Let’s ignore the writing for a moment. Has any other TV anime show managed to contain such extremes of animation quality?

In the episodes I’ve seen, probably the first 100 or so, you’ve the highs of some excellent Norio Matsumoto animated fights to the lows of elementary animation cock ups like having Naruto on the screen running upside down. The level of inconsistency in what Studio Pierrot produced was astounding. And infuriating.

But that’s not why I gave up on it. No, it was the writing.

Here’s the real problem Naruto had, the manga didn’t divide up neatly into arcs in the same way that Dragonball or One Piece did. There’s other problems with manga’s writing, but that’s neither here nor there, for the purposes of animating it.

That lack of breaks in the story meant that they struggled to pad out the story. You ended up with both repetitive recaps and then the long tract of sub-par filler episodes that people just hated. It’s not the only show that’s had that problem, but it’s certainly really noticeable when seen against the success of One Piece and Dragonball, and may have ultimately hurt the property. Certainly kept me away from it for years.

But outside of Japan it’s probably been the hit of the decade. Some may wonder if it’s deserved, but to really put the current success of Shonen Jump properties like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Gintama & Reborn into perspective I suggest looking at what else is running in Shonen Jump at the moment. It’s mostly terrible. Toriko and Bakuman are good, and I’d guess would be hits if animated. Bakuman I expect will be, Toriko might not, probably for reasons that have nothing to with the actual strip.

Every other non-gag strip that’s not been animated yet, feels either highly derivative or just clumsy. Naruto’s success in the US/UK is fueled by the manga, and that is head and shoulders above a lot of what’s in SJ, even if it’s not really my cup of tea. It is very good at what it does. Not the best ever, not the best now, but certainly better than the majority of shonen manga and anime.

With Naruto showing up in Yahoo’s top ten searches, discussion moved to who uses Yahoo anyway as if to dismiss it’s popularity. After all surely Google is the important search application nowadays?

Well I thought to check the Google Zeigeist, but that appears to be long gone, replaced by the wonderful Google Trends. And there we can see the power of Naruto.

Naruto vs. Yahoo’s top search, Britney Spears – A clear victory for Naruto, and we see that searches for “naruto” have been continually growing the last 4 years as opposed to Britney’s popularity ebbing and flowing with events in her life.

Now lets add the next three in their chart – Naruto is still on top. In fact it takes getting elected as President to push Barack Obama over our ninja chum.

And lets see how it compares to the two other big anime franchises that have hit the west – Overall Pokemon has Naruto beat over the last four years, but is in decline. Dragonball been maintaining a steady march for a franchise it’s age.

Looking at all these figures, is it any wonder that Viz & TV Tokyo are looking stream Naruto for free? If you’re getting that many searches for your product you want to aim them at your content – and in turn advertising. If any title can make that model work it’s Naruto.

One last thing, Naruto vs. One Piece vs. Bleach vs. Gintama (in Japanese) – here however Naruto is in decline, with Gintama being the series on the rise (from the sudden rise in 06, we can assume the anime has had a definite effect on its popularity). One Piece ebbs and flows but invariably is the most popular of the Shonen Jump properties (at least among folks who want to find information about it on the internet).

I think I can now pinpoint the problem I have with Soul Eater, and it’s a problem I have with some other shonen titles to various degrees. It’s the Adult Authority Figures.

I mentioned some time ago the difference between Sgt. Frog and it’s antecedent, Urusei Yatsura, in how they treated adulthood. Sgt Frog treats adulthood as being just as fun as childhood, Urusei Yatsura portrays it as some kind of living hell.

Now the difference between Soul Eater and what is obviously my favourite shonen series, One Piece, is also a difference between how they treat adults, but rather than a difference in a philosophical view of adulthood (Soul Eater seems to side more with UY, given Maka’s father’s characterisation), it’s in the use of Adult Authority Figures.

Soul Eater, like many shonen series has the main characters firmly placed as students of older, wiser, characters, who know more than they do. Naruto is an exemplary case of this format, for all the goofing off and disobeying orders that Naruto does, he’s never shown to be smarter than Kakashi. In Soul Eater, no matter how goofy Dr Franken Stein or the Grim Reaper are, they know more than the main characters, and at the current time, the main characters ultimately have to bow to their greater knowledge.

In One Piece, however, all characters who feasibly have authority over the main characters are wrong. Even if, in theory, they are right. Regardless of common sense, fact or circumstance, Luffy’s decisions always end up being the right one in the end. It’s resolutely anti-authority. It’s a bunch of kids having adventures, doing what they want, without adults telling them what to do. Even if some of the kids are 27, 34 and 100+ years old. Part of what turned me off Bleach was the slow turn of the main characters from being anti-authority, to doing what the series’ “grown-ups” want them to do.

The lesson is: if you are going to write an adolescent fantasy, go the whole hog and STICK IT TO THE MAN!

Ninjas, son.

So, we reach Naruto, the show currently keeping the US anime industry's profile high (along with the more recent Bleach). Naruto, the manga, began in 1999 in Shonen Jump and has become on of the biggest multimedia properties for that magazine. The anime started in 2002, and it's popularity in Anglophone countries was propelled by the advent of bittorrent. Indeed there's probably an argument that they propelled each other to some degree.

The show is set in an anachronism filled fantasy world, where numerous ninja clans compete for work from different governments. It follows the adventures of young, 13 year old trainee ninja ORPHAN called Naruto. Who just so happens to have had a powerful demonic spirit bound into him.

The series, like Bleach is very much a template for how Shonen Jump strips tend to proceed in their lifecycle. They normally start with a short introductory story, then a longer self contained story, and then once the series is established and a hit you get the “big” story the author wants to tell.

Now, Naruto starts well, but hits a problem once it hits that big story. Much like Bleach's Soul Society arc, creator Masahi Kishimoto introduces far too many at once and also goes for the easy tournament plot route that has proved popular in Jump strips since Akira Toriyama almost accidentally hit on the formula in Dragonball. And then it just begins to meander with no end to the current storylines in sight.

In fact it meandered so much, it's audience effectively outgrew the main character. Reading about a 13 year old ninja may seem the epitome of cool when you are 13, but by 2005 that 13 yr old kid who started reading Naruto in 1999 is going to be 18-19. So much like the leap from Dragonball to Dragonball Z, Kishimoto leapt the plot forward 2 and a half years and began Naruto: Shippūden.

As a disposable piece of pop entertainment, the show stands up quite well. The episodes vary in production quality greatly, but it has produced some truly stand out pieces of work from Norio Matsumoto. It's only when you compare it to other Jump titles, past and present does the series begin to look a little weaker.

But the lucky thing is that the bulk of the audience for the show won't be that familiar with them leaving it only having to really be rated against Bleach and One Piece. One of which it is more successful than, the other it comes short of matching.

Personally it's my least favourite of the three due to the meandering nature of the plot, the relative merits of the other two and the fact that Naruto has so few influences that you can see them clearly.