I bought Naruto volume 72 yesterday. ...It's over. It's really over. I'm done. Thirteen years of my life. That's even longer than Harry Potter. I first saw Naruto episodes 21 and 22 at Darnell's house on his computer as he played some sort of .hack game, and vaguely interested I downloaded it from the beginning. Those two episodes were Rock Lee beating the shit out of Sasuke, and from that I got the impression the series was about him. So you can imagine to my surprise it started off with that annoying little blond shit off to the side. I was quickly hooked, but I don't think quite so badly as when the Haku/Sasuke/Naruto fight happened, and Sasuke sacrificed himself. I was on the edge of my seat as Naruto was first influenced by Kyuubi, only to have my brother demand I stop watching anime and start studying for my regents. For one full week I was dying inside until I could continue, and at the end of the exams I blasted all the way through until I caught up at episode 51, the end of the first round of tournaments in the chuunin exam. Not being able to wait any longer, I proceeded to download the manga. I would come home, barely do my homework, read Naruto until about four in the morning, and then be dead the next day during school. This continued for three days until the latest chapter, 190. High school was basically oscillations between Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Naruto, whatever was most pertinent at the time. I remember each week staying up with people on AIM to discuss the latest episode or chapter (initially we would wait for Narutofan to release it until we couldn't even do that for those few precious hours), and then the next day at school with people in class. We all shat our pants at the end of Part I, and I even printed out that silhouette picture of Akatsuki to show everyone.

I don't think my obsession started to wane until about 2006 or 2007, which is about where I'm at now in my Naruto rereading. This is when the storyline started to really drag. People complained about that Sakura/Chiyo/Sasori fight, but I was actually okay with that. However after Hidan and Kakuzu were taken out, I began to lose interest and even didn't read it every week. There were also external pressures as well; I had mostly ignored video games during high school in favor of manga (we all know how much I invested in building up a collection), and was playing catch-up during college to the point that at about 2006 I lost all interest in manga altogether. My new preoccupation was Tales games, specifically Abyss, which I held onto for about two years. When I did get a manga obsession, it was Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, not Naruto.

I think you can compare Harry Potter and Naruto for me because they were the two I became most emotionally invested in, and although shorter, Harry Potter comes out as the winner. I was still lining up for that shit at midnight all the way to the end, even those movies that I wasn't excessively fond of. Naruto.... I don't even think I read the final chapter the week it came out. It's a shame because my rereading really emphasizes for me why we liked it so much. Naruto is a pretty formulaic shounen series, don't get me wrong, but the first two hundred chapters or so are done really well with interesting characters, a compelling plot, and heart-stopping fight scenes. It's no wonder this was a part of the Big Three of Jump during my high school years, a trinity I don't think has ever been replaced. I don't know what happened with Kishimoto — his editors forcing him to extend chapters for profit, him marrying and becoming a father, or his own personal style — but I think it's a shame he was not able to keep up with the standard we saw at the beginning.

Still, I don't regret the journey. It was fun. And maybe now Kishimoto can work on Mario. With Reborn! (possibly) returning this year, that means double the mafia. Awwwww yissss.