Naruto: Innocent Heart, Demonic Blood

This is not a new story. This is literally a recap of few arcs from beginning of Naruto. Given the nature of recap, the enjoyment might change depending on how much you’ve even liked Naruto in the first place. Covering stories such as Naruto acquiring the shadow clone jutsu, Kakashi’s bell test or Zabuza and Haku fights, this novel admittedly consists of what could be called early classics of the storyline, before Naruto became too convoluted for its own good. So as a trip down the memory lane, it could prove enjoyable if you’re part of the fanbase. I can’t say I’ve noticed any novel-specific partof the story, but as I’ve seen the anime almost a decade ago and never read the manga, I could have missed something, though it likely wasn’t anything major. The writing style isn’t anything extra, but it does it’s job. Also at least this time the novel uses actual illustrations instead of lazily pasting screenshots from the anime like some other Naruto novels. Well, some parts still look like copypasted pictures from manga, but even that’s at least less disctracting. Overall, this serves the role of an average recap – fine summary of a story if you need your memory refreshed, and another item in a list if you’re a completionist. It’s very likely this was made solely to cash in on popularity of Naruto with more supplement material though.