By: Robert Murphy
While over the years I have watched many different shows and
anime, Dragon Ball Z is perhaps the
longest show from my childhood that I watched and after taking a long break
from those show, the absence of Toonami being
the main cause of this, Naruto became
the second great series from my youth. The concept of a knuckle headed ninja
strutting around, seeing different kinds of jutsu and entering into this
massive universe really intrigued me and it kept on intriguing me for its
fifteen year span. When the manga came to an end a few months back, I was
almost in disbelief at it ending but was immensely happy with how it all turned
out. Naruto received a happy ending, as did most of the shinobi world and the
closing point felt satisfying but I felt like the time jump that was taken left
some much needed story to be told. My feelings must have been the same as the
creators as The Last: Naruto the Movie storyline
came out shortly after and I was immediately hooked.
For those of you who haven’t followed along since the
beginning or maybe jumped in sometime around Shippuden, the movie gives you a brief detailed explanation of the
most recent Naruto events. It isn’t a
long or drawn out thing but it provides an enjoyable recapping of the events
leading up to where our story takes place. The Sage of Six Paths comes up and
the fact that Naruto (Sasuke too, but not really relevant to this story) is the
hero of the last war. This gets you ready to see Naruto being admired by just
about everyone in the Hidden Leaf Village for what he’s done, you can see
people all around smile and look at him with respect. He even has quite the
impressive female following, he get’s gifts from many of them and is even
referred to as “Naruto-senpai”. Queue the notice me senpai jokes now. But,
Naruto just enjoys being appreciated and continues being his normal self, if
not a way more mature version of him. His new look for the movie giving him a
more impressive figure as you look at him and see just how much he has grown.
You will see everyone else look a bit older too but for me, Naruto’s look stuck
out the most.
Enter our other important character for The Last movie, Hinata. The story this time around is far different
from the ones in the past for Naruto,
this movie is a clear love story or has more of a romance angle to it I should
say. It is all about Naruto and Hinata finding out about one another, Naruto
realizing how much Hinata has loved him for so long (Duh!) and Hinata finding
the strength to go after him. You see much more of her struggle as she hasn’t
changed too much from the way her character has always been, pining for Naruto
at a distance. But, her character changes drastically. Unfortunately though the
world will need saving before the two can come together as unknown ninja attack
Hinata and her sister, Hanabi. She is eventually kidnapped and it is up to
Naruto, Hinata, Sai, Sakura and Shikmaru to save her and the world as a looming
threat comes about to destroy the shinobi world.
This threat sort of comes along to move the story along I
felt, it gives viewers some solid action to go along with the more light
hearted aspects. I’m not saying this side of the story is bad, far from it
actually as some of the challenges faced by the team strengthen the bonds that
will form between Naruto and Hinata. For example, the genjutsu trap that the
team gets stuck in that reveals to Naruto all the moments where Hinata wishes
he’d noticed her. The “Who would you like to spend the day with” task from the
twos days as children was particularly good.
As for the threat itself, the man responsible for the
kidnapping of Hanabi and the one responsible for trying to destroy the world is
known as Toneri Otsutsuki. His appearance instantly brings you to the thought
of Sage of Sixth Paths and you would be right in that regard but it’s not him,
it’s the Sage’s brother. You gain a little insight into the sort of unknown
brother to the Sage and to what he was all about, also as to why one of his
descendents is now trying to destroy the world with the moon. The fact that he
is a descendent from a God like shinobi also makes the fact that he squares off
equally with Naruto more realistic. Naruto, as you may know, has ungodly
amounts of chakra, power and skills now. Watching him throw around
Rasen-Shuriken’s every couple of minutes is evidence of that so this enemy has
to be pretty powerful too. However, he never strikes out or becomes all that
memorable of a villain; the only interesting part of him is frankly his origins
and having a Sage’s blood within him. Naruto does get to knock him around and
show off his skills, Kurama even shows up for a great fight scene as well.
Everybody gets a turn in the story in some way or another.
The world of Naruto is jam packed with
people who you would love to see say a line or do something cool in this last
hoorah and they all do for the most part. Whether it was a one liner or seeing
the five kage use one of their cool abilities or even Sasuke come in and
protect the village in Naruto’s absence, you get a brief chance to see everyone
do something enjoyable. Sakura, Sai and Shikamaru get the most scenes out of
all since they’re on the mission with Naruto and Hinata but they don’t cause
the focus of the story to shift either. Seeing Sakura play match maker,
encouraging Hinata to go after Naruto and snapping Naruto out of his funk when
the chips were down too was great. If anybody wins as the best secondary
character it would be Sakura.
All in all, the underline importance of the movie is to
bring Naruto and Hinata together and that happens beautifully. I am not one for
an overly romanticized story but this was one that needed to be told as I felt
the fact that Naruto and Hinata just end up together left some story that
needed to come out. Naruto needed to become more than a friend to Hinata and he
needed to cross that line and when it finally happens I was happy to see it.
Action wise, there is a great deal of the solid beat’em styling that the show
is known for to make people not feel like this last movie was just made to tie
things up, it was a great watch. The main enemy may not have been super stellar
but when you look at everything that The
Last: Naruto the Movie has to offer, you’ll be one happy fan.
Good:
- Everybody gets their moment to shine in the story, at least
a little
- The much needed story of how Naruto and Hinata ended up so
close to one another and getting together in the end
- Some solid action scenes
- Great dialogue, there is a lot of laughs throughout
Bad:
- A forgettable bad guy, Toneri isn’t that great but he
doesn’t ruin the story either
Scully Rating: 8.5 out of 10
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