Does Naruto seem a bit artificial?

[rleland]

I know I'll probably get flamed for suggesting something so blasphemous in a naruto-forum.. But...

Well I just feel I don't get that engaged in the "emotions" in the series... It's a bit hard to describe... but you can say naruto focuses mainly on action it seems

i guess it's just less dark (even in the manga now)

anyone else have this feeling of lack of emotion in the naruto anime/manga.. as, for example, opposed to two classics like Rurouni Kenshin and Berserk?

I know it's a bit unfair comparing Naruto to those, but for example the whole Enishi arc in Rurouni Kenshin sparked alot more emotion than Naruto ever has been able to... There are lots more examples of course, but they won't mean anything to the ones who havn't read/watched -- and those who have will know what they are... (I just thought the Enishi arc was the best example... second to that would probably be the one with the oniwanbanshu around ep 10)

I just don't feel that I care that much about what happens to the characters in Naruto....

I'm not saying that Naruto is a bad series just for that... It has good action and humor, and an allright storyline... I just feel it's a bit lacking, and I'm not even sure what they're lacking.. I'm just sure it's something that both kenshin and berserk has that naruto doesn't (other than good animators )

Well anyone else share this opinion? Or am i totally wrong?

[Insomniac]

for one Kenshin was dragged out simply to make money, if anythings articifial then its Kenshin other then the ova's

as for Naruto lacking emotion, empathy or meaning it depends on how deeply you look, nearly every speech has a hidden meaning that its up to you to decide what it means to you.


If you ever studied media, Naruto falls under the Uses and gratifications theory which means we decide what meaning we want to take out of the show, we're not force fed emotions.

[Mut]

you can't compare naruto with berserk...

berserk is just too much for naruto.

[rleland]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Insomniac @ Jan 23 2004, 02:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> for one Kenshin was dragged out simply to make money, if anythings articifial then its Kenshin other then the ova&#39;s

as for Naruto lacking emotion, empathy or meaning it depends on how deeply you look, nearly every speech has a hidden meaning that its up to you to decide what it means to you.


If you ever studied media, Naruto falls under the Uses and gratifications theory which means we decide what meaning we want to take out of the show, we&#39;re not force fed emotions. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
kenshin was dragged out once it got past the kyoto arc, but you wouldn&#39;t happen to have read the manga would you now? hm?
the ovas *are* actually alot worse than the series itself imo, even though it shows stuff that was only handled by the manga... the first ova is allright, but the 2nd ova is just crap. they spend ages recapping the story (and missing completely on how the anime did it).. but for what reason?
and they didn&#39;t even get the entire enishi arc
and by the way if you actually didn&#39;t read the manga i suggest you do that cause the manga is what i was referring to
and the part with aoshi

i think you misunderstood my use of the word artificial


as for being forcefed emotions i&#39;d like to see any sho which does that to me.. some people always feel more passionate about one character or another in most series... i just dont find any characters in naruto that i care too much about. i mean it&#39;s fun to watch and all that but that&#39;s about it. haku dying was about the only sad part in naruto..

hidden meaningls blablabla has little to do with emotion imo. it&#39;s possible to write alot of hidden meanings into something without making anyone feel strongly for what you&#39;re saying..
i think what berserk and kenshin has that naruto doesn&#39;t though is a dark side.. naruto is all cheerfull and colorfull in my opinion, no matter how you look at it
maybe the kenshin and berserk manga simply spoiled me

[rleland]

yup you&#39;re right it&#39;s a matter of opinion
that&#39;s why i asked

would be no fun discussing something which was objective right?
then no point of discussing it =p
like compare discussing something within philosophy to discussing the answer to a math question

one of the discussion has a future, the other one does not =p

i think i did mention the death of haku and all that
if i didn&#39;t -- i ment to anyway

that was a good arc
the rest are a bit lacking i think

but i am more than willing to accept that an anime doesn&#39; thave to be perfect to be good so stop sounding like i just told you naruto sucked =p


the kenshin ova&#39;s are allright.. i thought they were cool the first time i watched them. i mean it was cool to see it animated. then i read the manga and i realized they weren&#39;t that cool cause the manga owned that much more badly n they could&#39;ve made the ovas alot better
well the 1st ova was quite good actually. the 2nd one is just cool because it was fun to see it animated.. other than that it can&#39;t really beat the manga


how &quot;emotional&quot; something would feel i guess would depend on how attached you are to the character it&#39;s happening too.. i think that might be where the problem comes in =p i just dont feel i know the naruto characters that well

when i think about it it might have to do with an excess of characters and stuff.. i think they just have too many &quot;main&quot; characters

i realize it lacks a bit in females too... the only female in the series i doesn&#39;t despise has to be hinata... and tsunade i guess...

it would be fun to see them involve hinata a bit more too.. she and naruto makes a cute couple hehe

and thinking about that too i realize that the focus of naruto is very wide. as i said alot of characters... which i guess leaves you with less time to get to know the characters properly... as opposed to having only 3 or 4 people who you follow thorugh the series there&#39;s like 20 of them =p


sorry i know that was a long not-too-structured post but i tried my best

[PSJ]

i think naruto is more emoitonal than kenshin, of course i only compare the animes since i cant get a hold of the kenshin manga. but naruto dont lack emotions. and as i insomniac said i think.... you can watch shows for the pure fun of it.

[Insomniac]

i dont feel like reading the manga of kenshin due to the anime not making a huge impression on me, although i enjoyed it i didnt find it emotional at all

havent you ever watched something just for the pure fun of watching it? thats mainly why there are different genres of shows.

Naruto isnt a drama to any extent so it doesnt focus on feelings as much, if anything i would say its an action/comedy.

as for Kenshin i know its one of the favourites for people simply because its one of the first animes they&#39;ve watched but i think its abit overrated, not saying that Naruto is any better but there arent very many shows that can bring up excessive emotions in me.

everyone will respond differently when presented with a certain emotion, you obviously cant relate to any of the Naruto characters therefore you dont feel for them, its just your interpretation of the character though.
you may say that Narutos artificial to you but someone else may have a completely different point of view - there is no straight answer.



</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>i think what berserk and kenshin has that naruto doesn&#39;t though is a dark side.. naruto is all cheerfull and colorfull in my opinion, no matter how you look at it</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Something you may have missed would be all those cut up bodies that Orochimaru was torturing? i think you completely skipped that part of the manga didnt you

[Insomniac]

sorry about the double post

chapter 121 page 9

take a look at that and tell me if thats not dark.

[rleland]

yup
one or two chapters are
but it&#39;s not like a
hmm
no unless you&#39;ve watched berserk or read the kenshin manga i&#39;m not sure you&#39;d understand what i mean
so it&#39;s allright

of course it&#39;s subjective as you said

and the first anime i watched as akira ^^ woot woot

if you read the kenshin manga you&#39;ll see what part of the anime are original and which ones aren&#39;t.. the original parts of the anime are good; the rest is crap
well some of the fillers are quite funny, which is good once in a while, but like naruto fillers they&#39;re just crap (cept in kenshin they made new episodes about completely different stuff inbetween arcs as fillers instead of just have people stand and stare at each other for 10 mins i guess the fact that the storyline in kenshin wasn&#39;t that linear helped)

all that said i&#39;m not saying naruto is a bad anime/manga
i just think it&#39;s missing something

[Insomniac]

i think the thing that draws alot of people to Naruto is the fact that there isnt always a clear main character (other then the title of the anime, some chapters/episode dont even focus on Naruto at all)

the variety of &#39;main characters&#39; is one of Naruto&#39;s defining points, there were certain parts in the series that Sasuke could have easily become the main character
everyone in the series has a story of their own, there arent just random people around who just fade in and out of the world.
(this is illustrated with Zaku&#39;s flashback of his past, if he wasnt important at all they wouldnt have bothered normally)

[Insomniac]

Orochimaru is Narutos only dark character, Itachi doesnt really compare as an &#39;evil&#39; so it would be easy to see that Naruto was lacking something as Oro isnt always shown in his true colours.

as for emotional moments i think you should recall Tsunades arc, where Orochimaru is tearing her to shreds with his sword and plunges it right through her chest, Tsunade fights to save Narutos life to perserve the way of the leaf.

another emotional moment would have to be Gaara&#39;s aunts death, mostly flashbacks are emotional - ie Zaku as a kid meeting with Orochimaru.
Most of these are easy to gloss over as they&#39;re so quickly done and not refered back to all the series.

Zaku as a kid is a pretty emotional moment when he turns towards Orochimaru but its so short and happened long ago so its not as memorable.

OH and i almost forgot, the 3rds death and funeral.

there are plenty of emotional moments in Naruto its just up to you to remember them.

as for dark moments they fall on Orochimaru mostly
as i may quote from Ibuki
&quot;It was like he wasnt human, just wearing that skin... i was absolutely terrorfied&quot;
and from another leaf nin
&quot;you were experimenting on human beings...&quot;

[Pyr0]

And you forgot Zabuza&amp;Haku. I think it was the most emotional scene in the series. I think Insomniac is right. There&#39;re many, but if you don&#39;t focus when watching/reading you&#39;ll pass them. It matters in what mood you are. Checking episodes atleast twice might do the difference.

[Vagabond]

I think the story is very dark/emotional. At this point in the anime the story isn&#39;t gonna be emotional because all they are doing is fighting in a tournement. But I think when it gets to the part of the story where they reveal Gaara&#39;s past, anime watchers are going sympathize with Gaara whereas before they would have hated him because he crippled Lee. hm I dunno if that got my point across.

Off topic, the darkest anime i&#39;ve ever seen is Jin-Roh. I dunno why but I found it very creepy.

[Insomniac]

i would have to say the darkest anime i&#39;ve seen so far has been Full Metal Alchemist, some seriously dark things going in that anime and its a recent occurance

[OshadowO]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Insomniac @ Jan 23 2004, 04:46 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i would have to say the darkest anime i&#39;ve seen so far has been Full Metal Alchemist, some seriously dark things going in that anime and its a recent occurance </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
yeah FMA deals with a lot of dark issues but it shrouds them in a cheery, colorful package similar to naruto imo.
As for naruto i think portions of the storyline can get dark. Subject of experimenting on dead people, sasuke&#39;s greed for power and revenge, garaa, oro&#39;s cultish followers etc but since the main character is so innocent it kinda becomes a background to the cheery disposition of Naruto.

I guess what I&#39;m trying to say is that the subject matter is dark but its presented in a light manner. If this were a more serious anime with less jokes and quirky characters then the storylines would seem a lot darker.

[Insomniac]

yes but it isnt, most ninja animes are serious and this is what makes naruto different.
Kishimoto didnt want to just create something thats similiar to every other ninja anime out there

[JessiA]

I agree that while lately in the anime it doesnt seem to be very emotionally centered (maybe except for the Neji fight), it&#39;s probably just to introduce the other characters and get us to like them...

However, there were a couple of emotional scenes lately too.. Those who like Lee and who have probably been in situations like his can connect to him very deeply, and there&#39;s an emotional tie right there.

Zabuza and Haku are one major emotional scene. I cried during that part

And while I haven&#39;t gotten past Ch. 196 in the manga yet, there are a few emotional moments, like when Sasuke recalling his past and what Itachi did to him, and I even cried after the fight between Chouji and that one chakra-sapping earth-weilding guy.. simply because I wasn&#39;t sure if Chouji was gonna live or not.

[KevKoN]

i thought the kenshin ovas were awesome ... i have to go to class soon so i cannot comment on the actual topic.

[Baka-chan]

i agree that it depends on how deep you look into naruto. and i don&#39;t believe that every anime has to be &quot;dark&quot; for it to be good. naruto has variety throughout the series, which i really like about it. it can have funny parts, dark parts, emotional, and off the wall. but the type of question asked is just opinion, so...

[rleland]

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (OshadowO @ Jan 23 2004, 09:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I guess what I&#39;m trying to say is that the subject matter is dark but its presented in a light manner. If this were a more serious anime with less jokes and quirky characters then the storylines would seem a lot darker. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
good point
i think you&#39;re onto something there ^^


a bit off topic, but with regard to what was said later i guess i&#39;m the kinda person who prefer lesser characters to more though


sorry couldn&#39;t really think of much more to say here now lol

i should just add that anyone who liked the kenshin anime (rather the kenshin character) should get a hold of at least the manga for the enishi arc (: that story rocks


anyway yea as was mentioned naruto focuses on different characters.. i guess that makes it a bit different from alot of animes.. you dont just follow the development of one character.. i dunno
i dont feel i watch it to see what happens to this and this guy, more just to see the fights and the action ^^

and the manga seems to be heading in a good direction imo.. i didn&#39;t have much taste for all the individual fights again thuogh.. those parts it feels like you&#39;re reading 3 different mangas at the same time =p it&#39;s just so frequent in naruto that the fights are all one on one... the fight which is ongoing in the manga now should be interesting though


on a side note i think the drawings affect the mood too.. the large areas of one color, and all the bright colors, are probably having an effect on how we react to what happens as well.. so the manga feels a bit different.... mm... they should&#39;ve had other people animate it ^^ i like the old animations better. the animations now have too few details or something (not sure how to put it) imo.. ahh the good ol&#39; days&#33; but it&#39;s allright for naruto.. the upside is that it makes fights look alot cooler and they can put in more coreography in the fights it seems.. plus the 3D thing where they spun the camera around in gaara vs lee was 0wnage

ok the above seems very offtopic. i was just saying large areas of bright colors (bright orange, e.g. ) makes naruto seem more cheerfull.. ok maybe the fact that most of them look like they&#39;re around age 10 makes a difference too