Regardless of how you view Naruto as a series, one can't deny that it has left an enormous impact upon the culture and for many, acted as a gateway into manga and anime. Unfortunately, this also means nostalgia can cloud the minds of those that have followed the series since it's earlier years. Personally, I only started reading this series a few weeks ago. Prior to that, my experience with the series was the first 130 or so episodes of the original anime, before I lost interest in it and dropped it. After trying to watch the series again, I always inevitably dropped it around that 130 episode mark. So once Naruto's manga had finished, I knew it was time for me to experience the series in it's original form.

Naruto frustrates me in the sense that it attempts to create so much, only to have it mean naught in the end. I'll elaborate on this further throughout my review.

The story of Naruto starts off pretty well. He's a young boy who grew up as an outcast due to the fact that he acts as a container for the 'Nine Tails', essentially a giant fox that attempted to destroy Konoha and kill its residents 12 years before the series begins. Naruto's dream is to become the Hokage (the leader of the village), and the series follows him on his journey to do so. Whilst its not exactly an amazing premise, it definitely sets things in motion nicely and for the first 200 chapters or so the story is decent. But ultimately, its the timeskip that kills this series. Naruto starts a lot of things, but by the end of the story, is unable to finish them. For example, a key focus of the series is chakra and having to manage and use chakra efficiently in order to survive in the battles. This was a good system, it made the battles more strategic and definitely gave a sense of impending doom when a character began to run low on chakra (unfortunately this effect would be ruined as a friendly ninja would often show up to save them). By the end of the series, chakra conservation is far less important, and some of the final battles last longer than some of the series' most iconic battles combined. This lack of respect for one’s own worldbuilding is indicative of how the series progressed throughout the years.
The flow of the story was decent but during the later chapters it definitely reached a pace that was far too slow and stretched. The final arc didn't need the amount of chapters it had, and felt almost twice as long as it really needed to be. Most of the plot twists were fairly predictable, but there are definitely a few that were very well done. Its a real shame as the childhood arc of the series (roughly the first 220 chapters) were rather good, and if I were judging the series overall from just those chapters, the rating would be about a 7. Unfortunately the story fails to hold on to the charm of the beginning of the series, and is ultimately ruined by the introduction of ridiculous jutsus and the reversal of some major events in the series, only to have them mean nothing in the end. And that's probably my biggest gripe with the series; the ending. For some reason, the mangaka chose to display the ending to the series in the final chapter in 25 colored pages. He could easily have shaved 5 or so chapters off of the stretched final arc and used those to set up a far more satisfying, gradual ending. It is currently assumed that the mangaka will explain the ending in more detail in his miniseries that he plans to begin next year, but despite what information is revealed in these, it will not affect the fact that this ending felt very rushed. It was highly apparent that he paired characters together in the ending in a last ditch attempt to appeal to his fans, but his choices made little sense and some of the pairings had zero development throughout the series. If you're looking for a satisfying, meaningful end to this 700 chapter behemoth, you're going to be disappointed.

The art for the series is fairly good. The childhood arcs of the series definitely display a more 'cartoon'-ish feel whilst still keeping the series relatively realistic. As the series progressed, the art adopts a darker tone to match the attempt at creating a more serious story. I don't have much to say about the art to be honest. There were very few moments when I was truly awed by the artwork on a page, but there are definitely some standout panels (mainly from the final fight of the childhood chapters). I felt the mangaka was able to accurately convey what he needed to on a page, and on occasion he could really pull off some terrific backgrounds. The panels flowed well and fights are easy to follow which is one of the most important things in a manga that has them in such focus. The character's designs were also good, and the designs of the tailed beasts I found especially impressive.

Now we move to the worst part of the experience; the characters. The childhood arcs introduce some decent characters such as Rock Lee, Neji Hyuga, Shikamaru Nara and Gaara. Whilst they're developed well, nearly all of the important characters introduced in the first part of the manga are pushed to the side. Most of the characters you’re introduced to in the childhood arcs serve little to no purpose in the overall story. After the timeskip, the series chooses to focus on the journey of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi. The characters outside of these fail to receive much development apart from a small few, meaning that characters that you've been shown and seen develop are just ignored. By the end of it, the characters have developed in a highly unsatisfying way. The antagonists have a very superficial reasoning behind their actions and one of them in particular is supposed to achieve a sort of redemption at the end, and readers are expected to sympathize with him. But considering all of his bad deeds that he's performed throughout the story, it is difficult to pity someone whose motivations were so trivial to begin with. By far, one of the biggest flaws with the mangaka's characters is his complete inability to create a compelling, independent female character. Almost every female character in the series relies on a male character for their development, and its a real shame. I wanted to like some of them such as Sakura, but the mangaka continuously makes her weaker than the other members of her squad, and her obsession with Sasuke throughout the story is unhealthy and delves into ridiculous territories at certain points. But as I've said already, the majority of characters in this series are developed poorly, not just the females.

My enjoyment of the series confuses me. On one hand, I can point out a great number of flaws that the series that seriously hinder it. On the other, I didn't have any trouble reading through the series. It was only in the final arc that I began to get bored with the series, and I ended up powering through those chapters to finish the series more quickly, which is never a good sign. This is an entry-level series that many anime and manga fans are familiar with, but it'll do little to sway someone who has already read similar works. The series has no parts that serve as a shining example of its perfection, all of its parts are noticeably flawed. Once you've finished, unless you're somehow a die-hard fan (living off nostalgia), you'll probably be done with it.

Naruto is a series that attempts to create an enormous world populated mostly with one-dimensional characters, but ends up collapsing under its own weight and reverting to standard shonen development. Everything in this manga can be done better by other works, and you should seek those out if you're looking for something specific in your reading. The series would've benefited from ending just before the timeskip. Instead the timeskip transforms the series into a darker, more focused plot that ultimately fails due to the simplistic design of many of the characters, lack of respect for the world created and the introduction of absurd powers that serve only to lengthen the series and attempt to create intimidating antagonists.