My knowledge of anime is not huge, but not tiny, and so I am playing catch-up on some series that are longstanding popular ones. Recently, I decided one I’d really like to check out was Naruto, and seeing just how it stacked up.
This was partly because I had seen Boruto, at least the first 80 or so episodes and a movie, and I quite enjoyed it, but there was often little things and characters that I felt I was missing elements of lore and knowledge about. So I wanted to see its precursor series, and how that added to the overall story.
Initially, I watched Naruto as the English dubs dropped on Netflix. As a general rule, I prefer English dubs, as I find reading the subtitles a tad distracting, and sometimes things move too fast for me to take in the whole line I’m reading, or miss the action. But with no sign of Naruto Shippuden coming onto Netflix UK, I decided to hop over to Crunchyroll which, at least in the UK, only has the subtitled version.
I also didn’t realise how much of an undertaking that would be, with 500 episodes of that series. But, as of just now, I have finally finished the whole series.
Now, part of what helped with that was someone on BlueSky linking me a list of what episodes are canon (to the manga) and what are just filler. It became very quickly apparent that a great deal of episodes in this huge run are filler episodes, and I have to admit, it really impacted my enjoyment of the series as a whole. Whole runs of episodes would just be repeated, rehashed scenes from earlier episodes, and it would leave me feeling like I was in some weird time loop. When the series was airing, this probably didn’t feel so bad, but when you watch it on streaming, it really does keep derailing the story considerably and frustratingly.
Boruto is of course somewhat guilty of this too, with quite a few bottle episodes or bottle arcs that are just slice of life misadventures, but this somehow didn’t trouble me as much as the filler episodes in Naruto Shippuden.
The prior series, Naruto, I struggled with at first, as it is obviously skewed at a much younger audience, but I came to enjoy it. Shippuden matures somewhat, but still has some juvenile elements, but those were a little easier to get on with. It also fluctuates in quality of animation, and the smoothly animated, energetic episodes, usually utilised to big event episodes or moments, and big fights, are easily my favourites.
The show also has some elements of misogyny and even some homophobia which feel a combination of a product of their time and the culture they were made in, and can be a bit jarring to Western sensibilities, but I tried to take them with a hefty pinch of salt where possible. Again, Boruto doesn’t seem to suffer from these quite as profoundly, but obviously some are still there.
Overall, with the whole arc of Naruto and Shippuden, I enjoyed it, but only slightly. I have some major problems with the narrative in terms of what it selected to focus on and what was raised as its most important connections and relationships.
Namely: I honestly cannot get on with Sasuke’s arc, nor his relationship not just with Naruto, but other characters too, most notably Sakura.
In Naruto, Sasuke was kinda a jerk, but he fit the rival archetype well, so was kind of likeable most of the time. Plus, Naruto’s burgeoning friendship with the sullen, sulky genius ninja made sense.
However, in Shippuden, Sasuke has absolutely no redeeming features at all for the vast majority of the show. In the final season, it looked like he could actually be growing and changing, and it would have made the common trope of Naruto as a whole (that being, quite often the villains aren’t defeated through combat alone, but through understanding and often redemption, even if at times that redemption felt sudden, or questionable if they should get a full redemption given their actions). But then, in the last episodes of the main confrontation arc, Sasuke makes a near-about turn and becomes aggressive and dismissive to the main characters to the point of seeming irredeemable - only to ultimately, in the space of a single episode, suddenly develop understanding and a moral change.
The problem was it happens so fast, and with the character repeatedly doing damning things all throughout the series, that it felt completely unearned, and Naruto’s own stubborn assurance to save his ‘friend’ felt difficult to understand. He just goes from someone I couldn’t see why anyone would be so protective of being violently mean and aggressive to suddenly contemplative and a protector at the seeming drop of a hat.
This might be common in manga and anime, but I have seen a few series that managed that whole character arc a lot better, remembering to touch base with the other characters now and then to remind people and seemingly those characters, just why they care so much to begin with.
Moreover, the way Sasuke treats Sakura is beyond, frankly. In Shippuden, it frankly feels downright abusive, and Sakura’s own feelings for Sasuke come across as masochistically unhinged at times.
It was hard to accept for me, as previously my only experiences of Sasuke were from Boruto, where while he continues to be a loner, aloof and quiet, he is far more endearing than he ever appears in all of Naruto. It felt so hard for me to accept that these two versions of Sasuke were the same character, even keeping in mind the time jump between the two shows.
For me, I’d have to say I still prefer Boruto to Naruto by far. And while I have misgivings with Naruto Shippuden as a whole, I do also kinda see why it was as popular as it is, and why it has had lasting impact on its fans. Would I recommend it for others? Maybe. It wouldn’t be top of my list, and I’d probably recommend Boruto before it, but still…it has something to it that is worth checking out, but one should keep in mind hefty caveats for the narrative
I did wonder if it would inspire anything which might make it into my own work, but I don’t think it will. Boruto neither, to be honest, but I am glad I checked it out.
Now that this little personal project is over, and my body has recovered to a good point these days, its time for me to dive headlong back into my own writing projects. If nothing else, I’d like to get at least one book ready to release by start of the next year.
So time to get back into the grind now :D