The Star Village arc comes to an extremely melodramatic conclusion at the start of Season 08 in Episode183. Akahoshi’s plans become undone by Sumaru and the other village genin, who inform the rest of the villagers of the ill-effects of using the star – resulting in a collective epiphany when Akahoshi’s true nature shines through that is a real face-palm moment of obvious contrivance, but then this entire arc has been devoid of any narrative flair whatsoever so it’s good to finally see the back of it. Kiba’s pet Akamaru falls under suspicion in Episode 184 after possibly being infected with an insidious pathogen that can take control of any animal host. Tsunade assigns Naruto to keep an eye on both master and pet, which promptly earns him a new bite mark on his ass when his stealthy spying is quickly discovered by Akamaru. Matters escalate further when a Konoha squad is assaulted in the middle of the night and Akamaru sized claw marks are found on the scene, prompting Tsunade to spring into action. 25minutes of Kiba acting like an idiot is how I would sum up this episode, which has a gloomy “internal conflict” plotline that ends with a scenario where everyone collectively forgets all the skills they’ve acquired as a ninja and struggle to inject some medicine into an out-of-control beast. Not a high point for the series.


Wild animals return in Episode 185 when Naruto unwittingly picks up an interloper whilst training in the Konoha forest. Upon returning to the village he discovers an Onbaa cub has attached itself to his back. The Onbaa are bear-like creatures that grow up on the backs of their parents, and once they’ve latched on there’s no removing them until they reach adulthood. Unfortunately for Naruto that’s when the creature reaches 9ft tall and can tear a man to shreds – just like the mother that’s franticly looking for her lost cub on the outskirts of Konoha! Another whacky comedy filler plotline but this one is actually quite funny with some real fun to be had from the surreal image of Naruto nursing a wild creature on his back. It’s not the best comedy filler we’ve seen in this series, but it sure as hell beats the crap the writers have been serving up for the last few episodes.

Naruto and Shino are sent on a mission together to Motoyoshi Village in Episode 186, where the patriarch of the wealthy Kagetsu family has recently passed away, leaving everything to his eldest son Futa on the condition that he makes it through the funeral service without laughing once. If he lets out so much as a snigger then the fortune will be split up across the entire surviving family, and Futa knows those family members will be attending the funeral fully prepared to elicit a reaction from him. Fortunately there’s a clause which allows him to appoint a mourning representative to take his place in the funeral, and even more fortunately the eternally dour Shino was at hand to take on the mission, but unfortunately he’s poisoned by laughing potion on the eve of the funeral – leaving Futa’s fate in Naruto’s easily amused hands! This would be an absolutely fantastic set up for a feature film, I’d imagine a talented comic writer like Mitani Kouki could have a field day with it, so in a way it’s a little wasted on a one-shot filler like this. Nevertheless the writers have a lot of fun with the concept, they do limit the comedy by introducing a dramatic twist ending but otherwise this is another good comedy filler.

We join Naruto in good mood at the start of this volume’s only multi-episode story arc, which takes up Episodes 187-191. He’s assigned his first real mission in a while, which teams him up with Hinata and Chouji as bodyguards for a group of merchants who are leaving the Land of Greens to seek fortune elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Naruto’s squad the Land of Greens has recently undergone a coup d'état by three evil ninjas known as The Janin: Leader Renga and his brothers Ruiga and Jiga, who have killed the Land of Greens’ ruler and seek to eliminate his only surviving heir: Princess Haruna, who is secretly fleeing the country disguised as one the merchants. This means the mission is in fact an ultra-dangerous A-rank affair.


A mission that is actually a higher rank in danger than the customers are letting on, a princess with a bad attitude who is hunted by a band of dangerous ninjas and in dire need of both protection and a personality adjustment from our plucky hero, this must be the most standard derivative plotline that gets repeated in Naruto’s filler arcs. Story-wise it’s boring as hell as one Janin after the other arrive on the scene looking for the princess ready to be thwarted, but it has one minor saving grace in that the abilities of the three villains are reasonably well developed and therefore lead to more scientifically fleshed-out battles where the Konoha nin have to analyse their opponents and come up with a plan of action on the spot, which is certainly more in keeping with Kishimoto’s style. Sadly the final confrontation is a major let down that comprises of seemingly endless shots of Naruto getting knocked back on his ass and then coming up with a really simplistic single-shot attack that nails the enemy and ends the story on a huge anticlimax.

It’s Ino’s time to take the lead on a mission in Episode 192 when she’s hired to act as a “thin” double for a princess who has put on too many excess pounds from excitement-eating in anticipation for her upcoming nuptials to a wealthy prince from the Land of Udon. He’s coming to visit his fiancée to make a final decision whether to go through with the marriage or not, and she needs Ino to project a more alluring version of herself while she crash-diets back into shape for the big day. Naruto is also on hand as Ino’s assistant. This story might seem a little bizarre to western audiences seeing as it features a 12yr old girl acting as the fiancée to a clearly adult prince, but I guess this sort of arrangement wouldn’t be unheard of back in feudal Japan so I guess we should cut it come slack - certainly it’s played innocently enough with some rather generic comedy set pieces that do little to make the episode stand out. The humour ramps up more effectively near the end when one bad-taste gag involving Naruto going for a pee whilst transformed into the “thin” princess, culminates in a very funny roof top chase that should elicit a belly laugh or two. Another plus point is that we get to see Naruto dressed up in traditional Japanese robes, which certainly makes for an appealing change in character design.


Upon returning from a mission in Episode 193 Naruto discovers signs for a new dojo in town, where Rock Lee is awaiting fresh challengers. His training’s reached an impasse because he doesn’t have anyone to spar with, so he’s created a dojo in the hope that soon he will be challenged to a high-skill battle that will provide perfect full-contact taijutsu training for him. Sadly no one is interested in the place at all and Naruto informs Guy-sensei of Lee’s predicament, prompting the tutor to dress up in a disguise so he can be Lee’s first challenger himself. Before he can go there he’s whisked away on a mission and catches the eye of an enemy intruder who copies Guy’s badly-disguised form so he can slip into Konoha undetected – that is until Naruto spots him and leads him to the dojo... You’d have thought the writers would be bored of basing stories around an intruder stealing a Konoha nin’s identity and infiltrating the village by now, but here we are for what feels like the hundredth time. After 10minutes of this rubbish I felt like I was in an epic battle myself – one to resist the urge to hit the fast-forward button!

There are spooky goings on in Episode 194 when the Mistress of the Land of Honey and her aides are attacked and spirited away on their way to the Land of candy. Naruto, Kiba, and Hinata are ordered to look into the matter, which unfortunately for them is suspected to have taken place at Broken Neck Pass, an infamously haunted location where a demonic castle stands. This is the obligatory haunted house episode that every anime series which incorporates filler plotlines seem to have. It brings no new ideas to the table so therefore is a bit dull, but there are worst fillers in this volume, that’s for sure! A poor volume comes to a slightly optimistic close with episode 195, which starts another multi-episode arc that promises much after a pretty strong opening episode. This one has a Lee-centric plotline that involves Guy-sensei taking on a new genius apprentice, but we’ll have to wait until the next volume to see how that pans out.

Presentation

Those of you who find the lack of chapter stops around the opening and closing credit sequences will be annoyed to here that Naruto 8:1 continues Manga’s recent trend of only inserting chapter stops at the start, midpoint, and end of the episodes. As for the presentation, the episodes in this volume of Naruto: Unleashed are presented on DVD to the exact same standards of A/V as in the previous boxsets, so to avoid repeating myself I will simply quote the Video and Audio sections of my previous reviews:


”Presented in Naruto’s original broadcast ratio of 4:3; the episodes in this set all look great. Naruto is a very bright, colourful anime, which is handled well by a transfer that exhibits bold, vibrant colours that are free from noise and any bleeding. Likewise, brightness and contrast levels are never less than impressive, while detail levels are as high as you can expect from a show that first aired in 2002. Look a little closer at the image though and you can spot the occasional recurring video artefact, things like cross colouration in some of the line work, dot crawl in some of the finer areas, very faint edge enhancement, and some very fine mosquito noise. There’s also the usual NTSC – PAL interlacing foibles as well, but the negatives should be almost unnoticeable on an average home cinema display.”

”Flicking between the Japanese and English tracks of each audio format it’s clear that they both represent the same auditory experience, so I will simply refer to each audio format as a singular audio track that covers both the original Japanese and English dub. Ok, firstly we have the DD2.0 soundtrack, the format that Naruto was originally recorded in. It’s an excellent track, dialogue is loud, clear and whenever any high screaming kicks in, it’s dealt with crisply with no audible tear. Likewise the sound effects and thumping bass provide a rich and involving companion to the dialogue.”

Optional English subtitles are provided with no spelling or grammatical errors that I can recall.

Extras

Only trailers for Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody, Bleach Series, Death Note, and Naruto: The Movie 2.

Overall

Two decent one-shot fillers and a whole bunch of mediocre ones doesn’t add up to a thrilling volume of Naruto Unleashed, but at least there are no mishaps to report with the DVD presentation.

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