Naruto Shippuden Review

              

               As most Anime goes, this is a story about good and evil. The main reason I enjoy the show/manga, is because the story is the most in depth I have ever come across. Their attention to detail, and hidden Easter eggs is truly remarkable. I started watching this from the very beginning, (the original was just called “Naruto”) and was not very impressed. They seemed to focus way too much on the comedy, rather than the story and the action. Little did I know that it all led to my favorite Anime story of all time. After the story “Naruto” unfolded and led to its climax, it ended with Naruto choosing the side of justice, and Sasuke, (Naruto’s best friend/rival) choosing the road less travelled, not necessarily evil, but most certainly not good.

               Now because this is a review, I won’t bore you with all the details of how it unfolds, especially seeing how there are 500 or more episodes, with probably 300-400 manga chapters that have not even been aired yet. In Naruto Shippuden we’re time skipped I believe 3, maybe 4 years into the future, don’t quote me there. Sasuke has obviously surpassed Naruto in every way, due to his hatred for his brother who killed his parents, and every other living member of his family. I just finished reading manga chapter 697, which was epic because finally after reading 698 chapters they are finally settling their differences in a battle to the death. Now the problem with that statement is that it is painfully predictable how it will unfold, because anyone who follows it at all knows that somehow Naruto will find a way to tug at Sasuke’s heart strings and bring him back to reality.

               It should also be noted that the manga will officially be ending at the end of this year, not sure of the exact date, and I can’t blame them. They made both Naruto and Sasuke incredibly over powered during their tag-team style battle against the original human to possess chakra, a woman by the name of Kaguya, who ate some really big fruit from a forbidden tree, which in turn turned her into a god that ended all the wars in the land. Pretty noble, right? Wrong! Shortly thereafter, it drove her insane and made her want to kill everything and anything in her wake. It took her son, known as the sage of the six paths to seal her away back into that same tree for all eternity. The sage of the six paths went on to use the chakra he inherited from his mother to create all ninshoo, (the powers they use as shinobi, also known as chakra, or jutsu). We later find that The Sage had two sons, which coincidentally ended up like Naruto and Sasuke, one good, and one bad, and that the two are actually descendants of the two brothers, in fact they are reincarnations of them. In order to defeat Kaguya, who is revived by a man named Madara, (my all time favorite anime character now) accidentally, when he intends to use the tree to try to place everyone in a dream state of mind to end all war and sadness, The Sage gives Naruto and Sasuke all of the powers’ that the son’s once held. So as you can see they become extremely over powered to the point that they are now stronger than Kaguya.

               So that is pretty much the gist of Naruto Shippuden, now for my rating. On a scale from 1-10, Naruto Shippuden is a solid 8. I can’t go hire due to the fact that the show has an incredible amount of filler in the form of flashbacks. They have gone as far as to have flashbacks inside of flashbacks. To add more salt to the wound, and possibly a spit in the face in my opinion, season 6 was an entire season of flashbacks from the original Naruto. Don’t get me though, I like a good flashback here or there, when it actually has meaning. The problem is that every episode has at least one flashback, and most of the time, it’s a flashback that we have seen fifteen times prior. Other than that, this is a great show to get into, it has incredible visual prowess, (fans of Sasuke’s older brother Itachi will understand that joke), with an incredibly diverse and rich story. I am looking forward to the climax, even though it means I will have to find something else to pass the time, other than writing these reviews and my short stories.