Anime Month: Day 15- Long Running Shows

The immediate benefit of a long running anime is that you’d always have something to watch. You grow with characters throughout your own lifetime, and their story becomes apart of yours.

Even though I said a lot of bad things throughout the month about Naruto, I love that show because it’s been apart of my life since middle school. I’m in college now and Naruto is still going strong. Fairy Tail is also a shinning example of a show that has lasted through multiple stories and a wide range of characters. Long shows have the ability to flesh out multiple characters whenever they please, because there is no need to rush anything.

Anime Month: Day 14- Manga vs. Anime

I’ve brought up Death Note a few times during anime month, and I must do so again, because I enjoyed the manga more than the anime. The story is exactly the same, but with the manga, I could take my time reading it, anywhere I wanted to. I’ve only watched Death Note once, but read the manga twice because I wanted to go back to certain parts to dissect them and see if I missed any subtle details.

It also helped that the art quality for the Death Note manga was superb. 

Anime Month: Day 12- Naruto’s Ending

*Heavy Spoilers for Naruto*

Even though the anime hasn’t ended, the manga has. So the story is indeed over … and it sucks. This one stings because Naruto was one of the first shows I fell in love with, and after all these years it is finally over for me. It wasn’t even bittersweet because I just hated how it ended.

Loose ends were left that way, characters were underused and the story went off the rails towards the end. The Naruto/Sasuke fight was predictable, but that’s not my issue with the ending. My issue is with everything that surrounded that fight. Not geographically of course, but the story that came before and after the fight was the problem. 

Anime Month Day 2- Intro to Japanese Animation: Toonami

In the prime time days of Toonami, there was no question where I would be on a Saturday night. I sat parallel to my television watching Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Zatch Bell, Inuyasha, and whatever else came on that night.

I had a blast every night with the coolest shows on TV, but at the time I didn’t know that Toonami would be the entry point to an entire culture.

Naruto 700: The End of an Era

I sat on my couch with my laptop and my lunch at the ready a few hours ago. Then I thought to myself, “oh hey, I wonder if the new Naruto chapter is out.” Lo and behold, it was. So I sat there and read 699 and 700, the final two chapters of the long running series. Two hours after I finished reading them, I haven’t gotten up from my couch, and my food is now very cold.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution Review

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is a revolution that no one asked for. Yes, the Storm games needed a change to its system because it has gotten really stale since Storm 2, but this change regresses the series back to an era that has never even existed. The series has taken 54 ninja dashes backwards and as a result, Storm Revolution is one of the worst Naruto games ever made.

Instead of recapping the main story that the previous Naruto games have done in the past, a weird Ninja World Tournament is the main attraction here. In this mode, you fight in 4-person battle royals that tasks you with hitting orbs out of your opponents. There is no health bar, so person with the most orbs wins. So I guess this was supposed to be the Revolution in the game, right? The mode is downright boring. It does nothing new besides put two more characters on-screen, who by the way fight like brain-dead giraffes, and says “hit me until you have enough orbs to win.” At best, Ninja World Tournament should have been a side mode for a nice change of pace, but instead it is the “meat” of the game, and it is awfully stale. 

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Review

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 is the fourth installment in the Storm series. On paper, Storm 3 looks like it’s supposed to be an amazing game for Naruto fans. It has over 80 characters, a story mode that lasts more than 10 hours and has solid graphics. But the end result is the worst Ultimate Ninja Storm game yet. The game is flawed in several areas, mainly in its game-play and story. Whether you are a fighting game fan or just a Naruto lover, you might want to stay away from this one.