Reviews

Dec 5, 2014
Mixed Feelings
Taking place after the end of the manga, it has been two years. Naruto is seen as a hero and all the girls want to be with him. However, the one girl that wants to be with him the most, Hyuuga Hinata, cannot bring herself to confess her love yet. However, that will be put on hold not that the world is in danger from the moon falling apart and crashing onto earth no thanks to a lousy villain named Toneri who for personal reasons, is after members of the Hyuuga clan.

The beginning of the movies shows why Hinata is initially attracted to Naruto so it adds more to things from her point of view. I think the series does a good job of showing the movie through the eyes of both Naruto and Hinata. The movie movies at a moderate pace but unfortunately, a lot of the more awesome characters from the series (why I won't reveal due to spoilers) are reduced to a millisecond fanservice cameos just to remind us they exist. Sakura who has been infamous for being useless does have some decent use in this movie and does bring some convenient contribution. Shikamaru shows he is a capable leader and Sai is mostly used as bad comic relief.

Toneri is just a very boring, unoriginal and lame villain for every reason you can practically think of (once again without giving away any spoilers). Despite his plot, he comes across as non-threatning and has the charisma of drying white paint on interior walls. I found the love story between Hinata and Naruto a lot more interesting.

I say the make or break for viewers is how their favorite character are used in what is supposed to be "the last movie." If your favorite character despite being alive and active is not used to their fullest potential, it may piss you off. If you don't mind that, then hey, cool.

The character design does an effective job in making the cast looking like they are in their late teens and I cannot complain about it. They are taller, have more mature faces, etc. It gets the job done. The action relies too much on the 360 foreground/background turnaround way too much for me. The final fight does play homage to a lot of the older fights as well. I also enjoy Hinata's close range combat fighting as well and is a fun representation of southern style Kung Fu.

The background music as usual is an excellent use of traditional Japanese acoustics and percussions carried by the rhythm of modern guitar licks which everyone can get behind. The ending theme is just too generic and trendy in comparison to current Japanese music trends for my tastes.

The voice acting is superb and I think Sakura's voice sounds appropriately more mature out of all the characters. Naruto still sounds the same though I think his voice could have been a bit deeper for his age but glad to see they kept their cast (unlike the new Initial D anime). However, Fukuyama Jun, most famous as the voice of Code Geass from Lelouch as the voice of Toneri doesn't exhibit that same powerfulness in this performance in which you can blame on a writing and voice directing issue as opposed to a voice actor issue.

Overall, this anime is mostly a decent representation of what people love and hate about Naruto. A good fraction of the fans will find this moderately satisfying. Haters will hate it for why they hate Naruto.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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