What They Say:
Hinata defends Neji from a White Zetsu clone while he’s recovering from an earlier fight. She then remembers the time Neji protected her the same way after she temporarily lost her sight.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The war rolls on and the flashbacks make yet another appearance as the whole sequence of events is drawn out more once again for the anime fans. With Neiji in the midst of recovering from his otherworldly battle with the others, now having been saved from it but having to deal with the events surrounding it, he’s a bit lucky in that Hinata was there to help him at the start and even more so now that she’s giving him the support and defense that he needs since his eyes aren’t anywhere near recovered yet. She naturally has a good affinity with her brother and that allows the two of them to work together well having spent so many years at different times training with each other, even as harsh as Neiji could be at times in order to help her achieve her goals.
But while they’re going to work with each other to fight back against the numerous White Zetsu in the area, her words spark a memory within Neiji about when he protected her from things rather than just teaching her how to protect herself. Taking us back to a younger age when we have Naruto in his original outfit, Hinata’s being put through the wringer by Neiji but can still get pretty excited and animated when she finds out she could spend some time with Naruto at a fireworks display. Her cuteness abounds here as she has such a crush on him and wants to spend time with him, but it does impact her overall since her training with Neiji suffers because of her lack of focus, making it easy for him to take her down and for him to realize that she’s not really ready for such training yet.
There’s some interesting bits to this part of the past as we see how Hinata does suffer under what he teaches her and it’s something that gets under Naruto’s skin to be sure as he doesn’t like seeing anyone treated like she is. But Neiji is also pretty irked by Naruto’s presence in general after the years of knowing him and knowing how his sister feels about him. The episode puts him together with Naruto and Sakura for a mission and it does provide for some decent time between the two for Neiji to understand who he really is, though it’s a long process before Neiji is in a place of being able to accept Naruto for who he is. In the end, there’s not a lot of “there” there when it comes to this episode, but we do get a bit more clarity when it comes to the siblings relationship in the younger days and that solidifies things in the present a bit.
In Summary:
If I never see the young orange suited Naruto ever again, it’ll be too soon. I’m no fan of flashback episodes like this in the midst of what’s supposed to be a pretty big event as it’s just one more distraction. And this is a distraction from a side story with no meaning to it which is just doubly insulting. It’s not a badly done episode and I do like getting to see a bit more Hinata both in past and present, but the story here is just bland and simple with no real depth to it to make it meaningful even in the present fight. There are good moments as I liked seeing the training Hinata went through, and some of her girlish crush moments, but that’s about the extent of it.
Grade: C
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.
I just want to see whats under the mask of both kakashi and “tobi”?