Holy shit! Actual story!
What They Say:
After his Tailed Beast is extracted, Naruto is on the verge of dying. Sakura desperately tries to save him, but Naruto’s heart gives out.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an extended time away doing some anime original stories in flashback form to when the second Chunin Exam was underway, Naruto: Shippuden returns to the main storyline with this episode. And you can practically hear the view counter going up quicker and higher than it has in awhile as many fans of the property tend to avoid the show during the original arcs. And rightly so, considering the overall quality of what feels like the C and D writing teams getting a chance to flex their muscles. These arcs sometimes have worthwhile moments, but it mostly reminds me of the old Assistant Editors month in the Marvel Comics days where they’d jokingly take over and actually do stuff that nobody in a position of authority should actually let happen.
The show certainly left us in a dour place the last time around, and picking up here with Sasuke being stabbed through the chest by Madara and Sakura doing her best to get Naruto going again even as the Nine-Tails chakra dissipates from him, it certainly isn’t filled with optimism or hope at first. The first half works through these kinds of movements decently, particularly with trying to get Naruto moving again with some creative abilities used to massage his heart and all, and just getting time to reconnect with some of the players on both sides here helps. Even just a little time in seeing how Karin reacts after seeing what happens to Sasuke works well as she’s got a solid intensity about her that impresses the others, even if it has a moment that should cost her her life. But with her being a part of Orochimaru’s group, there’s always a twist within it and you can run with it well enough. Plus it’s just fun seeing his group being able to make a dent in things, enough to impress the rest of the Allied forces, something that you wouldn’t ordinarily expect.
The second half pushes more of the overall mood of the moment as we see the various groups assessing the situation, falling back where needed, and just trying to grasp what’s going on at the moment since some very sizable powers are at play. What we get isn’t exactly a glossing over of things, but rather just the kind of quick movements to make sure everyone knows where things stand. Which is certainly useful. But we also get some decent bits where you can see that things are starting to change, such as Kakashi and Naruto’s father making their plans, which gets put on hold when Sakura arrives with Naruto and explains that Nine-Tails has been extracted from him. It’s a situation where things just keep getting worse and worse, and unlike the filler episodes, it feels like it has the proper weight and darkness here rather than being forced.
In Summary:
Naruto: Shippuden finally gets back on course and it’s very welcome, even if it took an age. The return of the main storyline is welcome partially because it does do the important thing of spending some time re-acclimating us to things rather than just going whole hog into what happens next. A bit of a breather is welcome as is time reminding us where everyone is, what groups are out there and the state of the battle in general. It’s not filled with a lot of big action sequences, though we get a few tastes of it, but rather some solid placement pieces to establish things and launch is into the next part of the arc. The only downside in a way is that Naruto is pretty much out for the entire thing, and after being out of his own show for so long through the anime original episodes, I kind of wanted him to reclaim things here a bit.
Grade: B
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.
