Naru-Tard

Naru-tard is a derogatory term applied to otaku fans of the anime title Naruto. It is a word play on the combination of naruto and retard. This term surfaced during early 2004 at the beginning of the anime's popularity in America and characterizes the behavior of Naruto fans as being so blindly devoted to the series (with an almost religious cult-like fervor) that they act incredibly stupid and can be confused with retarded (er, mentally challenged) persons.

This is mostly seen on internet forums and chat services such as IRC, where the Naruto series is a constant source of debate. Many narutards dress as their favorite character during conventions or festivals to display their metal head bands, which are worn by characters in the series as a sign of gang affiliation. One characteristic of a narutard is that they will wear just a head band over their street clothes and tell everyone that they are cosplaying. Serious cosplayers who wear costumes that cost hundreds of dollars in raw materials and took weeks to construct generally consider narutards to be anywhere from merely ignorant to downright insulting.

With the license acquisition of Naruto in early 2005 by ShoPro Entertainment, many narutards spawned numerous forum discussions debating the impact of the deal, from the legality of trafficking amateur subtitled copies of the title (something which should be pretty obvious, especially once American distribution rights had been acquired) to a grass-roots petition begging Cartoon Network and ShoPro / Viz to retain the full integrity of the anime during its adaptation into English. However, as with many Japanese series adapted into English, there are legal and other issues which often make it difficult if not impossible to produce a rendition faithful enough to appease purists.

Most narutards are, unsurprisingly, also purists when it comes to adapting Naruto into English. Allegedly, a few narutards boasted of their intention to engage in physical vandalism, DDoS, and other assaults toward ShoPro and Cartoon Network. Other alleged proposals included a petition and hunger strike camping out in front of these companies' offices.

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