Naruto Is Over.

[TheSilentWind]

Naruto is over so I thought about creating a thread just asking what you thought of the ending of the manga, as well as if their was anything Kishi could have done to make the series better.

For me, I liked the manga, mainly because it accomplished its objective of getting funs to have emotions and I checked some forums and it seemed Kishi accomplished that. Also, I liked the fact that Kishimoto made Naruto get married to Hinata instead of Sakura because I really hate Sakura, I see her as someone to reliant on people. For what I could see about the series getting better, well I wanted to see more character development. I realize that this was mostly a action tv show but I only saw some arcs few arcs where it showed character's past history, etc, such as Kakashi's memory in the Third Great Shinobi War. Also, I wanted to see some sort of epilogue for the last Naruto movie :( although I think kind of saw that when Sasuke grabbed his katana. The thing I really hated about the manga was that I didn't see a lot of supporting characters such as Jugo and Suigetsu. Also, I didn't see my man Orochimaru, as we hadn't seen what he was doing now so that was a bit disappointing. I do hope that in the movie that we get to see some more of byakugan being featured as I really HATE the two main doojustu, the sharingan and rinnegan being featured a lot but not the Byakugan. I do hope the movie will balance it out. I also wanted to see if Naruto and Sasuke still have the abilities that were given by the Harogomo, the Sage of The Sixth Paths so that will be an interesting thing to see in the movie.

Overall, I would rate it a 3/5 for the last manga and 4/5 for the series.

I'm going to miss Naruto. On the bright side, I get to see if I want to watch Attack of The Titans and I can return to see FMA Brotherhood even though I have seen all the episodes.

 

[Blaxican]

I've been jaded with the series for literally years, now. But I still felt pang of nostalgia reading the final chapter (though Kishimoto has hinted that there's more to come, and there's also the upcoming movie). My friends got me into the series during my freshman year of High School, and even after it fell out of popularity, I was still a fan. It remains the only series that I've ever binge-followed, having watched the anime on youtube (back in like 2006, when youtube wasn't dickish about IP protection) from episode 1 all the way to the end of part 1- and I've followed all of the Shippuden manga on a weekly basis. So, for me the series represents a link to some "happier" if not more innocent times. I've long since parted ways with all the people I knew in High School, and Naruto provided what was more or less a link to that time.

That said, I felt that the manga took a significant drop in quality from about the moment Sasuke killed Deidera. His subsequent sub-plot, followed by the Pein arc and eventually the Ninja War were all terrible, imo. The plot dragged on way too long, and Kaguya provided absolutely nothing for the narrative. Madara should have been the final big bad, I think.

Despite all that, I didn't mind the ending. It wasn't "spectacular", but it wasn't terrible. The only real issue I had was Orochimaru being more or less ignored (uuuhhh, guys, he's still a super-villain who tried to destroy Konoha), and I really am not a fan of Sakura and Sasuke hooking up being canon. That really shit on any plot-development Sakura could have had, and it's a little pathetic that after everything that had happened and everything Sasuke had done, her little-girl schoolyard crush on him was intact. I had expected her to get over him the same way Naruto eventually got over her.

But yeah. Stuff. inb4 "waaaah anime sux".

 

[TheSilentWind]

I hope this doesn't sound harsh but I hope Sakura dies, or at least goes away on the next Naruto movie. From what I have read, it says that Kishi stated that someone in Team 7 will die and I hope it is her. Their really isn't any character that is more useless than her in Team 7. Sai is meh but Sakura is shit. Sasuke has been the main bad guy in Team 7 until recently. Kakashi is bae and Naruto, well the series is called Naruto so his important is self-explanatory.

Everything you just stated is so true! I stopped reading the manga during Kaguya's battle and had to catch up from reading the summaries at Naruto wikia. It was really shitty and I even thought of just watching the anime as even though I hate the long battles, the anime makes it kind of more cooler to watch not to mention its also faster.

I had hoped Sakura would be fat and not Anko as she is one of my fav female characters because of her association to Orochimaru.

On the bright side though, I hope I can start watching some other anime other than the ones I stated I wished to watch.

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Seeing Naruto "end" as someone who enjoyed the original run of manga and anime pre Shipuuden?

I am someone who took an initial interest after the time skip. Upping the character ages made me care a lot more for the characters after the plodding along of the previous plot and I am someone who generally doesn't care for a plot filled with people below the age of fifteen.

That being said the "ending" of Naruto is pretty shit. Naruto is Hokage and banged Hinata. Saskue got older and banged Sakura. You could have guessed this shit from the first issue of the series and it took FIFTEEN years to reach this point. I am glad it is one of the big three that has had the decency to end, but honestly all three have a huge bloated story to try and finish. Naruto is just the first in a sloppy attempt to end their main story.

Seriously, the story overall is very shitty. Oh no! So many people died. Ressurrect a lot of characters. OH NO A METEOR THAT WILL DESTORY THE PLANET! Oh thank God we stopped it. OH SHIT! ANOTHER METEOR! Damn it would just be awful if it came down to Naruto and Sasuke fighting. Oh the both lived? We should forgive Saskue's war crimes and let him just roam free

The reason I say "end" is because they state plain a "Last" movie and manga based around the epilogue which features the children of the main characters. Undoubtedly, if said series is successful then they will continue their own storyline that ties back in and perpetuates the whole shitty cycle just like the original work kept working in adult titles. So if a new series is launched about Naruto's son/daughter then it will include Saskue's/Sakura's daughter and then an extended cast of established adults. That on top of almost nobody died from last series means you have a whole bunch of characters to bring up when you feel lazy from making new shitty characters that will have no impact.

tl:dr Naruto is shit and ending it didn't solve how shitty it was.

@Kes Sakura was not a bad character of her own device, but that she was made subservient to Naruto and Saskue's dick struggle. If said situation was resolved or ignored she would have a lot of opportunity to grow like Tsunade, but unfortunately Naruto is a shitty series that sees female character mainly grow in their relation to Naruto and Sasuke trying to out dick one another for... reasons?

TLTL;DR Naruto is a really really bad series that tried to shore up its bloated plot over fifteen years and proceeded to not really end as it still plans to spawn out a movie and mini series that is bait for prolonged continuance. It is a bad manga, anime, and movie series.

 

[Vulpes]

I'm not super into anime, but just wondering. What's the big 3?

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

I'm not super into anime, but just wondering. What's the big 3?

Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece were the largest and longest running manga/anime.

 

[Andrewza]

Meh stoped carring once the ninga technices became all DBZ style world destroying.

What the big 3? Is it narto, bleach and that never ending mech 1?


I personaly did not rate Narito that high. It started out all right but lost the way.

 

[Cortan]

As someone else who's also followed the series for most of its existence, I feel rather... conflicted, on how its ended.

I mean, I can definitely see where the series has tried to come from at points, sometimes giving leniency to the differences of cultural perspective - ie, Sasuke and his actions are way more sympathetic to the Japanese given how they still place the importance of family, which is why he's remained popular over there - but at the same time, the series has had such a shift over time, and a continual convolution of its plot, that you really can't ignore the various flaws that have cropped up along the way as well.

Probably the thing that frustrated me most, though there's an obvious thematic reasoning to it, was the sharingan, which went from being a basic but neat idea - copy the abilities of others - to an frankly quite literal god mode. The idea was obviously to have the 'natural talent' of the Uchihas - and more specifically, Sasuke - versus Naruto actually having to work at getting new abilities, whether through training, outright inventing them, or bargaining with ancient powers for a boost, but it got tired and frustrating very quickly. I mean, first its revealed it can make strange black flames. Then its revealed its actually got a whole power set themed on the three sacred treasures of Japan, and a *******ing storm god. Oh, and lets not forget said storm god comes with variations. Then there's warping reality and an eternal, unbreakable illusion that traps the user in a five minute groundhog day loop. Drag meteors down from the sky because why not, make living forces of nature subservient, and whatever the hell you want really. It was worse because whilst Kishimoto was willing enough to shift the focus to show off the nonsense, he rarely actually ever showed them being developed or worked on, so each time an Uchiha entered into the current plot arc, they had some new power pulled out of their ass. It stopped being impressive and turned into a drinking game.

By sheer contrast, my favourite fights later in the series were the ones that didn't introduce new abilities - but used existing ones in cleverer ways. The final fight against Tobi was initially this, and even somewhat after Madara showed up with his bulls***, but it sadly vanished thereafter.

Overall the series began to get over fixated on some grand epic narrative that clearly wasn't part of the story from the start, and so the setting's increased shift to serve that narrative dug plot holes and raised a bunch of issues in the immediate story. Remember the days when the Third Hokage was the strongest, rather than the First having been a physical god who was outright the strongest man in history save for a couple of mythological figures? When the Sharingan was suspected to be a mutation sprung off from the Byakugan, not a power descended from the outright creator of superpowers and the moon? Or how about that Naruto failed graduation multiple times and thus should have actually been held back several times, rather than somehow having been in the same class as the people he eventually graduated with all that time? When moving really quick across the battlefield was a game changer? Or how about when getting your soul eaten by the grim reaper was meant to be permanent? Oh wait, that gets in the way of getting the band back together, nevermind!

Especially in its final run, the series is a case study on how escalation needs proper handling for it to work right. This isn't something new to the shonen genre by any means, and its certainly been done better at an even more ridiculous range and scale in other series. But Kishimoto simply wasn't that good at it once things tried to go too big, and his attempt to both draw things out and then wrap it up quickly as possible so he could end on exactly 700 chapters is just the icing on the cake of his issues with pacing.

That said.

The series did still give me parts to enjoy, even as it began to downhill, and I can still appreciate that. I wouldn't wish it to go on any longer than it has now, but I hope that I can look back on it in future, and still find the enjoyment I had growing up with it, at least in some places.

Edit: I mean come on, remember the Chuunin arc? That was freaking awesome.

 

[TheSilentWind]

@Cortan The Chuunin Arc was awesome mostly because their were no new abilities introduced. I remember the first time I got mad about seeing the sharingan was when Itachi used Amaterasu when they were fighting Jiraiya. Speaking of Jiraiya, I stopped watching the series for sometime after they decided to kill Jiraiya. That was an idiotic decision.

I do agree that the Rinnegan and Sharingan began to be overpowered but I also think they brought some good growth to characters. I think the best example would be Hinata who was willing to defend Naruto against someone who was way to OP, *cough cough* pain *cough cough*. She also showed some growth in the Fourth Shinobi War after convincing Naruto to stay on his path when Neji died, again another stupid decision that made me stopped watching the show for some time.

At least it isn't as op as Dragon Ball though.
@Johnnysaurus Rex. I hard that they might be some little mini series but its probably just a rumor. I agree she was used badly but their are times that she was just a little coward. I think their was a time when Sakura could have shined when Tsunade stated she was going to fight Pain alone, maybe Sakura could have helped her. Overall, what you stated was true, and that's why people like myself don't like her. I hope Hinata will be the main female charrie now as she has better potential for growth, and also I don't see why it was wrong for Naruto to be married to Hinata considering the fact that Hinata sacrificed herself to save Naruto. It seems like a legitimate reason to me.

 

[Ping]

I stopped watching it a while ago since the quality went downhill and the filler episodes got on my nerves, but I will definitely go back and watch it, seeing how it got me back into anime when I was in middle school.

 

[Miz]

I only accept Part 1 as canon. I hated the sharingan and seriously questioned what stopped the Uchiha clan from steamrolling the entire ninja world. Type in asspull into Google images and you get Naruto panels...bleh.

 

[Liam]

Wait, Naruto was still a thing?

 

[Silverface]

Wait, Naruto was still a thing?

Apparently so! The moment I noticed the sheer lack of Naruto cosplays at London ComiCon I thought the series died off, so I'm only a little surprised it kept going for a big 700 volumes. Props to the creators for trying, if the comments about pacing are correct.

 

[Cortan]

Apparently so! The moment I noticed the sheer lack of Naruto cosplays at London ComiCon I thought the series died off, so I'm only a little surprised it kept going for a big 700 volumes. Props to the creators for trying, if the comments about pacing are correct.

700 chapters, not volumes. Good god, if it were volumes...

I only accept Part 1 as canon. I hated the sharingan and seriously questioned what stopped the Uchiha clan from steamrolling the entire ninja world. Type in asspull into Google images and you get Naruto panels...bleh.

I thought you might have been joking, so I decided to test this. Good god, I'm on a 1920x1080 monitor, and yet the majority of the first page I get is Naruto.

 

[Oncaro]

So I only read one chapter of the Naruto manga and never watched the series, and the amount of people I saw on Gaia with "Uchiha" in their username grated on me.

Still, I had no idea that Naruto had been around for fifteen years. Shit series or not (which I can't really say it is since I never bothered with it) that's an impressively long time, at least to me, as I'll be 22 in February.

 

[Lavi]

It's not over. There's a sequel series coming in 2015, set 50 years later. (i wish it was over)

Apparently so! The moment I noticed the sheer lack of Naruto cosplays at London ComiCon I thought the series died off, so I'm only a little surprised it kept going for a big 700 volumes. Props to the creators for trying, if the comments about pacing are correct.

It's still immensely popular, though Attack on Titan seems to have captured the attention of the crowds at the moment.

 

[TheSilentWind]

Wait, Naruto was still a thing?

Its still a popular anime and people still love it although other animes have started to take over its audience.