What They Say:
Gaara meets with Fugi, the mastermind behind the assassination attempt on his life. He confides that perhaps, after all the fear and pain he has wrought upon the Sand, he has no right to be their leader.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The show spent some decent time getting things moving along a bit in the previous episode for this arc, especially since cocoon time isn’t always something that works well. With our mysterious priest causing quite the problem, it was decently fun to see Neji figure out how to handle the event overall and provide a pleasant surprise for him, which in turn changed the overall dynamic of the event. What we got was a decent bit of thoughtful approach to dealing with the situation rather than brute force, though force was used in the end. And for Gaara, it again painted another moment where help of those from Hidden Leaf came into play, which is a familiar refrain overall for him in the larger context of the series.
With that mostly dealt with for the moment, the show has Gaara insisting that the exam resume and those testing get their chance to achieve their goals, which is good. But it also has him going into an extended flashback sequence in the first half to his own time with Shira with the kind of wisdom he imparted there, and what he learned of himself from it all about the way people mature. What it turns into, in a minorly interesting way, is that we see Gaara struggle with whether he’s the right person to lead the village at this phase. Of course, we know that he ends up sticking to it since there’s so many other events that we see, and a little self doubt placed into his background isn’t a bad thing. But it’s also not something that will color any of his actions overall since most of what we see of him in the main timeline after this has him acting in a fairly assured way.
Interestingly, as the second exam ends and we see Gaara making it clear that he does intend to lead, which shows the elder leaders that are worried about him, Gaara does intend to cancel the third exam because there are so many internal issues within the Sand to be dealt with that following through with the last leg of the exam would be problematic to say the least. There are some decent movements that come into it in the second half about what the examinees will be able to do so that it’s not a total loss, and they certainly understand it considering what the Sand residents are going through, but it’s all put behind us for the moment as we get some time with the Akatsuki making their own particular move. This starts off interesting, but is quickly cut off in favor of wrapping things up back at Hidden Leaf, where everyone has a great day in the sun as their promotions come in and everything is given a sense of minor closure – and even a little time with Naruto and Jiraiya.
In Summary:
Naruto: Shippuden gets back on track next time with the real story. The phrase “about time” doesn’t do justice to the feeling I have over it. This anime original arc had a lot of potential and could have done some neat things, but just like nearly (but not all) every other anime original arc, this was just painful more often than not and didn’t really add anything to the series as a whole. Unmemorable is what sums it up best, which is unfortunate considering the amount of effort, time and money it takes to produce these things.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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