Okay, so i've been wanting to write reviews about animes for a very long time. I got inspired by those reviews about Jigoku Shoujo, Fairy Tail, etc. But, i have absolutely no experience in writing any sorts of reviews, and i will not have the motivation to run an anime blog to review about animes. Thus, i'm just going to do a one-time review on Naruto, a popular anime which i've just recently started watching.

This review will solely be based on episode 1 up to 33 of the series. I will divide this review into 4 parts: Character, plot, visual quality and sound.

Character
Like other animes, there are many characters in Naruto, so i'll just mention who seems like the 3 main characters.


Naruto
Naruto is the main character of the series. He is a cheerful and determined yet attention-seeking and somewhat shallow boy who is often the last to find out about things. However, there is a story behind why he is so attention-seeking. A long time before this series started, there was a nine-tailed fox which ruined the village where Naruto was borned in and killed many people. It was finally sealed, inside of Naruto when he was a baby. Knowing this, the villages did not like Naruto as they saw Naruto as the nine-tailed fox itself. Naruto had also never had parents. So, he never felt acknowledged and he wanted to be needed. This crave for attention gave him a goal to become the top ninja of his village, known as the Hokage.

In my opinion, the story behind Naruto was good but his personality was not unique. He can easily be compared to Luffy from One Piece, another popular anime, and i'll say these two characters are extremely similar. Not accusing any series of copying the other. At the start of the series, i almost gave up watching right at episode one because i hated this character a lot and i didn't want to continue watching him and his attention-seeking, but i'm lucky i didn't stop watching just then, because the character development is there in a suitable pace and you'll grow to like the characters.


Sasuke
Sasuke is the second main character of the series. He is a serious, cold and arrogant person who has a goal of killing his own brother, i don't know why (haven't watch until that far). He is a talented ninja from a clan known as the Uchiha clan. More is probably going to be revealed further on.

I also hated this character a lot at first. He is not only very arrogant, he also gave me the feeling that he thinks that he is very cool and that everyone likes him. But, this was mainly because many people in the series indeed liked him in the romantic way. My opinion proved to be untrue as i witnessed his character episodes after episodes. I also started finding him to be cool and stuff, but only to a limit. Also a rather typical character.


Sakura
Sakura is yet another main character of the series. She is self-centered, love-obsessed, weak but intelligent girl. She seems extremely imperfect at the beginning episodes, but these imperfections were quickly eliminated by her realising certain things after awhile. Residing in her is an "inner Sakura", which is basically her true feelings to certain things. She can say "Naruto, you made me so worried!" outside but inside her mind she could be shouting "I'm going to kill you later for for making me worry for nothing!" It seems like she doesn't have any background story as she had a proper family and she cared about small stuff like getting scolded by her mother. However, it was showed that she used to be picked on a lot due to her inconfidence of her high forehead.

This was initially the character that i hated the most. I also found the inner sakura thing very redundant. However, thanks to character development, i stopped hating her and she is probably becoming my favourite character. Oh, one thing: if you've watched bleach, you can say that Sakura is another version of Orihime, at least until where i've watched. All she knew how to do was to spam "Sasuke-kun!" But the good thing is that she would get scolded by her sasuke-kun for not doing anything at times.


The 3 characters were being put into the same group by the ninja academy and they shared a love-traingle and hate-triangle relationship at first. Naruto loved sakura while sakura loved sasuke. Also, naruto hated sasuke, sasuke hated naruto and sakura hated naruto. Sasuke also seemed to have a rather bad impression of sakura. However, through their missions and training, they started building close bonds and genuinely cared for each other. This is a unique relationship triangle and i enjoyed watching it.

Plot
To be honest, the plot is unclear. I don't really know what Naruto is trying to get at. It seems like the main thing about the story is showing how the main character becomes a hokage, but it makes little sense in a way. I don't know, but where the story is getting to isn't that important. Long animes often lose their purpose in the middle of the series. It is the various acts that is important.


Act One: Land of Waves Arc
The first act was about a country being taken over by this evil guy called "Gatoh", which resulted in it being in poverty. This gatoh guy hired an illegal but cheap ninja to help him kill a man who was trying to bring the country out of poverty. This man was trying to build an important bridge. So, basically, naruto and his group had to fight this ninja. This ninja that gatoh hired is called "Zabuza", and he had a close friend called "Haku". They were supposed to be bad guys, but haku was actually very kind-hearted, to the point that he tried not to kill his enemies. Usually, in this kind of animes, the first few battles were supposed to last very short, which isn't a good thing because long battles often ends up being interesting (not to be confused with long-winded and unnecessarily draggy battles). For naruto, their first battles were already long and interesting. It makes you want to find out what happens after that and so on. And the battle didn't just end with the two antogonist ninjas losing. It ended in a touching manner, showing you Haku's past and his relationship with zabuza. That really touched me and gave me a very good impression of this series.


Act Two: Chunin Exam Arc
The second act was less emotional, but there were lots of suspension. Do you believe that a 1-hour written test can last for 2 episodes in an anime? Usually, there is nothing to show about anime characters doing a written test, but naruto made it special and showed 2 episodes of its characters doing a written test, in a very interesting manner. It then went on to show sasuke being afraid of his enemies and sakura feeling useless in battles and cut off her hair etc. It was very interesting and exciting. It was only at episode 30 or so when sakura broke out of her uselessness and started trying hard to fight to protect her precious friends. And it is this kind of thing that makes animes interesting, in my opinion. I have not finished watching the second act, so i'll stop here.

Visual Quality and sound
I find the way they animate this anime quite good, although not excellent. The colour is really bright, which kind of annoyed me a bit, just a bit. Other than that, it's great.

The drawing of the characters was also quite good. At first i could not get used to how short the characters are, but it is realistic and convincing about their age. In Naruto Shippuden, i know that the characters will become taller "2 years later".

The sound effects were okay. You won't find it irritatingly unsuitable. In fact, for most parts it is suitable.

The soundtrack lacks variety but i won't expect there to be a diverse range of soundtrack right at the beginning of the series, so ignore the first phrase of this paragraph. There are some really emotional sad background music, which really adds on to the atmosphere.

Overall
It's quite obvious that i enjoy this anime right up till episode 33 where i stopped watching just yesterday. I am going to continue watching. Hopefully this anime not only stays at this level of interest but gets more and more interesting. You should watch it too. One important thing that i've forgotten to mention: Naruto is about ninjas.