Naruto is a series almost all anime fans grew up with.
We all knew that one kid who ran in gym class with his arms behind his back because he was way into Naruto. We know about the ninja headbands. (Some of us might have owned one in middle school. Not me, though. I would have never done that in middle school. *cough*) We know that it’s one of the longer-running series with tons of support, and it’s part of the “Big Three,” next to Bleach and One Piece.
The Naruto manga came to its climax last week, releasing the last chapter, chapter 700.
“Let’s just say I’m really glad it ended. The story started off really good with a lot of cool morals, but as the story progressed it fell into the shounen trope and began to lose the point of having the underdog grow and train and become stronger,” said Terrapin Anime Society member Kaitlyn Peltzer.
WARNING: There are major spoilers from this point on.
Everyone thought Naruto and Sasuke would fight each other, die and be eternalized in some statue in the Leaf Village to represent pure good and evil. Nope. Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto’s writer, had very different plans.
A hundred or so chapters before the series ended, Sasuke, out of nowhere, declared he was going to help the same Leaf Village he once abandoned and be the next hokage. Yaaay.
Naruto and Sasuke worked together to defeat the baddies and then had a giant faceoff at the end. Sasuke wanted a revolution, to destroy everything and rebuild it, but Naruto wanted to protect it. Long story short, Naruto is stronger and they both managed to blow off each other’s arms.
A time-skip occurs and it’s many years later. All of the characters we know and love are now happily married with children. Ino and Sai are together with no explanation. Shikamaru and Temari are together (as was hinted throughout the series) and even Chouji is with a girl. Their three kids are the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho (as expected).
Gaara’s hair is combed over to the side and it’s really weird-looking.
Sasuke and Sakura end up together and have a daughter, despite Sasuke’s strange mental and physical abuse of Sakura throughout the series. (Readers assume that he realized what love was in the last few chapters? Not nearly as much is explained as people would have liked it to be.)
Naruto is married to Hinata, and they have kids. Naruto’s son is a wild prankster who yearns for his father’s attention. After all, Naruto is busy being hokage.
“Compared to the Harry Potter ending, this was great!” said TAS member Jonathan Johnson. “And [Kishimoto] can probably be the next Toriyama until Oda finishes One Piece.)
Kishimoto and Oda both had little nods to each other in last week’s Shounen Jump. The last page of Naruto featured a Straw Hat Jolly Roger scribbled onto the monument of Naruto in the Leaf Village and Oda gave Naruto a little half-cameo in One Piece’s title page. You can view both here.
