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People say everyone and their mother watches Naruto. Well my girlfriend's mother DOES watch Naruto. I actually had a really long deep conversation with her the other day about the characters and their personalities. We went on to talk about the symbolism of it all and how it really parallels some deep truths about the world.

My girlfriend's brothers and I were having a good talk about Naruto in church and this kid scoots up to our table with a big grin on his face and says Naruto? And before you know it we're all chatting away. Then his little brother who must have been about four or five years old stands up on a chair and starts talking about how he loves when Naruto does this and that and so on. I guess it's got something for everyone.  

I've found this to be true in my own family - as they're probably watching Naruto as I type this! I called my family a while ago to say hi. After their long, busy day what are they doing to wind down? "We're getting some dinner together and getting all set up to watch Naruto". My boyfriend got me hooked on Naruto when I was going through a sick spell. It's easy to watch whilst resting in bed. Then I told my family about it and now - go figure - they're further along in back episodes than I am! Now I feel the compulsion to "race" them, although I'm sure they have far beaten me by now. Ah well, at least they're enjoying it. Now I've gotta drag my sorry self to catching up!

Haha I'm glad they're enjoying it. The biggest problem with the series is so much of it hinges on surprises and storyline that builds on earlier episodes. So you can't really get your friends together and say hey, let's watch Naruto, because one person may be on episode 213 and one may be still on episode 86. You don't want to jump ahead to 200 or the one who's behind will be hopelessly lost, and catch some spoilers. Jumping back to older episodes is actually more enjoyable in this series than most movies, because there are so many subtleties you don't fully understand until you know more of the story later on. I'm caught up with the current series coming out new each week, but I still love going back to the earlier episodes with my girlfriend and catching these little hints and foreshadowings that were there all along. It also is much more enjoyable seeing the behaviors and actions that used to not totally make sense until we learned the full reasons behind it all.

     Telling people about Naruto really has a domino effect. For this reason, and because the show is way too vast and addicting, I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. I once recommended it to a friend of mine, and in about a month, he had watched every single episode, more than doubling my Naruto consumption since I had discovered the series several months before. Having learned from this experience, I now hesitate to recommend Naruto to my friends because I'd feel guilty getting them and their families and their families' friends hooked on something as time-consuming as this endless anime series.

I'll never forget when your friend who at first wanted nothing to do with Naruto ended up watching ten episodes a day, reading all the comics, and traveling all over the place to fan conventions. I still don't know if I should feel guilty about spreading it around or not. It's such a good series but once you get into it, you really get sucked in.

I have some really close friends who talk about Naruto CONSTANTLY. If I ever don't know what they are talking about I can pretty safely assume they are gossiping about Naruto. For the longest time they wouldn't show me any episodes because they thought I would be addicted.. but how could they keep me away, since that's all they talk about????  ... so, of course, I ended up watching a couple episodes.. then a little while later I watched a couple more... and I have to say that even though I'm not opposed to the idea of watching episode after episode of Naruto I'm really not catching on to why anyone would be addicted. Sure, a couple things are pretty funny but I don't think I could be addicted.

 I'm sure there are variables that determine whether you get into or not... which episodes you start off with, who's with you when you see it, if it's the English version or not, and probably how tired you are.

It's an acquired taste. Once the story really starts heating up, it really sucks ya in. It's not something you can really grasp in the first couple episodes. But after 10 or more, you start to see how good it is.

Well then, I suppose I should watch a few more episodes as to give it the chance to get me addicted. I've always wanted to be addicted to something... might as well be addicted to Naruto.