Explain Naruto to me
- Thread starter SteveWinwood
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OneEightZero
aka ThreeOneFour
Servbot #42
Unconfirmed Member
Naruto is an anime that was somewhat entertaining at the start then author decided to milk the series for 10 years and add a bunch of bullshit that makes no sense in the span of 1000000 chapters, the end. You're welcome.
The ending(or at least parts of it, and its not quite done yet) actually has similar themes, but yeah it takes things in a way different way. Also, way longer than eva. If you decide you want to watch the show, I would definitely look up where the filler is and skip the fuck out of it. The first anime series of it(the first half of the show basically) has like 100 straight filler episodes.
I personally think that Naruto has some really good parts(mainly in the first half before the filler), but it is up to you to decide if you want to put in the time.
Edit: If you dont watch it though, I would still like to show you some of the best QUALITY in anime. So without further ado:
SteveWinwood
Member
Resident4t.
Member
There's a dude that wears weights all over his body and when he takes them off he's super fast and that's pretty cool. Also Linkin Park AMVs. That's about it.
Ol No Bones
Banned
Filler really killed this anime. The original series is actually very good but you never have genuine closure. They drag it out so damn long with only a couple notable arcs.
SwiftDeath
Member
I'm assuming the first part of your post is sarcasm but all those sections have summaries that are linked and you can follow the overall story as you please through that.
You have to at least understand some of the lore of the world to understand the story of Naruto
*Spoilers follow*
The world of Naruto is broken up into different nations each with a special Ninja capitol where the head ninja for the country resides "the kage". In the case of Naruto's village, Konohagakure that role is known as hokage. There are lower rankings of ninja such as Jōnin, chunin, and genin from elite to foot solider basically.
More important world lore is that there are tailed beasts in the world, 9 to be exact representing something along the lines of the ferocity of nature. These beasts when loose represent a massive danger to the human world and thus are sealed into shinobi to contain and control their power. These shinobi then become important weapons in the arsenal of these villages due to the added immense power of the tailed beasts. These individuals are referred to as jinchuriki.
Naruto, the protagonist of the story, is born to the 4th hokage of Konohagakure, his father, and to his mother, at that time current jinchuriki for Kurama, the nine-tailed beast.
During the day of his birth his mother is attacked and Kurama is ripped from her body by an masked assailant. His father manages to fight off the masked assailant but in the process of fighting the escaped kurama, both of his parents are killed and in his father, the hokages final act before death, kurama is sealed into Naruto making him the current jinchuriki for that tailed beast.
Naruto is then given into the care of the previous hokage, the third. Who in my opinion does the dumbest thing in the whole series but whatever in that he hides the identity of Naruto's father from the general populace so instead of being the only son of the recently slain hokage, Naruto is an orphan of the past jinchuriki and suffers a terrible childhood as the village takes their hatred of kurama who murdered many during his escape out on him.
Naruto becomes obsessed with becoming the hokage to show up the village that's always hated him. To become a ninja, one must pass through the ninja academy. At this point Naruto starts a rivalry with Sasuke Uchiha, a ninja prodigy of one of the most powerful ninja families in the village. The Uchiha were one of the two founding familes of the village with the Senju and considered one of the two most powerful ninja families to ever exist. Naruto also is in love with Sakura although from filler and such it appears that likely happened prior to the academy. Sakura however loves Sasuke. Oh no a three way love triangle how original. Back to the rivalry with Sasuke, Naruto is of perhaps 30 students in the lowest 2 or 3 skill-wise. Sasuke is clearly the best of the class and probably of several years worth of students so at first the rivalry seems silly to anyone but Naruto due to his general incompetence.
During the time those three are in the academy, Sasuke's older brother Itachi, who is even more of a prodigy then Sasuke [think prodigy of a generation instead of like 4 years worth of students] seemingly betrays both his family and the village by murdering the whole Uchiha clan sans his younger brother but including his best friend, parents, lover etc.
Unsurprisingly this has a effect on Sasuke who while normally quite cold and introverted becomes more so and vows his goal in life is to get revenge on his older brother
The three students, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura all pass through the academy and become genin and are now under the tutelage of Jonin, Kakashi Hatake who is also a prodigy but not on the level of a Uchiha.
They go on lower level missions and become closer/get stronger. Naruto who had always seen Sasuke as the person he could relate to most ever since he becomes an orphan too, eventually befriends Sasuke although still has no luck with Sakura much to his chagrin.
Time continues to go by, the team does missions then Chunin exams happen. These happen like the olympics every 4 years or so and at different ninja villages. As a show of unity and peace between ninja villages, all ninja villages send potential genins wanting to become chunins to one village to be tested by that village to see if they are ready to be chunin. Naruto's team is given the okay to try the chunin exams even though they are a rookie team, first year, and usually you wait 2 - 3 years before the first chunin exams.
First test goes by okay, naruto stupids his way through it I kid you not, it's an amazingly difficult technical written test where it's supposed to be so hard you have to sneakily cheat your way through it using ninja powers but the last question is given a specific penalty that if you fail that single question, your whole team fails and cannot try again at the next chunin exams. Naruto literally writes nothing down and still chooses to go through with the final question [you could give up the exam instead].
Then the second part of the exam happens which takes place in a large wooded area that's fenced off [think several square miles of forest]. Each genin team is given one type of scroll out of two and must make it to the center of this forest in a certain number of days with both scrolls needed for entry thus must fight or steal or whatever other teams for the scroll. It is also in each teams best interest to stop other teams from completing the task as there are further tests. Anyways it turns out that one of the genin teams secretly has orochimaru on it. orochimaru is one of the three legendary sannin ninjas. The three Sanin ninjas were basically hokage level powerful ninjas from the same village as naruto, Konohagakure who all made their fame in the last great ninja war and again are incredibly powerful. orochimaru has always been obsessed with becoming all powerful, all knowing, immortal etc. And eventually betrays the village and thus becomes a fugitive from the village although not one that any normal ninja can fight due to his immense power.
Orochimaru it turns out hid himself amongst the genins trying out for chunin to get some alone time with Sasuke Uchiha. Orochimaru has means by which to "cheat" death where instead of becoming old or weak, he simply uses a human sacrifice to be reborn. There are only certain time periods when he can do this however and with one coming up he seeks out Sasuke because as a Uchiha and a prodigy, he is aptly suited to be Orochimaru's next human body. So Orochimaru attacks Sasuke and marks him with a curse mark. Sasuke the prodigy freezes up, but Naruto comes to save the day.... Naruto enraged by the attack on his friend, activates a small portion of the power that kurama his tailed beast has and takes on Orochimaru. Orochimaru could of course destroy Naruto but is intrigued by this seemingly weakling's sudden show of power. Sasuke and Naruto manage to somewhat fight off Orochimaru who leaves to do other things. After that, Naruto and Sasuke pass out from the fight being too much and Sakura does something. They proceed to get attacked while the boys are still out and Sakura proceeds to defend them by biting one of the attackers and also getting a hair cut. I couldn't make this up if I tried
The team manages to get another scroll after this and makes it to the end of the Second test.
Onto the third test which is a private knockout single on single fighting tournament. Only Sasuke and Naruto pass through the 3rd individual test. Sakura is Sakura
Between the third and fourth test is quite a bit of time, two weeks or something?
During this time, Sasuke starts to be given special training by Kakashi, their sensei, as his abilities are similar to Sasuke. Thus Naruto searches for a new sensei of his own to improve his own abilities and finds one of the other remaining legendary sannin, Jiraiya who is a giant pervert and tries to get him to train Naruto. He refuses, naruto breaks out his secret technique of transforming into a naked women and convinces Jiraiya to train him. Jiraiya as it turns out also trained his father, the fourth hokage, and is Naruto's neglectful and absentee godfather but again Naruto doesn't know who his father is.
Onto the fourth and final test, a publicly held single on single fighting tournament in front of the village and the visiting kage from the sand village. Naruto barely wins his fight but he does so his way which is ridiculous. Sasuke is up against Gaara who is also a jinchuriki but of the one-tailed beast and is from the sand village. Gaara after starting to lose to sasuke turns into the tailed beast [yeah they can kind of do that] and attacks the village. It turns out this was all planned as sand ninjas start to attack the village during the fourth test. And then the sand kage attacks the 3rd hokage but wait it's actually Orochimaru who after being ostracized and villainized by the village seeks revenge and wants to destroy it. To that end, Orochimaru created his own small village [the village of sound] allied with the sand village, then secretly killed and replaced the sand village kage [gaara's father not that it matters] in order to ally the sand secretly against the leaf village [Naruto's village]. The third hokage fights off Orochimaru and manages to disable completely and permanently both of Orochimaru's arms but at the cost of his life. Orochimaru retreats.
In the proceeding conflict, Naruto is the one to step up and stop Gaara in tailed beast mode, not sasuke and thus Naruto saves the village. Naruto like he has with other people convinces Gaara that friends do exist and that maybe just killing people all the time isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Sasuke cries internally at the thought of being shown up or something. Everybody ends up in the hospital but the village is safe and the construction companies win again.
During the third test, the private tournament, one of the leaf shinobi, rock lee who Naruto became friends with gets his ass handed to him by Gaara when he was crazy I kill you now kind of a guy. Rock lee broke his back and could no longer be a shinobi without a super technical dangerous surgery. Jiraiya, Naruto's newest sensei, suggests finding Tsunade the last member of the Sannin, who left the village after her beloved was killed and is the most skilled medical ninja in the world.
Naruto goes with Jiraiya to find Tsunade for Rock Lee. Along the way learns Jiraiya's super secret move, the rasengan which was actually invented by his father, the fourth. As it turns out Orochimaru is also seeking Tsunade to try and heal his useless arms. He promises Tsunade to bring back her beloved. Jiraiya tries to talk Tsunade out of helping Orochimaru but Tsunade drugs Jiraiya instead. Upon the meeting place, Tsunade betrays Orochimaru and it was all just a ploy to try and kill him. Tsunade is one of the good ones but she's been out of commission for a while and with Orochimaru's subordinate, starts to lose the fight, Jiraiya and naruto appear but Jiraiya is still drugged a bit and can only fight off useless-hands Orochimaru. Thus Naruto a genin has to fight off Orochimaru subordinate who is likely Jounin level or higher. Tsunade sees something powerful in Naruto that reminds her of her beloved and her younger brother both who died both who wanted to be hokage like Naruto and once Orochimaru is fought off agrees to come back to the village and treat rock lee. Tsunade is also tapped to become the fifth and new hokage for the village.
Upon Naruto's return from finding Tsunade, Sasuke who is still in the hospital from the attack on the village acts like a prissy jerk when Naruto comes to visit him in the hotel and challenges him to a fight. Naruto channeling Marty McFly can't say no so they go to the roof to
Sasuke blows off Kakashi then decides to be homeless for the night. While hanging out on a tree, Orochimaru's version of the Ginyu Force but with a girl for gender equality obviously seeks out Sasuke to convince him to leave the village and become more powerful under Orochimaru's tutelage. Sasuke being dumb says yes to a bunch of strangers and probably asks if they have candy.
Sakura being in love with Sasuke realizes he might try to leave the village after his epeen is measured and found to be wanting. Thus Sakura waits along the only road out of the village. Sasuke leaves this way in the morning after saying yes to Ginyu Force the previous night. Upon seeing Sakura, Sasuke says something about her being important to him then knocks her out with a punch to the stomach, real romeo there. Sakura runs to Naruto and asks him to save Sasuke. Naruto promises sakura that he'll save sasuke. Oh naruto has this psychological tick where he can't possibly break a promise and it's his ninja way or something, in this example I think it's referred to as being a simp.
So naruto goes off to track Sasuke down and stop him. Naruto's friends join him. On the way they have to fight off each one of Orochimaru's version of the Ginyu Force one by one with each one being more powerful and way way more powerful than anyone they [genins mostly] could possibly beat, they then proceed to beat each one and lose people along the way, none die but close to death. The last of the Ginyu Force is super tough but luckily Gaara that evil git who liked to kill people for funsies comes to help out Naruto and takes on the last Ginyu Force member as he now has a big crush on Naruto or something.
Naruto catches up to sasuke who can't be convinced to turn back to the village so Naruto attacks him to drag him back. Fight ensues, pew pew bam bam ow fox powers, I'm a uchiha and so on. Both knock each other out briefly, sasuke gets up first stares down at naruto and then leaves. Naruto is carried back to the village quite hurt. Once awake he reiterates his promise to sakura, the girl he loves, to bring sasuke the boy she loves back to the village. Sakura says it doesn't matter, naruto won't let a chance to be friendzoned go to waste and promises to keep the promise of bringing back sasuke.
This is basically the ending to Naruto, the first half of the series.
Doctor Decimate
Member
it's a show about kid ninjas jumping through computer-generated trees
I actually decided to check out the last episode of the the first series, and it was so fucking awful. Some robot guy(extremely poorly drawn) was fighting gaara or some shit. I just couldnt finish it because it was so bad.
I mean, just look at this fucking garbage:
SteveWinwood
Member
Winterfang
Banned
There's normal people, the show just focus on the ninjas. The Villages are pretty much like those Military compounds, I don't known the name but it's pretty much a neighborhood for army people and their wives and family. The Ninja's are more like mercenaries, getting paid by protecting and killing people except is legal and sanctioned by the major/Hokage.
ZeronosVega
Member
As was already mentioned, not everyone is a ninja. This is easily demonstrated in the Land of Waves arc. Ninja are basically the military strength of the nation they represent, although they function a lot like mercenaries.
Some countries don't have a ninja system, so they hire from other nations. One of the biggest exceptions is the Land of Iron, which his the home of the samurai.
Yes there are. This is actually explained in one of the first arcs, but I will explain it here.
Basically, there are a bunch of countries in the world, and they all contain at least one ninja village. The ninja villages are sort of like the military of a country where they raise people to become future ninjas that protect their country. The show mainly centers around the ninja villages, and as such they rarely if ever show the countries at large. They do have people outside the village, but that is pretty much never shown. The leaders of these countries(kage) also live within these villages where they basically oversee everything.
Edit: actually, some parts of the show may portray the outside of the village, but it is not always clear. I know they show one such place in the first arc.
bigboss370
Member
Madara is the strongest villian in any piece of fiction. And Im not talking about Edo Tensei Madara. Im talking about Rinne Tensei Madara Uchiha with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan and Rinnegan and with rikidou techniques, his Gunbai, a Perfect Susanoo and control of the juubi and Gedou Mazou, with Hashirama Senjus DNA implanted in him so he also has mokuton kekkei genkai and yin-yang release ninjutsu.
bigboss370
Member
eh, one punch man can solo him
SteveWinwood
Member
He said Naruto not DBZ =P
Winterfang
Banned
LOL don't worry about that, You don't need to know who Madara is. He is a pretty slick looking villain, he was revived by some guy to used as a puppet zombie in the war but he took control of himself and just went ham.
ZeronosVega
Member
Slight correction. The Kage are the leaders of the village, but not the country as a whole. The daimyō are the ones who run the country and actually have to approve a Kage selection (as seen when Danzo was trying to nab the position, although the Fire Daimyō was all for it whereas the village was not).
What about Kaguya Ōtsutsuki?
If you have read or watch dbz than you noting to worry about. Radiz could beat him with one arm behind his back.
SwiftDeath
Member
Kages are in essence akin to the head US General at any given time whereas the daimyō are like the President. Although it's basically a monarchy not a democracy or republic. Although Kages can kind of be voted out of office if the Jonin don't agree with the decision but that's not talked about much
Ok, I was under the impression that the kages were the leaders of the whole country. It does make sense though that there is a general country leader instead though, and the kage is the leader of the military mainly.
Some of this stuff is a bit hard to wrap your head around
SteveWinwood
Member
i hit random page on the naruto wiki and came across a talking ninja ostrich
I don't think that is canon, unless I am forgetting something.
SwiftDeath
Member
-Pyromaniac-
Member
The Silver
Member
That dork would get trolled to death by Aizen
GruntOfAction
Member
If you decide to watch Shippuden at all, at least watch the episode where they switched animation styles...
Context for this is the dude is angry and shouts "MY PAIN IS GREATER THAN YOURS" but I like to imagine due to the animation style he's actually saying "I AM CURRENTLY IN GREATER PAIN THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE"
Context for this is the dude is angry and shouts "MY PAIN IS GREATER THAN YOURS" but I like to imagine due to the animation style he's actually saying "I AM CURRENTLY IN GREATER PAIN THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE"
Otakumegane
Member
SigmasonicX
Member
While the series does go downhill after the fight with Pain, like people have said, I do think there are still several good moments. And even with moments that were horrible in the manga, like the entire section that the anime is covering now, the anime has been doing a good job at presenting it well, I feel.
Anyway, to actually explain the appeal of Naruto:
1. Every once in a while, there is a legitimately awesome fight.
2. Many of the powers are interesting.
3. The side characters. It's basically agreed among everyone that the side characters are better than the main characters, with more interesting personalities and abilities, but they receive much less focus. Personally, though, I have been liking Naruto himself a lot more once he started actually gaining new abilities and wasn't presented as a scrub.
4. There are a lot of themes that appeal to angsty teenagers.
Anyway, to actually explain the appeal of Naruto:
1. Every once in a while, there is a legitimately awesome fight.
2. Many of the powers are interesting.
3. The side characters. It's basically agreed among everyone that the side characters are better than the main characters, with more interesting personalities and abilities, but they receive much less focus. Personally, though, I have been liking Naruto himself a lot more once he started actually gaining new abilities and wasn't presented as a scrub.
4. There are a lot of themes that appeal to angsty teenagers.
Zantetsuken
Member
He's a god.
MisterLuffy
Member
If you decide to watch Shippuden at all, at least watch the episode where they switched animation styles...
Context for this is the dude is angry and shouts "MY PAIN IS GREATER THAN YOURS" but I like to imagine due to the animation style he's actually saying "I AM CURRENTLY IN GREATER PAIN THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE"
Wish the animation was good, I was so disappointed when they used that.
Zantetsuken
Member
It was the best fight in the series to me next to Rock Lee and Kimimaro, and they blew it with the animation.
The animation is that particular episode was great. Of course it looks weird when you capture and repeat that one bit, but the whole fight has an excellent sense of speed.
WrenchNinja
Member
The fight doesn't even make any sense in the anime. There's no sense of location or understanding of the surroundings at all. None of the action has any weight or impact. It's probably my favourite fight in the manga and one of best moments Naruto has in his own series and they totally blew it.
It doesn't help that they waste an episode prior of good animation on a filler fight for Hinata.
TransTrender
Gold Member
Never watched much of the show but I know this is when they came back from a crap-ton of filler episodes.
What I see on Adult-Swim leads me to believe they didn't keep this animation style and it got cheap again.
Long running anime tend to have budget issues where they skimp on the majority of episodes so they can spend more on more important episodes or on particular scenes.
As someone who doesn't read/watch Naruto, half of that sentence made no sense at all.
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