It’s hard to deny that Naruto is one of the best anime of modern times. Between its great action and engaging storytelling that only gets better with time, Naruto is a shonen anime with truly universal appeal, and the fact that it’s gone on to become one of the biggest anime franchises of all time is the perfect testament to its enduring quality.

Naruto is one of the best anime of all time, but it’s far from a perfect story. As with any story, there are parts of Naruto that were deeply flawed to various degrees, and even if some of the critiques levied at Naruto are often overblown, there are plenty of criticisms of Naruto that are impossible to deny as a detriment to the story and its legacy. A few of those especially stand out, and if each of them had played out just a little differently, Naruto would have ended up being even better than it already is.

10 Naruto Never Did A Good Job Of Fitting Technology Into Its World

Why Naruto's Technology Is So Weird

From the very start, the world of Naruto has been very anachronistic, technology-wise; while things are mostly structured as if it were a feudal setting, the world still features technology like computers, videos, TVs, and in a few key instances, guns. The problem with that, however, was that Naruto, in its later arcs, often seemed to forget that it was supposed to be an anachronistic story, as the use of more modern technology became highly inconsistent as the series went on.

Naruto’s poor handling of technology especially became a problem by Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. Boruto is far more technologically advanced than Naruto, both with modern technology and sci-fi technology, and as abrupt as that development was, it was made worse because of how poorly Naruto implemented technology into its world. Naruto’s poor handling of technology is responsible for one of Boruto’s biggest criticisms, and that’s impossible to deny.

9 Naruto’s Abusive Childhood Makes Less Sense As Time Goes On

Naruto's Tragic Backstory Gets A Little Weird After A While

One of the biggest parts of Naruto’s backstory is how he was ostracized for being the Nine-Tails’ Jinchuriki, and on the surface, it’s fairly easy to understand. Unfortunately, as time went on, it became increasingly evident that Kurama was essentially a living weapon of mass destruction, something the entire world would be aware of, and because of that, Naruto slowly became unable to justify why Naruto’s abuse was as big as it was.

Making things even worse was how other Jinchuriki were treated compared to Naruto. While they all suffered similar abuse to Naruto, it’s made clear that it was never to the same extent, with Gaara being the notable outlier thanks to his father’s poor attempts at testing him. Overall, the portrayal of Naruto’s other Jinchuriki retroactively made Naruto’s backstory harder to justify, and there has been little to no effort to rectify it.

8 Naruto’s Final Arc Is Too Long For Its Own Good

Naruto's Final Arc Should Have Ended Far Sooner

The Fourth Ninja World War arc makes up the final arc of Naruto, and calling it controversial would be an understatement. While the arc is largely solid and does a great job of ending Naruto on a high note, thanks to its massive length, the story notably drags more often than not, and overall, Naruto’s final arc, as good as it is, is dragged down by taking far too long to finish.

Naturally, the anime’s take on the final arc is even harder to defend, as thanks to poor pacing and an overabundance of filler, Naruto’s poor direction led to the final arc taking five years to finish, the finale being three years after the manga had already ended. The anime’s take on the final arc essentially emphasized all the problems of the manga, and it’s a big part of why the arc is so controversial.

7 Naruto Never Gave Its Side Characters The Respect They Deserved

Naruto Never Had A Good Handling Of Its Larger Cast

Naruto has a famously large cast for a shonen anime, and for the most part, every character has something going for them that makes them fun to watch. That being said, while the main heroes and villains always had something to do, Naruto’s side characters were often neglected as the scale of the story became larger, as Naruto and the core cast were typically the only characters who could keep up with that continual growth.

Going off the story’s constant escalation, by the final arc, Naruto and Sasuke, now definitively the strongest living characters, were some of the only characters who could consistently contribute to the plot, and because of that, most of Naruto’s side cast only got one or two scenes to show off in the story’s climax. Shonen anime often have a problem with utilizing their casts, and unfortunately, Naruto is one of the worst examples of such.

6 Naruto Completely Wasted Its Female Cast

Naruto's Female Characters Don't Get Enough Respect

Regarding how wasted Naruto’s side characters were, the female characters were treated especially poorly. Not only do the male characters vastly outnumber the female characters, but aside from a few characters like Sakura and Tsunade, whenever they’re involved in the plot, it’s almost always in a ing role while the male characters get to handle all the fighting, and overall, it’s hard to deny that Naruto treated its male characters far better than its female characters.

None of that, unfortunately, is unique to Naruto, as even in modern anime, shonen anime almost always have a problem when it comes to giving their female characters something to do. Naruto’s poor handling of its female cast is symptomatic of the larger issues of how shonen anime are bad with female characters, and it’s another element the franchise has never done much to fix.

5 Naruto Needed To Devote Far More Time To Its Romance

Naruto's Romances Are Incredibly Underdeveloped

The issues with Naruto’s cast come together for a far bigger issue: the romance. Naruto and Hinata’s relationship was tragically underdeveloped, Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship feels incredibly toxic, and every other major couple, aside from Shikamaru and Temari, has little work done to justify their existence. Naruto has some of the worst romance of any shonen anime, and with how bad shonen romance can get, that’s saying a lot.

Naruto’s poor romance gets even worse by the time the story progresses to Boruto. Not only does Boruto revolve far more heavily around romance while not doing anything to make it interesting, but the couples from Naruto are made even worse as the wives are largely reduced to housewives who rarely make any appearances, especially in the manga. Naruto’s handling of romance only gets worse as the franchise goes on, and there’s little that can be done to fix it.

4 Naruto’s Anime Has Way Too Much Filler

Few Anime Are As Bad About Filler As Naruto

Like many long-running anime from the 2000s, Naruto had an overabundance of filler that would grind the story to a halt for months on end, and it even led to an infamous two years worth of filler before the start of Naruto: Shippuden. Naruto’s overall filler content s for almost half of the entire series, and it’s unfortunately easy to feel that, especially for anyone who watched the anime weekly.

What made the filler even worse is how lackluster the stories were. While there were plenty of great Naruto filler stories, Naruto’s filler stories, more often than not, did little more than waste time with nonsensical or boring stories, most of which would do a poor job of playing into the strong writing that made Naruto so iconic. Few anime are as infamous for their filler content as Naruto, and unfortunately, it’s easy to see why.

3 Naruto Tries Far Too Hard To Make Itachi A Hero

Itachi Might Have Gotten A Little Too Much Respect

Following Itachi’s death in Naruto, it was revealed that Itachi only killed the Uchiha clan under the orders of the Leaf village and had secretly devoted his life to protecting Sasuke. From there, Sasuke abandons his hatred of Itachi and returns to loving him, and whenever someone who knew the truth spoke about Itachi, Itachi, after the big reveal, would be hailed as a great person who was someone who deserved to be the Hokage.

Even if Itachi wasn’t a villain, that doesn’t change how he killed countless people, helped the Akatsuki gather the Tailed Beasts, and tortured Sasuke to a degree that’s especially hard to justify. As great a character as Itachi is, he was still guilty of some undeniably heinous acts, so Naruto’s constant attempts at making Itachi look like a hero are hard to justify with how far he went with his villainy.

2 Naruto Had No Good Reason To Let Orochimaru And Kabuto Go Free

Orochimaru And Kabuto Got Off Far Too Easy

Despite being the first major villains, Orochimaru and Kabuto are nonetheless two of the most heinous villains in Naruto thanks to their penchant for human experimentation and how heavily they’re involved in the plot. Surprisingly, though, not only are they the only villains to still be alive at the end of Naruto, but Naruto’s ending sees both Orochimaru and Kabuto being pardoned for their crimes, with the two going on to work for the Leaf village in different ways.

While Naruto has a reputation for trying to redeem his enemies, the few characters he tried to empathize with would almost always die shortly after his attempts. As such, Naruto’s attempt at redeeming Orochimaru and Kabuto doesn’t work because there’s no true punishment for their crimes, and the fact that Orochimaru has only toned down his actions as opposed to giving them up outright only emphasizes how bizarre a decision it is.

1 Naruto Should Have Never Made The Otsutsukis The True Villains

The Otsutsukis Are Some Of The Worst Villains In Naruto

In Naruto’s climax, it was revealed that the true villain behind everything was Kaguya Otsutsuki, an alien who helped build the ninja world and spent centuries manipulating people to break free of her prison. Kaguya’s abrupt appearance has always been a point of criticism, and it got worse as the years went on, as Boruto: Naruto Next Generations would make its story revolve heavily around the actions of the Otsutsukis.

Kaguya is seen as a boring villain because of how much the lore revolves around her and how absurdly powerful she is, to the point of being boring, and that gets even worse by Boruto, as the new Otsutsukis are largely uninteresting and offer little beyond cool fight scenes now and then. Naruto’s heavy focus on the Otsutsukis has only served to drag down the story, and their poor handling is easily the biggest Naruto critique that’s impossible to deny.