Now, I don’t normally review manga. However, manga are comics too, and I am quite fond of many of them. One of those used to be Naruto. Sure, it had a ton of shonen manga stereotypes. But few manga don’t have those stereotypes and nonetheless, the battles were interesting, and the characters were endearing. Who wasn’t excited to see the fights in the Rescue Sasuke arc? Who wasn’t excited to watch Sakura actually be useful and help kick the snot out of Sasori in the Rescue Gaara arc? Who wasn’t shocked to see Sasuke’s return? It was all good stuff.
But then, after we saw Sasuke again in Part II, everything went downhill. The Kakuzu and Hidan arc was good, but not great, especially since Naruto’s victory over Kakuzu was so ridiculous. Then, everything pretty much sucked. Sasuke randomly annihilated Orochimaru. Sasuke gathers a team of losers, minus Juugo. I think everyone can agree that Karin is a loser. Then, Sasuke defeated Deidara and Itachi (the latter only due to his exhaustion) in a row. Now, Pein just blew up Konohakagure. That’s right. He blew it up. Did I mention that Kishimoto Masashi is systematically killing off all the mentor characters? First, Sandaime. Then, Asuma. Then, Jiraiya. Now, possibly Kakashi.
So yes, this is a manga that has lost what made it great. Instead of focusing on the trials and life-changing adventures of Naruto, it focuses on Sasuke. An obnoxious, angry brat whose only character development is to change who he hates. Yeah. And the jutsu have gone from awesome to unrealistic. Blowing up Konohakagure? Seriously? And don’t forget Sasuke’s ridiculous Kirin technique. And Karin’s “bit me” technique. That just made me cry. Plus, the only major black character is a stereotype. Seriously? Killer Bee is a pretty terrible character.
So, due to all of these things, I have offically stopped reading and watching Naruto. This manga used to be about changing destiny, about hope in the face of hatred and unrealistic odds, and about changing lives. Now what is it about? The anger and bloody tears of Sasuke. I’m sorry, but aside from masochism and self-loathing, Sasuke is emo. Deal with it. Kishimoto has fallen into cliché trap after cliché trap. And there are no signs of him changing his ways. After all, Sasuke is his favorite character. So, I am done with this manga for good. It makes me sad, since Naruto had so much promise. Hence the title of this post.
Plot: 2.5 Art: 8.5 Dialogue: 8.0 Overall: 5.0
