Over the years, the story of Naruto has captivated, fascinated and inspired millions of people around the world, and while cartoon widely loved, age has widened its cracks that a redo can be fixed. The anime series based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga series ended with its 720th episode airing in 2017. Although many of the episodes were filler, even the official episodes suffered from problems that made Naruto less than watchable.
Many iconic anime series, such as Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and Naruto, adapted long-running manga series while their stories were still being written. These shows mean a lot to people around the world, but their weekly release schedules forced them to include a lot of unnecessary content, including hundreds of filler episodes and dramatic pacing to help fill each episode's time frame. However, cutting out non-canon content is just one of the Big improvements that the Naruto anime remake could bring.
The way Anime is created and consumed has changed a lot since Naruto debuted.
Naruto and Naruto Shippuden aired from 2002 to 2017
When the Naruto anime first premiered in 2002, its episodes began adapting multiple chapters of the manga each week. Before long, the anime was in danger of catching up to Kishimoto's manga. This is a common problem that several anime series have overcome in different ways. The franchise is infamous for having hundreds of filler episodes that make up at least forty-one percent of the entire animeBut they can be easily bypassed with the helpful Naruto supplement guide. Unfortunately, even that doesn't save new viewers from the frustrating limitations of the weekly episode model that Naruto is built on.
Seasonal anime releases have become more common in today's entertainment world, ideally allowing anime production companies more time to create and polish a series of episodes before they are released. Shows like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and Jujutsu Kaisen have adopted this model with great success, and in most cases, it allows their stories to have the incredible animation and presentation they deserve. After watching seasonal anime, rewatching Naruto episodes becomes a different experience than fans may remember.
Naruto Anime Is Worse Than Its Bland Filler Episodes
Even the canon Naruto episodes have side content.
Now tThe entire Naruto story has been told, an anime remake could adapt Masashi Kishimoto's legendary tale with significantly improved pacing. A modern Naruto adaptation would not need to spend several minutes at the beginning of each episode recapping previous episodes, a feature that can feel like a waste of time when watching multiple episodes in a row instead of one episode per week as they were originally released. This also includes flashback sequences that retell events that modern audiences may have seen recently and do not need to be reminded of.
Without the pressure of creating an eighteen to twenty-one minute anime episode to fill a coveted weekly television time slot, different pacing choices can enhance the pacing of a new Naruto adaptation. For example, during the Chuunin Exam finals, there are more than a few moments where the episode cuts away from the battle to hear commentary from other characters watching the battle. While those moments can be crucial in helping the audience understand the action taking place, there are also plenty of moments that are specifically created to stretch out the time, such as long scenes devoted to Choji nervously eating potato chips while watching his friends fight.
Despite its problems, the first part of Naruto is considered to be much better paced than the second part of the story in Naruto Shippuden. Moments, especially during the Fourth Shinobi War arc, are filled with constant flashbacks that slow down the pace of the most emotional and dramatic story beats in the Naruto anime. Still, Studio Pierrot's adaptations of Naruto are fondly remembered and continue to grow their fanbase, but a remake could tell the manga's story even better.
The beloved series has been remade and it's Naruto's turn.
Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Bleach all get new opportunities that Naruto deserves too
Naruto author Masashi Kishimoto and One Piece's Eiichiro Oda are rival mangakas who have become close friends. The superpowered pirate adventure series recently announced its own remake project, which will adapt the first part of that story using modern technology and a different studio than the one Toei is working on. However, One Piece isn't the first popular anime to get a remake at a time when people feel it's too soon.But it exceeded expectations in a way that fans hope a Naruto remake can one day achieve.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is considered one of the best anime of all time and has proven the success of remaking an already adapted series. While fans may hope that The One Piece can reach similar heights, it is a height that a Naruto anime remake could reach and even surpass. It is a project that many fans would love to see come to fruition, but creating such a product may also require a new animation studio as Studio Pierrot has a lot of work to do.
Studio Pierrot Made the Naruto Anime But May Be Too Busy to Remake It
Pierrot has produced the Naruto, Naruto Shippuden and Boruto anime while also working on other projects
Many anime production companies struggle to release more than a dozen episodes of a series per year, making the reality that Studio Pierrot has been producing a new episode of both Naruto and Bleach every week for years. An almost unbelievable achievement. While this talented studio doesn't produce as much anime as they used to, they have improved the quality of their work, which has become increasingly evident with recent projects like Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War and the Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King movie.
The anime for Naruto's sequel series, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, is also produced by Studio Pierrot but has joined Black Clover in pause land as the anime series is on hiatus while the manga (both of which run much slower than Naruto in Shonen Jump) creates more content to adapt. It's a sign of how much the anime industry has changed as Naruto used to release months and even years of filler episodes instead of pausing production to allow for more manga to be written. But that doesn't mean all filler episodes are a bad thing.
Not all non-Canon material is bad, some make Naruto even better
Many of Naruto's Best Moments Aren't in the Manga
Most Naruto fans who read the manga and watched the anime when it was released eventually became frustrated with the constant filler arcs, many of which failed to expand on the beloved world and its characters in any meaningful way. But Studio Pierrot's adaptation of Naruto also included a huge amount of incredibly intense, heartbreaking, and beautiful filler content, some of which are considered some of the best episodes of Naruto Shippuden, largely thanks to the production team's freedom in directing and writing beyond what was published in the manga.
Some scenes from Naruto Shippuden that remain in fans' minds are technically filler because they weren't in the manga. Pierrot's extras include moments like Shikamaru's breakdown with his father after Asuma's death, the detailed defeat of the Shinobi Alliance by Edo Madara's hand, and Obito's epic battle with Kakashi, all of which were greatly enhanced in the anime. And with the right hands, many more moments could be remade with the same level of direction and passion that those iconic scenes were created with.
If creative license were given to a talented enough team, beloved Naruto moments previously made with extremely limited time and budget could be remade with more lavishness and emotional visual storytelling at a much better pace. Even though it's already one of the most popular franchises in the world, a Naruto An anime remake could captivate current fans, attract new generations of viewers, and give Masashi Kishimoto's inspiring story the modern adaptation it deserves.