It’s time for the old folks stories.
What They Say:
Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru run into Kosuke, an elderly genin who they saved in a previous mission.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the Season of Filler continues, this episode again punts Naruto out of it entirely which is definitely a point in its favor. Instead it wants to focus on one of the other groups back in the Hidden Leaf village with Ino, Choji and Shikamaru. It’s actually one that starts off cutely as Ino’s dad is concerned about how she’s been acting and comes up with the wrong reasons for why, which happens after he walks in on her changing. Thinking that she’s interested in either of the two guys she’s on the team with, it just frustrates and angers her that he thinks that. Thankfully, the two guys don’t take much issue with it since they know she was pretty upset about Sasuke ages ago and realize that she had some amount of feelings in that direction.
While these three kick off the episode, they’re not much of a real focal point as it instead spends more time with someone they’ve dealt with before, an older ninja named Kosuke. Going back to an earlier time in the village’s history, it gives us things looking great there but has him being a key participant in dealing with an attack that ended up happening. It’s a decent story, especially since it involves the teams parents when they were working together, so we get a sense of the kids in them and the connection that Kosuke has across a generation with them. While it’s not far back in the past, it does a nice job of showing how everyone worked together and their view of the future. Even Kosuke comes across decently here for the fluff that it is.
In Summary:
You know, it’s easy to say that it’s filler and that it’s trash. It’s also easy to say that as far as Naruto fillers go, this is pretty decent. There’s a definite sliding scale you have to look at when it comes to this kind of material in how it compares since it’s not the mainline story but it’s not as horrible as it can be. And we have seen some horrible stuff over the course of this Season of Filler that is rightly derided and mocked. This one isn’t bad, but it just doesn’t resonate or provide enough to really be interested in. Yes, it’s good to see how the previous generation dealt with stuff while the current generation was still young. There are lots of stories that can be told there. It just doesn’t work at this stage because we’ve been thrown so much filler material for several months now that it’s just blurring. Episodes like this, which can be good, get lost in the sea of trash. Which is unfortunate as this one should have a better reception sice it does cover some good characters that never get their own chance to really shine.
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.
