With the growing anticipation of every new episode released, fans convinced me to finally watch what's all the commotion about. I dug up my old dusty Naruto epsiodes downloaded back in May 2003 and watched the first 19. It may sound alot for a first look but considering the shows length it was and is a fair ammount.

After watching the first few episodes of Naruto I established what kind of show it would turn out to be. First off the series has the typical type of main characters. First we have Naruto, loud and very full of himself. Many shows have these kinds of characters. Secondly comes Sasuke, strong witted guy who's very serious, he's also known as the 'cool' one. And last but not least Sakura, very typical girl. She falls for Sasuke's attitude but he still rejects her in every way possible.

Once I got the feel of the characters I started paying attention to the animation and music. I for one was not impressed by the animation. it wasn't that good to begin with. Type of drawings you see in many shows. I saw lots of back shots where they don't show the characters face and when they do sometimes their mouth is either moving very slowly or not moving at all. Budget must've been tough. When the animation failed I was hoping the music would take it's rebound, and so it did. I really took notice in how they intergrated the music into the show; very impressed. The only issue was that in some cases the music would over rule the character's speech (thank god for the subtitles).

Well, so far it sounds pretty good, right? Well to finish things off I was looking for a somewhat unique plot. Only to be disappointed in Naruto's weak attempt of a storyline. From what I saw it was once again very typical. About a kid wanting to be the best, never giving up and is always looking onwards. How many times has this been done? Countless times have I seen such shows. Yet, I there's a little twist. This time around Naruto isn't always winning like many other companies who attempted such a story. He's not that great, Naruto is one of the weakest characters there. Unlike other series which are very repetitive, showing one character defeating all odds to beat their opponent, Naruto is different. Looks like Naruto's plot isn't so bad after all.

So you've heard the ups and downs of Naruto so far from my perspective. In the end I don't think Naruto should be recieving this much of a hype. Cheap laughs are thrown in to impress the croud and fighting scenes are dragged out. Yet for some strange reason I was hooked for the very first moment Zabuza appeared. I guess that's what happens when you start watching Naruto. But don't expect me to be one of those fools craving for Naruto episodes weekly, waiting for posts to be made on Naruto sites saying "w00t first comment" (you all know what I'm talking about). It's definatly not going to be my first priority in anime but still worth taking a look at.