I am still nurturing my plans to blog about Naruto's greatness. But for now, this is what Concrete Badger had to say about it:

While Naruto follows the cliches of the martial arts genre with the intermittent recaps and lengthy dialogue that go along with the action scenes, it has a surprising emotional clout and real heart where the characterisation is concerned. The relationships and storylines have plenty of mileage and of course seeing ninjas in action always has some entertainment value. As surprised as I am at saying it, this show is actually quite good after all.

The surprise of the last sentence is often seen when Naruto is blogged. For example:

I see quite a few people posting to Usenet and other forums: "I thought Naruto was just another DBZ clone, but I was greatly mistaken." Seems like a good time for me to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, I thought that Naruto was a stupid DBZ-wannabe anime, and yes, I was greatly mistaken.

So, the surprise occurs because Naruto is commonly derided.

Still, I find it difficult to explain what is so good about the show, which is why there's no post even now. Concrete Badger made as good an effort as I could ever manage.