Top 10 Worst Things Naruto Has Ever Done

This knuckle-headed ninja was always a troublemaker. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the "Top 10 Worst Things Naruto Has Ever Done."

For this list, we’ll be looking at some of the worst actions committed by the title character of the Naruto franchise, ranging from the distasteful to the criminal. Because we’ll be discussing events from throughout the franchise, there will be plenty of spoilers ahead.

Naruto may want to become the Hokage, the leader of his ninja village, but he doesn’t begin the series on a path towards that goal—kind of the opposite. One of the first things we see the orange clad ninja in training do is to deface the massive monument to previous Hokages with paint. Naruto’s only punishment, after being berated by his teacher, is to clean up the mess he made. While it’s true, he’s only 12 and can hardly pay for the damages with the money he doesn’t have, in the real world, vandalizing a national monument would carry a far heavier sentence.

Naruto’s young protégé, Konohamaru, ends up becoming the teacher of Naruto’s son, Sasuke’s daughter, as well as Mitsuki, the son/creation of Orochimaru. However, there’s the small problem that Naruto neglected to tell Konohamaru of Mitsuki’s origins, given that Orochimaru killed Konohamaru’s grandfather. Granted, Naruto kept Mitsuki’s identity a secret from almost all the village and no one should be judged for the sins of their parent, but you’d think that he should’ve told the man in charge of teaching and leading the boy something that would cut so close to home.

One of Naruto’s defining traits is his thirst to prove himself and be accepted. So, when he fails his test to become a ninja, a corrupt teacher suggests that he steal a forbidden scroll to prove his skills, in order to take the scroll for himself and conveniently point the blame at Naruto. Although the Shadow Clone technique Naruto learns from the scroll enables him to defeat the teacher and becomes one of his signature moves, he still broke the law and committed theft. Once again though, he merely gets a slap on the wrist.

One of Naruto’s more absurd signature moves involves him altering his appearance into a nude, female version of himself to use against perverted opponents to catch them off guard. This ridiculous technique proves useful a surprising number of times; despite, or because of, how risqué it is. His least admirable use of it though, occurs when he teaches it to Konohamaru. Oh, and did we mention the kid was eight years old at the time? Granted, Naruto is 12 when he does it, but it’s still not a great idea to instruct a minor how to attract older men with a gender-bending magical ninja move, regardless of age!

For all his faults and wrongdoings, Naruto does have good qualities and even admirers, such as Hinata, who even confesses her love to him and nearly dies shortly afterwards. However, while the fact that Naruto doesn’t respond to her feelings after this is bad enough, what’s worse is that it takes Hinata being kidnapped by a guy from the moon (yes, really), for Naruto to properly figure out what Hinata meant to him in return. We’ll admit that Naruto lacked proper examples of love growing up, but you’d think after chasing after Sakura for so long, he’d have learned something. Speaking of which…

For much of the franchise, Naruto pines fruitlessly after his teammate Sakura Haruno, who, in turn, has a crush on their other teammate Sasuke Uchiha. Early on, Naruto enacts a rather scummy scheme, whereby he ties up Sasuke and assumes his appearance in order to get Sakura, who initially despises him, to kiss him. While it doesn’t work, thanks to some convenient indigestion, it’s still identity theft, and him trying to trick Sakura into kissing him is damn low. We love you Naruto, but you were a terrible kid, at least at first.

When Naruto does eventually become Hokage, his kids, especially his son Boruto, have a lot to live up to. It’s this high expectation, among other things, that leads Boruto to cheat and use an illegal ninja tool during the Chuunin exams, a test for young ninjas. Instead of quietly removing his son from the arena, Naruto publicly disqualifies Boruto, humiliating him in front of a crowd. While we certainly don’t condone cheating in any sort of event, Naruto didn’t need to be so blatant about it and he could’ve easily shielded Boruto from public ridicule.

Naruto tends to make his enemies into his friends or allies with startling regularity throughout his story, but one of the most bizarre and inexplicable is the fact that he befriends both the nine-tailed fox that was sealed inside him that killed his parents, as well as the mastermind who took control of the fox to do it. In the fox’s case, making friends with him makes some sense, since working together grants Naruto greater strength and abilities. Still, we can’t help but feel like making friends with the one responsible for his parents’ deaths is kind of spitting on their sacrifice, even if the world is at stake and no matter how much Naruto relates to him.

One of the defining relationships in Naruto’s life is his friendship/rivalry with his teammate Sasuke… for better and for worse. Fierce and competitive rivals, both of them are orphaned and have similar backgrounds, yet have fundamentally different outlooks on life. Eventually Sasuke betrays the village and leaves to seek out power to get revenge. However, Naruto never gives up on his friend, even when Sasuke tries to kill him… and Sakura… and their friends… and attacks a summit between ninja villages… and kills a corrupt village elder who’s the temporary Hokage… and plans to destroy their entire village… and… well, you get the idea. At a certain point, Naruto’s “friendship” with Sasuke becomes an unhealthy attachment, and while devotion to a friend is admirable, we would’ve written Sasuke off, personally.

While most of Naruto’s previous faults are due to the inexperience of youth, his worst failing occurs as an adult. After finally becoming Hokage, Naruto spends much of his time working as the village leader, to the point where he neglects his wife and children. One particularly egregious example occurs when Naruto sends one of these clones to attend his daughter’s birthday, despite promising to attend himself. What was Naruto’s Ninja Way again? “I never go back on my word!” Oh, that’s right. So not only is he letting down his family, he’s also betraying his own fundamental ethos—for paperwork.