Review for Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 9 (2 Discs)

Introduction

I'm drowning in Bleach! It seems as if the first half of 2012 has been devoted by Manga Entertainment to the strawberry haired soul reaper, and the orange anoraked ninja hasn't gotten a look in. Just the previous month alone has seen 3 Bleach feature films released on Blu-ray, including the UK debut of the third film, as well as a collection of Bleach television episodes, the second this year. June will see a third collection, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that poor Naruto is being left behind. It isn't by much though, as the year so far has seen both Naruto Shippuden features released in high definition, and this Collection 9 is the second instalment of Naruto episodes this year. It's just that the gap between Naruto Shippuden volumes is getting extensive, and to add to that, we're in the middle of a filler arc. Come July, I hope the effervescent ninja isn't further obscured by an avalanche of Dragonball, although ninja are supposed to be surreptitious.


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.


I can barely remember what was happening in the main storyline prior to this filler arc. It was something to do with Tailed-Beasts, Akatsuki, and Naruto having to train some more, because his previous training to create a new jutsu skill didn't quite work out.

In the previous collection of episodes, it became clear that this arc of Naruto Shippuden filler is better thought out than most of the filler plugged the original Naruto series, as it at least mirrors and complements the main storyline. In the story that concludes in these twelve episodes, the idea is that not only is Akatsuki after the Tailed Beasts, but so is arch-villain Orochimaru. He and his minions have located the 3-Tailed Beast, residing in a lake, unattached to any Jinchuriki host. Guren, his former favourite prior to Sasuke, has been ordered to acquire the beast, and to do so she has the use of a child, Yuukimaru, who has the innate ability to control the creature. She's been assigned a squad of experimental ninja from Orochimaru's dungeons led by an enigmatic man named Rinji, and also accompanying them is Kabuto.


It's down to Naruto and a squad of Hidden Leaf ninja to stop Guren in her tracks, and see that the 3-Tailed Beast is sealed for good. When Naruto learns of what use the orphan Yuukimaru is to be put to, he becomes determined to save him as well. But spending time with Yuukimaru awakens feelings and memories in Guren as well, thoughts she has long considered buried, and not only does conflict arise between the Leaf ninja and the forces of Orochimaru, but Guren finds herself torn between her loyalty to her master, and her growing affection for Yuukimaru. At the same time, the 3-Tailed Beast is unleashing its ire on all without discrimination, and Akatsuki have noticed what is going on.


Manga Entertainment present the next 12 episodes of Naruto Shippuden spread across 2 discs.

101. Everyone's Feeling
102. Regroup!
103. The Four Corner Sealing Barrier
104. Breaking the Crystal Style
105. The Battle over the Barrier
106. Red Camellia
107. Strange Bedfellows
108. Guidepost of the Camellia
109. Counterattack of the Curse Mark
110. Memory of Guilt
111. Shattered Promise
112. A Place to Return to

Picture

Naruto Shippuden is now presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. We've now gone back to the NTSC-PAL conversion; certainly the blended frames evident of such are apparent once more as is the 4% longer running time. However the image is just as sharp and clear as the previous volumes, with little of the softness of a standards conversion. 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. As we are in filler mode, the guest character designs take a beating and become rather plain.

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. From episode 103 onwards, we get new theme songs for the show. No more Bacchikoi!

Extras

The discs get static menus, with the episode chapter breaks in place. Most episodes end in a brief animated Naruto comedy skit.

The extras are on disc 2, 10 line art images in a Production Art Gallery, and trailers for the first Naruto Shippuden movie and the Naruto Shippuden series.

Conclusion

That was good. Yes, it is filler, and yes it means nothing in terms of the ongoing storyline, but on the other hand, it's well written, and engagingly presented filler, and it does serve as a good companion piece to the main story, as it covers similar themes. The Akatsuki are going around collecting Tailed-Beasts in order to further their plans, so it makes sense that arch-villain Orochimaru will be looking to maintain a balance of power by finding his own ninja weapon of mass destruction. It also makes sense that the Hidden Leaf Village will send out ninja to stop him, and with Sasuke currently with Orochimaru, it makes sense that Naruto will be part of that mission as well.


The problem with this filler arc is the same problem that afflicts many shonen anime shows, regardless of whether the material is filler or not. It's just that the story is stretched, and stretched again to fill as much run time as possible, so there will be flashbacks, and recaps galore. There will be a lot of standing around talking about stuff, and people will provide exposition prior to, after, and indeed during important developments in the plot. You have to have a lot of patience to get on with anime of this sort. The Three Tails Arc of Naruto Shippuden has a whole lot of this, and it has more than its fair share of plot reversals and power shifts, as the balance alters between Naruto's team and Orochimaru's minions like a tennis match.


What makes this filler arc work, and indeed provides much of its appeal, is that the characters of Guren and Yuukimaru are so interesting, and likeable. Their stories provide the heart of this arc, and it's to see how their relationship developed that I stuck with the filler, despite the usual delaying tactics. Guren and Yuukimaru's arc was engaging enough to make me care about the characters, and even get a little misty-eyed when things began to look bleak for them, and Guren's past threatened to shatter the fragile trust that had been built between them. It's also an interesting story that doesn't necessarily focus on Naruto, even though he is a driving force in the narrative. What it does do is present a Naruto who is at first mistaken in his perceptions, and a Naruto that stubbornly clings to his prejudice about people. It shows a Naruto who is wrong, and he even appears as an antagonist at times. That he has to overcome his preconceptions about Guren makes his character arc in this story also very interesting.


It may be filler, and it may be doled out to us in drip feed, but I think the Three Tails Arc of Naruto has been the best filler to date. It could have been much more efficiently told of course. Stripped of the excessive back and forth, the flashbacks, and the recaps, and the endless exposition, it could have fit happily into ten or so episodes. In fact, do all this, sharpen the focus on Guren and Yuukimaru even further, and throw some more money at the action sequences and the animation, and this arc could have been better than either of the two Shippuden movies released to date. The Three Tails Arc goes to prove that even filler can be enjoyable if the story is right. If you have a tendency to avoid the stuff though, be aware that just as the start of the previous collection had a few minutes of canon material, the conclusion of episode 112 here also has two minutes of canon material presented as an epilogue to the Three-Tails Arc. If you are going to be compelled to buy a filler arc to keep in touch with the canon storyline because of tactics like this, you could do a lot worse than the Three-Tails Arc.