I should mention that I binge-watched this show and skipped about 95% of the fillers. I will try to keep this review spoiler free.
Naruto Shippuden takes place about 2.5 years after the events which transpired in the original Naruto series. Sasuke Uchiha deserted the Hidden Leaf Village and joined up with the sinister Orochimaru to gain more power in his quest to kill his brother and avenge his family. Naruto Uzumaki decided to train with Jiraiya in order to improve his skill so he could get Sasuke back to his side. Meanwhile the threat of the organization called Akatsuki drives ever closer, who are
...
out to capture Naruto.
The story is rarely the strong point of a shonen anime. It often comes down to a villain who is drunk on power and who wants to take control of the world. In that regard Naruto Shippuden is not that much different. At the start it’s simple, but effective. Without spoiling too much I found that the story did get a bit too convoluted at the end, but I imagine it can be difficult to try and wrap it all up.
I will say however that almost each villain has his own unique reason for why they want to achieve world domination. In some cases, I found myself even sympathizing with the villains. The line between good and bad is blurry and often there are flashbacks which explain why a villain has had a change of heart and why he or she has those different ideologies. There are a lot of interesting and tragic themes such as pain, isolation and destiny. These different motivations bring more depth to the villains.
This is why I found the characters to be the best part of the show. There is the typical shonen protagonist Naruto Uzumaki. He is a total goofball, yet very dependable at the same time. He works and trains the hardest and he has the ability to connect with other people. He’s a good main character and I found myself cheering for him throughout the whole show. Sasuke Uchiha at the other hand is the complete opposite of Naruto. He is “cool”, very talented, all the girls swoon over him, but he struggles with himself and mainly with his past. Even throughout the original Naruto show I found Sasuke to be a very polarizing character. At points I disliked him and at other points I sort of liked him. This trend continued for me in Naruto Shippuden.
Then there are a lot of other characters, who all have their own powers and weaknesses. We of course have all the Hidden Leaf Ninjas. We get introduced to ninjas from other villages. Some characters from the past get more fleshed out. Finally, we have the villains. I already made mention of the them up above. Pain and Itachi are some of my favorite characters in any anime ever. So, all in all that leaves us with more than 50 important characters. All of them are unique and you’ll find yourself picking favorites for some of these characters. Some of them focus on long distance, while others are hand to hand combat specialists. If you watched the original Naruto you will know there is a big difference between a Shikamaru or a Rock Lee fight.
The main problem with having so many characters however is that not every character gets developed or his/her time to shine. In the original Naruto show we saw minor characters having proper 1 on 1 fights during the Chunin Exams and during the Sasuke Recovery arcs. They got multiple episodes and often you saw flashbacks of their pasts. This way you got interested in some of those characters and you had your favorites. Because so many new characters get introduced during Shippuden – and since we do not have THAT many villains – some of these ninjas do not get any fights during the whole of Shippuden. This is a shame since I was invested in some of them and subsequently didn’t get to see if they learned new techniques or improved. Their characters in effect didn’t develop much / at all.
In addition, there is also a bit too much powering up going on to my liking. The fighting, the techniques and the damage inflicted all get turned up a few scales. Some characters even get buffed/evolve multiple times during one fight, which makes them literally (demi) gods. Other characters meanwhile stay behind. I believe this is called power creep?
Another strong point of this show is the setting, the world of Naruto. How someone can come up with ideas and concepts like ninja villages, ninjutsu, genjutsu, kages, tailed beasts and how all that stuff is connected, is beyond me. It’s genius and it’s all carefully laid out and explained in this show.
Just like in the original Naruto show, the soundtrack is amazing. There are some tracks which will pump you up for another great fight, and there are tracks which will hit you right in the feels. There are 20 different openings and 40 different endings. I’m sure you will find something you like and dislike. Personally, I liked the opening track called Silhouette by KANA-BOON the most.
The animation is good. It can be a bit inconsistent and there is an obvious change of pace when high action episodes occur. I like the style of animation which gets used during those high actions episodes. It is more fluid, but I could understand if people didn’t like it. The fights and more specifically the hand to hand combat scenes are often amazing; even mesmerizing. I don’t like it though when the animation in openings already spoil upcoming events or matchups. This happened a couple of times.
I feel like I also should mention something about the fillers. I binge-watched Naruto Shippuden and I skipped 95% of the fillers. I recommend you to do the same. I watched about 80 fillers of the original Naruto and they were mostly dreadful. 40% of the episodes are fillers so look on some website or in the forums here to find out which episodes are skippable. I recommend watching the Kakashi and Itachi focused fillers. They were enjoyable.
The downside of binge-watching is that some of the repeated flashbacks are skippable as well. There are so many flashbacks in Naruto. It’s insane how often they for example showed Sasuke’s past with Itachi. I get that it’s really important, but they’ll show you the exact same scene about 5 times. If you watch 1 episode per week these flashbacks might be welcome (although I can imagine these kinds of viewers would rather want new and original content), but if you watch all the episodes in rapid succession then I’d say the repeated flashbacks are filler-esque too, unless you have a terrible memory.
Overall, I would say that I really enjoyed this anime. I binge-watched this at a high pace during a somewhat difficult time in my life. I was always curious to find out what was going to happen next. At some point I was thinking about giving this a 10/10, but I decided with a 9.5/10 because of some nitpicking during the final arc. A day after I watched the final episode I just had a bit of an empty feeling as a huge, fun part of my evening and night disappeared. I am sad it ended, but I really enjoyed the ride. Let’s hope Boruto will prove to be a worthy sequel.
Dec 24, 2017
Naruto: Shippuuden
(Anime)
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I should mention that I binge-watched this show and skipped about 95% of the fillers. I will try to keep this review spoiler free.
Naruto Shippuden takes place about 2.5 years after the events which transpired in the original Naruto series. Sasuke Uchiha deserted the Hidden Leaf Village and joined up with the sinister Orochimaru to gain more power in his quest to kill his brother and avenge his family. Naruto Uzumaki decided to train with Jiraiya in order to improve his skill so he could get Sasuke back to his side. Meanwhile the threat of the organization called Akatsuki drives ever closer, who are ... |
