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Naruto Uzumaki is one of the most famous anime heroes in the Shounen genre. He is infamous for being brash, immature, and foolish. However, he is also well-known for being caring, inspiring, and extremely powerful. While Naruto follows the tropes of many Shounen protagonists that came both before and after him, he is also a unique character.
Naruto has undergone many changes as a character thanks to his long-spanning series with its spin-offs. In doing so, he displays a lot of unique and interesting characteristics that make him stand out as a Shounen protagonist.
10 He Was Hated By His Entire Village For Quite A While
Naruto Uzumaki was hated by the denizens of the Hidden Leaf Village as a child, even if it makes no sense to hate a child for something they could not control. This is much different from Shounen protagonists like Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer, who was beloved by his village.
Naruto was never looked at like a savior or even what he was, an innocent child. Instead, they ostracized him. For Naruto, this made him stronger. However, it could have easily gone the other way, as it did with his counterpart, Gaara.
9 He Was Incredibly Childish And Immature
Shounen anime is geared towards kids and teenagers, and thus there is a certain level of immature comedy that often comes with a lot of the shows. For Naruto Uzumaki, it was a lot of bathroom-related jokes.
From farting in Kiba Inuzuka’s nose during the Chunin Exams Preliminary Round to drinking sour milk and spending the day on the toilet, Naruto certainly knew how to bring immaturity to the world of shinobi. Even other Shounen protagonists usually do not get that ridiculous or stoop that low.
8 He Was Not A Particularly Smart Or Talented Character
Unlike a lot of Shounen protagonists, Naruto was neither smart nor talented. Sasuke Uchiha, his rival and foil, was incredibly talented, and Shikamaru Nara, a friend, was incredibly intelligent. Naruto just had a lot of energy. He did poorly in school, it took him forever to learn new jutsu (if he ever even did), and he slacked off constantly.
Luckily, his chakra stores were incredible thanks to his Uzumaki lineage and the Nine-tailed Fox Spirit, and Naruto was able to become strong and keep up. However, he sits in stark contrast to characters from other Shounen classics like Joseph Joestar or Ichigo Kurosaki.
7 He Started As One Of The Weakest Characters
Naruto had one of the worst scores in the Academy when he was training to become a genin. He could not make a successful clone, nor could he nail down the transformation jutsu. Many of the other students thought he was just a prankster, but he was just that bad at being a ninja.
However, by the time he became a genin, met his rival Sasuke, and went on real missions, he was faced with a huge learning curve. Although it took him a while, Naruto rose to meet the task.
6 He Frequently Broke The Rules
Many Shounen protagonists hate breaking the rules and are so lawful good that they would never do anything like steal, lie, or cheat. However, Naruto is not above anything. From stealing the scroll that held the Shadow Clone Technique to trying to cheat on tests, Naruto was there to break the rules.
The rule breaking also translated to his ninja life as well. He often broke the ninja code to save others, and he frequently went against the Hokage’s wishes to achieve his goal or help out a friend in need.
5 He Had No Friends At The Beginning Of The Series
Many Shounen protagonists rely on the power of friendship, so much so that it has become one of the most recognizable and ridiculed tropes in all of anime. However, Naruto began the show with no friends. Even in his Team 7 group, many characters refused to call themselves his friend for a long time.
Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha frequently expressed their disdain for him, but as the show went on, his sheer power of will and his wild card behavior earned him an entire village worth of friends.
4 He Stayed A Low Rank His Whole Career
Naruto eventually reached his goal of becoming Hokage, following in his father’s footsteps. However, Naruto never actually passed the rank of genin, the lowest ranking of shinobi. In contrast, most of his friends had either become Jonin or Chunin by the time Naruto: Shippūden started.
Meanwhile, Naruto is still technically a genin in the Boruto series. While it sounds pretty embarrassing, Naruto does not seem to have much of a problem with it because his goal was never about climbing the ladder of rank as other Shounen characters do.
3 He Had Two Inherent Special Features
Unlike many Shounen protagonists, who often have an innate ability that makes them capable of great feats, Naruto has two. Comparing to characters like My Hero Academia‘s Midoriya, who was born with no quirk, and Bakugo, who has one quirk, or Asta’s negate magic ability in Black Clover, it is easy to see there is a one trump card trope.
However, for most of his life, Naruto had two with Kurama’s (the Nine-tailed Fox Spirit) unlimited power and his own seemingly endless pool of Chakra thanks to his Uzumaki lineage.
2 He Grew Up And Had Children
Fans do not often get to see what becomes of their favorite anime protagonists when they beat the final bad guy and grow up. However, with Naruto, they get to see him in his adult years with a full family.
On top of that, Naruto is not down for the count yet. In the Boruto series, fans get to follow both Naruto and his son, Boruto, as they grow and fight antagonists like the Otsutsuki. Getting to see the entire lineage plus watching multiple generations of characters at once is unique and interesting.
1 He Was The Reincarnation Of An Ancient Being
As it turned out, Naruto was semi-destined to stop the cycle of war and hatred that plagued the shinobi world, thanks to him being the reincarnation of Asura and Sasuke being the reincarnation of Indra. Both were powerful Ostutsuki descendants who started a lot of the problems shinobi saw in Naruto’s time.
Not many other Shounen protagonists could say they were the reincarnation of an ancient and super-powerful force that helped build the entire world the anime took place in, but both Naruto and Sasuke can.
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