Protagonist:
Naruto is much more relatable than Goku, and you can find a lot of qualities underneath Naruto’s bratty exterior that are tragic, lonely, sad, and extremely human. His goal to become Hokage which he always maintains, it stems from his desire to be accepted by people who shunned and hated him his entire life. Its the only thing that keeps him sane. But its not just Naruto’s connectable qualities in the beginning, but he really matures as a person. From a stupid, weak carp genin, to the Seventh Hokage. His tale is an amazing underdog story. He encounters many walls in his path but he overcomes them all. And looking back its extremely hard to believe that this was the same 12 year old who was annoying in the story’s beginning. And lastly, there’s Naruto’s negative side. Despite Naruto having a lot of generic and static qualities, he has shown darker parts of himself. He’s experienced depression, guilt, regret, and rage , like so many actual human beings have.
Goku, on the other hand, isn't even a hero. He’s a simple minded man who has a simplistic desire, and he’ll do what it takes to achieve his desires. He doesn’t try and save the world because he’s a pillar of justice but because of his own selfish motivation to surpass his limits and get a good fight. I mean the man endanger the fate of multiple universes by suggesting a tournament with the fate of several trillions, probably even more, lives on the line. And why, because he wants to have a good fight. The man consults Frieza, who killed his father, and kindly asks him to join the Tournament.
Fights:
One of the things that made Naruto awesome and popular are the fights. No matter how strong one is, intelligence and trickery can overcome the differences. Power Levels are a part of Naruto, but the intelligence winning over brute strength is imo pretty good. A character with weaker skills than his opponent could still be victorious with smart planning and quick thinking. The fight scenes in Dragon Ball Z were often visually exciting to watch, but the conclusion often boiled down to a level of strength that was determined long before the battle even began. Dragon Ball Z battles boiled down to a specific formula of pointless punches & kicks, transformation sequences, and massive beam attacks. A lot of the Dragon Ball Z fights were often one-sided, which also made things less interesting. This is why the few evenly matched battles are still so well remembered. The fights were also deadlier in Naruto. Characters would die, and unlike in DBZ, they would not get reincarnated. And if they did, it was only temporary, and sometimes the reincarnations could be fighting against, their former friends and precious allies. The dragon ball characters never seemed too fazed by serious injuries. Tien had his arm punched off by Nappa, yet he was fine to keep on fighting. It also had characters with powerful healing abilities (like Dende) and the Senzu beans, which can heal someone from the brink of death in seconds. But, Dragon Ball fights gave me satisfaction which was endearing and was WAY more in Dragon ball then Naruto.
Side characters: Dragon ball gets BODIED and PALES in comparision at this factor. Dumped into the trash bin lol. When it comes to character progression and development DBZ pales in comparison to its successor. Toriyama forgets most of his characters, and there are tons of interesting people who had 0 importance or even appearance in the next arc. Toriyama’s crowning achievement in character writing is the splendid character arc of Vegeta, which I must say, was truly brilliant. However Naruto has superior writing. here are my two fav characters from the series: Kakashi and Itachi. And here’s an analysis on their characters. Kakashi is most fans favorite character. And he is mine as well. He is someone who is infinitely complex and intricate. His backstory is tragic, but despite the pain of losing his father, his mother, his best friends, his mentor, his mentor´s wife, and many more, he manages to bear the loss and not get swept away into darkness. In fact, he was in a constant battle against fate. But the fate he´s fighting against, is the fate of Team 7, who he´s desperately trying to save against darkness. From the past he suffered. They are a reflection of his tragedies, like his sharingan, the mark upon his face is a constant reminder of Rin and Obito, the friends he couldn´t save. And so he tries his best to help them grow into something else, he teaches them things that he didn´t learn until it was too late. So many philosophies are ingrained into this man, and its thanks to him Team 7 grew up to be who they are. Its thanks to him they hold this power today. They are certainly not the same, and he still bears a lot of guilt, but they have become very powerful ninja, and many things can be credited to Kakashi. He holds a special place in my heart, and I absolutely cherish this amazing and cool character.
Itachi. Amazing side character. I wanted him dead, too suffer for what he did. Killed my favorite naruto clan. As a child he experienced the pain of war at a young age, and instead of being clouded by his family´s perception and vision, he formed his own. And its the one that gave him the determination to kill his family. He spares no one, only Sasuke, because he wants Sasuke to grow up and kill him. So yeah, essentially, he mentally abuses him. An inexcusable act. It isn´t mindrape, that´s entirely different, but yeah, its mental abuse. But Itachi is a shinobi. Shinobi do whatever it takes for the mission. So he closes his heart and acts only on his mind. He loved and loves his brother a lot, but in this moment he´s only focused on the benefit of the village, he can´t let anyone know, this is what he has to do. Its twisted, and the Itachi who yearned for peace, is doing it. Because he has too. He became a rogue ninja, a vigilante lurking in the darkness, hiding his pain and suffering and taking all the hatred with no credit. Why? For the Hidden Leaf Village, who he gives everything for. He channel´s Sasuke´s hate towards him in order to help him grow in strength in the future, and achieve his own personal dreams. And so, with some great character development, morally gray and nuanced writing, intricate political history, the cruelty Itachi had to endure at a young age, and the things he was forced to do against his own willI, make Itachi a intricate and a phenomally written antagonist. It also helps that he steals the scene every time he appears.
Might Guy, Lee, etc a lot of characters surpass DB in development, progression, feelings, etc.
Antagonists:
Naruto has some of the best antagonists I’ve ever seen. There’s Pain, a formerly idealistic child warped by twisted experience, war, and poverty. He formed a twisted mentality based on actually very realistic principles and beliefs. Not only that but he’s a perfect dark reflection of our idealistic protagonist. He’s a Utilitarianist. Utilitarianism is a concept heavily used in Naruto and its one of theme backbones on which the very idea of a shinobi is based on. And most of the great antagonists take a different and darker approach on this concept. Like Obito: Obito who supposedly started a war for a girl, at least on the surface. If you examine deeper into his character you find a tragic man corrupted by manipulation and who had his idealistic ideal get destroyed before his eyes. He see the shinobi he once aspired to be in a negative light and mentally devolves. And Madara, who was built up since the very beginning. A Utilitarianist who strived for peace but saw it could not be permanently maintained and so then decides to create what in his eyes is true peace by helping one’s greatest dreams come true, but not in real life. Oh of course there’s also Itachi, who I mentioned above. Madara smart guy, manipulates everything. But of course Black Zetsu and Kaguya, which was kinda stupid imo. Would've been better if Kaguya came in Boruto.
Meanwhile most Dragon Ball villains are after: immortality, power, chaos, or something like that. They have very few nuances and are clear cut evil. There’s like two or three ‘antagonists’ in the story, the rest are absolutely diabolical villains (One good DB villian example is Black Goku aka Zamas). This doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad, as Frieza despite his basic and generic villain desire, is one of my fav anime villains because he oozes charisma. But charisma can only take you so far, so DB loses this one.
DB had emotional impact…..but it lost that very quickly. How? Because the dragon balls resurrect everyone. Piccolo’s heartbreaking sacrifice which was an excellent conclusion to his character arc? Reversed. Goku’s epic death at the hands of Cell which triggered Gohan’s final stage of character evolution…..reversed. The death of Krillin which helped Goku achieve Super Saiyan…reversed. DB follows this constant, annoying pattern of resurrecting dead character and removing emotional impact. The TOP’s intensity was practically removed in the blink of an eye because everyone came back. And the sad thing is that it wasn’t even surprising.
Naruto on the other hand is one of the saddest shonen I’ve seen. It has tons of soul crushing deaths and scenes…from the Itachi reveal, to Jiraiya’s death, to Minato’s goodbye, Naruto is a master of emotionally playing with your heartstrings. And while Edo Tensei brings the dead back its just painful because its temporary and while their under the Edo Tensei their slaves to the will of the one who resurrects them, and we had to see many character confront their pasts.
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