Naruto Shippuden the Movie 6: Road to Ninja

*Please note that there will be some spoilers in this review* If you could have one wish, any wish, would you give up everything just to see it fulfilled? Once upon a time, I loved Naruto; I would sit down in front of a TV every week and wait for it to come on just so that I could see what happened next. As time progressed, my love for it whittled down to something that I watched merely to get it out of the way. That was my mindset coming in to watch this movie- it was to just get it out of the way. WhatI experienced, however, exceeded my expectations to become what I see as the best Naruto movie ever made. Now, enough of this sappy monologue, let’s get into the actual review. First things first: like most of the Naruto movies, Road to Ninja is, for all intents and purposes, non-canon. So, instead of complaining about how it’s non-canon, I’m actually going to review the story and the themes it tackles. The basic premise revolves around Sakura and Naruto being transported to an alternate world by Madara’s “prototype” Tsukuyomi where most stuff is basically the same but there are slight changes, or “ripples” like Madara calls them. While most of them are just personality and clothing changes, the biggest difference is Sakura’s familial situation is switched with Naruto’s. Yup, you read that right; Minato and Kushina are alive and well in this alternate world but Sakura’s parents no longer exist. One of the biggest themes in Naruto is the loneliness and despair of not having anyone to come home to or care about you, namely parents, and this movie tackles this theme head-on as well as the theme of accepting what is false so long as it brings you happiness successfully; these provided a much-needed emotional factor that I believe really makes the movie shine. However, make no mistake, there are flaws in the story such as characters appearing seemingly just for the sake of appearing, some plot holes, and what I found to be a lackluster “final” battle (I use quotes because it’s not really the real final battle). It is advised that you watch episode 311 of Shippuuden before you watch the movie but it isn’t absolutely necessary because all that you would miss would be certain inside jokes but I found the comedy in Road to Ninja to be pretty good, even without them. As expected, the art in Road to Ninja is a step above the normal fare found in the TV series but is nothing ground-breaking or spectacular. Everything looks good, some parts more so than others, and the colors are more vibrant but, I did happen to notice the typical derp faces every once in a while or pupils not being perfectly aligned, minor things like that. As far as the animation goes, everything seemed to flow smoothly and very nicely, nothing much to complain about here. The sound design as well is what you would normally expect from the series with an overall great-sounding soundtrack. One aspect I noticed was the voice-acting was handled very well, especially given the fact that personalities were completely different in the alternate world; being able to adapt like that shows a professionalism and talent which even I, as a member of the audience, can appreciate. Lastly are the characters, and since most of the cast have switched personalities, this is somewhat difficult to accurately grade the cast if you look at every single character. Let’s look at the Ino-Shika-Cho combo as an example, Choji is skinny and hates eating a lot, Ino is mild-tempered and sweet, and Shikamaru is a complete idiot. Explanation as to why any of the characters with changed personalities are the way they are is completely nonexistent but, to me, that makes complete sense in context. Naruto and Sakura were transported to a different world where they are viewed as acting “weird” because they do not conform to how their counterparts within that society would have normally acted. So, instead of focusing on the “new” characters, I’ll focus on Naruto and Sakura because we can accurately judge how they have changed throughout their experience in that world. Both Naruto and Sakura experience development through realizing what life would be like if their familial situations were reversed and ultimately seem to have changed from their experiences by the end of the movie, though I somewhat doubt this will reflected in the actual TV series. While I would have liked to see more of the alternate cast and explored the different alternate world a bit more, it was inevitable that shortcuts be taken due to the limited amount of time they spent in the alternate world. The only other thing I have a gripe with is that Naruto actually seemed a bit underpowered but that is fairly minor. TL;DR? Well, despite certain plot holes, characters seemingly appearing solely for the sake of appearing, and a somewhat lackluster “final” battle, I particularly enjoyed what the movie had to offer. Road to Ninja’s art, animation, and sound are what you would normally expect from Naruto so, if you don’t like that, you probably won’t like this movie. However, unless you are basically a Naruto scholar and/or expect everything to be perfect and make sense, you will probably enjoy what this movie has to offer as I did. 8 out of 10

SPOILERS This is basically a rant This movie was horrible. Shitty pacing,timeline doesnt make sense,bad use of characters and I cant emphasize this much. I mean they bring characters like Sasuke back and he does absolutely nothing. They did the alternate rookies even worse as they were hyped so much in the trailers as if they were going to be important but they were good only for a hot tub scene(Neji spying on hinata in a hot tub - weird) and thats it. This highlight of this movie was to be the relationship between naruto and his parent but even that was depicted poorly.I do not get how they did not know their son had become evil and was capturing tail beast and killing people when they went on a mission.How long was this mission? How did the village not know this? Shouldnt they have captured naruto when he came back? This movie had only one good part in it and thats when menma uses the great spiraling ring on the village. That was awesome then it started sucking again. Everyone was reduced to fodder level ninja. Minato, Kakashi, Gai, Kushina was taken out easily. Akatsuki shows up again in this movie as mercenaries which is cool also but not that great. The final battle was just awful. It was alright till they both transformed into foxes and started spamming bijuu bombs and clawing each other. The movie finishes with tobi fusing with menma and nauruto throwing a kunai whcih passes through him but somehow destroys the orb that is conveniently in the eye that was struck. This movie had so much potential due to the setting but the managed to ruin it and kishi did not help with all them flashbacks.

Well I am gonna make it short. This was the only (and maybe also the last) film from Naruto world worth watching. Finally no random princess saving, no bunch of new characters and the most important thing, finally a good story with some deep thoughts. Yea no wonder, it is said that Kishimoto personally worked on this one. I really enjoyed this movie. There was something for everyone. I laughed many times when I saw really weird behavior of some characters we all know very well. Haha in this film, everything is slightly different. There are also cool fights and animation is really good. Not thebest anime fights I have seen though but still quite decent. You also have a chance to see some characters you meet just rarely in anime like Naruto's parents or Sakura's parents etc. The most valuable thing in every anime for me are some deep thoughts you can think about. You know like some spiritual legacy ^_^. Finally I found something like that in Naruto film! The storyline is not very complex but there is very nice situation. [A bit of spoilers!] New world with fulfilled dreams. Everything seems fantastic, but it is real? Does it even matter whether it is real or not? Is it important to fight for the truth or shall we just stay in the illusion where we have everything we need? So the result. Every Naruto fan should in my opinion watch this. To hell with other Naruto films. Honestly they are all trash. This one is the only Naruto film I accept. And it is good one. Somehow reminded me the good anime films with some hidden meanings and you know like Mononoke Hime, Spirited Away etc. (Of course I cannot compare this one to them but the style reminded me them. Like that it is not only another filler but valuable piece of animation.) “Somebody once asked me what a ninja is. My sensei told me that ninja is the one that endures.” BTW Nice soundtrack. ^^