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

Introduction

Are we ready for more Naruto? There was something of a protracted wait between the end of Naruto, and the release of the first instalment of Naruto Shippuden in the UK. It was enough to dull the pain of relentless filler, and it was also enough to re-ignite that enthusiasm that I initially had for the adventures of this bright orange ninja. I have to admit that I was quite jazzed for the first collection of Shippuden adventures back in June, and that anticipation was certainly rewarded. But Manga Entertainment seem to be playing catch-up with Naruto Shippuden, in much the same way they did with the first series, only this time they aren't only chasing the US distributor Viz, who handle the Shippuden chores in the US. But also Crunchyroll, who simulcast Shippuden to the world not long after the Japanese television broadcast. We've had the first 13 episodes on UK DVD; the Japanese are up to episode 170. So it is that barely two months after the first set, we get the second set of episodes on DVD, and in the interim, we've had the first Shippuden movie as well. That movie turned out to be much the same as all the other Naruto movies, which was something of a disappointment. It still hasn't worn off that thrill I still feel at the prospect of more televised Naruto, especially episodes that continue the manga storyline.


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.

14. Naruto's Growth
15. The Secret Weapon is Called…
16. The Secret of Jinchuriki
17. The Death of Gaara!
When last we left Naruto Shippuden, Akatsuki had made their first move, and kidnapped Gaara, now Kazekage of the Sand Village, to perform a ritual that removes the One-Tailed Beast within him. Of course, such an operation would leave the patient dead, not that the members of Akatsuki care. They have the same fate envisaged for Naruto. But Naruto and the ninja of the Leaf Village have raced to the aid of their Sand allies, and even now with Granny Chiyo, sage of the Sand, they are tracking down the hideout of Akatsuki so that they can rescue Gaara. But first they have to deal with two of Akatsuki's number who stands before them. Gai, Lee, Neji and Tenten confront Kisame, while Granny Chiyo, Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura face off against Itachi, Sasuke's brother. It isn't long before Naruto is drawn into Itachi's hypnotic Genjutsu, but not everything is what it seems, especially when Naruto has a new jutsu of his own to unleash.


18. Charge Tactic! Button Hook Entry!
19. Traps Activate! Team Guy's Enemies
20. Hiruko vs. Two Kunoichi!
21. Sasori's Real Face
Team Gai and Team Kakashi rendezvous at the lair of Akatsuki, but they are faced with a barrier that will take all of their skills and abilities to defeat. There are five seals on this barrier that must be removed simultaneously, difficult when they are spaced kilometres apart. Gai's team spreads out to handle the seals, while it will be up to Sakura to handle the more physical barrier. But waiting for them are Sasori and Deidara, and just to make things difficult, they split up. Deidara takes Gaara and flees, succeeding in leading his target Naruto away with Kakashi in tow. That leaves Granny Chiyo and Sakura to face Chiyo's grandson Sasori, and this isn't going to be a pleasant family reunion. If either pair was hoping for backup, they're going to be disappointed, as by removing the seals, Gai's team have unleashed a trap. Gai, Lee, Tenten and Neji now have to face their exact duplicates, in essence they have to defeat themselves.


22. Chiyo's Secret Skills
23. Father and Mother
24. The Third Kazekage
25. Three Minutes Between Life and Death
26. Puppet Fight: 10 vs. 100!
Gai's team is in a stalemate, Kakashi is having a hard time reining in the impulsive tendencies of Naruto, and so it's down to Sakura and Chiyo to defeat Sasori. But in the twenty years since Chiyo last saw her grandson, he's changed beyond recognition, a puppet master of unparalleled ability, exceeding anything his grandmother taught him. On top of that, all of his puppets carry poisoned weapons, so that Chiyo and Sakura can't even get close. His most fearsome talent though, is that he turns his foes into puppets, and among his defeated menagerie is the Third Kazekage himself, with his devastating Iron Sand jutsu. But Sakura wasn't just sitting around for the last two years odd. She's got some fearsome abilities of her own now.

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 mite 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. The rap song opening certainly works in kicking off the new series with the right triumphant mood. 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 the chapter breaks are still restored. Each episode ends in a brief animated Naruto comedy skit. The extras are on disc 2, 16 line art images in a Production Art Gallery, and trailers for the first Naruto Shippuden movie and the original Naruto series.

In the US, you get a Voice Actor Featurette, a Sand vs. Leaf - Shippuden Quiz Show, and an Interactive Character Relations Chart. What you don't get are compulsory BBFC classification fees.

Conclusion

Was Naruto ever this slow? I know the first series had its problems with filler, and stretching out fights over several episodes, but surely it can't have been as tortuous as this. The first instalment of Naruto Shippuden was also as slowly paced, but it had a couple of things going for it. For one, it was the resumption of the main manga storyline after several volumes of filler, for which I was in a very forgiving mood, and the second was that it disguised the fact by telling two stories at once, the tale of Naruto's homecoming, and the attack on the Sand Village by Akatsuki. In this second volume, all the action has moved to the Sand, we're focussing exclusively on Naruto's attempts to rescue Gaara, and by golly have we hit the slow lane!


It tries to deceive by having more than one thread running. As we begin, Gai's team is facing Kisame, and Naruto's team is facing Itachi, and we alternate between the two as they resolve their respective situations. We also have the occasional aside to the Sand Village, to see the politicking taking place there, and how Gaara's allies Temari and Kankuro are dealing with it. But once the two teams meet up outside the Akatsuki hideout, all pretence of pace is dispensed with. They eventually manage to break in, but find that they are too late. Breaking the seals unleash doppelgangers for Gai, Neji, Tenten and Rock Lee to face, which sounds really cool when you consider Lee's Taijutsu, and Neji's close-up fighting technique, and you may hope for some awesome one-on-one battles. But the whole point of this development is to tie the four ninja up, stall them, so the fights aren't all that thrilling, the animation is uninspiring, and it's just a case of cutting to them once or twice an episode to see them going through the motions.


By the same token, Deidara takes Gaara and flees, leading off an out of control Naruto in chase, followed by a weary Kakashi trying to pull the impulsive orange ninja back in. This chase continues, relatively unchanged for the next seven episodes, and again every time we cut to them, it's a case of Deidara trying to lead them on further, and Naruto chasing like a maniac, with Kakashi trying to sow a seed of reason. It eventually takes root, and at the end of the discs, it looks like they've come up with a plan, but we'll have to wait till the next volume to find out. Incidentally, I learned that this first season of Naruto Shippuden is actually 32 episodes in length, so if you were expecting it to conclude with this instalment, you'll probably be disappointed. Manga are sticking faithfully to 13 episodes per volume, rather than half season sets. It's a good thing too, as later on in the run, there is a Shippuden season of fewer than 10 episodes in length.


That leaves Sakura and Granny Chiyo versus Sasori. And fortunately this is where the story develops, and this is where the action really occurs, and thankfully, it's where the animators put in the effort to make it look as good as they could. Again, it's not exactly lightning paced, and with the action cutting away every so often to check up on Team Gai, and on Naruto, and one time on Chiyo's brother Ebizu telling Kankuro and Temari a story about the Third Kazekage, it does feel like getting blood from a stone. It turns out that Sakura has been taking berserker lessons from Tsunade, and she's an unpredictable element in a very imaginative puppeteer versus puppeteer fight, skilled ninja of such ability that they make Kankuro's puppets look like children's playthings. As usual there are plenty of flashbacks to humanise Sasori, whose troubled childhood turned him into a bloodthirsty psychopath worthy of many a slasher movie (he physically turns his victims into puppets that he uses against his next targets). Naruto is a show that goes out of its way to humanise its villains, and seeing Sasori creating puppets to take the place of his fallen parents certainly offers mixed feelings.


But this section of Naruto Shippuden is something that I have been waiting for since the beginning of Naruto. That's nine seasons of Naruto, and half a season of Shippuden. It's a damnably long time, but I finally get to see Sakura in action. Aside from the Chunin tests where she faced her former best friend Ino, and in the odd minor skirmish, we've never really seen her ninja abilities put to the test. She's always been the observer, cheering Naruto and Sasuke on from the sidelines. Now with just her and Chiyo facing Sasori, and with no one else to back them up, it's up to her to kick arse. And boy does she ever! It's as if the creators have been just as aware how frustrating it has been to see Sakura holding back, and they've delivered a fight that's up there with the best of the series. She does take a while to warm up, tentatively facing off against the puppet master, but as the challenge increases, and the threat to her and Chiyo intensifies, so does her strength, confidence and speed, until the final episode in this set, when puppet pandemonium breaks loose, and she winds up facing dozens of foes simultaneously. Fortunately the quality of the animation, and the direction is enough to make the most of the story.


Naruto Shippuden's second instalment is slow, it's tedious, and at times it does feel interminable. Most of the characters are stuck in idle, not really advancing the story at all, and if this were all there were to it, I would be seriously reconsidering my earlier enthusiasm for Naruto Shippuden, indeed advising you to give the show a wide berth. But to see Sakura kick arse as enthusiastically, and as flamboyantly as she does here, makes the tedium all worthwhile. At the end of the previous volume, I thought that we would see Sakura cut loose against Itachi, associating him with the loss of Sasuke. That was just a red herring, but Sasori made a mistake when he mentioned that he knew Orochimaru, and that was just the motivation Sakura needed. I sense (or rather read on Wikipedia) that we're coming close to the end of the rescue Gaara arc. Hopefully the pace will pick up thereafter. I don't think I could bear much more of Shippuden stuck in the slow lane.