On September 10th, 2005, the successful anime-series "Naruto" went on the air for the first time on Cartoon Network during their "Toonami"-programme. However, to receive a lower rating for the series they had to alter several scenes of each episode.
However, the changes are rather moderate. Even though several cuts and edits seem rather strange (especially for non-Americans who probably won't see the problem with scenes where one of the characters smokes) the American TV version is still quite watchable. The blood retouchings are also not that noticeable - most of the time they just reduced the amount of blood and if you don't know the original version you probably won't notice it. Other "problematic" things (such as "mean" slurs or mentioning death) didn't have to be altered.
However, they produced a separate opening as well as separate credits for the US version (which is quite the standard for anime-releases in the USA). They are quite different and in terms of music one could describe it as a mixture of Rock and Rap.

Altered Characters: After the first run in Japan several changes were made in order to make the characters look more like in the comics. This will be mentioned, however, not always that detailed. E.g. in Episode 41 Sakura and Ino were completely re-drawn for a flashback scene where you see them as kids. As you can imagine it would simply be too much footage to show if you were to illustrate all of these scenes. Therefore, edits like this will only be listed once (especially when the following edits are similar/identical to this one). Other edits/alterations - of course - will be mentioned.

The images will be shown as follows:
On left side: Japanese Version
On the right side: US Version

About this episode: Most of the edits of this episode involve corrections of animaton or re-drawings of certain scenes. There rarely are any scenes that were cut due to censorship. Due to a correction of an error the US version even offers a scene that is bloodier than the Japanese version. In this version (ignoring opening and credits) there's no difference in time.

0:03:29
The background doesn't look as blurry anymore.

No difference in time.

0:09:37
The animation of Sasuke and Haku trying to meet up with the others was enhanced. In the Japanese version they only move their arms while the rest of their bodies is completely static.

No difference in time.

0:12:52
Blood retouching.

No difference in time.

0:14:40
Sakura was re-drawn.
(Note: the scene then changes to an "interior Sakura"-scene where Sakura is shown on the bottom right part of the screen. There you see the original drawing of her sticking her tongue out.)

No difference in time.

0:14:54
While Kakashi looks a little pale in the Japanese version (he slowly fades to the bottom right position) he in the US version is shown at the bottom right position right from the start and in way stronger colors.

No difference in time.

0:16:15
Naruto was re-drawn.

Keinn Zeitunterschied

0:16:31
In the US version Naruto is a little closer to teh camera.

No difference in time.

0:19:05
Blood retouching.
In the following scene of the resting Sasuke you in the Japanese version see a needle scraping the shoulder twice - blood splashes (which is only visible for 1 frame). In the US version the needle's flight path was slightly altered and there's no blood.

No difference in time.

0:20:06
Error correction: in the US version Sasuke's face is bloodier.
(Explanation: prior to this scene you saw close-up shots of Sasuke's face with a few blood trails on it which were hardly/not shown in the Japanese version.)

No difference in time.

0:20:43
The blood under Sasuke's chin was deleted.

No difference in time.

0:20.55
Naruto comes out of a cloud of smoke (which offers more contrast).

No difference in time.