Naruto Shippuden - Reviews

Wowie, this is long. Not sure why I wrote this, but I did. I hope this is helpful for someone, you know if anyone takes the time to read this, haha. 

Let me be real here by saying that Naruto isn't for every anime fan, but then again neither is any anime. There will never truely be an anime that all who consider themselves anime fans will really enjoy. Moving on though, in my personal opinion, Naruto is a pretty good anime. Naruto is known quite well because of its large mainstream success, and is truely a story that many people young and old have the potential to enjoy. Many people don't pick up Naruto generally because of its length, i mean 220 episodes in the original series and over 368+ in Shippuden? For many it seems like a daunting task, but for others, it's worth it. I've grown up with Naruto, and I can say now that the Naruto series is still one of my favourites.  

Story (8.5) - Anime is generally a hugely story oriented medium, and this is no exception when it comes to Naruto. Naruto Shippuden really improves on storyline, instead of focusing solely on team 7 and people they know well, Shippuden begins to expand the ninja world even further. Shippuden is very engaging and generally fun to watch, it has a good flow to it, with exciting battle sequences and emotional moments between characters. Flashbacks allow you to learn more about main and secondary characters, such as the reasons for their actions and why they are who they are. Shippuden has the ability to have you crying in one part of the episode and laughing at another. What ruins the experiance for some though is filler episodes, and even excessive flashbacks. Because Naruto is still an ongoing manga series, the studio doesn't want the show to catch up to where the manga is, considering that the show is very popular. Fillers and the extending of regular storylines are used to extend the shows length, and yes most filler episodes are boring and somewhat badily writen. Though if you don't feel like commiting yourself to fillers, these plots can be easily searched up and read on wikipedia, or just skipped entirely. 

Animation (7.5) - Shippuden has some pretty good moments when it comes to animation. The show is very fluid, battle scenes are somewhat especially beautiful. Though sometimes I doubt the animation team especially in the instance of one of my favourite episodes, episode 167. Oh god that was questionable, but hilarious all the same...

Sound (8.5) - Sound effects in Shippuden work perfectly, and I truely enjoy many of the songs on Naruto Shippuden's official soundtrack. After watching Naruto and hearing it's soundtrack I was totally blown away by how Naruto Shippuden had improved. 

Characters (8) - Many characters in Shippuden are well written, and it's somewhat hard to choose who to root for when you enjoy both the good guys and the villians. It's really hard to pick a favourite character, i mean really hard, given that there are so many characters to choose from. If you're looking for an anime with cool female characters, Shippuden really improves on what is seen in Naruto. Not so useful ladies from Naruto grow like they should and totally kick ass, Sakura isn't so useless afterall. A lot of the characters are relatable and loveable, or even totally hateable. Backstories for important secondary characters are elaborated on, which is usually nice. Generally its hard to watch this show without becoming really attached to at least one character, if you haven't already while watching Naruto. 

FINAL (8.1) - Naruto Shippuden is super enjoyable, and generally once you start watching, it's hard to stop. Try watching the original series beforehand, and if that's too much for you just skip the filler episodes or read the manga. The Naruto manga has a little under 700 chapters, is ongoing, and contains no filler like the series. Good luck! And if you do try to take on the challenge of watching or reading this series, I hope you enjoy it!

(I realized I didn't really elaborate on what the story is about, but you can always look up a summary or something, sorry..)

 A show of how to ruin a fantastic work.

The fillers are a big turn off when it comes to Naruto Shippuden. Once you get past them, the show can actually be very enjoyable. Just messy executions that makes DBZ look more whole. So many of the characters are so interesting as well more than the main character himself but NARUTO, NARUTO, NARUTO! It's like can the other characters not get more decent coverage before Naruto comes in to save the day like always?! 

The proof that mistakes can be corrected. The original series was very flawed in many aspects and appartently they knew this.

I would manily focus on all the aspects of Shippuden that leave the first series in the dust.

1. It matured a lot. They realised that Naruto was too childish so they made a more or less adult version. Naruto is way smarter(still stupid enough), Sakura is less annying. Same goes for everyone.

2. The fillers. Instead of unwatchable and usuless fillers we usually get background stories which are actually pretty inmteresting.

So compared to the frst series, the characters get 8/10 and the story gets 6.5/10, while the animation stays at 9/10.

The main problem that appears compared to the old one is the fight scenes. The main heros and villains are just incredibly overpowered. Naruto went from a brat to a monster who can destroy an entire village with one attack, while the 10-tails can probably do the same to a nation with 1 attack. This makes the fight scenes really slow. Everyone is too strong, so they barely do anything. The other problem is that we get the flashbacks in the middle of a fight, so between 2 small fight-scenes we can get up to 10 episodes of fillers, which are not bad, but sometimes I feel that they forgot about the main plot completely. 

NS is a huge improvement and even if someone didnt like the Naruto series, I urge you to at least give it a try, because the main problems were indeed corrected. 

Overall 6.5/10

It all started off well but now it has just become Filler Shippuden.

I though tthe lame 26 episodes after the Pain Arc were bad but this Ninja War one I think is pushing 50 episodes now & in that time The Last & Boruto have been released so we already know what happens.

You could also just play the games and you would be ahead of the current series.