The anime adaptation of Naruto Shippuden has been a bumpy ride for the last couple of boxsets, with the series mired in a dirge of random mix of filler and poorly paced canon episodes, often with poor animation. The final episode of Boxset 25 kicked everything into high gear with a frankly incredible episode that had Madara Uchiha wiping the floor with the Unified Shinobi forces. However, as it has many times before, Naruto Shippuden loses the initiative and starts meandering. Even so, there is a focus that hasn’t been seen since the “Power” arc three sets ago, and that does put this set of Naruto Shippuden above the previous half-year’s worth of material. It helps that these are all canonical stories adapted from Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, other than a few (okay, more like several) deviations in certain episodes to pad things. And what transpires here is important because the events here are setting up the remaining characters for their final battles.
Madara winds up fighting the Five Kage leading the Unified Forces, while Naruto sets off after the other Madara who we also know as ‘Tobi.’ It is clear that Tobi is little more than an impostor for the real Madara wreaking havoc in the desert, but the question of who Tobi might be remains a mystery. Naruto is determined to find out Tobi’s identity by shattering his mask (his first attempt, in true Naruto fashion, being a headbutt), but Tobi has other ideas, especially considering his additional muscle from his group of revived Jinchuuriki, who still have their Tailed Beast abilities even though their Tailed Beasts have been extracted. Even with Killer B backing him up, Naruto has a rough go of it, and it’s interesting to see how our two outnumbered but stronger Jinchuuriki deal with an all-out assault by their contemporaries. Naruto also gets a brief conversation with one of them, Utakata, who he had encountered earlier in the anime, allowing for a nice callback to an anime-only filler arc that gives it more importance in retrospect.
However, it quickly becomes clear that Naruto just does not have enough power to overcome everyone fighting against him and B. In order to do so, he must finally connect with the Nine-Tails and learn his name. The Nine-Tails, full of hatred for both Naruto and for humanity in general, isn’t one to easily fall for sentimentality. Naruto’s attempts to convince the Nine-Tails to finally become his ally instead of just his power source comes off as a bit ham-fisted, but the confrontation itself is nicely done. It’s always interesting when Naruto’s mind dives into the seal to talk to the beast, and while those times look to be coming to an end, at least this one last go of it has some compelling imagery and dialogue.
Meanwhile, Sasuke is slowly, gradually making his way towards the battlefield, wandering through towns and forests in pursuit of his own agenda. He’s been out of focus for the last several boxsets, so unless you have a good memory, it’s easy to forget what Sasuke’s motives are. The anime does include several flashbacks to preceding events, not just for Sasuke, but for a lot of other characters to refresh the audience on current events. However, if your memory is good or you spend a heavy amount of time on a Naruto wiki, the plentiful flashbacks will drive you insane, especially as it is yet another way for the anime to pad.
Sasuke’s wandering leads eventually leads him to Itachi, who Naruto had freed from Kabuto’s control earlier. Sasuke being Sasuke, he chases after Itachi with a vengeance, only for Itachi to lead him to a true enemy: Kabuto himself, who quickly becomes
even more grotesque than he already was. Kabuto ascends to a “true state”, calling himself a “dragon” beyond Orochimaru’s power, and he quickly moves to disable both Itachi and Sasuke. However, just as he begins enacting his trap, we flashback to Kabuto as a child, learning about what turned a child adopted by a kindly kunoichi named Nono into the literal monster he has become.
While the flashbacks to his childhood are based in the manga, I am unsure if they are totally necessary, and the way they are clumsily inserted into the action against Itachi and Sasuke kills the intensity almost immediately. It does not help that the flashbacks effectively end the set, suggesting that they’re going to continue into the next set as well. It just doesn’t feel like this is something about Kabuto we really need to know about. He doesn’t need a sympathetic backstory, since he was fine enough as it is being a sadistic Orochimaru-worshipper who has developed delusions of grandeur and turned into a bigger monster than Orochimaru ever was. There is no way to wring sympathy out of this character, even though it’s likely that Nono’s fate in the flashbacks (considering she has never appeared in the story until now) was the turning point in his life. It just feels misguided, like an attempt to create emotion where it’s impossible to. Nothing can excuse Kabuto’s behavior, and moreover, nothing can redeem him at this juncture. This was already tried on countless other villains, former and current, in the Naruto saga, from Gaara to Itachi to Pain, but it just doesn’t work on either Orochimaru or Kabuto. They’re too far gone to be redeemed or to be sympathetic.
It also doesn’t help that all of the episodes on this set fall squarely into the “mediocre” category in animation quality. One episode may be mostly on-model but lacking in its in-betweens, while another may be more off-model but be more fluid. Even the best episodes can’t live up to the best episodes in this show animation-wise. That being said, Kishimoto’s manga left all sorts of excellent stills that even a poor animator could not possibly mess up in the translation into animation, and that certainly helps with keeping things at least somewhat engaging.
Yasuharu Takanashi’s score is mostly reused from older episodes, as themes from far back as episode one reappear in this set; the newer tunes take a bit of a backseat here. Usage of his music has improved a little bit, but it remains too often a crutch, and the recycling of old themes does not make them feel like new again, sadly.
The excellent 13th opening, “Niwaka Ame Nimo Makezu” by NICO Touches the Walls, and the rather meh 26th closing “Yume o Daite ~Hajimari no Clisroad~” by Rake, both exit this set late. The 14th opening, “Tsuki no Ookisa” by girl-pop group Nogizaka46, is a poor choice for the show at this juncture. It has an infectious, bouncy sound, which blends with the dark themes of the episodes like oil and water, and the animation in the opening is poorly choreographed, as if the animators realized that the match wasn’t going to work and stopped caring. The Sasuke-centric visuals and darker-toned sound of “Black Night Town” by Akihisa Kondou at least match each other well and prove more interesting to view.
The English and the Japanese soundtracks continue their usual professional efforts, although Steve Blum seems to be taking his turn as the voice actor used for too many roles at once in the English version. Maile Flaningan sounds more worn out than ever, however, while Junko Takeuchi seems like she can keep this up for another ten years. English scripting remains largely faithful, but the script seems to have a rather dry quality that weakens the characters’ personalities to a degree, although the dour seriousness of everybody in this set is likely a factor in that impression, too. It is a pleasant surprise in the English version to hear veteran Karen Strassman make her series debut after all this time as Nono, playing her practically perfectly and with a bit more heart than the Japanese actress.
A couple of character galleries are thrown into the extras along with the usual clean openings and closings, along with what feels like a million Naruto and Bleach-related trailers. Nothing spectacular, but at least there’s a bit more than usual.
Overall, this is a standard Naruto canon boxset. However, we haven’t had a “standard Naruto canon boxset” since the end of the Confining the Jinchuuriki Arc. After all that time, it’s frankly nice to have one and see the story actually progress for a while without any hiccups or long periods of stoppage. That alone makes this collection of Naruto Shippuden episodes worth the time to watch, even if the execution isn’t perfect. Hopefully this can keep going for a little bit longer, without crashing into yet another pile of ill-conceived filler.
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