When characters are fighting copies of themselves, do they come up with an idea like switching? No, they get the shit kicked out of them for 6 episodes until one of them screams “I know how to win…. But the writers have no interest in that, they would rather spend 10 minutes showing how Naruto learned how to get out of an illusion while is trapped in one. This could have been a great moment by doing something like having Sakura coming to terms that her friend is essentially a weapon of mass destruction. But in those big “emotional” moments such as when Naruto reveals to his allies, he has a demon in him, it is mostly ignored by the other characters. Any time a character does something in a fight, a dozen characters are going “wow, he is so strong and smart” so 4 minutes can be taken. This doesn’t sound like high art but it seems like it could be entertaining in its stupidity, but nope. Shippuden picks up about 2 years after Naruto leaves with the one teacher that isn’t completely useless, Jiraiya, to train and he’s now back home just in time to help his village fight a secret organization of criminals that are trying to collect demons. If a bot were to develop anime characters and their arcs, it would likely look like Naruto. There’s an emo rival, a girl that the lead keeps creeping on, a girl that has a crush on the lead for some reason, the mysterious teacher who sucks at being a teacher, the wise leader whose sole weakness is his secret perviness, a demon kid who uses his demon for good after fighting the hero, the slacker who is secretly smarter than everyone else, etc. As the story progresses, he sheds the loser part and becomes a somewhat well-regarded ninja for his age thanks to him being too stupid to quit and new friends/mentors while also turning bitter antagonists into allies after some choice words. The Naruto franchise tells the story of some loser kid with a demon sealed in his body that nearly wiped his village out. So what did I think about it? I’m considering giving up on anime again. I decided to give the follow-up series Shippuden a try, watching the Gaara and Sai arcs. So now, in 2021, I’m back into anime thanks to shows like Jojo and Cowboy Bepop.

Soon after, I just gave up on anime entirely for a couple of years since most of the ones I kept finding were…. I persisted, watching basically every episode up to Sasuke leaving. I have no idea how I had the patience for the show’s habit of making what should be a 3-minute scene into a whole episode. Now I’m not 100% why, but probably because it was often the only animated show featuring blood that aired while I was still awake. When I was in elementary school, Naruto was my favorite show.

Sai x naruto