Can Lee and Naruto handle switching off bodies for awhile?
What They Say:
Ino catches Naruto and Lee trying to peep on Sakura while she’s in the bath, but when she misfires with her Mind-Body Switch jutsu, Lee and Naruto end up swapping bodies!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the focus previously on the return to school, there was a good bit to like about it since it used more of the cast and had a good flow about it. Seeing the gang work through their summer homework late certainly fits a few of their personalities. Thankfully though, the show isn’t one to spend too awful long on something and drive it into the ground. While it had a number of summer themed episodes, it never felt like it was spending too much time on it. With this one, we shift away from the school material quickly while pairing Naruto and Lee together for a bit, something that always leads to some fun.
And a little naughtiness this time around as well as the pair, after a brief couple of gags, end up seeing Sakura heading off to the baths for the evening for a soak. They end up following after her and the next thing we know, we see Ino catching them peeping through a hole in the wall, something that Lee denies but Naruto attempts to make into a positive. Things end up getting out of control quickly and Ino ends up in a bad place, which has the pair of them doing their best to try and make things better while hiding out a bit. To make matters problematic though, the two of them had their appearances switched because of what happened and now it just leads to plain silliness that’ll get only worse when the two of them are brought in for a mission.
The second half uses the mission side of the story well as the group deals with a band of basic thugs that are you in the countryside causing trouble. The problem is that with the two of them switched, they each act like they think the other would while trying to do those particular jutsus. Which is a real problem for Lee. Everyone has some good material here as they deal with the situation with a solid mix of fighting and comedy, all done in the pint sized forms here that the show is known for. In some ways it feels like it’s a bit too much, but it hits things like other episodes do and runs the comedy well while having silly danger used at times to blend it all together.
In Summary:
Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals hits some decent material here even if things are dragged out to some degree along the way. It’s not often that the show runs with an overall theme like this, using the mind-body switch, but it still plays it to the two halves and gives us different things to work with. The fun of the first half has the two just coping with it while the second half throws them to the wolves by having them on a mission with others depending on them and their actions. The use of abilities in this form, their panic and the way others react to them is comical. It’s not the best of the episodes but it’s one that works well overall and leaves you laughing and grinning to a lot of its parts. The show mostly left me wanting more Ino, but there’s some solid Sakura bits in here as well.
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.
