In-Depth · Characters · Spoilers (through the end of the manga)
Naruto Uzumaki is remembered as the hero who never gives up, but by OtaHub's reading, what carries him through 700 chapters is the need to be acknowledged. The whole village of Konoha avoided him, so he simply wants people to call him by his own name. Becoming Hokage, the village's leader, is the way he found to demand it.
A few reference points for newcomers, per Wikipedia: Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from September 21, 1999 to November 10, 2014, across 700 chapters in 72 volumes and more than 250 million copies in circulation. It follows Naruto, a young ninja from Konoha, who wants to become Hokage. This piece covers the whole Pain arc (a long stretch of the story about an enemy called Pain) and the ending, so it contains spoilers.
Who Is Naruto, and Why Was He Not Written as a Prodigy?
Naruto learned more slowly than his classmates. He failed the graduation exam twice before the story opens. In the very first episode he botched the clone technique, and only then found another way to pass. For most of the original series he also trailed Sasuke, his teammate, who was clearly the stronger of the two.
That was no oversight. According to Wikipedia, Kishimoto deliberately wanted Naruto to be "simple and stupid." He has also said he found Krillin, Goku's friend in Dragon Ball, more appealing than Goku because he seemed more human.
Wikipedia records his intent as a naive child with a dark side rooted in a harsh past who is nevertheless always optimistic. He also believed it was Naruto's losses that made readers identify with him, and he wanted Naruto not to feel defeated again. In OtaHub's view, that last point is the key. Naruto wasn't built to win at everything. He was built to stop losing at the thing that matters most to him.
Why Did All of Konoha Shun Naruto?
Before readers know who Naruto is, the villagers have already decided what he is. To them, he is a stand-in for the Nine-Tails, the beast that devastated the village the night he was born. He carries it inside him, and a person like that is called a jinchuriki. Other kids are told not to play with him, and adults whisper behind his back. No one explains what "jinchuriki" means to a child too young to understand it.
This isolation comes from who he is from birth, not from anything he did. Nobody gets to choose that.
That is why Iruka matters more than his role as a teacher suggests. He is the first adult to see Naruto himself rather than the monster inside. You can read young Naruto's pranks as a way of begging to be seen, since being scolded beats being ignored.
In OtaHub's view, that is also why the Hokage dream carries emotional weight. For Naruto, the title is the only way he could think of to make the people who turned their backs look up at him. Wikipedia also notes that Naruto's burning desire to be a ninja was based on Kishimoto's own ambition to succeed as a manga artist.
What Do Team 7 and Gaara Teach Naruto?
Team 7 is made up of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and their teacher Kakashi. It is the first group he truly belongs to, even though the three kids barely got along at first. Kakashi leaves his students a principle that ends up defining the whole series: those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse.
That principle explains behavior readers often find frustrating. Naruto chases Sasuke for dozens of episodes, even after Sasuke leaves the village, turns his back and repeatedly tries to kill him. For a child who once had no one, a bond that had meant something isn't something you discard because it got hard. That is OtaHub's reading. What the sources confirm is only that Naruto stays consistent with that belief throughout the story.
The first test of that belief is Gaara. During the invasion in the Chunin Exams (the ninja promotion exams), Naruto faces Gaara, another jinchuriki cast out by his own village. Naruto wins that fight. But according to Wikipedia, what changes Gaara is learning that Naruto is also a jinchuriki like him, and his outlook shifts from there.
The detail is easy to summarize wrongly, because Gaara changes after losing and meeting someone in the same position, not before. That sets a pattern that will repeat. Naruto doesn't win with a stronger move. He wins by showing the other person they aren't alone.
The Pain Arc: How Does the Village Look Back at Naruto?
That pattern peaks in the Pain arc, where it meets an opponent who can't be talked to lightly. In Wikipedia's chapter list, the run of volumes around this arc spans tankobon (collected volumes) 41 to 48, from "Jiraiya's Decision" to "The Cheering Village."
Jiraiya is the mentor who shaped Naruto most. He dies fighting Pain, after getting word about Pain's Six Paths back to the village. Naruto then goes to Mount Myoboku to learn Sage Mode under Fukasaku. It's worth being precise here, because it is easy to misremember. Fukasaku trained him, and Jiraiya only left the message that led Fukasaku to Naruto.
When Pain razes Konoha, Naruto returns and confronts him. Instead of seeking revenge, he stops to hear out Nagato, once a student of Jiraiya himself, who had come to believe in violence. According to the sources, hearing Naruto, Nagato recalls his teacher's old faith. He places his trust in Naruto and uses Rinne Tensei, a revival technique, to bring back the people he had killed in Konoha, at the cost of his own life.
Look at the order of the volume titles. Volume 47 is "The Seal Destroyed" and volume 48 is "The Cheering Village." That title suggests Konoha's attitude toward Naruto changes after he chooses empathy over revenge. In OtaHub's view, recognition arrives here, long before the Hokage title, and it comes because of how he behaves rather than how strong he is.
What Does Becoming Hokage Mean for Naruto, and Why Is He Still Loved?
Naruto's declaration, "I'm going to become Hokage," is almost always met with laughter in the early chapters. The road there takes nearly the whole series, through countless near-death fights and many moments when even his allies doubted him.
When Naruto becomes the Seventh Hokage, it isn't a twist. For a character whose drive is to be acknowledged, the title is the moment the village openly agrees to what it had already conceded in the Pain arc. Wikipedia notes that Naruto marries and has two children, Boruto and Himawari, with Boruto later carrying the story forward.
As for why people still love him, IGN's Ramsey Isler called Naruto's unshakable persistence his strongest trait, the thing that makes for great storytelling. Anime News Network's Carl Kimlinger praised his optimism despite severe isolation. Several scholars treat his arc as an example of the coming-of-age story. Kishimoto himself said that being a knucklehead is part of Naruto's appeal.
All of this points to the same place. People see themselves in a character who is imperfect, impulsive, slow to learn and who fails repeatedly before getting it right. It isn't a ready-made moral lesson but a journey that's easy to relate to.
Another Angle
Not everyone accepts "Naruto is a story about demanding recognition." Christina Carpenter of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews argued that his archetype has been done before in many anime and manga. Professor Yukari Fujimoto of Meiji University sees Naruto himself as the manga's weakness. Lawrence Rubin observed that, optimistic as he is, Naruto can show malevolent attitudes in intense conflicts. He also relies on Kurama's chakra for fights beyond his ability, which can endanger his comrades.
OtaHub adds two points. First, the "understand to win" pattern is convincing with Gaara and Nagato because it was prepared over many chapters. But repeated with enemies who get less room, it drifts toward formula. Second, Nagato reviving the villagers lightens the arc's cost. The important deaths earlier are not undone, but readers may find the aftermath too sweet. Neither point defeats the main thesis, but they show it fits some arcs better than others.
In Short
In OtaHub's view, Naruto Uzumaki endures because of the direction of his stubbornness, more than because he is stronger or more persistent than other shonen heroes. He isn't trying to beat anyone. He is trying to be seen, and to turn people who regarded him as a monster into allies. The piece has shown this through Iruka, Team 7, Gaara and the Pain arc. What it hasn't shown is that the pattern holds up in every arc, and the objections above indicate where it wears thin. This is also why the series keeps being retold: people who were once left on the margins can easily recognize themselves in it.
Sources: Wikipedia: Naruto Uzumaki; Wikipedia: Naruto; Wikipedia: List of Naruto chapters (Part II); Wikipedia: Jiraiya; Wikipedia: List of Naruto characters; MyAnimeList: Nagato.
