The world of Naruto is probably the most interesting aspect of the show. Despite being a show about ninja, the soldiers in this manga are really ninja in name only. They're actually much more reminiscent of modern soldiers with flashy ninja magic than mysterious, stealthy ninja.

There characters are a rather nice aspect of the show. Many of them are archetypes, but I find them entertaining regardless. I also feel like the characters that are around Naruto's age (teenagers) have realistic personalities. They're teenagers, and they act like teenagers. That's one of the reasons I like them. Many would disagree with me, so it's really a matter of taste and perspective.

The action scenes are rather exciting, but there certainly is better out there. The characters have a variety of different ways in which they do battle, and some styles are very entertaining. Others seems utterly ridiculous and completely out of place in a manga that's trying to be serious.

Now, while the series certainly has it's good aspects, the overall series is something worse than the sum of its parts. In fact, while Kishimoto clearly knows what he's doing from an artistic standpoint, his lack of story-telling skills shows through. He spends far too much time putting focus on minor characters. There ends up being so little focus on Naruto himself that it's almost impossible to feel any attachment toward him. I also find him to be rather annoying, which makes it even more difficult to feel for him.

Furthermore, he only focuses on one character at a time. He seems incapable of putting the focus on a group of characters, as he should. Even when the characters are together, they only seem to speak to one another when necessary, never saying much more than what's needed. So while the characters themselves are decent, the character interactions are not very well done.

The story also seems to get side-tracked quite often. Some story arcs have very little to do with the main story at all. Now, that wouldn't be such a problem, but a few of these story arcs each span over a few volumes. A lot of the time, it feels like a waste of time.

The art is quite good, but Kishimoto actually has a tendancy to show too much detail. He shows far more than what's necessary, taking up panels, taking up pages, and slowing down the progress of the manga.

The slow progress is the final nail in the coffin. The longer the series goes, the more it's flaws stand out. The series is good, but not good enough to justify the long, tedious progression of events.

Personally, I love this series. However, I have to admit that, looking at it from a critical standpoint, most aspects of this manga are so utterly mediocre that the series ends up looking even worse than it is.

On a final note, I'd like to say that when I read the manga in graphic novel format, as opposed to the one chapter per week format it's released in Japan and on the internet, I found the series to be much more enjoyable. This makes the series far less tedious, since many events are experienced in one sitting, since an entire chapter can--and often does--revolve around one minute event. Even the English release in the American Shonen Jump, which is released monthly, four chapters are released all at once, making it a much more satisfying read.

So, I would suggest either buying the graphic novels or Shonen Jump, or just waiting for the chapters online to build up, and read them about once a month instead of reading the latest one every week. This will make for a much more enjoyable reading experience.