Hello everyone and welcome back to Narutopsy, the only blog whose hot takes are 100% FDA approved (little-known fact, the A stands for Anime). Last time around we got our first taste of Sasuke and Sakura, two characters who will, for better or worse, be here for the long haul. I can’t say I enjoyed Team 7’s group dynamic very much, but hey, groups grow and evolve, and this time we’ll get to meet their teacher! And he’s really cool and mysterious and wears a mask! Surely things will improve this time.

Narrator: Things would not improve this time.

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Episode 4 begins with Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke in a classroom, patiently awaiting the arrival of their new teacher. Well, Sakura and Sasuke are being patient, Naruto on the other hand…

At first, I found it annoying how Naruto would take every opportunity to annoy everyone around him, but whether through habit or Stockholm Syndrome, I now just find it cute how eager he is to start his ninja training. Look at that little dork.

For what it’s worth, Naruto has reason to be annoyed. Every other team’s teacher has shown up and taken them out somewhere by now, leaving Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke alone in a room with each other, a truly horrible fate. Anxious and bored, Naruto decides to play a little prank on their new teacher:

Sasuke and Sakura scold Naruto for being childish. However, as we see through Sakura’s line-art anger translator, she’s got a childish streak in her as well:

It’d be one thing if these three just couldn’t find any common ground, but they clearly could if they wanted to. They’re intensely committed to hating each other and I am here for it.

After a brief argument, their teacher, Kakashi Hatake, enters the room and, despite being a Jonin (upper level ninja), falls for Naruto’s prank:

You can’t see his face here, but you know it’s a big mood. Speaking of big moods, here are the first words Kakashi says to his new students:

Kakashi is a self-insert character written by me.

Kakashi takes his three shitty new children to a nearby rooftop for, wait for it, a teambuilding exercise!

I’m not sure what I thought about this as a kid, but now this just reminds me of sitting in a stuffy college classroom waiting for everyone to introduce themselves, remembering precisely none of their names, and dreading the moment where I’d have to come up with a “fun fact” about myself. I usually defaulted to “I can skip rocks”, which I’m sure made me seem as interesting as chipped paint.

Naruto, however, has no such anxieties when it comes to introducing himself:

How can you not love this little dork?

Sakura spends her introduction alluding to how much she loves Sasuke, while avoiding overtly saying it. It’s a bit of a nothing scene, save for this exchange:

Quick aside here, but I feel like the animators cut some corners when drawing Sakura. Naruto is known for cutting corners when it comes to animation, but just look at these shots:

It’s not as if she’s in the background or out of focus, Sakura is literally the only character in this shot, and she looks downright terrible here.

Moving on, we finally get to Sasuke who, ever the life of the party, says this:

Jesus kid, I just wanted to know if you had any pets or hobbies or something.

On that sour note, introductions have finished, and it’s finally time to discuss the group’s first mission. Our 3 bright-faced new ninja expect some fun, real-world experience, but their teacher pulls a fast one on them. Instead of a real mission, they’re being faced with a surprise exam, one that will determine whether they’re allowed to continue as ninja or not. The ninja educational system has no qualms about letting 2/3 of its students slip through the cracks, and our heroes are no exception to this rule. They’re told to arrive bright and early at 5 am, and to skip breakfast entirely, otherwise they might throw up.

Tomorrow arrives, and all three young ninja arrive on time, with varying levels of fatigue:

Can I be honest? I really enjoy this scene. It effectively communicates the differences between the three characters without needing to overtly tell us how they differ. See? Even Naruto can have good visual storytelling sometimes.

The three of them wait several hours for their teacher to show up. By the time Kakashi arrives, it’s about 10:00, and all three are understandably rather frustrated. It’s heavily implied that his lateness, as well as having them not eat breakfast, was done intentionally to make the exercise harder on them. Kakashi, undeterred, lays out the ground rules for this exercise.

A classic “take the cricket from my hand” scenario. Simple enough, right? The caveat here is that there are only two bells, so at least one of the three will be going hungry today, and that person will also be expelled. However, getting even one of the bells will be a tall task, as Kakashi himself makes plainly clear:

Kakashi begins the countdown to the start of the exercise, but Naruto, angry at being underestimated, jumps the gun a bit. This is the result:

If it wasn’t clear before, this is going to be a nearly impossible task for our three ninja in training.

Just as the test begins, we cut to Iruka, who’s having a meeting with the Third Hokage. What could this normal teacher want with the Third Ninja President? Well, as we find out, here’s there to ask about Naruto’s new teacher:

He’s such a good father to his stupid idiot son.

The ninja Thomas Jefferson gives Iruka a book containing all of the test scores given out by Kakashi during his time as a Jonin (big strong ninja). Iruka reacts with concern, as he realizes that every single group Kakashi has ever trained has failed his test miserably. In the words of the Third Hokage, they were all “annihilated”.

We cut back to the test site. Sasuke and Sakura have hidden their presence relatively well, and are waiting patiently for their moment to strike, as ninja should. Naruto, on the other hand…

This little doofus is going to get himself killed and he’ll have deserved all of it.

What follows is several minutes of Kakashi clowning Naruto around, giving a lesson on Taijutsu (which is essentially just martial arts) while also getting some light reading in:

There is also a point at which Kakashi manages to get behind Naruto and attacks him by sticking his fingers up Naruto’s butt:

 

No comment.

Just when things look hopeless for Naruto, he manages to pull something off. He jumps out of the river along with several Shadow Clones and makes a rush for Kakashi. Kakashi doesn’t expect much to come of this, but Naruto had a single clone split off and sneak up behind him, allowing him to grab on and immobilize Kakashi.

Naruto strikes, and takes this opportunity to make the most on-the-nose battle cry I’ve ever heard:

However, just when it looks like Naruto’s gotten one over on his elder, we find out that it was all a ploy. Kakashi uses a substitution Jutsu to switch places with one of Naruto’s clones and slip away, thereby inciting Naruto’s clones to beat each other up, thinking that one of them must be Kakashi. Naruto eventually releases the jutsu, but then immediately falls into a trap, getting himself suspended from a tree by his ankles.

Kakashi pops back out to lecture Naruto on being careful while using jutsu, and to mock him for falling into an obvious trap. However, right at this moment, Sasuke, who had been hiding up to this point, decides to launch an attack, striking Kakashi from far away with several kunai. The episode ends on this not at all funny looking shot of Kakashi falling to the ground:

He’s so close to dabbing that it hurts.

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And there we have it folks, episode 4 ends on our first ever cliffhanger! Get used to that, if memory serves, it’ll happen a lot. Did Kakashi survive? Will Naruto and his teammates pass and become true ninja? Log in to our polling website with your parent’s credit card information in order to vote now on your phones. Their fate rests in your hands.

I’ll leave you for now with today’s Naruto Mood:

As always, take care of yourselves, be kind to those around you, and I’ll see you next time.

Hello friends, welcome back to Narutopsy, the only Naruto review blog that tells it like it is and takes no prisoners. I don’t care if the feds come after me for criticizing aspects of Naruto. I don’t care if the SJW’s lambast me for it. I don’t know how many inches make a yard. I think quadrupeds are a shape. Here, there’s no bullshit, just you, me, and some unsolicited, scalding hot takes on the original Naruto series. And friends, I’m glad to say that approach has paid off, because last time around we got two, that’s right, two comments on the reddit post.

We made it boys. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Now that I’m an unparalleled success, it’s time to coast on the formula that made me so successful: saying that Naruto is bad. There was a lot of that last time around with episode 2, and luckily, we’re in store for a good bit more of it in episode 3. But if you’re one of those weirdos like me who actually likes certain aspects of Naruto, then there’s some good news for you as well. Because this time around, we’ll be introduced to characters who actually matter in the show! Imagine that.

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Now, if you’ve been reading Narutopsy up to this point, you may have wondered why I haven’t reviewed Naruto’s first opening yet (or you aren’t wondering that, and I’m inventing audience thoughts to make my writing flow better. Who’s to say?). Well, first, I’m not exactly a fan of the first opening:

That’s a face only a mother could love. If only Naruto had one.

Second, and more importantly, the first opening centers around not just Naruto, but Sasuke, Sakura, and their teacher (who we’ll meet next time). It would’ve been a bit off-putting to start by talking about Sasuke and Sakura, and then immediately flip to a discussion of Konohamaru and Mizuki, whose name I had forgotten and just had to look up. With that in mind, let’s talk about the opening, shall we?

We begin with our heroes standing together, facing the rising sun of a new day as birds scatter in the background. It may appear that their arrangement is designed to highlight Naruto, who stands in the center and slightly closer to the camera. However, this is not the case. In truth, they are arranged in order of importance from right to left, in the traditional Japanese fashion. On the right is Sasuke, the Most Important One to author Masaya Kishimoto. Sasuke is very precious to him, so he comes first. Next is Naruto, who, while clearly less important than Sasuke, has the series named after him. This is a diversion by Kishimoto to keep us from realizing his true intent. Last is Sakura, who is also here.

In all seriousness, the opening is a fun little look into the dynamic of these three characters (along with their teacher who we’ll meet next time) as they continue their development as ninjas. They meet on a rooftop, stake out a forest, and fight a group of bandits, the most dangerous of whom Naruto takes out with a barrage of shadow clones. This all culminates in a satisfying fist-bump between Naruto and Sasuke, as the cheesy 80’s rock reaches its climax and subsequently fades into the background:

With years of retrospect, and of course, knowing what happens eventually in this show, this fist-bump feels incredibly disingenuous. Still, it’s not a bad way to end an opening. So, that’s been our look into Squad 7’s dynamic, and they seem to get along just fine. They’re clearly very different personalities, but they fight well together and coexist without many issues. Will that dynamic hold true for the show?

Jesus Christ no.

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Episode 3 starts with Naruto waking up in bed, and looking extra fly if I do say so myself:

Maybe it’s because I’m so used to seeing Naruto only ever wear his bright orange getup, but this looks completely ridiculous. It’s like putting a tuxedo on a poodle, or street clothes on Guy Fieri, or the Studio Trigger logo on a show with a good ending. It just doesn’t fit.

Naruto hops out of bed and eagerly heads off to Ninja school, where today, he and each of his classmates will be put into groups of 3 to continue their ninja training for the foreseeable future. Exciting! So, who will Naruto be paired with? It could be anyone!

God I wonder.

On the way to school, Naruto passes Konohamaru, who I don’t care about so I won’t talk about that scene. We then flash to Sakura getting ready in her room. She adjusts her dress, and winks to the mirror before her mother calls up to her, telling her that she has to leave for school soon. This upsets Sakura, who says this:

 

But thinks this:

Allow me to explain. You see, Sakura is a girl, and as such can’t express emotions that are too unladylike. So, when she has these emotions, they are expressed to the audience through this inner monologue character, who tells us exactly how Sakura is feeling at any given point. I’m told this is meant to be funny.

On her way to school, Sakura runs into a girl named Ino, who has confused ninjas with mummies and wrapped her torso and legs in bandages:

Ino and Sakura are rivals, and because of this they decide, wordlessly, to race each other to the school. For what it’s worth, Haikyuu did this exact thing and I loved it, although I think it works better when we haven’t literally just met one of the characters.

We cut to Naruto in class, and he’s just so happy oh my good look at him!

Say what you will, I love this little idiot.

We see that in the back, there’s a girl observing him and OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER FACE?

Is it just me, or does she look somehow worse than the rest of the show? Naruto isn’t always the most well-drawn show, but Jesus Christ this looks bad.

This girl’s name is Hinata, and we’ve seen her once before actually, when she was rooting silently for Naruto to succeed with his transformation jutsu in class. Hinata has a huge crush on Naruto, and this will become important later, but don’t worry, for now it literally could not matter less. Because as we see, Naruto has eyes for someone else: Sakura.

It’s not really explained why he likes Sakura, though he seems to like her mostly because she’s pretty. Honestly? Relatable. Sakura however hates Naruto’s guts, and is instead enamored with Sasuke. Her reasons for liking Sasuke are left similarly vague; she likes him because he’s cool and pretty. This, too, is relatable.

Sakura’s overt affection for Sasuke inspires intense jealousy in Naruto, who deals with these emotions as only he could. He jumps up on the table in front of Sasuke and glares directly at him.

Okay, look, I have to preface this. Naruto is one of the longest-running and most successful manga of all time, and what’s about to come next is still, to this day, arguably the most famous scene it has ever produced. Over 15 years, 2 animated series, countless movies, and this is the scene that stuck the most in people’s minds. This is not for the faint of heart, I pray you, brace yourselves.

Okay, here goes. A classmate bumps into Naruto from behind, and this happens:

There we have it, ladies and gentlemen. Observe it, take it in. This picture will be in history books, in anthologies, on the walls of the Louvre one day. Truly breathtaking.

Anyway, Naruto and Sasuke kiss and it’s funny because that’s gay but they’re totally not gay, Naruto gets beat up, and everyone sits back down to be sorted. You all know how this goes, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura get sorted into a group together, and will now be joined at the hip for the foreseeable future, whether they like it or not. Naruto, for his part, definitely does not like it. When he asks why he, as an “exceptional student” needs to be in a group with someone like Sasuke, Iruka reminds him that Sasuke received the highest grades in the class, while Naruto got the worst.

The students break for lunch, and Naruto asks Sakura if she’d like to eat together, given that the two are in the same group. Sakura, only interested in Sasuke and repulsed at the mere thought of Naruto, says this:

Jesus Christ. Look at the hate in her face when she says that. It’s like Naruto killed her puppy or something.

Naruto, understandably a bit downtrodden, goes to sit on a water tower and think for a while, as we all do from time to time. Suddenly, he sees Sasuke eating a rice ball by a window. Naruto decides to jump into the window and try to beat Sasuke up. Predictably, the two of them being in the same room together ends with Sasuke dominating the affair, leaving Naruto bound and gagged. But they’re definitely not gay you guys.

Sasuke slips out and we cut to Sakura, who’s eating her lunch and worrying that her boobs will never be big enough to get Sasuke to like her:

Suddenly, Sasuke appears, and he gives Sakura this look:

Oh baby, let’s get a close up on that!

God DAMN. I don’t care if that collar is 5 times the size of his neck, that boy can stare with the best of them.

Sakura begins to fantasize, as would any rational person in this situation. Her fantasy, however, rings a bit unusual:

 

This may be the first time so far that the show has managed to make me laugh. I didn’t remember Naruto being a show with an exceptional sense of humor, but this was incredible. To make it even better, Sasuke walks up to Sakura, who has dismissed this fantasy as a mere fairy tale, and says exactly that to her. Of course, he then plays it off as “what Naruto would say”, and then proceeds to ask Sakura what she thinks about Naruto. Sakura is, again, very clear as to her thoughts on Naruto:

Sakura then quickly changes the subject to her affection for Sasuke, and goes in for a kiss. Right as this happens, we cut back to the room where Naruto and Sasuke fought, only to see Sasuke himself, bound and gagged on the floor. It turns out that Naruto had tricked Sasuke using a substitution jutsu and got the drop on him using some shadow clones. Then, he transformed into Sasuke to go try to… do something with Sakura? It’s unclear exactly what he meant to do. It seems like he just wanted to ask her what she thought of him, but then again, he was perfectly ready to kiss her as Sasuke when she offered.

Either way, Naruto gets his comeuppance in the form of some rapid-onset diarrhea. He leaves Sakura hanging and runs off to the bathroom. Annoyed at how obsessed she is with Sasuke, Naruto resolves to act like a jerk to make her hate Sasuke. It is unclear how Naruto thinks he will get away with any of what he’s done, given that he’s about to spend a LOT of time with these two people, but I digress.

Before Naruto can get back and execute his flawless plan, the real Sasuke shows up, looking for him. Sakura, still under the impression that Sasuke wanted anything to do with her, starts flirting, and when he brings up Naruto, she tells him to ignore Naruto, that Naruto isn’t worth his time, and that he’s a rotten person because of his lack of parents:

In response, Sasuke gives her this look:

It’s not made known to the audience at this exact moment, but suffice it to say, Naruto’s not the only one here with no parents. Sasuke tells Sakura off, then goes to look for Naruto again.

Naruto meanwhile is just getting out of the bathroom as Sasuke finds him. Naruto prepares to battle Sasuke again, making another round of shadow clones. But before he can, he’s struck with another bout of diarrhea, and all 5 clones rush off to the bathroom, where they fight over who will go first:

Again, I love how dumb this kid is.

Sasuke decides to just let this drop, and leaves. We flash back to Sakura, who seems to be having a moment of genuine reflection on how she must’ve made Naruto feel. She sees him coming in the distance and resolves to try to be nicer to him. Just as she offers to go back to class with him, Naruto is hit with yet another bout of diarrhea, and as he runs away, Sakura realizes that it had been him flirting with her as Sasuke, and calls him an idiot:

Lastly, we cut to the 3^rd hokage and another ninja (we don’t know his name yet, but I’ll be nice and tell you that it’s Kakashi), who have apparently broken into Naruto’s apartment? I’m still unclear as to exactly why they’re there:

Kakashi picks up a bottle of milk and notes that the expiration date has long since passed, thus explaining Naruto’s diarrhea. We end the episode on a lovely shot of Naruto on the toilet:

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Whew, that sure was a lot. I gotta say, I didn’t much care for this episode either. Despite a lot technically happening, it doesn’t feel like much of anything changed. Naruto got grouped with Sasuke and Sakura, and the 3 of them took turns expressing varying levels of hate toward one another. Naruto, for his part, broke the cycle of hate by spending half the episode on the toilet. I can’t say I came out of this episode liking any one of these three characters any more than before. Sasuke barely said anything that wasn’t about brooding or being mean to Naruto, Sakura made fun of Naruto for being an orphan, and Naruto tried to manipulate a girl into kissing him. However, Naruto at least received some form of divine punishment in the form of diarrhea. It just goes to show, you try to pull some gross shit on other people, and God pulls some gross shit on you.

Take care of yourselves everyone, and I’ll see you next time!

Hello loyal reader, welcome back to Narutopsy, the only Naruto blog on the planet. If you’re one of the *checks website traffic* 16 people who read the last entry on Naruto’s first episode, you may remember that my thoughts on it were surprisingly positive. Was it a bit thin on characterization? Yes. Did it rush some moments that probably should’ve been given more time, like, for example, Naruto’s childhood trauma? Without a doubt. But that’s also true of the whole series, and by gosh, I liked episode 1 for whatever redeeming qualities it had.

Anyway, I hope you’re ready for that to end, because today we’re covering Episode 2, which is Bad and Not Good.

“My Name is Konohamaru” begins with Naruto taking his ninja registration photo, and for reasons known only to Naruto and God, he decides to take it like this:

Someone online, please, tell me what this is and what it means. I tried looking up “weird Naruto face” on google and I keep getting bad reaction images. I can’t rest until I know what this is all about.

Moving on, the 3^rd Hokage (Ninja Thomas Jefferson), who apparently personally oversees the graduation of all grade schoolers in the village, tells Naruto to retake the picture. Naruto gets mad and, completely unprompted, does this again:

Somewhere, someone is writing a fanfiction where Naruto’s eagerness to transform into a girl is reflective of a deeper desire to be acknowledged and seen by the village as a woman. I appreciate and endorse the Trans Naruto headcanon.

This “technique” gives the 3^rd Hokage an anime nosebleed and knocks him flat on his wrinkly, pervy ass. Given that this man is supposed to be the strongest ninja in the village, even Naruto seems rather stunned by how well this worked:

Quick aside, I don’t remember anything about the 3^rd Hokage being one of those Master Roshi-style old man perverts, but there’s a lot I don’t remember about Naruto. I don’t know if this continues into future episodes, but it’s plenty bad enough here to condemn.

After the audience has finished repairing their sides from the aftershocks of that Very Funny Joke, we see through a crack in the door that someone has been listening in on the conversation. All of a sudden, the 3^rd Hokage’s grandson, Konohamaru, enters and attempts to fight his grandfather. He trips over his scarf, and for some reason, he blames Naruto, who was sitting halfway across the room, for this. Naruto retaliates by grabbing this child by the scruff of his neck and clocking him in the back of the head:

I could watch Naruto give this child a concussion all day. This punch, oddly enough, instills Konohamaru with respect for Naruto, as he did it despite knowing that he was the 3^rd’s grandson. He respects Naruto so much, in fact, that he abandons his teacher, Ebisu, to go follow Naruto and ask him to be his mentor. Naruto agrees to this, because Konohamaru calls him “boss”, which does wonders for his ego.

The first thing Konohamaru wants to learn is, of course, the sexy jutsu. What follows is about 3 minutes of Naruto teaching toxic masculinity to a child. He has Konohamaru try to transform into a lady on the street. She looks like this:

Konohamaru turns into this:

Naruto gets hit for it, everyone laughs, and the eventual heat death of the universe inches ever closer. The two then visit a dirty magazine store and intrude on a women’s spa, because this episode has one joke.

Now that we’ve padded enough to fill 30 minutes (with commercials), the episode picks up the plot that it dropped on the floor, dusts it off, and bites into it, citing the “3 minute rule”. Naruto asks Konohamaru why he seems so obsessed with defeating his grandfather, and Konohamaru responds with the episode title:

Naruto episode titles seem to alternate between direct quotes from the episode and Fall-Out Boy style titles like “A Strange Encounter: The Mist Village’s Misunderstood Heartthrob”.

Konohamaru tells Naruto his Tragic Backstory, which is that the village only sees him in relation to the 3^rd Hokage, and not for who he really is, which is why he wants to become the Hokage. The episode is titled “My Name is Konohamaru” because no one in the village refers to him by that name, even though his name is derived from the village they live in, Konoha.

Side note: Can you imagine if the mayor of Los Angeles named his daughter Los Angela or something?

Naruto and Konohamaru have a heart to heart over some drinks from the world’s most remote vending machines:

I want to emphasize that they’re in the middle of a forest in this scene. The Leaf Village rules.

We then quickly cut to the 3^rd Hokage and Iruka, ruminating on the situation. The 3^rd Hokage offers a bit more of Naruto’s Tragic Backstory, informing us that even though no one is allowed to talk about the fox demon sealed inside Naruto, their general mistrust of him has passed down to their children, which is why everyone hates Naruto. He then quickly tells Iruka that when someone is hated and people refuse to accept his existence, he sees it in the eyes of the people around him.”

Was… was Naruto a trans allegory all along? Dissertation incoming.

We cut back to Naruto and Konohamaru, who have been found by the teacher Ebisu. Konohamaru, not wanting to go with Ebisu, successfully performs the sexy jutsu for the first time. However, Ebisu, though flustered, does not collapse into a heap of shonen clichés. At least not immediately. He then turns to face Naruto, who prepares to battle him with a horde of shadow clones. Ebisu parrots something about how he won’t be defeated by the same strategy that Mizuki lost to, but suddenly Naruto has every single clone perform the sexy jutsu. Ebisu goes from this:

To this:

Life is meaningless, you all get the picture. The 3^rd Hokage watches all of this from his crystal ball that can apparently surveille the entire Leaf Village, which I completely forgot about and also is a power that he specifically should not be allowed to have.

Naruto, triumphant over Ebisu, tells Konohamaru that the two will be rivals for the title of Hokage from here on out, and the credits roll.

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This episode was bad. It was bad in so many ways that I struggle to express them all concisely. Virtually nothing happens because the creators decided to stretch a single chapter of manga into a full, 23-minute episode. What little does occur is completely irrelevant to the overall story, as Naruto himself doesn’t grow in any noticeable way, and Konohamaru will not factor into the story at all going forward. Both things could be forgiven if the characters were enjoyable, but Konohamaru is patently not. I struggle to say that this episode had jokes, because the joke they repeated over and over was neither funny nor plural. There’s just not much to like here.

I’ll end this review with the image of the day, which I think encapsulates my feelings on this episode:

I like to think that this emoji on Konohamaru’s hat normally smiles, but it, like the villagers, frowns when it looks at Naruto.

Hello everyone, and welcome to part 1 of my Naruto review series!

Hey, no wait hold on. Don’t leave! It’ll be fun I promise! I’ve got a pool in my backyard and my parents said that they’d buy us snacks. Come on, please? No? Okay fine, here’s 20 dollars, short and sweet.

That enough for you, you greedy bastards? Good. As I was saying…

I, a certified College Graduate™ will desperately try to get some use out of my English degree watch and review every canon Naruto episode. Why Naruto, you ask? Well, they say to write what you know, which is problematic for me as I know very little. But Naruto seems easy enough. I watched every episode of Naruto when I was but a wee midwestern lad, and it’s been long enough that, while I still remember the basic plot, there will still be plenty of things that slipped through the cracks of my memory to keep me entertained. Because I am wholly unremarkable, I know that there are plenty of other people who’ve had the same experience, so I hope that they will enjoy this as much as I do.

A few brief clarifications before we start

• I will be reviewing the original Naruto series, that is to say, no Shippuden. I have plenty of thoughts on Shippuden, but I didn’t watch it as a kid (because it changed to the Disney Channel and we didn’t have that at my house) so it just wouldn’t be very much fun for me.
• I will be watching the SUB of Naruto, written and voice acted as God intended. I know that this will be blasphemy for some people, and admittedly I started by trying to watch the Dub, but I just couldn’t subject myself for that. I’m here for a good time, not for Naruto-induced tinnitus.
• I may waver on this, but for now the plan is to only watch the canon episodes of Naruto, as outlined in this neat little website (https://www.animefillerlist.com/shows/naruto). I do have a soft spot for the filler arcs, but this is a Naruto autopsy, we’re here for the meat, not to dig around in the ear cartilage or whatever the Bikochu Beetle arc would be.

Is all that clear? Good. Let’s get started on episode 1, “Enter: Naruto Uzumaki!”

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Episode 1 opens on the story of the Nine-Tailed Fox and its attack on the Village Hidden in the Leaves. More specifically however, it opens on this image:

Was… Was this on purpose? Did they foreshadow the Eye of the Moon plan back in 2002? I’ve got to be reading too far into things, right? I don’t think I could handle a reality where this is the case.

Anyway, you all know the drill. The Fox Demon attacks the Leaf Village, hundreds die, and the Ninja James Madison, also known as the Fourth Hokage, sacrifices himself to seal the monster inside the body of an infant child. What is this child’s name, you may ask? Well, luckily for you, the series wastes no time letting you know:

I highly encourage anyone reading to go find this clip and watch it with sound, it’s legitimately hilarious. They spend a minute setting up this tragic backstory set to chilling music, and then immediately cut to some 80’s pop music over the image of a naked, crying orphan baby. It’s such egregious tonal whiplash and the most fitting way to start off Naruto.

Fast-forward to the present day and we get a now adolescent Naruto on the run from the Ninja Police, having just graffitied the Ninja Mount Rushmore. As far as introductions go, this is actually pretty solid. It establishes some core elements of Naruto’s character, his prankster attitude and general disdain for authority, while also showing off the story’s setting, Konoha, as Naruto and his pursuers run through it. “Surprisingly good” will actually become a theme for this first episode, believe it or not.

Naruto is finally apprehended by his teacher, Iruka, and taken to class, where he and the whole class will now have to take an exam on substitution jutsu. Each student is meant to turn into a copy of their teacher. Naruto turns into this:

Iruka makes this face

Everybody laughs, I die a little inside.

Iruka then has Naruto clean up the graffiti, and takes him out for ramen afterwards, because deep down, gosh darn it, he likes the kid. It’s here that we see a bit more complexity from Naruto. Despite his earlier actions, he’s shown to have a legitimate understanding of who the Hokage were and perhaps even a certain amount of reverence for them. It’s clear that, despite acting out, Naruto does quite seriously want to become a ninja.

This is unfortunate for him, because Naruto does not appear to be especially good at doing ninja things. The next day, he takes the graduation exam in order to become a certified ninja. However, when asked to perform a basic clone jutsu, which all of his other classmates managed to do with relative ease, Naruto creates this:

Iruka, ever full of tough love, refuses to pass Naruto. Another teacher, Mizuki, tries to convince Iruka to pass Naruto, because he at least managed to produce “something”. Iruka goes on a long rant about how kids these days get everything handed to them and mentions something about “participation headbands” before giving Naruto the only failing grade in the class.

Now it’s time for what you’ve all been waiting for: Children Being Sad!

Naruto may look like an anime on the surface, but in reality it’s just an experiment by Masashi Kishimoto to see how many traumatized children he can cram into one work. Modern art has its detractors, but I for one applaud visionaries like him advancing the medium.

For what it’s worth, the episode actually pulls off Naruto’s sadness and frustration pretty well here. Becoming a ninja was clearly very important to him, so it feels earned when the anime tries to tug at our heartstrings a little bit. The show doesn’t dwell on it either, so it doesn’t get boring.

We then cut to Naruto and Mizuki, observing the sunset on a ledge overlooking the city. I want to pause briefly here to appreciate the art:

It’s not incredibly detailed, no, but the scene feels appropriately melancholy, with the sunset muddling the hills and mountains in the distance, representing Naruto’s own suddenly muddled vision of his future. The colors also transition from a warm, cozy orange in the distant sunset to some more somber blue and gray tones in the houses surrounding Naruto and Mizuki, reflecting the mood of the current situation. It’s a small detail, but I just really like this shot.

Moving on, Mizuki informs Naruto of a little “secret” to which the audience is not immediately privy. We then cut immediately to Mizuki informing Iruka that Naruto has stolen the Scroll of Sealing, a Very Important Thing which will surely play a big part in the overall story. The ninja of the village go on a manhunt for Naruto until Iruka eventually finds him, where we learn that *gasp* it was Mizuki behind it all along! Mizuki had lied to Naruto and told him that mastering a jutsu in the scroll would grant him automatic graduation. What follows is a fight scene where the core tension is based around who Naruto will side with, Iruka or Mizuki.

This is easily the weakest part of the episode, because it’s incredibly clear from the start who Naruto will side with. Just from a character design standpoint, Mizuki looks incredibly forgettable. I know because I had to look his name up again for this review immediately after watching the episode. Seriously, just look at him compared to Iruka:

These two are wearing the same outfit, but just look at how much more expressive Iruka’s design is. Mizuki is functionally indistinguishable from a background character here. This is also true with regard to his characterization, of which there is none. We spend good portions of this episode following Iruka’s inner thoughts, learning especially about how similar he was to Naruto as a child (Iruka even gets his own CBS moment) but never once get a look into Mizuki, which makes him all the more expendable. They try to make it seem like Naruto will turn on Iruka because he failed him, but nothing about the scenes with those two leading up to this point implies that.

This part bad.

Let’s talk about something good, huh? Just as Mizuki has Iruka cornered and dead to rights, Naruto jumps in to save the day, and in a big twist, pulls off the jutsu he had been practicing all night, the Shadow Clone Jutsu, filling the entire forest with clones.

Now, look, this moment may not seem very surprising, given that this is Naruto’s signature technique that everyone knows about by now, but I think it’s important to take this moment at face value. Based only on what the series has told us about Naruto so far, this is a surprising moment of competency from the young ninja. It may not be altogether surprising for a Shonen protagonist in general, but it is at least well-executed and a satisfying payoff on something they previously established.

The fight that follows isn’t very good. It’s hardly even a fight really, the camera just pans up while some very cartoony sound effects play in the background, and when we come back Mizuki’s face has been restructured into something that I hope for his sake will be more memorable:

The enemy defeated, Iruka takes the opportunity to be a wonderful teacher, and presents Naruto with his headband, signifying that he has officially graduated. For all the contrived conflict between Naruto and Iruka in this episode, this moment actually manages to hit home behind some excellent framing and strong imagery:

Say what you want about forced sentimentality, but I wish my graduation had gone like this instead of waiting patiently for a room of 500 sweaty people in robes to collect their diplomas and University-branded business card holders.

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And that about does it for the plot of episode 1. I might be watching this with nostalgia glasses on, but I thought this episode was pretty well done. They had a lot to cover in 21 minutes, but I feel like the effort to cram Naruto’s basic backstory and graduation into one episode ended up helped the pacing a lot, keeping the story moving in places where it might’ve otherwise dragged. There were weak moments (read: everything involving Mizuki) but episode 1 delivers on the core aspects of the story.

Final Rating: I actually kinda liked it, go figure.