Naruto Season 1 (2002)
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Naruto Season 1 Review
Naruto is a shonen anime series which is one of the most famous animes of its type. The first season premiered in 2002 and it consisted of 35 episodes. It was a great start for the show.
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“All I’ve been doing is watching you two from behind…
now, get a good look at my back!“
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Having in mind that I am reviewing this series for the first time, let’s first jump into the overall basics. First off, the characters. Naruto himself is too similar to Goku at first, but he quickly grew on me and you just can’t resist his child’s innocence and his great morals and perseverance. Sasuke is too cold and reserved for now, but definitely one of the coolest characters on the show and one of the most intriguing for sure.
Sakura definitely can be annoyingly helpless, but thankfully she had her big moment near the end of this season and thus the show somewhat escaped the label of a sexist series. This trio is excellent together and I loved their friendship. Kakashi is cool and mysterious whereas Zabuza is a terrific first villain and Haku has a highly emotional storyline. The relationship between the two is weird and beautiful at the same time.
Orochimaru is such a menacing, powerful villain who only appeared here somewhat briefly, but his true power was witnessed from the beginning. Ino is memorable and of course Rock Lee is quite amusing himself. Gaara is mysterious for now and seemingly powerful. All of the others serve their purpose, but aren’t as important as these aforementioned ones are.
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The animation in Naruto shows its age, but it’s still very good with solid character designs and particularly fine forest scenery. I also love the show’s emphasis on weaponry and how intricate the weapons are, but in particular the various jutsu moves are well explained and a lot of fun. The score of the show is particularly fantastic. The second opening theme is too metallic for me, but the first one is simply a lot of catchy, good old fun.
In terms of storytelling, Naruto Season 1 is mostly excellent. It has just one filler episode and only a couple of overly childish, too uneventful episodes in the first part, but the rest is pretty good or even pure gold in some instances. I am of course talking about the battle at the bridge which is honestly the finest part of this season how strongly imagined the action there is and how moving the story so evidently is. But the written exam is a lot of fun and the second Hunger Games-like exam surely is highly entertaining.
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The show employs a hell of a lot backstories and flashbacks which are effective as the stories themselves are frequently quite moving and revelatory character-wise, but I found the over-reliance on flashbacks tiresome by its end. But that’s the common flaw of almost any anime series out there. What is more important is that the humor is freaking phenomenal as the characters made me laugh quite a bit at times whereas the action is frequently outstanding and one of the show’s biggest accomplishments as it’s exhilarating in quality and consistently engaging. The emotional investment is also there.
So the first season of Naruto, while too reliant on flashbacks and filled with too many characters, is still great for featuring some very emotional stories and backstories, a fantastic first opening theme, solid animation, strong characterization and particularly effective humor and action sequences which make the show quite fun to watch.
Worst Episodes: My Name is Konohamaru and A New Chapter Begins: The Chunin Exam.
Best Episodes: Haku’s Secret Jutsu: Crystal Ice Mirrors and Naruto’s Counterattack: Never Give In.
