With a cast this large, some Naruto characters are inevitably underutilized.
The Hidden Leaf Village
- Sakura could qualify for this despite the fact she's pretty much the closest thing the series had to a lead female for a time. But in Part One she never really gets to do much, even when she's the first one of Team 7 to master chakra control during the Land of Waves Arc, it's about the only time she out-performs Naruto and Sasuke at something, being The Load and a Faux Action Girl until she gets her moment of clarity during the Chunin Exams and resolves to become stronger. When Part Two starts she seems to deliver on that promise, showing off her newfound Super-Strength, healing abilities and is the first of the Konoha Twelve to kill an Akatsuki member (with some help from Chiyo). But after that she basically gets relegated to a healing support and when she does try to do things (like attempting to assassinate Sasuke without telling her teammates the plan), she usually makes things worse. She's mostly defined by her relationships with Naruto and Sasuke and doesn't ever get her own story arc, even though she's Tsunade's apprentice and a seasoned medic-nin which could have made for some interesting subplots.
- Team 8 (not so much Hinata) of the Konoha 11 lost a lot of time in the spotlight by the time of Shippuden that you would almost forget that Kiba and Shino were a part of the core group.
- An interesting case is Shino Aburame, who is one of the more prominently featured of the Konoha 12 and clearly built up as one of the biggest players of the Chunin Exams, on par with the likes of Shikamaru, his prominence abruptly dropped off with his exclusion from the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, and he is almost entirely Out of Focus for the rest of the series.
- Team Guy doesn't fare much better where after being the support team for the Kazekage Rescue arc, Rock Lee, Neji and Tenten end up getting sidelined for the rest of Shippuden. Rock Lee in particular is a major contender of a wasted character. In the original series, he's built up to be a major rival of Naruto and Sasuke being able to prove himself as an incredible supporting character who fights against Gaara and Kimimaro as a ninja who's limited to using just taijutsu. However, he ends up getting forced to the background for the Shippuden sequel, and no longer received any further Character Development or Next Tier Power Ups.
- Rock Lee, though arguably this isn't so bad if you count the fillers in Part I & II. However, he starts recovering from his flu, starting with his kicking Madara Uchiha in half. Later down the line, he commands a crew of Eight Gates users that are strong enough to break apart village-sized meteors with sheer physical force.
- In Part II, Neji pretty much has no plot relevance before his untimely death. This is particularly unfortunate, considering all the character development he went through in Part I.
- Tenten, being a weapons master, was a promising character back in the early days of the series. While she appears somewhat often in Filler episodes, she largely disappears form the main plot after the Tournament Arc. When she finally sees some action towards the end of the series, she plays a smaller role than the rest of her peers. She's also the only member of the Konoha 11 without any background characterization, including a last name.
- Yamato is introduced early in part two as an important character, being the only living person who can use Wood Style, and is important to helping Naruto control the Nine Tail's Chakra. As the series goes on, and Naruto gets stronger and begins to master said Chakra, Yamato becomes essentially an irrelevant character, to the point that he gets captured early in the final arc, vanishes for almost the entire story, and only reappears at the very end for a moment, before vanishing until the manga story ends.
- Anko, who was Orochimaru's apprentice and test subject for the Curse Seal, pretty much became an afterthought throughout the majority of the series. Because of this connection, including an affinity for snakes, you could be forgiven for thinking she'd be a major supporting character during the Leaf Village's subsequent clash with him. Or at least she'd be relevant during the Sasuke Retrieval Arc given he's defecting to her former teacher. Instead, she vanishes after the second phase of the Chunin Exams and doesn't make an appearance until the start of the War Arc. The War Arc makes things worse, where like Yamato she's put out of commission by Kabuto throughout the entirety of the arc to serve as nothing more than a power source. Then, after Kabuto's defeat and Orochimaru's return, she's completely forgotten until the Distant Finale.
- Amongst the Konoha 12 team leaders, Kurenai gets hit with this the worst. Kakashi, Might Guy, and even Asuma all get moments to shine throughout the series, but Kurenai? She basically ends up becoming background fodder after her little Part I skirmish against Itachi. The only thing she's even known for in Part II is that she eventually has a baby with Asuma. The Part I fillers at least gave her A Day in the Limelight towards the end, but she gets very little focus after the timeskip.
- Yuugao Uzuki was introduced as Hayate's fiance and one of the people to find his body. Her likely grudge against Suna in general and Baki in particular never comes up.
- Danzo. So many questions surround him: Why he was after the Kyuubi, how he got the Sharingans, what role he exactly played in the Uchiha massacre, the extent of his involvement with Tobi and Orochimaru; not to mention his rise to power as acting Sixth Hokage and his ideology being the opposite of Naruto's— all this could've made for an interesting plot. Instead, he is sacrificed to hype up Sasuke's new powers before any of this gets resolved.
Antagonists
- Some fans feel this way about various Akatsuki members who were killed off, at least before those who were resurrected by Kabuto's Edo Tensei spell returned. Notable examples include Hidan and Kakuzu, the latter especially since his backstory is only ever mentioned in supplementary material, plus even after he's resurrected, how he's beaten is never shown.
- Dosu Kinuta. He had an unusual but unique design, in addition to being powerful, intelligent, and stealthy, with a unique fighting style based around using sound waves to cause essentially internal ear damage, which not only gave him a unique role in battle, but he was shown to be a threatening foe while still having a degree of friendship with his teammates. He also realizes Orochimaru is using him and his team and seems like he might become a Wild Card in the coming conflict. Despite all these factors, he randomly attacks Gaara after seemingly realizing Orochimaru's plans, and is killed with no trouble.
- Zaku Abumi. He had a nice design, and a surprisingly versatile fighting style using air pressure and wind blades (for instance being able to turn solid earth into a soft landing place for Dosu during the fight with Rock Lee). His Freudian Excuse, hinted in the manga and expanded in the anime, had the potential to turn him into a Tragic Villain - a bit like Kimimaro. However, he's unceremoniously crippled by Shino during their fight, then sacrificed off-screen by Orochimaru.
- The members of team Hebi/Taka get some background development (more so in the anime) but aside from participating in the battles with the Eight-Tails and the Raikage they barely contribute to the plot, and get quickly left by the wayside, disappearing for a long chunk of the story after the Gokage Summit arc.
- During the War arc, Kabuto uses Edo Tensei to revive several past characters to fight on his side. While the Akatsuki members, previous Kage, Zabuza and Haku, and Madara get a good amount of focus, several of the revived Ninja's do nothing and only appear to have been revived to remind the audience they existed. For example: Chiyo is revived, but has no major fights, doesn't interact with anyone like Naruto, Sasori, or Sakura, and the most she gets is her just commenting on being revived, while Kimimaro also is revived, but gets no real fights or interactions, not even a rematch with Gara or Rock Lee. It made some fans feel like they were revived just to make Kabuto look more dangerous as opposed to being something used for interesting interactions, especially compared to the revived Kage and Akatsuki, who all get a lot of screen time. The anime tried to give some of the new characters more screentime, but this only highlighted how shafted some characters were.
Side Characters
- Before their deaths, the other tailed-beast hosts not named Naruto, Gaara, or Killer Bee, would have been nice to see more of since the effort to protect them from the Akatsuki jumps from Gaara's One-tail all the way up to Killer Bee's Eight-tail without ever seeing much of the other host characters between the two of them. At the very least, the Six-tailed host, Utakata, and later the Seven-tailed host, Fuu, got some development in anime filler.
- In the final arc, Killer Bee ends up being pushed to the side the minute Sasuke returns and allies with Naruto. Given his popularity, it was disappointing to see what was Naruto's last mentor, and a fellow tailed-beast host, get sidelined to make room for Sasuke. This is after getting effectively turned into a Butt-Monkey as his contributions in the battle against Tobi and Madara are quick to subject him to The Worf Effect. Making it worse was that Bee managed to survive getting the eight tails extracted from him, but gets trapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
- Mei Terumi, the Fifth Mizukage. She has two kekkai genkai and lived through an especially brutal time period in her village where ninja students were encouraged to fight to the death and those born with special abilities were regarded with suspicion and even murdered. None of this is used to examine Mei in any interesting way and her character outside of battle is largely reduced to jokes about how she can't get a man at her age. Even in the battle with Madara, it doesn't feel like she is that important despite having won the Superpower Lottery. Naruto doesn't even get any direct interaction with her unlike with Ay or Onoki, so we never get to hear a possible nickname for her like "Mizukage-neechan" or the like.
- Hanabi Hyuga, who disappeared for nearly 500 chapters. She is mentioned in passing implying that she has at least become a Genin by the Pain Invasion Arc, which is impressive since she's 10-11, whereas the quite proficient Teams 7, 8 and 10 were all 12 by the time they made Genin. Another question is how she fits into the Hyuga line of succession- Hiashi says in a flashback around the time Hinata became a Genin that Hinata is worth less than Hanabi is, although since Hinata Took a Level in Badass, this may no longer be true. She eventually resurfaces in the final stretch of the anime, where she is the subject of an anime-only story about her relationship with her sister.
