10 Most Overused Naruto Tropes (2024)

Shonen action anime series are well-known for making heavy use of tropes to weave their narratives, with mixed results. Some tropes are highly entertaining or even inspiring, while others are becoming stale cliches or were a problem to start with. The Naruto anime embodies plenty of tropes too, and it even made up some new tropes of its own as the story went on.

Plenty of Naruto's tropes are wonderful, like the power of friendship and the stubborn will to succeed without giving up, and the hard work vs talent narrative is an intriguing one, too. Still, certain tropes in Naruto, including those unique to the franchise, were used too often and thus lost their flavor. Some of the worst tropes felt excessive even after just two or three uses, since a little of them went a long way in the story. In fact, fans might say that some of those overused tropes could have been a one-time gag or been omitted from the story entirely.

10 There Are a Few Too Many Training Arcs in the Naruto Franchise

It's practically a given that a shonen action anime series will feature a few training sequences, and fans don't see much occasion to complaint about that. A recent example is Demon Slayer's Hashira training arc, which is dominating that anime's fourth season so far. Meanwhile, the Naruto anime has some cool and exciting training arcs, but perhaps it overplayed its hand with those scenes.

Over time, the Naruto anime developed a habit of putting Naruto Uzumaki into a training sequence before every major fight, to the point it became routine and predictable. Every time a new foe like Kakuzu or Pain came along, Naruto would inevitably go train before even daring to fight those villains.

9 Inner Sakura's Appeal Wore Off Quickly

At first, it was an amusing and creative idea for the tsundere Sakura Haruno to imagine her "Inner Sakura," which represented her true feelings and opinions about other people. It was a delightful visual gag to explore Sakura's inner dialogue in a new way, but before long, the appeal wore off, and Inner Sakura felt superfluous.

Too often, the narrative paused to let Inner Sakura say something, but Inner Sakura rarely said anything insightful that Naruto fans really needed to hear. By then, Inner Sakura was saying things that fans could infer on their own. On the plus side, the disappearance of Inner Sakura in Naruto Shippuden may symbolically represent Sakura growing up and dispensing with angry inner monologues.

8 Naruto's Talk Jutsu Started to Feel Contrived

Naruto Uzumaki's famed "talk jutsu" is an example of a trope that is actually quite good on its own, but can become rather silly or mildly controversial if overused. The concept is solid, with Naruto Uzumaki using his own painful experiences to empathize with other people who suffer and convince them to not use their pain to do evil. He thus redeemed Gaara, Neji Hyuga, and even Nagato that way, among other characters.

Over time, though, Naruto fans felt that the hero was relying too heavily on the power of speechcraft to end conflicts, to the point it almost felt like the anime was making fun of itself. In some cases, the talk jutsu suited the narrative's needs, but in other cases, it felt like a convenient way for Naruto to end fights when his jutsu and fists can't win the day.

7 Jiraiya's X-Rated Antics Got Old Fast

For a time, it seemed the anime industry felt obliged to include a "dirty old man" character in the same vein as Master Roshi from Dragon Ball, and in the eyes of modern anime fans, that trope was terrible from the start. It simply makes anime fans uncomfortable to see the heroes or supporting characters act in such X-rated ways, and Naruto took its turn with Jiraiya the toad sage.

Not only did the anime start using this trope, it kept going until partway through Naruto Shippuden, when the narrative finally focused on Jiraiya's true essence -- his dream of world peace. Even just one example of Jiraiya spying on bathing women would be a little too much to prove that he's a wacky man with no boundaries.

6 Naruto Kept Inventing Rasengan Variants

​​​​​​It's good for a shonen hero to have their own signature move that they use often, such as Goku's Kamehameha, Ichigo Kurosaki's bankai, and Tanjiro Kamado's Hinokami Kagura. Meanwhile, Naruto Uzumaki learned the incredible Shadow Clone jutsu, then learned the Rasengan and kept inventing new variants, some of which made use of Shadow Clones.

That's a fine idea on its own, but perhaps the Naruto anime focused a little too much on that and denied Naruto a chance to explore other jutsu that suited his fighting style. It almost felt silly for Naruto to keep charging into battle with massive, ultra-powerful Rasengans in hand rather than actually learn or invent a new jutsu to get stronger.

5 Dojutsu Kept Dominating the Narrative and Combat System

It was a fantastic idea for Naruto's combat system to make use of dojutsu, or eye-based jutsu. Over time, the Sharingan eyes became quite powerful and fun to watch, and something similar could be said about the Byakugan and Rinnegan, too. But after a point, it seemed the anime cared too much about who had the best eyeballs in a fight.

Too often, a fight was decided by who had the better dojutsu, such as the brotherly battle of Sasuke vs Itachi, where only the Mangekyo Sharingan really mattered. In other cases, certain powers and plot twists were controlled by dojutsu like the Rinnegan, and it even felt arbitrary to have it designed that way. For example, having the Rinnegan was essential to control Ten-Tails, but fans might wonder if it actually had to be like that.

4 There Were Too Many Villains Behind the Villain in Naruto

This trope, when using sparingly, can deliver some strong results, such as Bleach fans thinking Gin Ichimaru was the Soul Society's worst enemy, only for Sosuke Aizen to be the true mastermind. Or Tomura Shigaraki being the apprentice to All For One in My Hero Academia. The Naruto anime used this trope with the Sound Four and Orochimaru, then started overusing it.

In Naruto Shippuden, it wasn't always clear who the true supervillain was, because some character posed as each other or were secretly using one another. For some time, it seemed the Six Paths of Pain was Naruto's true enemy, only for Tobi to claim to be Madara Uchiha, only to be Obito posing as Madara. And even after that, Kaguya Otsutsuki and Black Zetsu were the villains behind the real Madara Uchiha, a plot twist not many Naruto fans enjoyed.

3 Betrayal Happens Rather Often in Naruto

Betrayal is bound to happen now and then in shonen and seinen anime, and some plot twists are famous for it, such as Griffith sacrificing the entire Band of the Hawk during the Eclipse. By all rights, the Naruto anime can make use of this trope/plot twist as well, but the anime got carried away with it.

The first betrayal arrived when Sasuke turned on Team 7 and abandoned the Hidden Leaf Village, and then Naruto Shippuden cranked up the betrayal even more. At some point, Sasuke turned on and absorbed Orochimaru, and he even turned on Karin during his battle against Danzo Shimura. Also, Obito was convinced to turn against Madara Uchiha during the final battle, and the entire Uchiha clan was going to revolt against the Hidden Leaf Village until Itachi prevented it with his massacre. Most of all, Black Zetsu turned on Madara Uchiha during a critical moment.

2 Naruto is a Himbo

Son Goku of Dragon Ball fame had a profound impact on how shonen manga artists designed their heroes, with Naruto Uzumaki, Monkey D. Luffy, and Natsu Dragneel all being obvious Goku descendants, among other protagonists. This often meant they were total himbo characters, or loud, foolish, and well-meaning characters with lots of energy.

A little of that goes a long way, and Naruto Uzumaki overdid it a bit. Too often, he was dense and foolish for the sake of obligatory humor, which made him a little difficult to take seriously, and he acted like an oaf when he didn't need to. Naruto did grow wiser and more mature over time, but not quickly enough to outgrow his blatant himbo origins.

1 Naruto's Powers Keep Bailing Him Out of Trouble

Naruto Uzumaki embodies the half-other anime trope, meaning he's a person with the powers and some physical traits of another entity -- in this case, Kurama the nine-tailed fox. This trope is popular among anime fans, but it has a downside too, such as bailing the hero out of trouble whenever they're losing a fight. Anime fans have seen that happen with characters like Ichigo Kurosaki, Denji, Ken Kaneki, and more.

There are strong plot reasons why Naruto has a powerful monster inside him, and he wouldn't be the same without Kurama. But even so, the Naruto anime is too willing to awaken Kurama's titanic power to save Naruto, starting with Naruto's biju attack when fighting inside Haku's ice crystal array. Naruto also needed Kurama's power to fight Pain, and he used it to survive an encounter with Kabuto on that bridge, too. He even needed Kurama to defeat Neji Hyuga, a fight Naruto should have won on his own in the chunin exam.

Naruto

TV-PG

Action

Adventure

Naruto Uzumaki, a mischievous adolescent ninja, struggles as he searches for recognition and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the village's leader and strongest ninja.

Release Date

September 10, 2002

Cast

Junko Takeuchi , Maile Flanagan , Kate Higgins

Main Genre

Anime

Seasons

1

Creator

Masashi Kishimoto

Production Company

Pierrot, Staralis Film Company

Number of Episodes

220