Narutards, cute flash.

[Eric]

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/248461

[SineSwiper]

Neat. Is that sprites from a GBA game?

[Eric]

Yeah

[Ishamael]

For the record. Naruto is worse than Inuyasha and DBZ.

Sorry Zeus.

[Eric]

For the record. Naruto is worse than Inuyasha and DBZ.

Sorry Zeus.

Heracy!

[Ishamael]

For the record. Naruto is worse than Inuyasha and DBZ.

Sorry Zeus.

Heracy!

I preach only the truth in my church!

[SineSwiper]

Why? I can't stand Inuyasha's lack of plot, and Naruto is much much better than DBZ.

EDIT: BTW, if you're watching the American version as a comparison, don't. It blows.

[Zeus]

For the record. Naruto is worse than Inuyasha and DBZ.

Sorry Zeus.

The crazy police are on their way to your house as you read this

[Don]

I wouldn't say Naruto is worse than Inuyasha, and Inuyasha does have a plot. The main character is Inuyasha's sword and the plot is about how the sword becomes stronger.

[SineSwiper]

I wouldn't say Naruto is worse than Inuyasha, and Inuyasha does have a plot. The main character is Inuyasha's sword and the plot is about how the sword becomes stronger.

Burn!

[Eric]

I wouldn't say Naruto is worse than Inuyasha, and Inuyasha does have a plot. The main character is Inuyasha's sword and the plot is about how the sword becomes stronger.

HA, Don scores 10 cool points for that one.

[Nev]

I wouldn't say Naruto is worse than Inuyasha, and Inuyasha does have a plot. The main character is Inuyasha's sword and the plot is about how the sword becomes stronger.

(looks distressed)

Dear merciful God, is this a real anime?

Of course, I rather like Dr. Swordopolis in 8-Bit Theatre, so perhaps I shouldn't say anything.

[SineSwiper]

(looks distressed)

Dear merciful God, is this a real anime?

I think that just flew past your head, Mental.

[Nev]

Are you trying to say I don't know my anime?

Dude, I'm awesome with anime.

That is, as long as by "anime" you actually mean "not ever watching any anime, but making uneducated comments about it anyway, and making fun of people who watch it all the time."

[Ishamael]

First off...Well done, Don! I didn't think you had that kind of comeback in you. I'd like to think I had something to do with this, so I'll take credit for teaching you.


And on the subject of "plot". We're kidding, right? This is a fighting anime serial. The "plot" as it were involves fighting a new set of bad guys from week to week to week (or in the case of some like DBZ and Naruto to some extent, the same bad guys for months).

The difference is characters. Inuyasha has interesting characters and an interesting background that's revealed slowly over the show. (Try to guess who my favorite one is.) Inuyasha's sword really is a side prop for developing the characters.

And yes, even DBZ has more interesting characters than Naruto. Goku stays about the same, but nearly all the others grow and change in different ways. I'ts kind of cool and the variety of characters make it feel you aren't watching the same thing over and over again...OK, it makes SOME of us feel that way (Looking at Zeus). Also DBZ has Vegeta.

I guess the best way I can explain DBZ and Inuyasha is that somehow, the writers keep putting characters in interesting situations to keep you watching. Yeah that doesn't necessarily make a plot, but none of these things has much plot so that's out anyway. I guess that's why I'm not as high on Naruto...same kind of fighting anime action, but with worse characters. It's like they got the guys who didn't make cast of Pokeman and decided to make them ninjas.

[SineSwiper]

No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know the history of anime. I do.

[Ishamael]

Are you trying to say I don't know my anime?

Dude, I'm awesome with anime.

That is, as long as by "anime" you actually mean "not ever watching any anime, but making uneducated comments about it anyway, and making fun of people who watch it all the time."

Where would the Internet be without people yelling their uneducated opinions at everyone? I shudder to think of that world!

[SineSwiper]

The difference is characters. Inuyasha has interesting characters and an interesting background that's revealed slowly over the show. (Try to guess who my favorite one is.) Inuyasha's sword really is a side prop for developing the characters.

And yes, even DBZ has more interesting characters than Naruto. Goku stays about the same, but nearly all the others grow and change in different ways. I'ts kind of cool and the variety of characters make it feel you aren't watching the same thing over and over again...OK, it makes SOME of us feel that way (Looking at Zeus). Also DBZ has Vegeta. :)

I guess the best way I can explain DBZ and Inuyasha is that somehow, the writers keep putting characters in interesting situations to keep you watching. Yeah that doesn't necessarily make a plot, but none of these things has much plot so that's out anyway. I guess that's why I'm not as high on Naruto...same kind of fighting anime action, but with worse characters. It's like they got the guys who didn't make cast of Pokeman and decided to make them ninjas.

You can't be serious. Inuyasha has more in-depth characters than Naruto?! Lemme see, we have this really fucking annoying girl with about as much interesting personality as a Biniraen Battleslug. Then we have Inuyasha, who is pretty damn one-dimension as characters go. And his brother, who wants power. Everybody else is a minor character that nobody gives a shit about.

How far did you even watch the series? Even Naruto has an interesting character when he stops acting like an idiot. Hell, besides the great character work, the fights are intelligent and tactical, which is less like Inuyasha and DBZ and more like Kenshin. Inuyasha's battle scenes go like this:

"SWORD ATTACK!!!"
"Damn, it didn't work..."
"SUPER ULTRA SWORD ATTACK!!!"
"Okay, that's better!"

Don Wang's comment was spot on.

[Ishamael]

Tell me how you REALLY feel!

If the fights are the most important thing for you, then you should indeed stick to Naruto.

[SineSwiper]

If the fights are the most important thing for you, then you should indeed stick to Naruto.

No, I don't think that fights are the most important thing, since I think character is really important. However, for a "fighting anime serial", I'd expect the battles to not be predictable and boring.

[Don]

First of all if you want to talk history, nothing comes close to Dragonball's gross sales and popularity. Stuff like Inuyasha is a league above Naruto is terms of popularity. So no you don't have history on your side.

Now with that said...

Naruto is obviously inferior to the other Dragonball clone, One Piece (which has claimed #3 all time manga sales now) but there's a lot of room for Dragonball clones in the Japanese market. With Shonen Jump unable to produce another breakout manga (Death Note was the closest thing that could've been one), Naruto ends up picking a lot of weight for the leading Japanese weekly manga serial and is unsurprisingly popular because of that. Any junk you can get serialized on Shonen Jump is going to be popular, especially one of the flagship titles. To be fair Naruto isn't all that bad. It tries too hard with adding depths to a bunch of characters that, if you cared about them, would actually be good. Problem is that Naruto doesn't have a franchise character that it can put the face on a manga and say 'go buy because soandso's face is on it' so trying to develop the characters won't work.

Contrast that with say, Death Note's L or Black Cat's Train Heartnet or every single character in Prince of Tennis (after all it's got nothing else going for it) which managed to salvage trainwreck stories because they exist. This may be an artistic limitation as opposed to writing limitation but that's the way it goes. It seems like you either get someone with artistic ability or writing ability, but not both.

As for Inuyasha, it has gone on way too long that I think even the author forgot there was supposed to a plot or that characters exist. The only thing that still ties everything together is the Inuyasha's sword which has gone through about 5 powerups and is just one powerup away from being able to defeat Naraku like it did 5 powerups ago. Even collecting the soul gem seems to be forgotten since they've only been 'a few fragments' away from completing for about 5 years now. But since it's still raking in money and making Rumiko Takahashi the highest tax-paying individual in Japan, so I guess there's no motivation to deviate from the status quo.

[Nev]

Are you trying to say I don't know my anime?

Dude, I'm awesome with anime.

That is, as long as by "anime" you actually mean "not ever watching any anime, but making uneducated comments about it anyway, and making fun of people who watch it all the time."

Where would the Internet be without people yelling their uneducated opinions at everyone? I shudder to think of that world!

Look, man. I know my Maruto. And my Innuyaba. AND my Dragon Ball B.

[Eric]

First of all if you want to talk history, nothing comes close to Dragonball's gross sales and popularity. Stuff like Inuyasha is a league above Naruto is terms of popularity. So no you don't have history on your side.

Now with that said...

Naruto is obviously inferior to the other Dragonball clone, One Piece (which has claimed #3 all time manga sales now) but there's a lot of room for Dragonball clones in the Japanese market. With Shonen Jump unable to produce another breakout manga (Death Note was the closest thing that could've been one), Naruto ends up picking a lot of weight for the leading Japanese weekly manga serial and is unsurprisingly popular because of that. Any junk you can get serialized on Shonen Jump is going to be popular, especially one of the flagship titles. To be fair Naruto isn't all that bad. It tries too hard with adding depths to a bunch of characters that, if you cared about them, would actually be good. Problem is that Naruto doesn't have a franchise character that it can put the face on a manga and say 'go buy because soandso's face is on it' so trying to develop the characters won't work.

Contrast that with say, Death Note's L or Black Cat's Train Heartnet or every single character in Prince of Tennis (after all it's got nothing else going for it) which managed to salvage trainwreck stories because they exist. This may be an artistic limitation as opposed to writing limitation but that's the way it goes. It seems like you either get someone with artistic ability or writing ability, but not both.

As for Inuyasha, it has gone on way too long that I think even the author forgot there was supposed to a plot or that characters exist. The only thing that still ties everything together is the Inuyasha's sword which has gone through about 5 powerups and is just one powerup away from being able to defeat Naraku like it did 5 powerups ago. Even collecting the soul gem seems to be forgotten since they've only been 'a few fragments' away from completing for about 5 years now. But since it's still raking in money and making Rumiko Takahashi the highest tax-paying individual in Japan, so I guess there's no motivation to deviate from the status quo.

Yeah that sword is bonkers, I've seen it go through like 4 new power ups in the past 2 months.

[Don]

The sword is one powerup away from its really truly seriously final original form after evolving to the true dragon-fang-or-something form.

The evolution so far I think is like:

starting sword
wound of the wind
something to do with flowing
diamond fang
dragon fang
holy dragon fang
holy and fiery dragon fang
true dragon fang
?????

There may be more. I made up most the names of most of the forms into something that'd make sense in English (Dragon fang really should be Dragon fin tetsusaiga but that doesn't make much sense in English, for example, while in Japanese you can arbitrarily tack on adjectives to get a more powerful noun).

[Ishamael]

Bah. All I see are posts basically complaining about how Inuyasha's sword attacks are not as cool as the attacks they have on Naruto or how his sword gets too much power or something else about the sword. Now I'm not going to disagree here. I don't even care. Again, it's not why I watch the show (or not the only reason rather) and it's definitely not why I think it's better than Naruto or anything else.

What makes Inuyasha better is everything else about the show. Being the nerd I am, I actually read up on the creator a little. Takahashi is obviously going for more than a show just about how l33t Inuyasha's s30rdz is, even if no one can get over that focus here. The characters make the show interesting and the fact that most of the questions aren't even asked explicity in the show.

For example, take Sesshomaru and Inuyasha's relationship. When Sesshomaru first shows up, it seems like he's yet another bad guy with the only difference being that he's related to Inuyasha (older half brother) and he wants Inuyasha's obviously cool sword. He can't touch the sword so obviously he throws a fit and tries to kill Inuyasha to get it. He also hates humans like all demons on the show. OK fine we get it; simple stuff. Let's move on to creating cool new ways to kill enemies like every other show. Simple stuff, right?

Not really. As the show goes on you begin to question if Sesshomaru really hates Inuyasha as much as he lets on. Sesshomaru is not the mustache twirling evil villain he's implied to be with his early appearances. It also becomes obvious, he's much stronger than Inuyasha and,truthfully, could kill him at any time of his choosing...if he cared too. He claims to want to, but he never does it. Why? It even seems like he goes out of his way to help and protect Inuyasha at times, though the manner he does it in makes you wonder.

At one point, Sesshomaru uses Tenseiga to save the life of a girl who cared for him after he took a suprise windscar upside the head from Inuyasha. This from the demon who hates humans. OK, so now this girl has made Sesshomaru see the light and now Sesshomaru is a good guy who respects humans, right? Eh, not really. For a VERY long time you wonder if Sesshomaru really even knows Rin (the girl's life he saved) is there or if he cares about her. And it's still obvious he doesn't have much use for most humans or demons either for that matter.

Also it becomes obvious that Inuyasha isn't your typical run of the mill half-demon in the world Takahashi creates. Half-demons aren't really supposed to be very strong in this world,judging by the reactions of demons to Inuyasha when he meets them. But Inuyasha is a different breed. He kills strong demons regularly on the show, with and without the sword.

So that brings up the question of what exactly was their *father* like and how awesome was THIS dude? Things are revealed slowly about him too.

Behind all that is the quest of the jewel shards which gives massive amounts of power to the demons who have it. Inuyasha who wants the shards to make himself stronger is still able to destroy demons who actually posses pieces themselves (and thus are far more powerful than they'd be naturally), again with or without the sword. Sesshomaru who is someone who seems to respect and desire power above all things, doesn't even *care* about the Shikon Jewel shard. It's like the Shikon Jewel doesn't even exist for him, though it's the focus of virtually every other demon on the show. Sesshomaru has really only crossed paths with it twice - once to get a human arm to wield Tetsuiga (inuyasha's sword) and once he was offered pieces by Kagura at which point Sesshomaru told her to stand on her own and use the shards for herself. So why does Sesshomaru ignore such an obvious means to gain power?

Note, nothing most of this is ever said explicitly in the script. It's all explained by what they do. Between the fights, Takahashi obviously wants the audience to think about these things themselves and that the fighting is just a means to keep things going.

[Don]

Inuyasha doesn't even pretend it has a plot anymore.

What you said about Inuyasha's brother can be easily inferred by the 'the handsome guy is never really a bad guy' rule.

[Ishamael]

Inuyasha doesn't even pretend it has a plot anymore.

What you said about Inuyasha's brother can be easily inferred by the 'the handsome guy is never really a bad guy' rule.

LOL! Who's rule is that? I've never heard of it. And EVERYTHING I said can be inferred from it? Really? Are you sure about that? You might want to re-read my post carefully. But then again, I don't know how much ground the "handsome guy is never really a bad guy" rule covers so maybe it does "easily" go over everything mentioned. And if I can provide counter-examples, does it remain a rule? Hmm, lots of questions to ponder here.

[SineSwiper]

The complexities of villians in Naruto far out-trumps any complexities between Sesshomaru and Inuyasha. Just trying to unravel Gaara shows exactly how different he is from a normal person, yet Naruto can actually sympathize with him, based on his experence as a person alone.

I dunno how much you've watched of Naruto, but it sounds like it's not much.

[Kupek]

First of all if you want to talk history, nothing comes close to Dragonball's gross sales and popularity. Stuff like Inuyasha is a league above Naruto is terms of popularity. So no you don't have history on your side.

Sine was making a subtle Tom Cruise reference.

[SineSwiper]

Sine was making a subtle Tom Cruise reference.

...Directed at Mental. Oh well, at least somebody caught the reference.

[Don]

Garra - a guy born with a sucky childhood and used like a weapon. Naruto related to him because he's basically the same thing, and he's friends with basically anyone anyway.

I fail to see any complexity here.

[Nev]

Sine was making a subtle Tom Cruise reference.

...Directed at Mental. Oh well, at least somebody caught the reference.

Sorry, I've been skipping over most of the thread, since I really don't know a damn thing about any of these series.

[Ishamael]

The complexities of villians in Naruto far out-trumps any complexities between Sesshomaru and Inuyasha. Just trying to unravel Gaara shows exactly how different he is from a normal person, yet Naruto can actually sympathize with him, based on his experence as a person alone.

I dunno how much you've watched of Naruto, but it sounds like it's not much.

True I haven't seen much Naruto (yet), and even though it may seem like I'm down on the show, I actually do think it's OK. I just don't think it's as good as Inuyasha or DBZ.

And yes it may turn out there may be more texture than what's seen on the surface,but I haven't seen any evidence to support that.

[Tortolia]

How much Naruto have you seen, anyway? I'm not a Naruto fanboy or anything, but it didn't really click with me on any level until the episodes in the 30s or so.

[Ishamael]

How much Naruto have you seen, anyway? I'm not a Naruto fanboy or anything, but it didn't really click with me on any level until the episodes in the 30s or so.

Like I told Sine, not a whole lot so I'm trying to take that into account too. I'll keep watching or perhaps throw a few into my Netflix queue (if it's available there) to get caught up.

[Zeus]

The complexities of villians in Naruto far out-trumps any complexities between Sesshomaru and Inuyasha. Just trying to unravel Gaara shows exactly how different he is from a normal person, yet Naruto can actually sympathize with him, based on his experence as a person alone.

I dunno how much you've watched of Naruto, but it sounds like it's not much.

True I haven't seen much Naruto (yet), and even though it may seem like I'm down on the show, I actually do think it's OK. I just don't think it's as good as Inuyasha or DBZ.

And yes it may turn out there may be more texture than what's seen on the surface,but I haven't seen any evidence to support that.

It doesn't really get moving until after the second major fight, about ep 15-20. The necessary build-up stuff. Then it doesn't slow down for 80 episodes...

[SineSwiper]

Garra - a guy born with a sucky childhood and used like a weapon. Naruto related to him because he's basically the same thing, and he's friends with basically anyone anyway.

I fail to see any complexity here.

You don't seem to find any complexity there because you just dumbed down the characters to support your argument. It's called a straw man argument.

[Don]

Way to use your own stated opinion (Gaara is a complex character) and use it as a fact to disprove something. Who needs a straw man argument when you can do that?

What is there about Gaara's personality that's any more complicated than any other character-with-a-messed-up-past, one of the most overused character types around?

How does the fact that Naruto befriends Gaara mean anything when he is a friend of anyone who is not pure evil? Not to mention the two has a lot in common and people with similar background tend to be friends, or at least look out for each other?

This conversation kind of reminds me of how at the end of Black Cat you found out Creed was abused as a child so this apparently explains everything from trying to destroy the world to becoming a God. The fact is, just because something bad happened to you as a child like Creed or Gaara or 500 other anime characters doesn't mean you're somehow special.

Anyway, what's people's obsession with complexity being good? I don't recall most of Shakespeare's characters being horribly complex but that doesn't stop him from writing a good play. Complexity without meaning is simply meaningless. A character doesn't have to be juggling 7 priorities at the same time to be an interesting character.

[SineSwiper]

Anyway, what's people's obsession with complexity being good? I don't recall most of Shakespeare's characters being horribly complex but that doesn't stop him from writing a good play. Complexity without meaning is simply meaningless. A character doesn't have to be juggling 7 priorities at the same time to be an interesting character.

Actually, it was their complexity that precisely made them interesting. If Hamlet was simply a story about a "son trying to kill the uncle who killed his father", we wouldn't be reading about it.