After some cute shorts at the end of Naruto:Shippuden, let’s see if the show can manage a full length episode without driving us crazy.
What They Say:
Welcome one day in the Hidden Leaf Village, home of Uzumaki Naruto, a young girl is accosted by debt collectors. Just in the nick of time, she’s rescued by…not Naruto, but the hardest working ninja in the vollage, Rock Lee! And a ninja…who can’t use ninjutsu! Whatwill happen to the girl…and Lee?! Rock Lee is on a mission to procure a special baumkuchen cake, but only 50 are baked each day. Suddenly, Naruto appears out of nowhere with the same goal! With only one cake left, can Lee overcome Naruto’s “Sexy Technique?!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While I’ve had an off and on relationship with Naruto over the years, it’s definitely a show that can manage to have some comedy to it when done right. A lot of what it does for comedy comes in the infamous filler episodes and it just feels badly done. So when this series popped up based on the cute SD manga that was made for it, it definitely sets itself to hit the right kind of humor because it’s completely separated from the main continuity. It’s here to explicitly just have fun. And while I’ve had a rough relationship with Rock Lee over the years, I came to really like the character along the way, much to my chagrin, so I was really looking forward to seeing just how much fun they can have with this.
As the main series continues to get more and more serious, this definitely provides a cute outlet for the younger fans that could serve as an eventual gateway to the other seires. Focusing on stories with Rock Lee and others from the Hidden Leaf Village provides a chance for everyone to get some screen time while going with plainly juvenile humor that works. Having Rock, for example, deal with a trio of ruffians that are giving a young girl some grief turns very badly, in a humorous way, when he leaps onto the scene, trips before hitting a pile of “poopie” and then proceeds to fall and pulls down the main leader’s pants, exposing his underwear. Ever so completely juvenile. And you know what? It works because you expect this series to do that and the visuals and slapstick physical comedy are well executed.
Rock’s adventures are pretty cute here as he goes about his job of helping out in the village and doing the right thing, though he often does it without using his ninja skills and just his bravado and bluster. Things generally end up in him going through the keystone cops kind of action which certainly has its merits, especially the couple of pantsings that go on. But we also see him doing his training in general and hoping to be a big player with ninjitsu, especially as he views Naruto as his rival and has a lot to live up to in order to match and surpass him. One segment has him on a mission to get some specially made cakes of which only a few are made each day, but he winds up in competition with Naruto. And like the rest of the show, the pint sized versions of the characters are just priceless here and they have fun with the SD Naruto, capturing the comedy that works within him quite well.
In Summary:
In a way, I can’t say I had high hopes for this series. Based off of the promos that came out you knew exactly what you were getting into and I was looking forward to that. And it does deliver pretty well with it, basically taking what we saw but giving us multiple and longer versions of it here. It made me laugh, it made me smile and it gave me lots of Rock Lee time with some cute guest starring moments including Naruto. They utilized him well with his shadow clone and sexy jutsu skills but even with that it was still all about Rock Lee. And as much as I hate to admit it, I really do like Rock. He’s got such an earnest approach about him and a do anything style that it just cracks me up watching him interact with others while being the ideal hero yet falling short in some ways. I’m not sure how long a show like this can go, but I’m definitely good for at least a season of it, especially if they’re able to go further along the way and really utilize more of the large and extensive cast from the main series.
Grade: B
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.
Is a shit, how could take bleach for this shit