Post by zeidoktor on Nov 17, 2014 16:23:33 GMT -5
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Naruto after all's said and done. It was an okay series, but it really started to go up and down for me following Naruto's fight with Kakuzu. Guy literally brags about his long experience only to get punked by Naruto's "here-I-am-no-wait-that's-a-Shadow-Clone" trick.
Though the one that really gets me is that it didn't always seem to follow its own themes and lessons. In particular for me is the fight with Naruto vs Neji, my absolute favorite fight in the series, where Neji learned that your destiny isn't determined by the circumstances of your birth. While you might argue that destiny is what you make of it, the idea that you make your own fate starts to ring hollow once you learn Naruto's the chosen one about three or four times over.
As far as ups, I did like some of the action in the Ninja World War, in particular seeing the shinobi resurrected to fight for Tobi actually trying to give advice on how to beat them since they didn't like being used. I also adore Hinata and am glad to see that she got her guy in the end (though I was annoyed we didn't see a panel of them actually together, but the implications are fully there, anyway). I also liked Naruto's deliberately trying to break the Cycle of Revenge in the Pain arc. Maybe the resurrections were a bit Deus ex Machina, but with the way it was done I think it worked.
In the end I have to say that, while I liked Naruto overall, it wasn't a great series to me. At points I was following just because I always had been since I got into the Big 3. Still there were definitely times that the series was very enjoyable.
Though the one that really gets me is that it didn't always seem to follow its own themes and lessons. In particular for me is the fight with Naruto vs Neji, my absolute favorite fight in the series, where Neji learned that your destiny isn't determined by the circumstances of your birth. While you might argue that destiny is what you make of it, the idea that you make your own fate starts to ring hollow once you learn Naruto's the chosen one about three or four times over.
As far as ups, I did like some of the action in the Ninja World War, in particular seeing the shinobi resurrected to fight for Tobi actually trying to give advice on how to beat them since they didn't like being used. I also adore Hinata and am glad to see that she got her guy in the end (though I was annoyed we didn't see a panel of them actually together, but the implications are fully there, anyway). I also liked Naruto's deliberately trying to break the Cycle of Revenge in the Pain arc. Maybe the resurrections were a bit Deus ex Machina, but with the way it was done I think it worked.
In the end I have to say that, while I liked Naruto overall, it wasn't a great series to me. At points I was following just because I always had been since I got into the Big 3. Still there were definitely times that the series was very enjoyable.
