Anime Review: Naruto (part 3)

The Itachi Pursuit arc was made to steer the status quo. Sasuke escapes the control of Orichimaru and kills his brother, seemingly ending his long-term objective. This would be a fine point to get his catharsis and move on with his life. But no, Kishimoto just had to ruin it by throwing in a plot twist that was taking all the blame to Konoha, so he would pose a threat for the good guys.

The idea was good on paper, but there was no foreshadowing for any of this. It was literally subversion for the sake of subversion. It made the main rival of the series to constantly flip flop in what he wants and to be on a non-stop killing spree just because.

That aside, although the major fights were cool, there was a lot of dead time. Almost half the arc was Sasuke looking for companions that never did anything and were effectively worthless, as well as fighting Deidara for no freaking reason. In effect, Kishimoto added two new characters and killed an Akatsuki without planning ahead. For that reason, I can’t give this arc more than a 4/10.

The Tale of Jiraya was focused on showing us the past of the sanin and served to hype the next major villain. It was a pretty damn good arc, full of suspense and mystery, ending in a tragic way for one of the most memorable characters in the whole series.

Unfortunately it was ruined by the addition of destiny. Turns out Naruto was never the underdog, he was always the chosen one of destiny. This was the biggest betrayal, trashing the entire premise of the series. He became impossible to relate to after that. Kishimoto realized he had ran out of ideas for what to do with Naruto and Sasuke, so he completely rewrote both of them in an attempt to continue milking the franchise with essentially a different story. Even if that meant the complete destruction of everything the fans liked about the show.

Naruto was the typical insecure boy who was seeking recognition from his peers. He wasn’t the smartest or the most handsome, and was jealous of a silent type pretty boy getting all the pussy for being a cold bastard. That’s why so many people liked him. And now it’s all gone. 4/10 just for that.

And if you thought that was the biggest insult, just look at what Kishimoto did with the Pain Assault arc. Wiping out half of the characters could have been the most impactful arc of them all. It could be the point where Naruto realizes his childish ideals of nakama and becoming Hokage come with a price. Sometimes you just can’t save everyone. Sometimes you can’t reason with the enemy and you have to kill him mercilessly. But then Kishimoto remembered he was making a lot of money out of those characters, so he had the villain realizing his mistake after a friendship speech and resurrected everyone. Pure bullshit. He gave you a situation that was demanding maturity, and then treated it as a fairy tale.

Naruto still got another power up, even if he didn’t have to since nothing beats his friendship speeches. It was a huge mistake to escalate the amount of damage he could do, since at this point the battles were closer to Dragonball than the crafty tactics and stealth we had at the early part of the story. They were mostly about spamming energy attacks and raw power, losing everything that was making them seem smart. Emphasis on seem; not even Pain can tell a clone from the real thing. Also, the power system was so broken at this point. If you have a Sharingan or a Tailed Beast on your side and the other side doesn’t, you pretty much have an auto-win. 3/10.

And finally, the ending of this dreadful series was the Fourth Great Ninja War. Great, my ass.

Everyone came back to life, because death had absolutely no meaning anymore, and they had no personality; they were just there as fan service.
The enemy was a mass produced army of faceless monsters. There was nothing tragic or interesting in a war where thousands of characters who don’t matter are fighting thousands of monsters with no personality.
Despite the scope of the war, the only important good guy who died was Neji. And only because he was the one who pointed out to Naruto how ideals don’t matter before heritage. You know, the thing the show was all about after Kishimoto rewrote the main characters and had to kill the one telling the truth all along?
It was also very confusing to follow the plot, as it was constantly changing the main villain and his motivations, each time becoming more absurd. First there was a guy who wanted to hypnotize everyone by using the moon, because he had the hots for an underage girl. The next was the ghost of a previous ninja who fused all the tailed beasts in one as means to take over the world, and then an alien space witch from a different dimension created a tree for eating the planet. I am not making this up; all that happened in the same arc.
During all this mess, Sasuke changed his mind again, and now decided to help the exact same people he wanted to murder for a hundred episodes. As for Naruto, he falls asleep and gets the ultimate deus ex machina power up that makes him Jesus. Together, they fight the final villain and win in the most anti-climactic way imaginable.
And once they win, they go back to the waterfall for a rematch that had no purpose of existing, since they were now allies. It just had to happen because Kishimoto was constantly promising it as fan service, even if it made no sense at this point.
And then Sakura marries Sasuke, causing millions of narutards to burn their volumes because the only thing that mattered after all this bullshit was getting their ship, and they didn’t even get that. Why was that stupid bitch, who was completely worthless in the whole show, in love with Sasuke again? Because he was constantly ignoring her, and almost killed a couple of times. There’s your chemistry and carefully written romance, the level of which only Kishimoto can provide you with.

And that’s how you ruin completely one of the most popular anime in existence.

A chosen one protagonist everybody adores who was destined to win from the start
A rival who flip flops all the time, not knowing what he actually wants
Hundreds of useless characters
Tragic flashbacks repeating ad nauseam in similar ways for all characters
Stealth and tactics became worthless next to mindless raw power
Later mentors and villains are not treated as important and are not fleshed-out
Death becomes scarce, not permanent, and is often meaningless
Hard to follow plot
The soundtrack becomes generic
Unbearably slow pacing, stuffed with fillers