Naruto: Itachi's Story, Vol. 1: Daylight (Naruto Novels)

Wonderful dive into the prodigy’s life and mind. Itachi is one of my favorite characters, and getting to know more about him and his thinking was fantastic.

I really liked this book by Takashi Yano. The author really knew how to keep me interested especially because this book should be read after watching the Naruto Series. It goes into detail about Itachi's first time in the war as a ninja and how that changed his views on war and peace. After seeing countless dead bodies on the battlefield, he decides that he will grow up to be a strong ninja who will STOP all the wars and conflicts. That perspective and idealogy piqued my interest because you don't even see that from the main character in the Naruto series. He has a different way of thinking and lots of people deem his dream impossible but so far throughout the novel, he exceeds expectations even going as far as graduating from the academy in a year. Another thing that interested me is that in this novel, the author really showed the bond between Itachi and Shisui. In the anime, they rarely get into detail about their bond besides the fact Itachi and Shisui are best friends. In this novel, the author goes on about how Itachi trained with Shisui around the age of four which helped Itachi to get stronger and exceed his schoolmates. This helped me like my two favourite characters even more (Itachi and Shisui) because the author shows how much they really bonded in terms of training and friendship. Overall this first volume of the series was a good read and it not only helped me remember things from the anime, but it explained things that weren't explained.