 For some it was Bleach, others maybe One Piece or Full Metal Alchemist, but for me it was Naruto. Naruto was the manga that threw me into the world of anime. Now obviously it should be noted that I'd already watched Dragon Ball Z, but DBZ is pretty much the vanilla ice cream of anime. If you've never seen DBZ by the time you were 10 years old, the government would probably send police to your house and have your parents hung for war crime. Even then, DBZ just felt like a regular cartoon to me as a kid, cause when you're 8 or 10, you can't really tell the difference between anime and regular cartoons. But once one of my greatest friends gave, I'll never forget it, he handed me that Shonen Jump Bible in math class. And once I got to the Naruto section, my eyes were open like never before. Everything about it was so new and fresh, just seeing Naruto hated by his peers and the people of his village, just seeing him try his hardest every day to become one of the greatest ninjas. It was so inspiring to me. It didn't matter who didn't believe in him, he'd rise to the occasion, kick their ass, and then say a stupid ass catchphrase, Believe it! So believe it! Then believe it! Believe it! And as cringe as that was, my middle school ass ate that shit up like it was the best thing in the world. I loved it so much, I started saying it myself. After I beat people in races at the gym, I'd be like, believe it. Anytime I beat someone in a video game, believe it. It could be something as simple as just washing their dishes. You know, my weebass would still be like, believe it, believe it. It was crazy. It even got to the point where I started to Naruto run. You know, that non-emo, you know, down the hallways because I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Starting out, I thought just the first three volumes of the manga were god tier. I was like, damn, there's no way the story can get any better than this. Masashi Kishimoto's career, it's over. It's over once these Zabuzan haku niggas get hit with the open school. But then this cheng-cheng bling-bling boy says, oh, on god? Proves everyone wrong by putting out the Chunin Exams arc, possibly the greatest character in world-building arc in anime of all time. The arc was a display of different regions or villages' characters, and it gave you an understanding of what ninjas from that area specialized in and what types of fighting styles beat which. They also went further into the types of chakra and chakra usages such as genjutsu, which was like illusion, taijutsu, which was like, you know, kind of like specialized martial arts, and the ninjutsu, which was kind of like, you know, that anime shoujin energy blast, you know, like the Rasengan and Chidori. My favorite guy during the whole thing was Neji. Even though he was possibly the biggest dick of all time, I just thought his fighting style was so slick, nigga would walk up to you, poke you in your chest cavities, and then you couldn't use chakra anymore. You know, the only thing I hated was that he had this philosophy that he weighed predetermined destiny too much, which was mostly due to him being bitter about being the cadet branch of the family, which meant like his duty was to serve and die for the main branch of the family if need be, which was kind of the fate for his father. I was like, oh, you know, don't worry, Naruto's about to set you straight. You show you that hard work conquers destiny. Doesn't matter what you're born into or granted at birth, hard work is what controls your fate. Show him Naruto, and Naruto did show him, but he did it in the worst way possible. Negi's whole ideology was at predetermined destiny, rules overall, you know, stuff like your birthright, your genes, the things that you're granted at birth, way more than just working hard. So after Negi presses Naruto's chakra points and makes it so that Naruto can't use chakra anymore, Naruto still beats him anyways by using his nine tails fox chakra. You know, the nine tail fox, the thing that was sealed inside of him at birth, not something that he worked for, and I really didn't notice that till like a week later, while I'm just eating Cheerios before school, and I'm just like, what the fuck? But my issues with Naruto, it didn't stop there, all right? Being the newbie anime lover I was, I thought all arcs would be like the Chunin exams where you're gonna see all types of ninjas excelling in different areas of the anime. Everyone's expertise will be tested through and through, which did somewhat happen, especially during the Great Ninja Wars, but I kid you not. Shortly after the Chunin exams, this man Kishimoto was riding the Uchiha clan's dick just chewing the floor skin off of him like minty bubble gum. For those that don't know, the Uchiha clan was the clan that the secondary main character Sasuke belonged to, and you know, one of the strongest clans in existence, they had a strong ocular Jutsu called the Sharingan that let you do all types of fun stuff, like copying Jutsu, setting people on fire, you name it. And Kishimoto would never let us hear the end of it. It was always Sharingan this, Sharingan that, Sharingan this, Sharingan that. Oh, that guy in the Gato that didn't have the Sharingan? He had that other cool ocular Jutsu called the Renagon? Well, guess what? It was given to him by a nigga with a Sharingan. Like, will you shut up about the Sharingan for two seconds? And this brings us back to what Naruto's whole ideology was. Hard work weighs more than destiny and birthright. Hard work determines your fate, but it seems like the show Naruto kind of forgot about it. And I still thought it was redeemable. I thought that the way Naruto would redeem his ideology was by somehow losing the nine-tailed fox and then showing everyone that it was his hard work all along that was getting him through his victories. And he wasn't just sucking on the nine-tailed fox's titty any time he was getting his ass kicked. Until Kishimoto said, I just flipped the switch and now Naruto, the guy who was all about hard work determining your fate is now the child of prophecy. Yes, he is the child of prophecy. His destiny, before he was even born, was prophesized by, I forget what the hell this dude's name was, Yogaba Gabba or something like that. It was prophesized that he would unite the tailed beast and then change the world. Are you kidding me? I was like, you know what, fine, fine. Naruto's a lying-ass bitch. And Kishimoto, an even bigger lying-ass bitch, but there's no way, there's no way it could possibly get worse. There's no way it could get worse. And then Neji, the guy who's former philosophy, was correct about the ninja world. You know how he says destiny and duty was to serve and die for the main branch? And Naruto's like, nah, Brad, just shape your destiny through hard work. That nigga dies! And how does he die? Go and ask me, ask me, ask me, ask me how he dies, bro, make my day, ask me. How does he die? By protecting Hanada, the main branch!