Real ninjas wear orange jump suits

Fullmetal Alchemist left a hole in my TV landscape... and after current American TV left us cold we eventually started looking for other anime to watch. And is there ever much of it... to top it off, after FMA our quality criteria is incredibly high - and let’s face it, most anime sucks big time. So going through Anime News Network and other sites, we’ve picked up couple series that we have been watching in the past several months. I though I’d write about the series’ only after finishing all the episodes, so that’s why Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has so far been the first one... but on Saturday we finished (or caught up with the current production, more accurately) watching one of the biggest anime and manga series in Japan and America, Naruto, so I think I’m ready to write about it now.

The premise of the series didn’'t really seem that appealing, to begin with. Naruto is a story about a young orphan ninja boy called Uzumaki Naruto (I’ll use the Japanese style of putting the last name first as that’s what I’m used to with this series) who has the misfortune of having a nine-tailed demon fox sealed inside him since he was a baby. This piece of information is a taboo in Konoha, the ninja village he lives in, and even Naruto doesn’t find out about it until he’s 12 and therefore has never understood the hostility all the other villagers have treated him with. As a result Naruto has grown up to be an unruly and disruptive boy who uses pranks as a way to get much needed attention only to cause more rejection amongst adults and children alike. After graduating from ninja academy he is assigned in a four man training team with two other students: the broody boy who all the girls have a crush on and the top rookie ninja of the year Uchiha Sasuke, and the book-wise and emotionally unstable ninja girl Haruno Sakura. To complicate things, Naruto is head over heels in love with Sakura who treats him with nothing but contempt, and Sakura is in turn in love with Sasuke who treats her equally coldly. The team’s sensei (teacher) is Hatake Kakashi, an elite ninja who has been hand-picked to watch over and train Naruto and Sasuke (who has his own issues that warrant the care). Together the team goes on to ninja missions as instructed by the village leader, the Hokage.

But the thing is, that’s not what the series is about.

There is an incredibly intricate and intriguing storyline behind the 190 odd episodes of anime produced so far and while a lot of the airtime is dedicated to ninja fights, the heart of the series is not action or violence, but emotions. This is something that for me is missing in most of American TV currently: deep larger than life emotions like friendship, loyalty, betrayal, loneliness and belonging (normally I would include romantic love here but in case of Naruto we’re talking about kids). Naruto’s story is about conquering loneliness and rejection and the will and the need to be accepted in to a larger community, and to find friendship and love (of a teacher/parent). It’s also a story about inner strength and Naruto'’s battle to control the demon fox living inside him (which can be seen as an allegory to inner demons in general) – how he needs to learn to accept and tap into his resources without losing himself in the process.

As characters really make this series, I’d like to say a few words about them. The target audience for Naruto is young boys, so that’s what most of the characters are: in the core of the series are the four ninjas who form Team Kakashi. Naruto is the loyal and hard-working friend who is willing to sacrifice everything for not only the people he loves but for anyone who has been wronged. He has a natural ability to see right from wrong, and amazing talent to make other people around him see it too and in their turn be inspired and strong. He isn’t talented in the ninja arts, or in anything else – but he works very hard to achieve his goals. His arch-rival and a friend is Sasuke who is also an orphan - but unlike Naruto who has never known a love of a parent, he lost his whole family and clan to his murderous older brother, and has vowed to become the avenger. Sasuke is naturally gifted and doesn’t need to try hard to become good in ninjutsu, but after witnessing the massacre of his family he has become emotionally closed and cold, and is only really making friends for the first time with Naruto and Sakura. And ah well, I guess I have to mention her too... and here is my biggest beef with this series – the lack of decent female characters. Sakura is the worst possible example of an arch-typical anime girl: she’s unstable, unreasonable, moody, violent, unfair, selfish and completely useless as a ninja. While she has her rare moments, most of the time she’s just complete waste of space and I can’t even analyze her character’s significance as anything more than eye candy and a comic relief. (Better female characters come into play later on in the series with Tsunade and Anko, and possibly Kurenai and Tenten, but that isn’t until 80 episodes in or so. To be fair, Sakura does bloom into something more useful and gracious later on – but after 200 episodes of annoyance she’s not in my good books yet.) Then there is ultra-cool and skilled Kakashi-sensei whose job is to teach his pupils about life and importance of team-work. He’s the voice of reason and the main adult of the series – to begin with he’s there to support and protect the children, but slowly he takes the back seat when they grow up and start making their own decisions that will have grave impacts in their lives.

As the series gets comfortable with the main characters, a large number of supporting characters are introduced. There are really too many to go into, but I'm constantly amazed by the variety and depth they have. There are as many background stories as there are characters and they all weave into the main story and add to the rich world and culture that Naruto has - some of my favourite characters come from the supporting cast like Naruto's future teacher the perverted hermit Jiraiya, the ever sarcastic but oh so smart Nara Shikamaru, the weirdo bug-boy Aburame Shino and the unruly Inuzuka Kiba with his ninja dog Akamaru.

While I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a series like Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya to anyone, Naruto – while certainly not worse in quality – is a bit of a different beast. Firstly and mostly it does need some commitment with the almost 200 episodes it currently has (and there’s no end in sight), and unfortunately not many casual anime fans want to commit to that. On the other hand, once we started watching Naruto we found it almost impossible to stop: the writing, the characters and the format of the story are so engaging that we watched all the episodes in about four weeks, and went ahead and purchased the 10 volumes of manga that have been translated so far. Secondly, it is about ninja kids and the main character is a rambunctious young boy – if that’s not your deal I can fully accept that too... although trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

From the storytelling and character design point of few the manga is superior to the anime, but the action sequences take the winning ticket in the anime, which also animates the character emotions beautifully. Anime – while following the manga mostly very carefully - is not as solid in the plot department, but the manga creator Masashi Kishimoto is a god amongst men when it comes to writing and drawing so it’s not at all such a bad deal. If Naruto sounds like something you think you’d enjoy, I’d recommend getting couple of first volumes of the manga and if/when you absolutely positively need to get more, check out the anime too. Viz Media (who also publishes the manga) has licensed the series and has just put out the first uncut subbed and dubbed box set covering the first 13 episodes that will give you a nice taster on what the series can do. It is the most sold comic in America for a reason.

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