ANIME         MARK

I'm going to take a look at another unstoppable  shonen steamroller, known as Naruto. A long running fan favourite since the early 2000's (2002-2007), Naruto is a story about three young ninjas and their journey through training and various missions. Like many Shonen Jump anime, Naruto has a loyal fan base and an equally loyal anti-fan base too. In short, Naruto is action filled but slightly repetitive and quite long (220 episodes). I have watched all episodes and I think i've enough substance to draw a bit of a conclusion.

The show has the typical shonen protagonist here in the form of Naruto Uzumaki . Although he matures as he grows up and becomes slightly more serious, at his core he remains the same. The theme of friendship, forgiveness and never-give-up attitudes are ever present in shonen anime, and Naruto is no different. Naruto himself follows this and can even be a bit hotheaded at times, but for the most part he relies on emotional and physical support by his friends.

Following the story of battling ninja using a special combination of Jutsu (Ninjutsu, Genjutsu and Taijutsu), there is a wide array of battle styles and skills/techniques. This will always keep you entertained and the anime even explains how each of the three Jutsu work and what they are about. For the most part, the story, on the more personal level, is a story of growing up. Struggles, victories and emotion are ever present towards their growth toward maturity. But where the emotional punches are thrown, are during the character developing back stories (which there are many).