (namely Suzumiya Haruhi and Death Note) which stole the spotlight and made it obvious that it was just another poorly paced, badly animated studio Pierrot series. By the late 00s only hardcore fans were still giving a damn about it, with the rest seeing it as just an excuse to make money through episode and chapter reviews. It was a milk-cow everyone was tolerating because it was vital for the anime industry to keep going. Quality had nothing to do with it. Today it’s a shadow of what it used to be, nostalgic if you were once a fan, but otherwise something you most likely regret having invested so much time, money, and effort.

In retrospect, lots of things did not make any sense from the very beginning. Ninjas don’t run around in bright-colored jumpsuits and are sort of needless in a world where anyone can use computers and machineguns. Also, how dangerous can ninjas really be if not even professionals can’t tell apart a real body from a clone, or a little boy can easily by all security and steal top secrets? You can always suspend your disbelief, but deep inside you know there is never going to be any realistic approach to its interesting themes. The foundations of the power system are broken, since most of the so-called tactics come down to people exchanging places with a log whenever it suits the plot. Even so, if you break it down to core elements, you can easily find ten reasons for why it was so easy to appeal to most anime fans. It became much worse as time went on, but the first arcs are still some of the best in any fighting shonen.

1) An underdog protagonist who nobody takes seriously and struggles to be acknowledged
2) A cool rival who gets the spotlight all the time and makes the protagonist jealous
3) Focused on a small cast of fleshed-out characters
4) Tragic flashbacks in a captivating war-torn setting
5) Using stealth and tactics instead of mindless raw power
6) Treating mentors and villains as equally important and fleshed-out
7) Death was ever-present, permanent, and meaningful
8) Easy to follow plot
9) Very catchy and memorable soundtrack
10) Relatively ok pacing

1) In specific, the Wave Country arc was only 20 episodes, and served an introduction to the main characters, the setting, and the power system. It also featured two interesting villains who were not a one-time psychotic rapists and did NOT become allies or recurring opponents. Also, despite the protagonist defeating one of them with the obligatory hidden power than came out when he needed it the most, his victory felt hollow and horrible, thus becoming a major twist for the formula. It had drama, tension, comedy, all the good stuff, but it was also dragging for many episodes, so I am giving it an 8/10.

2) The Chuunin Exam was triple in size with 60 episodes, and served to flesh out all the secondary characters. Unlike typical exams and tournament arcs in shonen, it was not treating most of the participants as cannon fodder. Each one of them felt like a possible protagonist of his own show and had the potential to be the hero of his own story. This never happened, but for the time being it multiplied its cast several fold, so anyone could choose a different character to root for. This is when the shipping wars and the versus battles blew up, creating a huge circlejerk of shonentards.

This changed the third reason of why the show was appealing, but it didn’t damage it yet, since the tournament structure was giving the spotlight to the two participants, while everyone else was reduced to spectators. It works when nobody else is allowed to do something and fails only when everybody is fighting at the same time.

It was also the arc that showed us all the secondary ninja villages and the frail truce amongst them. The tournament was not just a bunch of teenagers trying to level up in the ninja hierarchy. It was about politics and maintaining peace through a power display of every faction. There was even a major conspiracy which threatened the village and caused the death of a major character. It was in overall another great arc, with the only negative being several characters who were simply not interesting despite getting the spotlight. I am giving it a 7/10.

3) The search for Tsunade begins the slow decline of the series. Without the excuse of a tournament to give focus on everyone by limiting the rest as spectators, now you clearly see how there are too many character who are not doing anything or are vital to the plot.

It even begins to take away negative consequences. One of the most memorable participants during the Chuunin Exam was Rock Lee, the true underdog of the series. Not Naruto, despite Kishimoto wanting us to believe he is one too. The nine tails gives him a broken superpower with which he can rival opponents with ten times his experience, he masters new techniques ridiculously fast, and he’s never punished for his mischief. Rock Lee on the other hand never had any ninja magic, and had to train hard just to keep up with martial arts. That’s an underdog.

The Chuunin Exam was great for not favoring underdogs, as is the case with most shonen. His duel with Gaara left him permanently crippled. Because, just in real life, no matter how much you want to succeed, you are not indestructible. Nobody’s plot armored and him getting crippled was a great way to make that clear. And then they take it away in the next arc by magically healing his otherwise permanent injuries.

The one who healed him was Tsunade, a character who initially had a tragic backdrop and an interesting personality. This positive first impression was quickly trashed once she became just another background character who is not doing much. The only thing Kishimoto did was replacing the wise mentor of the village with a drunken pair of boobs.

4) The damage continues to escalate in the Sasuke Retrieval arc, by having the rival highjacking the plot. Up until now, it was about a dozen nations and hidden villages in a constant power struggle. This is all thrown in the trash for a mission of revenge by a guy who belongs in the most overpowered race in the world. Naruto completely forgets his quest to become Hokage and spends most of the rest of the series in an almost homoerotic quest to bring back a guy he barely knew for a year, and who was constantly stealing his spotlight. Sasuke’s motivation for betraying the village was foreshadowed and excused from the very first episodes. Naruto’s motivation for wanting him back so much wasn’t.

There were also many secondary fights in this arc, which didn’t matter in the longrun. There was no point in the good guys fighting the Five Sounds. Nobody important died and Kimimaro’s tragic past was getting really old by now, since pretty much everyone had a similar tragic past. It was just dragging out the plot until the final confrontation at the waterfall, which was really hyped up at the time; videos about it were everywhere. The battles were fun and the hype for a rematch was enough to keep you watching, but really, there wasn’t that much going on and the focus shifted towards something far less interesting. I give it a 6/10.

After that there were about 100 episodes of awful filler nobody cares about. Shonen Jump was paying actual money for them, just to make sure the narutards won’t lose their interest by the time the show continues normally. That’s right, Studio Pierrot couldn’t stop making episodes, even if they were awful, because that would kill the popularity and everyone would lose their money. That’s how much everybody cared about the actual quality of Naruto and the reason we are all making fun of it today.

5) And even when the canon story finally continued, we had a time skip which turned out to be completely pointless. Everyone got a bit older and far stronger, but that didn’t mean anything as far as the plot is concerned. Also, the pacing was really dragging hereon. They were constantly throwing in filler scenes to slow down progression and stay away from the manga. That killed most of the excitement the earlier faster in pacing episodes had.

As for the actual plot of the arc, it was another rescue mission. Why do they give you the exact same plot and expect you to like it? Every arc should be something different or it might as well be the same one arc. And seriously, who cares about Gaara, another character Kishimoto never did something with, after Naruto made him an ally with a friendship speech.

He didn’t even have the guts to kill him after his beast was removed from his body, and at least have a tragic conclusion that would make it clear how they are still far from capable to protect their friends despite their power ups. But no, Gaara was too popular to die, so Kishimoto went for a copout solution where some granny we don’t care about sacrifices her life to save his. This instantly killed another good point of the show; deaths being permanent and meaningful. The fight with Sasori was amazing, but other than that it was a mediocre arc, and I give it a 5/10.

6) The next arc was the Tenchi Bridge, which despite being canon, you can skip it without missing a thing. They were just trying to bring back Sasuke, which didn’t amount to something. And there was a new character named Sai, who was a discount Sasuke for all I care and also someone Kishimoto did nothing with later in the story.

He also had a tragic past which doesn’t mean anything after a hundred slightly different tragic pasts, and they were constantly reusing clips from earlier episodes as yet another cheap way to stretch the duration with needless flashbacks. We don’t need to be ed how fun it was before Sasuke left the damn village; we it just fine. There goes another good thing that got ruined because of the repetition. Since this arc was meaningless, I give it a 1/10.

7) The next arc was the Akatsuki Suppression, which is not bad in of drama. Shikamaru had the honor of being the only secondary character with an arc dedicated to him, and avenging his mentor was a legit motivation. The bad guys had some pretty inventive ways to fight and felt very menacing. If you stick to its highlights, which is the middle part of the arc, then you get a damn good fighting shonen.

If you see it as a whole, it has lots of issues. The introduction has the hosts of the multi-tailed beasts getting taken out way too fast, despite seemingly deserving a couple of arcs each. I mean, why did Kishimoto bother to draw them, only for killing most of them after a couple of pages? That’s stupid; he clearly did not plan ahead anymore. He wasted the previous arc on a new character we don’t care about, and then he killed off characters he was hyping for over a year. As for the ending, it was anti-climactic since they didn’t defeat the final bad guy with tactics. Naruto just jumped in and used his new power-up to take him out in an instant, leaving you with very little pay-off. As a whole, I can’t give it more than a 5/10.

8) The Itachi Pursuit arc was made to steer the status quo. Sasuke escapes the control of Orichimaru and kills his brother, seemingly ending his long-term objective. This would be a fine point to get his catharsis and move on with his life. But no, Kishimoto just had to ruin it by throwing in a plot twist that was taking all the blame to Konoha, so he would pose a threat for the good guys.

The idea was good on paper, but there was no foreshadowing for any of this. It was literally subversion for the sake of subversion. It made the main rival of the series to constantly flip flop in what he wants and to be on a non-stop killing spree just because.

That aside, although the major fights were cool, there was a lot of dead time. Almost half the arc was Sasuke looking for companions that never did anything and were effectively worthless, as well as fighting Deidara for no freaking reason. In effect, Kishimoto added two new characters and killed an Akatsuki without planning ahead. For that reason, I can’t give this arc more than a 4/10.

9) The Tale of Jiraya was focused on showing us the past of the sanin and served to hype the next major villain. It was a pretty damn good arc, full of suspense and mystery, ending in a tragic way for one of the most memorable characters in the whole series.

Unfortunately it was ruined by the addition of destiny. Turns out Naruto was never the underdog, he was always the chosen one of destiny. This was the biggest betrayal, trashing the entire premise of the series. He became impossible to relate to after that. Kishimoto realized he had ran out of ideas for what to do with Naruto and Sasuke, so he completely rewrote both of them in an attempt to continue milking the franchise with essentially a different story. Even if that meant the complete destruction of everything the fans liked about the show.

Naruto was the typical insecure boy who was seeking recognition from his peers. He wasn’t the smartest or the most handsome, and was jealous of a silent type pretty boy getting all the pussy for being a cold bastard. That’s why so many people liked him. And now it’s all gone. 4/10 just for that.

10) And if you thought that was the biggest insult, just look at what Kishimoto did with the Pain Assault arc. Wiping out half of the characters could have been the most impactful arc of them all. It could be the point where Naruto realizes his childish ideals of nakama and becoming Hokage come with a price. Sometimes you just can’t save everyone. Sometimes you can’t reason with the enemy and you have to kill him mercilessly. But then Kishimoto ed he was making a lot of money out of those characters, so he had the villain realizing his mistake after a friendship speech and resurrected everyone. Pure bullshit. He gave you a situation that was demanding maturity, and then treated it as a fairy tale.

Naruto still got another power up, even if he didn’t have to since nothing beats his friendship speeches. It was a huge mistake to escalate the amount of damage he could do, since at this point the battles were closer to Dragonball than the crafty tactics and stealth we had at the early part of the story. They were mostly about spamming energy attacks and raw power, losing everything that was making them seem smart. Emphasis on seem; not even Pain can tell a clone from the real thing. Also, the power system was so broken at this point. If you have a Sharingan or a Tailed Beast on your side and the other side doesn’t, you pretty much have an auto-win. 3/10.

11) And finally, the ending of this dreadful series was the Fourth Great Ninja War. Great, my ass.
- Everyone came back to life, because death had absolutely no meaning anymore, and they had no personality; they were just there as fan service.
- The enemy was a mass produced army of faceless monsters. There was nothing tragic or interesting in a war where thousands of characters who don’t matter are fighting thousands of monsters with no personality.
- Despite the scope of the war, the only important good guy who died was Neji. And only because he was the one who pointed out to Naruto how ideals don’t matter before heritage. You know, the thing the show was all about after Kishimoto rewrote the main characters and had to kill the one telling the truth all along?
- It was also very confusing to follow the plot, as it was constantly changing the main villain and his motivations, each time becoming more absurd. First there was a guy who wanted to hypnotize everyone by using the moon, because he had the hots for an underage girl. The next was the ghost of a previous ninja who fused all the tailed beasts in one as means to take over the world, and then an alien space witch from a different dimension created a tree for eating the planet. I am not making this up; all that happened in the same arc.
- During all this mess, Sasuke changed his mind again, and now decided to help the exact same people he wanted to murder for a hundred episodes. As for Naruto, he falls asleep and gets the ultimate deus ex machina power up that makes him Jesus. Together, they fight the final villain and win in the most anti-climactic way imaginable.
- And once they win, they go back to the waterfall for a rematch that had no purpose of existing, since they were now allies. It just had to happen because Kishimoto was constantly promising it as fan service, even if it made no sense at this point.
- And then Sakura marries Sasuke, causing millions of narutards to burn their volumes because the only thing that mattered after all this bullshit was getting their ship, and they didn’t even get that. Why was that stupid bitch, who was completely worthless in the whole show, in love with Sasuke again? Because he was constantly ignoring her, and almost killed a couple of times. There’s your chemistry and carefully written romance, the level of which only Kishimoto can provide you with.

And that’s how you ruin completely one of the most popular anime in existence.
1) A chosen one protagonist everybody adores who was destined to win from the start
2) A rival who flip flops all the time, not knowing what he actually wants
3) Hundreds of useless characters
4) Tragic flashbacks repeating ad nauseam in similar ways for all characters
5) Stealth and tactics became worthless next to mindless raw power
6) Later mentors and villains are not treated as important and are not fleshed-out
7) Death becomes scarce, not permanent, and is often meaningless
8) Hard to follow plot
9) The soundtrack becomes generic
10) Unbearably slow pacing, stuffed with fillers