Is anyone still reading the manga?
I'm getting the impression the current arc is driving people off in droves. I admit I'm not too pleased myself with how things are turning out, and it's a bit too reminiscent of the war in Bleach, but apparently Naruto fandom on Livejournal is dying out and a big cause of it is the current arc. There's an interesting discussion about it over on fail-fandomanon. Someone posted a comment which pretty much sums up how I feel about it:
Compare the current shitty zombie war arc in Naruto with the Whitebeard War saga. If that doesn't convince you to start looking at Naruto like someone handed you a dead rat, I don't know what will.
Now, I don't totally hate Naruto, and as others have said, it's a classic case of jumping the shark. But the 4th ninja war is actually worse than Pain's "redemption" and Sakura's confession, which I didn't think was even possible. It's so bad, I honestly think it has a decent chance of completely sinking the fandom, at least on livejournal. (The war arc) is boring, it's badly written, and it's the exact opposite of what just about every Naruto fan wants to read about.
One of the biggest problems is that Kishimoto created about a billion background characters all at once and expects you to give a damn about them without giving you any reason to. While the Rookie 9, Team Hawk, Team 7 including even SASUKE--you know, the characters people actually care about--get shoved on the backburner. The war itself is RIDICULOUS. There's absolutely no tension or dramatic weight because the enemy army are Zetsu's clones and corpes reanimated by Kabuto, aka either non-living or already dead. Despite the fact that Kishimoto oh-so-helpfully informs that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ninja have been killed, not a single named character has died.
The characterization is just...terrible. I can't even think of a word to describe how bad it is. Naruto is in full Jesus mode, beating incredibly powerful opponents singlehandly with minimal effort. You'd think a war like this would give minor characters a chance to shine? Think again, because Naruto is dead set on winning this entire war by himself. And he's running around non-ironically refering to himself as a savior now.
And for the Sasuke fans on here - how do you feel about his characterisation as of late? I'm not a Sasuke fan myself, but I'm getting the distinct impression his descent into batshittery hasn't gone done well with his fandom. I'll say this now, if he starts offing rookies and their families, and then gets his inevitable redemption and Naruto Talk no Jutsu's everyone into forgiving Sasuke because he's Naruto's friend and he know not what he do, I will RAGE.
Also, Naruto is turning into Sailor Moon.
Compare the current shitty zombie war arc in Naruto with the Whitebeard War saga. If that doesn't convince you to start looking at Naruto like someone handed you a dead rat, I don't know what will.
Now, I don't totally hate Naruto, and as others have said, it's a classic case of jumping the shark. But the 4th ninja war is actually worse than Pain's "redemption" and Sakura's confession, which I didn't think was even possible. It's so bad, I honestly think it has a decent chance of completely sinking the fandom, at least on livejournal. (The war arc) is boring, it's badly written, and it's the exact opposite of what just about every Naruto fan wants to read about.
One of the biggest problems is that Kishimoto created about a billion background characters all at once and expects you to give a damn about them without giving you any reason to. While the Rookie 9, Team Hawk, Team 7 including even SASUKE--you know, the characters people actually care about--get shoved on the backburner. The war itself is RIDICULOUS. There's absolutely no tension or dramatic weight because the enemy army are Zetsu's clones and corpes reanimated by Kabuto, aka either non-living or already dead. Despite the fact that Kishimoto oh-so-helpfully informs that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ninja have been killed, not a single named character has died.
The characterization is just...terrible. I can't even think of a word to describe how bad it is. Naruto is in full Jesus mode, beating incredibly powerful opponents singlehandly with minimal effort. You'd think a war like this would give minor characters a chance to shine? Think again, because Naruto is dead set on winning this entire war by himself. And he's running around non-ironically refering to himself as a savior now.
And for the Sasuke fans on here - how do you feel about his characterisation as of late? I'm not a Sasuke fan myself, but I'm getting the distinct impression his descent into batshittery hasn't gone done well with his fandom. I'll say this now, if he starts offing rookies and their families, and then gets his inevitable redemption and Naruto Talk no Jutsu's everyone into forgiving Sasuke because he's Naruto's friend and he know not what he do, I will RAGE.
Also, Naruto is turning into Sailor Moon.