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Thank God it’s over!
None of us were really prepared for this show. We read from the Naruto Fan Wikia. Neil listens in awe of the ridiculousness.
Topics Covered
Naruto Fan Wankia – Believe it!
Citation needed
The worst of DBZ
Dead? No, just a shadow clone.
Orange jumpsuits and fox wiskers
Ninjas that don’t look like ninjas
No one will ever think to look over the giant wall!
It’s because SHUT UP!
Snake nerds!
Eyes that PIERCE THE SOUL!
Always loving the pervert
Nevell Longbottom is the hero
Global economics of mercenary armies in a world the size of Connecticut
Maggot cheese
One shall stand. One shall fall.
Make him go away!
Even the best parts of Naruto aren’t that special. This character doesn’t do anything.
For you guys to make the criticisms you did even when you haven’t read much of it is pretty spot on considering people who do follow it, and make fun of it week after week, all share the same opinions.
I stopped reading it ages ago but hearing things like Naruto going to a seizure because he is told to kill Sasuke makes me want to stay as far away as possible.
I’m not even gonna defend Naruto. In the real world with real world technology and stuff, it makes no sense. But keeping magic stealth warriors of varying degrees of lethality for all your military and intelligence work makes sense in a world with no guns. Just Saiyan…(heh)
I’d have been happier if the story had been fleshed out from the pilot, with Naruto wandering around making friends and having weird magical adventures as the little fox demon. But no… Kishimoto had to go and make some more DBZ stuff.
It was alright in the Land of Waves arc, but after that, things went weird. And he wanted to make the story revolve around his favorite character, Sasuke, like Teen Titans revolved around Robin.
There were elements of something fine beneath all of the garbage. But those moments of drama, tactics, intrigue and whanot were submerged quickly by Sasuke-wanking and emo horseturds.
If you want to read something of this sort done well, go read O-Parts Hunter(666 Satan in Japan) by his brother, Seishi. At this point, Naruto is a gateway drug like DBZ is, something to transition from before the high you get from its ilk becomes stagnant.
Oh, what could have been… if only more Shonen Jump manga-ka plotted out their stories with an ending or point in mind. Then we wouldn’t have junk like this on life support begging for someone to smother them to death.
Oh… I thought you guys would at least give One Piece a shake before you were done with Jump titles. Oh well.
I won’t defend Naruto when it comes to anything “Naruto Shippuuden” related which is basically from episode 140 onwards. From that point, the original spirit of the story was completely lost.
However, I can’t help but feel confused when people confuse Naruto to have always been just another cheap DBZ imitation. Prior to Shippuuden and the ridiculous focus on Sasuke & Naruto’s odd relationship, the series had an extremely strong cast of characters, many of whom were not only likable from an aesthetic standpoint but because they were actually good fighters as well. You could actually have intellectual discussions on who would win in a fight between, lets say; Neji vs Sasuke or Rock Lee vs Naruto. (to which I would say, Lee would have mopped the floor with him) You just didn’t get that in DBZ because in that anime, if you were not Goku or Vegeta or Gohan in the Cell Saga, you were nothing but playtime fodder for the villain to make an example of.
And even beyond that it was just, “well Goku has a higher arbitrary power level than Vegeta, so he would win. herp derp.” Whereas with Naruto, you could get very very technical, especially when you involved characters like Shikamaru or the type of techniques that Kabuto, Kankurou and Shino used.
We all know that Shonen will be Shonen and they will all eternally suffer from certain inescapable cliches, but out of all the current on going action shonen manga’s, Naruto is definitely no slouch if you had watched or read it beyond the first 20 episodes or few manga volumes. That comment isn’t aimed at you AceCS, it’s just a general statement across the board and I guess aimed at the “yawn”/”not bothered” tone that was largely throughout this podcast.
An anime in which the writer is not afraid to kill off likable protagonists that aren’t just background NPC’s should be held in higher regard, especially when there are barely any other Mangas that do it these days. Plot and Arc originality is also a good thing in it as when it came to tasks and missions or issues they faced, it didn’t always revolve around a dude who just wants to destroy the world. the issues in Naruto slowly built up and varied from exams, to assassination plans, to protection missions, to finding someone, etc. Lastly, although the topic of emotion is subjective, I think Naruto did do a great job in making the viewers connect with some of the issues that characters went through, and the over arching theme of acceptance, family and friendship is one that I think was well presented.
I mean ultimately, Naruto was very much an action shonen that wanted desperately to be a drama at the same time. And whether that was successful or not is a debate that can be had, but regardless, I don’t think it deserves or even makes sense to be compared with DBZ so much when DBZ never tried to be anything else other than high octane action and fun. There was no drama present in DBZ beyond “Freizaaaa!… you killed Krillain!”.
Anyway, that’s my rant over. I guess everything I said ends up being obsolete in the end, since Kishimoto ended up going DBZ syndrome and ruined it with Shippuuden, but the old Naruto deserves some respect in what it did really well. And it did do a lot well.
You mean like when they killed Kakashi? Or an entire village? And then they brought them all back? Making the sacrifice they did to get Gara back (according to fans) pointless?
What I keep saying that I like about Dragon Ball over Naruto is that Dragon Ball doesn`t take itself too seriously, while Naruto is constantly doing silly things but taking them extra seriously and vice versa.
As for the visuals, sorry, I`m not a fan in that department. I felt more attracted to the rawness in Bleach than in the ongoing Naruto series. Then again, when it comes to what one finds interesting or not is a matter of personal tastes, so you`re welcome to like Naruto`s designs over anything else. Like we said in the podcast, that was just our opinion, you`re all entitled to have one and you`re welcome to go in and defend it all you want, we seriously didn`t follow that much of Naruto and we openly admitted how much we had seen or read. Thanks for voicing your opinion!
Wait, but doesn’t DBZ have the dragon balls? People get wished back in that show everytime. Nobody who wasn’t a bad guy stayed dead. There are two major instances in Naruto that had people revived. The first is what u mentioned, when pain destroyed konoha but chose to reverse the destruction after naruto convinced him that his method of peace doesn’t work. 2nd was gaara, who had the old lady use a sacrificial technique to trade her life with his. She was an old lady who had lived her life to the fullest so she chose to revive gaara who had far more to achieve.
In every other instance, when a character is dead they stay dead. Jiraiya, 3rd Hokage and Asuma being the major characters who were killed. In the current arc, almost every ninja who had been killed (excluding the 3rd hokage and jiriya) has been brought back to fight in the war that’s going on now, (which I hated btw) but it was only a temporary summoning technique in which the caster uses the dead as puppets but Is unable to bring them back to true life. But In the latest ten chapters, the technique has been undone and everyone who was brought back has gone back to being dead.
My point is, despite naruto having revived characters in some cases, in most cases, characters stay dead unlike dragon ball. But I really dislike comparing those two shows because I honestly feel that they dont need to be constantly in competition. They are very different shows.
Honestly guys, I usually like your shows but this is just baffling. If none of you have watched or read Naruto to a substansial point then why do podcast on it? Most of the content is being stripped from a fan wiki page and there are assumptions being made all over the place. I don’t expect u lot to have watched it all the way up to the current latest episode but considering it is an ongoing series with over 400 episodes does suggest that you should have at least seen 30% of that and not only 13 episodes like one of u had done.
To be honest, I don’t know what the purpose of this episode was and who it was aimed at. Was it aimed at actual Naruto fans who genuinely wanted to hear the opinions of you guys? Which doesn’t work anyway because what fan of anything would want to hear the opinions of a bunch of people who clearly have not seen nor not care about the source material in question? Or is this whole thing aimed at others who also dislike and don’t care about Naruto? To which case, would make a lot more sense actually. Maybe that’s what it’s all for and I’ve missed the whole intent. Maybe it was supposed to be a circle jerk of Naruto hate for fellow Naruto haters? That, i’d understand.
However, if it was the former goal that you were after, I just want to let you know that you guys did a very bad job and frankly, you shouldn’t have attempted an honest review or discussion on anything that you obviously don’t care for. And just to let you know, I got 25 minutes into this podcast before I turned it off altogether. Not because I like Naruto and can’t bare to hear people share their negative opinions, but because it just wasn’t logical to listen to it if I was listening to it to hear some genuine discussion and opinion on the series.
So to keep everything consistent with the subject matter, I won’t listen to this silly podcast just as how you guys didn’t bother to actually take the time out to watch Naruto. And if you never planned to do something like that, then this episode should never have been recorded. From now on, I’ll only be listening to your shows when its on a topic that I know you actually have an angle to talk about it on and not relying on a wiki. I’m not disappointed to the point i’d just quit listening to the podcast completely because I do like you guys and what you have to say for the most part but this brought me close to saying “this is really silly. fuck this blog”.
C’mon now. If you paid attention, you would have noticed that Pablo had actually seen a large portion of the show and had the most to say about it. Ben not as much, and I saw almost none of it, although I saw enough to find it annoying. Still, because of that, I kept quiet. We do that some times. On a rare occasion, there’s a show that Ben didn’t actually watch, and he’ll let me talk.
I said that we didn’t PREPARE for the show, which means that those of us who had seen it were working off of memory. I probably said “watch” a number of times during, but I clearly misspoke. Pablo obviously knew what was talking about. And thumbing through a bit of the manga since the show, I’m satisfied that we did a good job here.
We’re not circle-jerking anyone. There are shows (Akira, Spider-Man, or X-Men) where we piss off the overwhelming majority. And sometimes we blast stuff that’s safe to blast, like Ayane’s High Kick, because nobody thought it was good anyway. It’s not done to appease anyone.
I could just as easily accuse you of being and overreacting fanboy.
Besides, we’ve done stuff like this before. We trashed the entire run of Power Rangers, without seeing a substantial amount of it either. The Power Rangers fans at least have a sense of humor. I advise that Naruto fans grow one as well.
Comparing Power Rangers fans with Naruto fans doesn’t make a lick of sense. Who in their right mind takes Power Rangers seriously enough to defend it from any kind of bashing or being made fun of? What adult does that? It’s Power Rangers bro. Come on. Both shows are fundamentally different things. That’s like asking fans of “Smallville” to grow a sense of humor because nobody complained when you made fun of “How I Met Your Mother”. It’s a nonsensical request due to the fact that both shows are completely different in motive and nature.
Besides, it’s not about Naruto fans having a sense of humor or not, it’s simply about the lack of sense that comes from listening to an analysis podcast or group discussion on a show in which the cast either hasn’t seen a good amount of the series or is going off of memory like you said.
If humor was the core theme of this episode then it’s humor that can only be enjoyed by fellow people who also don’t enjoy the show. Honestly dude, ask yourself what fan of Naruto would enjoy listening to the show and why they should. You would have some feet to stand on if you had all seen most of it and didn’t even need to draw from a wiki or refer to the mere 13 episodes that Pablo had seen. If at least 2 of you had seen a bulk of the show and STILL didn’t like it at all, then that would be completely fair and at least you would have more of a foundation to form your dislike out of. But as it stands here, you trashed a series based off a thick lack of knowledge that reading from a wiki or drawing from Pablo’s words doesn’t make up for at all.
You can easily accuse me of being an overreacting fanboy if you want to. If you did, I just think that would show that you can’t take any honest criticism and says a lot about you. I’m simply a listener that is annoyed and confused at the notion of doing a discussion on a show that you simply haven’t seen enough of to have any kind of meaningful discussion about.
Asking me to grow a sense of humor in this situation is akin to asking me to throw away my common sense and listen to something in which the speakers barely know what they are talking about. and as I said, no amount of wiki reading, manga page referring, early episode memory-drawing or Pablo listening, is a working replacement for actually watching a good amount of the show with your own eyes to the point where you wouldn’t even need to rely on the above list to have this discussion.
“Who in their right mind takes Power Rangers seriously enough to defend it from any kind of bashing or being made fun of? What adult does that? It’s Power Rangers bro.”
In the above paragraph, change all instances of “Power Rangers” to “Naruto”.
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“Besides, it’s not about Naruto fans having a sense of humor or not, it’s simply about the lack of sense that comes from listening to an analysis podcast or group discussion on a show in which the cast either hasn’t seen a good amount of the series or is going off of memory like you said.”
Yeah, so basically like I was saying above, it’s not uncommon that someone on the show may not be as familiar with a show as other people. We’ve done this plenty of times before, and nobody has a problem with it. All of a sudden, I’m supposed to believe that it’s bad when it’s a show like Naruto that strikes a nerve, because it’s popular. Right.
I get it. You like Naruto. You don’t like people badmouthing it if they haven’t kept up to date on it. Well, where were your principles when we covered Bleach, and it was pretty much the same thing? You think we bone up on every show we cover? Hardly. We did Transformers, GI Joe, Jem, X-Men, Spider-Man, Robotech, Captain Tylor, Evangelion, and a ton of other shows off of memory, and in some cases, either Ben or myself didn’t have a full recollection. We lean on each other when that happens. It’s no big deal.
But for YOU, it’s wrong, because it’s fucking Naruto, and how dare we do that?!
I have an idea. How about you address some of the criticisms and stop whining? Maybe you can tell us where Pablo or Ben were wrong, if you can. Because as far as I’m concerned, regardless of how much we prepared for the show, we were spot-on, and we have other fans of the show who agree with us on what we said.
All I’m hearing from you is this…
I’m not concerned about the fact that you have done this type of thing with past shows. What does that have to do with anything? I’m telling you that the concept of doing a show discussion where the hosts have barely watched the show being talked about is an idiotic one. But your there telling me that you have done the same thing before? Well okay, congratulations I guess. Congratulations for doing something idiotic multiple times in the past. How about you stay on topic because arguing that you have done it before doesn’t pull the carpet over the point i’m making.
I’ve indeed listened to the past shows that you listed. The Bleach and the Evangelion episodes are still fresh in my mind. I just chose not to say anything because I either wasn’t compelled to, didn’t care THAT much at that point to leave a comment or because I agreed with some of what was being said, especially with EVA. And i’m a fan of both those shows, again especially EVA. (not that I DIDNT agree with some of what was said in this Naruto episode but it was shrouded in far more ignorance than the Bleach & EVA episode.) So you shouldn’t take my choosing to speak up only now as evidence of my “Naruto Fanboyism”. It’s more of a case of “Okay, now this is just getting ridiculous”.
Oh and whether what you said about Naruto is true or not in light of the fact that you haven’t seen much of the show, doesn’t mean I can’t take issue with the fact that your making guesses based off what you read off a wiki or were told by Pablo. As i’ve been saying all throughout, its the set set-up that’s annoying, NOT what’s being said. But it’s a thing that i’ll remedy by listening to other Podcasts in which the hosts have watched at least the majority of what they are talking about and come back to you guys when you talk about things that you have watched at least the majority of. Makes sense right?
Yes, I am a fan of Naruto. Yes, the series is a shadow of it’s former self and is not very good currently, but I have no shame in calling myself a fan because of how much I used to love the show. However, don’t get it twisted in thinking that me being a semi-frequent listener of your podcast who chose to only speak up now, makes me a “fanboy”. To which again, even if I was a fanboy, that doesn’t make a statement on the recurring point that i’m trying to make, which is that the concept of these analysis episodes are just plain dumb when the speakers have barely watched the show. Me being a fanboy or not doesn’t make a positive case for your decision to do shows like these.
Quote – “I have an idea. How about you address some of the criticisms and stop whining?”
I’m not going to address your criticisms because I’m not here to debate opinions. THAT would be a fanboyish thing to do. I’d also find it pointless to do that because I’d be arguing with people who again, haven’t really watched the show, which just isn’t an intelligent thing to do and would be a waste of time. You can post pictures of babies crying and suggest that that’s what i’m doing as long as you like. I’m sure it makes you feel good. With it being your blog and your show and all.
I get it. You guys do shows like this all the time. I’m just saying it’s a silly thing to do. At least have one person who has watched most of it or all of it on deck so there is more of a balance. It would also provide for a more insightful show in the long run without the need to constantly pull from the internet to remind yourself/learn more about the show. I’m sure you’ll keep doing these shows regardless, I just think it’s unfair to the source material to do any kind of in depth round table on it when the most that one of you had seen was 13 out of 400+ episodes. I don’t think that what I’m saying is an unfair thing to say or is just mindless whining. But, whatever. It’s your show I guess. I won’t bother attempting any constructive criticism next time.
Just read the whole damn manga. I stand by my assessment.
“I have an idea. How about you address some of the criticisms and stop whining? Maybe you can tell us where Pablo or Ben were wrong, if you can. Because as far as I’m concerned, regardless of how much we prepared for the show, we were spot-on, and we have other fans of the show who agree with us on what we said.”
To be fair, I think the biggest sign that shows where you were wrong was early on in the show when Ben (or one of you) said something like: “When Toriyama retired, Oda recieved the element of Fun that went to One Piece, Tite recieved the element of Comedy that went to BLEACH and Kishimoto recieved the element of everything that was bad about DBZ and put it in Naruto”
For me at least, that was the most blatant sign that he didn’t know what he was talking about and was a statement that was more said just for the fun of not liking Naruto rather than it being said out of honest, legitimate and carefully thought about reasoning.
Mr Neil then asked: “you mean Naruto inherited all the bad filler episodes and long drawn out fights and screaming?”
Ben then said: “Yes”
Now, most people come to the conclusion that BLEACH is essentially DBZ with swords so that’s definitely the series out of the big three that takes the most from Toriyama, though they all do it anyway so it’s whatever. But to even say that Naruto has a lot of people powering up and screaming throughout 6 episode fights is just a plain lie and just shows why this Isildur guy above me is so annoyed. Heck, I raised an eyebrow at that too because it’s actually not true. Fights in Naruto were far more technical and articulated with precision and technique. The majority of the fights involve hand seals and people saying the names of their attacks, or summoning creatures, things like that. There was very little of 2 guys floating in the air or standing on opposite sides, clenching their fists and shouting for days like in Dragon Ball Z. The two series’ are completely different to each other and the only things similar between the two are; Naruto’s clothes intentionally being the same color scheme as Goku’s old karate gi, Jiraiya being an old perverted hermit just like Master Roshi and the fact that they are both Shonen manga and hence, suffer from the same cliche’s and tropes.
So yeah, just saying. I listened to the whole thing (and didn’t agree with a lot of it) but I would not blame anybody for listening to what I just quoted in the first 10 minutes of the show and deciding to turn the podcast all the way off because if your making untrue statements like that in the first 10 minutes then it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the rest of the episode would be equally as drenched in a lack of knowledge.
So basically the point of this episode is “Naruto sucks because.” Poignant.
Sadly it`s what it boiled down to. That`s what happens if you have three people who don`t care enough about the series and end up giving their reasons why they`re not into it. Any willing Naruto fans are more than welcome to join us in a new episode if they feel like it to let us know of the good stuff, we were totally unprepared.
@ben
You mean you read the whole manga in the space of a few days since the posting of this shw? All 600 chapters? Do you own a hyperbolic time chamber for manga reading r something? Well I’m not about to believe that you readit all so, coolstory bro. But if u reallydid rad it all and honly still feel exactly the same then thats perfectly fine. And at least you have a far more solid basis to make that statement. But Maybe you should have used the time chamber before you recorded the podcast. That would have been nice and you wouldn’t have had me calling you out on it. Just sayin. Peace out guys.
This episode was recorded over a month ago, ass. Heck, the fact that Pablo and I were talking amazing spider-man might’ve been a hint
Oh really? Lol well im sorry I’m not telepathic. Why didn’t u mention that in your original comment? Why didn’t Mr Neil mention that this was a month old in his responses? Seems like that would have been an important detail to share does it not? Im Not calling u a liar but your not giving me much room to believe u either. Again, I don’t read minds so dont come at me like I obviously should have known that. Dumbass.
And speaking about the amazing Spiderman is not an obvious sign that this was a month old. The show post has September 5th written on it. That’s all the listeners have to go off and so of course I would assume that it was recorded no longer than a few days before that date. A week at most.
Trivia: There is a buffer of Animation Aficionados episodes recorded months in advance. There is rarely an episode recorded and uploaded the same week.
Guys, let´s stop with the name calling. This was just another Animation Aficionados episode, it just was about Naruto, which, sadly, had only 3 people on it that didn`t care about the series.
Thanks to various reasons, including how passionate some of the hosts/listeners are, no Naruto “expert” was available for the recording and we kept saying that anyone was welcome to join and defend the show. I bet no one would have a problem in doing a follow up to the episode and having someone to correct us.
As for the Power Ranger thing, I`m a Power Ranger Fan. And a working animator. I love watching and making animation. I had fun with the Power Rangers episode and I have seen every last episode of that series. I can understand why a fan of Naruto can not be pleased (or HATE) the episode, but that`s just what it was. Another episode. Where again, Ben and Neil (and in this case, me) talk about what they like or don`t like of a series.
Yes, I was the one who had watched the most of the episodes from the three of us, that`s why they called for me. I didn`t feel like doing the episode, like you said, if I was the one who had seen the most, then what could we do with that? A friend of mine is the expert but doesn`t speak english, so I consultated with him before I went to do the episode. He did his best to put me up to date and showed me key scenes, but all I knew and saw is what`s in this episode.
I`m sorry I didn`t get into it as much as you feel I should, but 13 episodes is an entire series in some cases. Heck, watching episode 7 out of the blue on Avatar made me a fervient follower.
As for the “more tactical aspect” of Naruto over Dragon Ball, the standing and yelling was replaced with hand gestures and powerblocking. Granted, I wouldn`t have watched Dragon Ball if I just caught one of the yelling and floating episodes, but the first episodes of a series are what should be grabbing your attention. It didn`t grab mine for the reasons stated on the podcast, and I sure as heck wouldn`t stay around for 600 more episodes if I`m not into it. There`s stuff out there more according to my tastes and I`ll try those out before spending 200 hours watching something I don`t enjoy, just like some listeners chose not to keep listening after 10 minutes of this podcast 😛
Thanks for being reasonable. I’ve nothing to add to that. I do enjoy the show so part of my issue was with the fact that I was listening to people I like and respect the opinions of to a degree, say a bunch of confident sounding stuff with very little viewing information to back it up with. It felt a bit like watching someone u care about and expect nothing but great things from, all of a sudden do something really weird. Not calling u guys weird or anything, just painting the analogy. Anyway, thanks for responding and being cool about my ranting. all the best and I’ll check out that response show whenever it comes out.
“But your there telling me that you have done the same thing before? Well okay, congratulations I guess. Congratulations for doing something idiotic multiple times in the past.”
Let me just clarify that the part that you’re calling “moronic” is the part where I said that sometimes Ben is more knowledgeable on a show than I am, and vice versa. Let me also clarify that this is not the same as saying that nobody on the panel is familiar with the show. Understand? Do you need me to type more slowly?
This is not a big issue. While it’s normal for Ben and I to converge on topics, sometimes he’ll have a topic show where I’m just along for the ride, and sometimes it’s the other way around. This is not a big deal if one of us comes on the show to basically provide reactions to what the other people on the show are saying.
This is fairly standard procedure, but I can’t help but notice how it’s only a problem on shows like this, where there are raging fanboys.
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“How about you stay on topic because arguing that you have done it before doesn’t pull the carpet over the point i’m making.”
Again, this was to illustrate the point that this sort of thing gets a pass on other episodes and is only a sin when it’s something like Naruto.
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“At least have one person who has watched most of it or all of it on deck so there is more of a balance.”
I’m willing to accept that we got something factually wrong, but to complain about how we didn’t watch all of the show is kind of dumb.
You said yourself that we were clearly familiar with about 30% of the program. That’s actually a pretty sizeable chunk, and I think it’s more than enough to inform us about what kind of show it is and if we can recommend watching more of it. That’s kind of what the podcast has always been about.
In a general sense, 30% of the product os enough to come to a reasonable conclusion about the quality of the show. We’re talking about a 200+ episode show here. If someone tells me that they watched 60 episodes (that’s 30%) and can’t recommend it to me, I don’t have a problem considering that an informed opinion.
Now, there are some factual issues about specifics regarding the show, but when I asked you what they were, you wouldn’t give an answer. Yes, I do get a little pissy when this is the discourse I have to put up with.
Fortunately, EarthBenderCharlie was kind enough to give me what I asked for (by the way, thank you, EBC), and I have ordered an emergency “respond to the listeners” episode to hear Ben’s side of the whole DBZ comparison and hear from Pablo as well.
Look forward to our response next Thursday. Good DAY to you, sir!
Actually I didn’t say that you guys had seen 30% of it. I said IF you had at least seen even 30% of the show, you’d have much more fair room to speak of the show on. I don’t even think that either of you had even seen 30% of the show at the time of the recording so you might be giving yourself a bit of extra credit there. Which one of you had seen 60 episodes??
No worries though. I’ll be sure to tune in to that response show whenever its done. I don’t think its completely necessary to be honest. As EarthBenderCharlie mentioned, DBZ and Naruto are very different when it comes to the fighting and the story. I think anyone trying to argue that the fights are virtually the same and uninspired would just be being incredibly dishonest.
I mean just go and watch some of the best fights in the series and you should be able to admit that straight away. My personal favorite is the 3rd Hokage vs Orochimaru. Great fight. Has some old school kung fu, lots of strategy and thinking, was well paced with different types of action as opposed to just shouting louder, etc. Ultimately, its all gonna be opinionated, but I really dont see how anyone could watch that fight and still accuse Naruto of taking alot from DBZ in the combat department.
Anyway, I look forward to that podcast.
WilHi Mr. Neil.
I’d love to join the fray and record with u guys next Thursday if you’d let me. I’m up to date with the series and have been reading/watching it for years since its original release. Hit me up on blusharingan at gmail dot com. I live in London so I need to know the time differences and when u will be recording. I’m also an artist an animator myself. Feel free to check out my blog and my deviantart page. You can find them if u click my name here.
I’ll give u my Skype details via email. Not sure 100% if I will be available that day but we’ll see!
WilHi? Oops lol. Was just meant to be Hi. Spelling mistake. Don’t worry, its not Elvish or anything. 😀
But you skipped One Piece.
As for Naruto the main three characters are intolerable to me and the show can only stand on one leg due to secondary characters. Shikamaru? (shadow guy) is really the only developed character that is likable.
Didn’t I say that is what most Naruto fans say? 🙂
Down, Ben.
Yeah, we did talk about that in the show, and I’m not going to begrudge anyone for liking the secondary characters. However, I do think that it’s a knock against the author of Naruto. It seems like a very weird thing for an author to make the main characters the least interesting part of his show, but some people make these same criticisms of Batman and Superman. And just like Naruto, all the interesting characters are the ones that fill out the world. That’s why I’m not as hasty as Ben is to attack such things.
Still, I think what sets Naruto apart from Batman and Superman is just how obnoxious the character is. That was my take-away from the VERY brief experience I had with the series.