What the heck is Naruto?

[Mad Mac]

Heh, well it's hard to dislike an elite ninja instructor whose passion is reading the entire "Makeout Paradise" series of books.

 

[Uzumaki]

I must (as I usually do) recommend the manga over the anime. The anime has a lot of material to work with, so it stays quite faithful to the manga for the first 130 episodes or so, but it isn't always treated well. Sometimes a scene is inserted for no other reason than to get a cheap laugh, and the dialogue gets padded to fill up the minutes. I haven't seen any of the recent filler episodes, so I can't make a judgement on how bad they are.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Another reccomendation for the manga over the anime. The anime is really slow paced for the first season, and it really botches a lot of important scenes and themes from the manga. Not the least of which is the fact that Naruto himself is a lot less annoying and a lot cooler in the manga. The anime designers went out of their way to make him look stupid.

That and the translation is a lot cleaner in the manga than in the anime, and the art is better. Masashi Kishimoto has a great black and white style that doesn't really convert over to color very well, and medium of the comic is used very well.

I just wish Viz would start bringing the translated manga over a bit quicker. A volume every three months or so is just a bit too slow.