Does anyone still like Naruto?

[sextus the crazy]

I was a big Naruto fan back in the day, but damn, it started getting crap. At this point the only reason I'd care would be because I invested so much time into it already.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Back when I was 13, it was all the rage. It gave me a taste of entertaining storytelling. Once I saw the latest season previews at my current age, I now understand all of the flak it gets.

 

[the doom cannon]

i watch it still since i started watching in 7th grade. I'm now in my 5th year of university lol

 

[zerragonoss]

I still like it, sure it could use a really tight edit like cutting out 2/3 the crap tight, but all this talking people are complaining about I actually find interesting. I almost never judge things on quality so much as underling themes like the philosophy major I am. this ends up with Naruto being so much better than a lot of the "Good Stuff" out their. Finding meaning in life, dealing with pain and resentment, the nature of friendship, and hard work vs natural talent are are long-running themes of the show. Also he actually tries to work things out with his enemies, often succeeding, instead of just spending all the time going lets fight in different ways.

 

[COMaestro]

I haven't watched or read any Naruto for about two to three years now. For that matter, all manga and anime consumption has dropped dramatically since becoming a parent, as money has gotten tighter and I just don't have the time for all of my hobbies. I do hope to pick up the remaining manga for Naruto once they finally end it, as I did enjoy it quite a bit and really do want to know how it's going to end. Not sure I could do the anime, though, as I've heard there's yet again a ton of filler similar to the time before Shippuden started.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Was Naruto ever good?

I always thought it was Shonen: The Series. The ultimate lowest common denominator cookie cutter garbage that's eaten up by anyone under the age of 18.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, hell, Dragonball Z was THE Shonen, and I loved that growing up.

That's the issue with getting older, when the things you used to like stay the same.

1 of 2;
Either im totally misunderstanding the meaning of Shonen (for instance, i dont even like anime as a genre) or youre not making any sense at all.
I mean i never felt like Dragon Ball Z was dragged in any way, or was filled by inconsequential episodes, and i liked it when i was young and i like it now. And i dont like anime, its just that Dragon Ball Z was THAT good...

More likely the 1st. Shonen or shounen, however you want to pronounce it, refers to often action-heavy manga and anime whose primary target audience are young to adolescent boys. And anime isn't a genre, it's a form of entertainment that covers different genres like fantasy, sci-fi, western, post-apocalyptic, comedy, horror etc. In this case Daystar is likely referring to how Naruto is often seen as the flagship of shonen series and as such being the most cliche and typical of them all.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I really liked both the show and the manga at first. When it moved along that is.
The anime had some great animation, music and fights at the time (was still in highschool, years back). Cliché story sure, but fun to watch.

But I stopped quite a while ago, watched a few of the recent show episodes and it seemed like someone pressed the slow button. Except they patched in awkward long silences instead of slowing the voiceovers as well.
Seriously though, it's so obvious that they're trying to milk it even longer: scenes take 2X as long as they should.

The same goes for the manga as well, to a somewhat lesser degree.

 

[WWWLUCIFERCOM]

Im in the boat of I will finish what I started but my god do I want to quit reading Naruto. Remember when Sasuke was evil then for no good reason decides I'll be a hero again so I to can become hokage. This and Bleach just need to die already they've run there course time for there authors to work on something else.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It's still good and I want to see how it ends.

However it is dragging as was above mentioned like almost all Shonen do at one point or another. For Dragonball it was Namek in general and the Frieza battle (Five more minutes my ass!) in particular. For Bleach it was the fight with Aizen, a fight so long the anime interupts it for a filler arc because shit was just THAT drawn out. For Naruto it's the Ninja War in general the fight with Madara(s) in particular.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the Sharingan seemingly getting more powers as the plot demands and I really hate how the show/manga started out with a strong theme of Hardwork>Born lucky and by the end of the series we find out that Naruto was born extremely lucky being the child of two legends and the house of an all powerful demon and Rock Lee the poster child for hard work beat Sasuke way back when, since then he lost to Gaara and Kimmimaru proving that Born Lucky>ANY AMOUNT OF HARD WORK! So there's that issue.

The twists have mostly been good outside that with interesting characters and while the actions of Konoha are white washed it's clear they did plenty of fucked up shit even to their own people putting this up there with Avatar as far as showing wars and conflicts where nobody was really the good guy or the bad guy, just the guy who won and the guy who was villianized because he lost.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

If they would keep to the things at hand and not wonder back and forth with fillers and too much backstory it would be good. I am still watching teh fan subs there are worse things on US TV so meh.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Was Naruto ever good?

I always thought it was Shonen: The Series. The ultimate lowest common denominator cookie cutter garbage that's eaten up by anyone under the age of 18.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, hell, Dragonball Z was THE Shonen, and I loved that growing up.

That's the issue with getting older, when the things you used to like stay the same.

1 of 2;
Either im totally misunderstanding the meaning of Shonen (for instance, i dont even like anime as a genre) or youre not making any sense at all.
I mean i never felt like Dragon Ball Z was dragged in any way, or was filled by inconsequential episodes, and i liked it when i was young and i like it now. And i dont like anime, its just that Dragon Ball Z was THAT good...

DBZ is so bad its good.

 

[yamy]

I'm still following the anime mostly when I'm bored on a weekend night. I actually started watching around when shippuden started have only watched a few of the first 'season'.

Yeah I agree it's pretty meh now that I've expanded my anime/film/tv catalogue but there are moments when it still shines. For example I quite enjoyed the Obito recap bit in the latest episode, mostly coz it's super angsty (heh) but it was pretty well done.

I just wish it was more consistent in terms of production and have less fillers. The anime suffers massively because they need to pad out episodes with endless recaps of events before, often multiple times in a single episode just to drag out a whole 25 minute.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I sort of used to, when they actually fought instead of dancing around or talking about irrelevant nonsense.

But the ungodly amount of fillers, cringe-worthy dialogue and angst made me stop watching it.

I have not cared about anything that has happened since I stopped, and it made me hyper-sensitive to that kind of bullshit in shonens.

Basically, Naruto is to blame for why I heavily dislike Shonens.

 

[loa]

It's a clusterfuck with stuff that should've been established in the story being jammed in "last minute" in a torrent of flashbacks, dragging said "last minute" out to days, months, years and at this point, I don't really give a damn anymore and just want to see how it finally ends.

At this point, I don't expect the utterly brilliant explanation required for sasukes actions that finally explains wtf the deal is anymore. He's just another aizen.
Flat, boring, unrelatable, the product of someone writing themself into a corner.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Both Bleach and Naruto are prime examples of what happens to a series when you start writing things for money instead of having a definite "end game" in plan and working towards.

I mean, yeah sometimes cool things come from having the series drawn out so much (the Mizukage, Neilel and Habilel for instance) but they really, really need to end these things in a more timely manner.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Was Naruto ever good?

I always thought it was Shonen: The Series. The ultimate lowest common denominator cookie cutter garbage that's eaten up by anyone under the age of 18.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, hell, Dragonball Z was THE Shonen, and I loved that growing up.

That's the issue with getting older, when the things you used to like stay the same.

I've never heard Naruto described that way before and am now convinced there is a version of me who is 10 years younger who is as into Naruto as I am into Dragon Ball Z...so owns one movie or so and remembers plot threads...

---

The most I know of Naruto comes from the game JUMP Ultimate Stars...so Naruto himself is technically the reincarnation of a Kitsune only he's much larger and more demonic than the vastly more awesome Kurama from Yu Yu Hakushou. Sasuke is the pretty boy who all the fan-girls wanna "glomp" and since he's the gloomiest and, grumpiest that makes him the strongest outside of plot convenience...and...I dunno...I never really paid it too much attention but I'd give it a watch if only to see if it turns out to be worse than Ninku or, some other terrible anime that I can't name off of the top of my head.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

to ask it that way implies that I ever even liked Naruto to begin with.

 

[carlo.corcuera]

I still watch it. Mainly because I've watched almost all of it's episodes so far, so I might as well watch it until the final episode.

 

[Mangod]

I've noticed that as the ending of Naruto is needlessly drawn out more and more, nobody seems to think it's good anymore. Some people like me just stopped reading, while others keep reading because it'd be a waste to have read 60+ books and not find out how it ends. Is there anyone at all that thinks it's a genuinely good manga anymore?

In a similar discussion held about a month or so ago (which we both participated in, now that I think about it XD), I said this:

Sooo... we had this little discussion about a month ago, about wheter or not Naruto was hated, and I answered that the reason I (and I suspect a lot of other people) dislike the series, is because it's become increasingly poorly written.

Well, guess what? Kishimoto just came out during the Shonen Jump held Jump Festa event, and admited that he had no f***ing clue how the main character is supposed to be able to defeat the main villain. He's out of ideas...

What. A. Piece. Of. Crap.

He's written himself into a corner, made his beloved Uchiha God Mode Sue too powerful, and now he's realised what every other person on the planet has: the main character can't win. This is worse than Aizen in Bleach, and will probably share that series retarded pre-timeskip conclusion as well...

Why did I ever even like this series?

And in a discussion prior to that one I said this:

Personally, I dislike Naruto (specifically Shippuden), for one simple reason; it took a wrong turn down the Idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism V. Cynicism.

Let's face facts: it's a series wherein our main protagonist and his peers are trained to be contract killers from before age 10. It's set in a world where demons so powerful they were essentially natural disasters roam the countryside. Where businessmen can hire private armies to usurp entire countries. Where entire wars are fought in the shadows, dynasties are assassinated and the people who serve as the jailers of the aforementioned demons, are treated like lepers by the rest of society.

So why, in gentle Jesus, is Narutos dad, Minato, arguing that the genocidal massmurderer who is responsible for the death of himself (he got ressurected), his wife, and the wife of his predecessor, along with the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and entire families of his allies, AND who tried to murder Naruto when the boy wasn't even a single day old, arguing that Obito, the main villain, should be allowed to live? Because he's been throwing a temper tantrum since his childhood sweetheart died over a decade ago? Orochimaru was condemned as an unrepentant monster, and he seems like a swell guy next to Obito.

I dislike Naruto... because the series was essentially set up to be Berserk-lite, but has defied expectations and gone down Strawberry Shortcake Street.

Today, I am thoroughly convinced that, 85-95% of the time, Naruto is not enjoyed, Naruto is endured. People have been reading the series for so long, they have to see it through to the end, because they've come too far to stop now.

Sad, really, since Naruto had a good premise, which it then totally wasted on trying to be moralizing and teach a lesson about life. Something which Kishimoto was never a good enough writer to do, since of all the morals the story tried to teach (hard work trumps natural talent, revenge is wrong, screw destiny, killing is not a solution) all of them have been broken (Rock Lee, patron saint of working to overcome your handicaps, is constantly jobbing while Sasuke and Naruto are given power on a silver platter, Shikamaru murders Hidan to avenge the murder of his sensei, Naruto is destined to defeat God Mode Madara, and again, Shikamaru, Naruto, and Kakashi have all killed people).

He... I never really cared about the Pirate VS Ninja debate back when Naruto and One Piece where competing with each other, but if someone asked me today "Pirate VS Ninja?" my response would be "One Piece beats Naruto on the train tracks until there is literally nothing left".

Unrelated Countdown picture for illustration.

It's like One Piece is the only Shounen series in recent memory I can think of that hasn't jumped the shark.

 

[loa]

It's like One Piece is the only Shounen series in recent memory I can think of that hasn't jumped the shark.

You should give fullmetal alchemist and death note a read then.
Or a watch since the anime is, for a change, not terrible.
Those don't have level grinding as an integral part of their plot and try to keep your attention with good writing instead.