History YMMV / Naruto

** Due the fact that Danzo is a staunch adherent of Tobirama's teachings (though he misinterpreted them pretty badly), a lot of people are under the impression that Danzo was Tobirama's student. He wasn't; Tobirama's students were Hiruzen, Koharu and Homura. Related to this, some fans also mistakenly think that Hiruzen and Danzo were teammates.

** Gaara seems like an uncontrollable sociopathic monster during the Chuunin Exams, until we learn his backstory and discover he is the [[ForWantOfANail For Want Of A Nakama]] counterpart of Naruto. He mellows out afterwards.

*** [[DesignatedHero Sasuke]] seems to be meant to be seen as a morally gray character being led down the wrong path by his obsession with {{revenge}}, but to a number of fans his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, descent into mass murder of Samurai he could have easily defeated non-lethally, and callous disregard for how many people have to suffer for his own emotional satisfaction has caused a number of fans to think he does not deserve Naruto's goodwill or his being treated as redeemed despite making no attempt at redemption besides an offhand apology. The anime tried to address this by having him he accept going to prison for a year before being pardoned by Kakashi and declining on not getting a replacement arm, signifying he accepts the crimes he committed, but even then, many saw Sasuke's punishment as being too little too late and a slap on the wrist at. Things would only get worse come ''Anime/{{Boruto}}'', as despite becoming TheAtoner, many still found Sasuke difficult to sympathize with, due to his desire to make up for his crimes leading him to walk out on Sakura and leaving her to raise Sarada alone for an entire decade, resulting in some audiences feeling that he was unworthy of Sakura's patience and understanding.

*** [[DesignatedHero Sasuke]] seems to be meant to be seen as a morally gray character being led down the wrong path by his obsession with {{revenge}}, but to a number of fans his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, descent into mass murder of Samurai he could have easily defeated non-lethally, and callous disregard for how many people have to suffer for his own emotional satisfaction has caused a number of fans to think he does not deserve Naruto's goodwill or his being treated as redeemed despite making no attempt at redemption besides an offhand apology. In the anime, he still accepts going to prison for a year before being pardoned by Kakashi. Sasuke also decides he will not get an replacement arm, signifying he accepts the crimes he commited. Then in the novels and even ''Anime/TheLastNarutoTheMovie'', Sasuke decides to solves crimes but often hiding his identity as explained by WordOfGod due to the fact Sasuke still hasn't felt he can redeem himself with even his clothes symbolising it.

** The Power-scaling escalation of the series over time can provoke this reaction. There are those who prefer the smaller scale, more tactic and martial arts focused combat of Part I and early shippuden over the latter stages focus on excessively more powerful ninjutsu, which many deride for abandoning concepts such as stealth and hand signs for the sake of DBZ level spectacle and fight scenes. There is also the the feeling that the increase and concentration of power in main characters, resulted in many supporting characters being left behind in the dust due to an inability to maintain pace.However there are those who welcome the changes and consider them a natural extension of the characters growth in power and for bringing a higher dimension to the combat and excitement, and while they agree that hand signs and certain characters were abandoned in the process, they believe that complains of strategy and tactics being abandoned are overblown.

** Sakura Haruno starts off the TimeSkip as the first member of Team 7 to go up against a Akatsuki, Sasori. She was hailed as the second coming of Tsunade, who'd she'd eventually surpass with her talent. Come next arc...she's knocked out at the starting bell after Four-Tailed Naruto smacks her hard enough that he almost kills her. Come next arc...she does nothing, she doesn't even get to fight. [[RuleOfThree Come next arc]]...she still isn't able to land a blow on Tobi (though an overlooked scene has her deduce the mechanics behind Tobi's intangibility, which is proven right during the climax of the War arc). {{Subverted|Trope}} in the Invasion of Pain arc, where she knocks out one of Pain's summons with [[OneHitKill one blow]] and organizes the survivors while Naruto fights Pain one on one. THEN in the next arc [[NeverLiveItDown she hits her lowest low]]: First she's treated as a ragdoll by Karui and Omoi, getting knocked out. Then she delivers a [[FalseConfession painfully fake love confession]] to Naruto to get him off Sasuke's trail, and [[ShipSinking it does not work at all]]. Then [[KillTheOnesYouLove she decides to kill Sasuke on her own]]...and at the very last second, she can't bring herself to do it because [[SingleTargetSexuality she still loves him]]. Then she gets strangled by a weakened Sasuke ''despite having SuperStrength'' and needs Naruto to save her from the stab of her own kunai...but because of that, he ends up getting cut by ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero that very same kunai]]''.

** The Uchiha Clan itself comes off as this. Despite being destroyed by Konoha, the manga ''repeatedly'' goes out of its way to show that they have been a violent, unstable clan since ancient times due to their Curse of Hatred mantra. The fact that the Uchiha also have warred amongst ''themselves'' with the reality abusing Izanagi, the way they gain power by killing their friends and siblings...and when responded by a good supposition that one of their own controlled Kurama--instead of helping in the investigation and enduring a bit of surveillance to catch the culprit they isolate themselves from the village and begin plotting a coup. The four main Uchiha members suffer from this the most:

*** [[DesignatedHero Sasuke]] seems to be meant to be seen as a morally gray character being led down the wrong path by his obsession with {{revenge}}, but to a number of fans his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, descent into mass murder of Samurai he could have easily defeated non-lethally, and callous disregard for how many people have to suffer for his own emotional satisfaction has caused a number of fans to think he does not deserve Naruto's goodwill or his being treated as redeemed despite making no attempt at redemption besides an offhand apology. In the anime, he still accepts going to prison for a year before being pardoned by Kakashi. Sasuke also decides he will not get an replacement arm, signifying he accepts the crimes he commited. Then in the novels and even ''Anime/TheLastNarutoTheMovie'', Sasuke decides to solves crimes but often hiding his identity as explained by WordOfGod due to the fact Sasuke still hasn't feel he can redeem himself with even his clothes symbolising it.

** Sakura Haruno was for a while considered TheScrappy of the series due to being seen as [[TheLoad useless]] and annoying. While [[BaseBreakingCharacter many still don't like her character]], now that the series has long concluded along with the ShipToShipCombat, many have come to see Sakura less as the scrappy and more as the biggest victim of Kishimoto's poor writing and handling of female characters. As many of the complaints fans raised about her were largely due to his inability to give her a compelling narrative or expand her characterization beyond being a satellite character to Naruto's and Sasuke's stories. Even her reputation for being useless is now largely discredited as she is acknowledged as one of the most powerful members of Konaha 12, but simply [[CantCatchUp suffers]] from being constantly compared to Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi who received much more attention and development. This combined with her much more positive reception in ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'', has lead many to reevaluate her character.

** A bit of a Meta-example with Sakura Haruno. While many still don't like her character, now that the series has long concluded along with the ShipToShipCombat, many have come to see Sakura less as the Scrappy and more as the biggest victim of Kishimoto's poor writing and handling of female characters. As many of the complaints fans raised about her were largely due to his inability to give her a compelling narrative or expand her characterization beyond being a satellite character to Naruto's and Sasuke's stories. Even her reputation for being useless is now largely discredited as she is acknowledged as one of the most powerful members of Konaha 12, but simply suffers from being constantly compared to Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi who received much more attention & development. This combined with her much more positive reception in Bortuo: Naruto Next Generations, has lead many to reevaluate her character.

** Anime does this when it doesn't just decide to [[InactionSequence fill out episodes with nothing at all]]. For example, when Suigetsu joined Sasuke in the manga they went to the Land of Waves to get Zabuza's {{BFS}} which was right where they expected it to be and it only took up a few pages. But in the anime someone else took it, and the two spend the episode retrieving it, eventually making a game out of it (as well as spending [[RuleOfFunny a rather amusing]] scene in a restaurant). This also serves the purpose of demonstrating Suigetsu's [[NighInvulnerable abilities]] much earlier than in the manga (where he doesn't get to properly demonstrate his power for nearly fifty chapters). The same thing happened with the other two members of their team, but with flashbacks. Earlier in the anime series, during the attempted rescue of Gaara, there were flashbacks to things that had been covered in flashbacks, as well as flashbacks to things that had happened five real-time minutes earlier. While this is done in an attempt to not outpace the manga, it gets painful during fight scenes.

* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: Hiruzen Sarutobi was once highly regarded by the fanbase for being a CoolOldGuy who was a ReasonableAuthorityFigure when dealing with Naruto's antics, and his HeroicSacrifice was regarded as one of the saddest moments in the franchise's history. However, Sarutobi's reputation took a massive hit in Part II, where many of his failings during his second tenure as Hokage were revealed. Examples include enabling the Uchiha Clan Massacre as well as the village's ostracization of Naruto, the latter of which is a major sticking point among the fanbase as his inaction contributed to Naruto's troubled childhood. The anime doesn't help matters by revealing that Hiruzen promised to Naruto's parents ''while their bodies were not even in their graves'' that he would take care of Naruto, which paints him in a more negative light.

* CreepyAwesome: Many villains; Zetsu, Sasori, Deidara, Hidan, Kabuto, Kisame, Orochimaru, Itachi, Kimimaro, Pain, Konan, Tobi, and Madara. For non-villainous examples there's Shino and the Tailed Beasts.

** For a time on Website/{{GameFAQs}}, a running joke on the ''Naruto'' boards claimed that the strongest person in the manga was [[EnsembleDarkhorse Iruka Umino]]. The man who did little more than get hit in the spine with a giant shuriken. Ironically, ''this is one of the reasons fans cite as him being near immortal'', as well as claiming that he possess [[spoiler:the Rinnegan]] and can dual-wield two [[{{BFS}} BF Zabuza swords]], which are [[MemeticMutation memetically mutated]] into insanely powerful weapons of mass destruction which "cannot be beat" (based on an ad for a toy of one which accomplished the feat of ''tearing rice paper'').

*** Sasuke gets even more of this in the Fourth Shinobi World War arc, when he ''finally'' decides to follow Itachi's intentions and lets go of his irrational rampage against the Leaf Village. From this point, many of his actions that are [[StrawmanHasAPoint supposed to be seen as cold and cynical]] compared to Naruto were often viewed as completely rational by the audience, such as trying to finish off [[spoiler:Obito]] once he loses his powers (which would have prevented most of the problems from that point if he hadn't still been alive to [[spoiler:resurrect Madara]]), or bluntly telling Sakura that explaining the situation after [[spoiler:Madara activates Infinite Tsukuyomi]] is a wasted effort on someone like her who doesn't have the power to be of any assistance.

* AssPull:
** "[[FanNickname Plot no Jutsu]]" (PNJ). This is an accusation often thrown when a character's abilities are suddenly [[StrongAsTheyNeedToBe more powerful, less powerful]], [[MagicAIsMagicA function differently than you'd expect]] or just [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands get made up on the spot]] as a justification for a character winning a fight the plot needed them to win.