Naruto

[*V Guyver]

Well that snake dude is easily one of the best villians in anime ever. Overall, he keeps creepier and more evil as he goes on. There's a reason why so many people make pedophile jokes about him.

[*Jess♥]

wow, well it's been a while since i wrote anything in here.

do you think i've been idle? no, not I.

so now i'm up to episode 115.

i've covered that entire story from the chuunin exam through to the hunt for tsunade and now onto the sasuke retrieval mission.

this anime just keeps on. it doesn't lull (whilst i avoid fillers ) and the story is always pretty powerful.

for sure everyone has a favourite character and I'm just loving rock lee. yeah you probably saw my avatar and already guessed.

there are so many great characters but rock lee just gets into my soul. In a way, it's not the naruto show, it's the rock lee show, I wait for the episodes where rock lee appears so i can see how he is getting on. right now he has had his operation and now he is in rehab.

I can't wait to see him fight again and give his nice guy pose.

so what are your favourite character?

anyway.. specificaly where i am at right now....

chouji just finished his fight with odebu. very touching moment there. quite upsetting.

now shikamaru knows what happened, then they came across teh next guy. spiderdude. neji has told the others to go and now neji is fighting with spiderdude. that's pretty much it.

so.. not long to go now.

about 25 more episodes or something like that.

[Divine-Guyver]

I can't wait to see him fight again and give his nice guy pose.

....

about 25 more episodes or something like that.

`I like naruto but I stopped watching the anime(shipuuden)

because the animation is so poorly done.

but story wise I love it, and the manga is terrific.

And Ryuki, around these episode you'll see it start to degrade.

and that is just a sad thing[emote=monkey]phew[/emote]...

[Cannibal]

so what are your favourite character?

1) Orochimaru - I like his voice

2) Tobi - cool mask x))

3) don't know, maybe Lee

I'm up to Shippuuden 142.

[durendal]

I used to like Sasuke, but I don't think I like what he's turning into.

[*V Guyver]

Ah, when it comes to favorites. It's easily Shikimaru. I can relate to his desire for laziness and starting a family (and dying before the wife, ).

Of course there are so many great characters in the series such as Rock Leee, Gaara, Shino, Kiba, and others. I do wish though that Naruto's creator took an active role in the fillers. Unlike him, Bleach's fillers actualy have the manga artist contribute art and story to them, and it's proven to be much more successful then Naruto's cringe filled fillers.

[*Jess♥]

finito.

so i watched it all.

apart from the fillers of course.

fillers start at episode 136 so this is where i stop watching.

shippuuden.

how do i approach it...

[*V Guyver]

Shippuden... hmm kinda hard to say, even the main plot is horribly slow because they stretched out every little thing in the first story arc. They fix it later in the season though. In my opinion, I think it better to switch to the Manga at this point. I will tell you one thing though, they do have some great battles, and plots, but it's really surrounded by unwanted crap.

Another option is to watch the movies. But only the first naruto movie is really worth watching. Not sure about the most recent Shippuden movie (3rd shippuuden movie) though. It looks good when compared to the others.

Edit: I have to say this. Naruto was a really great series despite the fillers. So many memorable moments, especially Gaara's insanity, Lee's bizarre relationship (and his fight with Gaara). Having the pleasure of seeing Orochimaru's brimming evil. Shikimaru's awesome underdog smarts. See m very first 'unbelievably cool' moment, seeing Zabuza take out Gato and his men despite his limp arms and countless impalement's... oh and of course Jiraiya being talked into training by Naruto via Sexy no Jutsu. There definately isn't going to be too many series topping this one out. SO I ask you this Ryuki, how was the overall expereince?

[*Jess♥]

how was it...?

well i have to say i loved every minute of it!

that is, apart from the bits of filler crap that filtered through. somehow managed to be subjected to the mask episode. the guide i looked at must have missed that ep. but i soon twigged on to the fact it was total garbage. how could i not.

well, in some ways i think the pacing could have been improved a bit in some places. at times it seemed like they jumped into action again a bit too quickly. but i still thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have to say i have seen some of the most mindblowing animation in this series. the animation in this is better than any other anime i have seen in terms of portraying speed and style. some of the most incredible shots, like when naruto punches sasuke for the first time on that 'lake' in the very last fight. just the movement and the way they make his eyes go, it's just so amazingly done. and the bits when rock lee fights, the skill they had to use an exaggerated camera angle to accentuate the speed, it;s very hard to exaggerate drawings like that and make it look good, but it looked so incredible, I've never seen an animation move like that.

more to the point, i was so overjoyed to see rock lee return to health. to see him fight again make me so happy!

the thing about naruto that makes it so great, is the amount of different and unique characters. it seems to me there is a type of character to suit everyone. the difference in personality can suit many different people watching and i think people root for their own favourite. so there are people who may be rooting for orichimaru. some will be rooting for kimimaro. some will be rooting for sasuke.

of course i was rooting for rock lee all the way since i saw him fight for sakura in the woods of the exam.

so... hmm, why do i watch a movie instead of a series? is it the same thing?

I am reluctant to read the manga, since i will not get the music and the japanese voice actors.

[*V Guyver]

In that case you'll be happier watching the anime shippuden since you love the cast so much and the music. That's fitting and probably worth going through the sluggish start in the series.

The movies are sorta okay, the first Naruto movie was great. It really had a good plot and some nice action scenes. But after that movie, all the others tended to involve Recycled plots. Granted there are big differences, but if you notice, they have the exact same boring formula. In at least two movies he spends a good 30 minutes just getting beat up by one baddie. 3 of the movies have the same type of loudmouth, unfaithful, and untrusting female who eventually likes Naruto. None of the movies make sense. What they do all have in common on the good side is great music, animation, and some awesome fight scenes, and a fair amount of killing. But in the end, they just feel like big budget fillers to me. Don't get me wrong, as a Naruto fan you'll probably enjoy them enough, but as an actual standalone none Naruto themed movie, it would of sunk like a rock in the Japanese box office.

Edit: Oh and yes. I have to admit, Rock Lee easily had some of the best humor and fight scenes of all the characters in the series. He's such an enduring and happy go lucky character. Same goes for Gaara who's easily one of the best things to show up in any anime as a redeemable villain.

[*Jess♥]

i wouldn't appreciate fillers. so i wouldn't appreciate the movies.

even if a filler is 'done well' I can still feel that it is somehow not right. it feels fake.

i'll start looking for the shippuuden series then.

[Renegade]

Well the animation and pacing wasn't top notch for the first canon arc of Shippuden, the main fights were done well, except for Gaara's fight. They really messed it up I feel compared to the manga. After that the pacing for the Sai arc wasn't all that great either, but it was a piece of drenn in the manga too, it's a setup for an important confrontation between Naruto and Orochimaru, but other than that it's pointless. They did the Shikamaru arc well but the filler split it up pretty bad, also the final fight was drawn worse than I was hoping, the studio just didn't do justice to Kakuzu, still a great arc! The Pain and Revenge arc is being done perfectly though, they split it in half with a filler but it wasn't that long, and I really love how fast paced this arc is. But they're really close with the manga so I'm betting on a really long filler again. My biggest complaints about Shippuden are Naruto's progress compared to Sasuke's progress. They were both equal at the Valley of the End, they are both being trained by one of the Sannin, and they are both training for the same length of time to face the same enemies. For that matter Sakura is in the exact same situation, she should at least end up slightly closer to them in power. Really proves that the Sannin weren't equal at all. Another thing, Sasuke really got too much attention, he completely overshadowed Orochimaru who is basically thrown aside if he ever shows up in the manga again.

[*Jess♥]

since i haven't watched any of shippuuden yet, I figure most of that will actually be spoilers for me.

can somebody check it and perhaps quote teh bits that aren't spoiling it?

[durendal]

Well, what renegade said didn't really give up the basic story, just mentioned some story arc that featured a certain character. It didn't say anything like who dies and who lives. Also, might be a spoiler for the last part after the smiley since it deals with the relationship of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, which in my point of view isn't really much of a spoiler if you don't watch Naruto.

[*Jess♥]

ah ok, then i am safe

well the part after the smiley?

well i do watch naruto i have watched all the original series, so i will skip that for now.

ok well i have seen my share of bad animation. i watched teh guyver tv series so i'm not that picky about that.

i've noticed some dodgy animation in naruto up til now anyway, but to be honest, I don't care. with this series, it's not so important that it look incredible, it's about characterisation and the music etc.

hold on, I'm getting dejavu.. have i said sommething similar before?

[*V Guyver]

lol I think you have Ryuki. I think it was to two Anime's One was Guyver, the other I forgot.

[Aether]

ha ha +1 for Rock(a)Lee, Ryuki! hes deffinatey freakin awesome, him and mighto Gai are hilarious tears streaming in the sunset in the nice(a) guy pose!! Rock Lees taijustu is badass the whole Gara fight still remains one of my favourites of the whole thing! i like Neiji because he kind of combines taiji and bagua but hes nowhere to be seen in Shippuuden so far,and even though he can be an idiot you gotta love Naruto...

seriously Ryuki did you think it was going to be as good as it is??? i freakin Love it.

i see you say you skipped the filler - fair enough, i'd still reccommend the films despite the fomula being repeated , but thats just me.

watch all of Shippuuden ( only real pap bit i can remember is towards the beginning where a really lame side fight takes far too long but its in the midst of an oh so dope fight anyway theres no avoiding it as its intertwined with the main fight...

well hope you enjoy the Hurricane Chronicles as much as the first series

BTW first Shippuuden opening track = best anime ost of all time (or maybe its just me again)

Edited May 4, 2010 by Eether

[*Jess♥]

yeah i got past all that now. I have to agree, that fight was way too drawn out. i was getting so bored while that was going on.

i was settling down to watch naruto and then see that fight again... i'm like.. oh no not more of this...

it did give very good and much needed character development for sakura though.

I'm a way past there now. I'm up to episode 100. well a bit past there. the turtle is on hte lake but they have yet to approach it.

I'm really looking forward to it.

and I'm really happy that naruto is using his own strength so much. i've been very impressed with him recently.

sai is so funny.... I hated him at first, but he soon became such good comic relief!

[odin]

sai had so many possibilities, i used to like him but now he is just there doing nothing recently, they dont even concentrate on him anymore which is a pity cause a ninja that uses art based jutsu was a really cool concept but now he is just for decoration just like all the other supporting characters.

[Aether]

whoops i forgot neiji is in shippuuden but its for that crap fight during the Sakura one (tried to erase it from my memory )

i dont know how it'll pan out with sai cause hes was a plant by that other shinobi faction within konoha, maybe that internal conflict will play out fully later on... maybe not, who knows....(or did it already??i dont think it did )

tis cool Naruto vowing to rely on his own strength, but i thought it was dope when the tails started appearing and his skin was vaporised from the raw energy of the kyubi coming through!! awesome!

im at ep 133 at the moment godamnit!!!! i really didnt think it would all be going to where its at now, maybe thats a good thing maybe its bad, again depends how long it continues and how things pan out overall. anyway apart from the excellent characters, plots and twists in Naruto i find it to be not so predictable, you can kind of see what MIGHT happen sometimes but never be sure exactly what will.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Eether

[*V Guyver]

impressed with him recently.

sai is so funny.... I hated him at first, but he soon became such good comic relief!

Yes, I totally agree. Sai started off as a pretty annoying metrosexual characters with very dirty jokes (and insults). Now I can't really imagine Naruto without him.

Oi, and I did warn you about the fillers. Thankfully, you've gotten past the worst of it, from now the rest should be much better paced and outlined. Even the fillers have improved (a little). The turtle arc had a lot of great stuff in it, I just hated the kid in it... does he need to be that simple minded. He constantly asks everyone about his home and it's super annoying. I don't care if he suffered trauma, I don't need my precious braincells killed off.

Also for the first time, I actually liked a Filler villain. Renji is easily one of the better designs in the all of the Naruto fillers. I actually regret what happened to him.

[*Jess♥]

what.... so the sanbi story is a filler?

and please be careful what you say about renji. i expect the bad guys to die or whatever, but i don't want a spoiler. for all i know you could be talking about how he turned out to be kabuto's guy.

so, last night i watched the two part and the one after that.

the little kid has stopped turtle from moving and the others are... i think they just picked themselves up off the sand.

[*V Guyver]

I figured what I said was obvious since it was a filler. In fillers, tey almost always kill off villians unless they turn into good guys.

[Aether]

what.... so the sanbi story is a filler?

i told you all the fillers wernt so crap!

[*Jess♥]

yeah it is very good and seems totally relevant!

although... i don't know if it's the fact i know it is filler.. it's starting to drag a little bit now.

watched 4 more eps last night and it still isn't done.

they are trying to seal it for the second time and naruto and guren have just got out of that thing.