Naruto

Naruto is over. When you end a manga after 15 years, there will always be fans who like the ending and fans who hate it. These are the thoughts of a reader who stopped paying heed to Naruto approximately 6 years ago coming back for the final 5 chapters, as such, it won't be particularly in-depth, and any attempts at recapping the story up to that point are likely to be hilariously wrong and exaggerated.

I said goodbye to Naruto during the Pain fight in Konoha all those years ago. I stopped reading around then because, like with Bleach, I grew tired of sitting idly by as an extremely tired story continued to be squeezed of all it's originality. As a younger man, I was adamant in not wanting my favourite shows to end. I wanted things to continue forever just like Dragon Ball Z felt like it had done. Then there came a time where I realised the importance of the conclusion. Continually repeating the same tropes and overextending a story ruins franchises. Now I adamantly believe the best shows are those who have known when to end a good thing at it's peak before a concept grows stale.

Even Kaguya thinks this series has gone on long enough.

Naruto was a gateway show for a lot of people of a certain generation who enjoy anime today. It was often never the first people see, but the show that made people aware that there was a whole world of anime and manga out there. Around 2003, I was amongst the rush of youngsters eating up the early episodes of the anime, though I stand by that the only part of Naruto that stands up to this day is the Zabusa arc. I digress, after the first few episodes of Shippuuden, I grew fatigued from the lackluster story and decided to just read the manga instead. It would only be so long before I realised how little I enjoyed spending 10 minutes a week reading Naruto that I decided I should give that up too. Off the top of my head, I believe this was around the time Nagato had blown up Konoha and I realised how little I cared about the whole deal.

Going on from there, I retained a small but still real sense of investment into at least knowing the backbone of what happened from there. I would ask a friend of mine who continued to read to tell me the gist of things. I know vaguely about Obito being Tobi after all (shocker, I know), Danzo being donezo,  and the sage of the six paths' mommy being revealed as the big bad guy.


I guess Kaguya looks like a cool character. I mean, I do like the tale of the bamboo cutter, the story that all the interesting aspects of her are ripped from. And sure, the part about how she was a really strong good ninja who later descended into villainhood is totally original, just like nearly every villain in the series before she was introduced. I'm just thankful it's not impure resurrection zombies for the 50th time. I may be being too critical of a series primarily aimed at young people. Anyway, my credentials to criticise those parts of Naruto are very limited, I didn't read those parts and what I read from the ending doesn't make me want to backtrack.

When I picked it back up a few weeks ago, Kaguya's plan, whatever it may have been, had been foiled. There was something about the ten-tails, which I guess was a thing, and the infinite tsukiyomi, so my guess is Kaguya was manipulating Madara all along. In all honesty, that bit looked pretty cool. Team 7 thumps Kaguya a good one, pop, she's dead, and everyone is brought back from whatever dimension they were in by Hagoromo and the Kage zombies. Naruto gets to speak with his zombie dad before he dies again, and Kurama and Naruto stay together. That much is all quite nicely done and feels uplifting.

Next comes the inevitable, the final clash between Naruto and Sasuke. I really felt like we would be over this by now, but there had to be a meaningless fight between them. Having seemingly settled all his differences, Sasuke decides to turn coat again and declares that he's going to kill the five kages and obtain the tailed beasts. Why? Revolution or something, idk. It's absurdly pointless and only serves as an excuse for the last fight to be between the two friends again.

It's around this part I lost all respect for Sakura. She professes her love for Sasuke (again), and it is the most unfounded basis for love I've ever known. Sasuke tried to kill her and everyone in her village, repeatedly shunned her and hurt her emotionally and all she seems to care about is how much she loves him. In response to her pouring her heart out before everybody, Sasuke knocks her the heck out. With that taken care of, Naruto and Sasuke nip down to the local edgy meaningful battlefield, the waterfall from that one good fight from the entirety of the anime at the end of Part I.

The thing that bugs me about Sasuke is how his character is designed to be this pensive, troubled anti-hero who puts revenge at all costs above any form of sane morals. Sure, the kid lost his entire family, and killed his brother only to find out everything he believed was wrong, but rather than protect the memory of Itachi and all the things he spent his life fighting for, he just decides he still wants to kill the kages for some ridiculous reason. Sasuke isn't cool and edgy, he's dense and two dimensional. The only good resolution his character could've received after announcing he was still set on fighting Naruto would be die tragically for his stubbornness.

The fight gets underway and as he has for practically the entirety of the show, Naruto spouts good sense and a positive outlook on all the dreadful things to happen in their lives, and really that's what makes me really like his character the most in the series. I find fight scenes in manga to be both confusing and boring, so the next couple of chapters do basically nothing for me.

Finally, the two make their final move in cliché shounen fashion by attacking head on at the same time with each of their signature jutsu. This is where this section of the ending could've really excelled, both of them wake from the impact to find that they are both incapacitated and missing an arm each. It's pretty excellent, this is big, they are missing limbs and bleeding out. Sasuke decides to not do whatever it was he was going to do before, and the two make friends, it's the perfect time to make this fight meaningful and show the consequences of war. Sakura arrives in time to save only one of them, and after a crisis of which of her closest friends to save, she chooses Naruto, the ninja who could lead Konoha to peace. Sasuke dies and Naruto is forever disabled by his missing arm.

Except that didn't happen, I lied. Sakura turns up and magically saves them both, they've been bleeding since the night before at this point but apparently it's not really an issue. Everybody makes up and it cuts to Neji's funeral. Apparently he died and it was really sad, that's a shame, I liked that guy.

Still not done though, we are blessed with a nice little time skip epilogue to ensure us that all our favourite characters marry each other and have kids, and obviously, given the nature of Naruto's character, the time skip is essential. This show isn't ending without Naruto becoming hokage, and god dammit I really wouldn't have wanted it any other way in that respect. Another essential part of the ending is of course seeing Naruto end up with Hinata, the love interest who went through actual character development, it's a damn good move and it actually feels good to see Naruto as hokage after so long. Sakura ends up with Sasuke (no comment), everybody has children and the story comes full circle, nailing home the ongoing moral that there comes a time to pass the torch to the next generation. Oh, and Naruto has a right arm again now, in case you thought that fight with Sasuke might have had any meaningful impact on the story. The end.

Wait, still not done. There's a final movie coming out soon to tie into the ending. I really don't know what else they have to say, but I guess you can't get rid of this series that easily. On top of that, side stories to appear in Jump. I'm undecided whether I'm going to extend my renewed readership of Naruto to these two, chances are I'll sit through the movie but I'm not too interested in the side stories. Even then, I doubt they're going to let this series finally die, I'd bet my right arm on it.