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. What I 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
