Naruto Shippuden – Box Set 35 Review

Naruto Shippuden’s latest release covers Episodes 445 through to 458, once again giving us fourteen episodes instead of the more common thirteen, and once again making me think this is so an episode that people actually care about can make it onto the set and therefore making it more appealing to fans who could have previously just skipped it…

Cynicism aside, we kick the set off still in the bizarre realm of Hidden Leaf Village leader Tsunade’s dream, where she has read her old deceased friend’s unfinished novel and is now dreaming about the adventures depicted in the book… Yeah, I know… In “reality” everyone bar the main characters are caught in an illusion technique known as the “Infinite Tsukuyomi”, where they are trapped in their ideal world for all eternity, thus “giving peace to the world”, and apparently Tsunade’s ideal world is falling asleep and dreaming about her friend’s book…

This dream is actually a bunch of “What If?” versions of events from the first Naruto series, plus some enemies from later Shippuden arcs. While it’s not terrible, the framing device within another framing device is just stupid, and it doesn’t end until Episode 450! Given it started on Episode 432, that’s a damn long filler arc about literally nothing. What makes things even funnier (in a face-palming sort of way) is that Episode 451 sees us back in the canon story, the lead characters are safe thanks to Sasuke’s Susanoo technique, though soon everyone else is either trying to escape like an idiot (guess who?) or is asking some questions, leading to Sasuke getting annoyed before reminiscing about his brother Itachi… leading to a new filler arc! Right away!!

Yes, from Episode 451 through to the first third of Episode 458 we have the life story of Itachi, a lot of which we’ve seen animated before but with new stuff, plus we’ve never had it shown one after the other in a cohesive storyline. It’s actually fine as the life story of a popular character, but once again, by this point not only is Itachi’s role in the story completely, 100% over with (and therefore recapping his life serves no narrative purpose) but the manga was long over, they had no legitimate reason to break away from the canon adaptation so soon after such a long period of filler in the first place.

With the rest of Episode 458 we get some actual adaptation of the original source material! Remember that? With it we get the big reveal of the final lead antagonist of the series, completely out of nowhere, but I’ll talk more about that in the next set of episodes…

“LINE” by Sukima Switch is our opening for the entire set. There are two endings, “Like You, Like Me” by Thinking Dogs (which actually started with Episode 444, but I forgot to include it in my previous review!) up until Episode 454, and Blue Lullaby by Kuroneko Chelsea from 455 until the end of the set. As per usual, only clean openings, endings and trailers exist in the extras menu.

So, Naruto Shippuden 35 is a pretty annoying mix. It contain the last half of legitimately one of my least favourite filler arcs ever, and then immediately goes into one that, while well made and does tell a good story, is completely pointless and we’ve seen it all before, even if not literally. A major plot twist happens within the dying minutes of the set, but if you can live with finding that out via the recap at the start of Episode 459 on the next box set, then this is another entirely skippable Naruto Shippuden release…