Why has Naruto become less interesting?

[DarthEnderX]

Shonen are you kidding me, you do know that shows like Rurouni Kenshin, DBZ, Hunter X Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, Blood+, Death Note, FMA etc are shonen right. Compared to shows like that Naruto doesn't even register.

If we're judging better as "which would I like to sit down and watch a bunch of" on a given day. I enjoy Naruto way more than DBZ(the classic, but most modern shounen series improve on it in every way), Blood+. I've never seen Hunter or Yu Yu. And while only by a small margin, I'd still rather rewatch a couple Naruto arcs than rewatch Death Note, FMA or Kenshin.

[Dark Dragon]

If we're judging better as "which would I like to sit down and watch a bunch of" on a given day. I enjoy Naruto way more than DBZ(the classic, but most modern shounen series improve on it in every way), Blood+. I've never seen Hunter or Yu Yu. And while only by a small margin, I'd still rather rewatch a couple Naruto arcs than rewatch Death Note, FMA or Kenshin.

What are you doing here posting when you could be watching Hunter X Hunter or Yu Yu Hakusho since those are arguably 2 of the best shounen of all time, both created by the same mangaka i may add. Death Note, FMA and Kenshin are all rather flawed when compared to the source material so i can see why some of the better naruto arc might be more appealing.

I think one of the reason why this show has become less interesting is Naruto himself. Naruto development as a character has been painfully slow, both in ability and personality.

In the old days, Naruto actually use valid strategies to fight his opponent in order to make up for his lack of skills. In Shippuuden so far, most of the fights that Naruto was involve in basically consist of him using the Rasengan or just running head first at the enemy. It's very hard to care about a show when the main character who is on screen 70% of the time had become so uninteresting and stupid. I've began to notice that some of the better episodes/chapters recently are usually focused on someone else like the latest episode with Shikamaru for example.

The second reason is the Studio effort to milk this show for all of its worth. There is a ton of chapters between the anime and the manga, there was no need to stretch out boring chapters so they can fit into one episode or inserting an atrocious filler arc that feature a Sasuke/Gaara clone in the middle of Naruto's training that was suppose to only take a few days. The bad timing of music,pacing and sub par animation only adds to the overall disappointment. Asuma death in the manga was out of no where, it was rather shocking since Kishimoto didn't really kill off anyone at that point, but the studio shitty pacing and needlessly spoilerific preview made it obvious and totally destroyed that scene.

The manga still has it moments, if the studio would wise up and do a proper job animating it then it's possible for the anime to regain some former glory.