Naruto Shippuden Review

 Overall rating 6.5/10 - Overall good and enjoyable, rather flawed ending.

I recommend watching.

This is mostly a good sequel to the original Naruto. I would have given it 7 if not for disappointing ending and the whole Tobi retcon machine.

When I watched it continuously, as it aired, I did not noticed much difference from the original Naruto, however when I re-watched it I noticed some simplification almost immediately.

Awesome soundtrack of the original was lost as well.

For the most part this is as good as the original however. It continues 2 years after the original story wise and takes things a level further.

Akatsuki is an interesting antagonist. Many of their members are very likeable. I can particularly relate to Nagato(Pain) and like Konan. The whole 6 path of Pain concept is probably the highest point in this show.

Unfortunately it kind of goes downhill from there. After Pain and Itachi died, Tobi reinterprets many of the event of the show in a different light. I personally dislike this twist and prefer to think that Tobi is liar and just made that whole thing up.

That sours my opinion on the final ark of the show as well. Though overall it was very interesting idea to make them fight reanimations  of their fallen comrades. There were several disgusting bits that spoil the fun, among them are self-hating reanimated Nagato and reanimated Itachi, who were so ham-fistedly 'redeemed' left bitter aftertaste.

Final battle between Sasuke and Naruto also left to be desired. Instead of splitting the whole ninja alliance between two of them, based on who of the characters agree with Naruto's or Sasuke's idea of future ninja world. Followed by all out Ninja Alliance civil war, that would pit even people of same villages against one another.

Instead we got just 6 or so episodes of 1vs1, that somehow was more lacking than similar closing battle in the original Naruto. Final stage of the battle between 2 most powerful ninjas in the world was a simple fist fight, that is ridiculous. As if Kishimoto got bored and simply wanted to finish asap to retire to his island mansion full of Thai girls.

Despite bad ending I can still recommend it. A lot of good things happen before Tobi 'took over' the akatsuki.