Naruto Shippūden Movie 3

"We're finally getting air time?"

Alright, let’s get one thing clear before I start talking about this movie, I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy it because it was really good, or because it was well written. I think by the fifth time that I heard the line: “Those who break the rules are called scum. But, those who don’t protect their comrades are even worse than scum.” I was just about ready to throw the next person who said it out the window…….of a plane. That line is probably repeated about thirty times in the movie, and by at least three different people, and said just as many different ways. Something else to say here is that the plot and my thoughts are throughout this post so needless to say there will be spoilers, though the plot is so straight forward that I doubt finding out how the movie ends will take away from your enjoyment of it.

*Insert Testicle Joke Here*

Something I liked about this movie was that Sasuke wasn’t in it. They mentioned him once when comparing the current situation to when Sasuke left, but that was it. Maybe I should explain the plot of the movie. There is a ninja, he used to be a Konoha ninja, he did bad things with jutsu, he left Konoha, and he plans to start the Fourth Great Ninja War. No this movie isn’t about Orochimaru although the main antagonist is like him in almost every way; they even did their experiments at about the same time.

"Kneel before Zod!"

This ninja is named Hiruko and he has taken the bloodline limits of four ninja and has become powerful dude. However he needs five bloodline limits to become “The Dude” the most powerful of all dudes. Apparently his inspiration for acquiring bloodline limits was fan-favourite Kakashi because of his received sharingan, so it’s only fitting that Kakashi would be his fifth dude. Also, when he was still in the village ten years before he foresaw this and put a control jutsu on Kakashi in preparation for the solar eclipse of that year, the day that he has to absorb all five bloodline limits. Kakashi knows that he is going to be controlled so he asks Tsunade to let him go and place a time limit on his mangekyo sharingan so that when he is absorbed he’ll put them both into a time slip so that they can do the time-warp again.

Yep, Kakashi has apparently had an invisible antenna the entire time we've known him.

Naruto doesn’t know why Kakashi is leaving and sees that he is being controlled by something. Shikamaru tells Naruto that Kakashi doesn’t want him to go after him and Naruto calmly accepts and the movie ends. I’m sorry that was a poor joke. Naruto actually gets pissed and then put into confinement. Tsunade tells all the other ninja that Kakashi has left and that no one is allowed to have anything to do with him. Sakura is like wtf so she goes and busts Naruto out and the two of them go to get Kakashi who is gradually walking the straight line to the enemy.

Tsunade's got some kinky tastes...

During this time Gaara is attacked by one of Hiruko’s goons while on the way to meet Tsunade since she asked him for help against this new foe. Gaara disappears and things escalate until Konoha and Sunagakure are literally standing on opposite sides of a canyon with giant shurikan catipults ready to fight it out. And yes, it does look as stupid as it sounds, and no, I’m not joking.

Why? Just, why?

Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Hinata, Shino, Kiba/Akamaru, Rock, Neji and Mewtwo are sent after Naruto and Sakura because they are being stupid. Sai follows in the shadows because that’s how he rolls. Naruto and Sakura catch up with Kakashi, but were apparently having too much sex as Scooby and the gang show up at the same time. They get into an argument with Shikamaru who apparently would be a terrible navy captain as Team Guy and Team 10 are already agreeing with Naruto. Guess that’s what happens when you don’t explain the situation to either the people you are trying to bring back to the village or the people you are expecting to help you do it.

I always find the ninja "backpacks" funny.

But then the nameless random enemy ninja show up and all three teams backs off to handle one of the three weirdos each. This lets Sai swoop in and carry Naruto and Sakura off to Kakashi. Oh but wait, sandy troll is sandy; Gaara is waiting for them. Gaara was told everything by a certain ninja I’ll talk about later and is there to stop Naruto because no one ever seems to be able to understand Naruto until he punches them in the face.

FALCON PUNCH!!

So Naruto punches him in the face and goes to see Kakashi. Gaara tries to brush it off and act cool but I was left wondering how much Gaara was really trying considering this is Naruto before sage mode. Back to our battalion of forgotten characters, the three random ninja have combined like Voltron into some sort of Digimon. So the New Avengers chain it down and tell Shikamaru to go get Naruto and ask Kishimoto Masashi to give them some actual coverage in the manga and anime.

Didn't Tai fight this thing?

Shikamaru runs into Gaara standing around and talks to him about why they are both getting shafted in the manga, and Gaara explains that it’s because Sasuke is sucking up all the emo that the two of them have. Naruto catches up to Kakashi when Hiruko shows up and explains why he was banished for looking at the third Hokage’s porn collection. Then Shikamaru shows up, and then they all get their asses kicked since Hiruko’s four new bloodline limits are actually useful in a fight, something that Sakura isn’t.

Yet again I am underwhelmed by Sakura...

Hiruko goes off to finish the ceremony with Kakashi and Naruto gets up to follow them. Then Shikamaru starts to talk about what Asuma said to him before he died, you know, Asuma. That guy who died ages ago fighting Hidan; the guy who’s probably still in a hole in thirty pieces somewhere. Unfortunately, even after all these years Shikamaru still doesn’t understand the way Naruto does things. Then Naruto points out that you can still protect the village while protecting your friends, since it fall into the “two birds, one stone category”, something that everyone else in the world of Naruto seems to overlook for some reason.

I forgot how much Asuma reminds me of Solid Snake.

Shikamaru has a ghost conversation with Asuma about the title of the movie (Note: Inheritors of the Will of Fire) and then Naruto goes off to save Kakashi. Kakashi totally gets absorbed by Hiruko who then starts to get heart burn from Kakashi’s fatty mangekyo acids. Naruto uses this opportunity to Rasengan the shit out of Hiruko and follows the Tommy Lee Jones in “Men in Black” jutsu of jumping into a disgusting mass to “get his gun back.” Naruto and Kakashi finally get a breather, but Hiruko laughs at his fortune for Naruto’s pepto bismol and points out that the solar eclipse lasts for a little while.

"I'm going to get my gun back."

Then they fight. Hiruko summons his Digimon to fight them but the Angel Beats! SSS force of Sakura, Sai and Shikamaru fight the ugly thing while Kakashi and Naruto take on Hiruko, something that goes poorly considering he’s like a boss from a Shin Megami Tensei game. The rest of the Justice League show up however…………and help the SSS with the Digimon. So Naruto and Kakashi continue to get their asses whooped, that is until……..

SPIRIT BOMB!

Goku asks all of the Namekian’s help to defeat Frieza with a spirit bomb. OK, so that’s not what happens but it’s pretty damn close……

SPIRIT BOMB!!

Naruto plunges down to earth with his bankai; the wind flavoured rasen-shurikan and proceeds to….

FUCK...

SHIT...

UP!

Oh and the Digimon gets defeated by Mewtwo who is actually useful for once. Hiruko tells Kakashi that he didn’t have any comrades to protect; he wasn’t as powerful as the three legendary pokemon so all he could do was try to improve himself. Kakashi says that even if he didn’t realize it, the entire village was made up of his comrades. Then all the ghosts of people both dead and not dead come to tell Hiruko that they were his comrades. Hiruko then proceeds to become one with the force.

Pro-Tip: The third Hokage is the brown haired guy over Jiraiya's right shoulder.

Now that the action’s died down the Konoha ninja all celebrate by throwing Naruto into the air. Hinata once again loses her chance to grope Naruto when Kakashi comes over to talk to him. Naruto tells Kakashi that he’s been trolling every anime forum telling them what Kakashi taught him. Kakashi then remarks at how much Naruto is like Obito, but unfortunately everyone mistakes his bromance for homosexuality and everyone apparently now believes Kakashi to be gay, something that must be impossible considering his favourite past time is to read books that help men have sex with women.

Great expressions all around.

And then the movie ends.

Even better than the pregnancy joke from that other Naruto movie.

The jokes in this movie are pretty awesome and there’s a lot of things that happen that are not meant to be funny, but turn out to be hilarious, this is my favourite example:

When I saw that I had to pause the movie for a little bit. Also Hinata saying that Kakashi’s preferences were “impure” had me all over the place, because you know that Hinata reads Yaoi whenever she can. Hell, she probably writes boys love scenarios that Sai then goes on to ink.

Sai learns about Tsunderes for the first time.

To go back to my first paragraph (a long time ago now) I like this movie. It’s funny both deliberately and accidentally. My favourite thing about this movie is that it embodies what I loved about Naruto when I started reading it; the comedy and action between all three teams of ninja from the chuunin exam arc. Seeing Neji and Rock combine their “heavenly spin” and “lotus” techniques to defeat an enemy was absolutely incredible, and the current Naruto manga is really lacking in this kind of diversity of characters and humor.

Oh hai there.

Andohbytheway, JIRAIYA IS TOTALLY IN THIS MOVIE! I completely forgot going in to this that this movie came out in theatres before Jiraiya was dead in the anime, so seeing him was really random for me. This movie had my three favourite Naruto characters in it; Hinata, Gaara and Jiraiya. Jiraiya explaining to Gaara about Kakashi and Naruto was a great moment; since I don’t remember ever seeing the two of them talk together before.

I think they're just as confused as you Shikamaru.

Seeing both Shino and Kiba was also great, Kiba did a getsuga and Shino covered his enemy with bugs, and that’s all I ever needed from either of them. Seeing Asuma again was very nostalgic, and so was seeing the third Hokage, even though it was in younger form. Something that confused the hell out of me was the lack of Yamato, but I assumed this was because he has a bloodline limit that’s one-of-a-kind, so having his forest-creating ability would make Kakashi’s hijacked eye look a bit lackluster. Something else confusing but absolutely hilarious about the movie was…

Ha ha...........wut?

HAVING OROCHIMARU TRYING TO ARREST SOMEONE OVER ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTATIONS!!!!

REALLY!? REALLY? You’re going to try and convince me that Orochimaru didn’t take every last piece of data out of that place and already created a jutsu from it? I don’t think so Tite Kubo.

There's a time and a place for everything, Sai just doesn't know either.

All in all this was a very entertaining movie, it isn’t as good as Memories of Nobody and it certainly wasn’t as good as The History of Trunks, but it was better than both Fade to Black and The Tree of Might. Something that I should mention is that I loved Hoshi Souichiro as Hiruko, he was absolutely amazing as Shirazumi Lio in the seventh Kara no Kyōkai movie and he does a great bad guy here as well. Hiruko is totally a cross between Orochimaru and Kakuzu, but that’s okay. It looks as though in the next movie Naruto goes back in time to meet his father so we can all look forward to the references I’ll be throwing around for that one too. After the credits of this movie there was a final image that has official art that should bring up some interesting ideas about Naruto’s future so I’ll leave you with that.

Sixth Hokage. Or does Danzo actually count?

/ 6 Commentsleave a comment /

• Mint says:

  April 23, 2010

  Ahahaha, I LOVED your review xD Made me laugh out loud (In the middle of the night… my family is going to think I'm so weird). As far as shonen movies go, Memories of Nobody is one of my favorites~

  Reply
• Vivi says:

  April 23, 2010

  LOL, awesome picture captions. DBZ references are always win~

  A popular comedic trend nowadays is to poke fun at homosexuality, huh?
  Haha, everyone loves a good bromance~ ♥

  Reply
• blindability says:

  April 24, 2010

  Wait, you don't keep an extra homing pigeon inside your coat? (How do you manage to communicate with people?)

  I haven't watched this yet, but I'm looking forward to – even more so after your review. I liked the last Naruto Shippuuden movie (and the first for that matter) so it's nice to see that they're at least maintaining a standard with the movies. As for the Bleach movies… None of them were good after Memories of Nobody. Sad…
  My recent post ANIBLOG TOURNEY

  Reply
• Daquan Wright says:

  September 9, 2010

  Looks like a fun movie, though the real quality of Naruto died for me after season 1. Villains made Naruto so much better and so much of the lack luster Akatsuki/Sasuke later on……uhhh. lol

  But anyway, at least the movie was a fun ride.

  Reply
• minabey says:

  September 11, 2010

  Nice piece of writing. You actually had me LOL with your references to dragonball, digimon, pokemon… and all that jazz…

  Good work!

  Reply