LogFAQs > #899213623

64. Naruto (2002)
Zea (4/5)


So I kinda trolled earlier when I mentioned Bleach was the first of the Big Three to fall, suggesting they were all nominated. For whatever reason, I assumed One Piece was nominated, but that isn't the case. It probably would've won because I didn't get far enough in to see the terrors of filler hit it, but that's another story. Naruto, though, is better than Bleach in most ways to me. It still falls prey to some of the same issues in pacing, tropes, and filler, but I enjoy it more. So why is it just slightly above it in the overall list? Well, sit back and enjoy my random thoughts about the story of Naruto, as I break my three paragraph rule for probably the only point in this topic.

Naruto is the story of a young ninja who faces ostracization for the demon spirit housed inside his body. He's also an annoying little prick, but that's really only because it's the only way to keep people from ignoring him. The epic tale spanning years of growth is one of the most iconic stories to come out of the medium. But any story that takes 15 years to finish is going to have it's fair share of weak spots, especially when a continuing plot is what drives the story. Naruto is home to some absolutely phenomenal storytelling and action sequences, but that's subdued on the whole thanks to some.... absolutely atrocious storytelling and action sequences in other parts.

Naruto might be the most important anime for me. It didn't really affect me on a personal level at any point, and the overarching themes are cheesy as hell, but it's what got me into the way anime, especially these long battle shounens, work. Animation was always a great medium to me, I grew up on cartoons, and hell, I'm still into cartoons. But every western animation I watched was always episodic in nature. It works for what they try to accomplish, but it leaves little room for depth, story progression, character growth, etc. While newer shows have managed to find a nice medium between having a ongoing plot and keeping the narrative episodic in a bubble, I don't think such a writing style would've emerged without the popularity boom anime received over the last decade. See, Naruto is 720 episodes long, and is consistently telling an ongoing story. Sure, you occasionally get the one-off filler episode, but even when they stretch filler into arcs, it serves some fake purpose of pushing the plot further, even if it's really, really bad. It's not a show you can simply jump into, because it's important to have an understanding of how the world works, and how the characters interact with one another. A cartoon that did this was so mind-blowing as an elementary school student. It wasn't so much about the quality at the time, but the sheer mass of the world it built. How do you see something with this much potential and not feel some kind of magic?
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