Nothing says fun like giving Tsunade a buzz cut.
What They Say:
Lee’s team is pulling bodyguard duty for the Fifth Hokage Tsunade while she’s off on a gambling binge, and Tenten can only seem to screw up in front of her heroine… Orochimaru summons Manda to swallow Tsunade, Naruto, and even Guy-sensei whole! Can Lee’s team come up with a plan and rescue them.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an episode that was far too much fun as it brought in both Orochimaru and Kabuto for some play time and hilarious TSA style fun, the series this time around works over another of my favorite characters with Tsunade. She was the character that in the pre100 episode original series before it went into filler mode that made me want to watch it since she brought something different to the table. So getting an episode here that deals with her a good bit just makes for a lot of fun because she can be mocked and messed with in quite a few ways. Including an accident right from the get go that has her carving on Mount Hokage screwed up to the point where she has a reverse mohawk now.
What happens because of that is a lot of fun though as there’s a group that’s come to try and take her out from a rival village and that means Rock and his crew, along with Guy, have to guard her without her knowing about it. This is particularly important since she’s off on a gambling spree and just rolling the dice as often as she can. There’s some very weirdly amusing moments with the kinds of costumes that they wear and it’s no surprise that they screw up early enough so that Tsunade knows the deal. The whole thing just goes naturally silly and Tsunade is often caught up in the way things unfold without being able to do much since she’s been enjoying her gambling and drinking. To make matters worse, seeing her really get that haircut by accident just makes me laugh in a way I know I shouldn’t.
The second half brings in more with Tsunade, including some very hilarious takes on how they can fix her carving on Mount Hokage that goes in so many great directions. But it also wants to go for something else as Orochimaru and Kabuto show up again after a great gambling run with a new plan to take down some of those in the village. The whole thing ends up as a Moby Dick kind of story as a couple of them get swallowed whole by Orochimaru’s massive snake and that leaves Rock and the gang to try and free them with all sorts of awful ideas, like super hot curry that will cause it to spit up Tsunade and the others. Suffice to say things go in amusing directions and there’s a lot to like with the efforts that are put in and the weirdness of it all, especially with Guygatron…
In Summary:
Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals delights another time around here which in a lot of ways still continues to surprise me. The show has a very good sense of humor about it and plays with the characters in a very fun and spot on way that’s generally still kept rather respectful. What we get here is a good mix of material with Tsunade as a catalyst for things and gets caught up in a lot of it in a big way while also giving us another taste of Orochimaru as well. The show is keeping to its style pretty strongly here and what it does is deliver on the laughs and smiles. Rock’s still the lead here but it’s become such a good ensemble cast, as it should, that there’s just a lot to like when you see the supporting characters pop up and add more to the whole flow and flavor of it all. Even if it does give us a bald Tsunade.
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.
