It's been years. Decades, if you count the original run. Yet, for some reason, we’re still talking about episodes of Naruto Shippuden like they aired yesterday. Maybe it’s the nostalgia. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Kishimoto managed to weave a sprawling, messy, beautiful epic that somehow stayed grounded in the dirt and blood of its characters. You remember the feeling. That Thursday morning ritual. Waiting for the fansubs to drop. The grainy video players. It was a whole era.
Honestly, the show is a bit of a monster. 500 episodes. That’s a lot of commitment. If you’re a newcomer, looking at that number is like looking at the base of Mount Everest without oxygen. If you’re a veteran, you know that about 40% of that is filler. But the 60% that hits? It hits harder than a Rasenshuriken to the chest. We aren't just talking about cool fights here. We’re talking about the architectural backbone of modern Shonen.
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The Rough Start and the Turning Point
When Shippuden kicked off, the stakes felt weirdly low but the tension was sky-high. Naruto came back to the village after two and a half years of training with Jiraiya, looking taller, sounding deeper, but still basically the same knucklehead. The first few episodes of Naruto Shippuden—the Kazekage Rescue Mission—were slow. Real slow. People complain about the pacing, and they aren't wrong. Deidara and Gaara’s aerial battle was cinematic, sure, but the trek through the woods felt like it took three months in real-time.
But then things shifted.
Remember the introduction of the Akatsuki as a legitimate, world-ending threat? When Hidan and Kakuzu showed up, the tone curdled into something much darker. Seeing Asuma Sarutobi fall was the "oh" moment for a generation of fans. It wasn't just a kids' show anymore. It became a meditation on the cycle of revenge. This is where the writing really started to flex. You have these villains who aren't just evil for the sake of it—except maybe Hidan, who was just a religious zealot with a scythe—but characters like Pain and Itachi who had legitimate, if warped, philosophies.
The Pain Arc: Peak Fiction?
If you ask any fan to pick the definitive stretch of episodes of Naruto Shippuden, nine out of ten will point to the Pain Invasion. It’s the peak. It’s the moment Naruto finally stops chasing Sasuke for five seconds and realizes he has a village to protect.
The animation in Episode 167 (Planetary Devastation) is still a massive point of contention. Some people hate the "fluid" (read: stretchy) animation style of Shingo Yamashita. Others think it’s a masterpiece of sakuga. Personally? I think the raw, chaotic movement captured Naruto’s rage better than any stiff, on-model drawing ever could. Seeing the Leaf Village turned into a literal crater changed everything. The stakes were never that high again, even during the literal Fourth Shinobi World War.
Pain wasn't just a boss fight. He was a mirror. He forced Naruto to answer a question that most Shonen protagonists get to ignore: How do you bring peace to a world built on hate? Naruto’s answer—basically "I don't know, but I won't stop trying"—was simple, but in the context of the series, it felt earned.
The Filler Problem (Let's Be Real)
We have to talk about the filler. It’s the elephant in the room. There are stretches of episodes of Naruto Shippuden that are, quite frankly, unwatchable. The Ostrich. You know the one. Condor the ninja ostrich. Why? Why did we need that?
Studio Pierrot was in a tough spot. They were catching up to the manga at a breakneck pace. To keep the show on the air every week, they had to invent stories. Some were okay—the Kakashi Anbu arc and the Itachi Shinden arc are actually fantastic and add genuine depth to the lore. Others? Just pure fluff. If you're watching for the first time in 2026, please, for the love of everything holy, find a filler list. You do not need to watch a three-episode arc about a guy who cooks ramen with his feet while the world is literally ending.
- The Power Arc: High budget, felt like a movie, totally skippable.
- The Boat Arc: Naruto on a boat for what felt like a year. Avoid.
- The Dreams: During the Infinite Tsukuyomi, we got months of dream sequences. It was brutal at the time.
Why the War Arc is Better Than You Remember
The Fourth Shinobi World War gets a lot of flak. It’s long. It’s bloated. Madara Uchiha becomes so powerful that the plot literally has to invent a new villain to get rid of him. But man, the highs are astronomical.
The reveal of Tobi’s identity. The reunion of Team 7. Madara taking on the entire Shinobi Alliance by himself. These moments are why we watch anime. When Madara dropped that second meteor in Episode 322, the collective jaw of the internet hit the floor. It was a level of power scaling we hadn't seen, yet it felt consistent with the mythos of the "Ghost of the Uchiha."
And then there’s the final fight. Episode 476 and 477. Naruto vs. Sasuke. No music for the first half. Just the sound of fists hitting skin and the heavy breathing of two kids who have been hurting each other for fifteen years. It’s one of the greatest pieces of animation in television history. Period. It wasn't about the flashy jutsus; it was about the exhaustion. The desperation. The refusal to let go.
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Technical Mastery and Music
You can't talk about these episodes without mentioning Yasuharu Takanashi. The soundtrack is the soul of the show. "Girei" (Pain’s Theme) sounds like a god descending from the clouds. "Man of the World" can make a grown man cry in four notes. The way the music interacts with the visuals is why the emotional beats land so hard.
The Legacy of the Episode Count
Why does it still matter? Because episodes of Naruto Shippuden represent a specific type of storytelling that’s dying out. The long-running, weekly battle Shonen is being replaced by seasonal 12-episode bursts. While seasonal anime usually has better "average" animation, you lose the sense of growth. We watched Naruto grow up in real-time. We saw him fail, over and over, for hundreds of weeks. That kind of investment builds a bond between the audience and the character that a 12-episode "hit" just can't replicate.
There are flaws. The female characters—specifically Sakura—were often sidelined or poorly written until the very end. The power creep eventually made every ninja who wasn't a god-tier alien irrelevant. The ending with Kaguya felt rushed and disconnected from the human drama of the previous arcs.
But despite all that? It works. It works because it's a story about a kid who wanted to be noticed, and by the end, he was the only one who could save everyone.
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Next Steps for Your Rewatch
If you're planning to dive back into the series or experience it for the first time, don't just binge it mindlessly. You’ll burn out by the time the Three-Tails shows up.
- Use a curated skip list. Sites like Anime Filler List are your best friend. Skip everything labeled "filler" on your first pass unless it's the "Kakashi's Face" episode. That one is mandatory.
- Watch the "Kaikitoku" (The Unfolding) specials. These provide incredible context for the lore that isn't always clear in the main episodes.
- Focus on the themes of 'Inherited Will'. Pay attention to how many times a character passes a physical or metaphorical object to the next generation. It’s the secret thread that holds all 500 episodes together.
- Check out the 'The Last' movie. It actually takes place between episodes 493 and 494 and is canon. It bridges the gap between the war and the wedding.
The journey through Shippuden is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time with the heavy arcs. Let the losses sink in. By the time you reach that final sunset in the Hidden Leaf, you'll realize it wasn't just about a ninja becoming a leader; it was about a generation growing up together.