It feels almost unfair to compare Samurai 8 to Kishimoto's previous work, but, well, when your previous work is one of the most popular manga of all time, comparison is eventually inevitable. As such, Samurai 8's rushed pacing, abysmal power level balancing and visual clutter really reveals what Naruto's editorial oversight protected us from. Conceptually - NEET samurai kids with talking dog-vehicles - very cool! But the series really suffers from an inability to set a coherent tone early on, and so Samurai 8 ends up feeling like a generic shonen series instead within 10 chapters, which is when I decided to drop. Going to go reread the Chuunin exam arc again instead, see ya.