Naruto (Anime Review)

This is going to be something new I'm going to be doing for the next few entries. I'm going to be doing full, in-depth, real reviews for a lot of animes I like. I'm going to do one for this, Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and even animes I've never talked about before like Death Note, Cowboy Bebop and some others. And we're starting off with maybe my favourite anime of all time, Naruto. So Naruto is very popular. Not just to me, but also around the world. A lot of other people obviously love it from the anime version that started in 2002. But it was actually started in 1999 when Masashi Kishimoto wrote and illustrated an amazing manga series that was transferred over to anime a few years later. And at times, if you watch the show, or you might have already, then you know that this is a truly inspirational anime. Both this and Shippuden together. And there's always some sort of running trope that each episode or so follow. Practically every anime, or just show in general, do that. Where they follow the same routine for almost every episode. And in this case, the routine that Naruto takes is that there's some sort of evil thing threatening the Leaf Village and Naruto is constantly training to become stronger to stop it while also doing missions with his friends and every once in a while, something big happens to make things seem better or worse for his life. And, what really can do something like that? As in, what does a TV show need to pull off to make it amazing like this? The story and the characters. And this anime does both of those thing tremendously. I know I've talked about Naruto itself a lot, but I'm just going to pretend for a this and the next few entries that I've never talked about it and almost kinda start it off new for this. The main character is, of course, Naruto himself. And, like I said, as I've spoken about him before, but am going to pretend I haven't for this, and he, along with every other character in the show, is extremely interesting. The backstory with him is that when he was a baby, the Nine Tailed Fox was sealed inside his body and he never knew his parents. And as he was growing up with the Fox inside him, the entire village hated him every second of his life. That's so sad. Having to live 12 years of your life being hated by everyone around you because of something you don't even know about. And being someone who kinda understands and relates to that a small bit, I do completely understand. And if you're wondering what I mean by that, it's this. As you all know I have Cystic Hygroma and I have a tracheostomy tube in my throat and when I was growing up, some people around my age and younger were mean to me and saying mean things to me and even now, there are still some people who are mean to me like that. And so I relate to that a little and I understand that pain. I know it's completely different to this, but still. Anyway, so after and even before he becomes a real ninja, he dedicates himself to become the Hokage so everyone will finally acknowledge him. And he's voiced by the incredibly amazing Maile Flanagan. She's the best English dub actor for any anime in my opinion. She was the perfect choice to voice this character and I love Naruto himself. He's so stupid and loud but still loveable and admirable. The rest of the characters are also so likeable and interesting. There's Sasuke who has the backstory of backstory of having his family killed by his older brother Itachi. Kakashi, who's friends were killed when he was young. All of them are so interesting and likeable. Shikamaru, Gaara, Kankuro, Neji, Hinata, Kiba, Choji, Tsunade, Shino, Lee, Guy, Jiraiya. I love them all. Even the ones I don't love, every character has something about them I do love. My favourite characters have always been the same. The main ones with Naruto and the villains in this show are so memorable mostly and so cool like Orochimaru or the Akatsuki. Now a lot of the main story of Naruto is in the first half with Season 1-5 or 6. And especially with the various missions Naruto goes on. My personal favourite mission he goes on and my favourite part of the original show is the Sasuke Retrieval Mission where Sasuke leaves and goes to Orochimaru with the Sound Ninja Four. It's almost like this is what the whole show was building up to and it's the first time we get a truly awesome and real fight against Naruto vs Sasuke which is the best fight in the original series with the two of them at the Final Valley. Speaking of the action, I haven't gotten into that amazing part yet. Naruto, and Naruto Shippuden in particular, are the best action animes ever in my humble opinion. There was nothing held back for the action in this show. Naruto's action was all with amazing hand drawn animation. You honestly felt like the character's bodies were really moving and doing real fighting moves. There is not one bit of this show that feels like sloppy or lazy work. It's all so amazing. Especially with the different jutsus. The animation itself is also of course fantastic. It all looks bright and clear and colourful and beautiful to look at. This show is also so funny. I feel like I almost died from laughing at so many scenes in this show. I laugh so hard whenever I see a lot of these scenes. So after the storyline with the Sasuke Retrieval Mission and the characters failed at bringing him back, in the manga, that was the end of part 1. But the creators of the show wanted to keep going so we got so many filler arks from Seasons 6-9, and that's where some things in this show has it's ups and downs. Some of them I do really like, like the return of Mizuki, the delivery ninja episode, the search for the bug, the imitation ninjas and the one right after the retrieval mission where Naruto, Sakura and Jiraiya go to the Sound Village. I like those. But the rest are very unnecessary and you can practically skip them. You can easily tell that the reason they wanted to do those was because they wanted to get to a Season 9. Some of them aren't very good in my opinion like the whole ghost armour knight story, or the painting jutsu lady or the discovering Anko's past or the grandfather/grandson game prank. And while I do really love this show and I thank it for introducing me to all these other animes I love, I have no problem admitting that some of the episodes towards the end are pretty bad and kinda boring. You can honestly skip right to the end and there would be no change whatsoever. And so everyone, those are my thoughts on Naruto Unleashed. It's one of my favourite animes ever made. I can't wait to talk about the rest of the animes I mentioned earlier and I'm so excited and I hope all of you are too. My next one will be my Naruto Shippuden Anime Review. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.