At this point, I’d far prefer Rock Lee episodes as filler material than all of this.
What They Say:
Might Guy arrives on the battlefield to stop a Reanimated Shinobi who he recognizes as Master Chen, the legendary Taijutsu User from the Third Great Ninja War.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the slow, slow advancement of the war overall, one of the things employed is something we’ve seen already in this recent batch of episodes. The use of a flashback after introducing an opponent for the gang to deal with. This time around, as Guy and Lee are making some minor progress, we’re introduced to Master Chen, a shinobi who died before Lee was born, at leas in Guy’s eyes, but as we see through a separate flashback, is someone that Lee and the others have encountered before. This makes the fight personal for both of them in different ways and one that has some potential minor impact as the reanimated Chen comes from a background of someone that participated in the Third Great Ninja War.
This brings the show back and forth as we see the time spent between Chen and the others a few years ago with younger Naruto and younger Lee, which has its charms at times but is mostly just more of the same. There are some build-ups with what’s going on as they deal with Chen as they found him years ago, but it keeps shifting to the present and getting all angsty instead of just moving forward with the flashback plot. With Lee doing his best to earn Chen’s respect and to get him to teach him what he wants to learn, it’s a long and hard battle of wills. But as we’ve seen over the years itself with Lee, it’s something that he’s certainly capable of doing by being as persistent as he can be to get what he wants that will help him achieve a new level of skill.
Naturally, all of what happened in the past comes back to the present as we see Lee and Guy go up against Chen, who has taken some enjoyment in being reanimated and has a significant amount of power to use at that. In a way, it feels like he’s even more powered than a lot of the other characters we’ve seen in awhile with what he brings to the table, and that helps to make for a better than average fight sequence in the second half as they go at it, simply because of the dragon style ability that he employs. There’s some nice emotional moments as it deals with the fallout from things, not unexpected based on the foundations laid here, and it brings a nice bit of closure to things for this particular story, though it won’t be a memorable one by any stretch.
In Summary:
While executed well overall, Naruto: Shippuden again provides the kind of filler material that just leaves me feeling very bland at best about it. I seriously would far prefer the show avoid this kind of material and just give me more of the Rock Lee comedy series in the meantime than this, simply because this teases the idea of being part of the main story but is just empty nothingness overall. Just more of the same and fans are used to it at this point here as we go through the motions, complaining but still largely accepting what’s happening. Such is the case of how the manga is being adapted, how close it is and the general way the manga is so full of action that it can blaze through chapters fast when animated.
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.