To Err is Shippuden

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Naruto is like the cornerstone for the anime franchise filled with heart touching episodes, overwhelming emotions, character development and growth and a very much relatable storyline providing a lot of enjoyable moments for its audience. The anime is so popular that it is believed that at least 2 out of every 3 otaku around the world has both seen and loves the show for not just its intriguing plot,but it's cool characters as well especially the villians. The original Naruto series which has a total of 220 episodes introduced the Protagonist by the name of Naruto, a lonely orphan with dreams of becoming the strongest ninja in his village despite being untalented because his rise will give him the attention he desperately needs. The OG Naruto which focused on the childhood phase of the protagonist was super interesting , gave depth even to side characters and possessed peak fight scenes that even rivals some animes in 2025.

After about 220 of pure awesomeness, the anime was on a one way trip straight to top. However, some of the decisions from the author created too many controversies restricting it from reaching its truly potentials
Naruto Shippuden was what came after the OG Naruto series focusing on the protagonist as a 15 year old in a war-ridden world and boy was I invested. I still acknowledge it as probably one of the best anime of all time but I won't deny the fact that it came with a lot of disappointment I only noticed as I rewatched it from a matured perspective untainted by nostalgia.

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One of my biggest disappointments was the fact that Naruto- the protagonist had only Two moves; The shadow clone jitsu and the rasengan. Uzumaki Naruto left konohagakure for two and a half years to train under Master Jiraya only to come back with a bigger Rasengan. His first encounter with his rival Sasuke showed a vast gap in their strength levels and it looked like Sasuke could fold the entire new team 7 with the insane power upgrades he achieved after every battle while Naruto was stuck with the same move but different variations (Rasengan).

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At some point I was beginning to think that his Talk no jutsu was the only thing he had going for him as he could always talk his way out of every conflict.
The author kishimoto also committed a grave error by completely ignoring side characters. Characters like Rock Lee, Neji , Choji and even Gaara were reduced to nothing more than distractions.

These were characters worthy enough of getting their spinoff series but it would became obvious that the Kishimoto only cared about Team 7 ( Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi), everyone else just didn't matter enough to get the screen time they totally deserve and till this day I will never forgive Kishimoto for making Neji die the way he did. Let's not even talk about the lack of character development among Females in the series because that is another tragedy on its own turning literal kunoichis like Sakura and Hinata into boy obsessed creatures while the likes of the fierce Temari into a character that was only good enough for filler episodes.
But despite its numerous issues, the biggest disappointment the series would have to the final boss in the fourth great ninja war arc.

Madara was portrayed as a literal god, a brilliant mastermind who manipulating everybody behind the scenes even from the afterlife. The name Madara struck fear into the hearts of every Shinobi both living and dead, his ideology, his aura, everything about him just screamed final boss. After he was revived during the Fourth great ninja, he was completely decimating the entire Shinobi allied forces further proving the world why he us Him. He completely 1 V-ed the 5 kages, owned the entire and even defeated Hashirama his supposedly rival. Madara was unstoppable but something completely unexpected happened that shocked the audience leaving a bitter taste in our mouths. At the height of his power it was revealed that Madara was nothing more than a pawn to resurrect kaguya robbing us all from the battle were all hoping to see. The whole story lost its meaning and it felt like we were watching something else. Kaguya felt completely foreign to the story, was not even a known variable to the story until the war arc turning all of Madara's hype and struggle into nothing more than wasted effort.

I love me some Naruto and it will forever be one of my favourite series but let's be honest there were too many flaws attached to the series that could have been easily avoided and the ending still remains one of the biggest disappointments in all anime fiction till this very day.