Do you ever get washed away by a wave of nostalgia after seeing Twitter posts about your favorite middle school-era anime, and suddenly have a strong need to re-watch it even though you know it’s not that great? Yeah. Same. I don’t know how many episodes I’ll be able to live through. I won’t have a set schedule for doing it either. I have a life and it revolved around Naruto for 5 years. That won’t happen again.

Anyway, I skipped episode one ‘cause we all know what it’s about: the adults hate Naruto because he’s a demon baby and the kids hate Naruto because their parents told them to. Naruto does shit he’s not supposed to, impresses everyone by doing a cool jutsu, and we’re supposed to sympathize with him despite his infuriating personality because he is TALENTED. On to episode two which is actually more boring and worse.

I promise I won’t shit on this show the entire time. There are aspects of it that I still enjoy. But come on…

Fucking KONOHAMARU. He’s basically Naruto but younger and even more aggravating. He decides to force “apprenticeship” upon our main character because Naruto had the balls to punch him in the face when he rightfully deserved it. In this city, we root for the little guy. But only if he’s a rambunctious piece of shit. (See: episode 1.) Meanwhile Konohamaru’s teacher proves his worthlessness by an inability to track two children who can’t teleport and wear clothing the color of traffic cones. Sneaky bastards. Did I mention this entire time, Konohamaru is trying to learn the Sexy Jutsu? That’s right. To be a ninja you gotta grow ROCKIN’ TITS.

We are treated to a flurry of peak ‘90s anime tropes including nosebleeds, exaggerated facial expressions, and old men fawning over prepubescent girls.

While they’re chatting in a clearing in the woods, Naruto’s highlighter orange jumpsuit blinding Ebisu and therefore shielding them from detection (why else does he wear those sunglasses), Konohamaru confesses that he’s a brat because everyone treats him like an important figure instead of a person. So he wants to become the village’s most important figure to overcome that. He believes that becoming the next Hokage is the cure for being in the Hokage’s shadow. And apparently he knows nothing of the role: Naruto explains to him twice that becoming Hokage takes hard work, strength, and respect from the entire village… which quite honestly he’s off to a terrible start. Kid does nothing but pluck people’s nerves all day. We know what’s really going on here: absent parents.

Anyway, Ebisu finally locates them and Naruto “defeats” him by using shadow clones of the sexy jutsu, revealing that the Village Hidden in the Leaves is governed by irresponsible pedophiles. OH, but Konohamaru is Naruto’s rival now and we won’t see him again for like fifty episodes.

I give this episode a 1/10. The next one gets more interesting.