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There are so many tropes in Naruto that we had to split its trope page. This one is for the tropes specific to other media than the manga itself, especially the anime.

Here be spoilers.


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    Anime Tropes (Series and Movies) 
Naruto:
  • Abandoned Catchphrase:
    • In the English dub, the titular character often said "Believe it" in order to get past the Lip Lock due to his Japanese Verbal Tic (Dattebayo). By the chunin exams he almost never used it and by episode 100 it was completely gone except for a few jokes.
    • Sakura had a habit of saying "Shannaro" ("Cha" in the English dub) when pumped or angry, especially in her inner monologues, but her Character Development involved her losing it. By Shippuden she rarely says it.
  • Adaptation Expansion: A staple of the Anime, especially from the onset of Shippuden onwards. A common occurrence is for fights to be much more fleshed out, or even for fights to be written from scratch.
    • Shikamaru's reaction to Asuma's death is dealt with in much more detail.
    • While Sasori's flashback is briefly revealed in the manga, it only shows him as a sweet young boy who controlled the "Father" and "Mother" puppets to have them hug him. The anime expands this to show Sasori's parents alive (albeit with no dialogue) before parting with him, Chiyo taking him to town, leading to Sasori seeing a boy being hugged by his parents after tripping over, and being inspired to make the puppets hug him the same way.
    • Temari's fight against Tenten in the manga is only shown off-panel, and she does not confront Sasuke at all. In the anime we get to actually see Temari curb stomping Tenten, and later trying in vain to delay Sasuke.
    • If you have to name the character who got the most mileage out of this, it's probably Hinata. In the manga you'd be hard-pressed to find her enjoying even a single fleeting moment of triumph. In the anime she learned a Big Lipped Alligator Jutsu involving a gazillion laser beams, landed solid hits on seemingly undefeatable villains and won a ramen eating contest. The anime team didn't bother to hide their fondness of her — they even spent an omake on Lampshading it.
    • In the manga, Iruka stops being an influential character past the first few chapters, and we never get to see him fight. The "Mizuki Strikes Back" filler arc changes that, revisiting Iruka's important role in Naruto's life and letting him take front stage in dealing with Mizuki again.
    • Many characters missing from important events are accounted for in the anime. After being knocked out by Kabuto during the chunin exams, Hinata was kidnapped by Cloud Ninja who wanted her eyes. She is saved by Kiba, Akamaru, Tenten, Neji, and Hiashi who were missing from that part of the arc.
    • When Tobi is revealed to be Obito the manga has a flashback to his life prior to and immediately after his "death." The anime takes the opportunity to expand on that idea and launch a filler arc covering the time span between Kakashi Gaiden and the series proper.
    • In general the anime often attempts to address or explain potential questions that arise from events or a character's actions that the manga didn't address due to space constraints or simply not considering them, to delve deeper into the characters and expand the world. Sometimes it does this well and may even be incorporated into the manga later, other times it leads to plot holes.
  • Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
    • Part I filler introduces a minor village called “Hoshigakure”, with its leaders dubbing themselves as “Hoshikage” in hopes that they’d be recognized by the 5 Great countries. During the arc they were introduced, it was stated that they were founded roughly two hundred years before, which contradicts the later revelation that the first Hidden Village to be created was actually Konoha, with its founders being Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha, and how other Hidden Villages came after Konoha.
    • Episode 166 of Shippuden. Hey, why is Hinata charging head-on when that's the least likely strategy to work? What happened to the insane barrage of chakra lasers from the first series' episode 151?
    • Tobi is Uchiha Obito, whose life-saving operation left the right side of his face with a lot of striations in it. In his fight with Konan, in the manga only a little of his face is revealed under the broken mask and the beginnings of the lines are visible; in the anime, more of his face is shown and its skin is smooth, which doesn't match up with his striated face after his identity is revealed.
    • During the Hidan and Kakuzu arc one of the omakes state that the Akatsuki have captured four tailed beasts already, not counting the two tail, and later in the same arc, after sealing the two tail, Pain states that they only have four tailed beasts left to acquire. This was accurate to the manga at the time, but the anime later added a new arc revolving around Utakata, the 6 tail host, retroactively making both Tsunade and Pain's counts inaccurate.
    • How the anime treats some shinobi powers before the manga has defined exactly how they work can lead to these plot holes. An early example was a movie that featured various ninja using ice jutsu and Kakashi copying it. Later the manga would detail that ice jutsu is impossible if you don't have the blood line for it, and that the sharingan cannot copy such an element. A much later example involved Tobi using his kamui at range, when the manga would later reveal he has to make physical contact to suck something into his pocket dimension.
    • The war arc featured an Edo Tensei finding peace and thus being released from the jutsu after Kabuto had explicitly strengthened the jutsu to make that impossible.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: In the original manga of Naruto, versus the anime adaptation:
    • Sakura and Sasuke (Sasuke is in the background of one panel) aren't shown clearly until after Naruto becomes a Genin. The rest of the "Nine" aren't introduced until the Chunin Exam arc. In the first episode of the anime, all the members of the Rookie Nine are seen lined up for the Henge Jutsu evaluation. Sakura and Sasuke are even shown going before Naruto.
    • Some of the dialogue is changed, as Shikamaru and Ino replace the generic students who complain about Naruto's mischief causing them to be tested on Transformation, with Shikamaru wondering why Naruto is among the graduates when they are assigned to teams.
    • In Episode 3, a few of the teachers appear while observing Naruto and Sasuke in the classroom, including Kurenai, who is incredibly Off-Model, has the red and white on her outfit reversed, and has a different voice actor for that episode.
    • In the manga, the Akatsuki members Hidan and Kakuzu were only seen clearly when they make their first appearance in person, but in the anime they make an appearance as holograms during the Gaara Rescue, requesting to take care of Team Kakashi.
    • A Whole Episode Flashback of Jiraiya's has two of the ninja who would become the Six Paths of Pain, back when they were still alive. One of whom had already been introduced before the flashback. For the anime, the entire group was introduced.
  • Adaptation Name Change: Sabu, B’s music teacher during the Kage Summit Arc, has his name changed to Kin.
  • All Your Colors Combined: Rainbow Chakra. Granted, it only appears in The Movie, but it's too good an example to pass up.
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The first opening theme for the English dub of Naruto was this, but afterwards, all the theme songs were the original Japanese ones.
  • Animated Actors: Some of the Omake segments have the characters as these.
  • Animation Bump: Crops up from time to time in big fights. Examples include Sasuke vs. Orochimaru, Lee vs. Gaara, Naruto vs. Sasuke, some parts of Team 10 vs. Hidan and Kakuzu, Sasuke vs. Killer Bee, Kakashi vs. Pain, Hinata vs. Pain, and the Kyuubi vs. Pain (which has quickly gained infamy amongst the fandom for its Off-Model art, arguably counting as an inversion).
  • Anime Theme Song: The opening and ending credits are always new songs that really have nothing to do with the show. Singing one of the songs for the opening and ending credits inevitably results in an influx of new fans for the singers.
  • Art Shift: In the anime, Juugo's initial flashback is drawn in a more abstract, undefined style.
  • Bait-and-Switch Credits: Virtually every opening features activities of characters who really aren't doing anything at the time, especially during the filler seasons, when almost all the openings featured Sasuke and Orochimaru, despite neither of them making any appearance besides cameos.
    • The openings in Part I (especially the first and fourth ones) give the impression that Sakura often fights alongside her squad, but she's often set aside and forced to serve as a (somewhat ineffective) last line of defense for the people who need protection.
    • The second version of the fourth Shippuden opening features members of Team 8 fighting the Quirky Miniboss Squad (Hinata vs. Gozu, Kiba vs. Kigiri, Shino vs. Nurari, Sakura vs. Rinji, and Sai and Naruto vs. Guren). Only the ones with Kigiri, Nurari and Guren happened.
    • The seventh opening to Shippuden is particularly guilty in this regard. It features (in increasing level of inaccuracy) Choji and Kakashi vs. Preta Pain; Ino, Hinata, and Sakura vs. Konan; Sai vs. Asura Pain; Kiba, Lee, Tenten, and Neji vs Deva Pain. In actuality, Choji and Kakashi fight together against Deva Pain (and Asura Pain, sort of), Hinata tried to fight him later on, Ino didn't fight because she was working with her father getting some information, Sakura spent the battle treating the wounded and defending a hospital, Konan fought Shino and some other members of the Aburame clan (mostly off-panel in the manga, more is shown in the anime), Kiba fought Preta Pain with his mother (briefly and it was a bit longer in the anime), and Lee, Tenten, Neji, and Sai never fought because they were out of the village at the time (for the first three, until after most of the fighting was over; for Sai, the entire arc) — so none of those things ended up happening.
    • All those have nothing on Shippuden's weird and funny as hell tenth opening. It features, in increasing order of implausibility/absurdity:
    • The fourteenth Shippuden ending features Sakura prominently, and makes the show look like it's a romance. While the previous one is only Hinata and makes it look like a Slice of Life!
    • The 26th Shippuden ending is even more odd. The art is so shifted, it hardly looks likes Naruto. Naruto is the only character that appears and he is dressed in clothes more fit for a shoujo series. Naruto is also a Dude Looks Like a Lady.
  • Beat Still, My Heart: In a Filler episode, a ninja impersonating Kabuto links her heart to Naruto's and then pulls it out, still beating.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official translated episode titles for the series could often be extremely inaccurate to the actual japanese titles. Possibly the most egregious example being episode 89 of the original series, which had a single word title in japanese, "Hamon". The translated episode title from Viz? "An Impossible Choice, The Pain Within Tsunade's Heart".
  • Bodyguard Crush: An inverted example in that numerous girls Naruto has been assigned to protect in fillers and the movies end up developing feelings for him. He may actually have picked up more admirers than Sasuke through this method, although he tends to be, true to character, oblivious.
  • Bottle Episode: Episode 26's first 12 minutes is just a recap and introduction for new viewers.
  • Bowdlerise: Quite a few examples. See the trope's Anime & Manga section for details.
  • Bullet Time: Extensively and painfully used in episode 159 of Shippûden.
  • Bullying a Dragon: In "The Weight of the Prized Artifact", the client is a jerkass who continually antagonizes Naruto and Kiba. Yes, he's mistreating two People of Mass Destruction; the guy who can pulverize stone with Rasengan and the guy who can turn into a two-headed wolf monster. Even if he doesn't know specifically what they can do, he knows that shinobi in this world have ridiculously dangerous abilities, so the way he's acting is borderline Too Dumb to Live.
  • Butt-Monkey: Riichi is always in trouble in the few times he shows up. He's the guard ninja who wanted to see the chunin exams only to be thrust into the front lines by the Sand Village's initial attack. In the Konoha history arc, he was a prisoner of the Hidden Lock Village, though he was recovered. He was part of Nijū Shōtai which was tasked with finding information on Akatsuki. His mission with them failed with getting no intel. Finally, he was patrolling Konoha with other ninja when was attacked and killed by Pain and Konan. The only thing going for him is that Pain brought him back to life with everyone else.
  • Canon Foreigner: Not only due to the anime - the various spin-offs, movies and specials have also introduced countless characters, techniques and elements that never appear in the manga at all, and exist in canonicity limbo:
    • Loads and loads of new advanced bloodlines that we likely won't ever hear about again. Among them: a "crystal release" that turns things into crystals; a "dark release" that absorbs and manipulates chakra; a genjutsu hack that causes your mind to make it real (as if genjutsu was not completely broken to begin with); a "magnet release" that manipulates magnetic fields; an unnamed advanced bloodline that allowed penetrative sight, self-healing and shutting down other eye-based advanced bloodlines; an advanced bloodline that allows you to absorb a person's chakra and duplicate their appearance and memories; an advanced bloodline allowing you to bring the dead back to life; and on and on and on...
    • Several princesses who are head over heels for Naruto now, one of whom explicitly said she wanted to bear his children.
    • "Rainbow Chakra" appears in the end of the first movie, and is promptly never mentioned again.
    • Various techniques, among them Tenten's ability to summon huge rising scrolls that spit out lots and lots of various weapons and Hinata's infamous chakra bee-massacring laser spam.
  • Chosen Conception Partner: Shion indirectly asks Naruto to father a child with her. He ignorantly vows to do so, not knowing what she means.
  • City with No Name: The city in the Land of Fire where the movie studio is in the first movie, although the theater owner gives the only indication that it's not just part of Konoha we haven't seen before or since.
  • Clip Show: Shippuden likes to do this after every arc to give the manga time to get ahead. The most egregious example is after Pain's invasion, when in the course of rebuilding the village various characters go through basically an entire filler mini-arc of flashbacks ranging from the start of the first series up to that point.
  • Confronting Your Imposter: A Naruto imposter has the misfortune of running into the real Naruto and comes off looking completely pathetic and ridiculous.
  • Depending on the Writer: Quite infamous regarding the fillers, Naruto's intelligence/competency level shifts in every filler to suit the need of the story.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Naruto Shippuden Ending 33. Not only the Big Bad(for the current arc)is smiling while the giant roots of a tree are moving in the background and the moon turns red, but the music itself is cheery against a montage spanning several gory and/or sad moments of the manga and anime. This is intentional: the Big Bad is a self-appointed Messiah of the human race that thinks he is saving it from suffering through his evil plan, and the final moments shows him getting closer to his objective with intermissions to his happy childhood memories with his best friend, with who he dreamed together of making the world a better place.
  • Doomed by Canon: Utakata, Fuu and the woman that will become the second Animal Path.The latter two barely count as spoilers because the filler showing more of them was made way after their deaths were confirmed in the anime itself.
  • Double Standard: Remember the scene where Konohamaru transforms into Sai and Sasuke in a decidedly Yaoi situation? You know, after he does the same thing except with women? Yeah, that's in the MANGA ONLY. Which is highly ironic, considering the entire original joke was about Sakura's Double Standard.
  • Downer Ending: The Six-Tails arc, though if you read the manga you obviously saw that one coming.
  • Eat The Dog: With all the supplies contaminated by poisonous mushrooms, Naruto resorts to trying to eat Gamatatsu. This fails hilariously, but then he remembers that he can also use summoning to get fresh supplies from Mt. Myoboku.
  • Fanservice: Not too over-the-top, but excuses to put girls in all sorts of revealing outfits will be found and employed (summer endings regularly feature Sakura in a bikini; Hinata was shortly featured in a bunny christmas outfit, a Spy Catsuit and a Qipao).
  • Filler: Before the Time Skip, filler made up 38% of the entire series, including 85 episodes in a row. These mostly consisted of various examples of Defeat Means Friendship, fights against blatant Filler Villains and several one-shots of slapstick/potty humor, all with no plot relevance; by the end it was being described by fans as a form of torture. Initially Shippuuden has taken to spreading out the filler arcs, probably to keep this from happening ever again. There's also clearly been a shift from three-episode pointlessness to Adaptation Expansion :The Ninja Guardians arc featured an expanded backstory for a character who probably wasn't going to get another chance to have one; the Three Tails arc created a story arc of 22 episodes out of an event that took all of half an issue in the manga; and the Six-tails Unleashed had one of the jinchuriki as it's protagonist. Unfortunately this ended with the post-Pain's Invasion filler arcs which returned to the random formula, and were often told in Flashbacks. Then there was the Ten-Tails attack arc, which got almost as much filler shoved in in-between plotpoints of a single arc (that was already tediously long, even in the manga), as the above mentioned filler saga of Part 1. In the end, out of Shippuuden's 500 episodes, 203 or 41% were filler.
  • Foreshadowing: Done in, of all things, the opening sequences. For example, in the second opening you see Sakura with long hair except a couple of brief shots taking place after her Important Haircut. In the third opening there is a shot of Sasuke running zoomed into his face, and a lightning bolt very briefly appears near him, which is him using Chidori.
  • God Was My Copilot : Played straight for the audience and semi averted for Naruto himself in the 4th Shippuden Movie. The audience knows (or ought to know) that Naruto has inadvertently met the 4th from nearly the beginning. Naruto himself gets a few hints towards the very end of the film, but never puts two and two together (and gets mind wiped as a a result of time travel).
  • Girl of the Movie: Naruto gets one of these in the first, fourth, and fifth movies. While the first, Kazahana Koyuki, could arguably be a Jerkass Big Sis role (the actress in the first movie is definitely subject of a one-sided crush), the same is not true for Shion (fourth movie) or Amaru (fifth movie). The writers are taking full advantage of Naruto hitting puberty over the time skip.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: During the filler episodes and movies, various other characters join Team 7 to fill in for Sasuke after his desertion.
    • Shikamaru fills in during the second movie and Rock Lee fills in during the third movie.
    • The Star Guard Mission filler arc has Naruto joining Team Guy to fill in for Guy, with Neji swapping over to the position of team leader in his absence.
    • In the first Shippuden movie, Lee again joins, and Neji again takes the position of team leader.
  • Heavy Voice: In Shippuuden's Episode 188 omake, Naruto has one of these when he transforms himself into a sumo wrestler.
  • High-Heel–Face Turn: Guren.
  • High School AU: The second ending of Shippuden, and Konoha Gakuen Den, which is based off of it.
  • How We Got Here: The post-Pain Invasion filler consists of a series of flashbacks to before the Time Skip and even before the start of the series. It starts as an Iruka Gaiden, but it quickly branches out.
    • Episodes 257-260 give anyone who hasn't already seen it a crash course in how Naruto and Sasuke grew together and apart.
  • Indecipherable Lyrics: Exhibited by the original English, dub-exclusive Anime Theme Song for the first two seasons ("Rise, Power!", composed by Jeremy Sweet and Ian Nickus). Just look at the comments for the video attempting to decipher the lyrics, which range from "Rice, chew your sock!" to "Rise, do your stuff!" to "Fries, too much salt!". The official lyrics apparently consist of "Rise, tsuyosa!", with "tsuyosa" meaning strength/power in Japanese.
  • Kabuki Sounds
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • In a filler episode, Naruto lampshades the overuse of super-powerful ninja techniques for mundane tasks, which was a regular feature of the pre-Shippuden fillers. The said episode has Jiraiya using a Rasengan to row a boat.
    Naruto: It looks like the Rasengan has become some sort of a cheap technique.
    • Naruto lampshades Status Quo Is God in episode 101, one of the first majorly obvious filler episodes in the series.
    Naruto: What kind of ending is that?!
    • The introduction music for season 1 of Shippuden is a bit too triumphant in declaring that now the series proper can get back on track (with an implied "as opposed to endless filler"). One translation even went ahead and translated a line to "no more doing the same thing over and over" (the "same thing" being encountering Filler Villains, flinging rasengans, failing the plot-of-the-day to locate Sasuke...), though it's unclear how close that is to the meaning of the original.
    • The Omakes which appear from the onset of Shippuden onwards have a habit of lapsing into this:
      Tenten: "you had to think about it, didn't you".
      • In #22, Kakashi talks about how one of his duties in the village is to be a teacher, and then suddenly notes that he does not actually have any students left. Visibly distraught by this, Kakashi asks the audience whether anyone would like to train with him.
      • #26 lampshades Sakura's (mostly anime) habit of repeatedly punching Naruto in the face - in it, she actually sets "the world Record in punching Naruto away long distance".
      • In #32 Temari and Kankuro complain about not having had enough screen time in the last arc, which heavily involved the sand village. They are dismayed to learn that they will not be featured in the next arc, either.
      • In #75, Asuma and Shikamaru note that for the next arc Shikamaru effectively becomes the main character, and Naruto won't be doing much of anything. They suggest renaming the series to Shikamaru: Shippuden, much to Naruto's dismay.
      • #121 treats the characters as Animated Actors, and has everyone teasing Hinata that practically her only line is "Naruto-kun". Hinata protests that it may be her only line, but she knows how to deliver it with feeling; to the others' requests she then gives several such deliveries (sad, happy, worried, smitten...). #142 is a Call-Back to this - in it, Sakura is very annoyed that Hinata repeating a single silly line was such a "hit" and proceeds to do several deliveries of "Naruto-kun" of her own, by everyone's various requests. After all her effort, the girl at the recording panel informs her that those were very nice, but Sakura will not be saying this line in the series, so they have no use for it. Sakura is not pleased.
      • #137 lampshades the total detachment of the databooks from the actual plot. Shizune asks Tsunade various questions regarding her fellow villagers, and Tsunade cheats by reading the answers from the databook. Absurdly, Tsunade needs to refer to the databook even to find out what her own hobby is.
      • In #156, Neji complains about his lack of screentime, and demands to have his own arc.
      • In #165, Sakura accuses Hinata of attempting to usurp her as main heroine; she specifically complains about the then-current credits animation which consisted of ~10 year old Hinata pedaling a bicycle up a mountain to the tune of a super cheery fun pop song. Sakura is outraged that Hinata, a mere extra, is hogging the credits all to herself, and further points out that as a ninja Hinata should be running and not riding bicycles. Naruto then explains that it can't be helped- the production staff had been overrun with Hinata fans and every other word in the song is "bicycle" or "pedal", so they hardly could have not put her on a bicycle. Sakura would have none of this and demands to have an ending all to herself, which she, funnily enough, gets two episodes later.
  • Leitmotif
  • Like Can Not Cut Like: Lightning charged swords.
  • Loud Gulp: Twice, courtesy of Sakura. First in response to facing the scary ninja in episode 23 and second when at one point she realized she had to be nice to Naruto. Her swallow sound effect sounded different between the dub and sub versions.
  • The Movie: Currently eleven in the whole franchise: three for the original anime, seven for Shippuden, and one that's a sequel to the seventh Shippuden movie.
  • Nude Nature Dance: A filler episode has Hinata performing one under a waterfall - - a shadowy and artsy variant, surprisingly void of Fanservice for all intents and purposes. The sparkly water and overall atmosphere give off strong vibes of the Magical Girl genre, which led to jokes about "Sailor Hinata".
  • Never Say "Die": The first few episodes of the Naruto CN dub and the early Shippuden Disney XD dub.
  • No-Sell: In the Raiga filler arc, Neji's byakugan- an all-seeing eye passed down via generations of Superpowerful Genetics, the secrets of which Neji's father died to protect - is unable to locate a paraplegic kid in a backpack.
  • Oddly Named Sequel: The anime adaptation of Part II, Naruto Shippuden.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Several pieces of music in Shippudden: Akatsuki's theme, Hidan's theme, and most recently the unearthly Girei which was used as a theme for the godlike Pain (and once for Tobi revealing himself as Madara).
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: Orochimaru's theme is the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (by Johannes Sebastian Bach) on a pipe organ, with some Asian flute, shamisen and electric guitar thrown in. The Fight version is that on steroids. The rest of the villains pretty much follow suit, each upping the ante with yet more unearthly chords and Ominous Latin Chanting.
  • Ondo
  • One-Woman Wail: Used for great effect in Shippuden when Sasori dies. Also subverted at the middle of Orochimaru's theme: it's there but used for hypnotic and unsettling effect.
  • Overtook the Manga: Resulted in an 85-episode stretch of Filler after the main events of Part I, but got better in Part II. They now have the filler spread out more cautiously.
  • Portal Statue Pairs: The statues at the entrance of the Final Valley in the series, flanking a waterfall, depict two antagonists of an ancient mythic battle that created the valley.
  • Rainbow Puke: During the Mecha-Naruto filler arc, the eponymous villain targets Naruto and Yamato while they are being carried on a palanquin. The ensuing chase triggers Yamato's motion sickness, whose nausea is comically represented by a shot of him flying through outer space while a colorful stream flows through his mouth.
  • Rays from Heaven: Inverted at the end of the Naruto vs. Sasuke fight at Valley of the End. After the final clash, Naruto is laying on the ground with Sasuke looking down at him. Sunlight has broken through the clouds and one of the rays is on Naruto, but the cloud cover returns and the ray slowly shrinks to a point on his bare forehead and disappears, symbolizing the loss of hope for retrieving Sasuke.
  • Remember the New Guy?: The anime pulls this with the random Hyuga guy guarding Hinata during the Pain arc. A whole series of flashbacks make him out as some sort of bodyguard that's constantly around, yet we've never seen him before now.
  • Running Gag: The filler sometimes have Naruto and Sasuke accidentally kiss which only happened once in the manga.
  • Scary Stinging Swarm: In a filler fight from Shippuden, Sakura accidentally dislodges an enormous hornet's nest from a mountain while attacking Kabuto. Oddly, the hornets ignore her and go straight for Kabuto, who, despite being startled, cuts them down before they can hurt him.
  • Scream Discretion Shot: Happens when a filler villain beats up Hinata in the Three-Tails arc.
  • "The Scream" Parody: In the OVA "Hidden Leaf Village Grand Sports Festival!"note , Naruto (who is suffering from a Potty Emergency) makes his clones disappear after they've run into the stalls in the men's room, and then he finds out too late that now all the doors are locked from the inside. He then imagines himself doing the same pose as the person in The Scream as he turns gray.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: If you read the manga, you knew all along that neither Konoha nor Orochimaru were going to get the Three-Tailed Beast in the Three-Tails arc.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: After getting a brief filler arc wherein he finally accepts his past and becomes a master that seems set for good things, Utakata is killed by Pain before anything good can happen
  • Sickening "Crunch!": During the Chuunin exams, Neji damages Hinata's heart during their fight. A heartbeat sound and a picture of a heart appears from time to time, and she reacts as though she's in pain.
  • Simple Score of Sadness: The appropriately titled 'Sadness and Sorrow' from the original series, as well as 'Despair', 'Tragic' and 'Loneliness' from Shippuden.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The 13th ending of Shippuden. Not the ending itself, but seeing as the arc that this ending plays trough is probably the darkest moment of the series, you would think that the animators knew exactly what they were getting into by putting an insanely upbeat ending featuring Hinata happily riding a bicycle after something like this.
  • Spoiler: Weaponized during a sparring match - during the repeat of the "take the bells from Kakashi" bit, Naruto threatens to spoil the plot of the next Icha-Icha book. Kakashi considers this worth clapping his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes, as his Magical Eye automatically reads Naruto's lips.
  • Technicolor Toxin: In the anime, many poisonous jutsu and weapons are purple, including Shizune's venomous cloud and Sasori's blades.
  • Theme Music Power-Up:
    • In Part I, Naruto had several "commence recovery and ass-kicking" tunes. "The Raising Fighting Spirit" was the most common, but several were held in reserve for really stand-out occasions. To beat Neji, Naruto had to bust out three of these in a row ("Avenger" followed immediately by "Heavy Violence" followed immediately by "Strong and Strike").
    • Rock Lee has "Utsukishi Aoi Yajuu" (Beautiful Green Beast), which starts up every time it seems like he is going to win a battle.
    • Shikamaru has the techno song "Fake" which starts up whenever it turns out things have gone All According to Plan.
    • In Part I, whenever Orochimaru's theme music started playing the other guy was screwed. The normal version meant they were merely scared half to death and weren't going to dare stand up to him; the "fight" version was reserved for horrible Curb Stomping.
  • Variable-Length Chain: Lee's weapon in the third movie.
  • Water Is Womanly: Ameno is a ninja who uses Water Release to heal, and is a caring and polite young woman.
  • Wedding Finale: Konoha Hiden, an officially sanctioned light novel, deals with Naruto and Hinata's wedding in detail. The last arc of the Naruto anime adapted Konoha Hiden, with the finale ending on their wedding day.
  • X-Ray of Pain: Played for Laughs in an episode of the first series. Jiraya is caught spying on bathing women and this trope is initially subverted when he gets hit in the face by a geta and falls over the roof he was standing on headfirst. After a successful landing, Jiraya slips over his own getas and falls again head first, this time cracking his skull and knocking himself out.

    Other Tropes 
  • Bowdlerise: Jetix UK, RTL 2, and maybe where it's airing in Australia. In short, any Anglophone country that airs this except for America is/has going to make/made a mess of it.
    • To give an example from the Jetix UK Broadcast, the scene in the Search for Tsunade Arc where Kabuto slits his wrists to take advantage of Tsunade's crippling fear of blood was edited so that there was no blood during that scene. Instead of blood, Tsunade now seemed to have a fear of getting dirty.
    • Sasuke pulling out his sword on Naruto was cut out on the Disney XD broadcast of the first Shippuden episode, and the first few episodes didn't say "die" or "kill".
    • Shippuden's edited dub on Disney XD doesn't seem to know what to do with it. Some violent scenes are edited in ways that end up making no sense as a result, others are kept in almost unedited. Sometimes Never Say "Die" is in full effect, other times it isn't, with no real reason given as to why. A particularly bad example is a line of Sai's dialogue. In the original Japanese, he states his brother is dead. In the original English airing, he states he's "gone." On the first flashback to this line, it's changed to "dead." On another LATER flashback to the line, it's changed back to "gone." Disney XD just can't make up its mind.
    • The Filipino dub.
    • The manga's English release has censored drinking (accidentally) and smoking in two pivotal scenes. It's also turned Konohamaru's Boy on Boy and Girl on Girl jutsu into silhouettes, but at least the latter's still there.
  • Colon Cancer: Exhibited by the video games Naruto: Ultimate Ninja: Storm, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 and the PlayStation Portable game Naruto: Ultimate Ninja: Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress. Technically, one could also insert a colon between "Naruto" and "Shippuden" in some of the titles.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: There are many supplemental books of the series. They include official artwork, plot, and data books. There is also the Mysteries and Secrets Revealed series whose numbers 8 and 17 books focus exclusively on Naruto. The official books add to the source material and explain it in more detail in and out of universe. The M&SR books explain questions many fans may have and it also gets into what may occur in the Naruto series using what facts they had when the books came out. For example, in the unofficial books, The Naruto Saga and Naruto Forever, the reason given for the Uchiha massacre relays on out of date information.
    • Narutopedia is another great place to go for information.
  • O.C. Stand-in: Hanabi (Hinata's younger sister) is often prominently featured in Hyuuga-centric fanfiction and her personality widely varies from story to story, given her lack of characterization. Also Tenten, who has absolutely no background (not even a family name).
  • Serial Escalation: The Ougis of the Ultimate Ninja Series by CyberConnect2 have become infamous for this, and are definitely much more powerful than the manga or anime, going to near-Dragon Ball levels of destruction at times.
  • Spin-Off:

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