The awfulness continues for another week.
What They Say:
Naruto reaches the tower Sasuke was heading for, thanks to Neji, Lee and Tenten deterring the agents from the Foundation. But it’s too late—Sasuke’s already made contact with Orochimaru! Naruto passionately tries to reason with Sasuke, but ultimately their powers collide!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Naruto: Shippuden continues through its dream arc here with the story within, though that’s barely even referenced at this point since I think they figured out it was a bad reminder on a regular basis. What we get this time around is something that again has a number of decent action sequences to it and plenty of familiarity with what came before since it’s replaying events in a new way in some instances, though perhaps only the truly hardcore will care. Even though I’ve watched every episode of this series I still consider myself more of a casual viewer because I’m not hugely invested the story – particularly at this point where we’re getting something like a two year delay in actually animating the end of it all. So while there are fun moments within this, such as Sasuke and Orochimaru’s first meeting in this alternate telling, most of it is just bland.
It really comes down to the simple thing of if you like the characters and just enjoy seeing them in action, you’ll like this episode. There’s a good bit of action overall, including some time with Naruto’s inner beast, and the material with Sasuke and Orochimaru has its own fun. Sasuke’s demand for power and impatience in dealing with Orochimaru is familiar but skewed and while there is that idea that you could get something new out of this, that background reminder that it’s all just a dream and pointless renders it all moot on a regular basis.
In Summary:
With this year largely set for the filler arc material overall, it’s definitely disheartening to be a Naruto fan. I’m mostly holding on for the next arc to get underway since it has some potential. But then again, after this arc anything is going to feel like it’s a thousand times better. At this point it feels like they could probably get the same ratings running a couple months of clip shows focusing on various characters since all we’re getting here is a somewhat skewed retelling of portions of the series. And I’ve already watched it before and have no interest in an alternate take.
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.
