[Anime] Naruto

Man, I love dattebayo. They posted a "press release" acting as if Naruto was a product line they were discontinuing so as to devote resources to the now-in-progress Pokemon Diamond and Pearl anime. Too hilarious.

Would post a link but I'm now allowed to yet..

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I watched the new episode last night and was blown away. See, I don't keep up with manga on series' as I most thoroughly enjoy the anime versions. So this was all new to me, and I loved every second. Even if some of the stuff in there was "fillerish", it fit into the episode well anyway and was clever. How can you not love Konohamaru growing up to be just like Naruto? I thought it was a wonderful homage to have them chasing the cat around followed by Kono complaining. It had me rolling, especially when Tsunade said he was becoming more like a 2nd Naruto than a 7th Hokage.

The little "looking back" segments with Naruto and Sakura were great too, as they were wonderful to directly compare how different they are now and were just plain hilarious (reference: young Naruto excitedly asking about new techniques and young Sakura getting worried about all the training she'll have to endure with older Sakura giving her a "Gunbatte!")

I'm going to talk now as someone not reading the manga so maybe us anime-watchers can have our little discussion outside of the manga-readers.

Well, I dropped my fork when they showed Naruto down in his mind in front of Kyuubi and then f'ing Sasuke was there. He can SEE IT NOW?! Christ, that's wild.

I was downright amazed to find out Gaara is Kazekage now. Granted, he's sort of "inheriting the throne" and they don't have just a lot of other candidates after the big battle at the chuunin exams, but I would have never imagined Gaara as 'kage material. But good on him.

Sort of related to that, I was interested to hear Kankorou and Temari are jounin's now, but again, the sand village probably don't have many other really high level ninjas besides them now. Though to imagine Neji as a jounin... I guess he really IS a genius.

But overall, the thing I'm most excitedly looking forward to is to see how all of the old gang has changed. Much like Naruto would say, I want to see how much better they've become and what kinds of great new techniques they've all learned.

Ding-dong, the filler is dead! Which old filler? The Naruto filler!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I don't know, I thought this week was a bit of a letdown over last week's episode. They explicitly showed that Naruto and Sakura are better than they used to be and can give Kakashi a run for his money, but it wasn't bad ASS, it was just "Kakashi actually almost gets hit with stuff and Naruto and Sakura see through some illusions." It's hard to explain, but I guess it doesn't look any more intense than, say, Naruto versus random thugs on a street.

Aaaaand, that Akatsuki guy didn't impress me at all. His paper creations are unique, but not the kind of power I would expect befitting an Akatsuki member. The best part was Gaara showing up out of nowhere to try to deal with him. I surely hope this fight is interesting.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by SuperSonic

I know of a few songs they left out of the previous three.

No joke. There's BGM from the first damn season I've yet to find. I remember it mostly from the fight with the mirrors kid that looked like a chick (can't remember his name). It's some kind of solemn music they played during serious parts.

Oh hell, I just went and found it on YouTube to point it out. Episode 17, 5:34 mark:

Always kind of reminded me of Terminator music at the beginning.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Ugh. 4 episodes in and this shit is DRAGGING. (it's out at dattebayo, by the way) It really feels like they are trying to stretch the material out to its limits. I hope it picks up.

I was speaking idiomatically.