6 Popular Shonen Tropes Naruto Perfected

The hit Narutoanime didn’t invent most of the tropes or archetypes it used, but it did refine them, and even perfected them in some cases. Earlier shonen series such as Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Saint Seiya got the ball rolling with fantasy action, and author Masashi Kishimoto made sure to do his part, too. By 1999, the Naruto manga had launched, and the anime followed in the early 2000s, with both versions making the most of those many shonen tropes.