Naruto: Shippuuden -ナルト- 疾風伝

2007 winter | Episodes: 500 | Score: 8.3 (1740781)

Updated every Thursdays at 19:30 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Streaming: Crunchyroll | Netflix

Synopsis

It has been two and a half years since Naruto Uzumaki left Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village, for intense training following events which fueled his desire to be stronger. Now Akatsuki, the mysterious organization of elite rogue ninja, is closing in on their grand plan which may threaten the safety of the entire shinobi world. Although Naruto is older and sinister events loom on the horizon, he has changed little in personality—still rambunctious and childish—though he is now far more confident and possesses an even greater determination to protect his friends and home. Come whatever may, Naruto will carry on with the fight for what is important to him, even at the expense of his own body, in the continuation of the saga about the boy who wishes to become Hokage. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Nakamura, Chie

Inoue, Kazuhiko

Tamura, Mutsumi

Suzumura, Kenichi

Sugiyama, Noriaki

Touyama, Nao

Takeuchi, Junko

Kogure, Ema

News

Reviews

realAlanVincent
04/15/2025, 01:46 AM
Tales of perseverance and redemption dominate Naruto: Shippuuden, but the delivery stumbles into the familiar trap of idealistic overkill. Conflicts that should challenge characters morally or strategically often dissolve into speeches about friendship, willpower, or destiny—rendering complex struggles toothless. Every major villain is eventually revealed to be misunderstood or tragic, stripped of their menace to fit a world where no one is truly evil, just hurt. While the intent might be noble, the execution feels disingenuous. All episodes were watched—not out of enjoyment, but out of habit. Completionism has its curses, and few shows test that like this one. The show leans heavily on emotional highs, recycling thesame themes until they lose impact. Real nuance rarely survives its determination to turn every story into a morality tale.
ferarriaga10
01/13/2025, 10:44 AM
Naruto didn’t just entertain me—it shaped me. As a kid, it wasn’t just a story about ninjas; it was a story about being different, about standing tall when everyone told you to sit down. Naruto’s journey from the outcast nobody believed in to someone who inspired the world felt like my own. Every time he yelled, fought, cried, smiled and showed how he still continued his journey, I believed in myself just a little more. Plus great fights, great complex and connected stories. Sure, it’s not perfect—what is? But for me, it’s more than an anime. It’s the late nights trying to pull off a Rasengan,the hours spent working hard in myself, the weeks when I wanted to give up on many things just to remember Naruto's way, and even the tattoo I got as a permanent reminder of what Naruto taught me: that hard work, heart, and stubbornness can beat the odds. Naruto’s story is mine, and it always will be.
MrSlamboni
01/04/2025, 05:31 PM
Inconsistent the whole way, even when it comes to its strengths. - Naruto is sometimes his entertaining and cheeky self from before the timeskip, other times he's just a goody two shoes protagonist. - Sometimes the dialogue is very solid, but other times it falls off the deep end (sometimes even in the same conversation). - The animation can be anything from appalling to passable, occasionally being amazing. - Some story arcs are really engaging and fun, others feel like filler. - Sometimes, the filler episodes feel canon (Itachi's backstory) while some canon episodes feel like filler (anything involving Sai). - The story felt consistent and cohesive the entireway, except at the very end where they create plot holes out of thin air for absolutely no reason. - The show explores a lot of interesting themes, but some of them get completely butchered (such as hard work vs talent) - The climax is butchered only to be saved and then butchered again immediately. - Sometimes the show nails something you would never imagine, but then completely flop on very obvious things. The one thing I can grant Naruto Shippuuden is that it has the best villains I have seen in any series. There's such a wide variety of villains and they are all interesting in their own specific way. Every villain seems to have their own motives, and the best thing is that all the motives are believable. Skip the filler, but also understand that a lot of the time will be miserable, but there will be some very strong arcs and moments. If you prefer a consistent, entertaining experience, this may not be it. However, if you think strong moments are worth waddling through the mud, you might like it.
R0R0N0A
08/07/2024, 11:02 PM
Watching this after it has ended and having the luxury to skip over the filler episodes leaves me with no choice but to put Naruto in the GOAT debate. I won't go into any details as I'm sure most people are familiar with the story of Naruto. However, and in true MAL fashion, I have to rate everything as part of my review. Story: 10/10 Characters: 10/10 Music: 11/10 Everything: 10/10 Not many animes out there can stand the test of time but Naruto/Naruto Shippuden certainly is one that can and has already done so. The story that started with the clueless orange jumpsuit-wearing kid ended up becoming a globalcultural phenomenon. Without exaggeration, this anime is responsible for a generational shift in anime culture. As Naruto was probably many people's first anime, it has largely contributed in moving anime to the mainstream. Stories like Naruto has kept audiences captivated for over 15 years keeping those who started it when they young captivated until its end, and until its audience grew older. This anime does not get the credit or the respect it deserves when it is literally one that changed people's perception of anime. Also, anyone that tries to put Naruto down is an edgelord who tries to stand out from the rest and probably enjoys something lame like slice of life animes.
fabiopires10
03/26/2024, 03:10 PM
Naruto is my favorite anime so this review will be a long one. If I had to describe Naruto in just one sentence, I would say, "An Epic Journey of Ninjas, Friendship, and Self-Discovery." This masterpiece not only offers epic and thrilling battles but also presents rich and profound character development, engaging storytelling, and a lasting message of perseverance and friendship. As someone who grew up following Naruto, this journey was more than just an anime - it was a fundamental part of my own growth journey. Let's start with the fights. Naruto is widely recognized for its intense and exciting battles, skillfully choreographed and full of thrillingtwists. From the epic clashes between Naruto and Sasuke to battles against threats like Pain and Madara, each fight is an action masterpiece that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. However, the true heart of Naruto lies in its character development. Throughout the series, we witness the growth and evolution not only of the protagonist but also of a diverse cast of characters such as Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi, each with their own emotional struggles and journeys. In particular, Naruto's transformation from an undisciplined and lonely kid into a full-grown man and hero is inspiring and emotional. His dream of becoming Hokage is not just a personal ambition but a testament to the power of hard work and determination to overcome adversity. His unwavering determination and indomitable spirit serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration for viewers, teaching valuable lessons about hard work, friendship, and self-discovery along the way. Furthermore, Naruto is rich in universal themes such as love, loss, redemption, and sacrifice. Moments of humor and camaraderie are balanced with moments of great emotion and drama, creating a truly captivating and multifaceted viewing experience. The fact that I grew up following Naruto makes this journey even more meaningful to me. As Naruto faced challenges and overcame obstacles, I was also going through my own experiences of growth and learning. Through his struggles and triumphs, I found inspiration and courage to face real-life challenges. In summary, Naruto is more than just an anime - it's an exciting and inspiring journey that resonates deeply with viewers. If you haven't watched it yet, I encourage you to embark on this life-changing adventure.
sandgem
12/02/2023, 02:36 PM
A much more ambitious continuation to its predecessor. Introduces brand new concepts, expands on lore, and keeps up with the themes of bonds/friendship and ending the cycle of hatred. Though it has some pacing issues and polarizing decision-making at times, this remains a favourite series to many for its climactic fights, emotional moments and diverse cast of characters. While the original series is definitely more cohesive and grounded, Shippuden has much higher highs. No beating around the bush, it is a flawed show, but the positives outweigh the negatives and offer some of the most iconic sequences in anime history. Additionally, Naruto: Shippuden covers a widerange of genres throughout its 500 episode run. There is something for everyone from dazzling fight animation to romantic subplots to fleshed-out side character stories. All in all, this is an absolute must watch for fans of the original series and the universe it's set in. Enjoy the show, and prepare to cry.
Rian_Rahmat
10/09/2023, 10:15 PM
This is one of those childhood anime that is full of memories, but after I watched it thoroughly, I decided not to recommend this anime. The reason is simple, there are too many flashbacks in each episode, this is the worst motive for stalling time in my opinion. there are a lot of useless episodes but most of them are filled with flashbacks which are very long, long, very long and even take up several episodes. I don't have a problem with flashbacks from each character, but the problem is the positioning, for example, I was enjoying watching Naruto fight but suddenly I met another character andthe flashback started, seriously? The worst thing was the flashback of Sakura saying to bring Sasuke back, I was really tired of hearing that, I don't know how many times I had to hear Sakura's cries for help! So in conclusion, this anime is good, but there are many negative points, especially for flashbacks, imperfect placement, as long as you put flashbacks anywhere, In other words, this anime is too fixated on flashbacks, really badly, and what's worse is that the same flashback is played again in other episodes, only with a few scenes added, and this applies to other flashbacks. This should have added the Drama genre, because it's a lot more crap compared to action.
sgaze
07/09/2023, 04:01 PM
Naruto: Shippuuden - A Magnum Opus of Ninja Heroism and Emotional Depth Rating: 9/10 Introduction: Naruto: Shippuuden, the highly anticipated sequel to the beloved Naruto series, embarks on an expansive and emotionally charged saga through the intricate world of ninjas. With its captivating storytelling, awe-inspiring action, remarkable character growth, and profound themes, this anime masterpiece stands tall among its peers. As a devoted fan of the genre, I found myself deeply enthralled by Naruto: Shippuuden and wholeheartedly recommend it to fellow anime enthusiasts. Character Development: One of the most remarkable aspects of Naruto: Shippuuden is its commitment to the growth and evolution of its characters. Building upon the foundation establishedin the original series, this sequel presents us with a vast array of well-rounded and relatable characters, each undergoing significant personal transformations. Protagonist Naruto Uzumaki's journey from an impulsive and boisterous young ninja to a mature and determined hero is an inspiring tale of resilience and self-discovery. The struggles faced by Naruto and his comrades are portrayed with depth and sensitivity, delving into their inner conflicts, fears, and aspirations. By exploring profound themes such as friendship, love, forgiveness, and the pursuit of one's dreams, Naruto: Shippuuden creates a rich emotional tapestry that resonates with viewers on a profound level, fostering a deep investment in the characters' lives and experiences. Thrilling Action and Visual Spectacle: Naruto: Shippuuden captivates audiences with its breathtaking action sequences, which serve as a testament to the anime's meticulous attention to detail. From intense one-on-one battles that showcase the intricacies of individual combat styles to grand-scale conflicts that exhibit tactical warfare and strategic planning, the series offers a thrilling array of encounters. The animation quality is nothing short of spectacular, with fluid movements, dynamic camera angles, and vibrant colors that breathe life into every fight. The meticulously choreographed battles, often accompanied by stunning jutsus (ninja techniques), create an electrifying atmosphere, leaving viewers spellbound. The visual spectacle, combined with the adrenaline-pumping action, establishes Naruto: Shippuuden as a tour de force in animation, delivering exhilarating sequences that are etched into the memory. Compelling and Expansive Storyline: The narrative of Naruto: Shippuuden is an epic tapestry that weaves together multiple story arcs, delving deeper into the mythology and history of the ninja world. Secrets are unveiled, mysteries are solved, and new characters are introduced, all contributing to the overarching plot. The series strikes a harmonious balance between action-packed sequences and poignant character-driven moments, offering a deeply satisfying storytelling experience. It skillfully incorporates suspense, unexpected plot twists, and emotionally charged climaxes that leave viewers eagerly awaiting the next chapter. Furthermore, Naruto: Shippuuden effectively explores themes of redemption, sacrifice, the cyclical nature of hatred, and the power of bonds, instilling a sense of gravitas that elevates the series beyond mere entertainment. Sensational Soundtrack and Immersive Atmosphere: The soundtrack of Naruto: Shippuuden serves as a driving force behind the anime's emotional impact and immersive atmosphere. From the exhilarating and catchy opening themes that ignite anticipation to the hauntingly beautiful background melodies that heighten the emotional resonance of key moments, the music flawlessly complements the storytelling. Whether it is the pulse-pounding rhythm during intense battles or the gentle melodies that accompany introspective scenes, the soundtrack masterfully captures the essence of each moment, further immersing viewers in the world of Naruto: Shippuuden. Minor Shortcomings: While Naruto: Shippuuden is an exceptional anime, it does have a few minor flaws. The series occasionally suffers from pacing issues, particularly during certain filler episodes that deviate from the main plot. Although these episodes may provide additional character development or backstory, they can test the patience of some viewers. Additionally, due to the large ensemble cast, certain character arcs may receive less attention than others, resulting in occasional underdeveloped personalities. However, these minor shortcomings pale in comparison to the series' immense strengths and do not detract significantly from the overall enjoyment of Naruto: Shippuuden. Conclusion: In conclusion, Naruto: Shippuuden stands as an anime magnum opus, exemplifying the pinnacle of storytelling and animation in the genre. With its profound character growth, breathtaking action sequences, captivating and expansive storyline, and immersive soundtrack, it delivers an unforgettable journey through the world of ninjas. While it may have minor pacing issues and occasional character neglect, these flaws are eclipsed by the series' immense achievements. Naruto: Shippuuden is an anime that leaves an indelible mark, appealing to fans of epic adventures, intricate character development, and emotionally charged narratives. For its outstanding accomplishments, I confidently rate Naruto: Shippuuden 9/10. Brace yourself for an unparalleled saga of heroism, camaraderie, and self-discovery that will resonate with you long after the final episode fades away.
BabyGirl06301
04/27/2019, 02:59 PM
How do I even sum up this series? How can I review something so special to me? Still, it must be done, so let me tell you why Naruto is a series you can't leave on your PTW list. Let's start with the basics: sound and art. Naruto (especially Shippuuden) has one of the best soundtracks in anime. Not only with its openings and endings, but its OST songs fit the anime and its tone better than any other anime I've seen. The art is GORGEOUS. Again, especially in Shippuuden because it's more recent compared to the older animation of the original Naruto series. Thelighting effects and bright colors make every scene entrancing. I don't know whether to talk about the story or the characters next because both are as high quality as high quality can be, but I'll start with the characters. You can't FIND development like this anywhere else. For one thing, each character is indisputably unique, and it's nice to watch an anime in which you can find a piece of yourself in every character. Also, each of their stories-- heroes and villains alike-- was developed with such care that you can't help but be interested. More than both of those things, though, the sheer power that these characters hold is what really makes them remarkable. Not physical power (though, that type of power gets developed really nicely and realistically throughout the series as well), but mental power. These characters are written with goals and convictions that bring them to life in a way that will capture your heart. You'll become addicted to the characters simply because they give everything all they've got. Now, finally, we come to the story. This is going to be hard to talk about without getting detailed, so I'll keep it as brief as I can by saying this: this story is special. It isn't always unpredictable, and things don't always end happily, but the journey you'll take is-- dare I say-- one of the best you'll ever take. The care that was put into developing this story so that it had the most impact it could have must have been immense. This very well might be the only story I've ever experienced in which I didn't want to skip ahead to see the ending at some point. Every part of the story was important and made me feel so lucky to have found a story like it; I wanted to savor it as long as I could. The story itself is an art piece. A lot of that was my emotions reviewing the anime and not actual critiques, but isn't that more convincing? Naruto has become so special to me, and I'm really, really glad that I got past my assumptions about it beforehand and took the plunge to watch it. I don't think I'll ever find something quite like this again-- and that's why it's so beautiful. Please watch this if you're even a little curious because it'll change your life, I promise you. ありがとう、ナルト.
LunaLuna21
04/25/2019, 12:11 PM
Covering the 2nd half of Naruto manga, Shippuden adapts the teenaged years of the titular character. I wanna start this review by admitting that I am quite thankful there were people who managed to really enjoy the full road Shippuden brings. It's a long one, 500 episodes counting filler and around 300 even if you aren't. It took me 5 months to get through all the material skipping everything filler related. Now, it's actually been quite a while since I finished Shippuden (finished it last November) but I feel with a clearer head now's a better time than ever to go over everything with theseries. I enjoyed very little of Naruto Shippuden. To start with, Naruto is... Well, not a very fun protagonist to say the least. He starts off the series seeming at least a little more mature and less annoying than his original counterpart but as the series goes on his character takes a complete nosedive and it was hard for me to really enjoy him as a character by the end. His obsession with getting Sasuke back (who at the end of Naruto abandoned the Hidden Leaf to join that series' big bad in a move that would've potentially ended with his death), while understandable, feels completely unbelievable and unjustified. I feel this could've been corrected by exploring both characters similarities (which happens... 470 episodes in...) But for the majority of the series the goal of bringing back Sasuke feels so hard to care about. Another one of the main characters I enjoyed very little of was Sakura. Sakura is actually just not good. Her character in the previous series, while annoying and mostly unlikable, made sense. She was the most realistic of the cast, reacting to events how an actual 12 year old girl would in the events. Her treatment of Naruto and obsession over Sasuke back then felt understandable and it led me not to really dislike her much. Enter Shippuden Sakura. She starts off fairly well with some new abilities (becoming stronger plus learning to heal from Tsunade). However this only lasts for one story arc as by the second story arc she's reverted back to her old ways fairly quickly, rarely amounting to much in the story. She gets one cool moment towards the end of the Ninja World War when Team 7 reunities but not only is the scene poorly built up, aside from landing a good blow to the final villain she doesn't do too much. As a character her interactions with Naruto are dreadful. Really amounting to nothing more than Sakura deriding Naruto for being stupid, praising him for managing to do things despite that or maybe sometimes a little bit of hero worship. However she hits her absolute lowest as a character anytime something involves Sasuke. Her little childhood crush never goes away and while it doesn't seem to bad, the 5 Kage Summit arc is just... Well lemme explain. Once Sasuke is officially labeled a rouge ninja which means he must be eradicated, the majority of the original Genin kids (Sans Naruto and of course Sasuke) decide that'll it'll be up to them to take care of Sasuke. Sakura however decides to fight him on her own. I didn't mind this because it shows a small semblance of character development. However she struggles to do so due to still being in love with him and honestly she is unable to hold a candle to a weaker Sasuke (having just killed a man after all). I find it very disappointing and really dumb of Sakura. Otherwise, the cast of characters in this series is VERY expansive but good luck seeing them on screen at all. Older characters that could use development or could be used in new arcs end up getting replaced with new characters who serve on simple purpose and then usually get put on a bus and forgotten anyways. Heya Sai, Taka members. The one exception to this is Shikamaru, the only member of the original Konoha 12 that isn't Naruto or Sasuke who continues to develop. He actually gets his own story arc, the first story arc in the anime to actually be above "meh" level. In fact, I'd say it's pretty damn good. Otherwise, the cast of characters is mostly dreadful in this arc. However I will admit: even many months later Shippuden has some great villains. Wasn't big on Orochimaru in the original series, so the amount of good villains actually surprised me. Whether they be mini-bosses like Hidan, Kakazu, that one guy who flies on a clay bird and uses explosives (forgot his name my bad) or Itachi. The bigger bads are definitely some of the best though. Pain and Obito are still my two favorite anime antagonists. Kinda surprising considering my thoughts on the rest of the series so far... Though to be honest I still don't like Madara. He's not really bad, just very basic imo. That being said, what about the story. *Large exhale* The story isn't bad when it starts off if I'm gonna be honest, but they aren't really all that great either. I felt very little reason to care about the story, a thing which I blame on it's characters. It's not until a major character dies around 70 episodes in where I actually found myself getting invested in the series. Episode 81 (The Episode titled "Team 10" is one of the most well directed anime episodes I believe. From there on the series begins to start getting back to original Naruto levels of decent. Sasuke's fight with Itachi, the reveal of Pain, many major plot events all culminating in "The Pain Invasion" as Naruto becomes the last objective of the Akatsuki's hit list. While overall the arc tends to become quite frustrating (One notable thing being that Naruto isn't around for most of the invasion, training in another dimension, which is something that could actually work in the other characters advantage as Naruto's capture would mean the end of the world. However Tsunade objects, wanting Naruto to be apart of the fight which is a bad idea in every way knowing how more experienced fighters lost to Pain and Naruto is a 16 year old). However the fight between Naruto and Pain makes up for it. A battle between two different ideas of peace with some amazing animation and Naruto's subsequent breakdown towards the end I'd quite heartbreaking. However, at the very end Naruto simply talks Pain out of his evil ways turning him good. While this is a fairly common Naruto story element and on that I defend in fact, it was poorly implimented and was the beginning of the final downfall of Shippuden. I could go on about the Fourth Great Ninja War arc but it's fairly lengthy (About 2/3's of the whole anime) and so a rant would probably be quite long. Overall the plot sets itself up as interesting but nothing interesting actually happens. I found more often the not I'd either be anticipating a singular event that was to take place in the story, or just straight up anticipating the arcs ending. Can I also talk about the series' animation? The art design becomes a lot softer and more exaggerated as the series continues, which I appreciate. However for the most part the characters look and move stiffly no matter where the series is. Every now and then the series gets its best animators on a single episode (mostly fights with spectacular results see Sakura vs Sasori, Sasuke vs Deidara and Naruto vs Sasuke) but this is only 5% of a 500 episode anime. The show looks DREADFUL through and throughout I can say though: Its soundtrack is phenomenal. Probably my favorite or second favorite soundtrack. It's a little weak at the start but by the end of the ninja world war it really hits its peak. Honestly what can I say about Shippuden. It really hurt to get through and unless there's some sort of Shippuden Kai, I'm never watching this series again. Oh, but one thing before I finish this review. Don't forget how the series tore down it's whole heartwarming idea that hard work will pay off. Naruto, who was always played up as the underdog who came from nothing, turned out to be not only the chosen one, but was also related the VARIOUS strong individuals from the past (1st Hokages wife is his ancestor. Son of the 4th Hokage. Reincarnation of ninja Jesus etc). *Sigh* Why Kishimoto... Why...
Kuta1
07/10/2018, 08:46 PM
Back in high school, I was an avid Naruto fan. I discovered the series when I was 14 years old and binged it all in 2 weeks, and started Shippuuden soon after. I loved it at first, and revered it during the Pain arc, but soon after I found the show started to decline in quality. And now looking back, I find the show had pretty serious problems throughout its run. Just to get this out of the way, the egregious amounts of filler amidst very few canon episodes as well as a lot of episodes consisting of 70% flashbacks and 30% actual content isseriously off-putting. Yes, I know Naruto spent his childhood alone on a swing-set; no, I don't have to see that scene for the billionth time. These aspects became so unbearable that I (and many of my friends) ended up dropping the show halfway through the Great War arc and just read the manga chapters whenever they would come out. Doing this made me realize how poorly the pacing and execution of that last arc was handled, and when I eventually went back to catch up on what I missed, I wasn't surprised to find these errors hadn't been rectified at all. I think there's a common theme to be had in considering the series that is Shippuuden: inconsistency. In almost every aspect here, Naruto excels at some point in time and then fails to deliver otherwise. The series is definitely one of highs and lows, and I think the lows have overwhelmed whatever high points the series ever had. Story: 6/10. Our first look at the inconsistency of Shippuuden is targeted at how the various arcs vary in quality and immersion. I want to talk about what I consider the highest point and lowest point of the series: the Pain arc and the Great War arc (respectively). The Pain arc was a beautifully told story focusing on themes of abandonment, true peace, war, perseverance and acceptance. We saw amazing character development in Naruto: from the loss of his mentor/friend/father-figure to his ability to finally surpass his limitations and become a great ninja, it seems this was what the whole show had been built up to. Furthermore, we had an amazing villain to complement Naruto: Pain. A rather intriguing villain who we can empathize with, Pain and his tragedy really helped build on the themes of the arc. He challenged Naruto, both in physical prowess and personal philosophy, and through it all Naruto was able to learn what he holds dear. All in all, a really great arc; not without its flaws, but still a great story well told. Then comes the Great War arc, which is 1) too drawn out, 2) ignores character development and replaces it with obscure power-ups, 3) ignores 99% of the interesting cast to focus only on characters with special eye powers and Naruto, 4) has too many villains, each one diluting the significance of the other. This arc didn't need Kaguya. Obito and Madara were fine villains on their own, and whatever themes the arc wanted to handle could've been well done using only them. Once Kaguya is introduced, we go into the territory of power creep, bs powerups and no one being able to keep up with the villain unless 1) they're a main character like Naruto, 2) they have special eyes like Sasuke, or 3) they randomly get god powers (i.e. both Naruto and Sasuke). Chakra was such a great power system in the original Naruto that didn't model rather one-dimensional power systems, lie Ki in DBZ. It seems now that chakra unfortunately devolved into becoming glorified Ki. As an aside, if you watched this arc while it was airing and stuck through it, I'm not sure how you did it. I watched this arc while I was an avid fan of Naruto and ignored every criticism of it, and even then I had to drop it for a time to read the manga before I could eventually get back to watching it. The filler; the flashbacks; the slow pacing: all of these put me off. When an episode is 15 minutes flashback and 5 minutes of actually story progression, the show loses sight of where it wants to go and just becomes something that beats already explored themes and concepts down your throat. Art: 5/10. Inconsistent once again. Some scenes are downright shoddily drawn and bland. I understand that long running shounen tend to have this problem, and we see it a lot in shows like DBSuper and One Piece, but it still holds that the art leaves something to be desired. The show does have its moments with some pretty aesthetic character designs and well animated fights. The Pain fight is an example of pretty bad art at times, but amazing animation. Sound: 9/10. The OST for Naruto is pretty freaking great. However, given that the show has around 20 openings and endings (maybe even more, I haven't counted), there have been a fair share of really bad and really good songs. Character: 5/10. After the Pain arc, we see character motivations start to morph into one-dimensional determinations or become outright forgotten. The biggest offender is the Great War arc, which takes away 99% of an interesting cast to focus solely on Naruto and Sasuke and their bs powerups. Also, imo, Sasuke is probably the worst written character in the show. I don't want to get into an entire essay on why I think this (because trust me, I could), so I'll just list out some of my points for why I really despise him and the writing that surrounds him and his circumstances. 1) The love relationship between him and Sakura makes no sense. They literally have no chemistry together. 2) Itachi gives up his life to ensure his brother can live in peace, and Sasuke decides to start a war to honor him. Way to respect your brother's wishes. Alright buddy. 3) Dude causes grief to literally every character in the show, then pops up like it's nobody's business during the war and lets it slide that he's going to become Hokage. I actually had to pause because I burst out laughing. Did he really think he'd be taken seriously? 4) His overbearing arrogance borders on stupidity. He attacks a 5 kage summit, ignores advice from others and then cries about the arrogance of the leaders of the hidden leaf who put Itachi through pain. You're not any better, dude. 5) My last point, his undeserved strength and the fact that his relevance to the plot hinges on that alone. Without his eyes, he would be NOTHING. Everything special about him comes from Kishimoto giving him powerup after powerup; atleast in Naruto he had to work for things like Chidori. Now, he can just fire off infinite Chidoris, summon black flames that never go out and eventually conjure up a gigantic Titan made of chakra to dispose of enemies. Enjoyment: 5/10. My enjoyment, as well, was inconsistent: it varied a lot while watching, from downright bored to immensely engaged. I consider the Pain arc the highest point of the series and one of the best arcs in shounen, and that arc alone deserves a 9/10 at the very least. But after that, I'm afraid the show went through a downward spiral and destroyed itself with the final arc. Overall: 5/10. + Pain arc + Everything up to the Pain arc is somewhat interesting - Show falls into a downward spiral after the Pain arc and crumbles during its final arc - The diverse and interesting cast is underused in the final arc - Chakra loses its nuance - Fights after Pain become a matter of who can stack on more god power + eye powers to win - Some sub-plots are entirely ignored and never answered in the show. If you really want to watch Naruto, you might have a better time now that you can skip the filler, but the pacing still leaves something to be desired. At the very least the manga fixes the pacing problem somewhat, but I still find it fails to deliver in terms of story and characters. All in all, the show was a major disappointment.
MrLawrence12
03/29/2018, 09:28 PM
Naruto: Shippuuden review Naruto: Shippuuden is one of the most famous anime of all time, but sometime, being famous doesn’t mean it is good. People generally just base their opinion on what they liked but not on what they disliked about Naruto so that’s why you might have heard that it is a good show. If people love so much this anime, it is basically just because they found it entertaining or because they grew up with it, but if we look at it objectively we can clearly see that it is a huge waste of time and attention. First, the main story line is about Narutodealing with Obito’s past. Let me explain myself, Obito was in love with a girl called Rin when he was around twelve years old. That girl died because she had a beast sealed inside of her that was supposed to destroy her village. Instead of coming back to Konoha, she decided to kill herself to save some life. Even if she suicides, Obito couldn’t bear it so since that day he decided to avenge her by destroying the ninja world. Naruto will have to counter all his plan to save the ninja world and his precious comrades. So what sucks about this is that Obito is now a lot older and still didn’t get over it, which is just stupid. Almost everything that’s going to happen in this anime was indirectly or directly because of that incident that happened many years ago. It is so exaggerated, the Akatsuki exist because of Obito and there will be another Great Ninja War that last for more than the half of the anime (which is 500 episodes!). Second, the psychology of all the characters is messed up. You will learn the story of a lot of them and it might seem like a good thing at the beginning because it justified the fact that some of them are evil. In facts, it makes the anime last a lot longer for no reason because they all have the same story. There is more than one hundred characters and none of them has a unique story, including Naruto they are all thinking the same way so they all doing the same thing. Here’s a few of the characters story that you’ll see many times: 1.The character loses someone he holds dear, so he will want to avenge him by destroying the responsible and his village (Ex: Obito, Nagato, all the member of the Akatsuki) 2.The character is a total failure for martial arts and has a genius (a genius in Naruto is only someone who his not totally stupid cause they are honestly never doing anything smart) in his team, so he’ll try to surpass him and become hokage (Ex: Obito, Naruto, Guy sensei). Third, as I said before it is too long for no reason, but not only because of all the unnecessary character’s story. A fight in Naruto: Shippuuden can last for many episodes because of all the efforts of the director that wanted to make it epic. I remember that fight against Orochimaru that was like 4 episodes and two of them were basically Naruto standing in the middle of a bridge just to show the power of his beast and Orochimaru talking to Naruto in beast form that can’t answer him back. All the things that Orochimaru said were useless, it was only a reaction to Naruto’s power. Another proof of that is clearly the Ninja war that last for hundreds of episodes. Every time that Naruto’s side finally succeed at beating Obito or Madara, there will be a stupid reason for them to come back with more strength. You’ll see that those two will be beaten two or three times each, but there’s always an excuse for them to recover. Fourth, there are a lot of character (especially girls) that are useless. Sakura for example which should be one of the three principal characters after Naruto and Sasuke isn’t doing anything and gives nothing to make the story go further. She is only in love with Sasuke since she saw him and always try to stop Naruto that want to bring him back to the village. Pretty much every female Ninja student in this anime exist because they love someone or just because some teams miss a girl. Even the Hokage (the chief of the village) is useless. She is one of the most unqualified person to take that role. She is very weak and dumb, the only thing she knows to do is how to lose a fight and give orders, but again she is a girl and her team needed one when she was young. Fifth, Naruto’s way of thinking just doesn’t make sense. He is always saying that what he wants the most is to protect his friends, but you’ll see that he will excuse Obito for killing a lot of them and his parents just because the guy said that he hoped for Naruto to become Hokage. All the bad things that happened to Naruto were in some way because of Obito and he wants to forgive him because of some worthless words? That is ridiculous! Normally I wouldn’t waste time on one specific characters like this, but it is the main one, so I think it is worth mentioning. To conclude, I think that Naruto: Shippuuden only has one quality, it is entertaining. Unfortunately, this one isn’t enough to make this anime a good one because of all the defaults that it has. If you are looking for an anime that has a good story, good characters, relationships with real feelings or some interesting psychology, you are not at the good place because it is too simple, too repetitive and doesn’t feel real for a bit. If you are interested, I can suggest you Katanagatari which has some theme in common with Naruto: Shippuuden but certainly a lot more mastered. Also, you can go look at Ranma ½ that inspired Naruto, a little bit too much in my opinion (It is a lot better, but not a masterpiece).
Ay3itsniko
03/24/2017, 04:55 AM
First off I just wanna say that I am super sad that this show has come to an end. Naruto was my childhood and with it's ending I feel like a part of me is now gone. This is the show that got me into anime and I'm grateful for that. This show is no where near perfect, but is anything really perfect ? I'll start out with some of the cons of this show. As many other reviews have already stated, Naruto is loaded with filler episodes and this can't be any more true. At times the fillers can befunny and interesting, but most of the time you are just impatiently waiting for the show to get back to the real story line. There were tons of flashbacks and honestly they show the same scenes from the past multiple times. The story can be rushed, and at other times it feels like it's been the same battle for like 5 episodes. The artwork in the battle scenes can vary from good to not so great. But even with it's many faults, I still gave this show a 10/10. ( honestly if you hate fillers that much, just skip around) I don't know where to start with all the great things that this anime has to offer. I'll start off with the characters. The character development was great for the main characters and even some of the sides characters. I think that the show did an excellent job in giving each character a unique personality and they really made sure that you knew all the characters and their backgrounds. The development of the characters was so great that I was constantly questioning who my favorite character really was. At the beginning I honestly thought that Naruto was annoying and ignorant, but the growth and development of Naruto really grew on me and he began to become one of my favorites. Okay next is the story line. The plot was pretty interesting, but very long. While it did seem like the story was at a standstill for a while in the show, the writers did a good job at subtly setting everything up. Little things that happened in random episodes sometimes came up later as being important. The plot was like a puzzle at times, where I would try to put the pieces together. I actually really enjoyed how they set it up like that. Like Naruto and his friends grew, the story grew as well. In this sense I mean the vibe and mood of the show. It starts off more as a fun action comedy, but as the story goes on, it gets more dark, emotional, and the maturity level of the anime just increases. I'm not kidding when I say that this show can actually teach you life lessons. I highly recommend watching this whole anime. Even though it is loaded with fillers, by the time you get to the last few episodes, you'll start to feel emotional and sad that it's come to an end. While this isn't Your Lie in April or Clannad, this show still will definitely hit the feels. The end will have you feeling nostalgic, sad, happy, you'll honestly be feeling so many different emotions. This anime may be 500 episodes, but it is totally worth it and in the end you won't regret it.
DarthInvader
03/23/2017, 09:31 PM
TL;DR: Believe it! Took 10 years and 500 episodes but it finally ended. Guess that cow finally ran out of milk! [Story: 5/10 , Characters: 6/10, Art: 6/10, Sound: 9/10, Enjoyment: 7/10] Believe it! The series who was never meant to end has finally been laid to rest… or has it? It may have taken 10 years and 500 episodes (280 Cannon and 220 Fillers, believe it, I counted), thank you Studio Pierrot for finally stop milking this cow. Let's be real, all the real fans got so tired of your shenanigans they finished the manga long time ago. So why would you invest in thissuper long show? Rage aside, what's Naruto: Shippuden really about? It's a story about an unwanted ninja shinobi boy who had the dream of becoming Hokage and believe it he will overcome all the adversaries (including fillers) to achieve it! (But if we are being honest, it's really about Naruto's journey of finding his angry dark lover, Sasuke, to bring back home and he will ignore all his other friends to achieve it)! Jokes or Fillers aside, the main plot has two major arcs, the Akatsiki tailed beast arc and the Fourth Great Shinobi World War arc. This is your traditional archetypical heroic journey style shounen anime filled with every trope known to mankind. So if you believe it, they will employ it! The overarching theme is Friendship & Love conquers hatred & evil. How boring yet sweet & addictive. If you are wondering how can such a boring storyline keep the audience captivated for 500 episodes? The unique characters can be a possibility. This show has exactly 212 unique characters (villagers and background people excluded) and believe it do they stand out in one way or another! The major protagonists are Naruto and his Nakamas (which is friends for those weebs who don't know) Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi. On the other hand, the list of antagonists just goes on and each successive one is more ridiculous with godlike powers & jutsus than the previous. Seriously, how Naruto overcomes them and befriends them will leave viewers breathless. Shoutout to Ittachi, for being one hell of a memorable antagonist the anime industry will never forget and should not forget, believe it! If the story and characters don't do this show justice, (it desn't) it's definitely the animation and sound accompanying it. Narutoverse completely changed the landscape of fighting style with its unique farcical jutsus that were hand-drawn and animated adequately well. It's impressive that most of the characters were very distinct from one another given this show having 212 unique characters. Fillers aside, the Cannon episodes were actually drawn well and the standard was reasonably maintained throughout, believe it! Moreover, given that this show is 500 episodes, it actually features around 60 unique OP/ED songs. It's a definitely a first for a show that took a decade to finish. The OP/ED songs are well received among fans and non fans of this anime. Furthermore, the background OST is composed beautifully well and it accompanies the fight sequence rather too well. This show really knows how to create HYPE and hit you in the feels so hard it will make even Chuck Norris shed a tear. Overall, I don't really see myself rewatching this show but I would recommend people to atleast give this show a shot. Why? Because I'm evil, no, because why not? If you are serious about it and only want to watch cannon episodes then definitely give it a shot. It's an interesting bingable show (over few weeks) and if you get tired, then just finish the manga. This show is nowhere near perfect and it has too many flaws that is just not worth ranting about it. If you ask fans of this show, they will say 10/10 but realistically looking at cannon episodes it's 7/10. Therefore, maybe you should really watch Naruto: Shippuden. Believe it! P.S. Below is the outline for all the cannon episode. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1-27, 29-56, 72-89, 113-126, 129-143, 152-169, 172-175, 179, 197-211, 214-222, 243-256, 261-270, 272-278, 282-283, 296-302, 321-346, 362-375, 378-387, 391-393, 414-415, 418, 420-421, 424-426, 458-459, 463, 469-479, 484-500 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you found reading this short but supaishi review helpful.
susan00
03/23/2017, 03:46 PM
Oh, I hope that I’ll be the first to write the review when all the Naruto anime series end. Well, what should I start with… 15 years. For FIFTEEN years this anime brought me joy and unspeakable emotions. For FIFTEEN years it taught me right from wrong. For FIFTEEN years it … it’s been a guide of light for me. Jeez, I was raised on this anime, I became older with its characters, I just LOVE IT!!! The Naruto series started when I was in a preschool age, and for 15 years it never stopped to surprise me. Thoughthe journey was long (some might say too long) it was always exciting and brilliant. And I am really sorry if I get carried away by emotions, but true Naruto fans will understand – this is a tale, a unique and flawless tale, of nearly all of my life and now that I look back and see that little Naruto who used to be always alone, without parents, without friends, and I turn my look to who he became through these years – the Hero, who saved the world, Best Friend that was always there to help and to understand, and now – a husband… ah, I might cry. Seriously. Perfect ending. Naruto and Hinata deserve their piece of happiness. And though we did not see this in original manga series, I was really glad to be able to see that kind of and end in anime adaptation. Now let’s get back to the show and analyze everything peace by peace. I’ll start with the story. Indeed the plot, the fantastic world, all the jutsu techniques, all the creatures and characters, everything that we saw in Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden world is a creation of a mastermind – Kishimoto Masashi, and for that I bow to him to the ground. Just imagine how impossible it was to create such a wide universe with all of its own structure (villages, clans, fractions), its own history (all the clans and villages wars), its own beasts, beings and heroes etc; and how unimaginable was it to make this huge machine work. There is everything I love about the story and about how it is served to the viewer revealing its genius from all sides. It is groundbreaking in every way possible. Now let us head to art style. Generally it is satisfying. Well, it is hard to make every episode look like Kimi no Na Wa (you can consider this a recommendation), especially when you have more than 700 episodes (Naruto + Shippuuden). But I can praise creators for really good special effects and the way they’ve made all ninjutsu types look like. And though I must admit that Naruto movies absolutely compensate lack of original shows’ drawing it does not make the original run look worse. Unlike art styling – music really is the VERY strong side of the series. From top to bottom it is impeccable. Every opening, every ending, every song from the series is something breathtaking and mind blowing. I truly enjoy every track and I can sincerely call the Narutos’ OST one of the best of all time in anime industry. The openings like Hero’s Come Back (OP 1), Sign (OP 6), Toumei Datta Sekai (OP 7), Diver (OP 8), Shilhouette (OP 16) will fire you up and make your spirit riot; the endings like Shooting Star (ED 1), U can do it (ED 15), Dame Dame ga (ED 31), Spinning World (ED 32), Zetsu Zetsu (ED 40) will make you believe that you just witnessed a dream that you never want to end. I am not even mentioning stunning Hisou, Kikyou, Sengunbanba, Utsusemi tracks that appear at very exact lyrical moments and touch your soul in its deepest corners. The chorus tracks like Akatsuki and Pains’ theme songs make you feel goosebumps and your hair stand as you stare through the eyes of our heroes at fearless overwhelming enemy hordes. An incredible work by the composer – Yasuharu Takanashi. The characters. Oh, there is so much to say. This is something galaxy lvl. Nearly 100 characters, each with their own temper, beliefs and credo, each of them is trying to make an impact at the world they live in. I will always remember characters like Madara, Itachi, Nagato, because their own vision of the world and the steel will they’ve shown to everyone is something worth of admiration and respect. All the heroes are versatile, unique and incomparable to each other. I am not mentioning the number of skills and techniques each character possesses and how multiform and complex they are. Worth mentioning are beasts like Tailed once. They are that destructive force everyone is trying to lay their hands on, but the author shows that they are something more than that – they have souls and feelings, and no one can see their good hearts under the scary masks. The enjoyment that I personally got from this show is something outstanding. I enjoyed it to the core and absolutely adore it. Maybe that’s because I felt much the same as the main hero and ‘ve been a witness of many injustice things in this life, and the anime shows it very good. The human’s greed, the way we only think about our own sake, even the way kids treat someone who is not similar to them – it is a part of the masterpiece that Naruto is. Colossal work by Date Hayato and everyone who worked to make this show to be this titanic and go on nonstop for 15 years. I personally bow to all of you and say: “Thank you for the best childhood memories, I will always carry them!” And again I want to congratulate Naruto and Hinata with wedding, and thus my beautiful dream is over, meaning that I grew up and it is time for me to let my childhood go.
MiniiNinja
03/23/2017, 10:28 AM
It's truly the end. Naruto was always something that I considered bad due to the fillers, however once I got into it I was hooked. Story: Ah, the story. It's just filled with so much emotion and it was amazingly executed up until the Pain Arc, yes it went down, and we all know the War was dragged on for far too long but surely that doesn't ruin the moral of the story? Naruto always had one goal, and we always knew that he would meet stronger opponents, some that could challenge his goal, and Obito and Madara were those two. The later of the WarArc is amazingly written in my opinion, the Obito regret, Madara's reasoning and much more. Overall, the story remained the same and always had one goal, and didn't go off that path. Naruto wanted to become strong, he wanted to be acknowledged and lastly he wanted to the Hokage. All which he achieved. Art: Sadly, Naruto's Art hasn't impressed me much, however animation in canon episodes were spectacular, especially in the final battle. Not much can be said. Sound: Naruto's OST is the best I have heard in any anime. Sadness and Sorrow, My Name, Gehika, and many more. They hype you up, just like any OST is supposed to be doing in a Shounen. Naruto's OP''s were great too, I can listen to them all day anytime. Character: Naruto has lots of great characters. Although the bad thing is that in the war the spotlight is mainly on Naruto and Sasuke. This doesn't take anything from the other characters though. Characters such as Obito, Nagato, Itachi and Madara are so amazingly written. Never in an anime have I cheered for a villain. Nagato and Naruto's conversation really hits and it also makes you think about today's society. People kill and kill but they know this leads to more hatred and revenge, something that will eventually bring the world down, just like it did in Naruto. Naruto and the rest of Konoha are great characters, all are special and are all someone you can get invested into, of course there's the "muh sakura is useless", but it's still great to see all characters nevertheless. Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry is unrivaled in my opinion. I have yet to see a Shounen that has a better rivalry. Enjoyment: Wow, Enjoying Naruto is something very hard for some people, muh fillers, muh the anime show drags on for too long. Naruto can be enjoyed, if you take your mind off other people's. You have to go into it expecting something, if you go into it like many people you will be disappointed. We all know Naruto isn't the best shounen but still, when it gets good, it can be one of the best. I've really enjoyed Naruto as a character. Overall: I enjoyed Naruto Shippuden alot. The first few arc were dragging for too long, but I still managed. Once it got good, I really got hooked. Naruto as a whole is a story which has a really amazing world. People saying, "wow it's another Dragon Ball Z at the end" should know that in the first Chapter it was made loud and clear that one single demon Fox wiped out a whole Village. We all knew what Naruto's character was going to become. Naruto is something that will get alot of flack but in many years time, we'll look back and happy we experienced such a great show.
metalmattyr
03/23/2017, 09:39 AM
I was a little late to the Naruto party, i started watching the anime 3 years ago. I immediately fell in love with it. I was cranking out 20+ episodes in a day consistently with ease. As many people have surely mentioned, the fillers can be a bit much at times and they can also seem extremely repetitive and for someone who was not watching the series week by week ( or maybe even for them as well) it can be a bit frustrating and sometimes i found myself skimming though certain fillers. Putting aside the fillers, the story line for this series was verynice, in my opinion. I very much enjoyed the fighting scenes and also enjoyed the transitions from huge fights to normal life back at the village. It was a nice blend of both. The comedic aspect was really good as well. Its tough to write without giving examples from the show, but i don't wanna spoil anything for anyone looking to watch it. Overall this was an amazing series and it feels weird to me that its over. I had my ups and downs with it but i always came back to watch more. I would recommend this to anyone that is looking for a long series to watch, beware of the filler sections however. I feel this is an anime everyone should try to watch ( whether you watch it all or not). Believe it!
AnjuRatty
03/23/2017, 09:16 AM
------------------------------------- Naruto Shippuden : Review | ------------------------------------- Naruto. The series that sold over 220 million manga copies, winning handful of awards along the way. An anime that ranked as one of the most watched series in Japan that got tarnished by a greedy studio and has received tons of internet backlash throughout the years. Let me start off by saying Naruto is by no means a flawless anime. It's the exact opposite. The series had too many fillers. Sometimes the animation quality was below par and pacing can be painfully slow at times. But please bear with me here. I'm going to tell you why it hasbeen the best experience an anime gave me in my entire life and dig into what made the series popular while also explaining its flaws. ----------- Story - 8 ----------- The story of Naruto has been a mixed bag. While it's not bad, it's certainly no Berserk. But what it is, is beautiful (probably not the word that can be often used to describe a shounen anime), but it really is. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to. It starts off where the first part of Naruto ended and the very first scenes gives us a sneak peak of things to come. The series eases you back into the world of Naruto with a slow paced , almost SOL like first few episodes. And the story then on is presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. The story is mainly hampered (not ruined) by fillers and pacing issues which I will discuss below. Let's start with the filler. The amount of filler in this show is staggering. It counts as 219 total filler episodes which make up 44% of the series as a whole. The issues that lies within the filler episodes is that they are not allowed to make any significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a huge issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. So mostly what we get is poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself. However, there are exceptions for this. Some of the filler episodes can be genuinely enjoyable but those are few and far between. The fact that filler can't move the plot along fuels the second big flaw. Which is, Pacing Issues. Aside from what I've said above, even some of the non-filler episodes are very slow paced. This is mainly only an issue at the start of the series. If you're into characters chilling down and wasting a lot of time, this may sit well with you. But even then some of these episodes might be below par for your taste. Once the series kicks it into high gear around 70th episode, it mostly manages to keep that pace up. Now that we got the flaws out of the way, let's talk positives. The main strength of the series is its characters, who drive the plot (which we will discuss in detail later). After the first 70 episodes, things begin to get lot more interesting really fast. The world of shinobi gets expanded exponentially, and if you're a fan of deep lore in stories, this will fit right in your wheel house because it begins to explore the roots of the world and its history very deeply. Another thing that this series does very well is explaining its core concepts to the viewer. The techniques that characters use and how the things in shinobi world works are explained in detail. Also, the concept of Chakra and what a versatile and detailed power system it is compared to other shounen series really stands out. The amount of themes explored in the series are vast. It explores all the basic themes of a typical shounen and as it goes on it delves into themes such as the nature of humans, self sacrifice, discrimination, manipulation, roots of war and peace, difference of perceptions, the line between good and evil, and alienation. It manages to deal with all these themes without abandoning the shounen type feel or becoming pretentious. Something that the author, Kishimoto, really excels at is setting up events. For example, during the early episodes of Naruto (the prequel to this show), he has already started setting up major events that happened in the last of episodes of Shippuden. In the beginning, we look over these little details and minor events and have no idea that they are going to have such an impact later in the series, and when it all comes together in the end, you feel so satisfied. Most of the times these events and twists will take you by surprise and maybe you'll have fun trying to figure out them before they happen as Kishimoto drops clues for you to pick up throughout the entire series. Same thing applies to the moments that tug at your heartstrings , they feel genuine because how the story builds up to those moments. Being a battle shounen ,of course there are going to be battles, and this is one area that the series really shines. As I see it , battles can be broken down into three different segments in this anime , The battle of wits , The battle of ideologies , The physical battle. All three come in union to make some memorable and truly great moments. Each characters ideologies and philosophies gets tested time and time again by their opponents and we can see even the main character himself doubt his ideologies towards the end. When we see someone gets broken inside as well as the outside it's devastating to watch. To put it blatantly, Naruto has the best combat scenes I've ever witnessed in an anime. I have to mention that this style of combat is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto does a fantastic job putting emotions into its battle scenes which are backed up by gorgeous animations (at times, we'll get to that later) and a mesmerizing soundtrack, and with these combined it really sets up fantastic visual storytelling through combat. Kishimoto does an excellent job at setting up the events leading up to the fight to make it feel all the more personal and these battles often comes down to which character outwits the other rather than who can punch harder. This makes characters like Shikamaru Nara who have very little ability make a huge impact in the series. Variety of the fighting styles is massive, ranging from intimate hand to hand style combats, tactical combats, long range jutsu battles, and most often a mix of all of these! The last arc of the series has been very controversial as the constant change of antagonists has irritated some of the viewers. But in all honesty, all of the antagonists that presented had different motives that drove them to do what they do and distinctively different from each other which made them very enjoyable. That being said, the final part of the war arc was really disappointing as the final villain of the series is the worst character that the series had to offer as the villain had almost no personality and motives were shaky at best. Without spoiling anything all I can say is that decisions taken during the last war arc felt like it was done to unnecessarily prolong the final battle and messed it up with a poorly written villain and bad story decisions. But the final episodes after the War arc manages to reign it all in and give a proper farewell to the series it so richly deserves. Throughout the series you will witness friends become foes, foes become friends, unlikely alliances formed and broken, that precious character you loved die, revenge plots, plot twists, characters growing up, politics, romance, and the world itself change. It can be flawed at times but it's a full package and Kishimoto always seemed to have the ending and everything planned out from the very beginning. -------------------- Characters - 10 -------------------- Now this is the core of the franchise. Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each has a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different skill sets. And hats-off to Kishimoto for his brilliant character design as he used a very bright color pallet and made each one very distinctive to make each of them stand out. No matter which kind of characters you prefer, you're sure to find someone here that you can relate to. What the series really does well is making sure that you'll be attached to the characters emotionally. And you will cheer them on as they try to achieve their goals , watch their philosophies and ideologies gets tested , watch them break or prevail and break down crying at their deaths. You will get to see how what's happening around the characters change them , mold them. Witnessing how tragedies that's happening around them having an effect on their psyche is one of the strongest points of Naruto Shippuden. It's fun seeing small character interactions from early episodes grow into full blown relationships. Now let's move on to the "Villains" This series checks all the boxes when it comes to antagonist character archetypes. *Self-Righteous Villain with a God Complex* [checked] , *Money Hungry Villains* [checked] , *Religious Psychopaths* [checked] , *Villain who is after Revenge* [checked]. I think I've made my point there. But what makes this villains so enjoyable is that no one is a villain just for the sake for being a villain. The best kind of villains are the ones you can empathize with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. As same as the main characters, the villains too have core motivation driving them. They have their own beliefs, ideologies and they are willing to fight for what they think is right. You might find yourself cheering on the villains more than the "heroes." The morality here is blurred. But coming back to the war arc, its main flaw is the final villain (which I will not spoil here). Compared with the other villainous characters from the series, the final character is very bland and their motivations are not entirely clear or most likely not relatable to any of the viewers. That being said, this character is only in the series for a very small amount of episodes and the others certainly do more than enough to make up for it. ----------------------------- Art and Animation - 7.5 ----------------------------- Again we have a mixed bag here. This show can look stunning when it wants to, and by stunning I meant big budget movie level of quality. But at times the quality can drop way below par. I think I should specially mention Hiroyuki Yamashita’s work here. He mainly works on battle scenes and this man is a genius when it comes to it. Even though he only worked on a limited number of episodes, his episodes pushes the animation, choreography and stylishness to 11! Despite this I can't give it a higher score because this show is wildly inconsistent with its animation. And as for character designs, we already talked about how Kishimoto made his characters very distinctive and imaginative and how the bright color pallet fuels this. -------------- Sound - 10 -------------- This is an another strong point of the series. Yasuharu Takanashi has made a masterpiece of a soundtrack for this series that manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The emotions that Kishimoto wants to portray make it through to us so well because of this soundtrack. It connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. I would recommend listening to tracks like Samidare (Early Summer Rain) to get a taste of what the soundtrack is like. ------------------------------------------------ Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 10 ------------------------------------------------ Naruto Shippuden is more of an experience that needs to be had than just a mere show. It played with our emotions for over a decade and now it has been concluded. The enjoyment of Naruto Shippuden goes beyond just the series itself. This series has a very big community and fanbase that you could interact with. And its lore is so vast that you would never run out of things to discuss about it. Although it has its share of major flaws, this series is a journey that shouldn't be missed if you're fine with the hefty commitment. It's by no means a flawless anime , but it's an anime with highs that more than makes up for it's lows. It reaches for the stars but makes a few tumbles along the way , but the best moments of Naruto are some of the best moments in the medium itself. And with this, I conclude my review for this series that defined a generation. Sub or Dub ? : Sub is recommended ----------------------------------------------- | Recommendations for Similar Series | ----------------------------------------------- [Naruto] : Yes, the original series. It's essential to watch it before the Shippuden series because it contains a lot of character development and build-up for the Shippuden series. [Fullmetal Alchemist : Brotherhood ] : This series contains most of the things that made Shippuden great such as good character development, good soundtrack, and excellent world building. This series does it in about 70 episodes which is truly a magnificent achievement. If you like Naruto Shippuden, it's a given that you will like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as well. [Hunter X Hunter (2011)] : A series that greatly inspired Naruto. Both anime feel very similar in style. If the inconsistencies of Naruto bothered you, you'll find a much more consistent pacing and quality of writing here. Whether the highs of Hunter X Hunter matches up to the highs of Shippuden or FMA Brotherhood is up for debate, but you won't have to sit through any lows like you have to endure with Naruto or Naruto Shippuden. [Proofreading - SomeRandomNerd]
goknarlufy
03/23/2017, 08:41 AM
*********it's not a review it is just a oneway conversation from my heart********** and yes it is has spoilers Today at 5 o'clock in the evening something came to an end it was series which I cherished for the longest time since I can remember with the end of the series I want to share something with some one whoever they may be. I clearly remember the first ep of naruto which I ever watched its was a episode from the chunin exam when naruto is writing the test which he doesn't know but the way hehandles the situation was pure epic then I watched the first season of the series the zabuza arc and I was star strucked. The strong desire of the main character to be acknowledged by by his village and his friends was something that resonated with my thinking's. Then the series was such a great part of my life that I cannot put it into words When naruto cried I also feel the pain when he work hard he inspired me to do the same and when he achieved some thing it made me so happy that tears started to flow from my eyes There were many moments which I will never forget like say for instance The first time he defeats neji after he wins he takes a victory lap around the arena and everyone in the audience is just shocked to see him win. At that time I was feeling like this is what I want to be. And the infamous scene from after naruto returns the village after defeting pain and the scene in which iruka is telling his story was so heart touching that it made me proud. The story itself was so good that I can overlook many things The back story of naruto was so sad I clearly remember the ep 'thank you' in which he meets with his mother it was just so beautiful At this point you may be thinking that he is just overestimating the series so yes I am. But I too cannot ignore the curse which was making a epic series a avrg one 'filler' it was bullshit pure bulshit, no no it was worse the bullshit Only the novel adaptations were worth mentioning. But living that aside it was a good series and for me a inspirational one So seeing the last episode made me a bit emotional it was 9 years of journey for me and yes I am happy that it ended but I also feel a bit sad So if you have not watched naruto a you feel that you are a failure I think you should give it a try Bcz I know if you can connect with it you will not be disappointed.
LIQfilms
03/22/2017, 09:26 AM
Naruto Shippuuden! The series that would never end finally ends! After ten years, five-hundred episodes and several movie tie-ins, this milked cow is finally laid down to rest, resulting in one of the worst shounen anime adaptations ever made. While I did enjoy myself with the series and certainly found myself even liking it for the first two-hundred episodes or so, the insane amount of filler, padding, and the abysmal final three or four arcs made me despise this show by the end, and all of the characters and narrative. The filler in this anime is such a goddamn problem that it destroys the entireanime, and at this point, if you did want to get into Naruto, I would recommend reading the manga, or skipping over the filler because, for the most part, the filler is absolutely abysmal and is rarely interesting or adds onto the overall world of the series. Since this review is going to spend a long time detailing all of my problems with the story, I will address the animation and music now. While I still prefer the original soundtrack of Naruto, Shippuuden is still great. The action pumps you up and there is a great variety in songs and moods to fit each moment and scene. The animation is a different story, however. The anime is very inconsistent, and that is to be expected with a show with over five-hundred episode; at its best, it could be movie quality, it’s worst, trashy nineties OVA. Shippuuden is the direct continuation of the original series, set two years after the events that transpired in the original in which Naruto has trained to hone his skills and jutsu. Upon returning to the village, he fights off against the Akatsuki, a group of powerful, rogue ninja who wants to collect all of the tailed beasts to create the ten tails and rule the world, while trying to save his gay lover, I mean best friend, Sasuke. Now, I want to clarify first of all that I enjoyed the first season very much (excluding the fillers, that is). It was fun, the battles were original and creative, and the characters went through great development; it captured the hard life of a ninja perfectly and the cruel world in which they live in. Shippuuden was also pretty good for a little while in the beginning of the series, albeit not as interesting or engaging as the previous story arcs of the show. One good thing about the sequel is that Shippuuden is a lot darker and more mature than the original series, now with the Akatsuki clan running amok and killing many of the tailed beasts. There is this constant sense of looming danger and tension in the series and the Akatsuki were easily the best thing about part two. All of them are interesting, had unique abilities, and for the most part, are allowed to shine in their own respective battles. Hell, there are even a few character deaths which took me by surprise, which added onto the steaks and tension of the show. The first one hundred episodes of content (minus the fillers) are pretty great although I did have some problems, most notably being Naruto and Sasuke themselves. Naruto in part two is annoying, whiny and irritating, and his constant journey to save Sasuke feels boring and without much sense logically, since Saskue becomes a complete dick head, hell bent on destroying the entire village. Sasuke starts off wanting to kill his brother, and after the worst plot twist in the series where we learn his evil brother was, in fact, a good guy, which I’ve always hated, all he wants after that is to destroy the village and everyone in it, and his character fluctuates so much throughout part two that it becomes hard to keep track of. Both of their respective story arcs hit brick walls by the end of the Pain arc and hardly develop at all past that, just in their power levels. Speaking of the Pain arc, the conclusion to that very same story arc was so bad that I lost all hope in the series. After a great fight in which much of the main cast die, Naruto has a friendship speech with the villain in which after, he brings back all of the people in the village who died! This removed all of the tension from the series and was such a cheap way to bring back characters that I began to hate the series from that point onwards. Combine that with characters who did receive some screen time in part one, now being pushed to the sideline with no development, aside from Shikamaru, but even after his own arc, he is pushed to the side to make way for the yellow-haired twit. In addition, Naruto’s character is ruined after we learn he is the child of destiny and was destined to save the world since he was born. This meant all of his hard work was for nothing and is such a giant middle finger from the author, that after this point, I hated the series. From this point on, we know that Naruto can never die nor lose since he is destined to save the world. His fate is pre-determined from the start, which does remove some tension from the later arcs. It also destroys Naruto's main theme at the same time. Naruto's driving force was that hard work and endurance would pay off in the end, and earn you respect from the people around you, even when the whole world is putting you down. In the early parts of the series there was a genuine sense of satisfaction in watching Naruto grow as a person and the catharsis pay off that entailed was great after all his hard work. Learning that he is a destined child, and was destined with all these great powers from the beginning ruins all of the hard work and endurance he had to go through to gain respect as a shinobi. Essentially, the author shot himself in the foot and omitted one of the driving forces of his story. Now, let me elaborate a little more on the Itachi plot twist before I go ahead and why I didn't like this twist in the story. To me, Itachi was a great villain, someone who killed his entire village just to test his limits, leaving his younger brother alive to act out revenge on the part of his fallen clan. Like Saskue, we hated Itachi at the beginning, which we should of, since this makes a great villain. Itachi is strong, ruthless, and cunning. All of this, in my eyes, anyway, made him great as a villain, but Kishimoto, works in a twist that reveals he was a good guy all along and killed his clan to prevent a war from occurring. Essentially he had to carry a huge burden on his back from the village elders, which is admirable, but it also causes Saskue's character to go out of control from this point, and fluctuate so frequently. I always found this twist to be kind of "meh", for a lack of a better term. I never hated it per say, to the point where it broke the series or anything, it's just that I think Itachi was much better as a villain than a good guy. But hey, this mini-rant is just down to my own personal preference. The worst character out of them all is Sakura. Now, I don't think she is useless in this series. Hell, she has a pretty okay fight against one of the Akatsuki members and wins, which is something I can appreciate, it's just that her character goes nowhere. She stays so stagnant and boring, whilst crying about Saskue. And holy hell does her love for Sasuke feel forced as hell. It makes no sense why she loves him to this extent, especially after the bastard almost killed her and threatened to destroy the entire village, killing everyone she loved and had known. Back in the original I could kind of excuse her crush on account that she was a young child, but now it's laughably pathetic and doesn't even make any sense. This applies for most of the female cast in the series since Kishimotot can't write good female characters. They're either completely useless or completely superficial. That's it. And this brings us to ninja war arc and everything that came after. These final arcs were awful. All of the clever tactics and strategies the characters had are now gone, in favour of who could pull off the most landscape reducing jutsu, and Naruto and Sasuke become so powerful, to the point they rival gods, even going as far as having them both die and then re-birth as an act of destiny. What I always hated was that all of the characters that died before; characters that I liked and had well-completed arcs were brought back to life since the author was too lazy to create new ones. This ruined many of the original arcs these characters went through, and I found this, for the most part, to be completely boring since they just repeat what happened previously. Sure, there is some development and growth with the characters, but it's hardly substantial enough to raise the bar. All of the previous rules and ideas that Kishimoto establishes in the early part of the series are thrown out and it's painfully obvious that he didn't even care about his own series in the end since the justsus and abilities some of the characters can perform goes against the rules of the world that he established. A good example is when Kakashi gets two Sharingan which would require a large amount of chakra to use. We've been told time and time again that this character, while having a wide range of impressive jutsu, doesn't have much in the way of chakra and thus can't battle for too long but in the final arcs he performs so many Jutsu it is unbelievable and when he does require the double Sharingan it makes no sense how he can utilise its power, especially since he obtains it at the end of the war and thus his chakra would have been completely gone! Another example of crap writing is after Naruto is reborn, he somehow saves Gai from dying just by simply touching his chest! It makes no sense why he can suddenly do this and this element is never explained to us at all. Not only that, but a few moments later he restores Kakashi's eye in the same fashion, but fails to restore Gai's dead legs, for whatever reason. What an asshole! These final arcs are so full of ass-pulls, random power-ups and last for so long that I can’t stand the idea of watching them again. The final fight between Naruto and Sasuke was pretty impressive and I’m glad it wasn't stuffed with filler but it’s not enough to save the whole series. The “final” villain Madara was the only thing I liked about the final arc but even then, he was replaced by the true final villain who was terrible, since the author had no idea how to end the series nor of how to get rid of such a powerful enemy. Kaguya was such a terrible final villain, only being relevant for about ten episodes or so. The biggest problem is that she came out of nowhere. There was no build-up like Madara. Madara felt justified to be the final villain because of the build-up and the pay off with him was pretty good, but Kaguya was boring, dull and had no narrative steaks or intrigue behind her character at all. She was truly the worst final villain I've ever seen. I could go on and on about every little thing, but I’ve covered everything that pisses me off the most so I’ll leave it at that. I do enjoy Naruto, despite the obvious flaws, but if you want to get into the series, just read the manga.

Naruto: Shippuuden -ナルト- 疾風伝

2007 winter | Episodes: 500 | Score: 8.3 (1740781)

Updated every Thursdays at 19:30 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Streaming: Crunchyroll | Netflix

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Nakamura, Chie

Inoue, Kazuhiko

Tamura, Mutsumi

Suzumura, Kenichi

Sugiyama, Noriaki

Touyama, Nao

Takeuchi, Junko

Kogure, Ema

News

Reviews

realAlanVincent
04/15/2025, 01:46 AM
Tales of perseverance and redemption dominate Naruto: Shippuuden, but the delivery stumbles into the familiar trap of idealistic overkill. Conflicts that should challenge characters morally or strategically often dissolve into speeches about friendship, willpower, or destiny—rendering complex struggles toothless. Every major villain is eventually revealed to be misunderstood or tragic, stripped of their menace to fit a world where no one is truly evil, just hurt. While the intent might be noble, the execution feels disingenuous. All episodes were watched—not out of enjoyment, but out of habit. Completionism has its curses, and few shows test that like this one. The show leans heavily on emotional highs, recycling thesame themes until they lose impact. Real nuance rarely survives its determination to turn every story into a morality tale.
ferarriaga10
01/13/2025, 10:44 AM
Naruto didn’t just entertain me—it shaped me. As a kid, it wasn’t just a story about ninjas; it was a story about being different, about standing tall when everyone told you to sit down. Naruto’s journey from the outcast nobody believed in to someone who inspired the world felt like my own. Every time he yelled, fought, cried, smiled and showed how he still continued his journey, I believed in myself just a little more. Plus great fights, great complex and connected stories. Sure, it’s not perfect—what is? But for me, it’s more than an anime. It’s the late nights trying to pull off a Rasengan,the hours spent working hard in myself, the weeks when I wanted to give up on many things just to remember Naruto's way, and even the tattoo I got as a permanent reminder of what Naruto taught me: that hard work, heart, and stubbornness can beat the odds. Naruto’s story is mine, and it always will be.
MrSlamboni
01/04/2025, 05:31 PM
Inconsistent the whole way, even when it comes to its strengths. - Naruto is sometimes his entertaining and cheeky self from before the timeskip, other times he's just a goody two shoes protagonist. - Sometimes the dialogue is very solid, but other times it falls off the deep end (sometimes even in the same conversation). - The animation can be anything from appalling to passable, occasionally being amazing. - Some story arcs are really engaging and fun, others feel like filler. - Sometimes, the filler episodes feel canon (Itachi's backstory) while some canon episodes feel like filler (anything involving Sai). - The story felt consistent and cohesive the entireway, except at the very end where they create plot holes out of thin air for absolutely no reason. - The show explores a lot of interesting themes, but some of them get completely butchered (such as hard work vs talent) - The climax is butchered only to be saved and then butchered again immediately. - Sometimes the show nails something you would never imagine, but then completely flop on very obvious things. The one thing I can grant Naruto Shippuuden is that it has the best villains I have seen in any series. There's such a wide variety of villains and they are all interesting in their own specific way. Every villain seems to have their own motives, and the best thing is that all the motives are believable. Skip the filler, but also understand that a lot of the time will be miserable, but there will be some very strong arcs and moments. If you prefer a consistent, entertaining experience, this may not be it. However, if you think strong moments are worth waddling through the mud, you might like it.
R0R0N0A
08/07/2024, 11:02 PM
Watching this after it has ended and having the luxury to skip over the filler episodes leaves me with no choice but to put Naruto in the GOAT debate. I won't go into any details as I'm sure most people are familiar with the story of Naruto. However, and in true MAL fashion, I have to rate everything as part of my review. Story: 10/10 Characters: 10/10 Music: 11/10 Everything: 10/10 Not many animes out there can stand the test of time but Naruto/Naruto Shippuden certainly is one that can and has already done so. The story that started with the clueless orange jumpsuit-wearing kid ended up becoming a globalcultural phenomenon. Without exaggeration, this anime is responsible for a generational shift in anime culture. As Naruto was probably many people's first anime, it has largely contributed in moving anime to the mainstream. Stories like Naruto has kept audiences captivated for over 15 years keeping those who started it when they young captivated until its end, and until its audience grew older. This anime does not get the credit or the respect it deserves when it is literally one that changed people's perception of anime. Also, anyone that tries to put Naruto down is an edgelord who tries to stand out from the rest and probably enjoys something lame like slice of life animes.
fabiopires10
03/26/2024, 03:10 PM
Naruto is my favorite anime so this review will be a long one. If I had to describe Naruto in just one sentence, I would say, "An Epic Journey of Ninjas, Friendship, and Self-Discovery." This masterpiece not only offers epic and thrilling battles but also presents rich and profound character development, engaging storytelling, and a lasting message of perseverance and friendship. As someone who grew up following Naruto, this journey was more than just an anime - it was a fundamental part of my own growth journey. Let's start with the fights. Naruto is widely recognized for its intense and exciting battles, skillfully choreographed and full of thrillingtwists. From the epic clashes between Naruto and Sasuke to battles against threats like Pain and Madara, each fight is an action masterpiece that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. However, the true heart of Naruto lies in its character development. Throughout the series, we witness the growth and evolution not only of the protagonist but also of a diverse cast of characters such as Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi, each with their own emotional struggles and journeys. In particular, Naruto's transformation from an undisciplined and lonely kid into a full-grown man and hero is inspiring and emotional. His dream of becoming Hokage is not just a personal ambition but a testament to the power of hard work and determination to overcome adversity. His unwavering determination and indomitable spirit serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration for viewers, teaching valuable lessons about hard work, friendship, and self-discovery along the way. Furthermore, Naruto is rich in universal themes such as love, loss, redemption, and sacrifice. Moments of humor and camaraderie are balanced with moments of great emotion and drama, creating a truly captivating and multifaceted viewing experience. The fact that I grew up following Naruto makes this journey even more meaningful to me. As Naruto faced challenges and overcame obstacles, I was also going through my own experiences of growth and learning. Through his struggles and triumphs, I found inspiration and courage to face real-life challenges. In summary, Naruto is more than just an anime - it's an exciting and inspiring journey that resonates deeply with viewers. If you haven't watched it yet, I encourage you to embark on this life-changing adventure.
sandgem
12/02/2023, 02:36 PM
A much more ambitious continuation to its predecessor. Introduces brand new concepts, expands on lore, and keeps up with the themes of bonds/friendship and ending the cycle of hatred. Though it has some pacing issues and polarizing decision-making at times, this remains a favourite series to many for its climactic fights, emotional moments and diverse cast of characters. While the original series is definitely more cohesive and grounded, Shippuden has much higher highs. No beating around the bush, it is a flawed show, but the positives outweigh the negatives and offer some of the most iconic sequences in anime history. Additionally, Naruto: Shippuden covers a widerange of genres throughout its 500 episode run. There is something for everyone from dazzling fight animation to romantic subplots to fleshed-out side character stories. All in all, this is an absolute must watch for fans of the original series and the universe it's set in. Enjoy the show, and prepare to cry.
Rian_Rahmat
10/09/2023, 10:15 PM
This is one of those childhood anime that is full of memories, but after I watched it thoroughly, I decided not to recommend this anime. The reason is simple, there are too many flashbacks in each episode, this is the worst motive for stalling time in my opinion. there are a lot of useless episodes but most of them are filled with flashbacks which are very long, long, very long and even take up several episodes. I don't have a problem with flashbacks from each character, but the problem is the positioning, for example, I was enjoying watching Naruto fight but suddenly I met another character andthe flashback started, seriously? The worst thing was the flashback of Sakura saying to bring Sasuke back, I was really tired of hearing that, I don't know how many times I had to hear Sakura's cries for help! So in conclusion, this anime is good, but there are many negative points, especially for flashbacks, imperfect placement, as long as you put flashbacks anywhere, In other words, this anime is too fixated on flashbacks, really badly, and what's worse is that the same flashback is played again in other episodes, only with a few scenes added, and this applies to other flashbacks. This should have added the Drama genre, because it's a lot more crap compared to action.
sgaze
07/09/2023, 04:01 PM
Naruto: Shippuuden - A Magnum Opus of Ninja Heroism and Emotional Depth Rating: 9/10 Introduction: Naruto: Shippuuden, the highly anticipated sequel to the beloved Naruto series, embarks on an expansive and emotionally charged saga through the intricate world of ninjas. With its captivating storytelling, awe-inspiring action, remarkable character growth, and profound themes, this anime masterpiece stands tall among its peers. As a devoted fan of the genre, I found myself deeply enthralled by Naruto: Shippuuden and wholeheartedly recommend it to fellow anime enthusiasts. Character Development: One of the most remarkable aspects of Naruto: Shippuuden is its commitment to the growth and evolution of its characters. Building upon the foundation establishedin the original series, this sequel presents us with a vast array of well-rounded and relatable characters, each undergoing significant personal transformations. Protagonist Naruto Uzumaki's journey from an impulsive and boisterous young ninja to a mature and determined hero is an inspiring tale of resilience and self-discovery. The struggles faced by Naruto and his comrades are portrayed with depth and sensitivity, delving into their inner conflicts, fears, and aspirations. By exploring profound themes such as friendship, love, forgiveness, and the pursuit of one's dreams, Naruto: Shippuuden creates a rich emotional tapestry that resonates with viewers on a profound level, fostering a deep investment in the characters' lives and experiences. Thrilling Action and Visual Spectacle: Naruto: Shippuuden captivates audiences with its breathtaking action sequences, which serve as a testament to the anime's meticulous attention to detail. From intense one-on-one battles that showcase the intricacies of individual combat styles to grand-scale conflicts that exhibit tactical warfare and strategic planning, the series offers a thrilling array of encounters. The animation quality is nothing short of spectacular, with fluid movements, dynamic camera angles, and vibrant colors that breathe life into every fight. The meticulously choreographed battles, often accompanied by stunning jutsus (ninja techniques), create an electrifying atmosphere, leaving viewers spellbound. The visual spectacle, combined with the adrenaline-pumping action, establishes Naruto: Shippuuden as a tour de force in animation, delivering exhilarating sequences that are etched into the memory. Compelling and Expansive Storyline: The narrative of Naruto: Shippuuden is an epic tapestry that weaves together multiple story arcs, delving deeper into the mythology and history of the ninja world. Secrets are unveiled, mysteries are solved, and new characters are introduced, all contributing to the overarching plot. The series strikes a harmonious balance between action-packed sequences and poignant character-driven moments, offering a deeply satisfying storytelling experience. It skillfully incorporates suspense, unexpected plot twists, and emotionally charged climaxes that leave viewers eagerly awaiting the next chapter. Furthermore, Naruto: Shippuuden effectively explores themes of redemption, sacrifice, the cyclical nature of hatred, and the power of bonds, instilling a sense of gravitas that elevates the series beyond mere entertainment. Sensational Soundtrack and Immersive Atmosphere: The soundtrack of Naruto: Shippuuden serves as a driving force behind the anime's emotional impact and immersive atmosphere. From the exhilarating and catchy opening themes that ignite anticipation to the hauntingly beautiful background melodies that heighten the emotional resonance of key moments, the music flawlessly complements the storytelling. Whether it is the pulse-pounding rhythm during intense battles or the gentle melodies that accompany introspective scenes, the soundtrack masterfully captures the essence of each moment, further immersing viewers in the world of Naruto: Shippuuden. Minor Shortcomings: While Naruto: Shippuuden is an exceptional anime, it does have a few minor flaws. The series occasionally suffers from pacing issues, particularly during certain filler episodes that deviate from the main plot. Although these episodes may provide additional character development or backstory, they can test the patience of some viewers. Additionally, due to the large ensemble cast, certain character arcs may receive less attention than others, resulting in occasional underdeveloped personalities. However, these minor shortcomings pale in comparison to the series' immense strengths and do not detract significantly from the overall enjoyment of Naruto: Shippuuden. Conclusion: In conclusion, Naruto: Shippuuden stands as an anime magnum opus, exemplifying the pinnacle of storytelling and animation in the genre. With its profound character growth, breathtaking action sequences, captivating and expansive storyline, and immersive soundtrack, it delivers an unforgettable journey through the world of ninjas. While it may have minor pacing issues and occasional character neglect, these flaws are eclipsed by the series' immense achievements. Naruto: Shippuuden is an anime that leaves an indelible mark, appealing to fans of epic adventures, intricate character development, and emotionally charged narratives. For its outstanding accomplishments, I confidently rate Naruto: Shippuuden 9/10. Brace yourself for an unparalleled saga of heroism, camaraderie, and self-discovery that will resonate with you long after the final episode fades away.
BabyGirl06301
04/27/2019, 02:59 PM
How do I even sum up this series? How can I review something so special to me? Still, it must be done, so let me tell you why Naruto is a series you can't leave on your PTW list. Let's start with the basics: sound and art. Naruto (especially Shippuuden) has one of the best soundtracks in anime. Not only with its openings and endings, but its OST songs fit the anime and its tone better than any other anime I've seen. The art is GORGEOUS. Again, especially in Shippuuden because it's more recent compared to the older animation of the original Naruto series. Thelighting effects and bright colors make every scene entrancing. I don't know whether to talk about the story or the characters next because both are as high quality as high quality can be, but I'll start with the characters. You can't FIND development like this anywhere else. For one thing, each character is indisputably unique, and it's nice to watch an anime in which you can find a piece of yourself in every character. Also, each of their stories-- heroes and villains alike-- was developed with such care that you can't help but be interested. More than both of those things, though, the sheer power that these characters hold is what really makes them remarkable. Not physical power (though, that type of power gets developed really nicely and realistically throughout the series as well), but mental power. These characters are written with goals and convictions that bring them to life in a way that will capture your heart. You'll become addicted to the characters simply because they give everything all they've got. Now, finally, we come to the story. This is going to be hard to talk about without getting detailed, so I'll keep it as brief as I can by saying this: this story is special. It isn't always unpredictable, and things don't always end happily, but the journey you'll take is-- dare I say-- one of the best you'll ever take. The care that was put into developing this story so that it had the most impact it could have must have been immense. This very well might be the only story I've ever experienced in which I didn't want to skip ahead to see the ending at some point. Every part of the story was important and made me feel so lucky to have found a story like it; I wanted to savor it as long as I could. The story itself is an art piece. A lot of that was my emotions reviewing the anime and not actual critiques, but isn't that more convincing? Naruto has become so special to me, and I'm really, really glad that I got past my assumptions about it beforehand and took the plunge to watch it. I don't think I'll ever find something quite like this again-- and that's why it's so beautiful. Please watch this if you're even a little curious because it'll change your life, I promise you. ありがとう、ナルト.
LunaLuna21
04/25/2019, 12:11 PM
Covering the 2nd half of Naruto manga, Shippuden adapts the teenaged years of the titular character. I wanna start this review by admitting that I am quite thankful there were people who managed to really enjoy the full road Shippuden brings. It's a long one, 500 episodes counting filler and around 300 even if you aren't. It took me 5 months to get through all the material skipping everything filler related. Now, it's actually been quite a while since I finished Shippuden (finished it last November) but I feel with a clearer head now's a better time than ever to go over everything with theseries. I enjoyed very little of Naruto Shippuden. To start with, Naruto is... Well, not a very fun protagonist to say the least. He starts off the series seeming at least a little more mature and less annoying than his original counterpart but as the series goes on his character takes a complete nosedive and it was hard for me to really enjoy him as a character by the end. His obsession with getting Sasuke back (who at the end of Naruto abandoned the Hidden Leaf to join that series' big bad in a move that would've potentially ended with his death), while understandable, feels completely unbelievable and unjustified. I feel this could've been corrected by exploring both characters similarities (which happens... 470 episodes in...) But for the majority of the series the goal of bringing back Sasuke feels so hard to care about. Another one of the main characters I enjoyed very little of was Sakura. Sakura is actually just not good. Her character in the previous series, while annoying and mostly unlikable, made sense. She was the most realistic of the cast, reacting to events how an actual 12 year old girl would in the events. Her treatment of Naruto and obsession over Sasuke back then felt understandable and it led me not to really dislike her much. Enter Shippuden Sakura. She starts off fairly well with some new abilities (becoming stronger plus learning to heal from Tsunade). However this only lasts for one story arc as by the second story arc she's reverted back to her old ways fairly quickly, rarely amounting to much in the story. She gets one cool moment towards the end of the Ninja World War when Team 7 reunities but not only is the scene poorly built up, aside from landing a good blow to the final villain she doesn't do too much. As a character her interactions with Naruto are dreadful. Really amounting to nothing more than Sakura deriding Naruto for being stupid, praising him for managing to do things despite that or maybe sometimes a little bit of hero worship. However she hits her absolute lowest as a character anytime something involves Sasuke. Her little childhood crush never goes away and while it doesn't seem to bad, the 5 Kage Summit arc is just... Well lemme explain. Once Sasuke is officially labeled a rouge ninja which means he must be eradicated, the majority of the original Genin kids (Sans Naruto and of course Sasuke) decide that'll it'll be up to them to take care of Sasuke. Sakura however decides to fight him on her own. I didn't mind this because it shows a small semblance of character development. However she struggles to do so due to still being in love with him and honestly she is unable to hold a candle to a weaker Sasuke (having just killed a man after all). I find it very disappointing and really dumb of Sakura. Otherwise, the cast of characters in this series is VERY expansive but good luck seeing them on screen at all. Older characters that could use development or could be used in new arcs end up getting replaced with new characters who serve on simple purpose and then usually get put on a bus and forgotten anyways. Heya Sai, Taka members. The one exception to this is Shikamaru, the only member of the original Konoha 12 that isn't Naruto or Sasuke who continues to develop. He actually gets his own story arc, the first story arc in the anime to actually be above "meh" level. In fact, I'd say it's pretty damn good. Otherwise, the cast of characters is mostly dreadful in this arc. However I will admit: even many months later Shippuden has some great villains. Wasn't big on Orochimaru in the original series, so the amount of good villains actually surprised me. Whether they be mini-bosses like Hidan, Kakazu, that one guy who flies on a clay bird and uses explosives (forgot his name my bad) or Itachi. The bigger bads are definitely some of the best though. Pain and Obito are still my two favorite anime antagonists. Kinda surprising considering my thoughts on the rest of the series so far... Though to be honest I still don't like Madara. He's not really bad, just very basic imo. That being said, what about the story. *Large exhale* The story isn't bad when it starts off if I'm gonna be honest, but they aren't really all that great either. I felt very little reason to care about the story, a thing which I blame on it's characters. It's not until a major character dies around 70 episodes in where I actually found myself getting invested in the series. Episode 81 (The Episode titled "Team 10" is one of the most well directed anime episodes I believe. From there on the series begins to start getting back to original Naruto levels of decent. Sasuke's fight with Itachi, the reveal of Pain, many major plot events all culminating in "The Pain Invasion" as Naruto becomes the last objective of the Akatsuki's hit list. While overall the arc tends to become quite frustrating (One notable thing being that Naruto isn't around for most of the invasion, training in another dimension, which is something that could actually work in the other characters advantage as Naruto's capture would mean the end of the world. However Tsunade objects, wanting Naruto to be apart of the fight which is a bad idea in every way knowing how more experienced fighters lost to Pain and Naruto is a 16 year old). However the fight between Naruto and Pain makes up for it. A battle between two different ideas of peace with some amazing animation and Naruto's subsequent breakdown towards the end I'd quite heartbreaking. However, at the very end Naruto simply talks Pain out of his evil ways turning him good. While this is a fairly common Naruto story element and on that I defend in fact, it was poorly implimented and was the beginning of the final downfall of Shippuden. I could go on about the Fourth Great Ninja War arc but it's fairly lengthy (About 2/3's of the whole anime) and so a rant would probably be quite long. Overall the plot sets itself up as interesting but nothing interesting actually happens. I found more often the not I'd either be anticipating a singular event that was to take place in the story, or just straight up anticipating the arcs ending. Can I also talk about the series' animation? The art design becomes a lot softer and more exaggerated as the series continues, which I appreciate. However for the most part the characters look and move stiffly no matter where the series is. Every now and then the series gets its best animators on a single episode (mostly fights with spectacular results see Sakura vs Sasori, Sasuke vs Deidara and Naruto vs Sasuke) but this is only 5% of a 500 episode anime. The show looks DREADFUL through and throughout I can say though: Its soundtrack is phenomenal. Probably my favorite or second favorite soundtrack. It's a little weak at the start but by the end of the ninja world war it really hits its peak. Honestly what can I say about Shippuden. It really hurt to get through and unless there's some sort of Shippuden Kai, I'm never watching this series again. Oh, but one thing before I finish this review. Don't forget how the series tore down it's whole heartwarming idea that hard work will pay off. Naruto, who was always played up as the underdog who came from nothing, turned out to be not only the chosen one, but was also related the VARIOUS strong individuals from the past (1st Hokages wife is his ancestor. Son of the 4th Hokage. Reincarnation of ninja Jesus etc). *Sigh* Why Kishimoto... Why...
Kuta1
07/10/2018, 08:46 PM
Back in high school, I was an avid Naruto fan. I discovered the series when I was 14 years old and binged it all in 2 weeks, and started Shippuuden soon after. I loved it at first, and revered it during the Pain arc, but soon after I found the show started to decline in quality. And now looking back, I find the show had pretty serious problems throughout its run. Just to get this out of the way, the egregious amounts of filler amidst very few canon episodes as well as a lot of episodes consisting of 70% flashbacks and 30% actual content isseriously off-putting. Yes, I know Naruto spent his childhood alone on a swing-set; no, I don't have to see that scene for the billionth time. These aspects became so unbearable that I (and many of my friends) ended up dropping the show halfway through the Great War arc and just read the manga chapters whenever they would come out. Doing this made me realize how poorly the pacing and execution of that last arc was handled, and when I eventually went back to catch up on what I missed, I wasn't surprised to find these errors hadn't been rectified at all. I think there's a common theme to be had in considering the series that is Shippuuden: inconsistency. In almost every aspect here, Naruto excels at some point in time and then fails to deliver otherwise. The series is definitely one of highs and lows, and I think the lows have overwhelmed whatever high points the series ever had. Story: 6/10. Our first look at the inconsistency of Shippuuden is targeted at how the various arcs vary in quality and immersion. I want to talk about what I consider the highest point and lowest point of the series: the Pain arc and the Great War arc (respectively). The Pain arc was a beautifully told story focusing on themes of abandonment, true peace, war, perseverance and acceptance. We saw amazing character development in Naruto: from the loss of his mentor/friend/father-figure to his ability to finally surpass his limitations and become a great ninja, it seems this was what the whole show had been built up to. Furthermore, we had an amazing villain to complement Naruto: Pain. A rather intriguing villain who we can empathize with, Pain and his tragedy really helped build on the themes of the arc. He challenged Naruto, both in physical prowess and personal philosophy, and through it all Naruto was able to learn what he holds dear. All in all, a really great arc; not without its flaws, but still a great story well told. Then comes the Great War arc, which is 1) too drawn out, 2) ignores character development and replaces it with obscure power-ups, 3) ignores 99% of the interesting cast to focus only on characters with special eye powers and Naruto, 4) has too many villains, each one diluting the significance of the other. This arc didn't need Kaguya. Obito and Madara were fine villains on their own, and whatever themes the arc wanted to handle could've been well done using only them. Once Kaguya is introduced, we go into the territory of power creep, bs powerups and no one being able to keep up with the villain unless 1) they're a main character like Naruto, 2) they have special eyes like Sasuke, or 3) they randomly get god powers (i.e. both Naruto and Sasuke). Chakra was such a great power system in the original Naruto that didn't model rather one-dimensional power systems, lie Ki in DBZ. It seems now that chakra unfortunately devolved into becoming glorified Ki. As an aside, if you watched this arc while it was airing and stuck through it, I'm not sure how you did it. I watched this arc while I was an avid fan of Naruto and ignored every criticism of it, and even then I had to drop it for a time to read the manga before I could eventually get back to watching it. The filler; the flashbacks; the slow pacing: all of these put me off. When an episode is 15 minutes flashback and 5 minutes of actually story progression, the show loses sight of where it wants to go and just becomes something that beats already explored themes and concepts down your throat. Art: 5/10. Inconsistent once again. Some scenes are downright shoddily drawn and bland. I understand that long running shounen tend to have this problem, and we see it a lot in shows like DBSuper and One Piece, but it still holds that the art leaves something to be desired. The show does have its moments with some pretty aesthetic character designs and well animated fights. The Pain fight is an example of pretty bad art at times, but amazing animation. Sound: 9/10. The OST for Naruto is pretty freaking great. However, given that the show has around 20 openings and endings (maybe even more, I haven't counted), there have been a fair share of really bad and really good songs. Character: 5/10. After the Pain arc, we see character motivations start to morph into one-dimensional determinations or become outright forgotten. The biggest offender is the Great War arc, which takes away 99% of an interesting cast to focus solely on Naruto and Sasuke and their bs powerups. Also, imo, Sasuke is probably the worst written character in the show. I don't want to get into an entire essay on why I think this (because trust me, I could), so I'll just list out some of my points for why I really despise him and the writing that surrounds him and his circumstances. 1) The love relationship between him and Sakura makes no sense. They literally have no chemistry together. 2) Itachi gives up his life to ensure his brother can live in peace, and Sasuke decides to start a war to honor him. Way to respect your brother's wishes. Alright buddy. 3) Dude causes grief to literally every character in the show, then pops up like it's nobody's business during the war and lets it slide that he's going to become Hokage. I actually had to pause because I burst out laughing. Did he really think he'd be taken seriously? 4) His overbearing arrogance borders on stupidity. He attacks a 5 kage summit, ignores advice from others and then cries about the arrogance of the leaders of the hidden leaf who put Itachi through pain. You're not any better, dude. 5) My last point, his undeserved strength and the fact that his relevance to the plot hinges on that alone. Without his eyes, he would be NOTHING. Everything special about him comes from Kishimoto giving him powerup after powerup; atleast in Naruto he had to work for things like Chidori. Now, he can just fire off infinite Chidoris, summon black flames that never go out and eventually conjure up a gigantic Titan made of chakra to dispose of enemies. Enjoyment: 5/10. My enjoyment, as well, was inconsistent: it varied a lot while watching, from downright bored to immensely engaged. I consider the Pain arc the highest point of the series and one of the best arcs in shounen, and that arc alone deserves a 9/10 at the very least. But after that, I'm afraid the show went through a downward spiral and destroyed itself with the final arc. Overall: 5/10. + Pain arc + Everything up to the Pain arc is somewhat interesting - Show falls into a downward spiral after the Pain arc and crumbles during its final arc - The diverse and interesting cast is underused in the final arc - Chakra loses its nuance - Fights after Pain become a matter of who can stack on more god power + eye powers to win - Some sub-plots are entirely ignored and never answered in the show. If you really want to watch Naruto, you might have a better time now that you can skip the filler, but the pacing still leaves something to be desired. At the very least the manga fixes the pacing problem somewhat, but I still find it fails to deliver in terms of story and characters. All in all, the show was a major disappointment.
MrLawrence12
03/29/2018, 09:28 PM
Naruto: Shippuuden review Naruto: Shippuuden is one of the most famous anime of all time, but sometime, being famous doesn’t mean it is good. People generally just base their opinion on what they liked but not on what they disliked about Naruto so that’s why you might have heard that it is a good show. If people love so much this anime, it is basically just because they found it entertaining or because they grew up with it, but if we look at it objectively we can clearly see that it is a huge waste of time and attention. First, the main story line is about Narutodealing with Obito’s past. Let me explain myself, Obito was in love with a girl called Rin when he was around twelve years old. That girl died because she had a beast sealed inside of her that was supposed to destroy her village. Instead of coming back to Konoha, she decided to kill herself to save some life. Even if she suicides, Obito couldn’t bear it so since that day he decided to avenge her by destroying the ninja world. Naruto will have to counter all his plan to save the ninja world and his precious comrades. So what sucks about this is that Obito is now a lot older and still didn’t get over it, which is just stupid. Almost everything that’s going to happen in this anime was indirectly or directly because of that incident that happened many years ago. It is so exaggerated, the Akatsuki exist because of Obito and there will be another Great Ninja War that last for more than the half of the anime (which is 500 episodes!). Second, the psychology of all the characters is messed up. You will learn the story of a lot of them and it might seem like a good thing at the beginning because it justified the fact that some of them are evil. In facts, it makes the anime last a lot longer for no reason because they all have the same story. There is more than one hundred characters and none of them has a unique story, including Naruto they are all thinking the same way so they all doing the same thing. Here’s a few of the characters story that you’ll see many times: 1.The character loses someone he holds dear, so he will want to avenge him by destroying the responsible and his village (Ex: Obito, Nagato, all the member of the Akatsuki) 2.The character is a total failure for martial arts and has a genius (a genius in Naruto is only someone who his not totally stupid cause they are honestly never doing anything smart) in his team, so he’ll try to surpass him and become hokage (Ex: Obito, Naruto, Guy sensei). Third, as I said before it is too long for no reason, but not only because of all the unnecessary character’s story. A fight in Naruto: Shippuuden can last for many episodes because of all the efforts of the director that wanted to make it epic. I remember that fight against Orochimaru that was like 4 episodes and two of them were basically Naruto standing in the middle of a bridge just to show the power of his beast and Orochimaru talking to Naruto in beast form that can’t answer him back. All the things that Orochimaru said were useless, it was only a reaction to Naruto’s power. Another proof of that is clearly the Ninja war that last for hundreds of episodes. Every time that Naruto’s side finally succeed at beating Obito or Madara, there will be a stupid reason for them to come back with more strength. You’ll see that those two will be beaten two or three times each, but there’s always an excuse for them to recover. Fourth, there are a lot of character (especially girls) that are useless. Sakura for example which should be one of the three principal characters after Naruto and Sasuke isn’t doing anything and gives nothing to make the story go further. She is only in love with Sasuke since she saw him and always try to stop Naruto that want to bring him back to the village. Pretty much every female Ninja student in this anime exist because they love someone or just because some teams miss a girl. Even the Hokage (the chief of the village) is useless. She is one of the most unqualified person to take that role. She is very weak and dumb, the only thing she knows to do is how to lose a fight and give orders, but again she is a girl and her team needed one when she was young. Fifth, Naruto’s way of thinking just doesn’t make sense. He is always saying that what he wants the most is to protect his friends, but you’ll see that he will excuse Obito for killing a lot of them and his parents just because the guy said that he hoped for Naruto to become Hokage. All the bad things that happened to Naruto were in some way because of Obito and he wants to forgive him because of some worthless words? That is ridiculous! Normally I wouldn’t waste time on one specific characters like this, but it is the main one, so I think it is worth mentioning. To conclude, I think that Naruto: Shippuuden only has one quality, it is entertaining. Unfortunately, this one isn’t enough to make this anime a good one because of all the defaults that it has. If you are looking for an anime that has a good story, good characters, relationships with real feelings or some interesting psychology, you are not at the good place because it is too simple, too repetitive and doesn’t feel real for a bit. If you are interested, I can suggest you Katanagatari which has some theme in common with Naruto: Shippuuden but certainly a lot more mastered. Also, you can go look at Ranma ½ that inspired Naruto, a little bit too much in my opinion (It is a lot better, but not a masterpiece).
Ay3itsniko
03/24/2017, 04:55 AM
First off I just wanna say that I am super sad that this show has come to an end. Naruto was my childhood and with it's ending I feel like a part of me is now gone. This is the show that got me into anime and I'm grateful for that. This show is no where near perfect, but is anything really perfect ? I'll start out with some of the cons of this show. As many other reviews have already stated, Naruto is loaded with filler episodes and this can't be any more true. At times the fillers can befunny and interesting, but most of the time you are just impatiently waiting for the show to get back to the real story line. There were tons of flashbacks and honestly they show the same scenes from the past multiple times. The story can be rushed, and at other times it feels like it's been the same battle for like 5 episodes. The artwork in the battle scenes can vary from good to not so great. But even with it's many faults, I still gave this show a 10/10. ( honestly if you hate fillers that much, just skip around) I don't know where to start with all the great things that this anime has to offer. I'll start off with the characters. The character development was great for the main characters and even some of the sides characters. I think that the show did an excellent job in giving each character a unique personality and they really made sure that you knew all the characters and their backgrounds. The development of the characters was so great that I was constantly questioning who my favorite character really was. At the beginning I honestly thought that Naruto was annoying and ignorant, but the growth and development of Naruto really grew on me and he began to become one of my favorites. Okay next is the story line. The plot was pretty interesting, but very long. While it did seem like the story was at a standstill for a while in the show, the writers did a good job at subtly setting everything up. Little things that happened in random episodes sometimes came up later as being important. The plot was like a puzzle at times, where I would try to put the pieces together. I actually really enjoyed how they set it up like that. Like Naruto and his friends grew, the story grew as well. In this sense I mean the vibe and mood of the show. It starts off more as a fun action comedy, but as the story goes on, it gets more dark, emotional, and the maturity level of the anime just increases. I'm not kidding when I say that this show can actually teach you life lessons. I highly recommend watching this whole anime. Even though it is loaded with fillers, by the time you get to the last few episodes, you'll start to feel emotional and sad that it's come to an end. While this isn't Your Lie in April or Clannad, this show still will definitely hit the feels. The end will have you feeling nostalgic, sad, happy, you'll honestly be feeling so many different emotions. This anime may be 500 episodes, but it is totally worth it and in the end you won't regret it.
DarthInvader
03/23/2017, 09:31 PM
TL;DR: Believe it! Took 10 years and 500 episodes but it finally ended. Guess that cow finally ran out of milk! [Story: 5/10 , Characters: 6/10, Art: 6/10, Sound: 9/10, Enjoyment: 7/10] Believe it! The series who was never meant to end has finally been laid to rest… or has it? It may have taken 10 years and 500 episodes (280 Cannon and 220 Fillers, believe it, I counted), thank you Studio Pierrot for finally stop milking this cow. Let's be real, all the real fans got so tired of your shenanigans they finished the manga long time ago. So why would you invest in thissuper long show? Rage aside, what's Naruto: Shippuden really about? It's a story about an unwanted ninja shinobi boy who had the dream of becoming Hokage and believe it he will overcome all the adversaries (including fillers) to achieve it! (But if we are being honest, it's really about Naruto's journey of finding his angry dark lover, Sasuke, to bring back home and he will ignore all his other friends to achieve it)! Jokes or Fillers aside, the main plot has two major arcs, the Akatsiki tailed beast arc and the Fourth Great Shinobi World War arc. This is your traditional archetypical heroic journey style shounen anime filled with every trope known to mankind. So if you believe it, they will employ it! The overarching theme is Friendship & Love conquers hatred & evil. How boring yet sweet & addictive. If you are wondering how can such a boring storyline keep the audience captivated for 500 episodes? The unique characters can be a possibility. This show has exactly 212 unique characters (villagers and background people excluded) and believe it do they stand out in one way or another! The major protagonists are Naruto and his Nakamas (which is friends for those weebs who don't know) Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi. On the other hand, the list of antagonists just goes on and each successive one is more ridiculous with godlike powers & jutsus than the previous. Seriously, how Naruto overcomes them and befriends them will leave viewers breathless. Shoutout to Ittachi, for being one hell of a memorable antagonist the anime industry will never forget and should not forget, believe it! If the story and characters don't do this show justice, (it desn't) it's definitely the animation and sound accompanying it. Narutoverse completely changed the landscape of fighting style with its unique farcical jutsus that were hand-drawn and animated adequately well. It's impressive that most of the characters were very distinct from one another given this show having 212 unique characters. Fillers aside, the Cannon episodes were actually drawn well and the standard was reasonably maintained throughout, believe it! Moreover, given that this show is 500 episodes, it actually features around 60 unique OP/ED songs. It's a definitely a first for a show that took a decade to finish. The OP/ED songs are well received among fans and non fans of this anime. Furthermore, the background OST is composed beautifully well and it accompanies the fight sequence rather too well. This show really knows how to create HYPE and hit you in the feels so hard it will make even Chuck Norris shed a tear. Overall, I don't really see myself rewatching this show but I would recommend people to atleast give this show a shot. Why? Because I'm evil, no, because why not? If you are serious about it and only want to watch cannon episodes then definitely give it a shot. It's an interesting bingable show (over few weeks) and if you get tired, then just finish the manga. This show is nowhere near perfect and it has too many flaws that is just not worth ranting about it. If you ask fans of this show, they will say 10/10 but realistically looking at cannon episodes it's 7/10. Therefore, maybe you should really watch Naruto: Shippuden. Believe it! P.S. Below is the outline for all the cannon episode. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1-27, 29-56, 72-89, 113-126, 129-143, 152-169, 172-175, 179, 197-211, 214-222, 243-256, 261-270, 272-278, 282-283, 296-302, 321-346, 362-375, 378-387, 391-393, 414-415, 418, 420-421, 424-426, 458-459, 463, 469-479, 484-500 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you found reading this short but supaishi review helpful.
susan00
03/23/2017, 03:46 PM
Oh, I hope that I’ll be the first to write the review when all the Naruto anime series end. Well, what should I start with… 15 years. For FIFTEEN years this anime brought me joy and unspeakable emotions. For FIFTEEN years it taught me right from wrong. For FIFTEEN years it … it’s been a guide of light for me. Jeez, I was raised on this anime, I became older with its characters, I just LOVE IT!!! The Naruto series started when I was in a preschool age, and for 15 years it never stopped to surprise me. Thoughthe journey was long (some might say too long) it was always exciting and brilliant. And I am really sorry if I get carried away by emotions, but true Naruto fans will understand – this is a tale, a unique and flawless tale, of nearly all of my life and now that I look back and see that little Naruto who used to be always alone, without parents, without friends, and I turn my look to who he became through these years – the Hero, who saved the world, Best Friend that was always there to help and to understand, and now – a husband… ah, I might cry. Seriously. Perfect ending. Naruto and Hinata deserve their piece of happiness. And though we did not see this in original manga series, I was really glad to be able to see that kind of and end in anime adaptation. Now let’s get back to the show and analyze everything peace by peace. I’ll start with the story. Indeed the plot, the fantastic world, all the jutsu techniques, all the creatures and characters, everything that we saw in Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden world is a creation of a mastermind – Kishimoto Masashi, and for that I bow to him to the ground. Just imagine how impossible it was to create such a wide universe with all of its own structure (villages, clans, fractions), its own history (all the clans and villages wars), its own beasts, beings and heroes etc; and how unimaginable was it to make this huge machine work. There is everything I love about the story and about how it is served to the viewer revealing its genius from all sides. It is groundbreaking in every way possible. Now let us head to art style. Generally it is satisfying. Well, it is hard to make every episode look like Kimi no Na Wa (you can consider this a recommendation), especially when you have more than 700 episodes (Naruto + Shippuuden). But I can praise creators for really good special effects and the way they’ve made all ninjutsu types look like. And though I must admit that Naruto movies absolutely compensate lack of original shows’ drawing it does not make the original run look worse. Unlike art styling – music really is the VERY strong side of the series. From top to bottom it is impeccable. Every opening, every ending, every song from the series is something breathtaking and mind blowing. I truly enjoy every track and I can sincerely call the Narutos’ OST one of the best of all time in anime industry. The openings like Hero’s Come Back (OP 1), Sign (OP 6), Toumei Datta Sekai (OP 7), Diver (OP 8), Shilhouette (OP 16) will fire you up and make your spirit riot; the endings like Shooting Star (ED 1), U can do it (ED 15), Dame Dame ga (ED 31), Spinning World (ED 32), Zetsu Zetsu (ED 40) will make you believe that you just witnessed a dream that you never want to end. I am not even mentioning stunning Hisou, Kikyou, Sengunbanba, Utsusemi tracks that appear at very exact lyrical moments and touch your soul in its deepest corners. The chorus tracks like Akatsuki and Pains’ theme songs make you feel goosebumps and your hair stand as you stare through the eyes of our heroes at fearless overwhelming enemy hordes. An incredible work by the composer – Yasuharu Takanashi. The characters. Oh, there is so much to say. This is something galaxy lvl. Nearly 100 characters, each with their own temper, beliefs and credo, each of them is trying to make an impact at the world they live in. I will always remember characters like Madara, Itachi, Nagato, because their own vision of the world and the steel will they’ve shown to everyone is something worth of admiration and respect. All the heroes are versatile, unique and incomparable to each other. I am not mentioning the number of skills and techniques each character possesses and how multiform and complex they are. Worth mentioning are beasts like Tailed once. They are that destructive force everyone is trying to lay their hands on, but the author shows that they are something more than that – they have souls and feelings, and no one can see their good hearts under the scary masks. The enjoyment that I personally got from this show is something outstanding. I enjoyed it to the core and absolutely adore it. Maybe that’s because I felt much the same as the main hero and ‘ve been a witness of many injustice things in this life, and the anime shows it very good. The human’s greed, the way we only think about our own sake, even the way kids treat someone who is not similar to them – it is a part of the masterpiece that Naruto is. Colossal work by Date Hayato and everyone who worked to make this show to be this titanic and go on nonstop for 15 years. I personally bow to all of you and say: “Thank you for the best childhood memories, I will always carry them!” And again I want to congratulate Naruto and Hinata with wedding, and thus my beautiful dream is over, meaning that I grew up and it is time for me to let my childhood go.
MiniiNinja
03/23/2017, 10:28 AM
It's truly the end. Naruto was always something that I considered bad due to the fillers, however once I got into it I was hooked. Story: Ah, the story. It's just filled with so much emotion and it was amazingly executed up until the Pain Arc, yes it went down, and we all know the War was dragged on for far too long but surely that doesn't ruin the moral of the story? Naruto always had one goal, and we always knew that he would meet stronger opponents, some that could challenge his goal, and Obito and Madara were those two. The later of the WarArc is amazingly written in my opinion, the Obito regret, Madara's reasoning and much more. Overall, the story remained the same and always had one goal, and didn't go off that path. Naruto wanted to become strong, he wanted to be acknowledged and lastly he wanted to the Hokage. All which he achieved. Art: Sadly, Naruto's Art hasn't impressed me much, however animation in canon episodes were spectacular, especially in the final battle. Not much can be said. Sound: Naruto's OST is the best I have heard in any anime. Sadness and Sorrow, My Name, Gehika, and many more. They hype you up, just like any OST is supposed to be doing in a Shounen. Naruto's OP''s were great too, I can listen to them all day anytime. Character: Naruto has lots of great characters. Although the bad thing is that in the war the spotlight is mainly on Naruto and Sasuke. This doesn't take anything from the other characters though. Characters such as Obito, Nagato, Itachi and Madara are so amazingly written. Never in an anime have I cheered for a villain. Nagato and Naruto's conversation really hits and it also makes you think about today's society. People kill and kill but they know this leads to more hatred and revenge, something that will eventually bring the world down, just like it did in Naruto. Naruto and the rest of Konoha are great characters, all are special and are all someone you can get invested into, of course there's the "muh sakura is useless", but it's still great to see all characters nevertheless. Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry is unrivaled in my opinion. I have yet to see a Shounen that has a better rivalry. Enjoyment: Wow, Enjoying Naruto is something very hard for some people, muh fillers, muh the anime show drags on for too long. Naruto can be enjoyed, if you take your mind off other people's. You have to go into it expecting something, if you go into it like many people you will be disappointed. We all know Naruto isn't the best shounen but still, when it gets good, it can be one of the best. I've really enjoyed Naruto as a character. Overall: I enjoyed Naruto Shippuden alot. The first few arc were dragging for too long, but I still managed. Once it got good, I really got hooked. Naruto as a whole is a story which has a really amazing world. People saying, "wow it's another Dragon Ball Z at the end" should know that in the first Chapter it was made loud and clear that one single demon Fox wiped out a whole Village. We all knew what Naruto's character was going to become. Naruto is something that will get alot of flack but in many years time, we'll look back and happy we experienced such a great show.
metalmattyr
03/23/2017, 09:39 AM
I was a little late to the Naruto party, i started watching the anime 3 years ago. I immediately fell in love with it. I was cranking out 20+ episodes in a day consistently with ease. As many people have surely mentioned, the fillers can be a bit much at times and they can also seem extremely repetitive and for someone who was not watching the series week by week ( or maybe even for them as well) it can be a bit frustrating and sometimes i found myself skimming though certain fillers. Putting aside the fillers, the story line for this series was verynice, in my opinion. I very much enjoyed the fighting scenes and also enjoyed the transitions from huge fights to normal life back at the village. It was a nice blend of both. The comedic aspect was really good as well. Its tough to write without giving examples from the show, but i don't wanna spoil anything for anyone looking to watch it. Overall this was an amazing series and it feels weird to me that its over. I had my ups and downs with it but i always came back to watch more. I would recommend this to anyone that is looking for a long series to watch, beware of the filler sections however. I feel this is an anime everyone should try to watch ( whether you watch it all or not). Believe it!
AnjuRatty
03/23/2017, 09:16 AM
------------------------------------- Naruto Shippuden : Review | ------------------------------------- Naruto. The series that sold over 220 million manga copies, winning handful of awards along the way. An anime that ranked as one of the most watched series in Japan that got tarnished by a greedy studio and has received tons of internet backlash throughout the years. Let me start off by saying Naruto is by no means a flawless anime. It's the exact opposite. The series had too many fillers. Sometimes the animation quality was below par and pacing can be painfully slow at times. But please bear with me here. I'm going to tell you why it hasbeen the best experience an anime gave me in my entire life and dig into what made the series popular while also explaining its flaws. ----------- Story - 8 ----------- The story of Naruto has been a mixed bag. While it's not bad, it's certainly no Berserk. But what it is, is beautiful (probably not the word that can be often used to describe a shounen anime), but it really is. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to. It starts off where the first part of Naruto ended and the very first scenes gives us a sneak peak of things to come. The series eases you back into the world of Naruto with a slow paced , almost SOL like first few episodes. And the story then on is presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. The story is mainly hampered (not ruined) by fillers and pacing issues which I will discuss below. Let's start with the filler. The amount of filler in this show is staggering. It counts as 219 total filler episodes which make up 44% of the series as a whole. The issues that lies within the filler episodes is that they are not allowed to make any significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a huge issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. So mostly what we get is poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself. However, there are exceptions for this. Some of the filler episodes can be genuinely enjoyable but those are few and far between. The fact that filler can't move the plot along fuels the second big flaw. Which is, Pacing Issues. Aside from what I've said above, even some of the non-filler episodes are very slow paced. This is mainly only an issue at the start of the series. If you're into characters chilling down and wasting a lot of time, this may sit well with you. But even then some of these episodes might be below par for your taste. Once the series kicks it into high gear around 70th episode, it mostly manages to keep that pace up. Now that we got the flaws out of the way, let's talk positives. The main strength of the series is its characters, who drive the plot (which we will discuss in detail later). After the first 70 episodes, things begin to get lot more interesting really fast. The world of shinobi gets expanded exponentially, and if you're a fan of deep lore in stories, this will fit right in your wheel house because it begins to explore the roots of the world and its history very deeply. Another thing that this series does very well is explaining its core concepts to the viewer. The techniques that characters use and how the things in shinobi world works are explained in detail. Also, the concept of Chakra and what a versatile and detailed power system it is compared to other shounen series really stands out. The amount of themes explored in the series are vast. It explores all the basic themes of a typical shounen and as it goes on it delves into themes such as the nature of humans, self sacrifice, discrimination, manipulation, roots of war and peace, difference of perceptions, the line between good and evil, and alienation. It manages to deal with all these themes without abandoning the shounen type feel or becoming pretentious. Something that the author, Kishimoto, really excels at is setting up events. For example, during the early episodes of Naruto (the prequel to this show), he has already started setting up major events that happened in the last of episodes of Shippuden. In the beginning, we look over these little details and minor events and have no idea that they are going to have such an impact later in the series, and when it all comes together in the end, you feel so satisfied. Most of the times these events and twists will take you by surprise and maybe you'll have fun trying to figure out them before they happen as Kishimoto drops clues for you to pick up throughout the entire series. Same thing applies to the moments that tug at your heartstrings , they feel genuine because how the story builds up to those moments. Being a battle shounen ,of course there are going to be battles, and this is one area that the series really shines. As I see it , battles can be broken down into three different segments in this anime , The battle of wits , The battle of ideologies , The physical battle. All three come in union to make some memorable and truly great moments. Each characters ideologies and philosophies gets tested time and time again by their opponents and we can see even the main character himself doubt his ideologies towards the end. When we see someone gets broken inside as well as the outside it's devastating to watch. To put it blatantly, Naruto has the best combat scenes I've ever witnessed in an anime. I have to mention that this style of combat is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto does a fantastic job putting emotions into its battle scenes which are backed up by gorgeous animations (at times, we'll get to that later) and a mesmerizing soundtrack, and with these combined it really sets up fantastic visual storytelling through combat. Kishimoto does an excellent job at setting up the events leading up to the fight to make it feel all the more personal and these battles often comes down to which character outwits the other rather than who can punch harder. This makes characters like Shikamaru Nara who have very little ability make a huge impact in the series. Variety of the fighting styles is massive, ranging from intimate hand to hand style combats, tactical combats, long range jutsu battles, and most often a mix of all of these! The last arc of the series has been very controversial as the constant change of antagonists has irritated some of the viewers. But in all honesty, all of the antagonists that presented had different motives that drove them to do what they do and distinctively different from each other which made them very enjoyable. That being said, the final part of the war arc was really disappointing as the final villain of the series is the worst character that the series had to offer as the villain had almost no personality and motives were shaky at best. Without spoiling anything all I can say is that decisions taken during the last war arc felt like it was done to unnecessarily prolong the final battle and messed it up with a poorly written villain and bad story decisions. But the final episodes after the War arc manages to reign it all in and give a proper farewell to the series it so richly deserves. Throughout the series you will witness friends become foes, foes become friends, unlikely alliances formed and broken, that precious character you loved die, revenge plots, plot twists, characters growing up, politics, romance, and the world itself change. It can be flawed at times but it's a full package and Kishimoto always seemed to have the ending and everything planned out from the very beginning. -------------------- Characters - 10 -------------------- Now this is the core of the franchise. Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each has a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different skill sets. And hats-off to Kishimoto for his brilliant character design as he used a very bright color pallet and made each one very distinctive to make each of them stand out. No matter which kind of characters you prefer, you're sure to find someone here that you can relate to. What the series really does well is making sure that you'll be attached to the characters emotionally. And you will cheer them on as they try to achieve their goals , watch their philosophies and ideologies gets tested , watch them break or prevail and break down crying at their deaths. You will get to see how what's happening around the characters change them , mold them. Witnessing how tragedies that's happening around them having an effect on their psyche is one of the strongest points of Naruto Shippuden. It's fun seeing small character interactions from early episodes grow into full blown relationships. Now let's move on to the "Villains" This series checks all the boxes when it comes to antagonist character archetypes. *Self-Righteous Villain with a God Complex* [checked] , *Money Hungry Villains* [checked] , *Religious Psychopaths* [checked] , *Villain who is after Revenge* [checked]. I think I've made my point there. But what makes this villains so enjoyable is that no one is a villain just for the sake for being a villain. The best kind of villains are the ones you can empathize with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. As same as the main characters, the villains too have core motivation driving them. They have their own beliefs, ideologies and they are willing to fight for what they think is right. You might find yourself cheering on the villains more than the "heroes." The morality here is blurred. But coming back to the war arc, its main flaw is the final villain (which I will not spoil here). Compared with the other villainous characters from the series, the final character is very bland and their motivations are not entirely clear or most likely not relatable to any of the viewers. That being said, this character is only in the series for a very small amount of episodes and the others certainly do more than enough to make up for it. ----------------------------- Art and Animation - 7.5 ----------------------------- Again we have a mixed bag here. This show can look stunning when it wants to, and by stunning I meant big budget movie level of quality. But at times the quality can drop way below par. I think I should specially mention Hiroyuki Yamashita’s work here. He mainly works on battle scenes and this man is a genius when it comes to it. Even though he only worked on a limited number of episodes, his episodes pushes the animation, choreography and stylishness to 11! Despite this I can't give it a higher score because this show is wildly inconsistent with its animation. And as for character designs, we already talked about how Kishimoto made his characters very distinctive and imaginative and how the bright color pallet fuels this. -------------- Sound - 10 -------------- This is an another strong point of the series. Yasuharu Takanashi has made a masterpiece of a soundtrack for this series that manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The emotions that Kishimoto wants to portray make it through to us so well because of this soundtrack. It connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. I would recommend listening to tracks like Samidare (Early Summer Rain) to get a taste of what the soundtrack is like. ------------------------------------------------ Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 10 ------------------------------------------------ Naruto Shippuden is more of an experience that needs to be had than just a mere show. It played with our emotions for over a decade and now it has been concluded. The enjoyment of Naruto Shippuden goes beyond just the series itself. This series has a very big community and fanbase that you could interact with. And its lore is so vast that you would never run out of things to discuss about it. Although it has its share of major flaws, this series is a journey that shouldn't be missed if you're fine with the hefty commitment. It's by no means a flawless anime , but it's an anime with highs that more than makes up for it's lows. It reaches for the stars but makes a few tumbles along the way , but the best moments of Naruto are some of the best moments in the medium itself. And with this, I conclude my review for this series that defined a generation. Sub or Dub ? : Sub is recommended ----------------------------------------------- | Recommendations for Similar Series | ----------------------------------------------- [Naruto] : Yes, the original series. It's essential to watch it before the Shippuden series because it contains a lot of character development and build-up for the Shippuden series. [Fullmetal Alchemist : Brotherhood ] : This series contains most of the things that made Shippuden great such as good character development, good soundtrack, and excellent world building. This series does it in about 70 episodes which is truly a magnificent achievement. If you like Naruto Shippuden, it's a given that you will like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as well. [Hunter X Hunter (2011)] : A series that greatly inspired Naruto. Both anime feel very similar in style. If the inconsistencies of Naruto bothered you, you'll find a much more consistent pacing and quality of writing here. Whether the highs of Hunter X Hunter matches up to the highs of Shippuden or FMA Brotherhood is up for debate, but you won't have to sit through any lows like you have to endure with Naruto or Naruto Shippuden. [Proofreading - SomeRandomNerd]
goknarlufy
03/23/2017, 08:41 AM
*********it's not a review it is just a oneway conversation from my heart********** and yes it is has spoilers Today at 5 o'clock in the evening something came to an end it was series which I cherished for the longest time since I can remember with the end of the series I want to share something with some one whoever they may be. I clearly remember the first ep of naruto which I ever watched its was a episode from the chunin exam when naruto is writing the test which he doesn't know but the way hehandles the situation was pure epic then I watched the first season of the series the zabuza arc and I was star strucked. The strong desire of the main character to be acknowledged by by his village and his friends was something that resonated with my thinking's. Then the series was such a great part of my life that I cannot put it into words When naruto cried I also feel the pain when he work hard he inspired me to do the same and when he achieved some thing it made me so happy that tears started to flow from my eyes There were many moments which I will never forget like say for instance The first time he defeats neji after he wins he takes a victory lap around the arena and everyone in the audience is just shocked to see him win. At that time I was feeling like this is what I want to be. And the infamous scene from after naruto returns the village after defeting pain and the scene in which iruka is telling his story was so heart touching that it made me proud. The story itself was so good that I can overlook many things The back story of naruto was so sad I clearly remember the ep 'thank you' in which he meets with his mother it was just so beautiful At this point you may be thinking that he is just overestimating the series so yes I am. But I too cannot ignore the curse which was making a epic series a avrg one 'filler' it was bullshit pure bulshit, no no it was worse the bullshit Only the novel adaptations were worth mentioning. But living that aside it was a good series and for me a inspirational one So seeing the last episode made me a bit emotional it was 9 years of journey for me and yes I am happy that it ended but I also feel a bit sad So if you have not watched naruto a you feel that you are a failure I think you should give it a try Bcz I know if you can connect with it you will not be disappointed.
LIQfilms
03/22/2017, 09:26 AM
Naruto Shippuuden! The series that would never end finally ends! After ten years, five-hundred episodes and several movie tie-ins, this milked cow is finally laid down to rest, resulting in one of the worst shounen anime adaptations ever made. While I did enjoy myself with the series and certainly found myself even liking it for the first two-hundred episodes or so, the insane amount of filler, padding, and the abysmal final three or four arcs made me despise this show by the end, and all of the characters and narrative. The filler in this anime is such a goddamn problem that it destroys the entireanime, and at this point, if you did want to get into Naruto, I would recommend reading the manga, or skipping over the filler because, for the most part, the filler is absolutely abysmal and is rarely interesting or adds onto the overall world of the series. Since this review is going to spend a long time detailing all of my problems with the story, I will address the animation and music now. While I still prefer the original soundtrack of Naruto, Shippuuden is still great. The action pumps you up and there is a great variety in songs and moods to fit each moment and scene. The animation is a different story, however. The anime is very inconsistent, and that is to be expected with a show with over five-hundred episode; at its best, it could be movie quality, it’s worst, trashy nineties OVA. Shippuuden is the direct continuation of the original series, set two years after the events that transpired in the original in which Naruto has trained to hone his skills and jutsu. Upon returning to the village, he fights off against the Akatsuki, a group of powerful, rogue ninja who wants to collect all of the tailed beasts to create the ten tails and rule the world, while trying to save his gay lover, I mean best friend, Sasuke. Now, I want to clarify first of all that I enjoyed the first season very much (excluding the fillers, that is). It was fun, the battles were original and creative, and the characters went through great development; it captured the hard life of a ninja perfectly and the cruel world in which they live in. Shippuuden was also pretty good for a little while in the beginning of the series, albeit not as interesting or engaging as the previous story arcs of the show. One good thing about the sequel is that Shippuuden is a lot darker and more mature than the original series, now with the Akatsuki clan running amok and killing many of the tailed beasts. There is this constant sense of looming danger and tension in the series and the Akatsuki were easily the best thing about part two. All of them are interesting, had unique abilities, and for the most part, are allowed to shine in their own respective battles. Hell, there are even a few character deaths which took me by surprise, which added onto the steaks and tension of the show. The first one hundred episodes of content (minus the fillers) are pretty great although I did have some problems, most notably being Naruto and Sasuke themselves. Naruto in part two is annoying, whiny and irritating, and his constant journey to save Sasuke feels boring and without much sense logically, since Saskue becomes a complete dick head, hell bent on destroying the entire village. Sasuke starts off wanting to kill his brother, and after the worst plot twist in the series where we learn his evil brother was, in fact, a good guy, which I’ve always hated, all he wants after that is to destroy the village and everyone in it, and his character fluctuates so much throughout part two that it becomes hard to keep track of. Both of their respective story arcs hit brick walls by the end of the Pain arc and hardly develop at all past that, just in their power levels. Speaking of the Pain arc, the conclusion to that very same story arc was so bad that I lost all hope in the series. After a great fight in which much of the main cast die, Naruto has a friendship speech with the villain in which after, he brings back all of the people in the village who died! This removed all of the tension from the series and was such a cheap way to bring back characters that I began to hate the series from that point onwards. Combine that with characters who did receive some screen time in part one, now being pushed to the sideline with no development, aside from Shikamaru, but even after his own arc, he is pushed to the side to make way for the yellow-haired twit. In addition, Naruto’s character is ruined after we learn he is the child of destiny and was destined to save the world since he was born. This meant all of his hard work was for nothing and is such a giant middle finger from the author, that after this point, I hated the series. From this point on, we know that Naruto can never die nor lose since he is destined to save the world. His fate is pre-determined from the start, which does remove some tension from the later arcs. It also destroys Naruto's main theme at the same time. Naruto's driving force was that hard work and endurance would pay off in the end, and earn you respect from the people around you, even when the whole world is putting you down. In the early parts of the series there was a genuine sense of satisfaction in watching Naruto grow as a person and the catharsis pay off that entailed was great after all his hard work. Learning that he is a destined child, and was destined with all these great powers from the beginning ruins all of the hard work and endurance he had to go through to gain respect as a shinobi. Essentially, the author shot himself in the foot and omitted one of the driving forces of his story. Now, let me elaborate a little more on the Itachi plot twist before I go ahead and why I didn't like this twist in the story. To me, Itachi was a great villain, someone who killed his entire village just to test his limits, leaving his younger brother alive to act out revenge on the part of his fallen clan. Like Saskue, we hated Itachi at the beginning, which we should of, since this makes a great villain. Itachi is strong, ruthless, and cunning. All of this, in my eyes, anyway, made him great as a villain, but Kishimoto, works in a twist that reveals he was a good guy all along and killed his clan to prevent a war from occurring. Essentially he had to carry a huge burden on his back from the village elders, which is admirable, but it also causes Saskue's character to go out of control from this point, and fluctuate so frequently. I always found this twist to be kind of "meh", for a lack of a better term. I never hated it per say, to the point where it broke the series or anything, it's just that I think Itachi was much better as a villain than a good guy. But hey, this mini-rant is just down to my own personal preference. The worst character out of them all is Sakura. Now, I don't think she is useless in this series. Hell, she has a pretty okay fight against one of the Akatsuki members and wins, which is something I can appreciate, it's just that her character goes nowhere. She stays so stagnant and boring, whilst crying about Saskue. And holy hell does her love for Sasuke feel forced as hell. It makes no sense why she loves him to this extent, especially after the bastard almost killed her and threatened to destroy the entire village, killing everyone she loved and had known. Back in the original I could kind of excuse her crush on account that she was a young child, but now it's laughably pathetic and doesn't even make any sense. This applies for most of the female cast in the series since Kishimotot can't write good female characters. They're either completely useless or completely superficial. That's it. And this brings us to ninja war arc and everything that came after. These final arcs were awful. All of the clever tactics and strategies the characters had are now gone, in favour of who could pull off the most landscape reducing jutsu, and Naruto and Sasuke become so powerful, to the point they rival gods, even going as far as having them both die and then re-birth as an act of destiny. What I always hated was that all of the characters that died before; characters that I liked and had well-completed arcs were brought back to life since the author was too lazy to create new ones. This ruined many of the original arcs these characters went through, and I found this, for the most part, to be completely boring since they just repeat what happened previously. Sure, there is some development and growth with the characters, but it's hardly substantial enough to raise the bar. All of the previous rules and ideas that Kishimoto establishes in the early part of the series are thrown out and it's painfully obvious that he didn't even care about his own series in the end since the justsus and abilities some of the characters can perform goes against the rules of the world that he established. A good example is when Kakashi gets two Sharingan which would require a large amount of chakra to use. We've been told time and time again that this character, while having a wide range of impressive jutsu, doesn't have much in the way of chakra and thus can't battle for too long but in the final arcs he performs so many Jutsu it is unbelievable and when he does require the double Sharingan it makes no sense how he can utilise its power, especially since he obtains it at the end of the war and thus his chakra would have been completely gone! Another example of crap writing is after Naruto is reborn, he somehow saves Gai from dying just by simply touching his chest! It makes no sense why he can suddenly do this and this element is never explained to us at all. Not only that, but a few moments later he restores Kakashi's eye in the same fashion, but fails to restore Gai's dead legs, for whatever reason. What an asshole! These final arcs are so full of ass-pulls, random power-ups and last for so long that I can’t stand the idea of watching them again. The final fight between Naruto and Sasuke was pretty impressive and I’m glad it wasn't stuffed with filler but it’s not enough to save the whole series. The “final” villain Madara was the only thing I liked about the final arc but even then, he was replaced by the true final villain who was terrible, since the author had no idea how to end the series nor of how to get rid of such a powerful enemy. Kaguya was such a terrible final villain, only being relevant for about ten episodes or so. The biggest problem is that she came out of nowhere. There was no build-up like Madara. Madara felt justified to be the final villain because of the build-up and the pay off with him was pretty good, but Kaguya was boring, dull and had no narrative steaks or intrigue behind her character at all. She was truly the worst final villain I've ever seen. I could go on and on about every little thing, but I’ve covered everything that pisses me off the most so I’ll leave it at that. I do enjoy Naruto, despite the obvious flaws, but if you want to get into the series, just read the manga.

Naruto: Shippuuden -ナルト- 疾風伝

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Naruto: Shippuuden -ナルト- 疾風伝

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'Naruto: Shippuuden - Itachi Shinden-hen ~Hikari to Yami~' Announced for Spring 2016

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