NARUTO: SHIPPUUDEN
STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
500
RELEASE
March 23, 2017
LENGTH
23 min
DESCRIPTION
Naruto: Shippuuden is the continuation of the original animated TV series Naruto. The story revolves around an older and slightly more matured Uzumaki Naruto and his quest to save his friend Uchiha Sasuke from the grips of the snake-like Shinobi, Orochimaru. After 2 and a half years Naruto finally returns to his village of Konoha, and sets about putting his ambitions to work, though it will not be easy, as he has amassed a few (more dangerous) enemies, in the likes of the shinobi organization; Akatsuki.
(Source: Anime News Network)
CAST
Kakashi Hatake
Mutsumi Tamura
Naruto Uzumaki
Junko Takeuchi
Sasuke Uchiha
Noriaki Sugiyama
Sakura Haruno
Chie Nakamura
Itachi Uchiha
Hideo Ishikawa
Shikamaru Nara
Shoutarou Morikubo
Gaara
Akira Ishida
Jiraiya
Houchuu Ootsuka
Minato Namikaze
Toshiyuki Morikawa
Hinata Hyuuga
Nana Mizuki
Pain
Kenyuu Horiuchi
Rock Lee
Youichi Masukawa
Madara Uchiha
Naoya Uchida
Neji Hyuuga
Kouichi Toochika
Might Guy
Masashi Ebara
Tsunade Senju
Masako Katsuki
Tobi
Wataru Takagi
Orochimaru
Kujira
Temari
Romi Park
Deidara
Katsuhiko Kawamoto
Zabuza Momochi
Unshou Ishizuka
Kurama
Tesshou Genda
Sasori
Takahiro Sakurai
Konan
Atsuko Tanaka
Kushina Uzumaki
Emi Shinohara
EPISODES
Dubbed
RELATED TO NARUTO: SHIPPUUDEN
REVIEWS
DaDerpBear
55/100There are spoilers and swearing in this review, please be warned. I go over the five mains and overall opinion.Continue on AniListWARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW, AND A LOT OF ME SWEARING AT PIERROT.
Welcome to my review of Naruto Shippuden. Studio Pierrot seems to love to take the piss a lot. Oh God, here we go.Story: 6.5
The story within Shippuden was great at first, we saw how Naruto struggled after his training with Akatsuki running after him, and how they screwed over other ninjas. We saw some great battles, and we got to see Naruto grow from that overly confident shouting child to someone more serious. We saw Pain in all of his glory, and the great story that unfolded.!Then the war happened, and if I'm going to be honest, the story started acting like an alcoholic. It swayed and swayed, and sometimes completely crashed, but eve ry once in awhile, it wou'ld regain its posture to only go back to puking. It seems that Kishimoto as many people said ran out of interesting ideas. There are some squeezed into the story, awkwardly standing in place with all this mediocre writing, like when Guy faced off against Madara. OH NO, WE CAN'T HAVE A SUPPORTING CHARACTER KILL THE MAIN BAD GUY, THAT'S STUPID, WE NEED NARUTO TO ASSUME AN EVEN GREATER FORM AND DRAG THE STORY OUT EVEN FURTHER THAN IT'S SUPPOSED TO GO. Most of the arcs before the war are great or good, watch them.Visuals: 5
I think this is one of the main reasons why Pierrot is taking the piss. Now I know that there is a budget when you make an anime, and you don't want to spend past the assigned budget. BUT COULD AT LEAST SET A STANDARD STYLE OF ANIMATION YOU CAN GO BACK TO AFTER THE GREAT ANIMATION PLEASE. The animation in this show is varied so much, one arc could look like total turds, and then the next could be all glittery and nice. One of the best animated arcs was the Summit Arc, but some of the worst animation I've ever seen came from Pain V Kyuubi Naruto. It was all over the place, and some of it looked like children colored it. I have also noticed a lack of somewhat decent shading, and characters not moving at all for two minutes because one of the animators was a lazy pile of crap who didn't care. They sometimes use basic effects, they reuse flashbacks constantly, and when good animation does happen, you barely even notice since you stopped caring a while ago.Sound: 7.5
The voice actors for Shippuden are fine, I like them all. The problem I have is the music. The original Naruto had some pretty great tracks, and I would JAM to them. Shippuden reuses music so much to the point where I want to face desk until I'm mortally wounded. IS SOMETHING SUSPENSEFUL HAPPENING? PLAY THE "SUSPENSEFUL SHIT IS HAPPENING" TRACK FOR THE SEVEN HUNDREDTH TIME. The music is also quite simple and unmemorable at times, they are like forced down Lima beans. A lot of the opening and ending tracks are great, but there is one that is so bad. I am talking about Totsugeki Rock. Just, why? Why would you choose this song Pierrot?Characters: 5.5
Honestly, everyone hates Sakura. SHE IS SO FUCKING USELESS. "Naruto, I love you." FUCK OFF SAKURA AND DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. Sasuke is turned into a terrible character. "Even though my brother saved the village and risked his life and spared mine, my hormones will command me to destroy Konoha and join Akatsuki! I'm so smart!" GGGAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH I liked Jiraiya a lot, and the arc where Jiraiya dies will be one of my favorite arcs ever in Shippuden. I also liked Asuma, but he died, so shit. I also like the character of Shikamaru, but the war ruins his character for me. Gaara is a nice character, but he was only really developed in the original Naruto. Guy, now Guy, lemme tell ya, Guy is one of my favorite characters. I liked the story of his past, and GOD DAMN THAT FIGHT AGAINST MADARA.
Naruto himself is greatly developed, but you see Kishimoto make him act stupid at times, which is frustrating. A FUCKING REVERSE HAREM, YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME KISHIMOTO, I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS MAN.Enjoyment: 3
Any enjoyment you had in watching this series will be bitch slapped away by filler. I want to see a CANON episode, but Pierrot is like, "Enjoy this mediocre piece of shit filler episode!" Madara just opened the Eternal Tsukiyomi, and we get SEVENTEEN WEEKS OF FUCKING FILLER. THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE DROPPED THIS SHOW, AND WHY I COULD EVEN GIVE LESS OF A SHIT ANYMORE. PIERROT IS TAKING THE PISS SO HARD. SO HARD. NO, I DON'T WANT TO WATCH SASUKE BE A PART OF THE FUCKING LEAF POLICE FORCE YOU PILES OF DONKEY SHIT. ANIMATE CANON EPISODES, THE MANGA HAS FUCKING ENDED.Overall: 5.5
Naruto Shippuden is a show that was once good that was destroyed by uncreative writing, boring and unlikeable character s, constant streams of mediocre filler, overused music tracks, varying changes in animation and art, and peeks of good content slapped away by cliche and stupid writing by Kishimoto who just wanted to end the series. I do highly recommend watching up to the Summit Arc, and then switching over to the manga so you can end it faster. Also, watch Guy V Madara!, only thing you should watch during the war, even if cliche writing tarnished it a little.LunaKoi
48/100The manga adaptation of a generation finally (emphasis: finally) comes to a close.Continue on AniListAh, Naruto. The anime adaptation of Masashi Kishimoto's long running shounen manga finally ends (though on the backend of some light novel adaptations and only a couple of weeks before the anime original Boruto anime starts, but I digress.) Busting into the 2000s alongside One Piece and Bleach as one of the Big 3, Naruto has been a phenomenon in the anime industry as one of the best selling manga of all time, and one of the exceptionally long running shows in the mainstream, ending at a total of 720 episodes.
Now, it's hard to talk about Naruto critically without offending anyone. On one hand you have it's diehard fans who cannot bear to fault it for anything, and on the other hand you might have some naysayers who will claim that it has no merit whatsoever. I may be conveniently generalizing but I think there is certainly some dissonance between people who love it and people who think it's just absolute trash. I personally did not grow up with it like I did Dragon Ball for example, so there is no nostalgia factor for me. I started watching it when I was 18, so I can't look at it and feel a magic that I felt from when I was younger, however I do understand the sentiment. Discovering a massive, bulky fictional universe with an enormous amount of characters is one of the most exciting things for a kid, and if Naruto has anything it's a bountiful amount of characters and worldbuilding, which does stir up the "kid" in me since I love both of those things. However I can understand the other side who can't ignore a lot of Naruto's flaws.
Specifically starting with the story of Naruto Shippuden, since it's like an anime branding sequel to Naruto (like how Z was to the original Dragon Ball), if you ignore the ridiculous amount of filler between the last arc in the original Naruto anime (Sasuke Retrieval) and the beginning of Shippuden, it started out bombastically. The biggest thing I will give Naruto Shippuden credit for is that, aside from filler, episodes 1-175 were incredibly well-paced and about as tightly adapted as you could possibly make that portion of the series. It is by far the best part of the anime and it has most of it's best moments within this timeframe. I don't really think any of it's contemporaries have matched the quality of that stretch either.
Now from the start of the Five Kage Summit (sigh) and onwards, Naruto Shippuden really goes through a 250 episode stretch of abhorrent mediocrity, if it wasn't filler at the time. Although Five Kage Summit has some good moments, it's when it gets to The Fourth Shinobi World War Arc where the rest of the show falls flat. This arc is laughably bad for many reasons, but on a fundamental level this arc was already awfully drawn out in the manga. You couple that with the anime studio grasping for straws to draw things out either with excessive monologuing or flashbacks so they could schedule their semi-decent key animators to work on cuts that fans actually cared about or just outright throwing fillers in the middle of nowhere. There is also the fact that their A-team who made the beginning of Shippuden so great were busy working on Naruto: The Last and Boruto: Naruto the Movie for most of the duration of this story arc in the anime (which are both very well animated movies by the way if you haven't watched them yet). I could go on and on about how awful this arc is, about how a "Naruto Kai" couldn't even redeem it, or how it makes the entirety of the Naruto anime unrecommendable to someone who hasn't started it, but I will leave it at that.
For characters, there's not much going on here. I will say that the anime is better than the manga at executing emotional moments between characters, which is the real strength of Naruto's characterizations. Naruto definitely has a plethora of characters, and they definitely go through "development", as in a lot of things happen that don't happen to the average 13-26 episode anime character. You have like a baker's dozen or so of characters who go through hundreds and hundreds of episodes full of development. That is a double edged sword, on one hand they are defined well. You could leave Naruto, pick it up a year or two later and you don't really need to explore their character again (if not for a lack of caring). That being said this extensive amount of development will turn a lot of people away, since you have this "quality vs. quantity" factor, a lot of people will say that you should be able to execute worthwhile character writing in a much shorter amount of time, and that is definitely a fair argument. If you strip the well done emotional execution of particular moments throughout the series, and put the characters on paper, there's not much going for me.
On a thematic level, Naruto is back and forth on a lot of things. It definitely lacks subtlety for it's messages, since its a long running manga it has the liberty of spelling everything out for you. Kishimoto is definitely a sentimental writer, who has a lot of ideals about politics and family, etc. There are questionable decisions however. For example, he sets up Naruto as an underdog character. He is bullied and his whole town is against him as a child because he has the fox demon who ravaged the village when he was born sealed inside him. You fast forward to the ending of Shippuden and he is practically a Messianic figure. You have an underdog character who was born with the talent for greatness, it defeats the whole purpose of an underdog story. How are people who identify as an underdog supposed to identify with the Messianic Naruto? Not for a lack of trying, the anime does nail thematic execution, albeit rarely. Probably my favorite moment in particular was the backstory explaining how Naruto was born. I don't really think you can claim that Naruto is without merit if you don't at least get to this part of the story, because it's beautiful and well done.
Artstyle, I wouldn't say it's anything special. The characters are definitely defined by design, and starting with Shippuden the animation character designs are appealing and consistent, especially for the challenge that is long running anime. This is something Pierrot has excelled at in comparison to its biggest competitor, Toei Animation. Though this crashes again during the last arc, up until the last 20 episodes or so. Naruto can be misleading when it comes to it's OPs, if you've seen any of them (most famously OP 17 / Silouhette by KANA-BOOM, if you haven't seen it stop reading this and go watch that right now) they are incredibly stylized with beautiful palette choices. If you watch the actual show, the colors are very boring. There are moments in the first part of series that I talked about earlier that does some good things with artstyle, especially scenery. I really love the way fight scenes looked in Amegakure, the directing used the gloomy aesthetic and atmosphere to it's advantage.
Though it might come to the surprise at some, animation is another strong point of Naruto... for the most part. There are definitely some 'meme-betweens' as I like to call them (Sasuke's "I CAN SEE YOU!" or Pain's "My pain is greater than yours!"), but Naruto Shippuden's peaks are surprisingly high quality for a long-running shounen. There is a lot of material for people who are foaming at the teet for sakuga. Again, this quality leaves for the majority for the second half of the show, though there are a handful of incredible fight scenes as well. The Naruto vs. Sasuke fight towards the end of the series is honestly one of the best directed and well animated fight scenes in the history of TV anime.
The biggest merit I have for Naruto Shippuden is definitely the music. There are some absolutely iconic anime OSTs on this series, such as Heaven-Shaking Event, Sengunbanba, Shitsui, to name a few. There are so many though and they are used well for sure. If there's a flaw, in the soundtrack, I'd stretch to say that I wish Yasuharu Takanashi made more music to keep the show fresher, then again not much could redeem the second half.
If you scrolled down just to see my rating, you're probably wondering "isn't it a waste of time to spend hundreds and hundreds of episodes and rate it that low"? That's a good question. I enjoy anime. When I say there is a lot I don't like about Naruto, I enjoy the process of disecting what I don't like about it, though the things I do like are just as much there. The amount of pros and cons are balanced, whenever I see that happen I think "average" or "mediocre". Though there are moments of Naruto Shippuden that I think are good, or great even. It managed to execute several cathartic, gripping scenes. It's just that the "dragged-out-ness", the excessiveness ruins a lot of that.
Though I did enjoy watching it, for all it's faults, I leave it with a
AnjuRatty
96/100A series full of ups and downs and flaws. If you can look beyond those flaws you'll find an experience unlike any otherContinue on AniList
Naruto Shippuden : Review |
Naruto. The series that sold over 220 million manga copies, winning handful of awards along the way. An anime that ranked as one of the most watched series in Japan that got tarnished by a greedy studio and has received tons of internet backlash throughout the years.
Let me start off by saying Naruto is by no means a flawless anime. It's the exact opposite. The series had too many fillers. Sometimes the animation quality was below par and pacing can be painfully slow at times. But please bear with me here. I'm going to tell you why it has been the best experience an anime gave me in my entire life and dig into what made the series popular and also its flaws.
Story - 8
The story of Naruto has been a mixed bag. While it's not bad, it's certainly no Berserk. But what it is, is beautiful (probably not the word that can be often used to describe a shounen anime), but it really is. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to. It starts off where the first part of Naruto ended and the very first scenes gives us a sneak peak of things to come. The series eases you back into the world of Naruto with a slow paced , almost SOL like first few episodes. And the story then on is presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. The story is mainly hampered (not ruined) by fillers and pacing issues which I will discuss below.
Let's start with the filler. The amount of filler in this show is staggering. It counts as 219 total filler episodes which make up 44% of the series as a whole.
The issues that lies within the filler episodes is that they are not allowed to make any significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a huge issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. So mostly what we get is poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself.
However, there are exceptions for this. Some of the filler episodes can be genuinely enjoyable but those are few and far between. The fact that filler can't move the plot along fuels the second big flaw. Which is,Pacing Issues. Aside from what I've said above, even some of the non-filler episodes are very slow paced. This is mainly only an issue at the start of the series. If you're into characters chilling down and wasting a lot of time, this may sit well with you. But even then some of these episodes might be below par for your taste. Once the series kicks it into high gear around 70th episode, it mostly manages to keep that pace up.
Now that we got the flaws out of the way, let's talk positives.
The main strength of the series is its characters, who drive the plot (which we will discuss in detail later). After the first 70 episodes, things begin to get lot more interesting really fast. The world of shinobi gets expanded exponentially, and if you're a fan of deep lore in stories, this will fit right in your wheel house because it begins to explore the roots of the world and its history very deeply.
Another thing that this series does very well is explaining its core concepts to the viewer. The techniques that characters use and how the things in shinobi world works are explained in detail. Also, the concept of Chakra and what a versatile and detailed power system it is compared to other shounen series really stands out.The amount of themes explored in the series are vast. It explores all the basic themes of a typical shounen and as it goes on it delves into themes such as the nature of humans, self sacrifice, discrimination, manipulation, roots of war and peace, difference of perceptions, the line between good and evil, and alienation. It manages to deal with all these themes without abandoning the shounen type feel or becoming pretentious.
Something that the author, Kishimoto, really excels at is setting up events. For example, during the early episodes of Naruto (the prequel to this show), he has already started setting up major events that happened in the last of episodes of Shippuden. In the beginning, we look over these little details and minor events and have no idea that they are going to have such an impact later in the series, and when it all comes together in the end, you feel so satisfied. Most of the times these events and twists will take you by surprise and maybe you'll have fun trying to figure out them before they happen as Kishimoto drops clues for you to pick up throughout the entire series. Same thing applies to the moments that tug at your heartstrings , they feel genuine because how the story builds up to those moments.
Being a battle shounen ,of course there are going to be battles, and this is one area that the series really shines.
As I see it , battles can be broken down into three different segments in this anime , The battle of wits , The battle of ideologies , The physical battle. All three come in union to make some memorable and truly great moments. Each characters ideologies and philosophies gets tested time and time again by their opponents and we can see even the main character himself doubt his ideologies towards the end. When we see someone gets broken inside as well as the outside it's devastating to watch. To put it blatantly, Naruto has the best combat scenes I've ever witnessed in an anime. I have to mention that this style of combat is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto does a fantastic job putting emotions into its battle scenes which are backed up by gorgeous animations (at times, we'll get to that later) and a mesmerizing soundtrack, and with these combined it really sets up fantastic visual storytelling through combat. Kishimoto does an excellent job at setting up the events leading up to the fight to make it feel all the more personal and these battles often comes down to which character outwits the other rather than who can punch harder. This makes characters like Shikamaru Nara who have very little ability make a huge impact in the series.
Variety of the fighting styles is massive, ranging from intimate hand to hand style combats, tactical combats, long range jutsu battles, and most often a mix of all of these!The last arc of the series has been very controversial as the constant change of antagonists has irritated some of the viewers. But in all honesty, all of the antagonists that presented had different motives that drove them to do what they do and distinctively different from each other which made them very enjoyable. That being said, the final part of the war arc was really disappointing as the final villain of the series is the worst character that the series had to offer as the villain had almost no personality and motives were shaky at best. Without spoiling anything all I can say is that decisions taken during the last war arc felt like it was done to unnecessarily prolong the final battle and messed it up with a poorly written villain and bad story decisions. But the final episodes after the War arc manages to reign it all in and give a proper farewell to the series it so richly deserves.
Throughout the series you will witness friends become foes, foes become friends, unlikely alliances formed and broken, that precious character you loved die, revenge plots, plot twists, characters growing up, politics, romance, and the world itself change. It can be flawed at times but it's a full package and Kishimoto always seemed to have the ending and everything planned out from the very beginning.
Characters - 10
Now this is the core of the franchise.
Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each has a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different skill sets. And hats-off to Kishimoto for his brilliant character design as he used a very bright color pallet and made each one very distinctive to make each of them stand out.
No matter which kind of characters you prefer, you're sure to find someone here that you can relate to. What the series really does well is making sure that you'll be attached to the characters emotionally. And you will cheer them on as they try to achieve their goals , watch their philosophies and ideologies gets tested , watch them break or prevail and break down crying at their deaths.
You will get to see how what's happening around the characters change them , mold them. Witnessing how tragedies that's happening around them having an effect on their psyche is one of the strongest points of Naruto Shippuden. It's fun seeing small character interactions from early episodes grow into full blown relationships.Now let's move on to the "Villains"
This series checks all the boxes when it comes to antagonist character archetypes.
Self-Righteous Villain with a God Complex [checked] , Money Hungry Villains [checked] , Religious Psychopaths [checked] , Villain who is after Revenge [checked]. I think I've made my point there. But what makes this villains so enjoyable is that no one is a villain just for the sake for being a villain. The best kind of villains are the ones you can empathize with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. As same as the main characters, the villains too have core motivation driving them. They have their own beliefs, ideologies and they are willing to fight for what they think is right. You might find yourself cheering on the villains more than the "heroes." The morality here is blurred.But coming back to the war arc, its main flaw is the final villain (which I will not spoil here). Compared with the other villainous characters from the series, the final character is very bland and their motivations are not entirely clear or most likely not relatable to any of the viewers. That being said, this character is only in the series for a very small amount of episodes and the others certainly do more than enough to make up for it.
Art and Animation - 7.5
Again we have a mixed bag here.
This show can look stunning when it wants to, and by stunning I meant big budget movie level of quality. But at times the quality can drop way below par.
I think I should specially mention Hiroyuki Yamashita’s work here. He mainly works on battle scenes and this man is a genius when it comes to it. Even though he only worked on a limited number of episodes, his episodes pushes the animation, choreography and stylishness to 11!
Despite this I can't give it a higher score because this show is wildly inconsistent with its animation.And as for character designs, we already talked about how Kishimoto made his characters very distinctive and imaginative and how the bright color pallet fuels this.
Sound - 10
This is an another strong point of the series. Yasuharu Takanashi has made a masterpiece of a soundtrack for this series that manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The emotions that Kishimoto wants to portray make it through to us so well because of this soundtrack. It connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. I would recommend listening to tracks like Samidare (Early Summer Rain) to get a taste of what the soundtrack is like.
Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 10
Naruto Shippuden is more of an experience that needs to be had than just a mere show. It played with our emotions for over a decade and now it has been concluded. The enjoyment of Naruto Shippuden goes beyond just the series itself. This series has a very big community and fanbase that you could interact with. And its lore is so vast that you would never run out of things to discuss about it. Although it has its share of major flaws, this series is a journey that shouldn't be missed if you're fine with the hefty commitment. It's by no means a flawless anime , but it's an anime with highs that more than makes up for it's lows. It reaches for the stars but makes a few tumbles along the way , but the best moments of Naruto are some of the best moments in the medium itself.
And with this, I conclude my review for this series that defined a generation.Sub or Dub ? : Sub is recommended
| Recommendations |
[Naruto] : Yes, the original series. It's essential to watch it before the Shippuden series because it contains a lot of character development and build-up for the Shippuden series.
[Fullmetal Alchemist : Brotherhood ] : This series contains most of the things that made Shippuden great such as good character development, good soundtrack, and excellent world building. This series does it in about 70 episodes which is truly a magnificent achievement. If you like Naruto Shippuden, it's a given that you will like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as well.
[Hunter X Hunter (2011)] : A series that greatly inspired Naruto. Both anime feel very similar in style. If the inconsistencies of Naruto bothered you, you'll find a much more consistent pacing and quality of writing here. Whether the highs of Hunter X Hunter matches up to the highs of Shippuden or FMA Brotherhood is up for debate, but you won't have to sit through any lows like you have to endure with Naruto or Naruto Shippuden.
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SCORE
- (4.05/5)
MORE INFO
Ended inMarch 23, 2017
Main Studio Studio Pierrot
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