Manga Review: Naruto

Manga Review: Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto

After 700 chapters and fifteen years, an animated TV series, multiple short movies and video games and piles of merchandise, the popular manga series Naruto has ended.

For those who somehow missed the last fifteen years of hype, the premise goes something like this.  Blond, blue-eyed orphan Naruto Uzumaki is hated and feared by the people of his ninja village, Konohagakure.  This is because (unknown to him) he is the living prison of a monster known as the Nine-Tailed Beast.  Naruto has become a prankster and class clown, but in the first chapter learns a bit about his true heritage and shows potential to become a great ninja, perhaps even one of  the village leaders called “Hokage.”

Shortly thereafter, the story introduces Sasuke Uchiha, also an orphan, but who has gone all broody and vengeful about it; and Sakura Haruno, an intelligent if then-shallow girl who Naruto likes, but only fancies bad boy Sasuke.  They become a team under the laid-back instructor Kakashi, and slowly become best friends.  More young ninja are introduced, and eventually an overall plotline begins to develop.

The first part of the manga ends with snake-themed villain Orochimaru sending his minions to kidnap Sasuke.  But when the rest of the ninja rescue him, Sasuke decides to go to Orochimaru voluntarily, as he believes the “dark side” techniques will allow him to both surpass his best friend/arch-rival Naruto and gain vengeance for his murdered clan.

The latter part of the manga picks up a few years later, as Naruto and the other Konohagakure ninja have learned new techniques and ninja powers, and must now use them to deal with the murderous mercenaries known as the Akatsuki.  At much the same time, Sasuke, having learned all he can from Orochimaru, severs his ties with the villain–permanently, he thinks–and sets off on his own revenge trip.

What follows is a series of reveals of “man behind the man” as the real powers behind the misery and hatred of the world are slowly discovered.  At the same time, the true nature of the Tailed Beasts is revealed bit by bit.  This culminates in the Ninja World War, and Naruto and Sasuke must confront their fates, whether that means bringing an end to war, or killing each other to start the next cycle of violence.

Naruto ran in Weekly Shounen Jump in Japan, and shows many of the positives as well as some of the weaknesses of that magazine’s “friendship, struggle, victory” mission statement.  Naruto’s a pretty likable main character who has substantial character development while staying true to his roots.  There are a lot of interesting characters, a bunch of exciting combat scenes, and the ending is actually pretty satisfying.

Sasuke is less loved by many fans because he often takes over the story for weeks at a time, and his Uchiha clan kept becoming more and more central to the plotline.  This took focus away from more interesting/likable characters.

And then there’s Sakura.  It’s not so much that Kishimoto doesn’t have awesome female characters, as that he keeps forgetting to let them actually show off their awesomeness.   Sakura’s role on her initial team was to be the smart one, but she never got involved in fights where book learning was the key to victory.  She was left out of the “rescue Sasuke” arc as a male “smart guy” was the leader of the retrieval team and he didn’t need another brainy person (and he’s kind of sexist.)

After the time skip, Sakura has new medical ninja skills, and gets one good fight before being sidelined while Naruto and Sasuke got repeated power-ups.  When she did appear, her still-lingering affection for Sasuke was a more relevant part of her character arc than her smarts or combat prowess.  (It was hinted she was having important adventures off-panel, but that’s a fan fiction thing.)

There was also more than one instance where Kishimoto introduced a female character who should be awesome given her background, but in her only actual combat gets curbstomped to show off how powerful/skilled a villain is.  (Slightly redeemed by having one female character finally, finally turn out to be just as powerful and important as advertised.)

And as with many other long-runners, the final story arc kind of drags, with it taking nearly two years real time to cover maybe forty-eight hours in-story.  Lots of good bits in there, though, with even characters who’ve been dead for years getting to show up and do something cool.

Still, it’s good of its kind, and future kids should be able to enjoy it as much as many of the current ones did.