Packaging - **1/2
Mattel went minimalist this time around, with very basic graphics and designs, and even less text. It's colorful, and the placement of the logo looks great, but it's not anything particularly unique or eye popping.

Sculpting - ***
Translating 2 dimensional cartoons into 3 dimensional reality is often trickier than people realize. Unless those people are the sculptors tasked with doing it. Cartoon images often change scale, proportion, and even general appearance from frame to frame, making the job all the tougher.

Mattel's work here is solid, with a fairly appropriate expression, and about the right amount of detail for an animated property. There are some little touches that add to the overall quality, like the sculpted black lines on his cheeks, and his costume looks pretty accurate to a Naruto newbie like me.

Naruto stands about 5 inches tall, and while his proportions aren't particularly realistic (with long arms and short legs), they do match up pretty well with the source material. Still, the stubbiness of his legs was a visual distraction, as is his butt bag.

His butt bag is sort of a canteen shaped bag placed firmly on his left cheek. It's a separately sculpted piece, and stands out quite a ways from the body itself. Like the wart on the end of a fat guy's nose, you can't not see it. It's mesmerizing in it's obviousness, and while he has one on the show, it would have been nice if Mattel had made this a removable accessory, rather than gluing it in place.

Paint - **1/2
The paint ops range from great to mediocre, but manage to squeak out a little above average overall.

The main body parts are cast in the orange plastic, but the smaller details are all painted. The work on the face, eyes and teeth is the best example of above average work, with clean lines, but even there they've slopped some of the white from his mouth onto his chin.

Some of the smaller areas on the body aren't quite as good, with serious slop around the feet, and the white bleeding into the orange in several places. Still, when comparing this against other mass market figures, it's easily slightly above average.  There's more detail work than you might expect considering the basic design, and he'll never get accidentally shot during deer season, so he's got that going for him.

Articulation - ***
Naruto has a simple neck joint that allows the head to turn from side to side, ball jointed shoulders, cut biceps, pin elbows, cut waist, a T crotch, and pin knees. He can stand and sit with ease, and the elbow, shoulder and knee joints all work great. It's a little odd that neither the wrists (at the bottom of the sleeves) or ankles (at the bottom of the pants) are cut, but it's not a major issue.

Accessories - *1/2
He comes with two Kunai daggers, which resemble funky three headed spears. These things are made out of extremely soft rubber, and are designed, in theory, to work with his action feature. They do not. They are also pretty much worthless as any kind of weapon, since they are floppier than Bob Dole without his prescription.

Action Feature - **
Most action features are fairly silly. Count this up as another one, at least as advertised. Naruto has a spring loaded waist, so that if you turn him and let go, he snaps forward in a Kunai throwing motion. That is, if you can put the Kunai in his hand, and actually get it to fly.

This is more of a punching action, and works well if you think of it that way. Forget the daggers, and just let him throw a hard right. It might not be very ninja-like, but it gets the job done.

Fun Factor - ***
Kids will toss the daggers out, and ignore the action feature, but will still have fun with this character. Hey, he's a 12 year old ninja - what could be more fun? The scale will work with other lines that are 6" or 7" scale cartoon adults, and by the second series there will be a decent assortment of characters to choose from.

Value - **1/2
At $7 each, these are hitting the same price range as other Mattel lines, or Toybiz stuff like Marvel Legends. It's not a great value, but it is pretty much current market price. Better accessories would have really helped here, and some of the other characters have much better extras.

Things to Watch Out For - 
Not much. Remember, it's mass market paint ops, so you'll want to be picky there, but he's a very sturdy toy, and should hold up to play extremely well.

Overall - ***
I'm not a big Naruto fan, but this is solid work. They've captured the character pretty well, although my brain still has a hard time ignoring that huge butt bag. Sure, the outfit is a little bit Ghostbusters, a little bit Devo (and really no Ninja), but you can't fault the toy for the basic design.  The sculpting is great, but the mediocre paint application keeps him from rising too much above average.

If you know a kid who is enjoying the show, they'll enjoy these figures. The quality is good enough for display for the older fans, and solid enough for play by the younger ones.

Score Recap
Packaging - **1/2
Sculpt - ***1/2
Paint - **1/2
Articulation - ***
Accessories - *1/2
Action Feature - **
Fun Factor - ***
Value - **1/2
Overall - ***

Where to Buy - 
You're best bet is Toys R Us or Wal-mart at this point, and I'm betting Target will have them soon as well. Expect to pay around $7 each for the regular figures.