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I would like to start watching Naruto as I have never attempted or tried to
get into watching Naruto. The main problem I have is that I don't want to
watch all 300+ episodes in Naruto or read the dozens of Mangas to understand
what Naruto is about and the many plots that are involved.

I know this might be a really silly question for someone who watches anime and
this may sound very far fetched but I havent watched Naruto before. I do not
want to read through pages and pages of information from Naruto's Wikia and do
not want to go watching through episode through episode of about 300+ to
understand Naruto.

Are there any episodes in Naruto that will help me understand the story and
key terms/terminology without doing this? In other words I am looking for a
short cut.

**Think of this scenario:** Death Note created two **special episodes** for
those who have **not** watched it before so they wouldn't have to go through
all the episodes to understand the plot. Did Naruto do this? If so that would
be extremely helpful.

Please note: I have not watched ever Naruto or Naruto Shippuden and as such
have no actual knowledge of anything Naruto.


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naruto
How can I quickly understand the basics of Naruto and the story without watching all 300+ episodes?


Well let's see what I can do....

The story starts off with a fox demon attacking the fire village. The 4th
hokage (which, in other words, is the leader of the village) sealed this demon
inside of a newborn baby. When you watch the series you find out that the
baby's name was Naruto and the 4th hokage was Naruto's dad. Now through the
series you see that Naruto gets stronger with his teammates: Sasuke, Sakura,
and Kakashi (the team leader). Later down the road Naruto and his team enter
the chuunin exams, which is a set of tests to go up to the next level.

A lot of things happened though the chuunin exams. After that, a few episodes
later, Naruto fights Sasuke to try to get him to stay in the village, but
Naruto lost that fight even though Naruto used the demon fox's chakra. After 3
years of training with the toad sage (Jiraiya), Naruto comes back to the
village. Naruto goes on a mission to save Gaara (who also had a demon inside
of him). Gaara did die but was brought back from the dead by the sand village
elder Chiyo (the puppet master of 10 puppets), who died to bring Gaara back
from the dead. Naruto gets a new teammate (Sai) and a new squad leader
(Yamato).

Now, way down the road, Sasuke kills his older brother (Itachi) for killing
his whole clan. Sasuke then comes to find out that his brother didn't do it of
his own free will. He was ordered to do it by the 4 elders of the hidden
village of fire. Sasuke then goes on a hunt to get revenge for his brother and
his clan. Sasuke then kills Danzou (one of the 4 elders that ordered Itachi to
kill his clan) but ends up finding out that he needs to destroy the village to
get revenge.

Naruto and Sasuke fight again after both Kakashi and Sakura run into and try
to kill Sasuke. Later, Naruto unlocks the powers of the fox demon inside of
him and Sasuke gets his brother's eyes. So things happened during the time
Sasuke was trying to kill Danzou, which leads to the 4th great ninja war. Now
I'm just going to skip a lot and I mean a lot now. Uchiha Madara (the real
one) is brought back from the dead and destroys the ninja alliance between the
5 great nations. Now in the manga where it's at now, Naruto and Sasuke unlock
new powers that are close to the sage of the 6 paths (the first person to be
born with chakra). And now, both Naruto and Sasuke are fighting Madara to try
to end this war.

P.S. Sorry if it's not talking about everything that happened, but there was
so much that happened that it's hard to explain so fast. In other news you
should try to catch up either by the books or by the shows, because the next
chapters that are coming out for the manga are going to be epic.


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Although I strongly advise against not watching/reading them, there are some
shortcuts to take.

  1. **You could read episode summaries.**  
As one of your main options it gives a good insight on the story, though not
specifically into the terms used in the story. But those aren't too hard to
catch onto when watching the second season.

  2. **Watch the Naruto abridged series.**  
Shortens a ton of episodes to just a mere 5 minutes, but still covering a
bunch of key points. But there is a lot of parody involved, causing it not to
be 100% accurate. It also does not cover the key terminology in the series.

  3. **Watch the anime without the anime-only arcs.**  
Just go watch the season without watching all the anime-only arcs. Greatly
reducing the episode count, as you can skip the following episodes, which
reduces the original 220 episodes with roughly 80 episodes. On the provided
site they also have a list for the Shippuuden series, also reducing the non-
canon content in there.

>     * Episodes 102—106: Naruto and Team 7 go to the Land of Tea to help
> Idate Morino win a race.
>     * Episodes 136—141: Naruto, Sakura, and Jiraiya, while investigating
> Orochimaru's whereabouts, encounters the Fūma clan.
>     * Episodes 142—147: Naruto helps Iruka catch the escaped convict,
> Mizuki.
>     * Episodes 148—151: Naruto and Team 8 look for the bikōchū beetle in the
> hopes that it will lead them to Sasuke Uchiha.
>     * Episodes 152—157: Naruto and Team Guy deal with Raiga Kurosuki and his
> Kurosuki family.
>     * Episodes 159—160: Naruto, Kiba, and Hinata help Sazanami clear his
> name.
>     * Episodes 162—167: Naruto, Neji, and Tenten go to the Land of Birds to
> deal with a mysterious ghost.
>     * Episodes 169—173: Anko Mitarashi takes Naruto, Ino, and Shino to the
> Land of the Sea to find information on Orochimaru.
>     * Episodes 175—176: Naruto is again paired up with Kiba and Hinata in
> order to improve their teamwork.
>     * Episodes 178—183: Naruto and Team Guy go to Hoshigakure to help the
> villagers protect their sacred star.
>     * Episodes 187—191: Naruto, Hinata, and Chōji go to the Land of
> Vegetables to protect some peddlers from the Criminal Brothers.
>     * Episodes 195—196: Guy is forced to deal with Yagura's apparent
> attempts at revenge.
>     * Episodes 197—201: The Konoha 11 stop Gennō from destroying Konoha.
>     * Episodes 203—207: Kurenai temporarily leaves Team 8 to take care of
> some old business with Yakumo Kurama.
>     * Episodes 209—212: Naruto, Lee, and Sakura help transfer a member of
> the Shinobazu to prison.
>     * Episodes 213—215: Naruto helps Menma regain his memory.
>     * Episodes 216—220: The Konoha 11 go to Sunagakure to help rescue
> Matsuri from the Four Celestial Symbols Men.
>
> Source: [Naruto Wiki: Naruto
> Plot](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_of_Naruto)

  4. **Read full episode summaries as written by fans.**  
Although this most definitely will take longer then just taking your time and
read the manga. you could give [Full Naruto Episode
Summaries](http://naruto.neoseeker.com/wiki/Naruto%3a_Episode_Summaries) a
shot. They describe the episode in details, and also include the key
information of the episodes.

I personally think that it would be the best shortcut to just read the manga
if you want to have a proper start in the series. The original Naruto is
covered in a mere 238 chapters, after all, which for me only took about a week
and a half to read, while the episodes took me roughly a year to watch
through. Or, you could just go ahead and take the risk and jump in mid-series,
just Google or take for granted the terms you do not know yet, and try to get
into the story that way. Either way, its all up to you.


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It's a good story and worth reading. I don't understand why you want to be
involved, but are too lazy to read the story. Being too lazy or uninterested
to pay attention to a story is absolutely fine, there are far too many
books/manga/tv shows for any one person to read even a tiny fraction of them.

But Naruto is not factual, you won't learn anything by finding out what's
going on in the current arc. It isn't based on current events, so the older
episodes aren't dated or irrelevant. I just don't know why you're in such a
hurry, there are more than 300 episodes out but they aren't going anywhere.
You can watch a few, then leave them for a few months and watch some more,
there isn't any pressure.

You see the knowledge you get by watching Naruto as a goal, rather than a side
effect of enjoying the story. The only possible reason I can think for this is
that you want to discuss Naruto with your friends, or you're just insane and
think it might be true. But either way, there just isn't a way to get all the
knowledge without watching the show, your friends have each spent hundreds of
hours getting to know Naruto and the story, you can't spend a few hours
reading and get all the knowledge they have. And even if you could read
descriptions of all the events, you wouldn't remember any of it, without
context it's just a bunch of weird Japanese names fighting each other at
random.

I realise I haven't answered your question at all, but I hope you read this
and reconsider, there's nothing wrong with not caring/knowing about Naruto,
and there's nothing wrong with watching a bit of Naruto every now and then,
but all you're gonna guarantee is that if you do enjoy the story you'll
completely ruin it for yourself with all these half remembered facts you
accumulate, and if you don't like it you've just wasted your time trying to
understand it.


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2014-04-23T23:10:45.183
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First off what is your purpose? I mean, do you just want to jump in to
Shippuuden where its at now and just see Naruto at his full power? Ill tell
you this, since you haven't watched any Naruto. It won't be something boring
or a hassle. You won't have any idea how Naruto will progress. In other words,
it would be worth watching it from scratch. Since you get to know all the
characters way better if you watch everything. You get a much better
understanding of the Naruto Universe as a whole. There is only benefits to
start from the beginning. Look at it like this, Naruto was made to be watched
from episode one, or be read from Manga Volume one. So you will find out new
things about the Naruto Universe through each episodes that passes and you
won't get bored. Sure it will take you a while to watch it all, but you won't
think of it that way when you are watching it, its hard to explain. But I
recommend you to start from the beginning. This is how I got caught up in
Naruto. A friend in School was talking day in and day out about Naruto and I
wasn't sure what it real was. I didn't even know it involved Ninjas. So I just
thought to myself "why don't I just watch like 10 episodes, just so I
understand what this guy is talking about". it took me about 3 days to watch
50 episodes. I got caught up so quickly, and it didn't even bother me that I
still had over 600 episodes left (including Shippuuden). I was just happy that
I had that much left of the show. Cause I liked it so much. And I started
loving the Anime when they went on their first mission, thats when I really
began to love it.


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There is very strong character development in this series. The plot is
extremely involved. I'm not sure that any summary could do the show justice.
For example, watching 300+ episodes of sasuke trying to avenge his clan only
to find out that he has a massive misconception about the entire thing is not
nearly as impactful as it would be if you watched the anime or read the manga.
You grow to hate the murderer of his clan as much as he does, and feel almost
the same emotions he does when he realizes there is more behind their
slaughter than previously imagined. Watching Naruto meet his parents would not
affect you in the slightest if you didn't experience the pain he went through
as a child in their absence. Watching Naruto repeatedly recieve the approval
of his peers wouldn't affect you in any way if you hadn't seen him struggle to
do it. You should set aside the time. It's very good. Don't watch the filler
though... I repeat: DO NOT WATCH THE FILLER. Animefillerlist.com... I'm very
serious haha. You'll get the feels by probably 20 episodes in and if you
don't, you're probably made of cardboard.


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