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The Show:
A couple of new characters, one of whom may be a spy,
trouble for the Tsunade, the fifth Hokage, and a new mission that may
turn into
a solid lead on where Sasuke is being kept.
All that and more happens in the third Boxed Set of Naruto
Shippuden
from Viz. While these collections are
gathered every 13 episodes rather than by story arc, this is still and
exciting
set.
Things get wrapped up in the beginning of this set.
The first disc opens with the finale of the
battle between Sakura and Lady Chiyo against the puppet master Sasori
as well
as the fight between Naruto and Kakashi and Deidara.
They also show how Team Guy manages to get
past their doppelgangers, effectively wrapping up the story arc of
Garra's
kidnapping. (And not a moment too
soon. While that story started out well,
after a while it seemed to just drag on and on.)
Returning to the Leaf
Village, Kakashi
is in a
bad way and needs to be hospitalized for at least a week.
That's bad because during her battle with Sasori,
Sakura learned that the Akatsuki has a spy inside of Orochimaru's
organization
and that Sasori is scheduled to meet with him in a few days. This is a great chance to get information on
Orochimaru
and is too good to pass up, even though it may be a trap.
Lady Tsunade tags Team Kakashi to snatch and grab the spy,
though she gets a lot of flack from some of the village elders for
letting
Naruto get so close to the Akatsuki. (Justifiably
so. Her rationale for assigning him to that mission is pretty weak.) She finally prevails, but only by allowing a
member of the Black Ops to lead the team, which is now down two members. A new character, Yamato, is selected to be in
charge and a mysterious emotionless youth, Sai, fills the fourth slot. Lady Tsunade is very leary of Sai since an
elder
she doesn't trust selected him, and tells Yamato to watch him carefully.
Sai doesn't fit in well at all. He starts
off by insulting both Naruto and Sakura,
then proceeds to call Sasuke a traitor.
(Oddly enough he doesn't insult Yamato.)
With the team fractured and no one getting along, things look
dire for
Team Kakashi.
This was a good collection of shows. The
Gaara story line wrapped up in a nice
way, with a lot of action and some touching moments.
Then after a brief respite the next story
line starts up and this one looks like it'll move faster than the last
one.
While there is a lot in this set to please fans of the show, I
certainly
enjoyed it, the program does have some WTF moments where you really
have to
work in order to suspend your disbelief.
[Spoiler
warning] For example, when the four members of Team Guy are
fighting their identical doubles the way they beat them is ludicrous. I assumed they all meet and some central
point and work together as a team to defeat their enemies but no,
that's not
it. Lee realizes that their clones are
exact duplicates from the time they were
formed, say an hour ago. Lee's idea,
one he communicates to his team mates, is to get stronger than they
were an
hour ago and use that extra strength to beat the doppelgangers. Yeah, just get stronger. Why
didn't I think of that. *sheesh*.
If that was the only time something like that happened I could
ignore
it, but it's pretty constant in this show.
[End
spoilers.]
Absurdities aside, the show is best when the fights are fierce
but of a reasonable length and when they flesh out the background of
either the
characters or their villages. That's
what takes up most of the time in this collection, so it's pretty fun.
The DVD:
This set includes the next 13 episodes on 3 DVDs. They
come in three thinpak cases stored in a
slipcase.
Audio:
This collection comes with both the original Japanese audio
(with optional English subtitles) as well as an English dub, both in
stereo. The dub track was not
outstanding. Some of the children's
voices were a little too high pitched and squeaky and other actors put
a little
too much emotion in their performances and hamming it up too much. Because of that I mainly screened this with
the Japanese track, which I enjoyed much more.
Being a recent show, the sound quality of both tracks was very
good
without any defects.
Video:
Just like the first series, the full frame image was very
good overall. The colors were bright and
strong, and the lines were tight.
Happily, digital defects were not prevalent and even aliasing
was very
minor. A solid looking DVD set.
Extras:
The extras are pretty minor on the first two discs.
They just have some trailers and ads for
Viz. The third disc includes a 15-minute
look at the new English voice talent that is being employed in Shippuden. They talk about
their character and how much
they like the series. Typical
stuff. There's also a Relationship
Chart, this time for people
from the Sand village. The
bonus section is wrapped up with a gallery
of production art.
Final Thoughts:
This is a good collection that makes up for the last
mediocre set of shows. With some new
interesting characters coming into the picture along with the exciting
resolution of the first big story arc, it's a set to buy and keep. Recommended.
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Buy: