Welcome to the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! I'm Joseph Luster and I'll be your host this week as we continue ninja-running through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto anime adaptation. After last week's spicy blend of the conclusion to the Curry of Life arc and a handful of one-offs in episodes 155 - 161, it's time to get downright spooky with the Land of Birds arc in episodes 162-168.
This time around we have a storyline that's almost beefy enough to take up the entire seven episode bundle. It's also one of the few times a filler story has focused on a baddie who isn't really connected to Orochimaru in anyway, but it still gives Naruto and his team the opportunity to evoke some of the emotions that run through the core of the show, reminding us that Sasuke is still out there somewhere.
Before Naruto can get to him, he's gonna have to solve a straight-up Scooby Doo mystery. Thus, without further ado… Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this Naruto filler arc… The Tale of the Phantom Samurai.
*sprinkles magical dust all over the post*
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The Cursed Warrior opener felt like a more natural and interesting introduction to a mission, with Naruto getting the opportunity to feel a personal connection to it and pushing to take it on. Let's start off with a State of the Filler report: How are you feeling about the structure of the series at this point?
Paul: The overall structure would be better without entire seasons' worth of filler, but to abuse the phrase that gives pro translators headaches, “it can't be helped.” The filler itself varies wildly in quality. Most of us found Raiga and Ranmaru and the Curry of Life insufferable, but I really enjoyed the Land of Birds, with its combination of low stakes, simple motives, a Scooby-Doo style mystery, and ninja actually acting like ninja.
Jared: It is what it is. We are stuck in the filler mines, but one day we will free ourselves from them. I think overall it’d be better if the longer filler arcs didn’t feel so formulaic at this point, but I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon.
Kara: With a couple of minimal gripes that don’t even really count as gripes, I really enjoyed this. It had ties back to our standard story and characterization but was content to be its own thing.
Noelle: It’s still not good; I’d rather not have any filler overall. Still, they are trying, and it is worth noting some more effort. In terms of filler, it’s pretty okay.
David: I think the structure of the series can be most cleanly explained by the whiplash between how the current opening sequence shows a highlight reel of all the coolest moments from the show so far, and the sinking feeling I get when the episode actually starts.
Carolyn: Yeah, I can’t necessarily get behind entire seasons of filler, either. That being said, I do like that we’re getting away from the Sasuke drama just a little bit and seeing a little bit more humor again.
Danni: I’m still very much dreading more seasons of pure filler, but this arc was actually... pretty good??? The Land of Birds arc stands pretty well on its own on account of not tying itself into the Sasuke plotline at all. It’s able to end on a satisfying conclusion without the caveat of “Well we didn’t come any closer to finding Sasuke.” On top of that it was a pretty interesting little side story in its own right, even if it did tip its hand a little too much with the twist. We also got a fun little absurd precursor to Food Wars which was justified entirely by seeing Naruto use Rasengan to make ramen.
Kevin: I like that they’re at least trying out new stuff. It adds a bit more to the world (even if that information later becomes contradictory) and allows for new stories. Hoki became more of a standard ninja enemy eventually, but when he was first revealed, he was using trickery to mimic more famous jutsu, which I don’t think we’ve seen as a main villain’s gimmick thus far.
We've encountered a few characters like Lady Toki in the past. The story of she and her brother Sagi—her unwavering need for revenge—adds another layer to the Sasuke parallels that drove Naruto to become invested in this mission in the first place. Did these characters work for you, and was the villain at the story’s core a suitable antagonist for a whopping six-episode arc?
Paul: I wasn't deeply emotionally invested in Ladi Toki's storyline, but her motives were clear, and so were the motives of Hoki, the opposing protagonist and the leader of the Wandering Ninja. I think Hoki works for me because he doesn't have a super-villain's goals: he just wants to take over a small, defenseless country and seize power so his clan can stop being homeless. Hoki and company also behave like actual ninja, complete with deception, thievery, dirty tricks, and subterfuge, and that's some of my favorite stuff in Naruto.
Jared: I think the character arc of Toki would have been better if it wasn’t so blatantly obvious what the twist was going to be. The villains could have been interesting with the idea of "here’s some folks that are just this mix of random jutsu." They’re unfortunately undercut from the start when they mention that while they steal their jutsu, it’s basically bad Genjutsu. So all the villains end up looking like jobbers. I mean, Kakashi literally tells one of the bigger ones that using the sharingan on him would have been a waste because of how much of a scrub this dude was.
Kara: Any villain without an upline to Orochimaru is already several points ahead in my book. I get that he’s the show’s Big Bad, but it’s easier to suspend disbelief for a world where sometimes bad things just happen and not all of it feeds back into The Ultimate Evil. As others have mentioned, the Twelfth Nightery of the whole thing is pretty heavily broadcast from the get-go, which meant I was largely distracted by wondering when the other characters were going to catch up. Even so, the story of Toki’s need for revenge and Naruto’s ability to speak to that intelligently from another POV was still good. That doesn’t change.
Noelle: Personally, I didn’t care too much for Toki, and the surprise was relatively predictable. It’s not up to the threat level of say, the Akatsuki or Orochimaru, but that’s fine—not everyone can be world-shattering cataclysmic villains. While not entirely engaging, it set out to do something and in that sense, I’ll say that it worked.
David: It absolutely didn’t have to be six whole episodes long, as evidenced by how much the plot drug its feet to get to the conclusion we all knew was coming in the first place. However, I did appreciate how Naruto himself actually seemed to be connected, at least thematically, to the story, which is the best part of the show proper and something most of the filler arcs forget to include.
Carolyn: I do agree with the previous points that I wasn’t really invested in the characters and the twist was not at all surprising. That being said, I do actually like the idea of stealing jutsu. We watch Naruto and Rock Lee and friends work so hard. Even if it’s just some lame, not very good jutsu, I like seeing the other side.
Danni: I found myself surprisingly satisfied by this arc’s cast of characters. None of them were really deeply characterized, but they were written well enough to justify the time devoted to them. It was like ninja Scooby-Doo with more political intrigue. And while I did see some of the twists coming, Moso being the real villain actually caught me pleasantly by surprise.
Kevin: In short: not really, but he could’ve been. There are several things that could’ve gotten me to like this arc more. A better twist would’ve been if Toki’s voice was always at least a bit feminine, rather than outright changing from a male voice to a female one when she is revealed. We also haven’t seen much in the way of political villains before, so Hoki being a corrupt advisor trying to gain power was actually more interesting than when his full intentions were revealed later. It wasn’t bad, it just had more interesting aspects that were ignored in favor of what ended up being a fairly standard “good guys fight single bad guy” fight.
The Land of Birds arc hinted at horror in the beginning, but it basically ended up being a beat-for-beat Scooby-Doo saga. How did your expectations of this arc pan out, and is there a particular type of direction you wish they had taken instead?
Paul: While the mystery wasn't extremely intricate—I knew as soon as they mentioned that Sagi had a twin sister that she had already disguised herself and taken her elder brother's place—the presentation sold me on this story arc. I liked how it kept creating scenarios that seemed spooky and supernatural, only to reveal them to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. I prefer that to everyone having X-Men level mutant powers.
Jared: If they didn’t keep beating home the point of Sagi and Toki being twins, it probably would’ve been better for the twist. I liked the idea of Naruto being grounded in the sense that ghosts are the one thing he just wants to nope out on. Maybe the arc as a whole would’ve been better if it leaned more into the supernatural element and have that be the big baddie.
Kara: I actually think there’s a lot of merit to playing out Scooby-Doo stories in settings that already accept at least some degree of the supernatural. Like, we’ve got people who go to school to learn to turn into snakes and possess other people. It’s entertaining to see not only a subversion of that, but also where the “spooky” line is for characters whose entire lives are pretty darn weird already.
Noelle: I live off horror, I want fully horror! But in all seriousness, having the ghosts not necessarily be truth is fine. That being said… I wouldn’t mind more horror, considering that we know spirits and souls do exist.
David: I honestly didn’t even consider that it wouldn’t technically be out of place in-universe for there to be a ghost. Now I wish that had actually happened.
Carolyn: First off, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who saw a Scooby-Doo parallel here. I even wrote a meddling kids joke in my notes. This arc was ridiculous and I loved it. I’m a big horror nerd, too. But when I was little, Scooby-Doo was as close as I could get to ghosts and demons, so I’m here for it.
Danni: Literally as soon as I saw it was about unmasking a ghost, I made a Scooby-Doo joke in our Slack channel, so that was exactly what I expected and honestly hoped for. We even got a talking dog at one point!
Kevin: I direct you to my previous answer. For those that don’t want to scroll back up, the basic version is that the arc had a lot of promise in the beginning, with a character reveal that could’ve been foreshadowed more interestingly and a type of villain we haven’t really seen in the show before… and then decided to not develop any of the interesting aspects and instead go for filler that isn’t outright bad, but just didn’t live up to what it could’ve been.
Naruto's afraid of spirits, but what about you? Are ghosts real? Regale us with your own spiritual encounters if you've had any!
Paul: When I was younger, I dabbled in occultism: seances, automatic writing, Tarot cards, transcendental meditation, etc. I used to believe in ghosts and was at one point convinced that I had actually seen and interacted with a few, but that was just the prelude to a full-on psychotic episode brought on by a combination of not eating, not sleeping, and intense grieving over the death of a close friend. Not a fun time. TL;DR version: sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, and ghosts aren't real.
Jared: I can’t say I’ve ever really had any experiences with ghosts, spirits, or what have you. So, I’m not going to sit here and say they aren’t real, but I just don’t know. Plus, I try not to mess around with things that are spooky in general, so ghosts, if you’re out there, we don’t have to cross paths if necessary.
Kara: Oh, fine, I’ll pop the seal, I guess. I went to a very old college. Declared majors could use their student IDs to get into the main building for their major 24 hours a day, so I’d abuse the privilege to take my gaming group into the English building for game night. The college has about 75 ghost stories, with the English department’s concerning a student who threw herself out the window of the third-floor study lounge (now classrooms and offices) after an especially bad year. You know the kind of story—she’d allegedly haunt happy students with good grades because she resented them. One night we’re in a second floor classroom playing whatever it was we were playing at the time. Something cracked us up enough that all of us started laughing, and a few seconds later every door on the floor above us slammed one after the other in rapid succession. I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation for it (wind, other students playing a prank), but we started gaming elsewhere regardless.
Noelle: I’m a little conflicted, because I haven’t had any supernatural experiences myself, but considering that I’ve been raised on a mix of Shinto-Buddhist and Christian beliefs, I do somewhat believe that supernatural phenomena is out there. It’s just normal to me to think that maybe there is something beyond science, that something spiritual could actually exist (also denying it and denying that many people take comfort in the existence of the supernatural feels kind of like overstepping my boundaries). Even if I’ve never seen a ghost, it would be pretty cool to see one.
David: My grandfather has had a life-sized harlequin doll for as long as I can remember, and it has always creeped me out. It’s placed in his room in such a way that when I go up the stairs to my room, I am forced to see it every single time, even at night because he leaves the TV on when he sleeps. Last week it was about 3 in the morning and I was coming upstairs with a late night snack, and as soon as I got to the top of the stairs and looked at the doll the TV flashed a bright white and I couldn’t see the doll anymore, but the sound on the TV was still going. I’m sure there’s a real explanation for this but some part of me believes the doll turned off the TV so I couldn’t see it moving.
Carolyn: Yes. They are real. Really-real real. I had one friend who was part of a Rocky Horror cast that just about everyone had a story about some weird encounter connected to him in some way. I didn’t believe it for a second, but one day I was showering and a wind-up baby doll I had as a kid started playing music. It had stringy yarn hair, which was the part that made me rethink my skepticism of everyone else’s stories. A yarn wig had spawned a kind of inside joke between him and I. That being said, I have a lot of reasons I personally believe that witchcraft/spiritualism/religion are a psychological means of coping with stress and trauma. But ghosts are totally real.
Danni: Nah.
Kevin: I’ve never encountered a ghost, and if pressed into picking a side, would probably say that they don’t exist. If definitive scientific evidence comes out though, I’ll switch sides in a heartbeat.
Enough about the supernatural, because this set of episodes ended with a mission starring Naruto and Choji, AKA The Hungry Boiz™ (feat. Sakura). Did this need the tired “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue my daughter?” setup, or would you have been perfectly happy with The Hungry Boiz™ Ramen Roundup Noodle Spectacular®?
Paul: Ayame being kidnapped felt like a superfluous detail, and the concluding fat-phobic joke (complete with piggy squealing sound effects) dampened my enjoyment of the episode. Naruto and Choji don't need a reason to get worked up over ramen, and a Ninja Chef cooking competition is compelling enough without adding an abduction subplot. Naruto and company using their combat techniques to knead noodles is more than enough for me.
Jared: It absolutely didn’t need the setup of having to save Ayame. If you take that out and the weird fat shaming near the end and instead make this into basically a cooking reality show episode, it would’ve been great. Ninja Chef is a fun and dumb concept and you don’t need to make it so there’s a conflict in order to introduce them or give Naruto and company a reason to go after them. Just have the ramen place sponsor a cooking competition with the Ninja Chefs and split everyone into teams and have at it.
Kara: I don’t need a reason for Naruto to suddenly become a food reaction anime, and “ninja ramen making” came at least 150 episodes later than I was expecting. Also you know this entire episode came about solely because someone was proud of the “ryo-nin” pun. I was all in until the very end so basically that didn’t exist and Team Nart won, the end.
Noelle: Just stick to one plotline at a time, Naruto filler. I’d gladly watch a food cooking competition instead of oh no my random daughter is now the crux of an issue.
David: I had all but forgotten what the point of the whole competition was until the terrible ‘twist’ at the end, so overall it was entertaining and definitely didn’t need that bit of motivation.
Carolyn: Ha! You keep hitting my notes on the head with a ginormous hammer. I was very happy to see ramen front and center again.
Danni: This episode made me want to get ramen, and I can actually go get ramen for lunch as soon as I’m done here, so the episode has justified itself already in my opinion.
Kevin: This is the kind of insane setup that I honestly always forget I love about this show. Sure, the dramatic moments can be great and the combat can be downright spectacular, but seeing a team of ninjas use legendary and superhuman techniques to make ramen noodles is just fun. As for the setup itself, I can go either way. Just an in-shop “Naruto tries to help ramen guy make a new recipe” would’ve worked just as much as what the show actually ended up doing.
(SIDE NOTE: As evidenced below, Danni did indeed go get ramen after this)
And now it's highs and lows time! What was your favorite aspect of this set of episodes, and what was just the absolute paranormal pits?
Paul: My favorite element was how Hoki and the Wandering Ninja claimed to be stealing techniques from other clans, but really they were just using a combination of Genjutsu and sleight of hand to trick people into thinking they had replicated powerful Ninjutsu techniques. I really dug that every visually impressive move turned out to be a dime-store imitation. Honorable mention goes to Naruto hitting noodle dough with a Rasengan. My least favorite bit was “too fat / too skinny” gags at the end of Episode 168, and I wish there were a more elegant way to localize the “aku no recipe” joke as well.
Jared: Naruto coming up with the idea to just use everyone’s jutsu to make noodles was pretty good. I found it very funny that they titled an episode “The Death of Naruto” in the midst of this filler and expected people to buy that. Low points would be just how easy it was to deduce the twist in Land of Birds and how they kind of ruined the last episode we watched with bad jokes at the end, which they’ve done quite a bit on these one-off episodes.
Kara: High point was the ramen-making sequence itself, especially Naruto deliberately cheesing Sakura off to get her “cha” on for the dough-pounding. Low point was what came right after. Special honorable mention goes to the ED going from “smol ninja being happy” to “everyone’s a dog now.”
Noelle: The ramen-making scenes! It’s just fun to see how ninjutsu can work in doing relatively mundane things. Bad side, some of this humor is very deliberately dated. Come on.
David: My high point was actually Tenten and Neji getting some much needed screentime, even if it’s in filler. They’re good characters and it reminded me of the Rock Lee spinoff show that I highly recommend if you’re fond of the side characters in Naruto. As seems common, my low point was the very end of the otherwise pretty amusing food episode.
Carolyn: High point was definitely the Scooby Gang arc. Low point, I’m not sure anything necessarily stands out this time other than generally not being interested in many of the new characters. Also, I was very confused by the dog ED and some of those poses were … interesting. Actually, I take that back, the pig noises were my low point.
Danni: My high point was most of the Land of Birds arc. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was surprisingly compelling as far as Naruto filler goes. The low point was the sudden cacophony of fat jokes and “women love to diet” jokes shoved into the ramen episode at the end. Ramen’s good, yo. Eat as much as you want. If you’ll excuse me I’m about to go have some now.
Kevin:
High - Naruto fighting in a straightjacket. One of the best ways to make fight scenes more interesting is to throw in some new variable for either side to deal with, be it terrain, a handicap or a new powerup or some kind. Seeing Naruto need to fight while essentially being unable to fight back or use jutsu was probably the most engaged I was throughout the majority of the arc.
Low - Chishima in the last act of the arc. He gets hit once or twice by shuriken (thrown by the ninja equivalent of Storm Troopers, given how many they threw at him), and he is so egregiously injured that he’s on a medical bed with IVs giving him blood. Why is he so hurt?! Give him a bandage and maybe some pain killers and he shouldn't be having any problems at all! And if he’s more seriously injured, show it as more than a shoulder cut!
COUNTERS:
Bowls of Ramen: 121 bowls
“I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 0
Shadow Clones Created: 26 + 2 uncountable scenes
Total so far:
Bowls of Ramen: 171 bowls, 9 cups
“I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 55
Shadow Clones Created: 661
And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!
Here’s our upcoming schedule:
- Next week, DANNI WILMOTH gets nautical in the Land of the Seas!
- July 12th, JARED CLEMONS leads us to the Hidden Village of Star!
- July 18th, JOSEPH LUSTER is back to continue the Star Guard mission!
CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!
Episodes 155 - 161: Quickfire Curry
Epsiodes 148 - 154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas
Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!
Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash
Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke
Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return
Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke
Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue
Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea
Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin
Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision
Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend
Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow
Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam
Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally
Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods
Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed
Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff
Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves
Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle
Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!
Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!
Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 162-168? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!
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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. You can read his webcomic, BIG DUMB FIGHTING IDIOTS at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.
Source: Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!
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