Does anyone still like Naruto?
- Thread starter Queen Michael
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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.
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:Queen Michael said:
And in a discussion prior to that one I said this:Mangod said:
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.Mangod said:
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".
It's like One Piece is the only Shounen series in recent memory I can think of that hasn't jumped the shark.Unrelated Countdown picture for illustration.
You should give fullmetal alchemist and death note a read then.Mangod said:
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.
I'm not sure you know what Shonen means... Those two are most definitely NOT targeted at the 10-15 demo, probably about ~5ish years older. I believe both of those are Seinen, but I'd welcome a correction if I'm wrong. At any rate, I am 100% certain that Death Note is not a Shonen.loa said:
Okay, this is coming from the guy who thinks that One Piece is overrated, so bear with me here.
Yes, I still like Naruto. And Bleach, for that matter, which I mention only because it is also one of the "Big Three" (or Four, if you count that Toriko crap). All three of these series have been going on for over ten years now, with Naruto and Bleach winding down. The former should be over sometime this year, with the latter going on for a while longer. The Thousand Year Blood War arc is supposed to be longer than the Arrancar arc, but God knows if Jump will let that go through. One Piece of course, only reached its halfway point relatively recently.
I suppose the simple answer as to why is because I want to see how it ends. Yes, I suppose that sounds more like a matter of endurance rather than enjoyment, but it is not so. I've been vested in these characters for almost a decade now, and would simply like to see how it all ends. In Naruto's case, the writing has always been rather spotty, but I do appreciate that Kishimoto has been trying to tie up loose ends as of late. (His remark about not knowing how to defeat Madara was heavily implied to be a joke, by the way.) Frankly, I think things could have been wrapped up with Obito's defeat rather nicely, but Madara's presence made that an impossibility. Because of that, the buildup of the past hundred chapters has just hit this anticlimax; we're stuck with an even more insurmountable villain. Granted, seeing as this is a shounen, the good guys will win, as usual.
The anime on the other hand, is utter crap. The filler and padding is unbearable, and the art quality is often... questionable (I'm looking at you, Naruto vs. Pain).
Yes, I still like Naruto. And Bleach, for that matter, which I mention only because it is also one of the "Big Three" (or Four, if you count that Toriko crap). All three of these series have been going on for over ten years now, with Naruto and Bleach winding down. The former should be over sometime this year, with the latter going on for a while longer. The Thousand Year Blood War arc is supposed to be longer than the Arrancar arc, but God knows if Jump will let that go through. One Piece of course, only reached its halfway point relatively recently.
I suppose the simple answer as to why is because I want to see how it ends. Yes, I suppose that sounds more like a matter of endurance rather than enjoyment, but it is not so. I've been vested in these characters for almost a decade now, and would simply like to see how it all ends. In Naruto's case, the writing has always been rather spotty, but I do appreciate that Kishimoto has been trying to tie up loose ends as of late. (His remark about not knowing how to defeat Madara was heavily implied to be a joke, by the way.) Frankly, I think things could have been wrapped up with Obito's defeat rather nicely, but Madara's presence made that an impossibility. Because of that, the buildup of the past hundred chapters has just hit this anticlimax; we're stuck with an even more insurmountable villain. Granted, seeing as this is a shounen, the good guys will win, as usual.
The anime on the other hand, is utter crap. The filler and padding is unbearable, and the art quality is often... questionable (I'm looking at you, Naruto vs. Pain).
Despite their considerably more violent subject matter, both technically target the Shounen demographic. Despite being darker overall, they're both still rather tame compared to say, Seinen.ccggenius12 said:
Yeah, but I already saw all of DBZ! The crappy filler and all!The Funslinger said:That's basically why they made Dragon Ball Z Kai.T0ad 0f Truth said:
It was a god send though.
Back when Naruto still had glimmers of shounen brilliance I was hoping they'd do something like that for it as well.
Both fullmetal alchemist and Death Note are indeed shonen. They were published in shonen magazines, and primarily targeted to a shonen audience. Attack on Titan is another series that no one believes is shonen, but is also labeled as such. XDccggenius12 said:
It's important to note that "shonen" is more of a demographic term than a genre. Any story marketed toward pre-teen/teen males fits, so the stories can actually be very dark. The reason why the majority of series are hammy, heroic adventures like DBZ is that those *are* the stories that generally go over the best with that age group.
Regarding Naruto... meh, I've had that train ticket punched for a long time. It barely takes 2 minutes to read, so while the endless Uchiha worship rubs me raw, I guess I'll see it through to the end.
Hell, I've stuck with Bleach for this long, though at it's peak I was WAY more interested in Bleach than Naruto, so I guess the enthusiasm took longer to fade. XD That said, this week's Bleach was insanely good. Like, best chapter in a couple years good. Made the past couple dozen chapters way less lousy by removing what seemed to be villainous stupidity from them. Naruto, meanwhile, was more of the same.
Wow, if Death Note is the kind of thing that they target at tweens, it's no wonder the suicide rate is so high...balladbird said:
On a more serious/thread related note, I was never really into Naruto. My friends tried to get me into it, but no, just no. I'll be with One Piece 'till it ends 15 years from now though. >600 episodes, 13 movies, and 8 OVAs and it's still engaging. Honestly, I found the filler arcs more entertaining than Naruto's actual plot arcs. The only thing is, I wish that instead of making some of those up, they used the existing sub-plots from the manga. They haven't cut out the parts that allude to those events, but glossing over that they happened is kind of annoying.
It ran in SHonen Jump, a manga anthology that only publishes Shonen. And also, it doesn't feature the levels of graphic sex and violence that can eb found in seinen.ccggenius12 said:
I've been with this manga since 2006(when it was still interesting) so i'm kinda obligated to read it to the very end.
Mind you, i've been contemplating dropping ever since the bs ending to the pain arc, but kept slogging along because there were some interesting elements! for example, the concept of the war was intriguing it just didn't...work, and madara becoming the villian yet he's boring; not even close to what orochimaru was like before the time skip.
Remember when there were ninjas in the manga?
It'll be weird once naruto finally finishes, and when bleach and one piece follows. I just can't imagine what could possibly take their places.
Mind you, i've been contemplating dropping ever since the bs ending to the pain arc, but kept slogging along because there were some interesting elements! for example, the concept of the war was intriguing it just didn't...work, and madara becoming the villian yet he's boring; not even close to what orochimaru was like before the time skip.
Remember when there were ninjas in the manga?
It'll be weird once naruto finally finishes, and when bleach and one piece follows. I just can't imagine what could possibly take their places.
I used to be a naruto fan but then Im in the same boat as those who watched when they were younger. Now it feels drawn out as people have already said, which is the same problem I had with Bleach. It actually put me off anime for awhile until I watched SnK.
I still love Naruto. This last bit has really been drawn out. I get that they wanted a battle, like a war to finish up the series on, but it's been a bit long. Otherwise I'm still in love with the series as a whole.
I seem to be a bit more optimistic about the series I like though. People had been badmouthing Naruto since it "went mainstream", but really it's always been a great series. People were the same about Dragon Ball GT towards the end, and that was solid if not a little repetitive.
I seem to be a bit more optimistic about the series I like though. People had been badmouthing Naruto since it "went mainstream", but really it's always been a great series. People were the same about Dragon Ball GT towards the end, and that was solid if not a little repetitive.
The ending though... I don't feel like Naruto and Sasuke are ever going to play out how I'd like them to. Like you always wanted to see that climactic friend vs friend battle and it just doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen, especially not now.
There's no reason for them to fight, Sasuke is fighting against Madara. Even Orochimaru is in this battle for the same objective (for now). I don't think Sasuke would go back to the Village but I don't see them pursuing him either.
That's... if they both live... needs some more of the dreg characters to die, free up the roster a bit.
There's no reason for them to fight, Sasuke is fighting against Madara. Even Orochimaru is in this battle for the same objective (for now). I don't think Sasuke would go back to the Village but I don't see them pursuing him either.
That's... if they both live... needs some more of the dreg characters to die, free up the roster a bit.
Well, I only continue to read it because I want to see how it ends, I've been invested in this series for over 10 years now, so yeah...
Pretty much lost all interest in the series the moment Uchiha started becoming the cruise control to victory. They went through all the trouble of stating that hard work can defeat a genius during the Naruto vs Neji fight, but they pissed all over that philosophy during the 'shippuuden' part of the series with the glorification of the Uchiha. Seeing characters that spent their lives perfecting their skills getting killed by some brat that was just lucky to be born into the Uchiha bloodline...
The series got slightly interesting again when Kabuto started moving around and Orochimaru came back, but all of that is offset by the overly overpowered Madara...
Also, what I find quite funny is how fast and how low the level of ninjas has dropped in mere span of 50 years or so. There isn't much time between the time of the first Hokage and current day narutoverse, yet there is such a vast difference in skill between ninjas....
The series got slightly interesting again when Kabuto started moving around and Orochimaru came back, but all of that is offset by the overly overpowered Madara...
Also, what I find quite funny is how fast and how low the level of ninjas has dropped in mere span of 50 years or so. There isn't much time between the time of the first Hokage and current day narutoverse, yet there is such a vast difference in skill between ninjas....
I totally stopped caring about Naruto around the Pain arc, but I'd been losing interest pretty much right after Shippuden started.
Naruto - like almost all Shonen series - eventually lost it's focus on the adventure and spent all it's time on the fights.
It's like people have forgotten that before Dragonball became super serious (Z), it was a fairly light-hearted adventure manga with a lot of martial arts and magical weirdness - and it was great fun to watch.
It's quite sad too, 'cause I have a lot of fond memories from having late-night Naruto marathons with my mates when we were a bit younger.
Nevertheless, that void has long since been filled with One Piece, which I love so much I can't express it in words.
Naruto - like almost all Shonen series - eventually lost it's focus on the adventure and spent all it's time on the fights.
It's like people have forgotten that before Dragonball became super serious (Z), it was a fairly light-hearted adventure manga with a lot of martial arts and magical weirdness - and it was great fun to watch.
It's quite sad too, 'cause I have a lot of fond memories from having late-night Naruto marathons with my mates when we were a bit younger.
Nevertheless, that void has long since been filled with One Piece, which I love so much I can't express it in words.
Definitely in with the 'need to see how it ends' camp.
That said
That said
Sasuke just got impaled at the end of the issue, so I'm hoping Kishimoto has decided "fuck it", thrown all of the papers off his desk and has just gone mad, deciding to kill off a shit-load of main characters.
The love between me and the series has been over for a long time, but I feel obliged to finish it now. Naruto was one of the first manga I ever read so I feel I need to see how it ends. Just enough with the Uchiha bullshit. Please.
Bleach appears to be slowly crawling out of a deep valley again, though my expectations for that conclusion remain incredibly low.
One Piece, despite my initial doubts about the artstyle, is the only one that I think remained consistently good.
Bleach appears to be slowly crawling out of a deep valley again, though my expectations for that conclusion remain incredibly low.
One Piece, despite my initial doubts about the artstyle, is the only one that I think remained consistently good.