Sasuke stealing the show.

The Uchiha clan's complete stranglehold on the plot. The main character solely concerns himself with Sasuke, an Uchiha, whose whole motivation as a character is defined solely in terms of Uchiha-related events. The Big Bad is an Uchiha. Everybody gets Sharingan eyes, which have New Powers As The Plot Demands and trump everything. The Senju, supposedly the great rival clan of the Uchiha, have but one known representative in the current storyline, who did virtually nothing in the last major arc and got knocked into a coma.

The ending of the Pain Arc. Before the ending, the Pain Arc was seen as one of the most gripping and intense Arcs in the entirety of Naruto's history, thanks to a Complete Monster of a villian, the destruction of Konoha and, the many important character deaths. Then thanks to a single talk with Naruto, Pain immediately changes his nihilistic views that he formulated over his entire life and proceeds to invalidate the whole reason why the arc was so severe. Thanks, Kishimoto.

• Also keep in mind that the question posed to Naruto was essentially "How will you bring about world peace?" was given an answer of "I don't know, but I'll find a way." Yeah... that's not a contrivance at all
  • No. That's just a part of his answer. The other part included, "You killed my teacher (Kakashi), you killed my master (Jiraiya), you destroyed my village. I want to take my revenge by killing you, but I have faith in my master's teachings. I will break the cycle of revenge by forgiving you." That is the real answer, and you will agree it is not an easy answer to give.

The utter lack of characterization for almost every female character. Sakura is presented as the third most important character after Naruto and Sasuke, yet after 10 years of manga her one and only defining trait is her "love" for Sasuke - even after he tried to kill her (twice!). She has virtually no backstory (we know nothing about her family) and no other motivations for doing what she does. The same goes for Hinata who is only a step above Sakura - she exists to be a love interest for Naruto, but even then Kishimoto seems unwilling to give this subplot any closure, (such as the way her character was treated after her confession to Naruto in the Pein arc).

The offenses are across the board with characters like Kurenai, TENTEN, etc. The two closest aversions are arguably Ino and Tsunade, and even then it can be seen as disappointing at best.

The overall writing style past the Time Skip is essentially written as if it were on the spot. Although there are some Crowning Momentof Awesome the plot lines seems to be one big contrivance. Villains and Characters are introduced without any given rhyme or reason and character motivations seem to make very little sense. Character dialog seems forced and many great and interesting characters are essentially Put On A Bus thus destroying any development or relevance that characters had previously, in favor of the Naruto and Sasuke Show.

Throughout the entire series, Naruto was built up to be the ultimate underdog who came from nothing and achieved his dreams because he worked hard and believed in himse— nope, just kidding. It turns out Naruto's been a CHILD OF DESTINY the whole time, and he had been prophesied to be great all along! Way to ruin the whole point of Part 1, Kishimoto.

Its focus on "uber-hyper-cool-awesome-powers of doom." I liked Naruto because of the first or second (can't remember) arc where the team goes up against Zabuza. Kakashi sees a rabbit, and realizes that it's the wrong color, so he is prepared for a fight? That was cool. Naruto's bluff to free Kakashi with a shuriken? Freakin' awesome. Bluf with an army of fake shadow clones? Nice thinking. Dirty tricks? Hurrah. Cheating exam? Hell yes! ONE-ON-ONE, straight up fights? For NINJAS?? Are you smoking something????? Gigantic toad summoning? Ok. Shadow clones using rasengan? Ugh. TOAD SAGE???? WTF????

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and....

Waaaaaaaay too many freaking flashbacks. This series is really overly reliant on them, and they often tell us things we already know. How many times can Kishimoto show Naruto as a little kid being an outcast and then being accepted, before he figures out that we got it?

The endless fights and even more endless (redundancy alert!) fillers.