Not the anime we deserved, but the anime we needed. The Japanese folklore fantasy theme is not my kind of fantasy, but here all that doesn't matter. What we have is a story that has a descent build up (from the first season), a great execution, and a sublime finale. It does a great job of developing it's characters and storylines, all while giving us a well written and executed story. From strong and complex main characters to funny and interesting side characters, this show has it all. It's a journey that is fun to be a part of as it goes as well asafter it ends. It gives you a chance to see what Naruto could have been like without the 700 episodes of filler.

Story: 8/10 - The setting may not be my cup of tea, but in the long run it doesn't matter since that's outshined by story and the characters.

Characters: 8/10 - Great characters and lots of them. The majority of them were slowly being introduced in the first season, with some strong newcomers in the second, and it all paid off in the end.

Character development: 7/10 - While there is a lot of that, sometimes it may feel weak or unnoticeable, so that's why I give it 7 instead of 8. I suspect this is better done in the manga.

World building: 8/10 - Things are pretty clear from the start and it's been building up from there with more details. The lore, who is who, and more or less what to expect of the surroundings, etc. Some shows fail miserably here because they try to preserve that "mysterious aura", but here we don't have that and it's still interesting - I wouldn't say it's predictable, but if it is - it's in a good way.

Overall: 8/10 - What more can I say? I certainly didn't expect this to be this good, especially after how most of season one was a bit of a bore.