Storyline - Part 1 - The Beginning

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The Naruto series starts off with an introduction to its main character, a loud and rambunctious boy named Naruto. He is an underachiever at Ninja Academy and strives for recognition, usually attaining it by pulling pranks on the instructors and around the village. There is more to Naruto than his childish antics though, as it turns out he has a great demon sealed inside of his body called the Nine-Tailed Fox. The demon, which once ravaged Konoha, is kept secret from Naruto and his classmates, and only the older people in the village know about it, and they generally reject Naruto and treat him as an outcast because of it. Naruto never knew his parents, so has lived and grown up mostly by himself and has had to deal with the ridicule all his life.

In the first episode, Naruto fails to create a clone in order to graduate Ninja academy. Instead he had focused his time creating "useless" skills such as sexy no jutsu, which transforms him into a scantly dressed female version of himself and is used against the male instructors as a joke (although it has comes in handy on occasion). He is depressed that he didn't graduate Ninja academy, and so with the influence of one of the instructors at the Ninja Academy, Mizuki (who has evil motives), he steals a secret scroll containing forbidden techniques. Naruto takes it on himself to learn one of the forbidden techniques, Shadow Clone, before giving the scroll to Mizuki. Shadow Clone is a higher level technique than a regular clone, as it creates real clones of the user which can fight and do damage. Naruto trained and learned the technique to prove that he has what it takes to graduate Ninja Academy. Naruto then uses it to defeat Mizuki, who reveals himself as a bad guy when trying to kill Naruto's instructor, Iruka. After defeating Mizuki, Iruka recognized Naruto as a Ninja and allows him to graduate, granting him the coveted forehead protector with the Konoha leaf badge on it.

Now that you're well acquainted with Naruto, I'm going to pick up the pace a bit and give a more general story guide, as opposed to an episode-by-episode guide. Now that Naruto and the other students have graduated, they are put into teams of 3, each with a Jounin-level instructor. Naruto is put in a team with Sasuke and Sakura, and their teacher is Kakashi. They comprise team 7. Sasuke is the opposite of Naruto in abilities, and performs perfectly in all tests. He keeps to himself however, and has quite an attitude. Sakura, as Kakashi later puts it, is more interested in love than being a Ninja, and falls head over heals for Sasuke, although she finds Naruto irritating and annoying. Despite that, Sakura is a very intelligent Ninja, although she lacks physical strength.

Kakashi puts the new team through a test, and to no surprise finds their teamwork lacking, or rather nonexistent. They pull through though in the end, and even Sasuke shows a friendly side by offering Naruto food. After the test, the team is assigned to their first mission, which is to escort a bridge builder from Konoha to the country of water. It is supposed to be a C rank mission, but turns out to be far more difficult as the bridge builder was not entirely truthful about the mission specifics. The team soon finds themselves up against a highly skilled Ninja, Zabuza, who is able to fight on equal ground with their instructor Kakashi. It turns out there is a very wealthy man who wants to prevent the bridge builder from completing a bridge that would jeopardize his stranglehold on the island's economy.

After a lengthy battle, in which Zabuza is able to restrain Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke manage to put aside their resentment for each other, and use teamwork to cause Zabuza to release Kakashi. Once Kakashi was released, he used his Sharingan eye to defeat Zabuza. However, before Kakashi can finish him off, another Ninja, posing as a Konoha ANBU (sort of like an official police force) jumps in and insists on disposing of the body himself elsewhere. Team 7 is tricked and continues on their journey to water country. Meanwhile, Haku, Zabuza's servant and companion who was posing as ANBU, helps Zabuza recuperate.

All seems to be going well; the bridge builder and team 7 make it to water country and begin work on the bridge. After a number of days though a mist rolls in and the two adversaries, Zabuza and Haku, reveal themselves and attack the bridge builder and workers. Team 7 arrives and the battle begins again. Kakashi takes on Zabuza, who hides in the mist, while Sasuke and Naruto take on Haku, who creates a mirror cage around them and prevents them from escaping. Sakura meanwhile guards the bridge builder. After a lengthy battle, Sasuke takes what looks like a fatal blow and dies in Naruto's arms. This angers Naruto which causes his inner demon's chakra (energy) to release partially, increases Naruto's strength, speed, and power by many times, and allows him to destroy Haku's mirror prison and beat him down. While Naruto is releasing the demon's chakra, Kakashi becomes worried and decides to quickly finish off Zabuza (there is the possibility that the Nine-Tailed Fox will take control of Naruto and the seal could be broken). Kakashi summons his companion dogs, who find Zabuza based on smell and detain him. Kakashi uses his chidori (a mass of energy built up in a ball in his hand) to kill Zabuza but Haku jumps in at the last minute, sacrificing his own life. The wealthy man who hired Zabuza shows up with a huge mob of grunts, and insults Zabuza for losing. Zabuza uses what little energy he has left to attack the mob before dieing next to Haku. Team 7 finish off the rest of the mob and then the happy ending ensues.

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