Highlights
- Naruto's dream of becoming Hokage, which was central to the entire story, was not properly addressed or built up towards the end.
- Fans did not get to see Naruto becoming Hokage in the original manga, and it was later revealed in an OAV, which was disappointing for fans who followed the character from the beginning.
- The sequel series, Boruto, focused less on Naruto and Sasuke and more on the newer generation of characters, leaving fans unsatisfied with how Naruto's legacy was treated.
The Naruto series is one of the most popular anime and manga series and, surely one of the most incredible pieces of fiction to have ever been written. The story follows the journey of Naruto Uzumaki, a young boy who aims to become the Hokage of his village, a position that is held by the strongest and the most reliable person in the village, generally speaking.
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In a world of ninjas, Naruto has to claw his way out from being largely useless at the beginning, all the way to the top of the Shinobi world in order to see his dream fulfilled. While Naruto has certainly been an incredibly enjoyable journey for the fans to enjoy, it certainly does have its flaws, and one of the very biggest of them all is how the story concluded and how Naruto's dream itself was treated.
The Incredible Run Of Naruto
The Naruto series enjoyed quite an incredible run. It is clear for the fans to see that this story had incredible peaks and that fans enjoyed it to the utmost fullest throughout its run. Of course, the beginning to Naruto was quite enthralling and gripped the fans, making it clear that this story was something special. The intensity of this story only built up as things moved forward. The introduction of many powerful characters, intimidating villains, and special storylines surrounding bonds of friendships meant that this was a story that many fans found a lot of joy in reading and watching.
Naruto became special and this story gained the popularity that it rightly deserved. In the latter half of Naruto, this popularity was still maintained, if not increased. Fans absolutely loved the series for what it was and what it offered, however, with time, the quality of the Naruto series certainly started to decline. This came especially after the conclusion of the Pain's Assault arc, which many fans believe to be the absolute pinnacle of the series. Following this arc, the series certainly started declining in terms of quality. However, the decline wasn't too drastic. The Fourth Great Ninja War is where the gripes of most fans surface and this arc was, for the vast majority of it, not all that interesting to begin with.
The villains were not all that intimidating, and, even the ones that were, such as Madara, were treated in a very bad manner. Of course, one of the biggest gripes that fans have with Naruto as a series was to remove Madara and bring in Kaguya as the final villain, however, an even bigger mistake the series made was pertaining to Naruto's dream of becoming the Hokage, which was central to the entire story.
How Naruto's Dream Was Treated
Naruto Uzumaki declared his goal of becoming the Hokage of the village at the very beginning of the series. Over the years, Naruto certainly got closer to his dream. Even though he did not progress as a ninja in terms of ranks, everyone around him knew that he was a capable ninja who could, one day, rise to the very top. When Naruto returned after the timeskip, it was clear for everyone to see that this ninja was not the same. He had matured tremendously and reached unprecedented levels of power. Naruto then went on to attain Sage Mode and save the entire village. In doing so, he gained the acknowledgement of every single person in the village. As Itachi put it, the one who is accepted by the people ends up becoming the Hokage and Naruto was already halfway there. In the Fourth Great Ninja War, Naruto saved the world, by this point, it was clear that he was the prime candidate for Hokage.
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However, much to the surprise of the fans, Naruto's dream was not built up at all towards the end of the series. Fans expected Naruto to become Hokage. However, that isn't what happened. This position was given to Kakashi and Naruto only ended up becoming Hokage many years later, which was a bizarre decision. In fact, there was a major timeskip from the conclusion of the war, to the point where Naruto was already Hokage randomly one day. There was absolutely no buildup to him attaining this position years after the war. If Naruto was not ready to become Hokage after the war, then fans should very well have seen the progress that he made to become capable.
All this was completely skipped in the series and this was essentially at the core of the story. Naruto and his dream of becoming Hokage was what the story was all about and, despite that, it was treated in a bizarre manner at the end of the story.
What's even worse is that fans did not even get to see Naruto becoming the Hokage in the original manga. This moment would certainly have been special, given that fans were following this character from day one. Yet, this moment was completely cut out and was later revealed in an OAV. In the manga itself, Naruto was already Hokage when fans got a glimpse of him in chapter 700 and nothing significant even happened, other than a setup for the future of the Naruto series.
The anime did something even worse. The anime concluded with Naruto not even becoming the Hokage. Instead, the anime's conclusion saw Naruto get married to Hinata, which was absolutely bizarre. Essentially, the story ended without Naruto attaining his goal in the anime and that just goes to highlight how big a mistake this was. Even though fans did get to see Naruto become the Hokage later on in a special episode, the moment itself was quite embarrassing for the 7th Hokage and, once again, used to set up in the next generation.
Of course, fans wanted to see Naruto live out the dream that he worked so hard towards over the years, and that is why they attached themselves to the Boruto series, which would then give them a look at Naruto's growth over the years. However, jumping from Naruto to Boruto would end up being the second biggest mistake that this franchise has ever made.
The Tie-In With Boruto
Shortly after Naruto concluded, fans knew that a sequel was to follow. When Boruto: Naruto the Movie was announced, fans knew that the series had decided to go a particular way with Naruto's son as the new protagonist. The vast majority of the fans watched Boruto for Naruto Uzumaki and the other characters around him, such as Sasuke. This is simply down to the fact that Naruto and Sasuke are the core of this story and the ending that Naruto received was certainly not fulfilling. They wanted to see Naruto live out his dream as Hokage and, at the same time, see all the other beloved characters who were simply cut out from the story towards the end and not given any importance, and their lives as well.
However, Boruto ended up being anything but that. While Naruto's life as Hokage was certainly focused on at the beginning of the story, it eventually destroyed every bit of legacy that the character carried. Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha were treated horribly in the Boruto series. Both of them have been essentially cut out of the plot just so the newer generation characters get a chance to shine.
To make things worse, these characters aren't even killed off because the authors are afraid of doing that. It is clear that they fear the backlash they would receive if they took such a drastic measure and, instead, they keep them barely alive so fans would cling to the story, however, cut them out of the plot entirely so the story could be taken over by the newer generation characters.
Sadly, fans never got to see Naruto live out his dream as a proper Hokage in the original series and, the series that the fans pinned their hopes on to deliver this ended up treating Naruto in an even worse way. This remains to be the biggest mistake of the franchise and, fans can only hope that they get content related to Naruto during the blank period and the times around when he became Hokage later down the line.
Naruto is available to stream on Prime Video.
