1. I usually just stick away from mainstream fandoms until the initial "OMG THIS IS AWESOME" masses die down a bit. But, for Naruto, I was really into the original manga series until it just...I dunno. I got bored with it even before the fillers. I kept up with the general idea of the story going on, but didn't bother going much further than little summaries every couple months.

But, now that the anime is working on Shippuden, I've got no problem getting back into it.