Summer’s coming to an end, but who has done their summer homework?
What They Say:
Lee and Naruto seek help from their friends the day before their summer homework is due. Unfortunately for them, they also seem to have forgotten all the craziness that happened over the summer… Lee’s team visits the Academy, only to find a class of lazy kids who mock Lee for working so hard. Can Lee teach them the joys of dilligence?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the last group of episodes doing a lot of summer stories, it’s been a good deal of fun. But the timing here is appropriate as it shifts to the summer ending and getting back into the school routine, something my own kids are going through today. One of the hardest things for most kids every year with summer is not dealing with the end of summer but the fact that a lot of them push off their summer homework until the end or just don’t do it at all. So with the ninja school stuff about to start up in earnest again, the stragglers are facing the real problem.
And of course, it’s Nrauto and Lee that are the ones with the work to do while the others such as Sakura and Tenten do their best to encourage them and offer ideas of what they can do afterwards. Doing the summer reports is a lot of fun as they go on here as the two guys come up with a lot of memories of what they did, and with Naruto involved it hits a lot of silliness since he gets all the shadow clones yakking it up as well. But summer homework isn’t all about writing and the like as there’s also physical activities, which means getting some additional practice in there as well. Having to come up with a summer themed jutsu as part of it is a good bit of fun, especially when the two have to figure it all out on their own.
With the school session itself underway after that, and some of the fallout from the reports they write, the gang has a bit of a different situation that crops up. As everyone gets into the swing of things, our core group has to deal with a trio of younger ninja cadettes that are causing problems in the class with their behavior, ridiculing Lee for his strong intensity when it comes to learning and being a part of the classroom. That shifts Lee to taking on a teacher-like role for a bit which is hilarious. AS it goes on and Lee’s intensity takes on a new level as he tries to show them the right way to behave, it hits some good comedy, physical and verbal, since it keeps to the main trio and lets Lee really shine. Of course, it has a cute bit with Sakura as well that works quite nicely.
In Summary:
Rock Lee hits some good bits here throughout the episode as we shift back to the school segment of the series. It’s not something that dominated in the previous twenty odd episodes to be sure, but we had flares of it. A lot of what we got was just the lessons coming down from Guy. Here, we get some of the silliness of the ninja academy and what they go through like other kids, especially with the end of summer vacation. I liked the first half a lot more than the second half, which felt a bit weak since I didn’t take to the trio of troublemakers all that much. I liked the simplicity of the summer drawings Lee and Naruto come up with and the kind of brash silliness that infected it with Naruto around, someone that I’m glad makes some appearances but doesn’t dominate. Lee has a good episode overall though and it’s just fun to see him get so intensity and crazy at times.
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.
