What They Say:
Naruto and Sasuke are enveloped in a huge, intense light after exchanging attacks. When they come to, scenes from their childhood unfold. Is this just a figment of their imagination? Or could this be the afterlife?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After as many years as I’ve been watching this series as I have, I wasn’t surprised that the previous two-part story didn’t deliver the emotional resonance it needed. There have simply been too many problems with the anime adaptation that culled my interest and investment over the years that have left me honest about how it’s mostly inertia carrying it at this point. There were some fantastic things about the two-parter when it came to the visuals, choreography, and animation in general, so there was definitely payoff. But the production has been so problematic for so long that it was just very difficult to become truly engaged and invested in it.
So it’s not a surprise that after as big a deal as the past two episodes were that this one dials things back. Putting the pair in a place where they revisit their pasts to varying degrees under new interpretation is an easy out to keeping things simple but also stylish. There’s a lot to like in terms of presentation as there are some creative sequences with the colors, locations, and just how they’re presented. But at the same time I am so thoroughly done in revisiting the pasts of these characters that it simply wears me down to do it once again – even with such well done visuals as we get here. The animation really does present itself in a way that feels like it’s from a different series in a lot of ways and that’s alluring as hell and frustrating at the same time because of what kind of episode it is.
In Summary:
Those with an emotional investment in this series will definitely get a lot out of this as they pull on the right strings and hit all the right notes, but they’re just damn familiar notes that don’t do a thing for me at this point. I expected a down episode after what we had last week so there are no surprises here. But everything between Naruto and Sasuke is just so empty at this point after all that’s gone on that it feels like it’s little more than going through the motions of a dream that ended days ago as opposed to moments ago. Big points for visual creativity but there’s nothing new here beyond that.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll