Naruto

In the ninja world, those who don't follow the rules are scum, that's true, but those who abandon their comrades are even worse than scum. - Kakashi Hatake

Status

Anime: incomplete. (A few random episodes here and there.)

Manga: incomplete. (A few random chapters here and there.)

Thoughts

As the first (and currently only) of the "Big Three" shonen series that I watched, Naruto is what instantly comes to mind when I want to describe shonen to someone, particularly in pointing out all the flaws and things I tend not to like about the genre in general. The titular protagonist himself is essentially "stupid good" personified - idiot hero that is surprisingly smart in combat, was neglected as a kid, always shows the power of emotion over logic, etc, etc...his male teammate is kind of cool, but equally subject to arbitrary powerups (and "stupid evil", trying to take revenge even after knowing what his brother DIDN'T want), and his female teammate is basically useless despite nominally being a ninja just like them.

Some of the secondary cast is more interesting - I myself am partial to Kakashi and Shikamaru. Unfortunately, even then, Naruto basically sticks itself in tiring arc after tiring arc, and this latest "fourth ninja world war" or whatever is making combat abilities even more ridiculous than they need be (see Madara completely owning the five kages for an example), making me strongly suspect that the final battle will have some deus ex machina. Not to mention, Tobi secretly being Obito all along - as someone who actually quite liked the Kakashi Gaiden side story, I denounced this revelation as an ass pull and a complete disgrace of Obito as a character.

tl;dr Shonen stereotypes personified - but even that comes with a few good moments (buried in a stream of bad ones).