Naruto

I was so addicted to this series that I would sleep few hours less to watch it. This is one more Ninja series with so much fun and cool fights. It revolves around main characters in the series, but mainly Naruto Uzumaki. He is the hyperactive knucklehead ninja of the hidden leaf village. At times he can be funny and sometimes annoying, he can be stupid and sometimes heroic, he can be smart in battles and sometimes just dumb. But he possesses a good kind heart inside him. Even if he is the main hero of Naruto series, he is a common kid (except that he has a nine tail fox inside him). He lived a very sad childhood, being rejected by people and no good friends except iruka sensei, his teacher in high school. I think Naruto is a really inspirational character not because he is the hero, but because of his characteristics. A normal kid pushing himself more and more to achieve his goals to prove that he can do it. He does not give up even if he falls. He is eager to learn new techniques and works harder than a donkey. He protects his friends no matter what. One more similar and very inspirational character would be Rock Lee, a guy who does not have any natural talent for ninjutsu, gengutsu or any other kind of non-contact fight techniques. So he keeps himself pushing in taijutsu which is hand to hand combat style. And he pushes himself to the extremes. And he becomes inspiration for Naruto as well.

All the characters are well defined and you don't find it difficult to understand after sometime. All the plots are exciting and adventurous and not to mention funny as hell. I love the way expressions are animated in this series, like sometiems face completely distorts or simplifies to the least details but retains the funny expression. Sometimes jaw just becomes so flat and eyes just become weired. It makes the whole scene really funny along with those funny sounds. I like the way Sakura's internel feelings are shown in form of animation of only outline coming out from inside as if her second personality is speaking. And all the fights are animated really really well. I think they are not easy if you consider all different kinds of fighting techniques, styles used in fights and also dynamic angles to show them. I am really impressed by those animations.

I have finished 157 episodes so far and now all episodes are fillers until 201 (or the Shippuden series starts).