Naruto Unleashed: Series 8 Part 1

Introduction

When I was a kid, I had to do chores around the house to 'earn' my supper. Raking leaves, cutting the grass, vacuuming the carpets and various other menial and tedious activities that my family deemed useful in promoting hard work and responsibility. Now I have to review Naruto filler. And I don't even get supper for it! Just a few more volumes of this, and then we can get to Naruto Shippuden, which even more quickly will start filler of its own… Why is it when I contemplate this, I start to hear 'Suicide is Painless' by the Manics in my head?

12 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. Not only does he want to be a ninja, but he also wants to be the strongest ninja of them all and be granted the title Hokage. He has more than a little competition, the Hidden Leaf village is a community of ninja, and Naruto had great difficulty just passing his entrance exams to qualify as a lowly Genin. Even when he did manage to get his certification, he was assigned to undergo training by the demanding Kakashi, partnered with his rival Sasuke and Sakura, the girl on whom he has a crush. What makes things difficult is that few see him as Naruto, instead of the dreadful fox demon that was sealed inside him.


We're in the filler zone, which means that the story is on hold until the manga catches up to the anime, and the episodes here don't advance the overall story or develop the characters. Sasuke has joined Orochimaru, and Naruto needs to complete his training before he can try to redeem him once more. None of that will happen until the filler is past. Each filler story will get a quick description and the listing of episodes.


Previously on Naruto… With Rock Lee, Neji and Tenten, Naruto journeyed to the Village Hidden in Stars, to provide security for a chakra-enhancing meteorite, under threat from a menace in the surrounding forest. But when there, they found that politics, machinations and a long buried conspiracy were rearing their ugly heads. With a power hungry faction at work in the village, and the village children caught in the middle, the Hidden Leaf team find that they are powerless to interfere in an internal matter.

183. The Star's Radiance


When the Leaf village was infiltrated, it turned out that one of the enemy ninja was carrying a bioweapon. It also turns out that Kiba's dog Akamaru may be infected. The Hokage wants the pooch taken into custody, before he turns mad and attacks the villagers. When the arrest warrant is issued, Kiba takes Akamaru and flees. Now there's no choice but to hunt Akamaru and put him down. But no one has counted on Naruto.

184. Kiba's Long Day


Naruto has been dive-bombed by an eagle, and he stinks. It's not eagle crap though. It's a little furry creature that has attached itself to his back. It's an Onbaa, a mythical beast that only the pervy sage Jiraiya knows about, and he's not in the village. So now Naruto has to learn how to be an Onbaa's mother all by himself.

185. A Legend From The Hidden Leaf: The Onbaa!


Now Shino and Naruto are on a mission, to provide security for a funeral. There's also a second part to the mission. One of them has to be the substitute chief mourner, and under no circumstance must he laugh during the funeral, or their client will lose his inheritance. It's why the stoic Shino has been selected. But when someone puts a laughing drug in his food, it falls to prankster Naruto to put on his best poker face.

186. Laughing Shino


It looks like a simple mission to begin with, escort a merchant caravan to the Land of Greens, although Tsunade is a little conflicted in assigning it to Naruto, Hinata and Choji. She respects the leader of the Land of Greens, and the mission should have trustworthy ninja with a proper leader in charge. There's only a clash of personalities in that trio and certainly no suitable leader, but fortunately it's just a simple escort mission. Or it was a simple escort mission until there was a coup in the Land of Greens, as a trio of malicious brothers took advantage of the complacent populace. Unbeknownst to Naruto and the others, the caravan they are escorting includes the last remaining blood relative of the fallen leader, and they've just become a target.

187. Open For Business! The Leaf Moving Service
188. Mystery of the Targeted Merchants
189. A Limitless Supply of Ninja Tools
190. The Byakugan Sees the Blind Spot!
191. Forecast: Death! Cloudy With a Chance of Sun!


Ino has a mission, although it doesn't promise all the usual action and excitement, even if she is to act as a double for a society princess. This girl has fallen in love, she's about to meet her dream man, and if all things work out, wedding bells will ring. Except in her anxiety she's gained weight. She needs Ino to charm this man in her stead. The only problem is that Ino finds it hard to deal with this Casanova, so much so that Naruto decides to help in his own, disgusting way.

192. Ino Screams! Chubby Paradise


Naruto's just come home after a mission to find a new craze apparently at work in the village. There are signs everywhere pointing to a dojo challenge, and ever the shirker, Naruto declines reporting to Tsunade in favour of investigating this further. He finds that Rock Lee has built himself a dojo in the hope of attracting sufficiently challenging opponents to give him some decent training. The problem is that no one is showing up. So Naruto decides to get Gai Sensei involved, which is when an enemy ninja decides to infiltrate the village disguised as Gai.

193. Viva Dojo Challenge! Youth is All About Passion!


Lady Kayo and her retainers have gone missing in Break Neck Pass. It's up to Naruto, Kiba and Hinata to find them, and the trail leads to an abandoned castle. The trouble is that Naruto is still afraid of ghosts.

194. The Mysterious Curse at the Haunted Castle


Hokage Tsunade is concerned about Rock Lee, having just healed him, she's worried that he'll overwork himself and wreck his body again. She orders him to take a rest, which he interprets as being sidelined. At the same time, Gai has a new student, a wunderkind named Yagura, who even manages to defeat Lee in training. Of course as narrative would have it, Yagura is up to no good, he's an imposter, and he's leading Gai up the garden path, actually it's Gai leading him up a mountain path, but this mountain has a trap in place for Gai.

195. The Third Super-Beast!

Picture

Naruto gets a 4:3 regular transfer that is clear and sharp throughout. There are some minor compression artefacts that are only really noticeable during freeze frame. As you would expect from such a long running animation, it's best not to tire the animators out. Naruto is certainly less sophisticated than most anime released today, the character designs are simpler, and backgrounds not excessively defined. Yet in terms of quality, the animation is very effective, and certainly goes a step beyond older long running shows like Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon. However, with the advent of the filler, the quality of animation slips, and you can see it in some hideous character designs, and some lacklustre action sequences. There are times in this set where it looks like a completely different animation.

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. More new themes and as always they are memorable and suit the story well, while the incidental music is a little more generic, but definitely gives Naruto its own musical identity. I 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

Wheeling out the same menus again, the only extras you'll find are the trailers on disc 1, Bleach, Death Note, Bleach the Movie, and Naruto the Movie 2. And once again, Manga haven't bothered to adequately chapter the episodes, with just a single stop in the middle of each. At least let us skip the credit sequences.

Conclusion

My heart just isn't in this any more. The 15th set of Naruto episodes is still deep within the filler zone, and it becomes ever more apparent with each passing episode, that all they are doing is recycling stories over, and over again. Any semblance of originality, or wit has long since vanished, and even the occasionally entertaining comedy episodes are now resorting to toilet humour to make their point. I've been procrastinating over what to write as the conclusion to this review, not because I can't think of anything to say, but at this juncture, I really can't wait to be shot of this series. It makes it harder and harder to raise any kind of enthusiasm for the third Naruto feature film, due this Christmas, as well as the forthcoming Shippuden sequel. The filler is working against the show, which is probably the last thing anyone wants.


I can't muster any energy to talk about the episodes in this set, just read my review of the previous set to get some idea of the sort of nonsense that you'll have to put up with. There are three arcs in this collection, the end of the Village Hidden in Stars arc, the first episode of a story featuring Rock Lee and his sensei Gai, and the large arc in the middle, another mission for Naruto as he goes to protect the heir to a neighbouring land, and find the time to emotionally sympathise with her as well.


As for the stand-alone episodes… When you have a cute furry animal attaching itself to Naruto, Kiba's dog Akamaru finding his inner Jekyll and Hyde, Ino being creeped out by a chubby guy she's supposed to woo on behalf of her client (with Naruto p***ing everywhere. Don't ask), the worst ghost story ever told, and a Rock Lee story which is nigh on identical to a tale told last season, well I start wondering if it's a good time to have my prostate checked instead of wasting my time on these episodes.


You'd think that this is as bad as the filler can get, but there's still the next part of season 8, as well as season 9 to go. Surely it can't get any worse than this. There probably is some entertainment value in these episodes, but it certainly isn't worth shelling out for. Even those Naruto fans who just have to have the whole thing lined up neat and tidy on their DVD shelves, you won't lose anything by leaving the cellophane on this one.