Flashback time! Flashback within a flashback time!
What They Say:
At the Ninja Academy, Shino recounts the time when he failed to capture a wanted thief.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After some time on land, Naruto’s suddenly on a boat again. But why? And how? And does it matter? No, it does not. Because the episode only deals with this briefly before it goes back to the Hidden Leaf Village where some members of Squad 8 are coping with their own issues. Shino in particular is taking the ending to a previous mission badly and has basically cut himself off from everyone in order to beat it out of himself. No, not in that way. What he’s doing is sort of training and sort of just beating up on trees. And being rather colder and more impersonal than he usually is with everyone even as others like Hinata are trying to get him back on track and to realize that the whole thing wasn’t his fault, it was just how things went.
The bulk of this episode deals with this, including getting the trio to train together some as well as having a few awkward situations with Hinata in the hot spring bath. But it’s all just fluff. Fluff that takes up the first fourteen or so minutes of the episode with no real meat to it of note. It does work towards getting Shino back on track, but his being all introspective and angry at himself wasn’t exactly something that was well worked up to or dealt with. The show does turn towards the end to the obvious confrontation that must happen in an attempt to get Shino back on track, but if anyone is caring by then it’s only because they’re still excited from seeing a blushing, near naked Hinata for all of five seconds.
In Summary:
While not as bad as some filler episodes have been over the life of the Naruto series (ostriches, cooking), this episode doesn’t exactly win over any fans either. There’s always some that will be happy to see a particular supporting character get some time in the sun, but what we get here doesn’t really do any of them any justice. It’s just a sort of there kind of episode with a surprising bit of fanservice that doesn’t really feel like it should be there. On the plus side, we didn’t get to see Naruto do anything really stupid this time around or get involved in some other kind of adventure. But doing the whole flashback in a flashback kind of thing is just really, really awkward righting.
Grade: C-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
