Review for Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 20 (2 Discs)

Introduction

I had a false alarm there, when the cover art to boxset 20 was revealed, markedly different to the Naruto Shippuden releases that had come before, and with a new font for the title. Given Manga’s year of retrenchment in 2014, I was hit with a vision of Naruto as it was first released, authored in-house, random chapter markers and dodgy subtitles, “Pot Noodles and Sensi” instead of “Ramen and Sensei”. Fortunately that hasn’t happened at this time, and it’s merely a change in artwork that follows the Australian release as well. These discs are still sourced from Madman Entertainment, and you can still skip the credit sequences without ending up in the middle of the episode.


15 years previously, the Hidden Leaf village was plagued by the Nine-Tailed fox demon. The Fourth Hokage ninja sacrificed his life to defeat the menace, and sealed up the spirit in the body of a newborn child. That orphan grew up as Naruto Uzumaki, a mischievous prankster with great ambition. He wants to be the strongest ninja of them all and be granted the title Hokage, leader of the Hidden Leaf village. In the first Naruto series, we followed him on his training as a ninja, tutored by Kakashi, and partnered with his ideal girl Sakura, and his archrival Sasuke. Of course Sakura was sweet on Sasuke, which didn’t help, but slowly the three became firm friends.


The dark clouds of ambition tore that friendship apart though, but it wasn’t Naruto’s ambition. It was Sasuke’s, sole survivor of the Uchiha clan, slaughtered by his brother Itachi. He grew up wanting revenge on Itachi, and wanting to gain in power and strength as quickly as possible. Sasuke gave into the temptation for easy power, offered by the renegade ninja Orochimaru, when Orochimaru infiltrated the village during the Chunin exams, and assassinated the Third Hokage. Sasuke left to join Orochimaru, and Naruto swore to get him back. For the last two and half years, Naruto has been in training with the sage Jiraiya, and he’s now returned to the village, empowered and ready to rescue his friend. But Orochimaru and Sasuke haven’t been resting easy either, while the Akatsuki group of renegade ninja have been accelerating their plans, and top of the list is obtaining the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, the one that is currently sealed up in Naruto.


Previously on Naruto Shippuden, Naruto had finally reached, after a lengthy period of filler, the secret island where it was prophesised that he would gain new power and ability to deal with the Akatsuki threat. Of course the Fifth Hokage merely wanted him out of the way of the forthcoming war, along with the other Jinchuriki, the Eight-Tails Killer Bee. But now that he is there, Naruto has convinced Killer Bee to help him gain control of the 9-Tails Chakra. It isn’t going to be an easy process though.


245. The Next Challenge! Naruto vs. Nine Tails
246. The Orange Spark
247. Target: Nine Tails
248. The Fourth Hokage’s Death Match
249. Thank You
To even contemplate facing the 9-Tailed Fox Demon requires a whole lot of mental preparation, not exactly Naruto’s strong suit, but with Killer Bee’s help, he learns how to face his inner darkness. But even that may not be enough, as not even Killer Bee has anticipated the power of the 9-Tails. Fortunately, Naruto’s parents foresaw this moment, and prepared a way to help him. And now is the time for Naruto to truly learn of the night the 9-Tailed Fox Demon attacked the village and caused so much tragedy, the night that Naruto was born.


250. Battle in Paradise! Odd Beast vs. The Monster!
251. The Man Named Kisame
252. The Angelic Herald of Death
253. The Bridge to Peace
Naruto’s success in controlling the 9-Tails Chakra is soured by the revelation of a spy in their midst. There’s no time to relax as they have to prevent Kisame from returning the information, and Naruto’s whereabouts to Akatsuki. Before Madara can even act on such information, he has a mission of his own to complete, to clean up the mess that Pain left behind when he chose to believe in Naruto and trusted him with the future. It means going to the Village Hidden in Rain and confronting the last of Jiraiaya’s surviving disciples back then, Konan.


254. The Super Secret S-Rank Mission
255. The Artist Returns
256. Assemble! Allied Shinobi Forces!
Keeping Naruto in the dark about the forthcoming ninja war is even more of a priority. It’s luck then that he’s still dense as anything, wrapped up in his first “S-Class Mission”. But Akatsuki have set their eyes on the jinchuriki, and assault the hidden island, and while they don’t get their target, they do capture a target of significant strategic value. Even as Anko’s team discover the Akatsuki base, and the scale of what danger is facing them all, the Allied Shinobi Forces get ready to move into action.


257. Meeting
Here’s another look at Naruto’s childhood, the outcast would-be ninja, shunned by the Hidden Leaf Villagers, longing for attention and love. When he starts school, he runs into a know-it-all student named Sasuke Uchiha. It’s hate at first sight. But the two have more in common than either of them knows.

Picture

Naruto Shippuden is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen in native PAL. The image is sharper, ghosting and blended frames are absent, and there’s an increase in resolution. Absent this time is the judder that plagued the first attempt to release Naruto Shippuden in PAL, and it may be down to these being the Japanese broadcast episodes, not the US versions with the edited English language credit sequences. Shippuden’s animation and its character designs are sharper and crisper than those in the first Naruto series. It’s certainly more detailed while the colours are a little more muted. The story comes across well, and the action sequences are impressively animated, while conforming to a long running anime budget.

Sound

The DD 2.0 English and Japanese stereo is more than adequate in recreating the original experience, and given a little Prologic magic does offer a pleasant ambience and some discrete action. Yasuhara Takanashi takes over the music reins from Toshiro Masuda, and the result is if anything even less memorable than the music from the first series. But it works well enough in driving the action, and it doesn’t get overbearing. Once again, I only sampled the English dub and found it acceptable if unspectacular. It certainly isn’t the worst I have heard, but some of the actors don’t seem particularly suited to the characters.

Extras

The discs get static menus and jacket pictures, with the episode chapter breaks in place.

The extras are on disc 2, 5 images in a Storyboard Gallery, 6 pieces of production art and trailers for the second Naruto Shippuden movie as well as the Shippuden series. In addition, some of the episodes offer bonus animations after the end featuring Rock Lee’s Silly Chronicles.

Conclusion

We’ve passed the great filler iceberg, we’re back onto the wide open shipping lanes of the canon manga storyline, and it should all be plain sailing from here on for Naruto Shippuden, right? Not exactly, as while the story is still as good as it gets, the pure stuff, getting into the nitty-gritty of the forthcoming Ninja World War, and revealing more about the characters than we ever suspected, Naruto Shippuden at this point starts to show some structural issues, some weaknesses in its storytelling.


It kicks off in fine form though, relating Naruto’s current challenge in gaining power and new ability, by conquering the 9-Tails chakra that dwells within him, and has long since threatened to break loose and wreak havoc. Killer Bee has already tamed the 8-Tails chakra, and he would be the ideal teacher, except convincing him isn’t easy, while the 9-Tails chakra makes the 8-Tails look like a puppy-dog in comparison. Action packed it may be, but the key emotional beat of this arc is far more potent. Naruto gets to meet his mother. Long running shonen action shows aren’t meant to make grown men well up, dammit! This arc gave me the hockey stick in the throat syndrome, twice.


Unfortunately it’s downhill after that, as the focus shifts away from the main characters. First, we have to deal with the Akatsuki spy in their midst, Kisame, who is unmasked during Naruto’s trial. We get one episode of battle and capture, which is all well and good, but then we get an episode of flashback to Kisame’s past, to understand why he is the way he is. Then we switch focus to what’s going on with Akatsuki at the moment, and we learn that Madara is trying to regain the Rinnegan, dealing with Konan, the surviving member of Jiraiaya’s first set of students, which also included Yuhiko and Nagato. So cue plenty more flashbacks about their childhood and the events that shaped them into forming Akatsuki, and becoming Pain.


This is all good stuff, really nice, interesting stories that are told well and are interesting to watch, except that during the four episodes that are spent on this, you’re left wondering what is happening with the main characters, what’s happening with Naruto, what’s happening with Sasuke, what’s happening with the Hidden Leaf Village. Naruto Shippuden at this point would be better served by telling its story in an integrated fashion, rather than dishing it out piecemeal.


We get back to the main storyline with Akatsuki making a move against the two surviving jinchuriki, launching an assault against the island sanctuary, and making a significant gain. The arc reaches a major turning point as the story reaches an epic juncture, with the two sides ready to go to war, the Allied Shinobi on one side, and Akatsuki and Madara’s arcane army on the other. It’s a climactic moment that is reminiscent of Lord of the Rings... and then Naruto pauses for another four episode stretch of filler, the first of which concludes this collection. It’s another look at Naruto’s childhood, actually a little more poignant given the opening four episodes in this collection. It offers a different perspective on his troubled early days, and his antagonistic relationship with Sasuke, with some new information about their early years at school, before a new widescreen animated take on team 7’s first two missions.


Naruto Shippuden gets back to the interesting story material in this collection after nearly two collections of filler, but the trouble is that it isn’t really telling that story in an interesting way at this point. Of course much of that has to do with how the manga unfolds, but the key word in adapting written material to the screen is that word, adaptation. What works on the page doesn’t always work on the screen, and at this point in the tale, the side-story diversions are more a distraction than an entertainment.