Started off extremely awesome with good jokes, tense moments and most importantly epic fights! It had everything to be the best. Then I noticed that the SAME THING IS REPEATED EVERY ARC! Naruto finds enemy, gets his ass kicked, trains, ass kicked again, Sasuke either wins or follows suit with Naruto and them he goes fox. Other cliches are there too.
It's still great but I might kill myself the next time he says " I'll never give up!"

It seems like a large portion of people are quite disappointed with the way the story's moving, and I read that shipuuden set the whole this-is-crap thing in motion. I, personally love "Naruto".
Pre-shipuuden really set up the whole story. It made you think there was one bad guy, then there are nine more, and suddenly, everything's crashing around them. Shipuuden is when the dots start to build and connect, until the plot's climax, but the characters never forget their purpose: to protect the people they love.
To be completely honest, "Naruto" is one giant cliche. The characters are typical archetypes, and the plot is pretty much the same as any other shounen manga. It's the way it's executed that makes it so fantastic. Kishimoto knows his characters and his story, and there is no slip up. For every good character, there's a misunderstood/ lonely villain, and only after it's too late does Kishimoto reveal their true nature. The villains are made more into characters than the main "good" characters are!
It is not true at all that "Naruto" diminishes in quality at any point. The feel of the story does change, but it's because they're getting older, and starting to build an understanding of themselves and their villages and friends.
The fighting is just a bonus!

Utterly fantastic in the Naruto arc but right when shippuden happened, shit started to hit the fan FAST. Kishimoto is beginning to run out of steam and it is evident in the manga. It is a pity because this is one of THE 3 shounen manga I would be sad if this ends in a deus ex machina manner..hopefully not*crosses fingers* It is not my favourite anymore (OP holds the title) but it is the first of the 3 top shounen manga I read so I still hold a special place in my heart regardless of how far it has fallen.

... Last updated on May 19th, 2011, 1:02am

its the side stories that make this manga. naruto is an extremely boring and irritating character. that and ninjas are associated with skill and cunning. this manga just makes them get more and more powerful techniques while getting stupider and stupider.

... Last updated on May 16th, 2011, 7:02pm

naruto is the best manga i ever read,i read every single chapter, if you dont give a ten is because you haven't so please dont give a bad rate to a classic ok, its give a complete other lavel to manga, oh what about sasuke u hate him right, you will understand eventually because there are reasons everywhere in this manga for everything, always full of surprises , i would give 30 points if i could

Naruto was one of the first shonen manga I picked up, the reason being its immense popularity. While I wasn't utterly familiar with this genre (save all the middle school fantasy books phase), but Naruto's popularity was to such an extent that even I, a non-reader, could recognize the protagonist.
I began reading it in tandem with Bleach since both were supposedly masters of their field.
However, I was disappointed. I found that I couldn't read more than a couple of volumes simply because the story didn't interest me at all.
Based on the first 27 chapters, I just didn't click with Naruto as I did with Bleach. The problem I found was that while Naruto was somewhat funny, Bleach was stupendously funny with an intriguing storyline. But I guess it is my mistake in comparing each of these three with the others.
Naruto was an idiot, I'll give you that, and usually I enjoy idiot protagonists. They're just more fun. Naruto was the poster boy for all tortured, shunned orphan kids and in theory I should've loved this guy. To me he was just simply annoying.
Ultimately, its just a matter of choice and preference. While some people do enjoy Naruto and hail it as epic, I felt it was merely slightly above average. I even refrained from rating it not having read a significant bit of it.
Maybe if I were really an amateur, dappling in shonen for the first time, I would've liked it. Naruto was just an amalgamation of most shonen cliches (introductory, at least) and I would really recommend this as a starting point for all the newcomers. For the more experienced ones, however, not so much.

I remember when I was young and I would watch Naruto every Friday at 8:30. lolll XD
I personally think the anime is better (although there are so many damn fillers >.>) because the soundtracks are so amazing. The characters are so well developed and everyone has their own unique background story. The only thing htat pisses me off about this is that its neverending =.=
but other than that, great characters, great artwork, great fight scenes but it gets boring and i just wish that everyone would die already so it would end.

Sure the first few chapters are entertaining for a while, but then it just gets stupid. It's overly long, and it doesn't even deserve the huge amount of fans it has. Everyone is a ninja. There are many better things to read in my opinion. But, while I hate this series, it's not fair to give it a bad rating out of pure spite. As a fair manga rater, this deserves a solid 6/10.

Started off extremely awesome - good jokes, tense moments, rides of joy and sorrowness - had everything to be an all-time best imho.

However, somehow as it drags on, it feels that the kick is gone and the tense elements have been spread thin - as there are way too many characters involved. Also, the theme of how Naruto feels about being lonely/despised etc etc is already shown way too much already...

As for now, I am still reading just so I want to know how things tie up in the end - I would be totally fine to skip everything to where Naruto fights Sasuke and see how this rivalry finally ends...

PS - I think the anime is extremely awful (esp. in shippuuden) because it seems to switch the target audience to a young teenage group, shows WAY too much flashback of the same thing, has WAY too much filler, has WAY too much idling of nothing happening...

Naruto is a brilliant series that is well drawn and written. If you also want to see any manga thats similar to Naruto when it comes to a dramatic and well done story, read '666 Satan' or 'O-Parts Hunter', written by Seishi Kishimoto the brother of Masashi Kishimoto the writer of Naruto.

Although it is a good series, the latest chapters (the last to arcs) have been....dissapointing and the anime has so many fillers that it annoys me to even think about watching it. Good fighting scenes aswell.