Naruto

A teen ninja takes on the world and tries to wow everyone, including us. He fails.

Abstract: Twelve years ago a giant, evil fox attacked a village full of ninjas. The good news was that the fox was defeated after a pretty ugly battle. The bad news though is that the fox was sealed away in the form of one of the village’s newborns named Naruto. Needless to say, he’s not treated very well growing up and develops into something of a delinquent and punk, just with ninja skills thrown in. The series follows the adventures of Naruto and his team/classmates as they venture into their world to thwart evil, improve their shinobi skills and hopefully attain the title of Hokage, the most powerful ninja in their country.

A lot of folk like this series, but I’m not one of them. The art’s mediocre, the plot moves pretty slowly and there is, so far as I’m concerned, only 2 interesting characters in the show, and neither is Naruto. Nothing in this series stands out, so it ends up with a Bronze.

Background: In the world of Naruto, it seems each sovereign country has its own ninja force. These ninja are hired by various and sundry people in each country, or the country itself for a variety of reasons: Assassinations, intelligence gathering, lost pet finding, etc. Yes, you read that right, lost pet finding…

Anywhoo, in the Nation of Fire the ninja congregate in the village of Konoha, and Naruto is one of the newest batch of kids to graduate from I guess what you could ninja high. He’s a typical teenage boy: Loud, brash, totally uncouth and a little ecchi. However, he’s got 1 problem none of the other ninja-in-training have, and that’s that an evil spirit is stationed inside his umbilicus.

Must make for a great conversation piece when hitting on girls.

Y’see, 12 years ago the ninjas from Konoha defeated an evil fox and sealed the evil away, with Naruto being the reincarnation of that fox. The rest of the villagers know this of course, so they treat him at best with indifference and at worst with undisguised hatred. Naruto persists in his training though, graduates and goes on to more advanced ninja training with 2 of his classmates, Sasuke and Sakura making up his team. Sasuke is the top of the class, and shows skills that even the most senior ninjas find impressive. Sakura is the girl Naruto has a crush on, and, of course she’s interested in someone on their team too! Just as long as it isn’t Naruto. Hey, it wouldn’t be anime if she actually cared a whit about Naruto would it?

So, under the tutelage of Kakashi, one of Konoha’s best and an absolute drill instructor of a teacher (He’d make R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket proud), the trio seek to expand their repertoire of skills through real-world jobs and reach for the Holy Grail of ninjadom: The title of Hokage, establishing once and for all just *who* is the greatest. Okay, anyone get that Mohammed Ali reference?

Materials and Methods: Based on the original manga by Masahi Kishimoto and produced by Studio Pierrot (Great Teacher Onizuka), none of the components that comprise the series jump up and bite you. Heck, none of them even nibble. The art is all cel work, but none of the character designs strike you as particularly well done. The writing and pacing of the show is slow, and I found myself getting a bit impatient with the series. I mean, it took till the 8th episode for the team to actually get an assignment outside of the village, with the first 7 essentially back story to Naruto’s tragic past.

The lead seiyuu aren’t really that well known, with the most accomplished being Kazuhiko Inoue (Hatori from Fruit Baskets) chiming in as Kakashi, whom he plays very well as an idiot-savant of sorts: Seemingly irresponsible and bored one minute, deadly serious the next. The musical offerings do offer 2 varieties of opening and ending themes though, so that’s a nice little touch.

Results: As anyone who knows anything about Asian cinema/stories/anime/manga knows, ninja have always been a very popular subject. And anyone who knows anything about Asian cinema/stories/anime/manga knows, doing a ninja-themed idea well is hard. It’s almost always hit or miss, with very little room in between. I don’t know, it just seems to be something inherent to the genre.

And Naruto unfortunately falls short of the mark. For one thing, I found Naruto completely unlikable. I know so much time was spent on Naruto’s humble beginnings so the viewer could develop a sense of sympathy for the guy, but in my case that backfired. Instead I just found him annoying, boring and stereotyped. If Naruto existed in a 3-D world, he’d be the kind of guy you’d want to introduce to your fists. In regards to the rest of his team, all Sakura seems to worry about is finding Sasuke and making him hers. That doesn’t leave much room for character development.

In fact, the only 2 characters that had anything to them were Sasuke and Kakashi. Sasuke’s grim and driven, and with good reason once you hear about his past. But I was totally digging Kakashi. He switches between his incompetence and elite modes at the drop of a hat, and manages to pull it off well. He’s the perfect straight man, as he seemingly never smiles or shows anything close to a human compassion.

One plot device I will give them credit for however is the incorporation of modern technology into the plotline. This isn’t your typical Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period) environment. They’ve got some modern creature comforts, including internal combustion engines, stoves and oven tops. Even the ninja in Naruto’s village don’t really dress as traditional ninja, with the typical outfit looking like something a modern SWAT team would wear, navy-blue camo with tactical vests. All these modern touches, juxtaposed with traditional fare like shuriken and bamboo homes add an odd but interesting twist.

Conclusions: If you’ve absolutely nothing else to watch and want to see what the hype is about, go ahead and give this title a gander. Just don’t expect too much from it, because you’re going to be disappointed. Lackluster art and writing plagued this project from the get-go, and it doesn’t let up. Being as objective as possible, Naruto gets a Bronze, since nothing’s really bad enough to make it rate lower. Even though I feel different personally.