Review for Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 4 (2 Discs)

Introduction

The gap between Fullmetal Alchemist Part 1, and Fullmetal Alchemist Part 2 was three and a half months. The gap between Naruto Shippuden Part 3, and Naruto Shippuden Part 4 works out at three months. The wait for Fullmetal Alchemist induced anxiety, no little hair loss, and my fingernails were gnawed down to the quick. Not so much for Naruto Shippuden. In fact, when the check discs arrived, I had the slightest sense of disappointment, knowing that I would have to make the time to watch them. There's your review right there. But I suppose that it would behove me elaborate. Naruto Shippuden is the good stuff that we have been waiting for, the return to the manga storyline following a plague of filler episodes at the end of Naruto that just didn't seem to end. And with the rescue Gaara arc concluded in the previous collection, this is where things really ought to get interesting, with Naruto finally heading towards a fateful reunion with Sasuke. The trouble is that it seems that the anime creators are already dreading the prospect of filler, so they are taking the events of the manga and stretching them out in the anime to last longer. And then they stretch them out some more. And then they add flashbacks… Which is why all of a sudden I am reluctant to watch a story that I had previously been looking forward to.


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, of whom Sasuke's brother Itachi is a member, 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.


Manga Entertainment present the next 13 episodes of Naruto Shippuden spread across 2 discs, 7 episodes on disc 1, and 6 episodes on disc 2.

40. The Nine-Tails Unleashed
41. The Top-Secret Mission Begins
42. Orochimaru vs. Jinchuriki
43. Sakura's Tears
44. The Secret of the Battle!
Coming face to face with Orochimaru at the Tenchi Bridge, when they were expecting an Akatsuki spy has led to the worst possible outcome. Naruto's pent up rage, and his determination to rescue Sasuke from Orochimaru's clutches unleashes the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox spirit from within him, and this is unlike any previous supercharging of chakra. This time Naruto loses control completely when the demon's fourth tail appears, and against Orochimaru's snake-like abilities, it's truly a battle between two monsters. And for the first time, Sakura sees what Naruto has been fighting to control, and she realises the price that he is determined to pay to keep his promise to her, and rescue Sasuke. The trouble is that Naruto in this state may as well be unconscious. The demon is in control, and it will turn on ally just as quickly as it will on enemy. And when Sakura tries to help, that's exactly what happens. And all the while, supposed team member Sai is following his own agenda.


45. The Consequences of Betrayal
46. The Unfinished Page
47. Infiltration: The Den of the Snake
48. Bonds
The mission has become twice as complicated. Forget finding the Akatsuki spy in Orochimaru's employ, this is their chance to infiltrate Orochimaru's lair and rescue Sasuke. But they will also have to deal with Sai's betrayal, find him, find out what he's planning and for whom, and if necessary, stop him by any means. But as Orochimaru, Sai and Kabuto return to the lair, they know that they are being followed. Sai also meets Sasuke, is surprised to feel fear for the first time, and is surprised at the strength of the one that Naruto considers a brother. But when Naruto, Sakura and Yamato catch up, and infiltrate the mountain, they learn that not everything is as it appears.


49. Something Important…
50. The Picture Book's Story
51. Reunion
52. The Power of Uchiha
Bluff and double bluff… Just what is Sai's mission, and when it comes down to it, will he even carry it out? Being around Naruto tends to have an effect on a person. But for once, the faith that Naruto chooses to place in those he calls his friends wavers, and it seems like strife will rend the team. And it couldn't come at a worse time, as they have finally found Sasuke. And just as Orochimaru had sneeringly told them, Sasuke isn't exactly in the mood to be rescued. In fact, he's in the mood to kill his former friend, and just as Naruto has been training and honing his abilities, Sasuke has some new skills of his own…

Picture

Naruto Shippuden 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, and as you would expect, it's an NTSC-PAL conversion. Shippuden's animation, and its character designs are sharper and crisper than Naruto's. It's certainly more detailed than the first series, and the colours are a little more muted. At this stage of the game, it's clear that the animators' love is being poured into the project, and while it is still limited and simpler than shorter run animations, it's still no slouch to look at.

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, with the episode chapter breaks in place. Each episode ends in a brief animated Naruto comedy skit. The extras are on disc 2, 15 line art images in a Production Art Gallery, and trailers for the first Naruto Shippuden movie and the Naruto Shippuden series. Oddly enough, these discs get copious Gaara artwork to illustrate the menus and jacket pictures, but Gaara isn't even in the story at this point.

Conclusion

How can something so good, be so damnably tedious at the same time? This is the point in Naruto Shippuden that we have been waiting for since the beginning of the filler in the original Naruto series. That's well over 100 episodes ago. This is the point where Naruto finally catches up to Sasuke. And it is everything that fans have been waiting for and more, tense, ominous, and viscerally fulfilling, even though it appears that the story will cliffhanger over into Naruto Shippuden Part 5. Except Naruto Shippuden makes you work for it. By God! Does it make you work for it!


The first episode on this disc sees Naruto confronting Orochimaru on the Tenchi Bridge. That confrontation brings out the worst in him, makes him mad, and it isn't long before the chakra build-up unleashes the nine-tailed demon fox spirit that we all know and love. Only we learn that in the past two years it has gotten meaner and nastier and more dangerous, and this time a Hulk like transformation occurs. We learn that the more the number of tails appear, the worse it is, and here for the first time, the fourth tail appears. At which point, Naruto stays put, seething, getting angrier and angrier, while we cut from one person on the bridge to the next, Orochimaru, Kabuto, Sai, Sakura, and Yamato, as we take in their reactions to developments, all of which boil down to, 'Holy crap, will you look at that!' Then we have a flashback to the discussion around Kakashi's hospital bed, where they anticipate the fox demon appearing, and realising that it will be a 'Holy crap!' situation should it arise, bolstered by a flashback to the last time it appeared, and Jiraiya got injured. A flashback within a flashback, and fifteen minutes of reaction shots comprise episode 40.


Thankfully this is the worst of Naruto Shippuden's delaying tactics, and the pace picks up from there. But if all of this show were like that, you'd be reading a much shorter review, as I would have binned the discs not soon after. An episode of freeze frame is all I can take. But when the battle between Orochimaru and Naruto commences in the next episode, it's entertaining and rewarding stuff. It's imaginative and visually engaging, even though we've reached that point in the story where two souped-up ninja having a fight is positively nuclear in intensity, and on occasion I did roll my eyes at something completely ridiculous, whether it's Naruto's mushroom cloud inducing burst of chakra, or Orochimaru's ridiculously long neck. It isn't as bad as Bleach yet, although 'yet' is the operative word. It's also a reminder that Orochimaru is by far the creepiest villain in this show, and often in this battle he'd shed an old, damaged body like a snake sheds its skin, and I'd feel a chill run down my spine.


It may not be on the level of the first episode though, but Naruto Shippuden will take every opportunity to slow things down. There is a whole lot of standing around, talking about stuff, most of it stating the obvious, a whole lot of needless exposition, and plenty of flashbacks, some referring to events that happened just five minutes previously. It's obvious that the creators want to eke out as much as possible from the story, to avoid an onrush of filler for as long as possible. The end result is that we are drip-fed the story; it feels like you have to work for each morsel, and be grateful for what little you do get. The problem is that this is the stuff that we have been waiting for; distilled down from its added weight, it's gripping and engaging storytelling. But distilled down, the same story could be told in four or maybe five episodes at the most. Instead we have thirteen.


Good stuff happens here aside from the battles. We have Sakura finally realising just what Naruto goes through trying to contain the fox demon, the price he has to constantly pay, and what he is sacrificing to keep his promise to her to rescue Sasuke. There's a scene where Fox-Naruto injures Sakura, as he is oblivious to everything except his target Orochimaru. Afterwards Sakura lies to him telling him that Orochimaru injured her, but then Yamato tells him the truth, that he was responsible. It's a great moment where Naruto learns that the fox demon that in some way he has been relying on, will in fact run out of control, and hurt those he cares about most. It's the sort of character defining moment that you look forward to in shows like this, and Shippuden handles it well (unnecessary flashback aside).


Sai's turned out to be a wonderful character, a blank slate on the surface, but with many layers hidden within. As usual being around Naruto tends to change one's outlook, and Sai is no exception. Although he's so skilled a ninja at masking his true feelings, it's hard to tell in what way he has been changed. A fair portion of this arc follows Sai's story and it adds much to the episodes. It even makes those couple of episodes where everyone is racing through Orochimaru's lair, opening doors, looking for Sasuke, closing them and then moving on, almost bearable. And then of course we have the climax of the collection, the bit we have all been waiting for since we were teased with it at the start of the first episode of Shippuden, the fraught reunion with Sasuke. And yes, there is standing around talking, and yes there are flashbacks, but it does get the heart pumping a little faster. And it ends on a pesky cliffhanger. We'll have to wait until Naruto Shippuden Part 5 to see how it resolves.


The bottom line for me is that it should never be quicker to read the manga than it is to watch it on TV. I've read the manga that these episodes encompass, and it took me less than two hours. I had to give five hours of my life to cover the same events in these episodes. Anyone who is new to Naruto will be yelling at the screen for something, anything to happen. But if you are a Naruto fan, then you know that this is the good stuff, the whole point of watching the show. It may be diluted, thinned out, stretched to breaking point, but it is here, and if you can tolerate slow motion, it's very good, eight of ten good.