Japan Man

This is what happens when you don’t read Naruto religiously. While I was off taking an extended vacation, Sasuke ends up beating Itachi. But from what I have been hearing, Itachi overdosed on his sharingan and collapsed. But you can hardly call that a victory for Sasuke. He set out to kill Itachi by his own hand, but Itachi ends up committing suicide. Kishimoto just loves robbing Sasuke of every “win” that he gets. But I kind of like that. Sasuke deserves to get robbed of his vengeance just like he got robbed of his win off of Naruto. Sasuke gets the wins, but he never attains victory or satisfaction. Sweet! Check out 00Avalon for more information about the fight and the manga download of the fight aftermath.

Where should I begin? Well, first off, I should start by mentioning what this post is about (if it isn’t obvious by the name of the post already). I, the young strapping lad known as Darkmane will be discussing one of the most, if not the top, popular anime/manga running rampant around the globe, Naruto.

I can remember when I first heard about Naruto. I was a GM for an on-line role-playing game. Me and a fellow GM were discussing good manga and he mentioned Naruto to me. I must say, based on his description, I was not impressed. In fact, I fondly recall bashing it and saying “wow, Japan made a manga about ninjas?, what a surprise.” But maybe about two years ago, some time after my great insight, I began watching the Naruto anime. I was surprised to find out that I was wrong about Naruto, in fact I felt very wrong. How could I have not given this story a fair chance I wondered. I sat and watched every episode to catch up with the rest of the fans. I was hooked. I would watch eight episodes day of Naruto just because I heard that in the newer episodes, everyone had gotten older and I thought that was cool. Little did I know on my way to that “coolness”, I would come upon one of the worst mistakes a writer could make under any circumstances.

It all started when that bitch ass nigga Sasuke decided to run away from the village like a pussy so he could learn from that drag queen Orochimaru, at least that’s what I think that child molesters name is. I was amped because it was their first mission alone and I knew it was gonna be action packed. I was not disappointed in the least. To be honest, that whole little storyline was awesome, they broke down into one on one matches so they could continue the chase, My favorite character in the whole series, Rock Lee showed up outta nowhere to help Naruto, Naruto had a climatic battle with gay Sasuke, just awesome. But two events more awesome then what I mentioned took place during that story arch. Another two characters I love, Neji and Chouji, had died. It was perfect. While they were chasing the guys that ran off with Sasuke, Chouji, then Neji had stayed back and fought one on one with two of Orochimaru’s freaks respectively, and died, killing their opponents before they died themselves. As I said, it was perfect. It tugged at my heart strings. All I could say was damn and shake my head. Two beloved Naruto characters went out in a blaze of glory, their full potential never realized, for the team. Now that’s great writing, I thought. I honestly didn’t think Masashi Kishimoto had it in him. Come to find out, he didn’t.

Episode 135 in season 6 was by far one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. In that turd of an episode I found out that Chouji and Neji were in fact still breathing even after their awesome and meaningful “death” scenes. Let me learn you Naruto lovin yokels something. There are multiple great fantasy stories out there, but the best have killed off characters that people loved. Masashi Kishimoto in typical “I’m to scared to break from the mold” Japanese fashion, had an opportunity to do so as well, but he either is to stupid or to cowardly to have done it. That Hokage dude doesn’t count by the way because the people in the story might have loved him, but he was no one’s favorite character. In the manga that dude with the brass knuckle knives has died already, but no one liked him either. Yeah, that’s right, if you haven’t read ahead past the anime yet, I just ruined something for you. HAHAHA, good! Naruto sucks balls, and not in a good way!

After the great disappointment of episode 135, I still watched Naruto in hopes that it would redeem itself somehow. Man was I mistaken. The filler drivel that followed was gut wrenchingly craptacular. The best things that came out of that heap of biological hospital waste was any episode that the two best characters in the whole series, Guy and Rock Lee were in. By the time I reached Naruto Shippuden, I was mentally exhausted and just watching the anime out of habit. Hope filled me though as I realized I had reached that point. “Finally!” I said, “their older now, so it’s gonna get better!”. It should be criminal how quickly that hope was dashed upon jagged rocks. Come to find out that my two favorite characters in the anime, Rock Lee and Neji, sucked. As a matter of fact, if you weren’t Gaysuke (haha), you automatically sucked. I’m not saying the cool characters stopped being cool, I’m saying they became obsolete as fighters in the series, forever delegated to fighting the lamer and or weaker enemies. All that supposed potential they had lost due to bad writing. And don’t be foolish enough to think it’s any better in the manga. There worthlessness is even more apparent. (I would spoil it for you, but I’ll let it slide).

In closing, Naruto sucks balls… wait I said that already. Hmm… what other colorful way can I bad mouth this crap of a series? Ah! Naruto sticks fingers up man pee-holes! Yeah, that’s a good one. Watching or reading this series is most likely equivalent to how that feels. There are so many other superior manga/ animes out there for people to be hung up on this one. Please, expand your options people.

Darkmane is a new author for Japan Man. His knowledge of anime, manga, and video games is unmatched. Stay tuned for more of his posts, subscribe to the Japan Man feed, comment, stumble it, and stop liking Sasuke because he is emo.