Why All the Hate on Naruto?

[Bloodstain]

I like Naruto.
It is hated by elitists because it is popular. Don't you know hating popular things makes you seem intelligent and well-educated?

Don't you know that people who say "people only hate it because it is popular" are just people who don't want to admit other people might actually have valid reasons for disliking something they like?

Hey, look at my exact wording. I said that elitists hate it because it is popular. More reasonable people (as in, people who aren't elitists) might just have more valid reasons for disliking something.
I wasn't trying to call anybody who dislikes it an elitist.

 

[viranimus]

Personally? Im sure others have said similar given 6 pages of responses, but this is it for me.

Atypical anime archtypes, plus the oxymoron of a "ninja" dressed in Day glow orange shouting at the top of his lungs "Believe it!!!!" over and over and over again.

Its not that the show is really bad, its just that its really not good, and essentially the pinnacle of the stagnation of Anime.

 

[SaetonChapelle]

Here's a suggestion for everyone. You have been warned, there will be spoilers through this entire post.

First, I want everyone to read the manga up to the point wher Sasuke kills Itachi (or watch the anime, sans the filler). Then go out and find the entire series Nabari no Ou, and watch that. If you're smart, you will notice that while Naruto is fairly good, Nabari does everything that Naruto does except better. Here's a glaring example: Before we met Gaara, everyone thought Naruto was a tragic hero for being the one person who got the crap destiny of dealing with the Kyuubi. But then Gaara and later on Akatsuki show up and it turns out there's eight others! By contrast, Nabari starts with one and ends with one. For another thing, Aizawa (the character most easily likened to Sakura), is actually competent in combat (and I mean Sakura before she started getting training from the woman who is nothing but tits and fists). Raimei's conflict with her brother gets resolved much easier than Sasuke and Itachi. And Raimei was so much more likeable as a character. Sasuke brooded for his family and had a noble agenda, but he was a total ponce. Raimei on the other hand had the exact same noble goal as Sasuke, but she was a whiny little girl who was never allowed the chance to be a whiny little girl, so her appeal lay in everyone wanted to just let her cry on our shoulders while we stroked her bum for a few hours. Okay, I'm sorry, I needed a stupid sex joke in there. Also, Yoite is so much more tragic than Gaara. Sure, Gaara and Naruto are pretty much exactly the same, but Gaara revels in self-loathing while for Yoite, everyone can tell he hates himself for hating himself. Yoite seriously thinks the entire world would be better if he had never existed, and this may be the 1% of me that's still human talking, but a character who just wants to disappear is more likeable to me than a character who wants everyone else to disappear.

And now I'm done. If you read that entire thing, give yourself a cookie.

Id just like to mention I never thought Naruto was a "tragic hero", nor did the story ever make me feel that way. He was an annoying, whiny brat who accepted peer pressure and decided to attempt to be a "fool" and joke in order to cope. Thats not a tragic hero, that a child who I'd want to punt. He is unlikeable, and unrelatable.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

I like Naruto.
It is hated by elitists because it is popular. Don't you know hating popular things makes you seem intelligent and well-educated?

Don't you know that people who say "people only hate it because it is popular" are just people who don't want to admit other people might actually have valid reasons for disliking something they like?

Hey, look at my exact wording. I said that elitists hate it because it is popular. More reasonable people (as in, people who aren't elitists) might just have more valid reasons for disliking something.
I wasn't trying to call anybody who dislikes it an elitist.

Oh, sorry about that . I thought you were saying everyone who hated it, only hated it because it was popular. Still I stand by what I said: anyone who says "people only hate it because it's popular" only say that because they can't handle people legitimately hating something they actually like.

Sorry for the misunderstanding though.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I am completely indifferent.

I don't watch Naruto, so I don't hate it. I can't hate something I haven't seen, and even then it takes a lot for me to truly, truly hate a show.
But I have seen the first few episode a few years ago, but stopped because it just wasn't for me, so I watched Death Note instead.

I used to ***** about Naruto a while ago when everyone else was doing it, but now I don't really care.

 

[Hollock]

I mostly read the manga, so I dont have the filler problem. It got bad shortly after the time skip. You were spot on with the first paragraph, but only with the original series. It had great fights, really great. The way they would use theor powers in unique, and very interesting ways (narutos clones, shikamarus shadows, rock lee destroying himself). The fights after the time skips depended too much on releasing super moves from the ass, and insanity. Another problem, and this is personal. After the time skips, the creator seemed to give up on making interesting looking characters, but thats me. But the biggest problem by far is The characterization after the skip. Specifically naruto and sasuke. Sasuke decideding to turn evil for realz made no sense, he wanted to kill his brother and did, but it wasnt enough. And Naruto has not matured at all, and he totally should have. I think that might be a problem with me too because after the timeskip he initially seemed like he matured but konohamaru did the improved sexy jutsu and so did naruto. I think we were supposed to think 'that's our naruto' a d i was just like fuck.

 

[spartan231490]

firstly, FRIENDLY MUSHROOM

and i love Naruto, it's may favourite anime. sure there are a lot of filler episodes but the rest of it is pure awesomeness

not my fav, but close. Code Geass, Busou Renkin, High School of the Dead are above it. as is the first 60 eps of Bleach, before they start breaking thier own difficulty curves. anyway, still a great anime, just a lot of irrational hate for a lot of things on this site.

 

[Bloodstain]

snip

Oh, sorry about that . I thought you were saying everyone who hated it, only hated it because it was popular. Still I stand by what I said: anyone who says "people only hate it because it's popular" only say that because they can't handle people legitimately hating something they actually like.

Sorry for the misunderstanding though.

No worries!
I'll agree with you there, generalizing is genereally bad. Heh.
Whilst you cannot deny that there are a lot of people who like hating popular things, there are plenty of people who dislike things because it's just not their cup of tea.

Well, I am glad that everything cleared up.

 

[Jumendez-sama]

I tried to watch this a while back but just couldn't go far. Main problem for me is that the main character Naruto is a obnoxious brat with little redeeming quality. Also making normally awesome ninjas (aka silent assassins) look like a loud screaming buffoons is not a good thing.

That's what I thought to but if your willing to give the show some time Naruto really grows on you and seeing him progress is so satisfying but that's only if your willing to give the show some time and some people just can't do that. I can see why investing 200+ hours into a shows is not an easy thing to do and I can see why people don't like it also I don't watch fillers at all and for the last thing I would like to refer to you to my good friend tv tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighlyVisibleNinja

If I'm wasting 200+ hours watching something with as intelligible a plot as some harem show (in that there is no plot and they just make things seem better than they are so that viewers will still watch) I expect blowjobs and pudding for every hour put into that show. (Yes, Yahtzee reference, but I feel as critical of this as he is on anything)

 

[Saltyk]

It's a popular Shonen anime with all the pros and cons that come with being that. Personally I like it but the anime is only good when they go all out on the animation. Too much pointless filler and dragged out scenes. To me, the manga is essentially Harry Potter with ninjas, which I consider a good thing.

BTW, I'm a big fan of the whole Naruto relates to the villain thing that always goes on with characters like Sasuke, Gaara, and Pain...

Okay, so this basically sums up my feelings about Naruto. But why does your avatar have to be Cell? The single villain/character I hated the most from pretty much any anime. And not in the way you are supposed to hate villains. I just flat hated his character.

And why does your avatar have to be Cloud? My single most hated character from pretty much any video game, Zack was way cooler. Also, Cell has a DS in this picture, it's awesome.

Touche, bag.

Because I couldn't find an avatar that I really liked when I originally selected it, and Cloud was the best choice I could come up with. And I suck at coming up with decent ideas for avatars and even if I could, I couldn't do the editing to make it work.

Though, I do like him. I also like Zack. I actually stopped playing at a certain point in Crisis Core as I slowly started to realize that he was gonna die, soon. And yes, the DS is awesome in that picture.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

It's a popular Shonen anime with all the pros and cons that come with being that. Personally I like it but the anime is only good when they go all out on the animation. Too much pointless filler and dragged out scenes. To me, the manga is essentially Harry Potter with ninjas, which I consider a good thing.

BTW, I'm a big fan of the whole Naruto relates to the villain thing that always goes on with characters like Sasuke, Gaara, and Pain...

Okay, so this basically sums up my feelings about Naruto. But why does your avatar have to be Cell? The single villain/character I hated the most from pretty much any anime. And not in the way you are supposed to hate villains. I just flat hated his character.

And why does your avatar have to be Cloud? My single most hated character from pretty much any video game, Zack was way cooler. Also, Cell has a DS in this picture, it's awesome.

Touche, bag.

Because I couldn't find an avatar that I really liked when I originally selected it, and Cloud was the best choice I could come up with. And I suck at coming up with decent ideas for avatars and even if I could, I couldn't do the editing to make it work.

Though, I do like him. I also like Zack. I actually stopped playing at a certain point in Crisis Core as I slowly started to realize that he was gonna die, soon. And yes, the DS is awesome in that picture.

Lol, I was just messing with you, I'm mostly apathetic towards Cloud, don't hate him or love him. My opinion on him is that he has a cool sword and looks cute in a dress. You quit Crisis Core when you realized Zack was going to die? But, that's the best part! So sad...

OT: Naruto and such, "SMOKING DREAMERS! DO DO DO DO DO!" Cookies to anybody that gets the references, or cares enough to reply to said reference.

 

[Keepeas]

I like Naruto,
it has a good story,
good characters(for the most part)(Shikamaru is awesome)
great fights

The main problem is filler...but that's what filler guides are for...and the manga too.
At least it isn't(for the most part) integrated with the non-filler parts like DBZ was
...even then I like DBZ and Naruto regardless of filler...I just skip the filler.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Other than being a very popular target, there are some legitimately wrong things with Naruto. The biggest complaint (to me) is that the supporting characters are by FAR more interesting than the main characters. The main characters are either stereotypes, become emo and useless for a good chunk of the show, or are stereotypes while the supporting characters have different, developed personalities and their powers creatively showcase the world of the story. And another problem that may have been hinted at in the last sentence was that the central story is pretty weak, and having filler in-between a weak story does not motivate many people to continue watching/reading the series, let alone still like it.

EDIT: Although completely unrelated, if you want to see a show that was ruined by filler, watch Bleach. The main story arc can be really good, but you have no real time to appreciate it when every 10 episodes another 30+ episodes of filler comes in to ruin it all.

 

[DarkRyter]

Maybe because people don't like it.

I like it, and it's okay that alot of people don't like it.

I still like it. I read the comics and am happy whilst reading them.

 

[yman15]

I tried to watch this a while back but just couldn't go far. Main problem for me is that the main character Naruto is a obnoxious brat with little redeeming quality. Also making normally awesome ninjas (aka silent assassins) look like a loud screaming buffoons is not a good thing.

That's what I thought to but if your willing to give the show some time Naruto really grows on you and seeing him progress is so satisfying but that's only if your willing to give the show some time and some people just can't do that. I can see why investing 200+ hours into a shows is not an easy thing to do and I can see why people don't like it also I don't watch fillers at all and for the last thing I would like to refer to you to my good friend tv tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighlyVisibleNinja

If I'm wasting 200+ hours watching something with as intelligible a plot as some harem show (in that there is no plot and they just make things seem better than they are so that viewers will still watch) I expect blowjobs and pudding for every hour put into that show. (Yes, Yahtzee reference, but I feel as critical of this as he is on anything)

And if you read what I said, I said that i can see why people wouldn't want to do that I'm not suggesting that you should watch it but I'm only saying that if you give it the time you'll get attached to naruto, I never said go and watch the ENTIRE SERIES. Really that response was uncalled for -_- you just sound like your mindlessly bashing it. There's no point judging everything Yatzee's yes everything does need to be criticized to be improved but we should also be able to enjoy things for what they are.

 

[aba1]

snip

There are a ton of reasons why Naruto is bad. Chakara for instance makes no sense with what was explained at first I mean at this point in the show everyone's essentially a wizard because for the most part they just shoot beams at each other. Also how does chakara make you live forever?

If they are ninja why doesn't anybody ever sneak I mean they did at the start a little but its was quickly abandoned so that makes no sense. I get that its Naruto's thing to run straight in but everybody does it not just him.

The anime has increasingly low quality especially in the later seasons I remember watching a whole minute of the same three punch cycle of a character hell the jumping sequences don't make any sense and they take up a good chunk of half the episodes.

The characters motives are very poorly constructed. Sasuke wants to destroy the whole village because one guy requested his brother kill his clan effectively saving thousands of lives not to mention it was his brothers choice to go along with the plan and the clan really had a shallow reasoning for trying to take over and this is just one character there are many more too.

The worst thing of all is that everything gets solved by love.

 

[Robert632]

I personally dislike for the same reason I dislike Bleach and One Piece; It just drags on far to long. And while I do enjoy characters being given time to flesh out, I also want a damn conclusion to the story before my interest wanes.

 

[Gustof26]

One problem, just one, and it's one that more of an Easter egg. The original, and I mean the first Naruto one shot ever shown in Jump, was about an actually nine tailed fox spirit with magical powers that went to the human world to find a friend. NOTHING TO DO WITH NINJAS. Want to know why Ninja's are even a part of it, because in the original character design, and in the first episode, Naruto is wearing goggles. The Artist found them to hard to draw so he replaced them with a headband. That's right the entire question of why these Ninjas run around like Demi-gods in colorful outfits is because they were meant to be these spirits that ran around like Demi-god in colorful outfits.

Honestly Naruto would make more sense, and might even be a better concept overall, if you simply accept the fact that they're actually demons and mages. Imagine Fairy Tail if it had an interesting plot loosely based off a myriad of Japaneses, and Chinese mythology. Movie Bob may have his games, he may have his movie but let me tell you, Manga is Weird!

Edit: Oh and as for the story of the actually manga, I'll get into the Anime later trust me, it's surprisingly really good for the first two arcs. The reference the village of mist arc, as one of my favorite Anime arcs ever written. It explains how the whole ninja thing works, it explains each of the characters persona quite well, it provides you with some like-able villains, and then at the ends not only gives you a slightly satisfying ending, but some character development. You find out Sasuke isn't such a stuck up side character as he lets on, you find out Naruto demon's mean business, you also find you that Sakura as about as useful as Rose Tyler.

Like I said the Anime, the anime just does fights better and makes them longer. That's it, at least bleach does something with it's filler from time to time, this just has pointless things that only drag the plot along.

 

[sgt. soap mctavish]

I don't know why i don't like naruto as much as the other things i watch. I don't know, maybe I've just never liked anything from shonen jump. (Well, except Death note.)

 

[xPixelatedx]

because Naruto is as low-brow as anime storytelling gets. It is also incredibly BORING.

Naruto today is but am empty husk of what the show once was. It introduced us to a likable character who, while important, was no more so then the dozens or so others. Look at the second intro this show had: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3QZhzSoBLU it's amazing! There were all these characters with interesting back stories and plots revolving around them. There was actual tension in the fights, you never knew who would win between two good guys fighting or even the fights against the badguys. The original Naruto anime introduced a world with infinite possibilities on the horizon.

And now we have the current Naruto, which is as different from it's predecessor as it is from Bleach and One Piece. It is a emo love affair between Naruto and Sasuke, one that's been going on for, what... 5+ actual years now!? Every single other character in the show (aside form a few villains) are completely irrelevant. Neji, Rock lee, Shikamaru, etc. are all 10x more useless now then they ever were as children, and Naruto is in perpetual god-mode constantly learning ultra invincible jitsus that make everyone all the more useless. Seeing anything related to Naruto today is just mind numbingly boring, as it's all paint-by-numbers schlock. Naruto has become a faultless character, and the whole Sasuke thing became boring and monotonous years ago.

I seriously suggest people watch One Piece instead. That is a show with 500+ episodes and it's story is still as strong as ever. Every character matters, every character is still interesting in their own right, and the main character still needs all of them to win at the end of the day. That's how you tell a character driven story. If 500+ is too intimidating for you, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is another good example of superb storytelling in anime.