One reason to follow Naruto is to watch the major characters: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura grow up. People write about Naruto’s bratiness and about “how annoying he is” but in the last couple of chapters in the manga he’s demonstrated a lot of maturity. I won’t go into any much detail but Naruto handled XXXXXX’s death very well. When he heard the news after first he was incredulous, then he got angry, and then he cried, but otherwise he took it like a man. Kishimoto, the mangaka, has a talent at depicting grief. This page was particularly moving because not only does it depict Tsunade’s relationship with XXXXXX but also Sakura’s relationship with Tsunade [spoiler warning!]:

Some of Kishimoto’s best chapters were the memorial service chapters for the Third Hokage, the memorial service chapters for Chiyo, and the recent chapters. I like One Piece because of its humor and its whackiness, Bleach because of Aizen and its weird mix of Spanish and Japanese culture, and Naruto because it is about a boy struggling to become a man (and a hero).

If Naruto fights Pain I hope he wins through a trick instead of the usual emotional power-up followed by a surge of uncontrollable brute force. Because of the powers of the Nine-tails locked inside him Naruto is strong enough to be Hokage but until he develops patience and intelligence he’s never going to be one. In other words he’s never going to be a hero unless he learns how to think like a Hokage. Hopefully Kishimoto realizes this too.

I have a question. In most Shonen series the reason the main character becomes powerful is because of an innate or acquired superpower. For example in One Piece Luffy became a rubber-man after he ate the Devil Fruit. In Bleach Ichigo become a shinigami after he absorbed all of Rukia’s powers, and in Naruto, Naruto had the powers of the Nine-Tails sealed inside him when he was just a baby. My question: is there any Shonen series, other than Kenshin, where the main character becomes powerful without the aid of some supernatural power, i.e. solely through intelligence, grit, and determination? I think a show about a character like that would be more interesting than standard superhero fare.  For example, imagine Light taking over the world without the aid of the Death Note or Zero trying to do the same without his Geass. How would they go about it?

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Listen up, Narutards: there’s now something almost as funny as the old Evangelion:ReDeath was for Evatards like me.

And there’s more where that came from. 16 more episodes more, in fact.

Thanks to Misty at my anime club’s message board for finding this. This made me laugh pretty hard, and I’m not into Naruto that much. (One of these days I’m going to tell the story of what happened when someone at my school spotted the Naruto button on my backpack, though…)

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After being drawn in to the story of a prankster Hokage wanna-be turned bona-fide ninja with the help of his (ahem) inner strength, there came a time there-after that the show just made me stop caring. Actually, it was after attempting to watch Episode 161 to be precise.

After that, I just stopped watching it all together. I had my fill of the filler arc. When Naruto Shippuden came out in February of this year, I was hopeful but not completely certain that they could revived it from the dregs of lost causes. The first episode was promising with the opening sequence, however, the story soon dragged itself into a much slower pacing (which some might argue has been a problem with this series all along). It is only after they veered away from the rather boring Bell Test in episode 3, that things started to pick up with a fight between Gaara and Deidara.

Afterwards, the show moved to a more even balance of story and action. From Kankuro’s battle with the obviously superior puppet master Sasori to Team Kakashi’s pursuit of (and ultimately battle with) the two fleeing Akatsuki members it had become again fairly engaging. Except for perhaps, Team Gai’s overly repetitive battle with the clones that never end…

As good as it had been getting, none of these previous episodes had moved me in the way I was moved when I first fell in love with the series. This all changed in the 1 hour special that starts in episodes 29. Finally, we get to not only see Kakashi’s new sharingan eye in action, but a also a resurgence of the Naruto’s fox cloak.

Overall all however, I suppose it was that slow build up to the emotional climax of that finally won me back over to Naruto again. As a teary-eyed Naruto stands over the body of Gaara and gives an emotional speech about weight that a Jinchuuriki (one possessed by a powerful tailed beast) carries through life, I couldn’t help but feel once again emotionally attached to this show. In fact I couldn’t help but think I must have gotten some salt in my eyes from the popcorn I was eating as they were for some reason quite dewy…

It has been a long road home with a hellish path though a nearly two year filler arc, but Naruto may finally have arrived back where it started and back where it belongs. To bad we have to wait till the middle of October to see what happens next…

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