Naruto is a Japanese manga and TV anime by Masashi Kishimoto about goals, friendship, loyalty, heroes, laughter, sorrow, and a loud, hyperactive teenaged ninja by the name of Naruto who finds himself in the midst of all of these.
Twelve years ago, the nine-tails Demon Fox- or Kyubi- attacked Konoha, The hidden leaf village. It was a mighty demon indeed; the flap of a single tail of the nine-tails would raise tsunamis and flatten mountains. It raised chaos and slaughtered the people, until the leader of Konoha- the fourth Hokage- defeated it by sacrificing his own life to seal the Kyubi inside a newborn child.
That child's name was Uzumaki Naruto.
The fourth Hokage was remembered as a hero for sealing the nine-tails away, and he wanted Naruto to be remembered as a hero as well; yet, the village he grew up in had nothing but contempt for Naruto, for they viewed him as nothing more than the demon fox that has killed their families and almost destroyed their village.
Naruto grew up as an orphan, without friends and without acknowledgment. He could not bring his parents back or force people to befriend him, so he seeked acknowledgment the only way he knew- by pranks and mischief. But that is soon to be changed. Naruto is about to face the ninja academy graduation exam- a gateway to the events and people that will change and define his world and his ninja way for the rest of his life.
Naruto has interesting plot and characterisation, displays a nice balance between seriousness and drama on one side and comedy and frivolity on the other, and is in short an entertaining watch/read in general. The manga is currently quite large- at over 190 chapters- so the series has quite a way to go before it catches up (A new episode of the anime is aired weekly in Japan, during their Golden Time slot- equivalent of prime time in the US- each Wednesday night at 7:27PM. While new manga chapters are released weekly as well, an anime episode usually covers around two manga chapters). Generally speaking, the anime episodes tend to portract the manga chapters into great lengths with short bursts of energy-packed action.