For years, the growing popularity of series like Naruto and One Piece helped to make anime more socially accepted, morphing it into what it is now, a global juggernaut in entertainment. While both of those series contain exciting battles and an iconic cast of characters, it’s the narrative depth of their themes and character arcs that kept people engaged in the franchises. However, an aspect in one of those series was done so much better than the other that it’s allowed it’s stories pacing to continue for almost three decades.
Technically, the story of the Naruto franchise has not ended and continues in the Boruto sequel series. But within the original series run of 700 manga chapters and 720 anime episodes, the canon endings of Naruto have aged like fine wine. Author Masashi Kishimoto seemingly told the story he set out to tell, while the sequel series has attempted to expand its universe in interesting ways. However, an ongoing issue with the Naruto franchise highlights just how good One Piece is and how it’s world building has allowed it to continuously pick up steam.
There Is So Much Of Naruto’s World That’s Unexplored
Throughout the Naruto storyline, the plot gradually explored other ninja villages besides Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves that resides in The Land of Fire. The Fourth Shinobi War saw the collaboration between shinobi nations from the Lands of Lightning, Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire. The world-threatening war also included samurai allies from The Land of Iron, which is a place that got little to no attention in the overall narrative. Still, it’s only a small piece of the iceberg that is unexplored territory from Naruto‘s world.
The Naruto anime is notorious for its many filler episodes, and while many of those can be skipped, they often explore new villages and parts of the wider shinobi world. Unfortunately, most of those places fail to differentiate too far from the appearance and customs of the other towns and villages Naruto explores. That was until The Land of Iron introduced samurai to the franchise, sparking the idea that perhaps the entire planet is not solely made up of ninja villages.
Each land introduced in Naruto is ruled by a Daimyo who primarily stays in his country’s capital, where they make executive decisions often related to the country’s budget, role appointments, and military planning. Later arcs in the Boruto story have been teasing a stronger inclusion of The Land of Fire’s leader above the Kage, but it’s incredibly surprising that so little has been done with the characters who seemingly rule over the land’s shinobi. Especially when powerful enemies have presented threats that far exceeded the imaginary lines that make up a country’s borders.
The Rest of Naruto’s World Is Filled With Potential Boruto Has Ignored
Akatsuki and their influence dominated a lot of attention during many of Naruto‘s most exciting arcs, but when their plans came to fruition during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, it was far more than the ninja villages that were affected. Their plan cast a worldwide genjutsu that trapped the entire population in energy-leeching tree roots. While the overarching story did meet its beautiful conclusion after the Shinobi War, its events could have been the perfect launching-off point for the series to explore more of the world instead of jumping ahead to cover Boruto’s plight against aliens and androids.
It feels like a huge missed opportunity not to have an arc introducing an envoy or wanderer from a faraway land curious to explore the origins of the genjutsu that temporarily infected the entire population. Such a character would have given the story the chance to explore a story about someone completely ignorant of ninja abilities or culture. Or an entire spin-off series that flips that idea could have followed Sasuke exploring other countries or even continents far away from the ninja world after he received his headband back from Naruto.
After the original Naruto manga concluded with chapter #700, several light novels have been released that often focus on contained adventures revolving around a particular member of the franchise’s beloved cast. Some of those stories were even animated with Naruto Shippuden and Boruto filler episodes, exploring plotlines and new locations that felt more thought-out and detailed than most of the filler arcs the franchise contains. However, even those failed to feed into Naruto‘s ongoing narrative that could have helped the series evolve as One Piece has over the years.
How One Piece Has Surpassed Naruto
Author Eiichiro Oda has clarified that he never intended Luffy’s adventure to continue for as long as it has. He had originally intended for the story to revolve around the Straw Hats gathering and taking down the Pirate Emperors and reaching the One Piece, all within five years of serialization. Almost 30 years later, that turned out not to be the case, all because Oda has created so many fascinating characters that have taken on a life of their own. After he introduced the Warlords of the Sea, the story grew considerably, and so did the scope of Luffy’s world.
What started as a seemingly light-hearted adventure about wacky super-powered pirates gradually evolved into an epic involving the effects of a fascist government, the definition of freedom, and being true to oneself. The incremental introduction of higher-ranked Marines, the many facets of the corrupt World Government, and the Pirate Emperors who control entire armies helped create a world that feels active even when Luffy and his friends are not around.
While a peek into the lives of Naruto characters when they are not suffering from life-or-death missions can be mildly entertaining, the series failed to make each location outside of Konoha feel unique enough to stir the levels of curiosity that One Piece‘s extremely varied islands have been able to generate. Each location the series has introduced contains extremely different architecture, climates, species, and even technologies. This has helped the exploration of new locations feel consistently exciting and driven a hunger to see it continue with or without the Straw Hat Pirates.
Besides the top-tier world-building, One Piece has another advantage over my personal favorite series, which is it’s abilitiy to juggle mystery. Since the very beginning, Oda has teased readers’ imaginations with what the fabled One Piece treasure could be and continued to add other secrets that make its narrative, characters, and world all the more fascinating. Naruto had its own share of great mysteries that it was able to solve in satisfying ways, but not to the extent that has kept One Piece not only going, but thriving almost 30 years after it started.
- Video Game(s)
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Naruto: Clash Of Ninja Revolution 3, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (2003), Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja, Naruto: The Broken Bond, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, Naruto Shippuden Dragon Blade Chronicles, Naruto: Path Of The Ninja, Naruto x Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections
- Cast
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Junko Takeuchi, Maile Flanagan, Noriaki Sugiyama, Chie Nakamura, Kazuhiko Inoue, Nana Mizuki, Hideo Ishikawa, Yûko Sanpei
- Latest Film
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Boruto: Naruto the Movie
- First Film
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One Piece: The Movie
- Cast
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Kazuya Nakai, Akemi Okamura, Kappei Yamaguchi, Hiroaki Hirata, Ikue Ôtani, Yuriko Yamaguchi
- Created by
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Eiichiro Oda
- Character(s)
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Monkey D. Luffy, Roronora Zoro, Nami (One Piece), Nico Robin, Usopp (One Piece), Vinsmoke Sanji, Tony Tony Chopper, Franky (One Piece), Jimbei (One Piece)