*Disclaimer: Before I get on with my review, let me first say, that I never finished reading this series. SPOILERS BELOW. The TLDR is at the bottom.*


Now there will be no confusion over my perspective as a reader. I tried reading Naruto. I got about two thirds of the way through the series before I lost interest completely. Still, I struggled on for another couple dozen chapters before my efforts as a fan, and a completionist, were not enough to get me through the rest. Ultimately, I gave up. At the time, the manga was still ongoing, and with no end in sight, I was completely unmotivated to finish a shonen that had disappointed me so much.

So, why am I writing this review? I never finished the series, I don't have a complete perspective on this shonen as a whole. I don't know everything there is to know about the Naruto universe. I don't know all the characters or plot twists. I know that. I can't offer anyone a review based on that information. What I can offer, however, is my perspective as a fan and long-time reader, as well as my reasons for abandoning the series so late in its run.

If you're a reader and lover of manga, Naruto is absolutely worth the time and effort to read. At least, that's what I used to tell people. I still feel that way, to a degree. If you're confused, that's completely understandable. If you're not, you've likely read the series, at least partially. Allow me to explain.

Naruto is broken into two parts: Naruto (or Naruto Beginnings) and Naruto (Shippuuden). Why? Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto's creator and mangaka) started the series as a light-hearted, action-packed shonen aimed towards a younger audience. Naruto, the character, starts out as a twelve-year-old shinobi (ninja). The reader follows Naruto and his ninja team as they overcome trials as they discover their hidden power as young ninja. The beginnings of Naruto are summarized in 27 volumes, and conclude nicely as its own story.

After Naruto beginnings, there is a significant time jump into Shippuuden. Naruto and his peers have aged three years, and the series as a whole has a darker atmosphere. Within the first arc, Kishimoto kills off several characters, some minor, some major. This theme continues throughout the series. Shippuuden starts out promising. It promises maturity, loss, character development, suffering, difficult choices and hard goodbyes. It does a good job of continuing and delivering on this promise for the next couple arcs. Naruto remains interesting and coherent for many chapters.

That being said, there was definitely something missing. In Naruto (beginnings), the story's young protagonist has a clear goal: to become Hokage (the ninja leader of his village) and be respected and loved by his community. The story is simple and fluid. It offers development and insight into the lives of many characters and it shows their separate struggles and desires. There are believable and achievable landmarks within the first block (the Chunin exams, the five man squad, training with Jiraiya, etc). Everything makes sense and feels natural. The same cannot be said of Shippuuden.

After the time jump, Naruto's goals are blurry. It's unclear to the reader if his goal is to become Hokage, or not. He becomes obsessed with finding Sasuke (his former teammate who disappeared at the end of Naruto beginnings). This shift in his goals seem less organic than I would have liked. Naruto makes poor decisions, and allowances in areas where Sasuke is concerned. Other characters also, without motivation, do the same. Characters that had been shown in the beginning of the story to be level-headed, morally guided, logical characters, ignore Sasuke's crimes (which include sabotage, assault, thievery, terrorism and even murder).

At this point in the series, it becomes apparent that the story's focus is no longer what it used to be. The story's focus is entirely centered on Sasuke's redemption. This is where the manga started to lose me. For me, it was completely unbelievable that any character would be forgiven, especially by strangers, for the crimes Sasuke commits over the course of the series. Here, is where Kishimoto starts to have main character bias (a bias that authors and mangaka fall into that provides protection to a character, simply because they are a main character).

From this point on, the manga loses its original charm. It loses its original simplicity. It loses its original focus. Now, that's not to say that characters and stories have to remain fixed. That's not to say that stories or characters have to keep their original goals. I understand growth is to be expected in any decent story. Characters change. Directions change. That's normal. What isn't normal, is for characters to do or act in ways that go against their development. When a character acts out of character to move the plot forward, the story loses its believability. In Shippuuden, characters slip constantly.

I got through the first third or half of Shippuuden before I could no longer forgive its plot holes and tiresome character slips. I stopped reading at this point, and can now only comment on the series, from this point forward, as an outsider. Like I said earlier, I didn't finish. I didn't finish, but I did check in once in a while to see how the series was developing. I'd read a chapter here or there, and whenever I did, it would only confirm my disappointment. I had always hoped there would be a chapter so interesting, I'd be compelled to pick up the series from where I left off.

That never happened. Whenever I checked in, it was only a sad reminder of why I dropped the series in the first place. Naruto had turned into a collection of power-ups, end-game villains and explosions. It was suffering from all the shonen pitfalls imaginable. Character development was non-existent, and had been replaced with pointless, visually boring battles. I started wondering if Kishimoto was simply making it up as he went along. It certainly felt that way. I certainly didn't think it would end. So, when I had heard that it finally ended, I had to check in for a final time to say goodbye and give the manga I once loved, a last chance to draw me in.

It would be an understatement to call the series' end "disappointing". Naruto ended in the messiest, laziest, most hurried (somehow) way imaginable. I won't go into any details, in case some of you are still interested in reading the series (I strongly caution against it). As endings go, it was almost insulting. As a former fan of the series, it felt like a huge insult to the time and energy I dedicated to Kishimoto as a storyteller.

Any reader of this series, former or otherwise, will have to admit that the Naruto universe is devoid of relationship development in any way. Any development between any two characters is often done off-page. Masashi Kishimoto had even said in past interviews that he wasn't comfortable drawing or writing about romantic relationships. This is one of the major failings of the series. I don't believe for one second that an entire universe would remain platonic and sexless. This complaint is, however, a simple annoyance, rather than an outright write-off of the series as a whole. I can accept that a writer would wish to avoid focusing on romantic development. I can accept that a person would be uncomfortable writing romantic interactions. I can accept that the story is about friendship and personal growth, not romantic interest. I get that.

As a reader, I pretty much gave up on romantic development being a possibility within the story a long time ago. There was very little, if any, development on page for any characters. I had already come to terms with the probability of Naruto ending without any resolution in this regard. That's why I was completely shocked that the last chapter of Naruto (chapter 700) focused entirely on the aftermath of the off-page romantic development of Konaha's (Naruto's home village) ninja.

Kishimoto ended the series by indiscriminately pairing his characters together, without any development or chemistry at all. I would have accepted an ending that left the relationship development up to interpretation. I would have respected the ending, and Kishimoto more for an open-ended finale. Instead, he threw characters together for the sake of appeasing his fans. He went with popular pairings that had absolutely no chemistry or development whatsoever, simply to appeal to the crowd. I am convinced that he did this as a last-ditch effort to remain popular with the most number of people within his fan base as possible. This rushed, forced ending left me feeling what can only be described as "anticipointment": disappointment from something you eagerly anticipated.

With that, this review, like Naruto, is finally over. I have nothing else to say about the series.

TLDR:

Story -3
Art -6
Character -3
Enjoyment -4
Overall -4