Let’s tie in to the movie!
What They Say:
Lee and Tenten grab the latest issue of Jump to get the scoop on the new Naruto movie! But the moment they get it, a bright light blinds them, and when it fades, everyone’s personality is totally different! The new Naruto movie is almost here, and Tsunade’s worried it’s lacking something to make it must-see. Tenten overhears the Hokage and works with Lee and Neji to figure out what’s missing.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When you have a comedy show like this, you can definitely step out into how things are done in an amusing way. With the new Naruto movie in the offing in the real world, this series takes the opportunity to promote it in a way that’s hard to near impossible to do in the main series. The focus here initially has Rock and Tenten grabbing the last copy of Jump magazine on the shelf so they can find out the latest and greatest on the movie that they’re eager to see. They’re detail fanatics of the highest order when you get down to it and having only one copy left on the shelf has made them even more intense.
Of course, things don’t go well, but they don’t go well in a very amusing way. Because of how thy fight over it, the magazine does a shift to their world and instead of it being the Road to Naruto movie, it’s now the Road to Guy movie. This ends up changing the personalities of all of those they know, turning some into videogame fanatics for example, and this just puts Rock and Tenten in a bind as to how to deal with it all. It naturally goes in all sorts of directions, including some literal things for Rock where he tries to redraw the magazine so that they can get back to their own world, and his method of drawing Neji for example is priceless.
When it comes to the second half, we get some great imaginings of what the movie should be like, based on comments made by Tsunade and interpreted by Rock and his team. That gives us a hilarious Die Hard sequence at the start with guns a blazing and lots of Hollywood gags to make it all work. The second half really goes all over the map with gags as it deals with the movie and how it should be dealt with as the characters all get into it in big ways. They show some hilarious what-if’s and even Shino has a great sequence that lets him stand out well by doing a commentary track briefly. The laughs are definitely the kinds of things you can get from this particular type of episode and it even gives us a brief Orochimaru gag that just left me grinning.
In Summary:
Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals hits a lot of good fun here when it comes to the Naruto movie that’s coming down the road. So much so that I hope that when that movie hits home video, this episode finds its way onto it to make the Naruto fans giggle and laugh. It’s good fun and even does some hilarious gender bending along the way that made me laugh a little too hard while drinking water. The show splits the episode well with what it wants to do but it’s also one that hits far more gags on a regular basis than some of the recent episodes so it feels like it just goes and goes. Which isn’t bad, but it just feels as though it’s hitting things harder and more frequently. There’s a lot of good stuff to be had here and I do like that Rock takes a reduced role in the second half so that others of the supporting cast can get in on it.
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.
