Naruto
Story:
Naruto is about a boy called Naruto (huge surprise here) who lives in the secret ninja-village Konoha. Many years back, this village was attacked by a nine-tails fox. Eventually, the leader locked this beast inside a baby, while he lost his live doing so. This boy, was called Naruto. Even though the new leader of the village decided never to speak about it, nobody forgot it, which made Naruto a loner. When he fails his ninja-exam, he is very disappointed, since nobody is going to notice him now. Luckily for Naruto, a man called Mizuki tells him there is only 1 way for Naruto to still become a ninja, and that is to steal the secret scrolls and give them to him. When Naruto stole the scrolls, he runs in the forest and meets his teacher there: Iruka. Iruka tells him he should give the scrolls back to the elder, but then Mizuki appears and forces Naruto to give the scrolls to him. When Naruto is at the point of giving the scrolls to Iruka, Mizuki infuriates and attacks Iruka. Naruto is so mad that he uses the jutsu (ninja-technique) called ‘’Kage Bunshin no Jutsu’’ (= shadow clones) which he learned from the secret scrolls and beats the crap out of Mizuki. As a reward, Iruka decides to let Naruto pass the exam, which means the beginning of Naruto’s adventure. He is extremely happy, not knowing what is going to cross his way……
Extra Information:
Number of episodes: 174, and still increasing
Genre: action
Characters:
Naruto: The main character of this anime, whose goal it is to become the hokage (the leader of the secret ninja-village of Konoha). He is in desperately in love with Sakura, but he gets rejected time after time. He never gives up, but this is exactly what gets him into trouble all the time….
Sasuke Uchiha: The solemnly survivor of the famous ‘’Uchiha clan’’. Unlike Naruto, Sasuke thinks before he acts, but he only wants to do it his way: on his own. Not much is known about what exactly happened the night the Uchiha clan was destroyed, but it is rumoured that someone Sasuke knows had something to do with it, and now he is out on revenge.…..
Sakura: She is smartest of the entire team 7 (the team with Naruto, Sasuke and herself), but she is also the weakest one of them all. Sakura doesn’t want to do anything Naruto, because she wants to have something with Sasuke, who doesn’t want to do anything with her. She is somewhat beautiful and smart, but certainly not lethal and deadly.
Kakashi: The leader of team 7, and also the ‘’copy cat ninja’’. It seems he has mastered more than 1000 jutsu’s with his hidden eye. Not much is known about this guy, except 2 things: first of all, he is always late, and secondly, he constantly reads some book called ‘’flirting paradise’’. About his shady past, truly nothing is known: a very shady person indeed…..
Own opinion:
One day, a friend of mine suggested I should watch some anime, starting with Naruto. I downloaded it, not expecting much of it and I was right: the quality sucked as bad as you can never even imagine. Still, I found myself slightly entertained: the story wasn’t bad and so I decided to go on downloading some remaining episodes. Luckily, that same friend gave me another site where I could download Naruto in good quality. I suppose I then understood why that many Japanese people were addicted: I wanted to see more and more. Unfortunately, after the 2nd saga, the quality started of this anime started to become less and less. If you’re asking why I haven’t given up Naruto yet, the reason is very simple: you don’t let go of your first love that fast…..
At first sight, the story isn’t that original: boy fights enemies, while heavy in love with some girl. Luckily, the story is a bit more complicated than that, but don’t expect FMA quality. This means the action and humour are the main body of the story, but after 150 episodes, that gets boring as well…..
There is mainly 1 subber here, who is Dattebayo. If you’re looking for better subs, you have no choice but to wait forever, since Dattebayo is very fast with subbing. There is, obviously, a problem with this: the quality sucks, and I mean really sucks. I suppose with a few lessons Japanese, you’ll be able to translate exactly the same like this sub-group, although I of course have absolutely no right to say this (not that I care obviously).
With the animation exactly the same happened as with the story: it started pretty good, but then it began to fall and fall and eventually, hit rock-bottom. As is the same with the background-music: it started ok, but after that many episodes, you’ve heard everything already I guess. Might be time to update Naruto again I guess. The only thing that didn’t lose it quality is the music: it sucked from the beginning till the end (with the exception of 1 or 2 song of a total of 18).
Judgment:
I should actually give 2 grades: 1 for the series until the 3rd saga, and 1 for the series after the 3rd saga. Unfortunately, I’m not going to do that, so I’ll make a mix out of both of them. It really is a good anime to start with: you’ll get to see what anime is actually about, and I suppose every anime-watcher has actually seen, or at least herd of Naruto. As I have said before, the quality of this anime is degrading, so I suppose if you didn’t like the 2nd saga, I would quit if I were you. Even though there are still a few good parts (like Shikamaru), it will never be as good as it once was. But I can’t be to negative about this anime: it was fun while it lasted, until a few businessmen had to make money out of this anime. So, I’m a little ashamed to give these grades, but I don’t really have a choice:
Audio: 3,6
Drama: 5
Dub: 6,3
Humour: 7,1
Originality: 6,4
Visual: 7,2
Overall: 6,1
[Made by Feniks]