Sakura used traps, basic academy taijutsu, and book knowledge to survive as a ninja.
Ino did the same thing, but she focused more on poisons and her family's mind-switch jutsu, which was good for reconnaissance.
Rock Lee only used taijutsu, but he is still knowledgeable about how being a ninja works and strives to prove that he can be a ninja with taijutsu only.
Kisame used to work on a team with intel division as their protector and killed everyone to make sure that it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
Hashirama and Madara were one of the few people who weren't very ninja like because they were given such haxxed abilities and did not have the ninja system during their youth.

that's hardly enough to make it a legit ninja show
there are plenty of other animes that show ninjas in a much more realstic/stereotypical light
I just don't understand why people like its "ninja aspects" of part 1 when there's almost none of it to begin with, over the epic/cool aspects of part 2......better fights, jutsu, characters, locations, art style, and story imo
part 2 is more based off off of/references japanese mythology than part 1 also, which is more interesting than exaggerated ninja
This, is infinitely more awesome than
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this imo
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Lets see, were people regularly displaying power that could casually bust villages on a daily basis? I didn't think so. We have DBZ for that.
Evryone was ninja like except naruto until the invasion of pain arc. After that, people started getting too OP and fight turned into who could outdo the other in power.