Konoha Crush

Favorite director Toshiyuki Tsuru takes the helm for a movie that... we didn't like at all. Uh oh.

Rock Lee needs to recover from his injuries, or maybe he doesn't, or maybe thats not a real thing that anybody needs to worry about, or maybe it is. Unrelatedly, there's a ghost castle.

That silly Rock Lee episode is innocent. The rest of this stuff? Well... Covered this week: Naruto episodes 191-193

It's a disorienting recording session as we struggle to find the balance between recognizing that most of our episodes this week basically mostly work and trying to avoid getting overly astonished at the fact that, at long last, some episodes basically mostly work. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 188-190

This week we're blessed with a short recording on account of being cursed by two episodes where nothing of note or interest happens at all. But then there's a third one, a brief shining ray of hope that maybe- just maybe- this show will be good again sometime in the next 30 episodes. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 185-187

This week our time in the Land of Stars come to a close as the arc hurries to rush us out before its entire narrative collapses, and we return to the Leaf for a one off episode that is just close enough to what we've been asking for to make us complain about it a bunch.

The mission to the Village Hidden in the Stars continues, as we try to puzzle through our feelings on a peculiar mixture of classic anime original problems, the weirdly absent particulars of this arc's setting, and glimpses of a surprising thoughtfulness for this era of the show. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 179-181

We return from an unplanned illness based hiatus, diving headfirst, with gusto, into some pretty bad episodes of Naruto. Its time to learn just how little a fake teamwork test mission can matter, encounter the ninja world's allegedly very important doll based mail system, and embark on a brand new adventure to the fakest ninja village yet.

The conclusion to an arc we enjoyed gives us just enough cause to reflect on how it fell short that we worry we're a little too mean, but fortunately the next two episodes come along to remind us what REALLY complaining about Naruto is all about. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 173-175

The mission in the Land of Sea continues, as fleeting glimpses of the actual antagonist of Naruto so far give way to a real fuckin dweeb who stands proudly and shortsightedly in his shadow. Listen as we talk about fish guy armies, try to root through what the show is presenting of Anko's past, and make a surprising but welcome addition to the list of Naruto characters who have totally killed a guy. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 170-172

We're all over the place this time! Our ghost adventure skids to a halt, we head back to the Hidden Leaf for a truly worthless gag episode, and then move on to the introduction of a brand new arc which charms us largely through the virtue of some basic competency. It's been rough out here. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 167-169

The goofy ghost mystery arc hits a rocky stretch as we slam head-first into variably avoidable problems. Can enthusiasm for lighthearted genre sendups hold up our engagement in the face of increasingly severe structural issues? Probably not, but at least Naruto character gender engineer Down is here to do her best to make something interesting out of this. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 164-166

Folks. Sometimes there is just no way around it and you have some Scooby-Doo bullshit going on. But is that such a bad thing? After a truly disposable first episode, we head to the Land of Birds for a ghost-based mystery and talk about taking on genre conventions for an arc, speculate in the intersection between everybody having ninja magic and general mystery conventions, and ponder what exactly Neji is capable of seeing. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 161-163

We step back from six episode arcs to finish everything we start in the span of a week. Join us as we take on a weird and aimless attempt at standard kids show "everybody learns a lesson by the end of the episode" and a breezy two episode adventure with a much more immediately agreeable message: Shuichi Ikeda is pretty fucking cool, right? Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 158-160

We are back, and stronger than ever! The same can unfortunately not be said of the show. We do our best to chart the conclusion of the tale of Raiga, Ranmarua, and Karashi which somehow covers three more episodes in spite of basically being over last time, with characterization that inverts from episode to episode, curry that maybe matters a little too much, and our most perfunctory final confrontation yet.

A new arc pits Naruto and an unsupervised Team Guy against a new and dangerous sicko, and gives us cause to think about just how hard it must be to balance anime-original stories that ultimately can't matter but still need to have in the moment emotional stakes. Stories that need to tie brand new characters you'll never see again in with characters we've known for 100+ episodes without just hollowly calling back to character beats and events that the audience is already invested in. Because if it was easy then we'd kinda expect the anime team to be better at it than this. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 152-154

Hinata's bug quest comes to an end! Can they cash the checks they wrote at the beginning of the arc? Can they wrap things up without undercutting her ability to do anything? Can they justify Naruto's presence in the arc? Listen for the answers to all these questions and more. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 150 + 151

We settle in for the first of a duo of comparatively light episodes as we step forth into a new (shorter than usual) arc. All seems promising as the show takes a strong step towards incorporating its supporting cast in a meaningful way, but a new problem looms on the horizon, threatening to derail things: the main character.

Naruto is back in his second movie, with ambitious ideas like gesturing at parts of the world beyond ninjas, more involved arcs for the movie only cast than last time, and trying to make Shikamaru cool! After 60 minutes of truly bad Naruto last week, we settle in for 40 minutes of pretty breezy and enjoyable theatrical animation. How long are these movies anyway. 40 minutes, right? Just 40 minutes? Covered this week: Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Our landmark 50th episode sees us through to the conclusion of the Mizuki arc! These may be a bad three episodes but with new revelations about Mizuki's past that adamantly refuse to complicate his character, further elaborations on the arcs thematic goals confound and frustrate, and an inability to construct a compelling fight that surpasses our lowest expectations, we have plenty to talk about. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 145-147