LogFAQs > #899213638

Of course, I do think Naruto is a pretty good show in it's early stages. Hell, I enjoy it quite a bit until the end of the Pain Arc. The show is a bit more interesting pre-timeskip, thanks to some excellent characters and world-building. You start off with this small ninja school with all kinds of eccentric kids. Finding out all of their powers was a ton of fun, and it was even better when they began to push the limits of said powers, exploring them in creative ways. My favorite battle from the childhood-era was Shikamaru vs. Temari in the Chuunin Exam. It's an incredibly slow-paced battle where Shikamaru is on a time limit, thanks to his shadow-controlling power being effectively useless without the sunlight. On top of this, he's also completely outmatched in power. Every attack he uses is thwarted, and it feels like a losing battle, but it's revealed at the end that he was playing 3D chess, and his plan was executed perfectly, as he positioned Temari next to a hole created by Naruto from the previous match, and ran his shadow through it to take control of Temari. Of course, being the brooding coolboy he is, he then forfeits because doing all that work is so bothersome. It is one of the show's greatest moments, and the fact that I remember this much about it from when I was 13 is a pretty huge testament to it's quality.

The show is filled with these awesome moments, and, not so surprisingly, the Chuunin Exam is actually where a lot of these big moments pop up. How can you forget the introduction of Orochimaru? Gaara? Seriously, few things are as intense as Gaara walking right past Naruto and Shikamaru right after murdering a few dudes. The show does such a brilliant job foreshadowing it's villains. That's why I loved Pain as well. Our first significant introduction to Pain is killing Jiraiya with ease. That's a significant bar to set for a villain, and it makes Pain feel like a true threat. It's actually the last time the series actually manages to do this for me, mainly because the end of that arc is what I like to consider THE DEATH OF NARUTO.

So the Pain Arc, whatever it's actually called is incredible. Pain is introduced in such a powerful fashion, and that carries over to his attack on Konoha. The dude singlehandedly fights an army of ninja, and has a relatively easy go of destroying the place as Naruto receives sage training. Like, he literally kills multiple great ninja. It almost felt like a purging of the cast, but it was effective, because after Jiraiya, nobody felt safe. He was supposed to be Hokage instead of Tsunade, after all. When Naruto finally encounters Pain on the battlefield, it's this incredibly powerful, personal moment. Naruto's growth as a character and a warrior feels complete to me, and seeing him fight this great evil that has proven to be unimaginably powerful was truly epic. This SHOULD HAVE been the finale, rather than forcing the plot to keep going with Sasuke bullshit and the convoluted Kyuubi stuff. The fight spans many episodes and the intensity is always there. Even the part with all the experimental animation that everyone hates because they're lame is fucking outstanding. It is simply one of the greatest fights in the medium. But Naruto is popular, and there were plans in place to go on afterwards, so it ends with Naruto becoming bros with Pain, and all the Pokemon cry and bring everyone back to life.
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