In a world of ninjas and spirits, there exists the Hidden Leaf village where many ninja train in the arts of ninjutsu. One young ninja, Naruto Uzumaki, hopes to become the leader of this village, the Hokage and be respected by all. But what he soon finds out is that he is cursed: sealed in his body is the spirit of the Kyuubi (Nine Tailed Fox) and monstrous demon that attacked the village and killed the previous Hokage before it could be sealed. But this does not stop Naruto, he is determined and with his fellow ninja trainees, the tomboy Sakura and the vengeful Sasuke, and his teacher Kakashi sensei, he will face many trouble and challenges on his way to becoming the greatest ninja of all.
(Anime: Multiple Seasons, 2 series, 466 episodes. Manga: 56 volumes, Still Running)
This is a mixed bag as a series, but by no means a bad show at all. The manga is still running as one continuous story with a break of 4 years in the middle (story wise) but the anime was broken into two different shows - Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. The first Naruto focuses on his child hood and it is very good because it establishes the story and characters, along with giving the details on the many super powered abilities and skills of the ninjas. That being said, it really feels like it is focused on setting up the story to Shippuden, and the anime does a good job of ignoring the manga after a while (The first 150 episodes were exactly what you want from an anime adaption, then the rest of the 250 episode series is fillers.) Naruto Shippuden is the current running series and to be honest, it is falling into a few pitfalls. For one thing every so often the anime catches up to the anime too quickly and it is forced to go off on its own filler tangent for a while to save time. Also some of the fight sequences have become a bit stale: they aren't bad, they just don't add anything special.
On the whole though, this is a very enjoyable series. Stuffed with hilarious comedy, awe striking action and super powers that will blow your mind. Every character is unique and you can take your pick of favourites, and they are constantly growing and evolving in a way that really makes you invested in their stories. That being said some of the relationships become a little predictable and more often than not don't develop at the same rate as the characters. The story and world of the series is given an enormous amount of detail, to the point where every new development adds more depth. And of course the action is intense, a subtle mixture of super magic-like powers and wicked kung-fu action. Although as I said before the anime gets pretty stuffed with filler arks, so to be honest I recommend the manga more than the anime, it sticks to the story a lot more and you get the same level of entertainment as the anime.
Rating -
7/10
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