I don’t know about you, but I am a huge Naruto fan. At age 13, I first caught the Anime series on Cartoon Network when they used to air the show every Saturday evening at 9 PM. No one was allowed to make “reservations” for the television that night besides me. A half hour of humorous characters and the many conflicts they encountered was my favorite way to spend Saturday night back at home.
Up until recently, I had never before stumbled upon the manga series of Naruto simply because I never knew what to expect. I had only previously sampled manga at a shopping center that offered it. Without knowing how to read it, this can prove to be quite difficult.
Unlike books written by American authors here in the U.S., manga is supposed to be read from right to left, rather than from left to right. At first, this can be a trial and error routine, but the more reading you do, the more it will become natural and begin to flow coherently.
Upon review, I found that the manga series Naruto had much in common with the anime TV show that I have known and loved throughout these many years. The opening story beginning with “Chapter 1: Uzumaki Naruto” was almost spot on with the anime series. The character representation of Naruto was thorough and complete. He was just as I had imagined him to be from his portrayal in the show: crazy, funny, ambitious, and childish. Others like Iruka Sensei and the Hokage fulfilled their parts as well.
Furthermore, I was happy to see how closely the sequences of the story were carried out in each and that no substantial parts were exceptionally present or missing in either. Well, besides the filler episodes, of course!
Even though they are alike in many ways, I also saw some major and minor differences between the two. First off, I noticed that the drawings varied quite a bit. Now, this could have something to do with the imagination; the manga does offer simple drawings while the anime takes these drawings to another level once they have become animated. Also, the words in the anime series don’t match up exactly to those found in the manga. This is due to the show producers’ desire for the use of script writers.
If you’re a Naruto fan like me and can never get enough of this kid, you’ll definitely want to check out the manga series.