What They Say:
Part 2 of a special two-part extra edition! The townspeople are going about their daily business on the streets of the Leaf Village when someone suddenly appears and starts sending them flying!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Naruto: Shippuden may be providing a bit of context for certain things that have gone on within the series with this two part special, but for me the big take away is just having a short term version of something lighter, fun and filled with a lot of color. The recent arcs have all been so gray, dark and grim – as befits the material – but this just adds a little color to the atmosphere that it needed. At least until it introduced Mecha Naruto, a device that could siphon off the chakra of the Nine-Tails and contain it. A mecha that could essentially turn into any kind of device needed to achieve its goals while fighting off the other Hidden Leaf village ninja. Essentially, it’s a variation on the old 70’s racing kind of anime in a way at times, which is both amusing and utterly horrible and unwelcome in the series.
But not surprising.
Keeping Naruto on the move is the big thing here as we get Yamato initially taking him on the run and then Kakashi having to take on the role since they don’t want this device/creature to get close to him. Of course, plenty of people are being taken down along the way and there’s a certain kind of fun in watching that unfold as it goes along. Honestly, I made it up to about the halfway mark before I just completely wrote the whole thing off, not that I didn’t finish watching it. Once we had Jiraiya show up in a form, did the giant pink snake and played with the poop joke – I mean, p@@p joke – there’s really nothing else to say here, is there? It’s a wacky comedy episode that goes to have fun and is easily discounted from everything as it has no real meaning or connection to any of the ongoing storylines.
In Summary:
Naruto: Shippuden engages in a two part fanfic story here when you get down to it. It has… it’s moments to be sure. But largely what we get here is the equivelant of a goofy poop episode with a weird sense of fun that works at times. Partially, you do wonder how episodes like this get the go ahead and what kind of approval process the anime original episodes go through. Because after the six hundred or so episodes we’ve seen across both series, those people need to be as far away from this production as possible. There’s fun to be had here, but for a lot of fans of the show it’s probably best to just to avoid it outright and use the forty-odd minutes doing something productive, like napping.
Grade: D+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
