The dirty tricks are starting to become more apparent as we see what Kobuto is really up to.
What They Say:
The Akatsuki dispatch an army of powerful reanimated shinobi and White Zetsu across the war zone, causing chaos within the Allied Shinobi Forces’ chain of command.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the war in its opening phases, it’s been shown more through some small but well done sequences with the advance scouts and the first blush of the main force itself. It hasn’t quite hit that epic level, but it’s done some good personal things, such as what we saw before with the group that Kakashi knew which were part of a key area of development for Naruto back when he was starting out. They’ve upped the ante overall with what’s involved, but it hasn’t come to all out fighting just yet. It almost feels as though that Akatsuki have been holding back some with only a few small things really thrown out to be dealt with rather than whatever really big, nasty tricks they have up their sleeves.
When it comes to tricks, Kobuto is one that will definitely pull some interesting cards out to play and he does that early on here with his resurrection jutsu. Bringing back a small group of former leaders of some of the big Villages, sans Leaf of course, makes for a tense moment when the word gets out to the Allied Forces. The idea of facing some form of a previous leader, revered and/or feared, makes for a great psychological trick to work with. With that now on the Akatsuki’s side and other reanimated forces out there in the lands, it puts an interesting pressure on the Allied Forces. Especially since it is largely keeping most of the real Akatsuki from actual battle at this pint while throwing a lot of reanimated grunts out there as well to just weaken and occupy the Allied Forces in general.
There’s a lot of top level kind of stuff going on in this episode as those at the Allied command spend time showing how things work across the maps, the level of forces and how it’s all coming together, while also noting that for now it seems like both sides are evenly matched. It’s a lot of material like this which certainly has its interesting aspects to it if you’re into strategy, but it’s also very basic in order to make it as accessible as possible. The episode does provide for some small amount of action though towards the end, but even that feels like a bit of a token offering more than anything else.
In Summary:
Naruto: Shippuden brings in some interesting things in the episode with what Kobuto is up to that will add a lot more chaos as they get involved in the fight. A lot of what we get here is all kind of an administrative side to things with the top level view as the various village leaders talk about strategy, numbers and how the troops are being moved about by what the Akatsuki are up to. There’s a quiet before the storm kind of feel here, largely because of what we have with the reanimated leaders of the past coming into play, which is what leaves you with the most hope for some intensity going forward. The episode has its moments for buildup but it feels like it needs something more to really make it work.
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.
