Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles

• Blogs
• Forums
• Photos
• Code Examples
• VS Movies

May 2012

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31
		HOLIDAYS
May 28 - Memorial Day

Guardian Angels
Kia Purity's Site
Surtur's Fuge of the Damned
Malachit Room
The Nisan Sanctuary

[A.C]

imo, there was never much fluidity to the Naruto animation ever, outside of Norio Matsumoto's episodes (ep. 16, 30, 48, 71 & 133.)

[Kia_Purity]

The OP definitely had the dynamic feeling going on there. I think I know why they went with that little snippet at the beginning... of course, they want to show all three. XP

[Surtur]

I just watched it, finally.  Good ep.  Reminded me of when I used to like Naruto, lol.   I had read a little further than this into the manga before I stopped, but hopefully the anime version will keep my attention somewhat better (on a related note, I think I may have ADD.  You get it from toilet seats, right?).  The teaser, at least, has definitely got me interested in seeing the eventual Naruto/Sasuke meeting, which I did not get to while reading the manga.

The music in this first ep was phenomenal, though it sounded a little different from the style of music the show normally uses.  Not radically so, mind you.  Regardless, I already can't wait for the OST.

As for the animation, I think TC was about spot on with his appraisal of this ep.  The episodes A.C. mentioned were indeed the best of the show, but in terms of Naruto at its prime, I'm thinking more of the very first one or two arcs of the show.  There were occasionally some slight dips in quality there, but for the most part, they were pretty consistent, which is all I'm really looking for.  Then the show started tossing in a bunch of poorly drawn episodes (with, like, characters drawn totally out of proportion sometimes, occasionally even at different parts of the same episode... heck, the same scene) to fill in the gap between the really nice ones (ie. those that AC mentioned, and a few others), and it got kind of annoying.  I can understand that it's not easy to maintain excellent animation over such a long series, but that's why I wish they would take some freaking breaks once in a while, instead of pummeling us with fillers and shitty animation.  They don't all have to be as spectacular as 16, 30, 48, 71 & 133, but at least keep it a consistent, decent quality.

And finally, I don't remember whether or not I had already heard that those eps were drawn by a single guy before, but either way... wow.  That is insane.  That man's wrists must be in constant agony by now.

[A.C]

i'm watching the Shippuuden episode again to see if there's any reused music from the first Naruto series... i'm hoping Shippuuden will have a 100% totally new soundtrack for all the episodes.

EDIT: ok, i just found out Takanashi Yasuharu is the new composer. personally i think this is great news since Toshiro Masuda's music could get a bit repetitive and cheesy. unfortunately this means we'll probably never get the rest of Masuda's score on CD but it's not that big of a deal since there was only one more track i want on an OST and it's a shame it wasn't on the 3rd OST since it was introduced back in the 3rd season. (i could have done without "The 5ths Fight" ugh...)

[A.C]

woah, i just watched the 3rd Shippuuden episode and it continues to be awesome. it feels like Naruto reborn. the anime is so much more enjoyable than the manga.

[TheContact]

Yeah, wow, that was way better.  Great pacing.

[A.C]

so, it's been a year of Naruto Shippuuden. what is everyone's verdict? did you lose interest (like i did a couple of times) or have you watched up to the final ep of the year (the ep 40/41 hour special)?

it's only a few more episodes until we finally catch up to the Naruto/Sasuke meeting we saw at the beginning of ep 1.

[EDIT)
whoops, looks like I was wrong about Norio Matsumoto doing ep 26, it was someone else who's style is similair but not quite as cool.

[Kia_Purity]

It was alright, but the fight with Dedira(sp?) felt like it took a while to conclude. But not really too bad... just that could have done a little more quickly.

[A.C]

the fights with Deidara were great, especially Deidara vs. Gaara. this series can never have enough Deidara or Tobi. Sakura and Chiyo's fight with Sasori dragged though...

Surtur might be interested to know that the first Shippuuden OST is out now and it's epic! i've been listening to it repeatedly for the past two days.

[TheContact]

Yeah, it's still paced much better than Naruto.  I could stand it to be even slightly faster.  After seeing stuff like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, I've been spoiled.  I really don't need the DBZ-style staring down of enemies.

[Surtur]

I haven't watched the latest hour-long special yet (though it's the first episode in a while I've been genuinely excited to see), but I have been keeping up, almost entirely because I have a friend who's still crazy about the show, and I am his only source for episodes, lol (I'm waiting for him to come over to watch the hour-long).

Honestly, though, the show is really getting on my nerves.  The story is interesting, but it moves so goddamn slow.  Obviously they're just trying to slow it down so they don't catch up to the manga again, I guess, but if it's going to be this slow, just fucking wait for the manga to finish.  Is it really worth it to turn the series into such complete crap?  I mean, apart from a business perspective.  I'm sure they do make more money this way.
Every episode these days makes me want to groan at least once from boredom.  A typical scene is like:
Yamato: My team... ... ... ... ... will consist of... ...
Reaction shot of Naruto 
Reaction shot of Sakura
Reaction shot of Sai
Yamato: Me...
Reaction shot of Naruto
Reaction shot of Sakura
Reaction shot of Sai
Yamato: And Sakura.
Naruto: That means the other team is...
Reaction shot of Sai
Reaction shot of Sakura
Reaction shot of Yamato
Naruto: Me and...
Reaction shot of Sai
Naruto: Him.
Reaction shot of Sai
Reaction shot of Sakura
Reaction shot of Yamato
Yamato: Yes.  The other team will be Naruto...
Reaction shot of Naruto
Shot of Naruto's fist shaking
Yamato: ...and Sai.
Reaction shot of Sai
Reaction shot of Naruto
Reaction shot of Sakura
Reaction shot of Yamato
Sakura (thinking): Naruto... and Sai...
Reaction shot of Naruto
Reaction shot of Sai
Reaction shot of Me smashing my monitor in frustration

Also, a fun drinking game you can play with Shippuuden is to take a shot everytime a dramatic wind blows.  I guarantee you'll be wasted by the end of any episode.  The dramatic wind effect (where something dramatic happens, and then the characters stand still while a wind blows past them) is common in anime, but Naruto takes it to new extremes of ridiculousness.

Even the fights in Shippuuden aren't that great.  The fight with Deidara vs. Gaara was decent, but the fight with Sakura and Sasori really did drag, like A.C. said (though the animation was nice through a lot of it).  And yeah, after watching Tengen, it's become more apparent that Naruto's "fights" are really made up mostly of one character performing a single move, and then the other characters standing around and analyzing it for an hour, before coming up with a counter move, that is then analyzed itself, and so on and so forth.  And in the meantime they're just staring each other down, like TC said.

So yes, I'm still interested in the story, but the slow-ass pace is killing me.  I actually don't think it's any better than Naruto, except for the lack of filler arcs.  Thank god for that at least, rofl. 
The music is still phenomenal.  Thanks for letting me know the OST's out. I've been trying to substitute for it by listening to the Shippuuden Movie OST in the meanwhile, but though it's good, it's not quite as sweet as the show's, lol.

Hope the hour-long special doesn't suck!

[A.C]

just curious, is everyone else also reading the manga or have you settled for the anime for now?
i've read up to the latest chapter so i know there's some great stuff coming in the anime, but yeah it's the story that is interesting, not the fights.

[Kia_Purity]

I'm reading both the manga and watching the anime, but I've fallen a little behind on watching the anime since I had so many things to do this month.