Let’s get physical, physical…
What They Say:
The Hidden Leaf Village is holding a sports meet! Lee is called upon to read the Athlete’s Pledge of Fair Play, but screws up in front of the entire stadium. Hopinh to save face, he swears to outperform everyone at every event. Will Guy-sensei’s advice of “be confident and you’ll win every time” awaken a well-intentioned demon within Lee.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a series like this, they definitely cover a lot of cute and fun gags related to the characters and some of the things that comes with being a part of the Hidden Leaf Village. But it’s also able to serve up some general parodies as well that covers anime material across the board. Which has shown up in the main series in some filler episodes as well. What it gets to do here is just be intentionally funny and silly in a way that makes you grin because half the time you feel like you shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as you are. So when you find out that this episode is going to deal with a village sports meet, you both roll your eyes and then refocus them to take in how Rock will handle it.
The first half deals with the meet in a fun way as they go through the various events while the elders look on and barely pay attention, like Kakashi as he’s more interested in his smutty books. Rock does his best at the various events, but as is usually the case, his best doesn’t always work in his favor. What really gets him along the way is how silly things like tears in his pants and shoes cause him shame and embarrassment as well as losses. The competitive nature amongst everyone is fun to watch and it goes well here as things just get silly. It’s the usual sports meet kind of events just taken to a ninja level as one would expect.
The second half tries to ramp things up a little more too as Rock is feeling a bit down over his repeated losses and is trying to recover as best as he can while getting all sorts of support and suggestions. The events here get to be fun as they have more abilities involved and some more one on one things, like a really cute tug of war between Naruto and Rock. Things are kind of all over the map here in a way, but it just gets really fun when it starts getting dirty with how people are playing as guy suggests pantsing people which just leads to some very awkward situations, especially when Guy ends up without pants a well. There are lessons to be learned here, but it’s done in the humorously forced way that makes you laugh with how serious it suddenly gets before getting all silly again.
In Summary:
Sports meet episodes aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but they definitely have their uses and I’ve certainly seen plenty of them over the years. With this being done in an intentional comedy series with familiar characters so early on, they can get away with it and do have a good bit of fun with the idea overall. Rock continues to be able to hold the series together well, if you can jump into this kind of regular wackiness, and this episode is no exception as it jumps from idea to idea while still dealing with the overall layout for the episode. The supporting cast works well here too, giving us the characters we know and love with a bit more comical twist that heightens their personalities and traits just right. I really wasn’t keen on this show when it was first announced, but it’s definitely a fun show that leaves me smiling week after week.
Grade: B
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.
