Do you mean the dub? I think hulu had the entire sub. Not sure.

Oh you are right. Just checked Hulu and is at episode 475. I didn't watched it but I assumed it was the last episode because in the manga that was just a fan service slap fight that went straight to the fan service ending. I shouldn't be making such assumtions sorry.

I remember being completely enjoying Orochimaru's theme when it first started being featured in his early episodes. It is SO GOOD, and when the tempo speeds up, it just gets better.

Yes, from what I remember... The anime had some good/great tracks, mixed with a bunch of generic "ninja!" "Samurai!" "Kimono" "NIPPOOOOON" tracks, that although fit the early setting... They just flow into one another and become a big mess of woodwind instruments sounding the same.

On the other hand... The anime is a mess too and should've ended years ago. I lost interest when I realized this was Hunter X Hunter, Dragon Ball Z, generic shounen (?) That is willing to screw everything it has built carefully, just to have the main character overcome each and every challenge upon him, regardless of any means he uses ("I'll talk to the baddest guy that has killed thousands and rose to prominence, he'll probably understand that the power of friendship and love is capable of everything").

That's just boring and annoying, because you already know how it'll end. For every cheap twist and turn along the way, they all are redeemed meaningless in the future by stupid writing decisions.

The characters are bomb though, that's why the fighting games are great. Varied roster of charismatic characters = entertainment.

You trying to pick a fight with Hunter x Hunter here?

Yep.

Death note was better in my opinion. 

Don't get me wrong- Shonen mangas/animes are still neat. I just wish that they didn't always have to end on a happy note. 

Death Note is a completely different genre. Like, not even the same ballpark. That said, Death Note shit the bed big time in its second half and the ending was just badly done (not the fact that it wasn't a happy ending, but the circumstances around it were badly done imo). Hunter x Hunter on the other hand, while it did kinda have a "happy ending" (although it was far from an "all of the problems are fixed and we lost nothing" ending) executed everything to near perfection and it certainly didn't keep a happy-go-lucky tone throughout (especially in the Chimera Ant arc).

1.) He was always an underdog, rookie, low-class dude. The everyman basically. Which is great, since he felt relatable at first. As the story on, that really didn't feel like the case to me. When the stupid prophecy plotline was introduced and it was revealed that Naruto had a special bloodline all along , it felt like Kishi was contradicting the themes that had already been set up. 

2.) Sasuke's team, the Cloud ninja, the random Samurai dude. There were all these random characters that were getting way too much focus, while the core group of rookies had essentially become irrelevant. Part 1 did a great job of focusing on the K-11, and yet most of them were essentially pointless throughout Part 2. I don't care if the author wanted to focus on the beat-boxing octopus dude or shark kid or some random samurai, just don't ignore the core team in the process. It felt like Kishi grew bored of the story, and was just distracting himself at some point.

3.) He began to focus on new characters, while ignoring the ones he already had. There were some good moments for the original cast here and there, but they largely felt irrelevant. Compare it to something like One Piece, and you can see the issue more clearly.

4.) Which makes the fate nonsense even more pointless. 

5.) I enjoyed the beginning of the story, but the ending was such a dissapointment, I can't look at any part of the story favorably now, knowing what it all leads to. 

From what I know by some friends that love Naruto (And they never stop talking about it), the odds of someone like me to like the plot and the characters are very close to zero.

It's just not my kind of anime/manga.

Most of the pairings are dumb and completely out of the blue, and all the kids are carbon copies of their parents without even a hint of the experiences that made their parents that way. Its so duuuuuumb

What?? link