Lets share why Naruto was so important to us

[Avani]

Personally, watching Naruto dubbed on Toonami was my first, more mature, anime watching experience. The Zabuza arc was quite 'adult' compared to anything I had watched before and I thought it was the kind of program that belonged on the late night roster rather than primetime (back when Toonami was primetime). I found the characters very intriguing, the action quite exciting, and the villains downright mysterious. I didn't find the girls all that alluring, with the exception of Kurenei and Tsunade, but that wasn't even needed for me to enjoy the program.

Once I upgraded to subbed and eventually the manga, it was the over complicated mysteries of the Akatsuki and their players that re-excited me and gave me a new reason to watch. The action was still amazing but the mysteries were what drove me to keep watching. This was also the reason why I kept up with it till the end. I was quite satisfied with the ending, but was quite disappointed with the final arcs of the story in general. Either way, I'll always remember how the series made me happy to watch and the enjoyment I got from it.

Please share your reasons for watching/ reading the series and gush about the story in general. Thanks for reading as always!

Technically it was neither the first anime I got into nor the first manga. But yeah it was the second ongoing one which I really sat down and watched for a while- at least till I git tired of stupid fillers and I realized it was actually based on a manga and switched to it -partially because I prefer to read and partially because story was way ahead in the manga.

Toonami basically stopped it after introduction of jiraiya but by that time I had gotten curious about the result of the match Gara and followed it online- starting with dub to sub and then to manga...

It's far from being perfect but it's a good manga for the most part..Over all personally I enjoyed the read. A good first manga to take a dip in Japanese culture and values and exciting action sequences and interesting villains and side characters. But those reading it just to have an opinion on it or to fill the vacuum left by some other manga on eternal hiatus or ending too soon are not going to enjoy it much.

 

[narutodrama]

Oh and to just add two more facts i didnt know.

That German TV station "edited" the episodes cause their audiance was 8yrs old + let's just say this, half of the Zabuza fight was cut, it was rather unerving cause i didnt realise that i just though what a weird action scene transition, they didnt even show the Haku and Zabuza death scenes.... They did that to all other fights where blood and violence was shown.

Later on i hooked more to the Manga then to the Anime (the realisation what fillers are opened a brand new world for me).
I knew about manga in general and naruto manga 2010 but i didnt start reading it until end of 2011, let's just say i had to read around 150 chapters strait i did it withing 1.5 days reading it for hours without end with the music of "scorpions-send me an angel" i litteraly replayed that song so much that i puke when i hear it now lol. But it gave me a feel back then.

 

[Fire Goddess]

Personally, watching Naruto dubbed on Toonami was my first, more mature, anime watching experience. The Zabuza arc was quite 'adult' compared to anything I had watched before and I thought it was the kind of program that belonged on the late night roster rather than primetime (back when Toonami was primetime). I found the characters very intriguing, the action quite exciting, and the villains downright mysterious. I didn't find the girls all that alluring, with the exception of Kurenei and Tsunade, but that wasn't even needed for me to enjoy the program.

Once I upgraded to subbed and eventually the manga, it was the over complicated mysteries of the Akatsuki and their players that re-excited me and gave me a new reason to watch. The action was still amazing but the mysteries were what drove me to keep watching. This was also the reason why I kept up with it till the end. I was quite satisfied with the ending, but was quite disappointed with the final arcs of the story in general. Either way, I'll always remember how the series made me happy to watch and the enjoyment I got from it.

Please share your reasons for watching/ reading the series and gush about the story in general. Thanks for reading as always!

I also found Naruto to be a more mature anime. It was probably back in late 2005 that I first watched it on Toonami. There was a marathon on at some point, and it was of the Zabuza arc. I found it very interesting, as it had similarities to my favorite anime, Dragonball Z.

I was hooked right after I saw how Kakashi fought, at the time his fight with Zabuza was epic, to me. I found the back stories, depressing, but loved how they gave dimension to the characters and give an insight into them, like Haku, he felt he was only a tool for Zabuza, and why he would think so little of himself. It plays very well into the ninja world, and seems quite realistic in how it could be to live that way.

Even Sakura in the beginning, was written pretty well. A young girl would only think of her crush, and never understand others who have experienced pain like Sasuke and Naruto, if she hasn't experienced it her self how could she understand, making her only objective and passion her crush, or that to be her drive, because she had no other, than to be better than Ino who also liked Sasuke. I've known people who are like that, the only thing they can think about is who they like, usually at that age, but they typically grow out of it as they get older.

The battle tactics were more complex than other shows I would watch, always left me guessing and when I thought I figured it out, it would take a twist, and I loved this about this series, it had great plot, great character design, back stories that always added to everything else and on top of it excellent battle tactics with logic and knowledge to explain how and why the chakra system and fighting styles work. I could just never grow out of loving this manga/anime, it's been my all time favorite since 2005.

 

[Exosphere]

i grew up with it

 

[Gemeyes]

There are many reasons why I love Naruto, I actually didn't like him at first but ..
That was when I'd seen little of the story and hadn't given much thought to what a difficult and enduring world Naruto and friends live in. Having children like Naruto live alone and train at a school of ninja's/war would be unthinkable compared to our cushy schools of education and our child protection laws and I think the disturbing results of such governance is reflected in the kind of lonely characters that develop and grow up in it, such as Gaara, Sasuke and even characters like Deidara who probably realise something feels very wrong, but can't quite put there finger on what it is (as they are being told this is a normal world.)
As I watched/read more of Naruto and saw his willingness to share his heart, even with his enemies, as is the case with Gaara I was really astounded at seeing a new way of dealing with things rather than the lousy American comic book style of beat 'em up and throw 'em in jail. It was refreshingly new outlook and a good way of dealing with such difficult circumstances.
I found it surprisingly touching to hear the backstory's to characters such as Haku, who I believe wasn't saved because it was before Naruto developed his beautiful philosophy, and an influence to this was in the good fortune of having Haku explain the reason behind things, that helped shape Naruto's nin-do (or "ninja way" of dealing with things). In this I found something else new in the Naruto manga, and that is being able to sympathise with the so-called "evil" characters and why different paths are taken in life. I've always been a strong believer in cause and effect, and that there is a reason for everything and as Naruto is the type of story that explores that philosophy, I found it resonates with me more strongly than perhaps any other story I've ever read.
One of the other (and there were many) sparks of brilliance to this story is that because Naruto chose to take the action of setting his feelings aside and talking to his enemies, it resulted in a better end result, such as Nagato reviving all those people, that would not have been possible were Nagato left to die a miserable death to end his unhappy life as such is the usual choice most people would make without a thought, most would just want to take brutal revenge on Nagato instead of thinking about prevention like Naruto did.
The whole story was so well planned out and beautifully drawn, in a way they managed to write a 15 year all centred around a single arc! Now there's an achievement!
I could go on further about why I love Naruto as there's many more reasons but those are the main ones about why it shines to me.

I'm really hoping there will be this short story of Naruto part 3 that is rumoured to be coming out, it looks kinda fun- although I didn't feel Naruto's kid Boruto had sufficient grief (especially compared to his Dad or Sasuke) to have defaced the Hokage like Naruto did, but it's true that upset is a matter of perspective (to a point!) and something small to one person, could be very upsetting to another.

P.S Gintama is also very good and the only thing that comes close to Naruto of the anime I've seen (the humour cheers you up!) and more is coming back in April. Woohoo.