Looks like we already had several threads for episodes or doujins, even some threads for the Naruto films, but we didn't have a thread for the television series as a whole.[placeholder for the future in case I or somebody else decides to put a basic summary of the plot here]I was really into Naruto at two different points in time.First, when I first got into the series when it was already a good 50 episodes in. I had a great time watching a huge chunk of episodes. I continued to be interested in the original Naruto series up to the point where... do I even need to put spoilers? Oh well, better do it anyway...The big Naruto vs. Sasuke fight. Where both of them go balls out with their transformations. I'm pretty sure this is the only time they fight in the original series, because Shippuuden starts with Naruto STILL looking for Sasuke.Shortly after that I started to lose interest with all the filler, then the show just got entirely too ridiculous with the filler. I think the entire last half of the original series is all filler or something? I dunno, didn't watch it.Then Shippuuden started up and I thought "Okay rad, back on track with the story. Let's check it out". And it was great for a while, some really cool stuff happened. But then after a while even the major story battles were just.... boring to me. So I stopped watching it again.I dunno, I might start watching it again at some point. But now that dattebayo stopped subbing it, it's probably a pain in the ass to find a solid sub group (fucking One Piece syndrome) Speaking of One Piece. I still watch that every few months, and regularly keep up with Bleach. So not sure why I lost interest in Naruto.I guess the latest Naruto filler arc ended a couple of months ago. Last night, I started watching some of the newest episodes on Hulu (out of order) and decided I'd go back to the very first episode after the filler ends. Which it looked like was halfway through an episode (slightly irritating -.-, but whatever), with Deidara and Tobi beginning their attack against the Three-Tails.Anyway, reason I'm posting is I just felt like getting this off my chest, and that's my frustration with Kishimoto's decision to drag this story out for far too long and in much too much a retarded direction.When the series began, we were clearly told that child prodigies were exceedingly rare. We were given every impression that the only children in Konohagakure who might possibly rise to the level of Chuunin in under a year after Naruto's adventures began were: (1) Neji, who along with his group was one year older than the other kids; and (2) Sasuke, the sole survivor of the Uchiha clan. Sasuke was portrayed (quite clearly) as being a chibi runt of his family but, being as his family was insanely awesome, it automatically made him a cut above the rest. Add to this that the boy did have a lot of drive and ambition of his own, and it's easy to see why Kakashi was able to believe that a mere adolescent could become a mid-rank ninja so soon.The Chuunin Exam story arc did a good job of pitting our kids against other kids of roughly the same skill level as their own. This way, when our favorites lost, we didn't have to feel too bad -- they're not all prodigies, and they're fighting foes of roughly equal skill level. And when our favorites won, then likewise we didn't have to worry: because we knew that it wasn't a gross stretch of the imagination for a 10-year old to beat another 10-year old in battle. If Naruto defeated Gaara, we didn't say "OMFG that's bullshit no effing way." Both boys were the same age. Both had similar powers. It was a fair fight.When Naruto proved incapable of fighting efficiently against either Kabuto or Orochimaru -- nay, when the combined strength of Jiraiya and Tsunade was required to fend off Orochimaru -- the series was still playing out logically. Naruto wasn't a match for Shizune, Kabuto, or the Sannin. He could maybe get one cool hit off (and did), but if it had been a 1-on-1 fight to the death, he would have been dead no matter who you picked out of that lot to be his opponent. It made sense. THE STORY MADE SENSE.Fast forward to what I've seen in the last year.Kakashi, age 10 (and looks like he's a chibi little 8 year old, wtf), is already a jounin? And this is without the Sharingan? WTF.Even more ridiculous than this, he's still in the same squad as two other genin? And they're still so new to one another that they haven't even bonded yet!? (See the trio's dialogue. It's clear that they've been a team for much less than a year. The way they interact is reminiscent of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura during the Chuunin Exam story arc.)WTF: the 4th Hokage can teleport across hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye!?WTF: the 4th Hokage can defeat 50 chuunin-or-higher ninjas single-handedly without even using a shadow clone technique?WTF: half of a boy's body is crushed beneath a boulder and he doesn't die within 10 seconds?WTF: a little 10 year old genin girl can do medical ninjutsu which is on par with teenage (chuunin) Sakura's? And she's doing this in the era when Tsunade, a jounin and legendary Sannin, has only just begun to rewrite the book on medical ninjutsu?WTF: how come all of the following ninjas are now indestructible in battle?KibaHinataShinoNarutoSakuraSaiYamatoKakashiNejiTen-TenRock LeeChoujiInoShikamaruIt's just too much, folks. It's just too much. You can't have this many ninjas who are always taking on the biggest and the baddest of adversaries and not have any of them die. It's just insane. Hell, I'm not even asking that you kill one of 'em if they get into fights of this caliber: I'm asking that you kill most of them!Not because I'm bloody. Not because I'm hateful. But because I want to watch a somewhat believable fantasy ninja show instead of this "I pull more shit out of my ass than Teddy Ruxpin and the Care Bears combined" farse that Naruto has become.When the show began, I remember that they made a big deal out of Zabuza. I never much cared for him, but they made a big deal out of him. Kakashi genuinely struggled against him. Now? It seems laughable to even suggest that an adversary like Zabuza could possibly pose a threat to Kakashi. Not because Kakashi's grown in the last three years. He was already this powerful, according to what we're seeing now. Fuck, we're being told that when he was a little boy he was already powerful enough to take on somebody of Zabuza's caliber.That's why I'm frustrated. The franchise has gone on for some damn long that Kishimoto is retconning all of the older seasons and creating a franchise full of superheroes. And it's boring as hell.Yeah, that sounds pretty ridiculous. I'm a fan of powerful characters and all, but it kind of loses it's effect when everyone is super powerful. Take Naruto himself for example, I believe it's alright for him to be a powerful character given that he's got the whole Nine-Tails thing going on. And of course any enemy he fights has to be really powerful too, certainly powerful enough that they don't simply get destroyed the moment the Nine-Tails is released.But these other characters? Fucking Hinata? Really? I mean she's a cool character, don't get me wrong. And she's pretty cute too. But you're saying she's all powerful now? And I guess I even started to feel some of this when Sakura was fighting against an Akatsuki member? Pretty far out there.Guess I shouldn't check it out, lol.Officially, they're not. In practice, they are. That's the thing.These are the sorts of things which happen:- the supporting characters have each defeated countless nameless juunin in 1-on-1 or 1-on-many fights. It cheapens the whole concept of a ninja ranking system. Are we really to believe that the Leaf Village is in danger and yet their children are solid matches for other villages' 30 year olds? Give me a break. -_-; If Konoha is that strong, no one would bother to attack.- Konoha's juunin always have memorable abilities and are portrayed as being "really frickin' awesome" but the other villages juunins don't do anything worthy of note. They honestly look and behave like 30-year old genins. It's lopsided. It's bad writing.- they took Shikamaru's strategic brilliance from Season 2 (cool!) and they took it way too far. You're now supposed to believe that he's like Pok?on's Alakazam: a creature with an improbably high IQ in excess of 200 and an impossible ability to predict the course of events by simple observations. That latter feat, while theoretically possible, would require near omniscience, man. -_-;- with characters like Sai, Danzou, and Sasuke's teammates, Kishimoto has resorted to the old strategy of making characters who should supposedly place Naruto in jeopardy and yet whom Naruto always rises to the occasion to outperform. It's ridiculous. We're supposed to believe that this kid was able to be defeated (in a manner of speaking) by his teachers Kakashi and Jiraiya, and then we see villains who are supposed to be every bit as talented as they are (e.g. Danzou) and yet Naruto is capable of handling them? W-T-F.I agree that the series has become extremely lopsided. I have the same problem with Naruto and the kids being able to defeat ninja that should be of a much higher caliber then them. The only place where I really disagree with you is your assessment of Kakashi as a child and with your feeling of the 4th being overpowered. Kakashi hardly ever uses his sharingan unless against truely powerful opponents and he still seems to be better than them, so I see have no roblem with him being a childhood Jounin. Kakashi is constantly considered as a replacement Hokage should the current one fail. The 4th is a Hokage, the most powerful Shinobi in one of the more powerful ninja villages. His ability to defeat to defeat 50+ ninja isn't a stretch in my mind. However, I do agree that teleportation should be beyond the limits of a ninja. And in Shippuden, I think the villains abilities are all rediculous. Furthermore, they are poorly explained. The show stops being an anime about ninja and one about monsters or something. I'd probably have stopped watching Naruto if I hadn't invested so much into it already.I seem to like it though.........I still like it, but it seems like ninja skills have been disregarded for monster abilities. One guy has mouths in his hands. That isn't ninja, human or anything else for that matter.Regarding monsters: Exactly, Timebox. The original premise for Naruto was already a stretch by conventional ninja standards, but it was a playfully acceptable one. "What if ninja abilities were really as powerful as in legends?" People speak of real-life ninjas doing things like "appearing out of nowhere behind you" and Naruto took it to a level reminiscent of Batman, with humans literally coming and going undetected regardless of the place or the time. Naruto took concepts like ninjas manipulating fire (e.g. firecrackers, torches, lighting) and said, "What if they could literally manipulate fire and shadows?" And so we see things like Shikamaru's shadow jutsus and Sasuke's fire jutsus. These were already superhuman, but they weren't "monstrous," per se. They were much more akin to superpowers in the hands of highly-trained mortals.Then you fast forward a bit to Orochimaru. Here's a guy who really pushes the limit of the believability of the franchise, but he's still not beyond belief. One can imagine transferring his soul/brain/pick your choice from one body to another. Or, at a lesser extreme, one can imagine grafting foreign organs and body parts into one's own (e.g. arms, legs, faces) in an attempt to cheat death.But I'd say that by the time we reach Kisame (way back before we've even met Tsunade), we're already leaving the world of superpowerful humans behind us and embarking into a new world of monster-humans (or perhaps even bonafide monsters in some instances) who compete with our human heroes.Else: I haven't watched Naruto now in almost a year and don't have any desire to start back up. The franchise reminds me in so many ways of Star Wars. You have a guy (Kishimoto for Naruto, Lucas for Star Wars) who has some shitty ideas which predate his masterpiece. Some of them even show up in the earliest drafts of his masterpiece. But then he publishes the final draft of his masterpiece saga and it takes the world by surprise. Suddenly he finds himself in high demand and struggles to deliver. And because he's not really up to snuff, he can't do it. He didn't think that far ahead. His was an accidental success. The Naruto-like ideas which predate Naruto were pretty weak. And the last few years' worth of Naruto manga have likewise been weak. What lies in the middle -- the first few years' worth of manga -- is little more than a miraculous accident. It's one a lot of fans worldwide are grateful for, but it's not something Kishimoto is capable of continuing or reproducing. It was a one-time mega-hit for this guy and he's proven that to us with his lackluster ideas prior to and following the golden years of Naruto.Akatsuki irrelevance: one of the group's saving graces was the longtime fan speculation that they were dudes who were determined to try and make the world a better place and who (for the sake of a cheap plot twist) were portrayed as senselessly cruel villains but who in reality were superheroes whose means were wicked but whose ends were just. To whatever extent that fan speculation ultimately proved true or false, I do not care. What I do care about is that whatever Akatsuki is, it's difficult for them to hold up to older "villains who wanted to save the world" because of how needlessly convoluted their backstories and present-day stories have been. From Watchmen's Ozymandias to Pokemon's Akagi/Cyrus, the last few years have been filled with such characters. It's a really wonderful idea, but it's pretty damn old. I mean, ffs, even Magic Knight Rayearth played this card. (That's early 1990s manga and anime, folks. Something Kishimoto would have been intimately familiar with.)I dunno. I just really don't like Akatsuki. They became the main focus of the show and that's really too bad. As a result,we lost Orochimaru, we lost Jiraiya, and we may as well have lost Tsunade.The so-called "legendary sannin" became little more than an embarrassing memory to Kishimoto once he created Akatsuki, given what the Sannin's limited powers are and given what Akatsuki's fucking insane powers are.Yeah the Akatsuki were taken to a level far beyond what naruto originally allowed. This is one thing I really don't like about anime. They consistantly get bigger and bigger in the hopes of trying to stay on top. They change the rules of the world they are in. The Sannin were supposed to be spectacular ninja, trained by a legend, and yet two have fallen and one is unnecessary. Naruto is fun to watch, but it is no longer the story they presented, it is an entirely new environment. I like jutsu, and ninja arts. But naruto has lost that to massive armors and bombs made from mouths in hands. The ninja abilities of naruto, are obsolete to this (I can't even discribe what this is) presented to us in Shippuden. They are no longer ninja.