I'm more familiar with the manga than the anime, and while I feel the series started off really strong, I wasn't feeling it by the end. Granted, it's a hell of a lot better than Bleach, which probably should have ended after the Arrancar/Heueco Mondo/Fake Karakura arc but it was kind of annoying watching the Uchiha's going from a gifted ninja tribe to THE ninja tribe with the Sharingan getting new BS powers as the plot demanded and after the pre-time skip did a great job introducing us to all of these cool characters, to have the Time skip drop the majority of them for a new cast that was barely likable. I think I only finished it because I had invested way too much time into it by then to not see how it all ends.

The Sasuke Retrieval arc was one of my favorite in the series, but there really wasn't an arc past it that could stand up to that one, or the Chunin Exam, or even the Country of Waves arc. Rock Lee, Kakashi, Shikamura, and Hinata were some of my fave characters from the series.