In a world rife with Ninja, one boy seeks to become the greatest ninja there ever was. That boy is Naruto Uzumaki, a twelve-year old ninja-in-training who tries makes up for his lack of talent and intellect with enthusiasm and sheer determination.
However, Naruto's cheerful disposition hides a dark secret: when he was but a baby, his hometown of Konohagakure ("The Village Hidden In the Leaves") was attacked by a monstrous demon fox known as the Kyuubi ("Nine Tails"). The beast was eventually subdued, but not before it had killed many of the strongest ninja of the village. Furthermore, the beast had to be contained in the infant Naruto's body, and the boy has had to grow up with the stigma of basically being a living prison for a demonic monster.
But like any good Shonen protagonist, Naruto doesn't let this slow him down. He continues to pursue his ambition of becoming the next Hokage ("Flame Shadow", a title for the head ninja of his village). The manga Naruto follows the story of his pursuit of greatness, with the help of his teammates (Angst-ridden Anti Hero Sasuke and hot-headed love-interest Sakura), and eventually moves to encompass their struggles against Big Bad Orochimaru, ruthless leader of the rival village of Otogakure ("Village Hidden in the Sound"), and the S-Class criminal organisation Akatsuki.
On February 8, 2007, the original series ended after 220 episodes, of which 96 were filler and 85 of those were infamously consecutive. The continuation, Naruto: Shippuden, debuted on February 15, 2007. It focuses on the further adventures of the now-15-year-old Naruto.
The English dub ran on Toonami in the US. When the news first spread that Naruto was hitting the States,despite the fanbase's fears, 4Kids had little, if any interest. But Viz had plenty of interest, since they scooped up the license and dubbed it for the US audiences. At first, it seemed like it would be marketed as a kiddie show with blood - Never Say Die was in full effect - but the Wave Country arc onwards saw free usage of the words "kill", "die", etc.
Also notable is that as of January 2009, an official English subtitled version of the anime will be available for a subscription fee as little as an hour after the Japanese broadcast on and available subtitled for free on this site which started with the beginning of Shippuden and has since caught up. For American users, the television site Hulu features the episodes for free a week after they're aired, catching up at the same rate. Which is good, considering Cartoon Network stopped airing the show when there was only 11 episodes of filler left (though luckily episodes in either language are still available on iTunes and coming out on DVD). If, like many of us, you don't live in the US you can also watch Naruto for free within an hour of it being broadcast in Japan at Crunchyroll.
Discuss Naruto and everything related with it here. :)
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