Never really thought it went downhill necessarily. They made some adjustments that I dislike, and some mistakes (How many kinds of rasengans do we have now?), but the overall theme and progression so far has been great. (This is from a manga standpoint, I don't know how much filler they've pumped into the anime.) I dislike that many fights have gotten to the point to where it's just as follows: ninjustu vs ninjutsu vs ninjutsu vs ninjutsu vs ninjustu ect.... until both opponents have exhausted themselves and then end it with one final basic ninjutsu, or fairly hefty punch. (Though granted, some fight are almost the exact opposite of this in part 2, see Sasuke vs. Killer Bee.) Now, I don't mind the endings of those fights. They usually play out fairly well. However, because most of the battles consists entirely of ninjutsu, I feel kinda over-saturated. In part 1, people tended to use ninjutsu almost sparingly, and a great deal of fights were spent using hands, feet, ect. It may be unfair to use this as an example, but in particular, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9oaDGRwHUc]I miss most of Lee's fights, and anything similar to them.[/url] However I don't see this as reason to say the show has been in decline. As a matter of fact, the plot seems to be getting much more interesting than it has ever been right now in the latest chapters.