Today I will be reviewing the longest yaoi ever created.

Character:

Don't you love reused bull? Well seeing as though I loved Bleach, which is a testament that I love my reused bull! Now, I for the first few volumes the story was very good, refreshing even. The shounen genre suffers from a plethora of bad storytelling. But the first few volumes of Naruto shove a giant purple dildo in the face of its entire genre by showing a more sentimental, and human, approach to it's characters.

That is for the first few volumes. See, Naruto falls short where some other shounens did as well. I can't say the names of these shows, but one of them rhymes with detergent. And where it fell short is that once it found a formula that worked they stuck to it and subsequently beat it to death! "Well, if it's broke why fix it?" says Naruto. "Because that is literary suicide." says the ambiguous sage in the corner smoking a Cuban cigar!

"Okay Callacas, what is this formula the infallible Naruto beats to death?" You ask. I am not trying to bash the manga when I say this but, whenever any character in the manga (any, of them) needs characterization, all the manga does is make a flashback to their childhood. Showcasing their "struggle" to put it informally. It wouldn't be half bad if it all didn't boil down to the same general information, "X had a hard childhood, and because of it grew up into the person he is today." That kind of thing. Again, I did not mind the flashback, at the beginning. But having them told over and over and over again makes it lose its intended affect and comes off as melodramatic. Which is the opposite affect.

Also, another problem of this is that the flashbacks are the only use of characterization. Tell me this, those of you who have seen anything Naruto, take out the flashbacks and what are you left with? A generic shounen.

Actually, let me ask you a better question, take out the flashbacks and try to describe the characters in as many words as possible. Let me tell you now, you are not going to get past one or two. And that is almost as bad as Bleach. 4/10

Story:

The story starts before the time when Naruto and his best friend Sausuke wanted to take off their shirts and kiss. It begins in their early tween/teenage years. The story begins with a love triangle between the all important main character Naruto who has fallen in love with a girl in his class Sakura. Sakura, on the other hand loves the most popular boy in school, Sausuke. While Sausuke secretly loves Naruto. Oh, we have come full circle have we?

Now, Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke are all ninja. In a land of ninja. In a world of ninja. In a universe of ninja. Which is hopefully in a taco or something, damn I'm hungry.... Where was I? Oh, yeah. Ninjas.

Naruto as the main plot continues Naruto and his triangle buddies find themselves all on the same ninja team conveniently enough. And they all go on adventures with their instructor and from there the tale unfolds.

The plot itself is nothing to write home about. It is essentially an epic retelling of the classic Japanese piece of Literature, "A Tale of a Gutsy Ninja Jiraiya" that is about a ninja Jiraiya who summons magic from toads going on adventures trying to win over his love Tsunade, who is a kunoichi who summons magic from slugs, all the while fighting with his arch rival Orochimaru, who is a ninja who summons magic from snakes.

Again, it's nothing to write home about. Generic shounen stuff. 5/10

Art:

I'll be the first to say this, I don't like the artist's designs. Yeah, the clothes are cool and all, but the character designs are just god-awful and just plain boring. With uninteresting faces, or in the case of some characters, no faces at all. Hmm, I wonder how much time that saved the artist when trying to rush the chapters out of the door?

The environments get much better as the series begins to close, but nothing jumps out of the page at you. It just seems like the environments were just shoved to the back of the author's mind. Furthermore, the author seems to love the ever loving troll face out of surrealist artwork. Which depicts strange and sometimes disturbing pictures. I cannot recommend this for too young of an audience.

Enjoyment:

Believe it! I was certainly not board reading this manga that is for sure. Just like i cannot describe the Xbox One past box; I cannot describe this manga past the word fun. It was a genuinely fun read. But I am not sure if it is good enough for a second read through. It is LONG! 7/10

Overall:

Like every long running shounen out there, it has it's flaws. What is bothersome is that it is not aware of its flaws, and that is Naruto's greatest weakness. 6/10

EDIT: Wait a second! I forgot to include the secret criteria! Action!

Action:

I have not seen One Piece yet so I cannot compare it to that. But I have seen Bleach as you no doubt know by now. So, I will compare it to Bleach. The action in Naruto is much slower paced than Bleach. But it gets the job done very well. The action makes sense and all of the enemies actually feel like they are legitimate threats. Also, the fights are long and drawn out, which I like by the way. So that is fine. 7/10

so this bumps my final score up to a...6/10.... Well that was anticlimactic.