Do I bother with Naruto?

I’m new to anime (seen like 20) and I love it, people say Naruto is close if not the best anime ever and I really want to watch it, however it’s like 800eps long and the animation is obviously outdated. Is it worth me watching or do I not bother? Thanks.

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vendettaclause2026-01-27 20:56

The animation isn't outdated at all... And half of it is filler, no exaggeration. And yes, it is one of the best Battle shonen ever, but so are DBZ, bleach, one piece, my hero academia, etc...

muzlee012026-01-27 21:03

It's like not even top 10 battle shounen.

Throwaway132898732026-01-27 21:05

To most people it is

muzlee012026-01-27 21:06

Who is most people? certainly not to people who watch anime. Maybe to those who remember it from their childhood

Throwaway132898732026-01-27 21:07

It’s one of the most popular anime’s of all time.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:11

Popularity doesn't mean quality or being the best.

vendettaclause2026-01-27 21:24

It sure as shit does. And saying it doesn't matter at all is cope.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:28

Ah yes, the best movie in the world: avatar. And avatar 2.

vendettaclause2026-01-27 21:36

When accountint for inflation gone with the wind is number 1, avatar is number 2, and avatar 2 isn't even in the top 10... But going by revinew is a logical fallacy anyway. We're going by actual popularity and in a specific genera at that can be quantified on sites like my anime list. So going by avatars rotten tomatoes score would be a better analogy.

CrashDunning2026-01-28 01:10

Popularity is indicative of appeal, not quality which is 100% subjective. If a show is popular, the only objective thing it means is that it's made broad and probably sanitized enough to make the most amount of people okay with it. Unless you're entirely incapable of forming your own opinions on media, popularity is a completely meaningless metric.

I've never even seen Naruto, I was just scrolling through. That's just an incredibly dumb thing to say.

vendettaclause2026-01-28 01:15

No you guys are just using weird child logic. Popularity is very often an indication that something is good.

CrashDunning2026-01-28 02:27

Child logic is liking whatever is flashily shoved in your face enough times because you haven't developed your own taste yet, which is how you are arguing you like things.

Specifically explain how other entirely different people than you liking things about something means you, who presumably has your own entirely different metrics for whether or not you like things, will also like things about that thing. There is quite literally no connection between these two things unless you simply cannot decide for yourself and solely like things to be part of the group.

Sibula972026-01-27 21:12

Only because it started airing at the right time. It's incredibly mid.

the561king2026-01-27 21:11

It literally is list better anime with actually fight choreography, not just energy blasts and flashing lights

muzlee012026-01-27 21:17

Hunter x Hunter, YuYu hakusho, Chainsaw man, Bleach, Frieren, Aot, Hajime no ippo, dandadan...

But it is ironic because like 90% of naruto is just energy blasts and flashing lights after the tournament arc or just looking at each other and talking.

vendettaclause2026-01-27 21:28

Hunter hunter is over rated, frieren isn't a Battle shonen, aot is seinen. Chainsaw man and dandadan are both too new to register as top anything but hot new anime.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:30

Hunter x hunter is not overrated (and naruto greatly stole ideas from it lol), frieren is a shounen that has battles so it is a battle shounen. aot is shounen. Just because two shows are newer titles that doesn't mean they can't be better.

vendettaclause2026-01-27 21:40

And Naruto is top 10 wether you like it or not.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:42

Maybe for you. For anyone who likes good writing and fightscenes it isn't. But nostalgia is hard to beat, I know.

vendettaclause2026-01-27 21:45

This is all coming from your misunderstanding of what a battle shonen is. Because im definitely not saying its top 10 of all anime. Definitely top 50 though. And its definitely top 10 Battle shonen.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:47

I think you mix battle shounen with long running battle shounens. Shippuden is not even top 300 according to rankings.

Playest_42472026-01-27 21:21

Count em

muzlee012026-01-27 21:28

You got 7 in the other comment chain, so here is another few:

Fma:b, jojo, gintama, mob psycho, OP, Magi, Soul Eater, D gray man.. that's another 8.

Rayy5002026-01-27 20:59

You should absolutely watch it, the animation is good for its time, if by the end of the Zabusa or forest of death arc you aren’t hooked maybe the anime isn’t for you which isn’t a bad thing everyone has different tastes.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:00

I love anime’s like black clover and mha and ive been told they are similar so im hoping ill love it

Rayy5002026-01-27 21:01

I really hope that you do, It’s my favorite anime ever.
Here’s a guide to watching the anime and Shippuden if the filler doesn’t interest you: https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/s/de3vLgGSYF

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:06

Awesome, thanks!

taiwofolu2026-01-27 21:20

By all means, watch Naruto if you watch nothing else. I think the story is grounded and practical.

Inflicties2026-01-27 21:00

It's popular for a reason, but if you're already going into the mindset of "do I *bother*", then you should probably try shorter series first.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:00

"people say Naruto is close if not the best anime ever" who says that?

The animation is still fine. The story is outdated, pacing is horrible if you don't skip fillers, story in general is pretty bad. Typical chosen one storyline.

Throwaway132898732026-01-27 21:05

How is Naruto outdated

muzlee012026-01-27 21:09

Cliche, repetitive storytelling with blatant sexism. Powersystem that is based on the power of friendship. Nothing special. If it came out today it wouldn't even reach the end of the original naruto. Let alone the clusterfck that is shippuden.

KagakuNinja2026-01-27 21:07

People here claim many mid shows are best ever. It comes down to personal taste. I love Solo Leveling, half the sub says it is trash.

Throwaway132898732026-01-27 21:11

Naruto isn’t a mid show

muzlee012026-01-27 21:12

Liking a series is fine, anyone who says otherwise is usually stupid (of course there are edge cases). But claiming that that series is objectively the best ever made is equally stupid.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:16

Idk it’s what I’ve seen loads of people say online🤷‍♂️, it’s one of the most popular and well known and people seem to love it.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:20

Just because something is popular, it doesn't mean its very good.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:51

It being popular means lots of people like it?

muzlee012026-01-27 21:56

Yes. But that doesn't mean it is good. Lots of people like trash music or trash movies. Or they just watched it as a kid and like it because of nostalgia. 400 episode is a lot. You can watch like 20-30 better shorter shows.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:58

Saying lots of people like trash movies and music makes no sense, if lots of people like something and u don’t it doesn’t make it bad it just means it’s not your thing

muzlee012026-01-27 22:16

I mean, the number 1 country song is literally AI generated. It is usually people who are not really into the medium watching/listening to something surface level. Just like if you are a casual movie watcher you might think Marvel movies are the best. But if you are someone who is more in depth in world of cinema you'd say something else.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 22:20

Yeah that makes sense

Living-Half-64922026-01-27 21:01

Don't watch it, you won't like it.

Unknown_Scythe2026-01-27 21:05

It’s part of your character development as a person. Watch it

swift6362026-01-27 21:08

Must watch DBZ and the big 3 Bleach, Naruto and One piece. They are literally all the new animes inspiration.

muzlee012026-01-27 21:14

And how far does that go back? Why watch these when you could watch the shows that inspired them? Or the ones that inspired those? ... aaand now you are reading ancient japanese legends.

Durinthal2026-01-27 21:31

> aaand now you are reading ancient japanese legends.

[Hell](https://www.livechart.me/anime/6528) [yeah.](https://www.livechart.me/anime/10774)

[](#cinema)

the561king2026-01-27 21:12

Yes, the story, and fight choreography is very good. Just skip the non important filler, it's about 450 instead of 720 episodes

the561king2026-01-27 21:14

Naruto > bleach, mha, black clover etc. don't listen to the children with no attention span

muzlee012026-01-27 21:18

It's a children show tho. If you want something for people with attention span then look into seinen

the561king2026-01-27 21:19

I'm talking about the people who won't watch Naruto because it's a couple hundred episodes

muzlee012026-01-27 21:21

Which is a valid thing. Not everyone wants to spend \~450 (assuming you skip fillers) on a show.

Having a preference of a shorter story is not an attention span thing. But watching a battle shounen that was meant for 14y olds is.

InitialComplaint4282026-01-27 21:15

Im a new anime fan, and I watched Naruto. Amazing anime

Half the eps are fillers so skip them. Animation isn't bad, story is good, characters are great.

If you aren't hooked by episode 19 then feel free to drop the anime

Agreeable-Tooth-33452026-01-27 21:15

If you do want to come watch it. I would look up a guide to what's filler and what's not. Allowing you to skip all the filler. As much of the show is filler. This will help make the daunting tasks of starting such a long show seem less so. By cutting out a lot of the episodes.

It is definitely similar in vein to Black Clover and MHA but with ninjas instead of magic or superpowers. Although I'd argue that the ninjas in Naruto are pretty poor ninjas..... It is a good battle anime that has some rather fun and memorable fight scenes.

WakandaNowAndThen2026-01-27 21:16

Does it seem interesting? Have you seen other WSJ adaptations/other battle anime? I think if you start it you'll like it if you like those, and I'm sure you'll find a reason to continue going, just skip batches of filler.

croninhos22026-01-27 21:24

The classic series are very good even to this day, like REALLY good. Shippuuden, while still being Naruto, was a substantial downgrade though.

Considering your tastes from what you posted in the comments, I think you will enjoy it. Just skip the fillers

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:53

Ok cool thanks

Kind_Avocado_72192026-01-27 21:25

Wouldn’t hurt to try it out. I dropped it, but still gave it a few chances before writing it off.

These_Pear_56442026-01-27 21:27

The Naruto story was promising but ended up becoming bad halfway in. The same with the animation which became worse and worse over time.

Pre-timeskip is pretty fine and the fights were mostly good at the beginning since it was also partially close combat/taijutsu with ninja tools. But post-timeskip is horrible. Out of all arcs after the timeskip there were like only 2 decent ones but that are like 60 episodes out of 500.

But the beginning was fine. So I recommend to watch like the first 50 episode first. If you are super into it, then continue watching. If its only ok or you dont like it then drop it since it would be a waste of time.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:54

Damn I wasn’t aware it fell off like that, I’ll still give it a go I think

Biokabe2026-01-27 21:35

People who say it's close to the best anime ever are greatly exaggerating and need to expand their horizons.

That said, it's a decent show with some pretty big caveats. The biggest caveat is the pacing; Naruto was part of the "traditional" style of TV, back when shows were on until they weren't, and then they never came back. So once the show caught up to the source material... it was on to filler until the manga could publish more.

And even when Naruto was adapting actual source material, they still were desperate to extend the run time to minimize the number of filler episodes, so many episodes are filled with time-wasting bloat.

This isn't a problem unique to Naruto - pretty much every show before about 2012 did things like that. It's particularly bad in Naruto's case, though, because its popularity meant that the studios refused to let it go off the air. So a huge chunk of Naruto's episodes are just filler nonsense - entire arcs that can't allow any development because they have to go back to the pre-filler status once they're done.

So watch it with a guide and skip all the filler arcs. Occasionally some of the standalone filler episodes are amusing. It's also worth it to watch with your finger on the "skip 10 seconds" button for when you can tell that they're just bloviating to waste time.

With all that negativity out of the way... it's overall a pretty fun show with a huge cast of mostly interesting characters. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad... well, you skip ahead and wait for it to get good again.

If you have access to it, it's worth just watching it for yourself and deciding if you like it. Naruto (the character, not the show) starts off pretty infuriating, but if you could make it through the start of Black Clover you can probably push through early Naruto. If you don't like it, there's nothing wrong with dropping it. I've never managed to push through the early episodes of Shippuden.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:57

I see, this was very helpful thank you, I think imma give it a try and see what happens

Local_Pickle_47172026-01-27 21:46

It's always funny when people talk about animation as if it's something that can be outdated. The real issue is that it aired in the SD era of early digipaint anime.

Naruto is a good time and has better animation than most long runners.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 21:56

More meant that the animation isn’t as good as new anime’s (obviously) which would for me make it a bit less enjoyable

Local_Pickle_47172026-01-27 22:03

How is that obvious? Did people get worse at drawing overlapping moving pictures? They haven't. They haven't gotten better at it either, in fact the most talented people sometimes just aren't around anymore. It's just that the talent that remains is more often than not funneled into specific projects. The technological improvements largely have to do with what they can do with colors and built in visual effects which have little to do with animation.

Regardless, Naruto has cuts far that impress me more than Jujutsu Kaisen which is currently airing.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 22:06

Look at Naruto then look at demon slayer and tell me which animation is better. Naruto being made in 2002 is why it’s not as good visually

Local_Pickle_47172026-01-27 22:12

It has nothing to do with when and everything to do with who and in what format. Ufotable also models animation in CGi and they does it again in 2d animation which Pierrot sure as hell wasn't going to do with a long running anime.

Kimetsu no Yaiba isn't as good as Naruto and animation isn't enough to bridge the gap.

NumberOneMom2026-01-27 22:16

If someone describes a show as PEAK, the GOAT, or the best ever, you can safely ignore their opinion. They're like toddlers - toddlers cry all the time because their lives are so new and they've done so little that they're having the worst pain/rejection/frustration of their life multiple times a week.

People who regularly describe shows as the greatest of all time either don't put much thought into what they're saying, or they've only seen like 20 shows.

Heavy_Watermelon2026-01-27 22:22

Lmao ok so maybe my impression of Naruto is not quite right

abandoned_idol2026-01-28 02:48

There are 2 parts to Naruto:

1) When they are young elementary schoolers fighting adult serial killers. This part is fun and has some pretty novel scenes. The animation is pretty old at this point (would be cool if Naruto got a modern seasonal anime remake).

2) After their growth spurt (tall, young adults). They call this one "Shippuden". The writing takes a nosedive somewhere around here. And when I say nosedive, I mean it gets really fucking bland (feats become meaningless, and dozens of "powerful" characters get ragdolled for the sake of propping up one, ONE character!).

There's also Boruto, even worse than Shippuden, but people aren't upset over Boruto because there's isn't much to lose when Shippuden was already a raging fire in a landfill.

Yeah, I'd recommend the first half (it's not low hanging fruit, but it's worth watching at some point).

No, I wouldn't recommend Shippuden (feel free to throw it away, it's **your** free time).

I hope you enjoy the anime (but I'd prioritize newer anime adaptations before watching an anime that has over 100 episodes).