The End of Naruto

[Grey Star]

I watched the original Naruto up until the end of the Bridge Builder Arc and had to deal with stuff. And I remember it being a gritty story about pain and loss dealing with being orphaned and social issues and secrecy and such. That and the fights were fantastical but followed real world logic in the majority of cases, mostly dealing with why a certain personality would use a certain attack or make a certain mistake or such. But I've heard towards the end the series lost it's realism for hammy "power of friendship" and such and I was wondering, is that the case?

 

[Raditzthehairball]

The ending was terrible for me. The main villain keep changing and everyone kept on talking. It's annoying because people keep changing sides and changing their mind... like A LOT! ... I only liked Naruto from the start up until the Akatsuki all died. After that it's mostly bland for me.

 

[JamesYTP]

In parts it does yeah, particularly when it relates to Naruto and Sasuke's arc it get's rather "power of friendship"-ish. After the 5 Kage Summit arc Naruto's character arc ends up going in a far more fanciful direction than you might be used to seeing, Sasuke's does too in the VERY end. The biggest problem by far is it's pacing though, the final arc was SLOOOOOOOW maaaaaaan. Toward the end in the final arc the fights do kind of end up devolving into a DBZ-ish power scale contest, but that is only the very end. Now, that isn't to say it's ALL bad, from a world and mythos building standpoint it really only improves and any fight throughout Shippuden that Naruto himself isn't involved in (which is actually surprisingly a lot) still maintains the cerebral edge that the first series had. Any parts that didn't involve Naruto and Sasuke maintained a lot of the same thematic elements and even some new ones as it got larger in scale that I found rather compelling at least and had some pretty interesting twists.

 

[LoopyPanda]

You could probably skip everything and just go to the last chapter(s) of the manga where everyone are parents/adults and had kids so you could see who won the shipping and arguably not miss too much from skimming the last few arcs by reading wiki synopses. Saves more time. I'm not very reliable though, I watch Shippuden whenever it's on, and I'm lost literally every episode. XD

Part 1's mostly really great to watch (but this may also be partially biased via Nostalgia goggles), then it snowballs off a cliff some point after Part 2 around the middle-ish. Can't say how the manga plays out. I skipped everything just to see what everyone was blabbering about for the last chapter.

 

[ShineCero]

Just finished reading the manga of Naruto, so I have some thoughts on it. This will relate to the main topic at hand in regard to the “ending”.

Do note I did not watch the animated version in its entirely. I went to the series with a fresh outlook since I hardly remember much from it. In short, I’ll be basing my opinion entirely on the story of the manga proper, while emphasizing SOME aspects from the animated version, in how they adapt certain battles.

With that said, I thought it was an amazing read. Naruto has a great cast of characters; the premise was simple, yes, but strong enough to hold its own for its entire duration. At first, the theme presented itself that “hard work beats natural talent”, but that isn’t the theme. The actual theme of Naruto is that love, friendship, and the connections you make will grant you happiness, courage, and power (I give Naruto 3/5; only thing that felt lacking is that I wish there were more missions for Naruto to explore just prior to the War Arc to flesh characters out and give further insight on the Danzo affairs after his apparent death).

Each antagonist was proposed to showcase a foil to Naruto. Based on a similar situation, they were left in a place they had no one to vent and stricken with loneliness and despair, leading to their path of destruction. You see this with Gaara, Sasuke, Nagato, Obito, Madara and even Kaguya.

And I think Kaguya was the ultimate testament of “love” for someone like Naruto.

Each antagonist stray off the path because their “love” was replaced with pain and overwhelming hatred for others, and in turn, became sway in their own emotions and manipulated. It’s why the best moments of Madara during the War Arc is where he scolds Obito for being a fool. “I used your hatred, manipulate you for my own means, and once you fulfilled that, you are no longer useful”.

And then it turns out Madara was also manipulated by his own hatred to bring about the birth of Kaguya.

And because she is a “mother”, to Naruto, mothers are supposed to be the ones that care, comfort and love for their children. Yet, Kaguya was the representation of “hate”; it was no mother’s love, just cold and calculating despair and no heart. A fitting finale antagonist for Naruto. It wasn’t the case of main villain kept changing but rather, Kaguya was the true antagonist, and like Obitio, Madara was nothing more than a tool to bring her return.

I never felt that the War Arc was slow; it’s possible that since I’m binge reading all at once, the pacing issues wasn’t that apparent. Perhaps in the animated it was a drag, but it is to be expected.

I never understood the whole “realism” aspects. These are ninjas that can shoot fireballs, magical eyeballs, gigantic demons, talking toads and snakes running around. Any sort of realism was gone the moment Naruto performed the Art of Doppelgangers lol.