Naruto...

Written by : Demius

Genre: Action/Fantasy
Channels/Sites: Jetstream/ Tokyo TV / www.youtube.com / www.douliedbz.net
Certificate: 12A/PG13

Naruto. Not only one of the greatest and best-selling mangas in the world, but now it has spawned a TV series which hope to follow in its footsteps.
It is now a fast-paced anime about ninjas, friendship and conspiracy.

If any of you have ever read the manga (that should be quite a few), then you will be delighted to hear that almost nothing from the manga has changed, or been lost in it’s transition to the TV.
For those that have not read the manga a brief summary.

“The story of Naruto takes place in another world where ninjas are the ultimate power. In the village of Konohagakure live some of the stealthiest and most respected ninjas in the land. But 12 years prior, Konohagakure faced a fearsome threat - a nine-tailed fox demon, which terrorized the village and caused massive destruction before it was finally defeated. The Hokage, the village leader and most powerful ninja, was able to subdue the fox by sealing its soul inside the body of an orphaned baby boy. Now that boy, Uzumaki Naruto, has grown up to become a ninja-in-training, learning the art of ninjutsu with his classmates Sakura and Sasuke. The trio of student ninjas study under the instruction of their teacher, Kakashi. With Kakashi, the group faces a series of dangerous and daunting tests and challenges. Through their adventures, the young ninjas learn the importance of friendship, teamwork, loyalty, hard work, creativity, ingenuity, and right vs. wrong.”

That pretty much summarizes the story. The commercial has been used since it is official, effective, and one of the simpler ways to explain the story and plot at length.

Now the voice acting is either great or rather bad. The Japanese can really do the job well and provide an excellent quality to the anime, doing the franchise justice. The Americans on the other hand are not exactly the best with the voices. Sure it is not like they are abysmal but after watching the pure quality of the Japanese voice-overs, it occurs that they are in both completely different leagues.
If you do watch the Japanese version of the anime, then you are watching the absolute highest quality of the anime with some great voice acting. Opt for the more understandable, though less brilliant American dubs, then you may not be watching the anime at its peak. *Make sure you have subtitles with the Japanese version!

Episodes 1-50 in the anime are equivalent to the first 8 volumes in the manga. The episodes are about 20 minutes long themselves.
In these first 50 episodes, there is a huge amount going on. You are introduced to the world in which the characters live in, Naruto’s life and his friends Sakura and Sasuke. This world is very much like the days of Feudal Japan. Medieval eastern culture is mass and ninja’s are widespread through the land. Naruto lives in Konohagakure, a peaceful green ninja village referred to as the Hidden Village of Leaf. Naruto, having a demon sealed inside his body for his whole has made things difficult for him since that he is scorned by the youngsters an looked down upon by the elders. Naruto, harboring a huge desire to be acknowledged by his people and to become the Hokage, the most powerful and well-respected member of ninjas. Early on we see him grow on many characters, most of which are his classmates Sakura and Sasuke, who both learn to respect him.

Surprisingly, very early on in the series sagas of different events occur which, not only are extremely closely follow the manga, are even more exciting to watch. Most notably, episode 12-19 feature an emotional and epic revalations in the Mist Country and two warriors known as Haku and Zabuza. I will most certainly not spoil the events that occur in this brilliant set of episodes for those that have not seen them, but let me assure you that tears will flow from your eyes, your heart will pound at the excitement and your mind will completely tossed around in the drama.
The company that distributes the anime, Dattebayo, have used some sort of genius to balance the dramatic sagas with blooper episodes full of hilarious comedy with, guarantees that your liver with receive damage from laughter at the comics involved. Nearing the end of the first 50 episodes, we come to the start of a very important set of story developments with Chunnin Exams, a set of tests where ninja from all over the world come to prove that they can graduate past their mediocre rank of Gennin. To put this all into one phrase: the episodes of the Naruto anime are laid out in brilliant fashion and perfectly set the balance of story-related episodes and sub-story episodes.

The art is done in traditional anime style with all the text book measures crossed and checked. Solid artwork based of the fantastic work of Masashi Kishimoto and all beautifully converted from manga to anime. Notable additions however are the increase of how graphic the blood is. Though not overly frequent like DBZ is, it is a lot more realistic than even portrayed in the manga and when it does spill a great sense of tension will grip your chest and raise your hairs on end. CG and computer animation is occasionally used for attacks and special feature and though not particularly special, they are eye-pleasing to say the least. All in all, nothing to fault with the artwork though it lacks a huge aura of originality that Ghost in the Shell or Spirited away carried.

[b]Story: 9/10 – Perfectly follows the manga and tells the story of one the most popular and greatest animes today. [/b]

[b]Voice Acting: 7.5/10 – It varies depending on the dubbing. The original Japanese version is fantastic and separates each character down to their personality which would have scored a 9, but the American translations are somewhat amateurish and not enough effort was given in so therefore it puts it down to a 6 so 7.5 is the best given. [/b]

[b]Animation: 8.5/10 – Very solid and moves fluently. Nothing extremely special but the fact that it is incorporated in such a way makes it stand quite a bit above the ordinary mangas.[/b]

Excellent in many aspects of the genre, the Naruto anime is still climbing through the ranks and already has earned its position as a much respected anime. The voice acting and transition from Japan to the west has faltered the acting of the series, but it is of little hindrance to huge a phenomenal series.

[b]Overall: 91/100 [/b]

This review was brought to you by Demius.