Naruto and later Naruto Shippuden is a Japanese cartoon, also called anime, based on the manga Naruto created by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of a young boy, Naruto, who has the Kyuubi, a nine-tail fox demon, in his body. His parents died in the fight against the Kyuubi and finally, his father (the fourth Hokage, the head of the village) sailed him into his own son to protect the village of the monster. Although Naruto should be treated like a hero, the other people in Konohagakure, the village, try to avoid him and they see Naruto himself as the beast that killed their friends and family. And here starts the story of Naruto and his way as a ninja.
The first 10 minutes of the first Naruto episode in Japanese with English Subtitles.
Naruto, during his time in the ninja academy, will learn what real friendship is when he knows Sakura and Sasuke, the two other members of Team 7 under the leadership of Sensei (professor) Kakashi. While Naruto falls in love with Sakura, she is aiming for Sasuke. But Sasuke himself doesn't give much importance to these things and seems to be very solitary. Just like Naruto, he had a very difficult past. His whole clan (big families where the most of members are ninjas are called "clans") except himself has been killed by his very own brother. Now Sasuke only wants one thing: revenge.
During the series Naruto will meet a lot of other ninjas of his own village, but also from the other ones. He will have to fight against a lot of villians and during the series, the main characters Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura change a lot. They grow up and start to decide the path they want to take. In the end of the first series, Sasuke wants to go with Orochimaru, one of the most dangerous enemies of Konoha. Orochimaru promised him to give him more power and to train him so he can have his revenge for his family soon. Naruto tries to stop Sasuke, but he isn't powerful enough and in a spectacular fight where good and bad memories of their childhood and their objectives for the future crash into each other, Sasuke is able to flee and to go to Orochimaru.
Naruto knows that now he has one very important mission: get back Sasuke to Konoha. So he goes to a very hard training with Jiraiya, one of the strongest ninjas of Konoha, for almost three years. The first series "Naruto" ends when Naruto starts his journey with Jiraiya and the second series "Naruto Shippuuden" starts exactly when they return to Konoha. All the characters have grown up and a criminal ninja organisation gets very much importance: Akatsuki. It's members are searching for the tailed beasts and the Kyuubi inside Naruto is one of them. During Naruto Shippuuden a lot of stories of many different characters slowly come to one conclusion...
What I especially like about Naruto is that the series grows up with it's viewers. Perhaps it's only like this in my case because I actually started to watch Naruto when I was twelve years old (just as Naruto in the first series). Now, in Naruto Shippuuden (which is still going on), Naruto is already sixteen.
But the creator Masashi Kishimoto himself confirmed that when he became father (while his manga was at the point a bit after the time jump, when Naruto returns to Konoha) his vision of the world and of all things changed a lot. With his manga he wants to transmit the really important things in life. But he says also that everyone has to know for himself what he learns of this manga.
I, personally, have a lot of good memories in relation to Naruto because I watched it with my best friend in Germany the year I had to leave. And one of the most important themes of the series is friendship. I have to admit that I could learn some things about friendship of Naruto. And about the meaning of being someone's friend or being a man.
In the end, I think that people can learn anything of anyone or anything, if they just want to.
