×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Review

by Theron Martin,

Naruto

DVD - Uncut DVD Box Set 6

Synopsis:
Naruto Uncut DVD Box Set 6
Sasuke has returned, and the final battle of the Chunin Exams – Sasuke vs. Gaara – is now at hand. The greater plan of the Sand Village is also at hand, and during a key point in the Sasuke/Gaara battle they strike, commencing various aspects of an all-out attack on the Hidden Leaf Village. While Gai and Kakashi battle enemy forces in the arena, the instructors lead the children to safety, other security forces try to delay/thwart the attackers, and the Third Hokage confronts Orochimaru, the true mastermind of the attack, in a ninja-style rooftop cage match to the death. Meanwhile, Kakashi dispatches Naruto, Sakura, and Shikimaru to pursue Sasuke, who has gone after the wounded Gaara, a key component of the assault who has been carried away until he can recover. As the young ninja soon discover to their horror, there is a reason why Gaara was considered the lynchpin of the operation. In Gaara, Naruto finds his ultimate foe.
Review:

After being released irregularly during 2006 and 2007, Viz Media's uncut boxed set releases of Naruto now seem to be settling into a regular 9-10 week release pattern. Sub fans will naturally delight in finally having the broadcast episodes available in official subtitle form with the original openers and closers intact, and getting 13 episodes for less than the price of two normal anime DVDs is a bit of a bargain, but the biggest advantage to this release format is that it helps offset the series' Dragon Ball Z-like tendency to drag things out. Naruto is a series best watched in big chunks, and these releases allow you to do that. The downside to going rigidly with 13-episode blocks is that the releases savagely cut across plot lines; this one, for instance, starts in the midst of the Chunin Exam final rounds and ends in the midst of Naruto's climatic battle with Gaara. (Admittedly, though, the final scene of episode 78 does offer one hell of an incentive to continue watching into the next set.)

Throughout this run, which spans episodes 66-78, the series displays one of its most remarkable traits in full force: its ability to take 3-4 episodes worth of plot and action and somehow turn them into more than a dozen episodes. It extends face-downs under the illusion of creating tension, wastes time on needlessly thorough and detailed flashbacks, has most key characters descend into internal and/or external exposition about motivations, gives full development even to fights not central to the storyline, and drags the Third Hokage/Orochimaru fight on interminably by only showing a couple of repetitive minutes of it in every episode beyond a certain point – in other words, all of the series' standard tricks. Granted, the scope of the attack on the Hidden Leaf Village is so vast, and so many key events are going on in it at the same time, that dealing with all of them inevitably requires spreading things out, which the luxury of a long-running shonen format allows the series to do. Even so, the notions of “going overboard” and “tackling too much” seem foreign concepts to the creators.

As frustrating as Naruto can be to watch, though, it does have its moments, and those are usually enough to make up for the tedium of wading through all its stretched-out crap. Highlights in this block including Sasuke returning to show off his impressive new Chidori technique, the Third Hokage finally showing exactly why he is Hokage, numerous nicely-executed battles, and Gaara finally revealing his true form. (More cynical fans might also add, “and the series finally affirming that it does have a plot beyond the Chunin Exam tournament structure.”)

The biggest highlights belong to Naruto, however. His climatic fight against Gaara begins in typical fashion, but his realization that, in Gaara, he has found the person he could have been had he not found people to befriend and care for him lends a depth and emotion to the situation that most confrontations in the series do not have. That realization, and the following one that a responsible ninja is strongest when working for more than just himself, allows Naruto, for the first time in the series, to truly and fully come into his own. Nowhere in the entire series run does Naruto shine brighter than in the peak period of his battle against Gaara (which begins in episode 78), and nowhere in the series does he produce a bigger jaw-dropper of a move in than in the final scene of that episode. Unfortunately the set ends before finishing it out.

Although the series generally has a solid visual appeal, at times its artistry becomes erratic in style in quality, and those moments most often happen when the series attempts to fully animate complex battle scenes. Such a breakdown can be seen on a couple of occasions in this volume, while in other places the animation uses various common action shortcuts and scene repeats (especially those involving Naruto, Sakura, Shikimaru, and the ninja dog leaping through the trees) to simplify matters. On the plus side, it continues to offer appealing character designs, plenty of flashy displays of ninja power and moves, respectable background art, and involved battle scenes which, at their best, include some extremely intricate maneuvers. Naruto has become a big success primarily because of its active, entertaining action, and this set delivers no shortage of that.

The soundtrack for these episodes relies most on the same Core Mix of rock numbers, solemn melodies, and themes grounded in classical Japanese traditions that have been staples of the series to date, though it does not shy from infusing in fresher numbers as needed. Whether or not the soundtrack is worth listening to separately may be debatable, but it does its job well in playing up the excitement and mood of the storytelling. The original closers “Alive” (for episodes 65-77) and “Imamade Nandomo” (for episode 78), neither of which ever aired in the Cartoon Network broadcast, are both present in this release. Opener “Kanashimi o Yasashisani” for episodes 65-77 saw its visuals but not its song used in the CN broadcasts, but episode 78 shows that highly suitable new opener “Go!!!” was used faithfully by CN.

Aside from how much it borrows from Dragon Ball Z (and fans who don't think it does need to get a clue), the biggest point of contention over Naruto has often been its English dub. It shouldn't be, though, as complaints that the English dub is off the mark or poorly-performed have little solid foundation. The English performances often lay a bit of extra style and attitude onto the roles, which may be principally responsible for it not setting well with those who originally watched the series subtitled, but on the flip side the original Japanese dub sounds tame to someone who watched the series dubbed first and better distinguishes the innumerable male roles from one another, which is a big problem in the Japanese dub. Besides, some of the key roles in this volume – most notably Yuri Lowenthal as Sasuke (is that really the same actor who voiced Leo in Scrapped Princess?) and Liam O'Brien's superb effort as Gaara – are as close to the original performances as could reasonably be expected. Complaints that certain English VAs get overused in supporting roles also have little standing, as Naruto still has one of the broadest English casts of any anime ever dubbed and the Japanese cast frequently reused seiyuu, too. The English script also generally stays very close to the original, too.

The 13 episodes are spread across three disks in a 4/4/5 pattern, which come in a quad-fold case inside a foil-coated slip cover that also includes a booklet containing an untranslated storyboard breakdown for all of episode 66. On-disk Extras are all found on the third disk, and include production art, a preview of volume 7, and a storyboard/animation comparison for parts of episode 78. The only English translation of the credits available in the entire box set is also found there, as the episodes use the fully original Japanese openers and closers. Notably, the song lyrics do not show unless the subtitles in general are turned on.

It may start typically, but the sixth box set ends with the beginning of a four-episode run that represents the series at its very best. Regrettably, viewers have to wade through lots of drawn-out content to get to the juicy moments, but that is par for the course in Naruto.

Grade:
Overall (dub) : B
Overall (sub) : B
Story : B-
Animation : B
Art : B+
Music : B+

+ Episode 78, effective use of soundtrack.
D R A G S ! ! !

discuss this in the forum (22 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url
Add this anime to
Add this DVD to
Production Info:
Director: Hayato Date
Series Composition:
Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Junki Takegami
Script:
Kou Hei Mushi
Yuka Miyata
Satoru Nishizono
Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Yasuyuki Suzuki
Junki Takegami
Akatsuki Yamatoya
Michiko Yokote
Shin Yoshida
Storyboard:
Tetsuro Amino
Hayato Date
Takafumi Hayashi
Yuki Hayashi
Tsubute Hyakuno
Hayauma Ippaku
Satoru Iriyoshi
Takaaki Ishiyama
Mashu Itō
Kei Jūmonji
Shigenori Kageyama
Hiroki Kawashima
Hiroshi Kimura
Yūki Kinoshita
Ichizō Kobayashi
Junya Koshiba
Rion Kujo
Masaaki Kumagai
Yasuaki Kurotsu
Koji Masunari
Hitoyuki Matsui
Tsuyoshi Matsumoto
Tokuyuki Matsutake
Yasuhiro Minami
Yuichiro Miyake
Masahiko Murata
Noriyuki Nakamura
Atsushi Nigorikawa
Toshiya Niidome
Mitsutaka Noshitani
Seiji Okuda
Takeyuki Sadohara
Mamoru Sasaki
Shinji Satō
Toshiyuki Shimazu
Hirofumi Suzuki
Tetsuji Takayanagi
Chiyuki Tanaka
Toshiyuki Tsuru
Hidehito Ueda
Yasunori Urata
Atsushi Wakabayashi
Yū Yamashita
Ryō Yasumura
Episode Director:
Hayato Date
Mamoru Enomoto
Kiyomu Fukuda
Hayato Goda
Yuki Hayashi
Yasuyuki Honda
Masayuki Iimura
Mashu Itō
Shigenori Kageyama
Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Hiroshi Kimura
Yūki Kinoshita
Rion Kujo
Masaaki Kumagai
Tsuyoshi Matsumoto
Yoshihisa Matsumoto
Kyōsuke Mikuriya
Shūji Miyahara
Masahiko Murata
Atsushi Nigorikawa
Toshiya Niidome
Mitsutaka Noshitani
Yoshinori Odaka
Yukio Okazaki
Takeyuki Sadohara
Shinji Satō
Akira Shimizu
Yoshihiro Sugai
Chiyuki Tanaka
Toshiyuki Tsuru
Yasunori Urata
Atsushi Wakabayashi
Kazuyoshi Yokota
Unit Director:
Rion Kujo
Koji Masunari
Tokuyuki Matsutake
Hirofumi Suzuki
Toshiyuki Tsuru
Yū Yamashita
Music:
Musashi Project
Toshio Masuda
Original Manga: Masashi Kishimoto
Character Design:
Tetsuya Nishio
Hirofumi Suzuki
Art Director: Shigenori Takada
Art:
Tomoyuki Shimizu
Shinji Sugiyama
Kazuhiko Suzuki
Shigenori Takada
Michiko Taniguchi
Animation Director:
Naoki Aisaka
Mariko Aoki
Atsushi Aono
Seiko Asai
Yukiko Ban
Jong Ki Choi
Hideki Hashimoto
Kumiko Horikoshi
Masaru Hyodo
Yasuhiko Kanezuka
Kazuhisa Kosuge
Akira Matsushima
Tokuyuki Matsutake
Minoru Morita
Yūji Moriyama
Kenichiro Ogata
Hidehiko Okano
Hiromi Okazaki
Takako Onishi
Takeshi Ōsaka
Yukimaro Ōtsubo
Kazuya Saitō
Chikara Sakurai
Gorou Sessha
Haruo Sotozaki
Hirofumi Suzuki
Shinichi Suzuki
Marie Tagashira
Chiyuki Tanaka
Akihiro Tsuda
Takenori Tsukuma
Zenjirō Ukulele
Atsushi Wakabayashi
Masafumi Yamamoto
Hideyuki Yoshida
Sound Director: Yasunori Ebina
Director of Photography: Atsuho Matsumoto
Producer:
Tomoko Gushima
Ken Hagino
Noriko Kobayashi
Licensed by: ShoPro Entertainment

Full encyclopedia details about
Naruto (TV)

Release information about
Naruto [Uncut] (DVD box 6)

Review homepage / archives