Movie Review: The Last: Naruto the Movie

Details: Released in 2015. About two hours long.

The Last: Naruto the Movie is the last Naruto movie, at least the last one starring Naruto and not his son, Boruto. Despite disliking all prior Naruto movies, I enjoyed this movie because, like Boruto, this movie is canon. This movie takes heavily from the main story arc from the manga and the television show and continues it.

The premise is this: the story takes place two years after the end of the television show and the manga. Naruto is now nineteen and the hero of the village. Bad ninjas come to the village and Naruto is assigned a squad along with Hinata as they try to stop the bad ninjas and save the world.

What I love about this movie, other than the fact that this is canon, is that it is mostly about Naruto and Hinata falling in love. When the epilogue of the manga and anime showed all the characters hooking up with all the other characters, it was so sudden that it just felt like Kishimoto (writer of Naruto) pulled all that crap right out of this ass. This film offers background and insight into the process of how Naruto moved away from Sakura and moved closer to Hinata in a way that the show and manga barely touched upon.

There is also that small thing of beating up the bad ninjas and saving the world. That was all pretty contrived and kind of a vehicle for exploring Naruto and Hinata’s relationship. It was also nice to see how Sakura played into the relationship and how her feelings have evolved.

There is a lot of action and all pretty fun watch. The final fight scene is particularly good.

Overall, a good movie with a meaningful ending that plays into the next movie, the one with Boruto, and which will likely play into the possible Boruto series that is rumored to be in development. Again, this movie and the Boruto movie are the only Naruto films that are actually canon. Accordingly, this film and the Boruto one are the only films I recommend.

Score: 7.5/10

Anime Review: Naruto Shippuden Episodes 469 through 479

It’s that time again. The fillers are over and Naruto has returned to tell the main story line. It is egregiously insulting the number of fillers that Naruto has. There are hundreds of episode of filler for every couple main story arc episodes and it is just painful to watch. Every time I try to get into this show, I get rebuffed and horrified by the uninteresting, painfully boring fillers this shows comes up with. I want to quit this show.

The only problem with that is that the episodes that are not filler, are fucking amazing. Take these last ten episodes for instance. They were so freaking good. The action, the animation, the emotion, and the music. Gosh, the quality of these episode only help show how shitty the fillers are.

And the music, my goodness. There are just some songs that Naruto has that whenever they are played, I just get choked up. It’s not even fair. I hear the notes, then the tears come. Sigh. Why do the fillers have to suck so bad.

In case you’re not caught up, Naruto and Sasuke have to save the world from some world ending villain. That’s all well and good and provides closure for Obito. The real conclusion comes after they save the world and they find out Sasuke is still an evil jerk. Since Naruto and Sasuke are the only two conscious people with god like ninja powers, they go off to fight their final battle and settle up the conflict they’ve had this entire series.

Since this is the final battle, you must know that the animation is top quality for this fight scene. It’s literally two episodes of action, mixed with tears as we take a look back at the history of the characters and of the series as a whole. It’s hard to believe I first watched Naruto around a decade ago. The makers of this show are well aware that the fans have stuck through this series for years and take us back to old, nostalgic, sad, and happy moments in the series.

With that said, Sakura is still mostly useless. Sasuke’s motivations for his actions are still stupid. It’s mainly Naruto that makes the most sense and is the most moving part of these episodes.

Score: 8/10 Loved these episodes. Glad I skipped all the stupid ass filler that came before. After checking the preview for episode 480, it looks like a bunch more fillers are coming. I’m going to go right back to ignoring those episode until the primary story arc returns, which will likely be the end of the series.